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Champions Online - Has a better name than CoX.
Pony
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
From Cryptic Studios, the creators of City of Heroes, comes a new super-hero MMORPG for the PC and Xbox 360.
Due for release in September 2009, Champions Online is currently in closed Beta testing. They are still accepting applications to get into this closed Beta, so you still have a chance to try the game before it's out!
So what makes Champions Online a game that should be on your radar?
Here's some of the things that set this game apart from some of the other MMORPGs on the market right now:
Character Customization
Champions Online takes the character customization of City of Heroes and turns that dial up to 11. Beyond simply configuring costume pieces and colors, Champions Online gives you full control of your character's height, weight, body proportions, and even their stance and running animations. Want a giant, oversized brute with massive arms who stalks forward with menace? Done. How about a savage beast, who runs on all fours? In Champions Online, it's possible.
In addition to being able to customize the appearance of your individual character, Champions Online also gives you control over the color of your character's powers, and the look and color of your character's weapons (if any). If you want green flames, lavender eye beams, or a gold-plated shotgun, the choice is yours.
But where is Champions Online truly different from other MMORPGs, especially its spiritual predecessor, City of Heroes?
Combat
In Champions Online, you have your fairly standard "Green and Blue bars" of Health and Energy. Predictably, your Health is the amount of damage you are able to take, you use your Energy bar to utilize your powers.
But where is this game different? Every hero has a basic attack, whether it's punches or fire blasts or pistol shots or whatever, that actually builds Energy, rather than using it.
The result is that truly, your Energy bar is never really empty for long. Combat is an action-packed game of building up your Energy bar with combos of basic attacks, and then using that Energy to unleash your more potent powers.
Downtime is minimal, combat is fast and very few powers have "cooldowns" or "recharge time".
Additionally, very few attacks "root" your character in place, allowing you to freely move about the battlefield. In many cases, this sort of "run and gun" style not only looks dynamic, it's good tactics, as some enemies sport area of effect attacks and other effects that are going to make you want to move out of the way.
Every character is capable of using a Block function, as well, mitigating incoming damage at the expense of continued attacks. Many of the higher level enemies have "tells", indicators that a large and very damaging or dangerous attack is incoming, and you better block!
The combat system in Champions Online is closer to "beat 'em up" games like Marvel Ultimate Alliance than traditional MMORPGs. There is a bunch of tiny details that collectively different in pronounced ways. For example, much of the objects in the game are destructible and, depending on your strength, can be lifted and thrown at enemies.
A very dynamic combat system, featuring unorthodox power usage, is really important, because the game is very big on...
Create Your Hero, Your Way
More than just offering visual customization options, Champions Online truly allows for freedom in character design by featuring a classless, powers-based level structure.
That's right, in Champions Online, there are no classes, and few limitations on what powers you are able to select from.
Powers in this game all fit into Frameworks, loose collections of related powers that constitute something of a "set". For example, all the Fire-related powers are in the Fire Control framework, while all of the gun and explosive based powers are in the Munitions Framework.
However, you can choose from any Framework you want, and mix them however you want. If you want a gun-toting half-dragon necromancer who carries an assault rifle and raises the dead and can breath fire, that's your business.
There is, obviously, a reward for specializing in a single Framework: Every power in the game is on a Tier, from 1-3. The higher Tier powers are, obviously, more powerful and unlock at later levels. If, however, you have a multitude of powers from a single Framework, the higher Tiers of that Framework unlock at a lower level for you than for someone who dabbles in multiple Frameworks.
Inevitably, though, all Tiers from all Frameworks are available, and high level characters can really take any power they want.
On top of your attack, defense, support, and utility powers there are also...
Travel Powers
These deserve a special mention, because unlike many other MMORPGs Champions Online does not make achieving a method of swift travel around zones into a chore or something you have to earn towards the end of the game.
Travel powers in Champions Online become available at level 5. To give you a sense of perspective, just finishing the tutorial of the game leaves you at level 5-7. So, your character can fly, teleport, swing, or whatever the case may be more or less right from the beginning of their career, no waiting till level 14 or 40.
PVP
In Champions Online, you are super-heroes. Super-villains are not, at this time, playable (although see the Nemesis system later for a bit on that).
But, the game still does feature PVP. There are duels (as depicted above) which you can do at any time, any where, with consenting parties.
There is also the Hero Games, a sort of in-universe professional fighting league for superhumans, which features multi-hero bouts and even cage matches.
Finally, a rather unique feature of Champions Online is the...
Nemesis System
In Champions Online, high level heroes have more concerns than villain groups like VIPER or the machinations of Doctor Destroyer.
As you advance in the game, you eventually get the opportunity to create your own Nemesis, a foil and opponent for your hero who will have an entire series of story arcs tailored just for you. You design your Nemesis using the same extremely versatile and creative character design tools available to player characters, and set aspects of their personality and powers for the game to use to generate missions for you.
Your Nemesis will ambush you, send their minions after you, and engage in diabolical plots you will have to stop. You can recruit friends to help you fight your Nemesis, but beware... they may have Nemeses of their own!
Hopefully, all of this has highlighted some of the exciting ways Champions Online is bringing a new and different MMORPG to the table, and I hope to see you all in Millennium City!
If you're in Beta, PM me your account name so we can hook up and kick villain ass!
Also, when you start each new character, make sure to right click on your chat tab and join the channel Penny Arcade.
