Wait, that's not all -- you'll also get to pick your movement animation as well. Are you some kind of were-beast? Well now you can walk on all fours, like the crazed creature you've always wanted to become.
Oh christ, it's going to be like "/em crouch" in CoX, but a billion times worse.
This game sounds so awesome that... it just can't be true. Games don't promise this much cool and deliver.
Unless the game is coming out in 2015.
If you consider that the core game is based on the CoX engine (I'm not sure any MMO has based a game on an already in-use engine have they?) it should speed up development time a lot. Additionally, every single feature on that list is something that was either intended for, or asked for in CoX - I know Positron said they were working on a proposal for an Archnemesis system in CoX, so it makes sense that they've either moved it or added it to Champions too.
Watching the teaser video has made me hope for a decent CoX expansion, I'm not setting my hopes up for an awesome new game.
Actually this is a new engine. Stuff like power customization was impossible in the CoX engine and they wouldn't have wanted to go through all that again. I think some MMOs have used other engines, but no major ones.
They did definitely take the wishlists from CoX to design this with though.
Actually this is a new engine. Stuff like power customization was impossible in the CoX engine and they wouldn't have wanted to go through all that again.
Really? Well that is interesting... Makes it a lot harder to understand the massive apparent similarities in the two games.
Also: Did anyone else notice the yellow Doctor Zoidberg at around 58 seconds? I can't wait to remake H. P. Hatecraft with a gen-yoo-ine cephalapod head.
Actually this is a new engine. Stuff like power customization was impossible in the CoX engine and they wouldn't have wanted to go through all that again.
Really? Well that is interesting... Makes it a lot harder to understand the massive apparent similarities in the two games.
What sort of simularities are you talking about, that aren't also similar to every single other MMO out there? The standing around and blasting stuff?
Actually this is a new engine. Stuff like power customization was impossible in the CoX engine and they wouldn't have wanted to go through all that again.
Really? Well that is interesting... Makes it a lot harder to understand the massive apparent similarities in the two games.
What sort of simularities are you talking about, that aren't also similar to every single other MMO out there? The standing around and blasting stuff?
You don't see any similarities based on the screenshots and video they've released?
Actually this is a new engine. Stuff like power customization was impossible in the CoX engine and they wouldn't have wanted to go through all that again.
Really? Well that is interesting... Makes it a lot harder to understand the massive apparent similarities in the two games.
What sort of simularities are you talking about, that aren't also similar to every single other MMO out there? The standing around and blasting stuff?
You don't see any similarities based on the screenshots and video they've released?
Engine related? There's characters in an environment and they attack stuff. It's got the modern-day, superhero-theme simularities but that's not to do with the engine.
It is being built with PvP in mind, which is nice, but at launch you'll only be able to fight other heroes in Arena style setups. Though the article says there will be PvP rewards, possibly even XP, which gives me great hope for the Villains expansion they have planned.
Actually this is a new engine. Stuff like power customization was impossible in the CoX engine and they wouldn't have wanted to go through all that again.
Really? Well that is interesting... Makes it a lot harder to understand the massive apparent similarities in the two games.
What sort of simularities are you talking about, that aren't also similar to every single other MMO out there? The standing around and blasting stuff?
You don't see any similarities based on the screenshots and video they've released?
Engine related? There's characters in an environment and they attack stuff. It's got the modern-day, superhero-theme simularities but that's not to do with the engine.
yeah I really don't see the similarities either. I mean, the combat its self looks different, mainly because there's no waiting for attacks. They just attack when the animation is over. Its more Action RPGish, like a god of war I guess.
Actually this is a new engine. Stuff like power customization was impossible in the CoX engine and they wouldn't have wanted to go through all that again.
Really? Well that is interesting... Makes it a lot harder to understand the massive apparent similarities in the two games.
What sort of simularities are you talking about, that aren't also similar to every single other MMO out there? The standing around and blasting stuff?
You don't see any similarities based on the screenshots and video they've released?
Engine related? There's characters in an environment and they attack stuff. It's got the modern-day, superhero-theme simularities but that's not to do with the engine.
yeah I really don't see the similarities either. I mean, the combat its self looks different, mainly because there's no waiting for attacks. They just attack when the animation is over. Its more Action RPGish, like a god of war I guess.
It is thematically similar but really what do you expect from a team that just got done designing CoX.
