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City of Heroes
Lerxst
Member UncommonPosts: 648
I missed out of the CoH craze in the mid 00's. It always looked like fun, but I had too much on my plate to take advantage of it at the time.
I've tried a couple comic book MMO games released over the past few years and just think... meh. The Secret World, also seemed to have a similar feel but was also... meh.
I get the impression that you could customize your character to any degree you wanted, from costume, to skills and super powers. I like that... a lot! The last Marvel comic version of a superhero game I played ONLY allowed Marvel characters and... well.. after seeing 15 of "me" running around the map, I no longer felt so special.
What made CoH such a beloved game by so many people?
Are there any games out there that have captured the same essence of CoH, that are still active with lots of players, not just, say, 10. Any upcoming games to be released soon?
I've tried a couple comic book MMO games released over the past few years and just think... meh. The Secret World, also seemed to have a similar feel but was also... meh.
I get the impression that you could customize your character to any degree you wanted, from costume, to skills and super powers. I like that... a lot! The last Marvel comic version of a superhero game I played ONLY allowed Marvel characters and... well.. after seeing 15 of "me" running around the map, I no longer felt so special.
What made CoH such a beloved game by so many people?
Are there any games out there that have captured the same essence of CoH, that are still active with lots of players, not just, say, 10. Any upcoming games to be released soon?
Comments
My Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starbound and WoW + other game mods at MODDB:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/skyrim-anime-overhaul
Guess what, CO still has it, to this day. Any costumes, any powers. Not to mention the "any costumes" part doesn't only apply to your basic human character model, you can set that too, any way you want. And in a sense it has "the same essence of CoH" as you said, since it's from the same team. It's active too, definitely not just, say, 10 players, I'm fairly certain there are at least 15!
True, you only have that freedom with the access to FreeForm, and not as a free player. That way you have the "any character type, any costumes", but can only choose from a few pre-defined classes to play.
More like Soon™
Well, there's 'Valiance Online', 'Ship of Heroes', 'City of Titans' and the game I'm building power sets for, 'Heroes and Villains'.
H&V seems to be running pretty far behind as we desperately need people that can program for the Hero Engine and do it for free, and until the game gets to about 80% completion there won't even be a kickstarter.
I've got a feevah, and the only prescription... is more cowbell.
On CoH you could even have strangely shaped legs ending in monstrous paws, weird robot feet a la Ed-209 or hooves, or whatever. On TSW you'd be lucky to find four different colored denim pants of the same design, and the more exotic items were usually one color.
When it comes to the power sets, CoH was also way simpler than TSW's (whether you consider that a bad thing or not is subjective). Even with IO's and set bonuses, it was less complicated than what the original TSW had, with all its status effects you had to exploit and then build around attacks that took advantage of that. CoH did have some classes and sets that under performed, similar to how not all weapons were equal on TSW, but it was super easy to team to get past certain content if you didn't want to do it solo.
Never liked CO as much as CoH, and it's from the same Design Studio, not the exact same team. A good deal of the original devs stayed behind to work on CoH when Jack Emmert and those that went with him left. The games went in very different directions from there. Most of the CoH players that I knew were very meh about CO. Definitely not the same appeal. Then again, maybe a good deal of us were doing the same thing you do with SWL.
Also, Masterminds. CoH had Masterminds...
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/ref/Callaron/
I wish the world and missions were more like CoH though. But since CoH is gone,..you may want to check out DCUO.
Here's the hundreds of abilities, pick the ones you want: actives only from the 2 equipped weapons, max. one active elite and one passive elite.
That's it, not even in a nutshell or something, that was the entire limitation set.
CO is similar, just has a few more rules and limitations.
Yep, and CO has all those and more
DCUO on the other hand has a much weaker character generator for this reason, only a few human bodies (small/medium/large), clearly not for lore reasons but for the console limitations (DC has plenty non-human characters).
Yep, way more restrictions, and of course it is a bad thing
Nope, CoV had masterminds
Tried DCUO: hated it.
Tried CO: hated it.
Completely different styles of gameplay. In fact, about the only thing either has in common with CoH is a superhero theme.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
Benjamin Franklin
None of the successor projects will exactly match CoH, because of legal reasons. All of them will be a little different, and that is good. The different successors will attract different players.
CoH was a great game, and my fave of all time, but it was not perfect. If it was, it would still be running. Lets see which of the successors does the best. My money (literally; I am sending a sub fee every month to the game) is on Ship of Heroes to be the one that works best for me.
The world is going to the dogs, which is just how I planned it!
The "first in a genre" thing means it is very hard to beat with a similar game, the new game will have to be far superior and while the later game looks better they are either similar or worse in amount of fun.
I do belive that a "low" super hero game set in Gotham would beat it pretty easily though, using all Batmans villians and the darker setting together with the IPs popularity should be enough to make a very popular game.
It's only natural that they are different... and the reception of those differences is up to each player. Personally I went with CO because the character building, the powers (including travel powers) were much better than CoH, and that outweighted (for me) that in overall gameplay Cryptic tried to make it more close to the generic, regular MMO gameplay, dropping a lot of unique ideas from CoH. Which was unfortunate, but... FreeForm
At the bottom line, neither of them was better than the other, both were stronger in different areas. And I agree on that as well, that neither of them was perfect. CO is still not (and CoH is down). But it's still fun, and they're adding new powers to play with frequently (at least since the last year).
