Blog of Heroes

Big colors and comics-style outlining are in. I’ve heard some complaints about it, but so far I’m pleased with what I see.

On colors:

Cryptic’s chief creative officer Jack Emmert says Champions Online’s palette of bright colors will help the game stand out against other MMOs and videogames on the market. He said picking comic-book colors was one of the starting points of the whole project.

He said, “When you look at this game it’s not 50 shades of gray or brown. In general, this is an incredible battle with artists, as anyone will know from seeing other videogames, but we decided on bright colors from the beginning. So why did we go so vibrant? Because we wanted to make sure that the comic books that many of us read during the 80s and 90s would come alive. Any superhero you can imagine and create and customize you can sit down night in and night out and live those adventures and feel like you are part of that colorful comic book world.”

I think this is a good idea. It will set the game off from the more muted CoX, as well as lend it, yes, that 80s-90s look. (Do we have to wear jackets then?)

On outlining and cell shading:

We’re trying to go for the look you get in a comic book. But comics don’t transfer directly to real time 3D very well. Cell shading often looks really bland and has very little detail in it so we have decided on a more realistic lighting model.

If something is bumpy you’ll see the bumps and you’ll get highlights and shadows and that kind of stuff. But on top of that we have an art style that’s similar to comic books with bright colors and things that aren’t necessarily realistic. And then also we have an outline effect that outlines things that are near to the camera and adds to that comic-book feel.

[…] Practically it refers to a specific way of doing the lighting. So on a round object you don’t get a smooth transition from dark to light on one side, you’ve got a white and then you’ve got a harsh edge. It’s similar to how you shade something in a comic book but we wanted to bring realistic lighting and a comic-book look.

The outlining feature can be shut off for performance (or aesthetic) reasons. Personally, I like it.

AJ Glasser at Kotaku does some more hands-on review of the Champions Online combat system. Some notes, first on things the writer feels need improvement:

Targeting Gets Tricky: You can change between targets on PC by just left-clicking a target with the mouse and on the controller, you tap the left bumper. However, the frenetic pace of combat makes these simple controls tricky, especially on PC if you’re holding down the left mouse button to adjust the camera while running to one side to avoid an attack. I’m hoping that on the controller scheme they work it out to where you could tap the left bumper repeatedly to change targets among a mob – that would really smooth things over.

Hmmm. Targeting via mouse can indeed be tricksy (since reticling can be dicey). I’m hoping there will be some sort of tabbing to go from target to target.

The Picky May Not Be Pleased: There are things you can do in Champions Online combat that single-MMO players may not be used to; however MMO connoisseurs probably won’t be surprised – or impressed. For example, a WoW devotee may not be used to the idea that you can dodge any attack (even spells) by moving out of range and an Age of Conan fan might not be used to the idea that bosses and mini bosses have specific tells that require you to block or dodge, depending on which attack they’re signaling. If you’ve played both of those games plus a dozen other MMOs besides, however, none of this will sound especially new, different or special and you’ll probably stay skeptical while the less picky players are enthralled.

Some of this sounds interesting (which is why I quoted it) — but the paragraph is kind of a jerk backslap because there’s nothing that is new to MMO uber-vets like the writer. Okay, fine, moving on …

Btw, the idea that you can avoid an attack by getting out of its way is, to my mind, a cool one. Until the bad guys do it, of course.

Still Feels Like A Cool Down: Technically, the spells in Champions don’t need cool down periods after you cast them. However, you can’t cast higher level spells without building up endurance with low-level attacks. It’s a little bit less boring to mash the X button over and over than just sitting there and watching the timer on your best area-effect spell expire; but it still feels like a cool down period just the same.

This doesn’t bother me at all.

Ranged Combat Is Cheap: This is actually a plus for a jerk like me – but I think it’s cause for complaint. Emmert says that the tradeoff between a ranged superhero who can just spam a single fireball attack while flying around in a circle is that a melee superhero’s attacks are more powerful. He says that this makes it more rewarding for the melee character if he or she can just get to that fireball-spamming jerk and execute an attack. But if the jerk is me, I’m telling you right now, you’ll never catch me. You’ll die cursing me for the cheap jerk I am.

Again, kind of a jerk paragraph (literally) — but since this fits my preferred play style, what it’s about doesn’t bother me at all.

