General Discussion

Recently, the folks at Crptic Studios compiled and answered a series of questions which were posed by Champions Online fans on the Champions Online official forums. Today we reproduce those questions and answers in this non-exclusive look at Champions Online.

You asked, we answer!

Here are a few of the questions submitted on our forums recently. Thanks very much to Jackalope, Arkayne and Heretic for their answers!

If we didn't get to your question, don't worry. We're going to be doing this frequently, and you'll have a chance to ask again. We're as excited as you are about Champions Online – it's just that there's a lot to talk about, so we can't get to every question immediately.

Will we be told what decisions were made based on drawing Inspiration from the HERO system? HERO'philes want to know what parts of their beloved system to expect. (Drakos)

Jackalope: Well, Drakos, some of the stuff will be pretty darn obvious! We're lifting some terminology straight from the HERO System and putting it into Champions. However, the HERO System and Champions Online won't be identical.

For those of you who don't know Champions – go out and buy it right now – and just settle for my very brief description. A player receives a certain amount of points at character creation and then allocates them into a variety of areas: characteristics, powers, skills, etc. There's a single commodity, these hero points, which players use in both character creation and advancement. The beauty of the system is its flexibility. You can create just about any power, any character you can imagine.

Read more here.

No talk about the ACTION component and what they really means with it?

Degradation?  :(  Welcome back to the 90ish.

Originally posted by Anofalye

No talk about the ACTION component and what they really means with it?

 

Degradation?  :(  Welcome back to the 90ish.

Pretty soon I bet people will start demanding rewards for death. God forbid death is slightly inconvenient.

Originally posted by murphys123

Originally posted by Anofalye

No talk about the ACTION component and what they really means with it?

 

Degradation?  :(  Welcome back to the 90ish.

Pretty soon I bet people will start demanding rewards for death. God forbid death is slightly inconvenient.

Degradation sounds like a mix of Decay and how the Slotted Enhancements work in CoH.

Degradation by death could be a fantastic idea... depending on how it is done. Its worked well in some games and depending on the particulars, could work very well in this one. Although it seems to work best if the spine of the game is about player created items used against the environment or other players. In this way it can be a fantastic materials economy. Especially if certain rare items have lower rates than others. If its nothing more than "all your items decay as you play" then it becomes like the 90'ish use as in UO or DAOC used to have - it really adds nothing to the game and is there purely to burn resources, which is lazy, annoying, boring and a waste of coding time. Lets hope that its tied into the core game mechanic, but it does not sound like it so far.

Dev

I really don't think that there is enough "mass" interest in the Super Hero genre to sustain multiple super hero games. Especially two games developed by the same company.

Investors... PULL OUT NOW!

Originally posted by murphys123

Originally posted by Anofalye

No talk about the ACTION component and what they really means with it?

 

Degradation?  :(  Welcome back to the 90ish.

Pretty soon I bet people will start demanding rewards for death. God forbid death is slightly inconvenient.

I never complain about XP penalty or Debt penalty in any game.  My personnal favorite was EQ XP penalty, where you see the noobs delevel all the time.  I understand it was too harsh for some casuals so I kinda support peoples saying it has to be changed...but...

I always complains against decay and degradation concepts because they are crippling.  Here is how.

You fight a HARD and CHALLENGING fight, you fail and died.  Now, you have to run back to wherever you restore your stuff to full potential.  It is BORING.  Any feature which reward sitting on a lack of challenge and penalised anyone taking challenges is certainly not going to be praise by me.

A system where the only penalty is XP indeed rewards you to take risks, as you will make a LOT more XP that way even if occasionnally you died.  A system which make you walk over to NPC X each time you died, then chain click....Zzzz, that is crippling and rewarding peoples who are not taking risks­.

It was present in Diablo and in DAoC...and as far as I can tell, no other game worthy of this title ever took that concept again.  When I say welcome back to the 90ish, I really meant it.  When is the "FOOD-METER" coming back?  Oh, yes, it did in Neverwinter Night 2 expansion!  Devs are on a streak of bringing back the dead concepts!

Bad concepts are better left dead.  There is a reason why they are dead.  But guess what, they will do what they want, the way they want it...the least you can do is allow me to rant when they have such poor and weak ideas.  Degradation, next weak we bring back the hungry meter + the thirsty meter + you need to click at the right moment or you over eat and will be bumpy and unefficient from eating too much.

The only thing degradation challenge is my patience.  I want a meaningfull death (go see my lives per month concept if you want), but not something crippling me for no reason...and this is crippling.

EDIT: On a side note, shouldn't a necromancer get a bonus when he died?  :P  From a roleplaying point of view, it makes sense... :P

Originally posted by compooter41

I really don't think that there is enough "mass" interest in the Super Hero genre to sustain multiple super hero games. Especially two games developed by the same company.

Investors... PULL OUT NOW!

i don't think it's lack of interest, EVERYONE loves a super hero, i mean look at movies today, super hero movies are selling more than anything.

here is the problems, games like City of Heroes and Villains.  have you ever played the game? the only cool feature is character creation.. the rest of the game is pretty much the same as the matrix online, log in, and go fight the same group of thugs that are just hanging around a street corner, repeating the same quests over and over and over.

if they made a super hero game with great graphics, going to have to be way better than city of heroes, and made it like a normal MMO and not some city with thugs scattered everywhere, it would probably sell.

It all sounds so good it actually seems as if they're saying it all just to please the audience. A combat system fast and realistic to the point of not allowing "fireballs following around corners", coupled with a skill system? I will have to play it to believe it. They're the same creators of City of Heroes/Villains. Many of those concepts were around by the time CoX was developed and still didn't make it to the game, which as Elondor suggested, is a repetitive grind fest IMO.

After a while reading about MMOGs, you get the feeling the devs and investors only do what they want, hoping we swallow whatever they prepared for us.