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Superhero MMOs get an overall thumbs up
Ever since the announcement of Champions Online, there's been a good amount of discussion on nearly every facet of the upcoming superhero massively multiplayer online game. Everything from the initial information given about the game, to the bits and pieces that have dribbled out since. There's also been some of discussion concerning the differences of Champions Online and City of Heroes -- two games which are most likely going to end up seeing further comparison and eventual rivalry.Well, you can add yet another discussion on the two games to the ever-growing list and although it may be a particularly long one -- it's quite good. The basic conclusion of this lengthy talk on the two games? City of Heroes is in great shape and Champions Online is looking exceedingly promising. Are there some bothersome kinks in the upcoming Issue 12 update such as lame duck epic villain archetypes and questionable costume unlock prerequisite? Sure, although that's not to say that Champions Online isn't still very early on and while looking very promising -- isn't actually out yet. Things could look entirely different in just one year from now -- we only hope that the difference has all continued to be mostly positive.
Jack Emmert emphasizes story in Champions Online
You might be surprised (or maybe you wouldn't) to know that some of us here at Massively are comic book geeks. You know, the types who look forward to Wednesdays because that's the day comics come out each week -- yeah we're practically prisoners in a comic book-build jail. So you can imagine our lingering excitement for a massively game like Champions Online -- which has Cryptic promising a lot of features above and beyond what City of Heroes is capable of providing.One particular feature is a stronger emphasis on the characters that populate the world of Champions Online. It's a promise that has made us skeptical, to be sure, but a recent post by Jack Emmert as assuaged or worries slightly. It's a long post so if you don't have the time or patience to read it -- there's a fairly good way to sum it all up.
Talking to Champions Online's lead programmer
The position of lead programmer is typically reserved for those who love two things, numbers and -- football? Apparently so, in the case of the Champions Online team's Charlie Grisafi, who likens the job to that of being a football coach. We're inclined to agree once he lays out everything he's responsible for getting to people -- programmers to program, design documents and other various bits of software. So yeah in a sense it's like commanding a team of skilled people with different 'plays' which given to the right people will get the job done successfully.All right, enough of the analogies. The truth is it's a rough job -- but somebody has got to, uh, program it. That is we mean somebody has got to program Champions Online and if it weren't for Charlie and his programmers, we wouldn't have anything to play. So what about this mathematical man's credentials? Well they're nothing to scoff at, that's for sure. Citing an 25 year history as a software engineer -- 18 of which have been as a gaming programmer -- tends to cause us to nod in silence and respect. We certainly couldn't do something involving so much math for more than 25 minutes, let alone years. Our hats off to you sir, thy math is strong.
You ask, Cryptic answers: Non-combat skills
There are many reasons why Cryptic Studios is awesome, one of those reasons is for letting us all live out our superhero fantasies -- the other is because of how involved they are with the community. When other developers are eschewing the very medium which subscribers and fans can get intimate with developers -- Cryptic is doing everything they can to make great use of it.Recently, forum posters on the official Champions Online boards where given a stickied thread where they could hurl as many questions as they wanted at Cryptic. After the proper amount of question firing was complete (probably somewhere around or beyond the 100 range) select few questions were answered in length and the entire thing was posted to the main page on the official CO website. It's all very exciting!
Lawyer might be link between Cryptic and STO
We've got on more tiny little piece of evidence to add to the mountain that already says Cryptic has been chosen as the developer for the new Star Trek Online game. Apparently a lawyer representing the unknown developers of the game sent a C&D to the folks at the Star Trek Games board saying that there is a developer with rights to the property, and that they should stop posting the IP of said developers. But those wacky forumites then connected that lawyer, one Timothy J. Harris of Morrison and Foerster LLP, with none other than Cryptic themselves, by way of Champions Online's privacy policy (he's down there in Part VI -- the first one, since there's two).So. Nothing is still officially confirmed, and to be fair, Morrison and Foerster LLP (or "MoFo" as their webpage designates them) is a huge worldwide firm, and it could be that Timothy J. Harris is their guy for a number of videogame clients. But considering all the other evidence, it's a pretty good bet that Cryptic is working up concept art for an MMO featuring Klingons and the Borg.[Via WarCry]
New Champions Online screens get in your face
When we say that these new Champions Online screenshots get in your face, we actually mean in your future avatar's faces. There may only be three of them, but these new shots are about as close-up as you're probably going to get of the in-game avatars until that disc lands in your hot little hands. The very first thing we noticed is the level of facial expression. Heroes and villains in CO will be able to make grandiose facial expressions, which is an important factor in a superhero MMO all about grand heroes and villains.To get a bit more microscopic with the images, it's really cool to see that the guy in the red suit has a white star that seems a bit raised up. This gives us reason to guess that Cryptic's new engine will avoid the spray-on look that the City of Heroes' costumes sometime have.%Gallery-17946%
Say hello to Champions Online's producer
The job of a producer is a precarious one, full of uh -- well we're not sure exactly. That is, we weren't sure until this new article when up over at the Champions Online official website about Chris Lena and his daily activities in the ongoing development of CO. So sort of producing background does Mr. Lena have? Ah, we're glad you asked, oh readership of ours -- as Chris was the producer for EverQuest. In our books, that makes him pretty well-suited for the job of making Cryptic realize all of our superhero fantasies. His typical day is full of emails, future planning, status meetings, cheerleading and playing any new version of CO. Can you guess which one of those things we're jealous of him for? Yeah, the cheerleading.Aside from work, apparently Chris enjoys bringing the tunes on the Theremin in Rock Band, but don't we all?
