how cool is this? create your own superhero & nemesis. has anyone played it yet? I signed up to play it beta…

http://champions-online.com/

I have been pretty curious about Champions Online since hearing about it last summer but I am keeping a “wait and see” policy. I played both City of Heroes / City of Villains (also made by Cryptic) and they are great in its(there) own right…especially with the newest Issue allowing players to construct their own quests and missions. I know that Champions Online will be more or less exactly identical to CoH/V in form and function, I am just not sure how well Cryptic will handle an already established IP (Champions began as a “pen and paper” role-playing game originally published by Hero Games in 1981). The same fear applies to their development of Star Trek Online and to Marvel Online when they were developing it prior.

Personally, I am hoping they further integrate elements of the previous CoH/V to make it more of a cohesive universe.

This just on Kotaku today by AJ Glasser, their San Francisc correspondent:

Last night, Cryptic Studios held an event that was all about the player versus player combat in its upcoming massively multiplayer online superhero game, Champions Online.

The basic need-to-know info about this game is this: it's City of Heroes, only bigger and better. And, no, Marvel and/or DC Comics won't be suing anybody anytime soon over it because the developer is scrupulous about original intellectual property. Not to mention Cryptic has plenty to work with from the pen-and-paper game on which the game is based.

That just leaves these five things you might not know—and probably should—before diving into a superhero-centric world.

1) Player customization will consume you
The player customization system isn't based on classes and doesn't require you to adhere to any pre-set superpowers. In other words, if you wanted to a be a gadget-using, fire-and-ice based golem or a scantily-clad dark magic cowgirl elf, you could make it happen—and no armor pick-ups or costume limitations would mar your mental image of what your hero is supposed to look like. There are default superpower sets you can choose from and a randomization option for body type and costume that let you get your character going that much quicker. Even better, you can lock certain options while clicking random so that you can keep a color scheme you like but try different body types, etc. And if you decided you liked one but clicked “Random” too soon, you can click “Undo” and go back to it.

This will probably occupy my first three and a half hours of gameplay.

2) Yes, there is PvP
Player versus player belongs in a superhero game. What do superheroes do besides flying around clobbering people out to destroy a city? Sure, they have girlfriends, sidekicks and drama with alter-egos – but Champions Online is an MMO, not a dating sim. Ergo, we need PvP.

PvP in Champions takes place both in the world and in special maps. The incentive to PvP (aside from satisfying your inner jerk) comes from very rare item drops (which are not subtracted from the loser's inventory) and experience points awarded for victories.

We were shown the dueling system that you can activate in the world by selecting a hero and challenging them to a duel. Once the other player agrees, a force field goes up around both players, preventing all other characters from interfering in the fight. From there, fighting game rules apply: first one to lose all hit points or get knocked out of the ring loses.

The PvP-centric map we saw was a five on five “prison break” level where five heroes are on the red team (trying to bust out of prison) and five were on the blue team. Both teams had two leader characters – the goal of the other team was the kill those leaders and take over as many turrets and hack as many computers as possible to make things difficult for the other three players to cross the prison to find the leaders.

3) The Nemesis System is like the Buddy System, only evil
What would a superhero be without a nemesis? A spandex-wearing Good Samaritan maniac, that's what.

Cryptic works in every hero's own private nemesis by letting the player customize their own evil villain who will then constantly try to destroy the player. The nemesis' visual appearance is determined with the same menu as the hero's character creation screen – but there are four “Nemesis Details” the player has to fill out in addition to the crucial costume and gender choices. First you pick the fighting style, which determines if they're a cold-hearted mastermind or a crazy savage. Then you choose their superpowers, which are like yours, but they have to use one of the presets – also, unlike regular enemies, a nemesis can use all powers within a power set instead of only a few. Next, you choose their minions (robots, ninjas, etc.) and a smaller power set for the minions.

Once created, a nemesis will encounter the hero randomly in the world. Additionally, optional “popcorn” missions will appear where the hero takes on his or her nemesis in a special map. When a superhero encounters their nemesis in the world, other players can join up to defeat him or her (and they don't die – they just go to jail or whatever); but the popcorn missions are solo instanced. We only saw one of these and it was mostly about “go here, clobber this, go there, rescue that non-playable superhero so he can join your party, etc.”

According to creative director Jack Emmert, there's more to most maps than this (like “how do I get out of here?” puzzles), especially when it comes to nemeses. Also, he says, at higher levels, you will get the opportunity to put your nemesis away for good and choose a new one.

4) It may be action-flavored, but it's still MMO combat
I hate to be cynical, but a lot of MMO developers claim that their combat is somehow different than the usual click-click-cool down-click-click. Cryptic is no different, claiming that the frenetic pace of combat is what makes their MMO more action-y than most, despite still having to click on attacks, charge up certain attacks and do the cool-down thing. However, in the lone five-on-five prison break map we were permitted to play, I'm not sure it felt all that different than, say, World of Warcraft. Also, it may have something to do with the powers your character has. The ranged lighting chick I played felt like WoW because I just clicked and sat still while she shocked the beejesus out of the targeted enemy; but the brawler kung-fu guy I tried probably would have felt different in up close and personal melee (if I was continually getting him killed by ranged characters, that is). Definitely something that warrants a more thorough study.

