City of Heroes/Villians, Champions Online or DC Universe Online?

[Goodsport]

These are the three superhero-themed MMORPG's that come to mind (have I missed any other one?).

Which of these do you like the best and why? Or if you like them all (or at least two of them), which similarities and/or differences between them do you like nonetheless?


-G

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

CoX is very, very thin. It's got a world-class character generator (seriously -- it's incredibly fun to make new characters), but the stuff you do in the tutorial is essentially the entire game, with new skins for randomized dungeons (and new layouts) and marginally different enemies to fight. Get to the level where you get your travel power, do that for a while, and you're essentially done. Couple this with an active disdain for a lot of the things superhero fans would want in a superhero game (Want a secret identity? Tough crap, they're not supported. Want a continuing relationship with an NPC? Nope, sorry, it's all figurative one night stands for you. Want to fight with your ally, Hulk/Thing style? Great, go stand in an arena and do it, because spontaneous violence is impossible) and it's hard to recommend it. CoX will be remembered as the first superhero MMO, but at some point, someone will come along and blow it out of the water with something that does a better job of emulating the genre -- and really, that won't be terribly hard.

I have not played Champions, but all my CoX playing friends who've tried it have said it's basically a slightly updated CoX. But that's just second-hand info.

 

[Ghostwind]

I have a soft spot in my heart for CoX just because it is the first MMO I truly enjoyed and the char gen is kickass. I would love to play with different power combinations just to see how effective I could make my character. Having said that, I suspect that DCUO will completely blow both CoX and Champions right out of the water if early reports are true. Time will be the one to judge however.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Despite being a pretty hardcore WoW player (I started with MMOs with EQ1 back in 2001), I would keep a CoX account active if the fee was something reasonable like $5/month.

 

[Felon]

I'm not sure why I would want to play a superhero MMO so I can put on khakis and a polo shirt and spend time at work in my secret ID or go out on dates--that's what The Sims is for. However, it is true that superhero games are not very immersive. Nor or any MMO's IME, and I've played quite a few. CoX is like pretty much every other MMO, which is to say there's a lot of repetitive missions/quests that have you recycling a string of hotkeyed powers in queue-based combat. Champs Online and DCU Online use a more real-time combat system that is more dynamic and exciting in nature than CoX or most MMO's, but still falls short of what you get in a non-MMO game.

The main thing that damns all superhero MMO's to date is that they lack a physics engine, and without physics, superheroes and supervillains really aren't terribly impressive. Superheroes smash stuff. Supervillains smash even more stuff. But you can't go into an instanced mission and blast enemies through walls or chuck cars around or watch the beauty of what a handful of explosive pellets from a utility belt can do when you chuck them into a bad guy's ammo depot. You can't even tip over a chair. So, something pretty essential to larger-than-life comic-book action is lacking.

CoX also suffers because the developers took the "City of..." part a little too literally. You don't go to anywhere particularly cool. Rather, you spend a lot of time running around layrinthine cubicle farms and abandoned buidlings designed by an insane architect who desired nothing more than to frustrate his buildings' occupants. These places were certainly never inspected by a fire marshal. Champs learned from this lesson, so you get to go to a lot more interesting locales, like army bases and spaceships. Don't know what all DCUO has to offer in this department.

In general, MMO's (which seem to go less-and-less by the term "MMORPG") just don't have the variety and polish that other games do. You see the same animations for attack executions regurgitated over and over, for instance, so don't expect Arkham Asylum's robust set of moves for your dark knight. You'll just do the same kick or punch attack a million times. Likewise, locations get recycled with only a modest amount of reskinning.

Things you expect from other games--like cutscenes that tell a compelling, immersive story, or tricky bosses that require special tactics to beat--are rare at best. Imagine having to chase a crazed mastermind through his madhouse lair while maneuvering around obstacles that spring out and avoiding variety of fiendish booby-traps. Classic stuff, right? Now, here's the more likely scenario: you pummel each other until a health bar drops to zero. Mission complete.

MMO's are not really not about pulse-pounding adventures full of surprises and twists. They're more like Farmville, really. You log in, you grind a bit, you harvest a reward or two, and thereby make a little progress towards some goal you set for yourself.

If they did it better, I'd still be content with it, but they don't really hit the mark yet. You look at other game genres and you see real innovation. Instead of missions being pass/fail or handing out random loot drops, they have a variety of objectives, and at completion your are scored and receive a commensurate reward. if you repeat them, they evolve and give you new objectives. These days, you even get to compare your performance with your friends, so you get some bragging rights. MMO's are more about repeating missions than any other type of game by a considerable degree, so they should be masters at the art of keeping you coming back for more. Instead, they need to be taking notes from games like Arkham Asylum or Hulk: Ultimate Destruction or even Marvel Ulimate Alliiance 2.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I'm not sure why I would want to play a superhero MMO so I can put on khakis and a polo shirt and spend time at work in my secret ID or go out on dates--that's what The Sims is for.

Because they're supposed to model superhero comics, which the devs, honestly, don't seem to read.

Think of how important secret identities are for Spider-Man, Superman, Batman, et al. There should be contacts you can only interact with in your secret identity -- either because they won't talk to you (J. Jonah Jameson), or because you'd put them in danger in your superhero guise (Mary Jane Watson), or other reasons. Likewise, you should be required to switch out of your uniform to infiltrate some areas -- no one will let Batman into their shady factory, but Bruce Wayne, who says he wants to buy the place, will be given the keys if he asks. Criminals should also be less likely to start mischief in the presence of a costumed hero, especially after a level or two.

