MMORPG.com's Tricia Bennon has been running around the upcoming Champions Online and today files her extensive first look preview of the game's character creation and early areas.

The level of customization borders on ridiculous. For example, there are four different colorization options for each piece. Take the chest gear for example. The game allows details like a knife belt across the chest, but what’s more, enables full color customization of belt, knife blade, sheathe and hilt. It really made the process unique. One of the most impressive features was the ability to customize a piece of gear to show specifically on the character’s right arm, leg or hand and then do something completely different for the left side. Another thing to get excited about is the improved selection of robotic appearances. The attention to detail in this system is amazing.

Customization doesn’t just end at the costume, though. Players can change where powers originate (head, hands, chest, sword, etc.) and create separate builds and roles, which they can easily swap out based on circumstance.

Read it all here.

Sounds interesting! Even better than CoX. I'll probably give it a try when a free trial comes out.

God Damn, I cant wait for this game to come out.

And I.... can't wait for the NDA to be lifted.

I'd like to hear what the non-press testers actually think.

Thanks for the early info sounds pretty cool especially the Character Creation , .... looking forward to STO too !  If you could get a sneak peak of that it would be awesome ! 

You know what this reminds me of? Age of Conan. How so? Well, the awesome first impression, great ideas, new and engaging combat and so on....

Sadly though, all this article tells me is that the game doesnt have a crappy initial impression. But in todays genre, that doesnt count for much.

When I read "fast and comfortable travel", and "action combat", "public questions with no need to group up, just jump in and play" and so forth, I think "I sure hope they thought of something to get players to interact, have a good chat interface, and a huge amount of content or a great repeatable gameplay, otherwise this is yet another pretty hollow shell".

Because as other games in the last year have shown, these things all contribute to the phenomena of silent, unengaging, interaction-free solo MMOs which get boring for a lot of people really fast, and usually lack content, having blown most of their development time on the pretty candy, not on the meat.

I look forward to Champions Online, but reviews like this just remind me how little these pretty cool features count against the juggernaut that is content hunger.

I wonder to what extent is the environment is interactive? Can my hulking (pun intended) super strength character lift up a car and hurl it at a bad guy (or anything else in the world)? That's the kind of interactivity that would seal a pre-order for me.

I've been following this game pretty much since it was announced.  I'm a comic book fan dating back to the early 70's so this genre really appeals to me.  I like what I hear about the game so far and plan to try it out.

I played CoH for 3 years, but recently quit when my PvP hero was turned to junk by an extremely unpopular complete rewrite of the PvP rules.  It would take months to level up a PvP toon and get it all geared up with crafted enhancement sets to be really badass.  Months of character development chucked in the can, and the loss of many of the powers that made my character enjoyable, leaves me looking forward to an alternate superhero game.   This might be it.

Originally posted by Samhael

And I.... can't wait for the NDA to be lifted.

I'd like to hear what the non-press testers actually think.

I can't wait for the NDA to be lifted too. So I could tell you how the game is. If you haven't guessed, I'm a preview  tester for Champions Online.

Cryptic has some very talented artists.

I'm looking forward to playing this.

Great preview :) thank you kindly!

 Awesome preview dana, I've been thinking about playing a superhero MMo for some time now; You clinched it for me.

Thanks,

Ink

Originally posted by ArcAngel3

I've been following this game pretty much since it was announced.  I'm a comic book fan dating back to the early 70's so this genre really appeals to me.  I like what I hear about the game so far and plan to try it out.

I played CoH for 3 years, but recently quit when my PvP hero was turned to junk by an extremely unpopular complete rewrite of the PvP rules.  It would take months to level up a PvP toon and get it all geared up with crafted enhancement sets to be really badass.  Months of character development chucked in the can, and the loss of many of the powers that made my character enjoyable, leaves me looking forward to an alternate superhero game.   This might be it.