I would expect they're on good terms with Aegia, since CoH was one of the first games to support their physics card, so if they use Aegia's stuff again the physics would be pretty identical. The brief clips don't really show much though.
It is being built with PvP in mind, which is nice, but at launch you'll only be able to fight other heroes in Arena style setups. Though the article says there will be PvP rewards, possibly even XP, which gives me great hope for the Villains expansion they have planned.
Thats not all set in stone yet. A couple Dev posts from the official forums.
We are exploring various combinations and possibilities for PvP from arena to open world to instanced. Nothing is nailed down at this point, but several scenarios are being examined.
The combat system has been designed from the ground up with PvP in mind. For every question - travel powers, mez durations, and so on - we have tried to incorporate a consideration of how PvP would be affected.
I do not expect that we will be able to anticipate or ward against every possible pitfall, but I do think that this approach will make for a significantly better PvP experience than we were able to deliver in the past.
Just to calm the fires somewhat: I can't promise player villains at launch. But I also can't rule them out, either. It's a wait and see right now.
Dark Champions does refer to the anti-hero setting - not villains per se. Now, we could combine the two...or not. Heck, I might go Golden Age (my personal favorite) or Galactic Heroes. It's a long way into the future. Dark Champions seems obvious because it's so popular for us Champions RPG players (and if you haven't gotten their books go out and do it!).
I played CoX after reading one of the forum threads here on PA, thinking it might be a blast to get in with the gang and be a superhero (or villain). I bought the game and loved the character creator... spending hours at a time creating different avatars... it was great. The problem I ran into with CoX was in the execution... yeah it was a fun game for awhile, but ultimately being forced into grouping and having all the primary action instance was just not fun, so in the end I cancelled when my free 30 days was up.
Maybe this time, Cryptic will see the mistakes of the past and be able to overcome them with new ideas and improved technology. I'd love to see a more action-oriented MMO, and the super-hero theme just makes it sweeter for me. I do hope they don't fall into the same pitfalls as before... such as delaying villains to an expansion pack, for example. Put your factions out at the beginning or don't include them at all... having the villains start so far behind the heroes really screws with everything I think.
Honestly, I'm sorta hoping they don't do villains at all, but instead just focus on different kinds of heroes. Wouldn't it be sweet to have a different set of quests and such depending on whether you're a golden age hero or a more gritty anti-hero? You're still on the same side, but you do things differently. It was pretty clear that making the game feel 'villainous' was tough for them, so perhaps being more anti-hero is the solution?
Anyways, I'm definately keeping my eye out for this one.
Well loot in CoX just unlocks different things in different ways.
Overall I suspect heavily that this game is designed to be sort of the parallel to CoH. Two games with similar themes but with totally separate design approaches.
The guys at Cryptic are a very creative bunch and obviously they just hated sitting on all those good ideas they were coming up but not able to stick into CoH for balance/infrastructure reasons.
Did they not just triple the CoX staff? I can't wait to see what they come up with. Been thinking about resubbing... if I ever get friggen time.
CoX is actually pretty low in total numbers, even EVE beats us now. I'm not sure what the numbers are for US-only though, and CoX is pretty North America-specific.
As long as Champions isn't worse than CoX, it's got my interest. If it does even some of the features it promises (class-based power-point system, revamped loot, and different combat system all catch my fancy) and still is a consistent, well-balanced, and playable game with a good server population, then it's all good by me.
Basically, if it was just CoX 2.0, that's fine by me.
Yeah. I will be subscribing to their newsletter. When a game gets their staff tripled, you know they are about to dig in for the long haul.
Is... CoX pretty much the second biggest MMO in the US right now?
It's hard to think of what is.
I'm pretty sure Lord of the Rings Online is, or at least they claim to be the second largest.
Yeah, apparently LOTRO has around 300-200K subscribers, while CoX has been trending downwards and is at around 130K right now. EQ and EQ2 are both somewhere around 150K I think. Eve is, what, 200k?
Oh hey, holy shit!, Sir Bruce updated MMOGchart.com
I just got done playing WoW for, like, six hours and it was bullshit. Granted I didn't get very high level (though I did PvP as a 70). IF anyone bitches to me about the lack of variety in CoX again, after I spent hours doing retarded "Kill X" quests I will stab them. Hell to make things even worse I'm suppose to be getting pelts off these cougars, they all have skin and fur, yet only 1/4 is dropping a pelt. Piss on that. At least in CoX it "Kill 20 Skulls" means kill 20 Skulls not kill 60-80 Skulls depending on random drop.