And on what he thinks are good things:

There’s Always Something To Do: To quote Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw’s review of Eve Online, MMO combat works like this: “You click on an enemy and start kicking his shins. He then starts kicking your shins. Then you take it in turns kicking until one of you falls over.” Champions Online shakes that up a bit by giving the player more to do than just stand there and kick. At any one point during combat you could be kicking someone’s shins, raining fire down on them from the air while you hover overhead with your fiery fairy wings, dodging an attack with a well-timed mashing on the A or S button, or waiting for a command to pop up and tell you to mash a button to collect an item drop or escape an enemy attack or hold. You’re always moving in Champions, always changing targets and never not mashing on an a button once combat gets going. Big plus.

It’s Console-Oriented: What makes Champions feel action-y to me is the fact that everyone is moving all of the time and you’re frantically pounding on attack keys to keep up. It’s more like Marvel Ultimate Alliance than WoW, and that’s exactly the feel that Cryptic was going for, according to Emmert. He says that the future of MMOs lies in consoles, so their goal was to get an action RPG experience inside ofa persistent, well-populated MMO world that worked just as well on console as on PC. To that end, Champions was planned with consoles in mind all along, with none of the built-in “latency” of other MMOs where you have to wait for a spell to cool down simply because the technology on which the MMO is built cannot handle a bazillion particle effects at once.

It will be interesting to see how this actually works out. On the one hand, interesting times and frenetic fights and a variety of tactics. On the other hand, sometimes all you want to do is to kick someone on the chins.

After the much-longer hands-on, I’ve changed my mind. Combat in Champions Online does feel different than combat WoW because of how fast everything moves – including you. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s a revolution in MMO gameplay, but the quick combat is going to go a long way toward making the jump to console smoother and more fun. My only conflict now is deciding whether or not to wait for the 360 version.

Not being a console gamer, I’ll confess that some of the writer’s glee escapes me.

—The biggest criticism Emmert fears hearing is from superhero players who want a purely solo masked avenger experience. That’s just not what Cryptic is out to do with Champions Online – so if any potential reviewers are reading this, think Justice League instead of Dark Knight going into it.

So does that last item mean that you can’t do solo play effectively? Because, if so, I can guarantee it will not last long on our family machines. Though I’ll note one commenter adds:

There’s been a lot of criticism from beta players that the game is TOO solo-friendly, and that there is little to no reason to group up right now. Apart from the “Lairs” which are made with groups/raids in mind, the typical overland questing is relatively easy to solo.

On the plus-side, if you do decide to group up with people for soloable quests, they keep it challenging. Depending on how many in the group, your foes will run for backup, aggroing other mobs a ways away. It sounds bad in theory, but it works great when you’re playing 

And some Champs Online Dev Diary bits:

Champions Online will support micro-transactions, but contrary to the concerns of some people, the game is not ‘based’ on them. There are the basic tenets for our micro-transactions:

• The vast majority are aesthetic items, such as costume pieces, action figures, emblems, etc.
• A very few are account-level management tools, such as being able to rename a character
• Micro-transactions should never limit your ability to enjoy the game or reach the level cap
• Any micro-transaction that has a game effect can also be earned in the game through play

Also, it’s important to note that the overwhelming majority of micro-transactions are account-wide. This means if you buy a costume piece or an action figure, every character on your account gets it.

Finally, many of the pre-order programs that we’re finalizing now have cryptic points associated with them. This is a way for us to allow our players to choose their own pre-order reward(s) which falls into our whole customization concept for Champions Online.

I’m not a huge fan of micro-transactions, even within the parameters given above. But at least the parameters are the right ones.

Once a hero reaches the upper-most levels of recognition (level 40) they can begin going on UNITY missions. These represent the most dangerous operations heroes can go on, and will be even more challenging (and rewarding) for teams of heroes. Each day UNITY transmits a list of five different global hot-spots that require high-powered attention. Once these missions are completed, a sixth custom mission is revealed. Completion of these missions earns the hero commendations within UNITY that then allows them to receive special upgrades or enter into high-end team areas with appropriately high-end rewards. There are also many goals within Crafting, Nemesis, PvP, and Perks that are designed to reward long-term Omega System players. And of course, we’ll be adding more elements in this vein all the time.

Some distinct efforts to keep things exciting at high levels. That’s a Good Thing.

We’ve currently set the character creation limit in beta to eight (8) characters. This is certainly not the uppermost number of character slots an account can have as we’ve designed rewards in the game that open up more character slots on an account level. In short, players will easily be able to earn more character slots just by playing.

I like the idea of character slots being opened up through play. On the other hand, I like the idea of having unlimited alts (cough), so …

Bill Roper, the Design Director / Exec Producer for Champs Online gives out some CO info:

Q1) Since this is a super-hero game, will players be able to have a side kick? 

