In the Champions Universe, heroes go up against each other to test their abilities, prepare for extreme situations, and compete in what is known as The Hero Games. These are basically different contests designed to allow superheroes to go up against each other in a competitive fashion. From team battles to end-of-the world scenarios to open free-for-alls, the Hero Games act like a danger room mixed with elements of professional wrestling and extreme sports. Currently, we're shooting for three types of PvP play in the Hero Games:

1. Tournament of Champions
This is team-based combat within a defined arena. Teams of heroes can rise to top of the leader-board rankings and gain both acclaim and rewards for their efforts. The Tournament started as underground events between desperate and unsavory individuals with super powers. Recent times have seen the Tournament of Champions become a sanctioned event that is televised and followed by millions of eager fans around the world.

2. B.A.S.H.
This free-for-all affair takes place in a condemned section of the Westside district of Millennium City. While not as pristine an event as the Tournament of Champions, it does have a bevy of followers who track the winners and losers (and offer rewards) with just as mush fervor. It also has the beneficial side effect of making street crime non-existent in that part of the city.

3. Apocalypse
These are special scenarios devised to push superheroes to their limits in extreme situations. The current setting is within a simulated Stronghold prison where some heroes take on the roles of assisting the prison guards and others are trying to break out. This prepares all those involved to either quell a prison uprising or shake free unjust shackles should the prison ever fall into the wrong hands."

"PVP

Nice! That PvP sounds like a lot of fun. Altho I also enjoy the: "You killed my father, prepare to die" type of combat, where I see a punk player and throw him into a nearby building bc he stole my loot last group. lol. Interesting that the last form of PvP is taken from a very popular sociology experiment of people role playing a prison. Considering that this sociology grips people in RL, taking it to an RPG, especially an MMO, is very brilliant. Look it up:

http://www.prisonexp.org/

Nice Review. I played CoX for a year or more, and really enjoyed it, but it got very tedious: Fight Frostfire 20 times in the same group in one night.. lol. Champions has a lot to live up to against CoH, but I've got a hero complex anyways, and this action combat and open missions sound good. Sounds like fun I may just have to try a free trial.

So true! Why don't you take your fanboi self back to your little unpolished epic-fail WoW-Clone while I play my innovative 1337 WoW-killer with all my hardcore guildies. Sandbox FTW!!!

Can I be in teh clubz now?

Originally posted by tillamook

I wonder what that date on that white board was about.  I saw Aug 18th crossed out and then below it Aug 29th. Could be nothing :-P

 

I noticed that too. Looks to be a deadline for that employee, but is that August 08, or August 09? hmmm... interesting.

I loved how the fighting looked exactly like KOTOR in the grass fields at the end. And motion capture is always sweet. I just hope they motion captured some more complex martial artist & gymnast moves too. Awesome.

HAH

HAHAH

HAHAHAH

This is assuming that any % of true vets rly want to come back to the game. 

NEVER

All true SWG vets are here:

www.swtor.com

anxiously awaiting a game of true quality. Don't believe me, look at the "SWG Server Reunion" threads. Hundreds if not thousands of people from each pre-CU server have checked in.

And a q: why would they need to consolidate the player base w/ free transfers? Because subscriptions are bare-minimum, and they're trying to shave overhead costs, because...

SWG = DEAD

Once again, I'll reiterate that obviously the majority of epic stories were centered on Jedi, but not all of them. There is a HUGE mandalorian following for instance that could care less about jedi, and would even like to do away with them (as any true mandalorian would).

Those who state that Star Wars is only linear, and only about Jedi character stories have obviously not engrossed themselves in Star Wars as it truly is, as many great authors, storyboarders, concept artists, animators, costume designers, character creators, and George Lucas himself, all understand and experience Star Wars.