Should CoX fans be scared of Champions?
Central Nexus has a good question up about the eventual release of Champions Online and its effect on CoX fans. NCSoft has built up a nice little niche subgenre with City of Heroes and Villains, and despite a false start with MUO, Cryptic is now planning to invade that space and try to steal back some of their former audience.But can a niche subgenre of a niche genre support two audiences? Worst case scenario is that it can't, Champions will split the audience, and neither game will keep the subscriptions they need to stay alive. But surely Cryptic knows that -- especially with the planned Xbox 360 port (planned being the operative word there, since there's still plenty of time before release for that to change), they are probably aiming for an even bigger audience than the one they had with NCSoft,Of course, as with most of the arguments of this type, it all comes down to gameplay. If Cryptic can do with Champions what they want to, and make players feel as if they're superheroes in a living MMO world, they won't have any problems with finding an audience. But if all they make is City of Heroes part 2 with glossier graphics, CoX fans might end up torn between the two.
Champions Online developer post roundup
Having an insatiable appetite for all things Champions Online, we've gone and searched their official forums like rabid info-hounds and complied a nice list of developer quotes. Of course there's no official dev tracker in the forums and for a while we were sort of wandering around manually searching for Cryptic employee posts until we found this very helpful thread. Big thanks goes to poster Foo for coming up with the idea -- it certainly makes our monstrous thirst for information easier to quench.This time around we've got tons of topics ranging from XP dept to underwater missions -- trust us when we say you'll be happily surprised by many of the dev posts.
The Digital Continuum: Cops & robbers
Every so often a game comes along that seems imbued with the essence of my childhood imagination -- its as if the game has it coursing through its veins. For instance, my personal interest in Spore stems from the fact that it's tapping into my fantasy of playing a game that lets me shape worlds -- one that I've had since even before my teenage years. Still, there hasn't been an MMO yet that's truly tapped into any of my more youthful wishes. Sure, City of Heroes delivered the first realization of creating my own personal super heroes, but when looking at what a game like Champions Online could provide in comparison -- at least in the superhero genre -- its quite apparent that CoH was barely scratching the surface.Enter All Points Bulletin, a game that had developer and journalist jaws alike scraping across the floors after its demonstration was delivered in a manner not unlike -- say -- the opening to 2001: A Space Odyssey.
New Champions Online location info: Stronghold
Now that the cat's outta the bag, more information about Champions Online is starting to trickle out. The developers are starting to present great background information like hero and villain profiles, game features, and world history, like this page on CO's mega-security prison, Stronghold.Man, if you'd told me in the 80s that I'd be playing my hero alongside my buddies on the computer against the villains that, up until now, existed only as a picture on the page, I'd have said you were a neo maxi zoom dweebie. Or some other 80s reference. Whatever, I can't even think straight anymore, I'm so excited.
Meet the lead designer for Champions Online
The first of many Q&A sessions with team members from Cryptic's upcoming superhero MMO Champions Online has gone up. The first subject to field questions happens to be lead designer Randy "Arkayne" Mosiondz, who seems like a pretty nice guy from up north. As far as new information goes, the article doesn't really reveal anything that we didn't already know. However, it does give us a very good look at the man in charge, which is arguably new information unto itself.Most people have been assuming that former City of Heroes lead designed Jack Emmert would be taking the helm on Champions Online -- which wouldn't have been a problem since it seems like he's learned a lot since his first massively game. Our guess is that Jack is busy with more than just CO, since we know Cryptic definitely has some other interesting projects behind their veil of secrecy.
