Champions Online (Cryptic's new MMO)

[Destructor]

Yeah, if they allowed me in (I've put in my beta app), I'd test it too.

And that's just really, REALLY weird that they'd send tells to CoX players to get them to test Champions.

[Blackjack]

IncGamers has a Bill Roper interview:
http://www.incgamers.com/Games/1797/interviews/Bill-Roper-On-Champions-Online/174/
A few highlights, imho:
Emanation Points [i.e., choosing where your powers come from, and what exactly "emanates" them]

On top of that, you can choose “emanation points,” which is where your power's coming from and what the emitter is. So basically, I might have a force bolt which would normally come out of my character's hand, but if I want to, I can change it so it's coming out of my character's eyes, or coming out of his chest. I could maybe put in a chest cannon costume piece and make him a big powered armour guy, as opposed to a mutant character who'd shoot it out of his hands.

A comic book example would be Iron Man, where his repulsors come out of his palms, but his chest "disc" often is used to shoot a wide burst repulsor. It's sad that I know that. 

Nemesis [arch enemies created and shareable by players]

His personality comes into play, you'll be fighting his minions, and you'll get ambushed by them, so even when you're out in the general gameplay world, people are seeing elements of this content that you created. And then of course you can always take other people with you when you go on your actual Nemesis missions. It's a very unique element, especially for an MMO, where you're creating one of the main plotline villains – if you choose to do a Nemesis – that you're fighting against, and then you can later share them. So it's kind of that initial step for us into user-created content.

Instances

There are very specifically designed five-player instances, for example, that are level appropriate. They're tied into the storyline, and they'll definitely have lots of fun elements – puzzles in them, and little tricks: things that require co-operation between players. There are also some solo versions of these big instances that are very hand-crafted. But, if they don't want to do a mission chain, we also want players to be able to just do a randomly generated instance.

Solo vs. Group

We've definitely made sure that you can get to max level soloing. There is content that is specifically designed for groups, but we've made sure that the ones that are big parts of story arcs are five player missions, so you don't have to go out and find 10, or 20, or 30 people – you can get four friends together, or a pick-up group, and finish that.

There are also what we call open missions which you actually find in the world. Sometimes they play as events, so things will be happening that you'll just come across. Some of those are even what we determine as “Cosmic-level” enemies, which take 15 or 20 people to take down, but even a solo player can get involved in that because it's an organic grouping - it just happens. So the game is very solo friendly, but there's also a lot of content that is very fun to do in groups, and some things that we've designed specifically for groups.

Will City of Heroes Players Migrate?

We hope so. Cryptic was the company that did the City Of games before it was sold off to NCSoft, and when they started Champions Online - I've been talking to Jack Emmert and everyone else about it - they said it wasn't “How can we do more of what we did there,” but “We never even thought to do this with City Of, and this is a a much cooler idea,” and everything that's been thought about is really centred around trying to bring that four-colour comics feeling to life. I really hope that at the very least the City Of players will come over and give us a look, and I think that if they do they're going want to stay.

I guess they won't be singing kumbayee with NCSoft afterall.  Though I tend to point out that - at least according to the COH devs who chose not to migrate to Cryptic's next projects - only Emmert and one or two devs who actually worked on COH are still with Cryptic.

To me, it's like when 2015 billed "Medal of Valor: Vietnam" as "from the makers of Medal of Honor: Allied Assault" when virtually nobody left from that game's dev team was still with the company (many had left to form Infinity Ward). Kind of faulty advertising if you ask me. 

Anyway, they also talk about staying away from the idea of fixed classes. Great in terms of letting players create what they want, but I imagine if you try to get a group together, you're maybe going to have some difficulty telling at a glance what kind of hero is joining your team since you won't have the usual Tank, Healer, Blaster etc. label to rely on.

[Destructor]

Emanation Points [i.e., choosing where your powers come from, and what exactly "emanates" them]

And how long will it take before we see the first Champion with all of his ranged powers firing from his groin?

I guess they won't be singing kumbayee with NCSoft afterall.  Though I tend to point out that - at least according to the COH devs who chose not to migrate to Cryptic's next projects - only Emmert and one or two devs who actually worked on COH are still with Cryptic.

I thought it was only Emmert who stayed behind and nobody else.
[/quote]

[Vindel]

I may or may not be in the beta.  But if and when the NDA lifts I will let you all know. 

[rittchard]

Emanation Points [i.e., choosing where your powers come from, and what exactly "emanates" them]

And how long will it take before we see the first Champion with all of his ranged powers firing from his groin?