Any who have actually read the books, who have played and experienced the entire series of Star Wars movies and video games, the card game, the "Encyclopedia" books, the WookiePedia, can tell you that every PIECE of the star wars universe has a name and a backstory, each of which are extremely interesting. Many stories' main characters are non-Jedi characters (e.g. - Lando Calrissian, Wedge Antilles, Han Solo, Dash Rendar, Kyle Katarn (in his original incarnation), etc.). Even the movies themselves give insane amount of detail to the rest of the universe that was Star Wars. To those who wish to base their idea of this future game on KOTOR 1 & 2 alone, both games dedicated enormous time and detail to each NPC's background. Case-in-point: Recall the little story of the band, with the multiple singers who came in and out (the correct answers and sequence unlocked a chest)?

This being undeniable, any MMO with the Star Wars name which desires to truly embrace and capture the essence of the universe should naturally consist of these types of characters.

As a supplement, community, economy, and politics have been staple to the success of each and every  storyline - The Rebel Alliance built each other up & encouraged each other, the Mos Eisley cantina was a "hive" of activity, Han was always after credits, the Rebel Alliance had to be funded before it could become a viable resistance, and the galactic senate was the means by which the emperor began his ascension to power. If any MMO is to accurately represent and emulate the star wars experience, they necessarily must have these social functions be player-based. Indeed these should be prodded & directed by those talented in story-telling, the design team. However, if they wish to involve and arrest the attention of the player, the player must feel ownership of the story. Take KOTOR 1 & 2 as an example: Each an every choice made had consequences, and gave the player a sense of ownership. Really, what better story than one which has not yet been told, yet which already has its foundations, and its future, set in stone!?

As a secondary argument, one rested more on personal opinion than fact (as the previous arguments), from the point of view of the Star Wars person (creature, human - what have you), throughout known history, Force-Sensitivity was very rare; Force-Attunement was even more rare; Force-Mastery, nearly non-existent statistically. Sure in the story of KOTOR there are a lot of Jedi, but the ratio of "Jedi:Person" is still statistically very low. That is why a battle between two force masters would be so insanely EPIC in the stories, and in the movies even more-so. By that argument, Jedi should NOT be a starting profession, but should be unlockable by a) effort, and b) a very small chanced randomness. That will make it valuable. All Jedi should be INCREDIBLY valuable, and as current economic issues (and the current state of SWG) are giving testament to, any item that is over saturated is no longer valuable.

If Bioware is a "wise" company, which I believe they have proven, in addition to creative and intelligent, they will obviously give much credence, thought, and respect to those with experience, i.e. - SWG veterans. This is not to say that non-SWG-vets may not have better ideas, but life itself dictates that experience outweighs loudness.

I thoroughly enjoyed pre-NGE/CU SWG, however, despite my plethora of opinions thereof, I eagerly await this game, and hope nothing else than that Bioware creates a better experience than SWG, with even more possibilities, more sandbox style, a better MMO than any yet created. To that end, I will offer my own effort. Bioware has the time, the talent, the background & foundation, the examples (bad & good), the fan-base & support, the funding, the corroborative forum from which infinite GREAT ideas come, and the DRIVE to do it. Let us all hope they just take advantage of and understand their resources, and fulfill each of our hopes for this great game. May The Force Be With Them.

Ok, first of all, you’re an employee of this site and shouldn’t be keeping a scarcastic flame war going. That said…

SWG was a truly Amazing experience for me, and my friends. It truly immersed you in a world that you SO wanted to be a part of since childhood, and was the funnest game you could ever play. Then, it was destroyed. I often find myself daydreaming about pre-CU/NGE, with that euphoric feeling, go look at the site/forums, and get SLAMMED back to reality.

There were a few awesome things about this article:

1)      The people responsible for NGE are gone. Thank God. They ruined the game.

2)      “Recapturing the magic of the old system”… all their doing is scrambling to fix the überest mistake in the history of online games. Seriously, they need to stop trying, they will never fix it. Even IF they brought back EXACTLY the same game as at launch, bone armor and all, a rare few would come back. They’re already over it, and wouldn’t want to deal with SOE, nor give them their money or time.

3)      The great thing about even the “broken” items was what people did with them! Creating statues or decorations inside your house/guild hall was awesome! Remember there were competitions for decorating. Players would join guilds simply because they knew how to make an extraordinary guild-hall.