See first trailers, screens from Champions Online
OK, we know a lot of you are going to judge us for this, and, yes, it does bear a striking resemblance to City of Heroes (another heroic MMORPG from Cryptic) but we really, really want to play Champions Online. And this new trailer and screens from the game's official site are doing nothing but increasing our urge to tie a towel around our necks and start the revolution.This preview from IGN has some interesting details too, including the fact that you'll be able to design your personal arch-nemesis, in addition to your hero. The wait until the slated spring of 09 release seems so long that we're tempted to start playing the tabletop version of the game. ... No, no, we kid of course. We'd wear a towel cape before we'd fall that far into the nerdiness rabbit hole.
Champions Online Teaser Trailer
"From the ruins, a champion is born." When the Marvel MMO was canceled, many of us were disappointed that we would never see any form of super-powered MMO make it's way to consoles. However, as the above quote from the trailer hints, Champions Online was born out the ashes of Marvel Universe Online. Cryptic Studios is bringing the old-school RPG into the modern age with an MMORPG based on creating your own champion. The game was only recently announced, and not much is known, but the teaser does show some gameplay snippets, hinting that the team may be farther along in development than we are told. The game's environments and character designs look creative and interesting, but it takes much more than that for an MMO to succeed. As more ino about this game gets revealed, we'll have a chance to see whether Champions Online has what it takes to go the distance.
The Digital Continuum: Superhero standoff
Lets face it, the superhero genre is a bit of a niche right now in massively online games. That's not to say it doesn't have lots of potential, but there is certainly a more limited user base to garner steady subscriptions from than, say, fantasy. Ever since Marvel Universe Online got canned, the future was starting to look a bit murky for fans of the super-powered MMO -- at least until recently.
Cryptic Studios hires new suit
Another juicy bit of news floated our way from Cryptic Studios, following a week of non-stop juicy morsels. They've announced that they've hired Ed Roffman to take over the position of chief financial officer effective immediately. Roffman has a long history on the financial side of the industry, working with Activision for much of the 1980's and several smaller software companies since then. He should be a strong asset on the Cryptic executive team.The hiring of a new CFO (a new position for the Los Gatos developer) is only further confirmation of Cryptic Studios' aspirations to become an independent development powerhouse. Champions Online will be the first title developed and published by Cryptic, so it's crucial that they have the appropriate financial oversight to really see this project all the way through. And with current speculation that they're also working on at least two other original titles as well, this need is only going to be amplified with time.[Via Gamasutra]
Champions Online teaser trailer debuts
The information just keeps rolling along with Champions Online lately. Today IGN posted up a video teaser (posted after the jump) featuring the first ever in-game footage of the newly announced superhero MMO. It's a small, but meaningful glimpse into the world of Champions Online. The entire teaser is presented in the appropriate comic book style and towards the end we get a barrage of costumes (and some alter-egos it seems) ranging from the silver age to the more modern feel. We're happy to see that characters really will run the gambit visually -- we spied several monsters, battlesuits, tights and everything in-between.
Champions Online and Cryptic Studios information bonanza
When news broke about Champions Online, it was because Game Informer Online had revealed the cover to their newest issue. We've got our hands on that issue and after pouring over its contents several times over, we're prepared to imbue you -- our readers -- with as much information as possible. There's a lot to know and a lot to get excited about, not to mention something of a bombshell from Cryptic Studios about the outcome from the sale of the City of Heroes property.
GDC08: Jack Emmert on Cryptic's success (and failure)
Yesterday morning, Cryptic Studios' chief creative officer, Jack Emmert, talked to attendees at GDC about Cryptic's successes (and failures) with City of Heroes (and other games). He was surprisingly frank, starting things off with a list of CoH's strengths and weaknesses. For strengths, he cited character customization, fun moment to moment game play, Flight/Superspeed/Superjump, plenty of character slots, no loot. For weaknesses, he told the crowd about how the game had few goals outside of leveling, its lack of PvP, the repetitiveness of the instances, the lack of an end-game, the lack of guild mechanics, no loot. Whether you love Cryptic's City of... games or hate them, read on for a discussion of where they went wrong and where they went right.
Champions Online promises lots and lots of adrenaline
A second devlog over at the Champions Online official site gives a little glimpse of what we can expect to find ourselves playing once this new superhero MMO hits our hard disk drives. Titled, "Furious Action, Off-the-Charts Adrenaline" Our initial impression was to put on a gas-mask and some fly-fishing boots in preparation. However, after reading through the article our demeanor softened -- just a little. It's a bit reassuring to know that there are still developers out there willing to take some risks in the design of their games. They seem to have gone with an all out action-sounding combat system, where players don't use an auto-attacks or recharge abilities. Beyond that it's pretty vague, so we're left to the guessing game.