Man you exposed (no pun intended) my entire hero concept already, boooooo!!!!! 

[Blackjack]

It's comforting to know the London police are adapting Captain America^TM's Mighty Shield^TM to riot situations    [courtesy Reuters]

G20 protesters smash windows, clash with police
http://www.reuters.com/news/pictures/articleslideshow?articleId=UKL196972720090401&channelName=topNews#a=1
[The link is weird, sometimes it goes to the police shields photo, sometimes not; I think if you scroll to photo #7, you'll see what I meant]

Me, I think Tower Shields provide better coverage   

[Blackjack]

Blue's mentioned a Bill Roper interview by a Romanian site:
http://computergames.ro/en/games/viewitem/id/2179/name/champions-online/section/interview.html

Bill Roper: We have a mix of open and instanced content to provide both a sense of exploration and openness while also allowing places for players to be the key focus of the mission and world. We have huge areas of the world such as the Canadian wilderness, or Monster Island that have smaller “neighborhoods” within them to provide distinct areas of play and experiences. Within those are both open world experiences and instances. There’s a great mix of seeing and interacting with other heroes and also adventuring within an exclusive space.

It has lots of screenshots. I haven't been keeping up on things, so I can't really say whether they're mostly new or mostly old. 

[Vindel]

Blue's mentioned a Bill Roper interview by a Romanian site:
http://computergames.ro/en/games/viewitem/id/2179/name/champions-online/section/interview.html

Bill Roper: We have a mix of open and instanced content to provide both a sense of exploration and openness while also allowing places for players to be the key focus of the mission and world. We have huge areas of the world such as the Canadian wilderness, or Monster Island that have smaller “neighborhoods” within them to provide distinct areas of play and experiences. Within those are both open world experiences and instances. There’s a great mix of seeing and interacting with other heroes and also adventuring within an exclusive space.

It has lots of screenshots. I haven't been keeping up on things, so I can't really say whether they're mostly new or mostly old. 

They are newer screen shots. Well the first 8 shots are the newest. How I know....hmmmm dunno 

[Blackjack]

Emmert has a dev diary of sorts at IGN updating how the game's progressing in closed beta:

Champions Online Developer Diary (April 7)
http://pc.ign.com/articles/970/970580p1.html

I'll take another example from City of Heroes. We gave players unprecedented abilities: flight, teleport, superspeed, superleap. After all, these super powers are staples in the comic book world. Soon after launch, we noticed that people could use these abilities to fight critters with little or no risk. Fly just out of range, hurl a few blasts, then fly onto the next mob. We instituted a system that slowed a player's speed during combat. While effective, it wasn't particular fun.

In Champions, we originally had a system where a player didn't really have much energy while using a super travel ability. They could use their other abilities, but not to any real degree. Again, this was wildly effective. But, players rightly pointed it out, not very fun.

So we removed all limitations. Yep, every last one. Instead, we started seeding mobs throughout the game that can tackle foes with super speed, flight, etc. The players asked for something to be a challenge -- give them flying threats -- rather than remove their abilities.

So that sounds kind of neat. Instead of "debuffing" you when you try to fight with a travel power on, you have to cope with enemies that can get you even when you're flying, super speeding etc.

There are some other interesting tidbits about things they've changed in response to player feedback in beta.

[Destructor]

Now that sounds like fun. I always loved the mobs in CoX whenever they'd get Speed Boost on them - they'd run around as if they were on crack and such.

[Chaz]

They may or may not have sent out more beta invites.  I may or may not have gotten one.  If I had, it may or may not be awesome.   

[Arclight]

I may or may not know what you're talking about... 

[lokiju]

It may just be my pre-coffee confusion, but I'm pretty sure we're (oops!) allowed to say we're (oops again!) in beta...

[Destructor]

I HATE YOU ALL.

I mean, you'd think they'd target those people who are currently playing City of Heroes, no?

In all seriousness - if anybody here isn't interested in trying out the Beta, give me a buzz.

[YellowKing]

They may or may not have sent out more beta invites.  I may or may not have gotten one.  If I had, it may or may not be awesome.

I may or may not be late to my Thursday night Call of Duty session because of something like this. 

[Chaz]

Psst...I don't think the servers are up on Thursday night.   

[YellowKing]

DOH! Uh...err...I mean....why should I care?   

[Vindel]

Ummm I wouldn't know but I think the servers are up only on Wednesday nights and Friday nights. 

[Chaz]

Somebody I know knows somebody else whose brother is in the beta and he say that Vin is right, and those are the only two nights.  If I were in the beta, it would kind of suck because I have chorus rehearsal on Wednesdays.  Of course, I may or may not be in the beta.   