I've been told things improve greatly after lvl 10 so I'm going to try and tough it out but so far the combat is boring and the missions are equally as bad as CoH at launch. CoV's starting quests are 10x better than the shit I've done Horde side in WoW of equal level.
If Champions is equally as good as CoX is right now AND has all the added stuff they are talking but only does CoX numbers after a year I will be left an empty husk with no faith in my fellow man. /rant
I'm actually surprised at how many people are still playing Star Wars Galaxies and can only wonder Why?. Whats really sad is how low Asheron's Call has gotten. That game is so fucking barren now that its amazing its still running, and what an awesome game it was. Makes me wonder what MMOs would be like today if AC had gotten the subscriber numbers that EQ did.
Of course, there are a lot of F2P games like Maple Story and HABBO Hotel and Ragnarok Online and a bunch of asian games that aren't shown here, but that's a pretty good overview of the Subscriptions-based market. CoX is certainly one of the more successful ones in recent years.
If one were to confine the numbers *just* to the US, the second-biggest MMO after WoW is probably RuneScape.
Also, Cryptic was never owned by NCSoft, they co-owned the CoH IP, split 50/50. Budget and time restrictions, technical limations, all those things are just as likely to be problematic now as they were years ago. Yes, Cryptic no longer has to run things through NCSoft, but they also no longer have any incoming revenue from subscriptions. They've got the cushion of whatever they sold the CoH IP for, minus whatever they spent to acquire the Champions IP. Money may or may not end up being an issue for them. Its possible NCSoft paid them enough that they can do whatever they want, but I don't think the payment details have come out on that.
You know, I didn't think of that, and I listened to the darn NCSoft conference call. They didn't say how much they paid.
I did some digging through the financial documents and there's no line item for it. However, comparing Q4 to Q3, there was a *large* jump in the "Other Intangible Assets" line from about 1.3 billion Won to 12.5 billion Won. That increase corresponds to $11.8 million US.
Now, Cryptic had about 135K subscribers last quarter. If you assume each subscriber pays the full $14.99 per month, minus 2.5% for credit card trasnaction, you get a gross revenue of $23.7 million US per year. If NCSoft had a 50/50 split with Cryptic on that, then Cryptic was getting ... surprise, $11.8 million US per year.
So did NCSoft simply buy out CoX for one year's revenues? The numbers are eerily similar, but $12 million seems a bit cheap. But a Price/Sales Ratio of 1.0 is not unusual.
Posts
And we thought the furries were bad on Virtue!
Unless the game is coming out in 2015.
If you consider that the core game is based on the CoX engine (I'm not sure any MMO has based a game on an already in-use engine have they?) it should speed up development time a lot. Additionally, every single feature on that list is something that was either intended for, or asked for in CoX - I know Positron said they were working on a proposal for an Archnemesis system in CoX, so it makes sense that they've either moved it or added it to Champions too.
Watching the teaser video has made me hope for a decent CoX expansion, I'm not setting my hopes up for an awesome new game.
They did definitely take the wishlists from CoX to design this with though.
Really? Well that is interesting... Makes it a lot harder to understand the massive apparent similarities in the two games.
What sort of simularities are you talking about, that aren't also similar to every single other MMO out there? The standing around and blasting stuff?
You don't see any similarities based on the screenshots and video they've released?
Engine related? There's characters in an environment and they attack stuff. It's got the modern-day, superhero-theme simularities but that's not to do with the engine.
It is being built with PvP in mind, which is nice, but at launch you'll only be able to fight other heroes in Arena style setups. Though the article says there will be PvP rewards, possibly even XP, which gives me great hope for the Villains expansion they have planned.
It is thematically similar but really what do you expect from a team that just got done designing CoX.
I never asked for this!
Let's cross our fingers and hope that, in the future, they'll bring out "Crossover: Marvel, DC, Image Online"
Thats not all set in stone yet. A couple Dev posts from the official forums.
I played CoX after reading one of the forum threads here on PA, thinking it might be a blast to get in with the gang and be a superhero (or villain). I bought the game and loved the character creator... spending hours at a time creating different avatars... it was great. The problem I ran into with CoX was in the execution... yeah it was a fun game for awhile, but ultimately being forced into grouping and having all the primary action instance was just not fun, so in the end I cancelled when my free 30 days was up.