5) There are no limitations besides the level
To me, what makes a good comic book superhero is the drama that comes from superpower limitations. The best stories are not about what Superman or Spider-Man can do; it's about what they can't. Champions has no limitations like these. There are no two superpowers that won't go together and no vulnerabilities to anything that comes from items, enemies or powers. The only limit is the level – you gain more superpowers as you level up (capped at 40 for now), so at lower levels, there might be things you can't do… but there's never any drama to any of it.

I brought this up with Jack Emmert because he's a comic book fan who knows what I'm talking about. He seemed really intrigued and is already talking about plans for patches and expansions to build out the role of the nemesis. So there may be more to this idea yet to come – but for now, no drama. Only superpowers.

All in all, I really like what I saw with Champions Online. It looked great, played decently enough (although two PvP matches really isn't enough time to be completely sure) and it's about superheroes – one of my favorite things in the world next to unicorns. If my computer can stand it, I'll definitely have to give Champions a try when it launches seven weeks from now.

#1 - So far sounding like basic City of Heroes / City of Villains. That's not necessarily a bad thing…I mean CoH/V had some of the deepest character creation I have seen of any MMO. Like they said for Champions was especially true for me on CoH/V: “occupy my first three and a half hours of game play.” I even designed characters I immediately took screen shots of once I has happy then deleted them…I loved creating characters in that game.

#2 - Now THIS was what I was talking about initially when I said I hoped they integrated more of the individual elements together to make a cohesive universe. I was hoping for world PVP. Granted I may change my tune once the game comes out (as I did with PVP servers on WoW) but it was just one of the features I thought was sorely missing from CoH/V due to that game basically being designed as 2 separate games(technically a add-on to Heroes) connected together though (in my opinion) poorly integrated PVP maps not integrated world wide. I personally think that if you are going to make a game about good fighting evil you should allow for Good to fight evil outside of “special maps”…launch massive assaults…

However speaking from somone who got tired of not being able to get anything done in WoW because of randomly being killed…I may change my tune on that…I just hope they leave the XP deficit out of the game…

#3 - Now THIS is what I have been following the most with Champions since I heard they were making the MMO…I am very intrigued by this. It sounds, in theory, awesome to be able to design your own Nemesis and customize them…and then eventually kill them…or not…it's up to you.

#4 Like the article writer, I will believe that when I see it. In all honesty, the only MMO being developed of late that seems to really have any unique seems to be DC Online. Since DC online is primarily being designed to work on a console it is being designed as a classic action MMO like those of the SNES era (push the button to attack and they attack when you press the button, and abilities can be mapped to the 4 “action” buttons)

I played it at the Penny Arcade Expo last year. It was the game I went back to the most. I quite love how easy everything is to use and it works great with a 360 controller. It's almost like it was built for a gamepad, but the keyboard version worked great as well. I kind of like the system - you use regular attacks to build up a power meter which lets you unleash your abilities, though they were smart enough to make it so your regular attacks can be powers like an energy sword or energy beam and the like. The system was much more like a variant of the X-Men Legends / Ultimate Alliance games than CoH/V.

Besides, I got a t-shirt and won a Champions Online skateboard, backpack and Nerf-like gun, though I sold that, so they have a small advantage when it comes to my loyalty lol.

Anyway, for those who have played City of Heroes, though it's only my opinion, I felt like Champions even in it's alpha state was a heck of a lot funner and I enjoyed CoH. As for #4, I can understand, but it gets on my nerves when he mentions WoW when it comes to the lightning ability he used. There were MMOs before WoW that had those kind of things after all.

youtube clip of the game http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1uU2-l0_6A

JamesCGamora;151327
I have been pretty curious about Champions Online since hearing about it last summer but I am keeping a “wait and see” policy. I played both City of Heroes / City of Villains (also made by Cryptic) and they are great in its(there) own right…especially with the newest Issue allowing players to construct their own quests and missions. I know that Champions Online will be more or less exactly identical to CoH/V in form and function, I am just not sure how well Cryptic will handle an already established IP (Champions began as a “pen and paper” role-playing game originally published by Hero Games in 1981). The same fear applies to their development of Star Trek Online and to Marvel Online when they were developing it prior.

Personally, I am hoping they further integrate elements of the previous CoH/V to make it more of a cohesive universe.

thanks for sharing

i hear they are doing a bets test this month

socksquatch;152785
i hear they are doing a bets test this month

on the 17th of this month

Why did you quote yourself?

As far as Champions Online is concerned, I have officially lost interest in it with the delay and possible cancellation of the 360 version of the game