city-of-villians
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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.
MMOGology: Build your own adventure
I hope all of you got to check out Elizabeth Harper's great preview of the upcoming LEGO Universe MMOG by NetDevil. I'm personally a huge fan of LEGO and proudly admit to playing with those little, plastic blocks well beyond the recommended age rating. There's just something great about a product that gives you the tools to create without limiting the possibilities of your imagination. When it comes down to it, LEGO is simply another medium like clay or paint. It's up to the artist/designer to manipulate the medium into something unique and meaningful. NetDevil's product will allow us to partake in that enjoyment in a digital fashion, although, unlike creation in Second Life, it appears as though artists and designers will not have free reign over content creation. In the context of an all ages game, the choice to place limits on creativity seems like a valid one. Allowing users to create anything they wanted with LEGO obviously opens up a Pandora's Box of offensive possibilities. I'll take the high road for now and refrain from mentioning the many examples of naughty things you could create in LEGO. But beyond potentially offensive things, creating absolutely anything you wanted in a game could potentially destroy the game from a design and gameplay perspective. User-created content brings up a variety of questions. To what extent can users shape their worlds without breaking them? To what extent can they expand and add to the content without altering the original vision of the developers? What role can user-generated content play in the future?
Behind the Curtain: What's in a name?
How much attention do you pay to the names behind the MMOs we're playing just now? Do you dig up as much information as you can on the developers, producer and designers involved in up and coming games? Do you even pay any attention at all?I'll be honest – I picked up Star Wars Galaxies based on the licence alone. While I've been a gamer since my Uncle gave me a ZX Spectrum as a child, I didn't know anything about the people behind Galaxies. I had heard about Everquest of course – I wasn't stupid after all – but Galaxies was my first MMO, and I was a noob in every sense of the word. I didn't know anything about the designers, the developers, and I didn't even think to check up on them.I was a little more aware when I came round to World of Warcraft. I was, and still am, a big Diablo 2, fan, so I knew who Blizzard were. I hadn't picked up Warcraft 3 when it came out, due to the PC I had t the time not being to run it, but I knew that it'd been a huge commercial and critical success for Blizzard, so I knew that it was a safe bet. Plus, it was taking the world by storm already, so it was a bit of a no-brainer. Maybe I'm just older and wiser now, or maybe the information is just easier to get a hold of, but I pay more attention to the people actually making the game that I'm interested in – I thought this week, we could have a look at some of the names you should be aware of.
CoX Costume Contest winners announced
NCsoft has announced the winners of the annual CoX Halloween costume contest, and the results are up on the official forums. We'd like to congratulate CutestLilHero for winning the Best Overall, and kudos to both Reginold Longbarrel and Komic Kitten for Best Villain and Best Hero, respectively. The Community Pick winner was Dark-Hammer.A gallery of the official winners -- as well as images of the Community Pick contestants -- is available, so check out the creativity your fellow players show in matching life to art. Each year, this contest lets you know who wears the Spandex in the City of Heroes/Villains universe. And, as always, if you have any questions or concerns, a discussion section has been opened on the official forums.
One Shots: It's all in the glow
One of the things I love about City of Heroes (and City of Villains!) is the wide variety of graphical effects each of its skills has. You use abilities to fight in every MMO on the market, but so often attacks are represented as generic flashes of light, sometimes in different colors -- in CoX the various powers all have a distinct look. (Can't you just imagine trainers explaining, "You've almost got it, just a shade more green, with a few more sparkles. Right, that's it!") In this shot, passed on by our own Jonathan Northwood, I'm going to let you guess what power is being used, though!One Shots survives on a steady diet of your screenshots and stories! We want to see the places you've been and the people you met across this vast MMO-space. Share your gaming stories with us by send your screenshots to oneshots@massively.com. Tomorrow you could find your shot and story featured here! %Gallery-9798%
The Daily Grind: NCsoft takes over Paragon City
News broke (right here on Massively, by the way) yesterday that NCsoft has bought up the City of Heroes and City of Villians IPs from creator Cryptic, and it's free stuff time over at NCsoft -- prestige for everybody and a debt wipe coming soon.So whaddaya think of this little turn of events? On the one hand, it seems to be good news for CoX players -- NCsoft now has a more vested interest in the game than ever, and clearly they're going to want to shore up players against the coming of Cryptic's Marvel Universe Online. On the other hand, this also means that MUO is poised to take a bite out of CoH, and without its creators, can Paragon City's game stand on its own?What do you think? If you're a CoH player, are you excited about the change, or scared by it? And if you don't play CoH, does the NCsoft takeover make you more or less interested in either CoX or MUO? Personally, I've never jumped into CoH, and the takeover means to me that the game is more or less on its way out. If Cryptic makes a big enough splash with MUO (and clearly they think they will, if they are willing to let go of a big IP like CoH), then this takeover may have simply turned out to be a last ditch effort by NCsoft to keep its superhero game alive.
CoX halloween event starts today
Today Halloween has come to Paragon City. The holiday event we've been waiting for is finally here, and will be with us until November 4th. There are plenty of activities during these few weeks that you'll want to take part in. First off, there are classic costumes available to collect. Wish you could trick-or-treat as a Coralax Minion or Paragon Protector? Wish granted. There is also a Halloween costume contest, which you can participate in if you happen to be in New York and going to the ComicsOnline.com event.Baddies from years past are also back to join in the fun, err fight. The Unseelie Court is sending their minions to Paragon City, and that means that just about every nightmarish monster will be roaming the streets needing to receive some swift justice: werewolves, witches, vampires and more. I personally cannot wait to log in and see it all for myself. I have been away from the game for several years and haven't had the joy of knowing what a holiday event like this does to CoX.
Which supervillain are you?
In keeping with my fascinating with my mastermind in City of Villains of late and her growing ninja horde, I thought I would share with you a cute little quiz linked from Adventures in Azeroth. Normally this is the sort of thing people would post on their Myspace, but seeing as how mine is woefully neglected and I just plain like you guys better, I thought I would share it with you?Who am I most like? Mystique, which makes me all kinds of happy. She actually one of my favorite comic book characters anyway, and now I realize exactly why: we're connected, she and I, we share the same qualities, the same mysterious past, the same blue skin...well not that, but you get the idea. And I even collect the comic book about her (okay, so I'm that kind of geek, I'll admit it.) Take the quiz and tell us which supervillain you are most like.