Maybe this time, Cryptic will see the mistakes of the past and be able to overcome them with new ideas and improved technology. I'd love to see a more action-oriented MMO, and the super-hero theme just makes it sweeter for me. I do hope they don't fall into the same pitfalls as before... such as delaying villains to an expansion pack, for example. Put your factions out at the beginning or don't include them at all... having the villains start so far behind the heroes really screws with everything I think.
Honestly, I'm sorta hoping they don't do villains at all, but instead just focus on different kinds of heroes. Wouldn't it be sweet to have a different set of quests and such depending on whether you're a golden age hero or a more gritty anti-hero? You're still on the same side, but you do things differently. It was pretty clear that making the game feel 'villainous' was tough for them, so perhaps being more anti-hero is the solution?
Anyways, I'm definately keeping my eye out for this one.
It's like Cryptic asked me about all the things I didn't like too much about CoH and then started making a game to address each one of those points.
As an addendum, the most recent CoH patch notes are music to my ears, with the XP re balancing.
Overall I suspect heavily that this game is designed to be sort of the parallel to CoH. Two games with similar themes but with totally separate design approaches.
The guys at Cryptic are a very creative bunch and obviously they just hated sitting on all those good ideas they were coming up but not able to stick into CoH for balance/infrastructure reasons.
Did they not just triple the CoX staff? I can't wait to see what they come up with. Been thinking about resubbing... if I ever get friggen time.
Is... CoX pretty much the second biggest MMO in the US right now?
It's hard to think of what is.
I'm pretty sure Lord of the Rings Online is, or at least they claim to be the second largest.
Basically, if it was just CoX 2.0, that's fine by me.
Ooh, I know! Rob Liefeld and Todd McFarlane on character designs! More muscles, sinewy veins, and pouches than you know what to do with!
So your customization options for muscles will be slider that goes from steroids to megabeefcake
I never asked for this!
Yeah, apparently LOTRO has around 300-200K subscribers, while CoX has been trending downwards and is at around 130K right now. EQ and EQ2 are both somewhere around 150K I think. Eve is, what, 200k?
Oh hey, holy shit!, Sir Bruce updated MMOGchart.com
I just got done playing WoW for, like, six hours and it was bullshit. Granted I didn't get very high level (though I did PvP as a 70). IF anyone bitches to me about the lack of variety in CoX again, after I spent hours doing retarded "Kill X" quests I will stab them. Hell to make things even worse I'm suppose to be getting pelts off these cougars, they all have skin and fur, yet only 1/4 is dropping a pelt. Piss on that. At least in CoX it "Kill 20 Skulls" means kill 20 Skulls not kill 60-80 Skulls depending on random drop.
I've been told things improve greatly after lvl 10 so I'm going to try and tough it out but so far the combat is boring and the missions are equally as bad as CoH at launch. CoV's starting quests are 10x better than the shit I've done Horde side in WoW of equal level.
If Champions is equally as good as CoX is right now AND has all the added stuff they are talking but only does CoX numbers after a year I will be left an empty husk with no faith in my fellow man. /rant
Of course, there are a lot of F2P games like Maple Story and HABBO Hotel and Ragnarok Online and a bunch of asian games that aren't shown here, but that's a pretty good overview of the Subscriptions-based market. CoX is certainly one of the more successful ones in recent years.
If one were to confine the numbers *just* to the US, the second-biggest MMO after WoW is probably RuneScape.
Bruce
You know, I didn't think of that, and I listened to the darn NCSoft conference call. They didn't say how much they paid.
I did some digging through the financial documents and there's no line item for it. However, comparing Q4 to Q3, there was a *large* jump in the "Other Intangible Assets" line from about 1.3 billion Won to 12.5 billion Won. That increase corresponds to $11.8 million US.
Now, Cryptic had about 135K subscribers last quarter. If you assume each subscriber pays the full $14.99 per month, minus 2.5% for credit card trasnaction, you get a gross revenue of $23.7 million US per year. If NCSoft had a 50/50 split with Cryptic on that, then Cryptic was getting ... surprise, $11.8 million US per year.
So did NCSoft simply buy out CoX for one year's revenues? The numbers are eerily similar, but $12 million seems a bit cheap. But a Price/Sales Ratio of 1.0 is not unusual.
Bruce
Subscribers.
Bruce
Let's not.