Couple it with a more true-to-comics faction based PvP system (heroes vs. villains) and going incognito would mean dodging PvP, as well as the NPC agents of your enemy (cops or organized crime).

No one should be required to use a secret identity -- the X-Men don't consistently do so, for instance -- but it's a core component of the most popular superhero characters in the world, and for MMOs to not support it at all makes me wonder what it is they think they're emulating. (Of course, this is the same industry that gave us a Star Wars MMO without the ability to fly a spaceship for several years and originally made it essentially impossible to be a Jedi, because everyone was wanting to play a moisture farmer or something.)

And this also goes for combat and healing -- every superhero team isn't loaded up with "healers" (there are probably fewer than a dozen who've ever been a part of the JLA or Avengers in their entire lifespans), but CoX requires them, because the developers are using EverQuest as their starting point and not, more logically, a console fighting game, where characters recover quickly from most wounds once they're out of combat. That would be much more true to the genre, be easier to balance (making healers appealing to play is a headache in all games) and have more appeal to non-MMO gamers, who are most of the theoretical gaming audience.

My strong suspicion is that CoX was a superhero game because the developers wanted to make an MMO and seized on comics because it was unclaimed territory, not because they had great knowledge of or passion for comic books. (And yes, I know Statesman claimed he did, but his game sure doesn't show any evidence of it.)

 

[BrooklynKnight]

Any interest in Star Trek Online?

(I'm a CoX and CO Veteran btw)

 

[fba827]

I played City of Heroes for a few months (long long ago). I loved the character creation system. for some reason (compared to any other mmo game) it felt the most fun. it's hard to explain why, but it did. in fact, i have screen captures of my city of heroes PCs for nastalgia, but not of any other MMO PCs. The game play itself felt repetative after a short while (more so than other games) which is why i stopped playing it.

I played Champions Online when it was in beta (again, i repeat, i played it during -beta- so i don't know what changed after beta). It was fun and action-y. the character creation wasn't as fun as city of heroes, but it didn't feel as repetative as quikcly as it did for CoH. I did immensely appreciate the create your own nemesis feature. it just added a personalized touch (albeit, i never saw the nemesis story line through in beta, so i don't know what, if anything, comes of it, but i liked what i saw of it - like the nemesis minions attacking you at random times through the game, etc)

I have not played DCU, but I suspect a big appeal for it is simply the brand name attachment -- you get to explore DC Universe locations, and fight along side (or against or be mentored by) various DC Universe characters, that has a strong pull right there. as far as game play and implementation, no idea...

 

[Felon]

Because they're supposed to model superhero comics, which the devs, honestly, don't seem to read.
Think of how important secret identities are for Spider-Man, Superman, Batman, et al. There should be contacts you can only interact with in your secret identity -- either because they won't talk to you (J. Jonah Jameson), or because you'd put them in danger in your superhero guise (Mary Jane Watson), or other reasons. Likewise, you should be required to switch out of your uniform to infiltrate some areas -- no one will let Batman into their shady factory, but Bruce Wayne, who says he wants to buy the place, will be given the keys if he asks. Criminals should also be less likely to start mischief in the presence of a costumed hero, especially after a level or two.

I just got through playing Assassin's Creed Brotherhood. In a lot of ways, the protagonist is like a renaissance-era superhero, with a variety of wondeful toys designed by Leonardo Davinci, an acrobatic mastery of urban terrain, and combat moves that allow him to battle a dozen enemies at once.

I mention this because some missions actually require a low-profile mode, not unlike switching to and from a secret identity. In that spirit, I would love to see a superhero mission reminiscent of that classic situation where a hero has to switch from his secret ID to his costume, such as by creating a distraction using the environment. Tie that in as a mission sub-objective.

Hopefully, the Star Wars Old Republic MMO will shape up as a blueprint for how MMO's should evolve. It'll boast a mini RPG for the various types of characters it has to offer, complete with a supporting cast and cutscenes that develop relationships and build drama.

My strong suspicion is that CoX was a superhero game because the developers wanted to make an MMO and seized on comics because it was unclaimed territory, not because they had great knowledge of or passion for comic books. (And yes, I know Statesman claimed he did, but his game sure doesn't show any evidence of it.)

I don't like "healer" superheroes either. It's very much not part of the genre. Even a powerful white magician like Dr. Strange can't do much for a friend who's been beaten to a pulp. Raven from the Teen Titans is as close as I've seen to a healer hero, and for her the act of healing is both dicey and strenuous. So, IMO, it's trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.

Having said that, Jack Emmert was the guiding hand behind CoX, and he's a passionate comic book fan. He had lots of great, innovative ideas, but like so many MMO's that spent years on the design table with the ambition of redifining the genre, they wound up at a point where they realized that they were biting off more than they could chew. Without a big license, it's unrealistic to expect to pull in huge audiences by being radically different from established expectations. Rather, there's a greater likelyhood of alienating potential players through lack of accustomed features. Some people like playing healers, and others feel combat is missing some integral component without them.

People are funny. They want something that's different and engrossing, but they also want something familiar and facile. By way of example, even in 2011, DCUO is taking heat for not having a crafting system. Because regardless of genre, every MMO should have merchants and auction houses, right? And a factor that's at least as important a consideration as the player base is the capital base. Investors tend to favor proven formulas over taking risks, and aren't shy about asserting their lack of artistic pretensions.

 

[Goodsport]

Any interest in Star Trek Online?

(I'm a CoX and CO Veteran btw)

Star Trek Online looks interesting too, but my PC system is way too old and underpowered to run it (and most other current PC games) comfortably.


-G