The side-kicking system in Champions Online allows younger, less experienced heroes to temporarily increase the effective levels of their powers to be able to adventure with a more experienced hero. Conversely, those superheroes with greater powers can “tone things down” to play on an even level with their less-powerful friends.

SK and Mentoring. Got it. Okay, nothing new here vs CoX, but certainly something necessary — with the special twist of having a single server to play on.

Q2) How soon will players get their travel abilities?  

Heroes gain their first travel power at level 5, right after helping resolve the crisis in Millennium City. In order to allow for more flexibility in character design and role-playing, heroes have the chance to gain a second travel power becomes available at level 35!

I’m glad CO is starting from the beginning with a low-level travel power. CoX has mostly gotten around that, but it can still be a hassle in some cases (and if you don’t do bank missions).

Q3) If I make a melee character without a flying ability, will I be screwed in PvP when fighting someone that can fly and has a ranged attack? 

We’re doing a lot of balancing right now to avoid just this sort of issue. Melee classes have attacks they can use at range (such as ripping up hunks of the ground to throw at enemies) – most of which knock their target out of their travel powers. This is especially nasty when used against a flying opponent.

Not interested in the PvP, but this is a good thing to know re Melee powers.

[…] Q5) How will XP be divided amongst healers, tanks and DPS character? Will it be based off the amount of damage done only? 

We not only track the amount of damage done and damage taken by a hero, but we also track how many points of damage a hero heals – both on themselves and on others. We make sure that proper credit is given to supportive heroes in both PvE and PvP in this regarding, making the choice of playing a hero that focuses on aiding others just as rewarding.

Very good to hear. Though that makes it unclear whether XP is given (on a team) for different things or what.

Q6) Since you get to create your own Nemesis, why wouldn’t I just create a really weak one? 

The powers for your Nemesis are drawn from defined, balanced power sets. This ensures that players can’t “game” the system and make a weak arch-enemy. Nemesis is designed to be the biggest challenge a single hero can face, so we want the villain you create to live up to that standard.

Hmmm. I’m curious to see how this works. I don’t want lame Nemeses — but I don’t want paper cut-out ones, either.

Q9) Why can’t I be a villain? 

We wanted to focus on the heroic side of things with the launch of the game. The missions, interactions of citizens, and so forth are all directed to your being a hero. There are so many stories to be told, justices to be upheld, and worlds to be saved that we’re excited to bring those chances for good to life. We do let you design a villainous foe with the Nemesis system, and some day we might even delve into the darker side of superheroes.

I’m sure there has been much analysis about why (or whether) the CoV side has been less fun (based on population) than the CoH one. I don’t see a reason to rush into this on CO’s part.

Q10) If I’m a superhero, why do I need to craft things? I’m already super. 

Not every hero has powers that come from within. Many have lots of wonderful toys they use to fight crime. This is just the type of hero that will be crafting new goodies in the Arms school of crafting, which also has non-physical elements such as fighting styles. And our crafting system goes far beyond the creation of just physical items like guns and armor. There is the Science school where things like mutagens and serums and nano-bots are created. Mystical crafters design new spells or arcane artifacts. We’ve spent a great deal of time and effort to allow players to experience crafting while staying true to whatever the concept of their hero is.

I’ll believe it when I see it. Yeah, clearly Batman crafts all the time. Superman? Not so much. Ditto Mr Fantastic vs the rest of the FF.

Hmmmm. This isn’t good.

Minimum System Requirements

• OS:Windows XP/Vista/Windows 7
• CPU:2.5GHz Single Core or 1.8GHz Dual Core
• Memory:1GB RAM
• Video:NVIDIA GeForce 7800 / ATI Radeon X700 or HD / Intel Graphics with Dual Core
• Sound:DirectX Compatible Soundcard
• HDD:5GB Free Disk Space
• Network:ADSL / Cable Modem
• Disc:DVD-ROM
• Driver:DirectX 9.0c

Recommended System Configuration

• OS:Windows XP/Vista/Windows 7
• CPU:2GHz Dual Core or Better
• Memory:2GB RAM or Better
• Video:NVIDIA GeForce 8800 or Better / ATI Radeon HD3850 or Better
• Sound:DirectX Compatible Soundcard
• HDD:5GB Free Disk Space
• Network:ADSL / Cable Modem or Better
• Disc:DVD-ROM
• Driver:DirectX 9.0c

And here I sit with

• Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 1700MHz
• Card name: ATI MOBILITY FIRE GL T2

Everything else is, I think, okay, but those two are almost certainly below the minimum threshold.

Hmmmm. Now I’m pondering that offer by Margie to get a new (home) laptop.

I have until August 17 to figure it out …