[TheAtomicKid]

*cries because he may or may not be in the beta*

[CeeKay]

there's a beta?

[lokiju]

Maybe. Maybe not.

[CeeKay]

I hear the beta will be ending around June 14th 

[Blackjack]

Maybe. Maybe not.

He could tell us if he was in it, but then he'd have to kill us, and I don't think that's what Gaming Trend's all about. 

I think Cryptic should steal about the best 1,000 story arcs that City of Heroes players are creating right now with the Architect stuff. I mean, think of all the time it saves on development. 

[Blackjack]

They seem to be winking about this... 
http://www.strategyinformer.com/news/4062/champions-online-dated-releases-14th-july-2009-in-us-and-europe

At an event taking place in the UK today, Cryptic's Design Director and Executive Producer, Bill Roper, informed Strategy Informer that Champions Online would be released in the US and Europe on 14th July 2009.

[CeeKay]

They seem to be winking about this... 
http://www.strategyinformer.com/news/4062/champions-online-dated-releases-14th-july-2009-in-us-and-europe

At an event taking place in the UK today, Cryptic's Design Director and Executive Producer, Bill Roper, informed Strategy Informer that Champions Online would be released in the US and Europe on 14th July 2009.

June, July, I knew it was one of the ones that starts with a Ju.

[Blackjack]

Actually, I wasn't correcting you, per se - they may well shut down the beta a month or a week before it releases, so you could be right. I was just underlining it so people could mark their calendars. 

Cryptic's rep in the past was to give pre-orders and - I think - beta participants a 3-day head start before something releases, too.

My memory of spring 2004 is rusty, but I seem to recall the City of Heroes beta ended with the crazy Rikti Invasion swarm all over the zones about a week before the 3-day "early play" period started.

[CeeKay]

My memory of spring 2004 is rusty, but I seem to recall the City of Heroes beta ended with the crazy Rikti Invasion swarm all over the zones about a week before the 3-day "early play" period started.

yep.  I was in that beta and that's how it ended.  of course I only got into the beta a few days before the end, so I was a little bit underpowered.

[Chaz]

Yeah, my memory of the invasion was me being around lvl 8, the framerate being in the toilet, but having an impressive light show going on as tons of players fired off all their abilities at the tons of aliens also firing off their abilities at the feet of the Atlas statue.  I also remember dying a lot.

[Blackjack]

I used to breathlessly present the Ask Cryptic Q&As early on, but fell out of the habit. They did a new one yesterday...

Ask Cryptic - April 27, 2009
http://www.champions-online.com/dev_blog/ask_cryptic_04-27-09

How many powers are we able to gain over the 40 levels? Will we be required to take a certain amount or can we just take one or two powers that we want and stick with them, like the PnP version of this game? Also, are we limited in how many movement powers we can take? (Nexus)

Different powers are on different economies. For example, as the game stands right now, there are many sorcery variants (different circles of power) which cost advantage points instead of active power points because they’re all mutually exclusive to each other – you’d only have one going at a time. You’ll get 14 powers plus one movement power plus one endurance power. Every character will get 34 advantage points, total, to spend. This may change before launch.

Healing

Healing is going to primarily come from telepathy, gadgeteering and sorcery sets. They’re going to be simple directed heals. There will be some special purpose heals in both martial arts and supernatural. There will also be healing from gear.

Additionally, every crafting school has two different healing items they can make, and those are thematically different for the different schools. Players can build those and give them to their friends or trade them. So players could gather multiple healing items from the different crafting schools. Each school has one that gives you a preemptive amount of healing ahead of time, and then one that heals you after you’ve been hit. They function differently for the different crafting schools. Science has nanobots that heal you over time, for example, or that can provide a shield of sorts ahead of time that will protect you from a certain amount of damage.

Power Tiers

Will powers in power frameworks be sequentially grouped (meaning you need powers x and y to get power z) or bound by level, or will they be freely choosable? (Ex: choosing Fireimps at level 2 and then working on upgrading that till the end game). (andrewvanmarle)

None of the above. Powers in individual frameworks are grouped into tiers, to unlock the powers in a tier, you need to buy a certain number of powers within that framework, or a greater number of powers from anywhere in the game.

Tier 0: no prereqs
Tier 1: at least 1 in category, or any 2
Tier 2: at least 3 in category, or any 5
Tier 3: at least 5 in category, or any 8

End builder powers do count as in category, but don’t count towards the “any.” Movement powers don’t count.