Forumer - Account:
Pony - Exact
Lucascraft - Metafour
wolfgangpg - Wolfgang
Caulk Bite - kronys
Infidel - Orokos
Glal - Glal
Fedora - Fedora
Fig-D - Fig-D
Digito - Digito
Kay - Kay47
ProfMoriarty - ProfMoriarty
Foefaller - Foefaller
MrSupafly - MrSupafly
UndeadScottsman - UndeadScottsman
Niceguy Myeye - Siao
Kendrik - Kendrik
Ashdrake - Ashdrake
TheScruple - TheScruple
Dr. Face - DrFace
Dr. Face's wife - AwesomeWizard
eelektrik - eelektrik
Behumat - Behumat
MrIamMe - darkslife
Fashionist Pig - Neomatica
EQDuffy - TriggerHappy
Raykefire - Seeges
Zeroun - Katis
Me Too! - dkwiggin
Thanatos - Thanatos777
Cardboard Tube - tubect
Pony on
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Now if I can just get a beta invite :P
But noooo, you just had to go and make it sound good.
... so out of curiosity, how does one go about attempting to actually get a beta invite at this point?
Just go to the website and sign up. http://www.champions-online.com
There's been a couple contests as well. And at one point people got invites they could give to friends but that was awhile ago.
Also, Pony, you may want to add some of the videos to the OP. Gametrailers has a few, and IGN has a bunch but you can't download high res ones from IGN without an account. :P
EDIT: Also, this OP reminded me of the fact that I still can't think of a good "villian" themed name for Champions Online (ala City of Heroes/Villains). The closest is Dark Champions, but that was really more about darker heroes and anti-heroes like Batman or the Punisher.
anyways I look forward to trying out the free trial, whatever year that may be
What're my odds of actually getting in, anyways?
1 in however many people signed up
http://www.gamestop.com/Catalog/ProductDetails.aspx?product_id=73922
I was hoping to avoid it this go-around. I really hope there is a whole bunch of different exclusives, as I always feel like I'm missing out when shit like that happens.
Don't count on it. At least not yet. The series they took a license out on is about playing heroes, they may be iffy about letting people play as villains (it'd possibly have to wait for the company to create a villain-themed side to the tabletop).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champions_(role-playing_game)
Also the title probably wouldn't be some sort of adjective slapped on to Champions. The Champions are the good guys and they are online. Think about badguys being online. Malefactors Online.
They didn't license Champions: they bought the IP. They own, and can do whatever they want with Champions.
Malefactors is good, but I don't think it would translate well to the general audience. Too uncommon of a word.
Fuck the general audience, MMOs aren't necessarily for them anyway.
And wow, I didn't know they bought out the IP. I guess it is more than likely then.
I just don't think villains will work in an RPG - villains need to be free, to make up their own special plans for world domination/fuckerage.
Put simply, villains are proactive, heroes are reactive. And reactive is a lot easier to make a game for.
Yeah, the rumor has it they got a sizable sum of money for letting NC Soft keep CoX when they left, and that's what they used to buy the Champions IP, the Star Trek license, and fund those two games (plus a third unannounced one.)
Your argument is flawed. The way you resemble reactive vs. proactive in an MMORPG environment is through mission text. If you made the gameplay reflect that, you'd have a fucking weird PvP based game with restrictions on the heroes.
And originally it was a Marvel MMO published by Microsoft, so if they're lucky (I don't know how these contracts work) Microsoft funded some of work they ended up transferring to ChO.
Well, that's what I meant by "kept" but you describe it much clearer than I did.
And that's very true on the marvel thing. It's the reason one of the zones is in Canada. (IMO they should have changed it to Russia.)
Even though it's a frigid wilderness full of stereotypes.
"Project Greenskin"? Couldn't they make it a little less obvious that it's a reskinned Hulk zone?
They basically had most of the game pretty much done, in terms of art resources and level design and the main engine, and then Marvel took its ball and went home.
So, they coulda started from scratch, or they could just go with what they got and re-skin it to fit the Champions IP.
Hopefully they get a little more creative with future zones. All the zones they have right now you can tell are stuff that is re-made from when it was a Marvel game.
I don't think you understand what I mean. Heroes react to bad guys by stopping them. I don't mean their powers are reactive - I mean in story terms, they respond to the crime that is around them. Equally, villains create the situations that they find themselves in - they decide on a crime, towards some end, and go out and commit it.
So you can't get round this problem by mission text - whatever mission text you write is creating a straightjacket for the villain. A villain doesn't wait for 'villain-enabler-guy' to call him - a big part of being a supervillain or any other bad guy is taking charge.
And honestly, you can see this in CoV, where the missions are almost all super-merc stories.
I just think people think about this too simply - supervillains aren't superheroes with different tights. They think and act differently, and the basic structure of MMORPGs (someone gives you missions, you do them for them) is based on being either a good guy or a mercenary.
Asked this towards end of last thread but since we've moved on to bigger and better threadliciousness I'll ask again.
Can you write background stories for your character that others can read? Similiar to the bios in CoX?
That's been up for the last two or three months. I wouldn't be surprised if it changed into some other reward as we come closer to release.
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
Global chat handle is @metafour
I wonder how many nemeses will just be the same as the hero but with a goatee.
I never asked for this!
Only the best ones, that's how many! :P
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
Since I'm planning a werewolf in power armour it will look awesome if he has a goatee/handle bar mustache.
Hell I might put that on the wolf to begin with!
Yes, and you can read anyone else's at any time.
Supposedly it's due out inbetween September and the end of the year according.