Cant you use 2nd build or respec?  Respec gives you a good amount of money for unused enhancements.  Sorry to hear your experience.  I love cox.  This game will probably be very similar. 

I'm waiting for all of the crying to begin over the description of the action-based combat.

For me, it seems like something I could get into for a few months.

Originally posted by Puuk

I wonder to what extent is the environment is interactive? Can my hulking (pun intended) super strength character lift up a car and hurl it at a bad guy (or anything else in the world)? That's the kind of interactivity that would seal a pre-order for me.

Or rip a lamp post out of the ground and swing it like a club into a bunch of bad guys (like in Freedom Force! ; ' )

Originally posted by Puuk

I wonder to what extent is the environment is interactive? Can my hulking (pun intended) super strength character lift up a car and hurl it at a bad guy (or anything else in the world)? That's the kind of interactivity that would seal a pre-order for me.

That would be an affirmative :)

This is going to be an awesome gmae fer sure

Indeed good writeup!

I don't mind the action based fighting, like a console as long as I don't have to use a bloody console controller I'll have no issues at all. :D

Keyboard and mah Mousie for life.

The graphics are pretty interesting. It makes me wonder if the company has gone for this comic style to make room from more content / features Eg: Low Graphics = High Content and vis versa but at the same time the graphics are acceptable as eye candy and as stylization. Runescape has essencially done this aswell and in its prime it was a very good game.

The review sounded very biased towards Champions Online.

Oddly enough, you can also pick and choose your targets in CoX. Th e article seemed to imply you can't and that it doesn't make any difference which target you target first in CoX. Neither is the case.

Comparing Champions Online to a Graphic Novel and CoX to a Comic book was very revealing as to how much hyping someone is doing.

Not that I think that the art in Champions Online is very impressive, but, apparently, the person making the reference doesn't understand that most graphics novels these days were comics before they were ever graphic novels - most notably the most popular/exposed/hyped/rated graphic novel of all times - the Watchmen.

I guess it was written by someone that doesn't know what they are talking about. It seems that most of the hype for Champions Online has been in this manner.

Of course, as far as I'm concerned, any game that is called Champions should be using the Champoins the RPG rules. Champions Online doesn't. The rules of Champions were so well balanced that there is really no excuse not to use the rules other than being lazy. This game definatly doesn't live up to the legacy of Champions the RPG even from the start.

I can't say how the WOW mission structure would be considered innovated at all.

I was highly suprised to hear that they were going to release this for the computer market first - espeically how the hype is saying that is is a console game. They would have been much wiser to release it on the console market first and get a loyal following there before taking on the City of Heroes/Villains.

It is a shame that the company that helped bring us City of Heroes has to resort to bad-mouthing it in order to try to get subscribers.

I was really psyched to hear that Champions the RPG was finally coming to computer/console gaming. Man, is this a big let down. Signature characters do not a great game make. MMORPGs become great destipe the signature characters.

I was hoping to hear a little about creating my personal Nemisis in the game.  Has it been implemrnted yet?

This game looks like it's gonna be fun.  I can't wait to install this sucker and start rolling up some toons.  The action oriented combat sounds more fun than the typical MMO fare to me.  I'm also looking forward to seeing the comic style graphics myself, rather than looking at screenshots.  Some screens I've seen made the graphics look bad, and some made them look great.

All in all, this should be a fun game, and I'm pretty psyched for it.

Just a slight hint, but the character creation is so impressive I almost cried. It's pretty much a game in itself. Hope that helps.

Nice article.  It was very interesting to hear the level of environment interaction went to all the way to the level of simple rocks.

I forget if Cryptic was going to show anything at E3? 

This game is shaping up nicely, and cryptic is awesome.

People have to realize that cryptic actually delayed the game because of the feedback they were gettng about its current state, the game is constantly evolving and it is being made for the players, and they are really taking advantage of the testers.

I havent preorderd a game since EQ2 and WoW, but i preordered this, its going to be worth playing.