4)      AS/WS – I have to say, I do like the skinning idea, but decay def needed to be a factor.

5)      Why are they starting people over… again!? This is another point-in-fact that they DO NOT care about veterans of the game, people who kept their company going from the beginning, and even those crazy die-hards who still play now. Other MMOs REWARD veterans (e.g. - CoX/Eve-O), and care about their input, even appointing representatives from the player-base to help make development decisions (remember this started to happen briefly on SWG forums, but it was a huge lie as nothing was implemented, and NGE swooped the rug out from under it anyways).

6)      EVE-Online is the closest thing there is to the crafting/player-run economy of this game, and thus there are sO many SWG refugees on that game, including myself.

7)      I only pray that before Bioware installs the original discs of SWG, and takes a LOT of notes. Then reads every forum post ever written on SWG on the web (that will give them an idea of how much hype and amazement there was to that game… and then how much disappointment and hatred), and takes more notes. Then read every fan-site with suggestions/wishlists for SWG, and take even more notes. – Take the lead of Blizzard with Starcraft2 development, but not with World of Warcraft game mechanics or ideas.

8)      I hope George Lucas understands how Bastardized his storyline was by NGE SWG… And I’ll be very surprised if he allows (2) games of the same type to co-exist with each other in competition with each other, especially while one is completely non-canonical.

9)      I’m sorry but I must completely disagree with your statement to commend the developers. As individuals, perhaps they are doing the best at their job description, and bringing home paychecks for their families. As a whole, they have utterly failed and taken the game in BUNK directions, consistently. As a company, the direction to the developers has been obviously horrendous. No matter how much you improve a sinking ship, it won’t look any better at the bottom of the ocean. In fact, all you’ve done is wasted effort on what will soon be junk, effort which could have created a splendorous new ship for people to enjoy for future to come.

10)  I also do not believe that the responses on this forum represent the minority of SWG-enthusiasts/MMO gamers however. Why do you think there is NO_ONE on the SWG servers these days…? Any have you seen one comment in support of the anything SWG on this site as a whole? … tell me who the minority is then, and tell me to whom SOE has been catering?

11)  PLEASE do not spend anymore company time publicizing or reviewing a dead game! Not only is it dead, but it is an now an embarrassment and learning lesson for all MMOs… don’t give them fuel to keep going. Instead, spend this time investigating what your users really want to know about: Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO. Add it into your lists of games under development, create a forum for it, work hard to influence the development of the game toward the liking of your users. Then this website will actually be a useful resource and voice of the gaming community instead of a promoter of CRAP like [dead]NGE-SWG.

</rant>

I apologize if I have offended anyone, this post has just been 3+ yrs in the making now.

"The initial concept of ambulation is simply to provide a social space for players.  As they said at Fanfest, why would you socialize while mining for ore out in space when you could socialize at over a beer.  The system is designed so that players never have to walk around on stations to be successful in the game.  It’s more like the addition of a new social utility to the existing game-play.  They’ll be phasing in more options and activities after the initial launch, which has yet to be announced, and the new options will mainly be driven by player demand."

This is all well and good, but I agree with above poster that players want something that will improve/add to their gameplay. If I wanted to socialize in an avatar, I'd go to Second Life...

Don't get me wrong tho, I think this is gonna be ridiculously sweet when it goes live.

Originally posted by Maurauder

The client code is not the source code. This is not a story, but a bad attempt of something trying to pass off as something else all together. The first clue was that it was posted by anonymous and not a creditable source. As for what CCP is doing, bah, it is in the EULA not to do that stuff. If your curious, and you get baned then you did it to yourself. Quit your complaining and move on with your life.

As for Slashdot, they should not of allowed that story to post by an anonymous. That was a big mistake on their part. Nothing creditable there. Bad Slashdot, no biscuit!

I disagree. Despite whatever implications the leak has, CCP is going overboard, even so far as entrapment by seeding the torrent themselves!? Dag yo.