Names

Are hero names exclusive to an individual, like in City of Heroes, or can two heroes have the same name? (Nexus)

Rejoice, the days of name-squatting are over! In Champions Online, character names are unique to a single player's account. Everyone can now be "Odysseus." Each account can only have one "Odysseus," though. If Champions Online can't figure out the precise character you're referring to, you specify the player who owns the character. This is done by appending the player's  handle (also call an @name or public name) to it. For example, "Odysseus@poz," "Odysseus@Simmons," and "Odysseus@Homer."

There's a lot more, but I feel cheesy pasting the whole thing here. They must really be getting close to the supposed June launch, because they go into a lot more technical detail instead of "we can't tell you yet."

[rittchard]

BJ, I'd love it if you posted more, I love reading about the game since I can't seem to get into beta.

Also, isn't the official release date in July, mid-July IIRC?

[lokiju]

BJ, I'd love it if you posted more, I love reading about the game since I can't seem to get into beta.

Also, isn't the official release date in July, mid-July IIRC?

Yeah, it seems to have slipped a few weeks given release dates for pre-orders.

[Gryndyl]

a nice video showing some combat.

Watching that and hearing that they've reused the exact combat sound effects that they used in CoH/CoV decreased my expectations for this quite a bit. 

[Destructor]

a nice video showing some combat.

Watching that and hearing that they've reused the exact combat sound effects that they used in CoH/CoV decreased my expectations for this quite a bit. 

That had to have been an old video or something with some generic (or the CoX) sound effects. Or at least I hope.

[CeeKay]

Sorcery.  I'd say if someone was in the beta it's definitely something that they should remember to check out.

[TheAtomicKid]

Keeping an eye on this one, but I wish I had a better idea of how the powers worked. I'll do some digging, but if someone had a link to some good gameplay/character/powers info, that'd be great. How the powers work, etc.

For instance in CoX, you'd get power selections every other level, and slots for powers in between. But in the pen and paper champs game, there were a couple of different power frameworks, etc, where you could spend points to get several powers at a discount... but only one power could be active at a time (unless your point investment in the pool was big enough to run two, etc) I'm sure it won't be as flexible as a pen and paper setup, but... it'll be interesting to see how they build it.

Saw the link/info on sorcery... that's promising.

Atomic

[TheAtomicKid]

Hmm.. may have already answered my own question... there's no archetypes to the game... apparently you somehow use experience points gained to augment skills (superpowers)... so apparently it's skill based, although they deny actually using the champs/hero system.

It will definitely be interesting. One of my sticking points with CoX was the fact that I could never seem to make my character the way I wanted it, due to the restrictions on powers stemming from the archetypes and their different access to differenty types of powers, as well as differing powers in a particular class... (like the way blasters and corrupters overlap... a better example would be tankers and scrappers... they overlap a great deal, but there are some scrapper specific powers, and some tanker specific powers, etc etc)

Atomic

[TheAtomicKid]

here we go, for those interested...

http://forums.champions-online.com/showthread.php?t=13693

Atomic

[CeeKay]

Boomtown Interview[/url.  it's probably got alot of stuff already covered, but I caught this part about solo play:

How well does Champions Online support solo play?

Champions Online was actually designed to support solo play in order to help casual players enjoy the game without worrying about having to team. Players should be able to play through the entire game solo. That said, there are some threats in the game that you simply can’t deal with alone but instead require whole teams or a coordinated effort from multiple teams to defeat.

and this bit about villains:

As we understand it, it will not be possible to play as villains right from the launch. Why not?

One of the things we learned from our work on previous games is that, with few exceptions, most people like playing the hero. Those players who do want to play the villain don’t want to do the same thing as heroes do but with different text. So rather than dividing our project resources between two completely different styles of gameplay, we wanted to focus our effort on providing an outstanding superhero experience first and foremost.

We’ve definitely had many discussions on how we’d want to design villain gameplay in Champions Online. We’ve discussed more vigilante-style anti-heroes (a la Dark Champions) who mete out their own style of justice and often wind up on the wrong side of the law. We’ve also talked about more proactive villain gameplay where they come up with their own plans for world domination and unleash them on the world for the heroes to try and thwart (if they can). This could involve PvE and/or PvP gameplay; a lot of these things are still on the drawing board.

it'd be cool if they could pull off the part about world domination 

[Destructor]

here we go, for those interested...

http://forums.champions-online.com/showthread.php?t=13693

Holy shit does this all sound damn cool. I'm really looking forward to this, and this is coming from somebody that is a 54 month City of Heroes subscriber.