The Champions Online website has been updated with part one of a three part feature detailing what went into the development of the innovative Nemesis System in Champions Online.

Lead Designer Randy Mosiondz sheds some light on the inspiration behind the Nemesis system:

Anyone who’s ever read a comic book, or seen a movie or TV show based on a comic book, is already familiar with the idea of a Nemesis. Batman has the Joker, Superman has Lex Luthor, Spiderman has the Green Goblin. It makes sense. Any good superhero is bound to upset powerful supervillains, and the conflict between a hero and his Nemesis is part of what makes the story so exciting. It was something those of us here at Cryptic had been thinking about, and certainly something our players were interested in. We used to get tons of requests from players for some sort of Nemesis, but we didn’t have a framework for it in our last project. Champions in particular really lent itself to the whole idea of having a Nemesis, since there was already a framework for that built into the pen and paper version: having an enemy, or nemesis, you can select having an enemy as part of your character background.

Read the full "Genesis of the Nemesis" feature here.