Btw, ever heard of "Deep Throat," Watergate, President Nixon? Anonymity is a protection, not incompetence.

And as regards CCP's statement that this poses no threat to other players, they are correct, in the security sense. However, it does pose the threat of someone manipulating the client very heavily: macros, server overload, game control manipulation... the list goes on. It does pose a threat to the gameplay itself, allowing jerks to exploit all they want.

Bottomline: This is no good for CCP or Eve. Unfortunate, it's an amazing game.

Originally posted by amanuen

Given that the developers were found and proven to be cheating at their own game and playing favorites (giving their friends rare items and leaking information and rigging events)  then trying to lie cover it up only to be exposed, I would say stay clear of this.  Why waste your money on a rigged field?  CCP is probably one of the most corrupt MMO companies out there and acts in a thoroughly dishonest and unprofessional manner.

woa woa woa... this was not mentioned in the review. Elaborate?

I definitely feel i would enjoy it. I love complicated/intricate gameplay, was a HUGE fan of Original SWG (sandbox ftw), am a structural engineer by trade, and love MMOs. I just don't want to be wasting my time either (got a life - thus the SN).

So here's a question to all the repliers to this post:

 Would you recommend beginning to play this game today? Or is it going to be completely frustrating, painful, and annoying. Would I only consider starting to play if I plan on investing years of time into it?

A good point was brought out that reviews are generally for people who have not yet played the game, but are interested in it. This is me.

World of Starcraft FTW!!!!

Originally posted by Mrbloodworth

Ok, you can all stop the emo/kneejerk, drama now....

 

[quote]
There is NO GLOBAL XP NERF planned. What you're playing is fundamentally what we're launching. Don't worry. [/quote]

No I think that is what people are worried about. Not necessarily the XP-specific issue, but the underlying idea behind that statement: They're not going to change anything, no matter what the players (who form the user-base, consumers, & indirect advertisers) say. That is a sad way to hype a game.

Originally posted by U-Turn

 I do not want to take a year to max out.  I like the quick progression so everyone is at the same level and the fun starts.  Leveling is not fun.  I accept it since I like MMORPGs but hate to do it.

If you guys are leveling so fast why don't you take some time off from gaming and go to the gym.  If you are reaching max level fast, even in a fast leveling game, you do not have kids, job, mortgage, and are probably overweight.

/pizza ftl

I think half of what you're saying is true, and share your view on balance of life and video games. However, I also think you misinterpret the point of the video game (MMO), as well as are judgemental to many people. It is potentially a true statement for a small minority of true PowerPlayers, but you broadcast the net a little too far.
But, going to the gym is not a bad idea. Try Gymnastics... talk about seeing video game stuff come to life =)

Originally posted by 0over0

 

Originally posted by Daffid011

 

...Making posts appologizing for the state of the game before it even hits shelves isn't very good marketing,...

There's a difference between an explanation of the state of things and an apology. Some of these were design decisions that you don't have to agree with, but they're not going to change. And others are simply "promises" of what they'll be changing/fixing in the future.

 

There will never be a perfect game--all (mmo or not) games release somewhat dated because they take so long to develop that time and technology pass them by somewhat. And every MMO releases with the usual promises of what they will be doing in the future.

 

In truth, it comes down to: Do you trust the Dev team to actually do what they promise? If you do, then you subscribe, if you don't, then you keep looking.

However, I must say, I still have hopes for the perfect MMO. Just the idealist in me, but it seems possible.

I personally will be waiting a least 3 months after release to try this game.

Oh, regarding his frequent references to CoH/CoV, did you read the previous interview with the creator of the company? He cited that game as his favorite MMO, so duh it's gonna be like that -- The constant instancing is one example, although it appears PotBS has taken it to another level.

MMO game companies need to emulate Blizzard's dev process with SC2 right now... the only company to TRULY take into consideration and repeatedly modify their game mechanics, physics, units, content, and gameplay simply based on user responses. That's pulling employees out of nowehere for free if you ask me, and is more than priceless for a game dev company, especially MMOs.