As for other games, I'm waiting for SoH or one of the other 2 or 3 titles mentioned that are still pre-alpha. Hopefully there's some team able to capture a taste of Co[Villains]' flavor. It would sure fill a hole I've had in my gaming heart for oh so many years.
Frozen Torch
Champion Server
As far as release dates go, it is:
City of Titans - Q4 2018 (I have a tough time believing they will make that date, but honestly I really hope they do it)
Ship of Heroes - Q2-Q3 2019 - they are saying June-July, so right in between the two quarters
Valiance Online - Q2 2020 - even though they are the only one with a playable game, they have the most world to fill out
Heroes & Villains - They don't yet have a release date, but I am guessing late 2021 or early 2022, based on their progress. Even though they may end up last to the show, they will probably be the one closest to CoH as far as gameplay and mission systems.
Redside - Who? They are a very small project (two guys using the Unity engine) based on CoV, and they don't have a projected release date. I would be very surprised if they release at all, but if they do I will check the game out.
The world is going to the dogs, which is just how I planned it!
I don't know what I was expecting but definitely not the first shock of utter chaos this game was. It was delicious. So many powers and ways to use them and 8 people in a group meant you saw all types of effects and the sheer possibilities of combinations made me giddy. The very first time I was in a sewer group I was hooked because I was playing like a fiend on crack. I mean you had so many things happening it was gloriously chaotic but it meant you could also play with so many possibilities and combinations that can work with a little imagination and willingness to try the unlikely and ditch the traditional.
Initially no one worried about group make up and even if you had no tank and had like a controller,defender and scrapper you could still play with careful progress but it meant the trinity was out although it had people still asking for tanks and healers and CC you could just play with shields and debuffs . Yes you died a lot and it was a hard game and the mobs were plentiful with some brutal powers of their own. The point was that it worked.
You could really make literally any combinations of players work to finish a mission and people really worked together to utilize their powers and using them in creative ways was part of the fun. Soloing in some cases was horrible for sure like a gravity/empathy controller for instance but when you joined a group the power of CC and heals made you a fantastic asset. A defender on his own could do squat but in a group with their debuffs and buffs was able to be the backbone of the group if the party members knew how to utilize those debuffs with their own powers. You could knockback and large areas were covered with rain or snow or whatever the power the defender had and it was magnificent to behold. The power effects were very convincing and it really worked well.
The game was really good with its stories and power combinations that was its strong point with flying and jumping great heights and landing in deep holes with mobs all around you it was exciting to boot. The only problem was that the missions got boring because it was the office , cave or sewer. The powers , stories , character customisation options and unconventional approach to the classic trinity made it a real breath of fresh air.
Have you tried as a mastermind to be in a group with 7 other masterminds?
If you didn't play City of Heroes and City of Villains you missed something phenomenal.
Oh, CoH... the only MMO I've ever missed. All the others I've pretty much left behind without giving them much thought, even when I learned they got shut down somewhere down the line...
None of them could match the creativity you had with CoH, both in the different ways to play it, and in the crazy character concepts you could come up with.
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/ref/Callaron/
The Mentor/Sidekick system. It just worked. You could be any level, and group with any other level, and it did a decent job of making sure it still worked out ok. It wasn't as robust as a truly dynamic system like One Tameril has, but it also came out a decade before that.
The customization was fun, it got down to the level that you could customize the shaders and color of the particle effects that your powers had. The power sets were varied, and didn't necessarily vie for parity - they were just built for fun. There were definitely FoTM builds, but the meta in the game didn't revolve around spreadsheets and optimal DPS rotations - it was just about what you liked - you could make anything work.
It had an in-game mission builder, and you could run player-created missions that were creative and fun. Neverwinter has something similar now, but CoH had it first.
Open-world missions and events that were common. Rift and GW2 take a lot of pride in their public quests, but CoH was the precursor and did a good job of them.
The lore and story - the world had a rich story, and the quests/story line lead you through it and made you a part of it. And the "sequel" - CoVillains, integrated into the same world, and you could have Villain characters that came at the same world, interacted with Hero characters, and it was awesome. It wasn't just adding "another faction" and enabling some PvP options.
The game had instancing early on (and was one of the first to do so), but honestly, the instancing was one of the weaker points of CoH - it got repetitive early on, and was nowhere near as interesting as the open world events. They were the necessary evil in CoH.
Champions Online, DCUO, and Marvel Online are all super-hero genres, and CO is closest in spirit, but none of them are entirely CoH replacements.
A lot of games have a lot of the good things CoH had, but I haven't come across anything that hits all those points in the same way. I think it's going to remain one of those special games that can't be replaced (like SWG), and if you missed it, I'm sorry, but there isn't anything else quite like CoH was.
That the game ended up with every other character being a Hulk variant (only a different color) was a bit of a disappointment. Such an amazing character creation tool, only to be crippled by limited imagination. Some players were really adept at creating impressive characters, others weren't.
And when am I going to be able to make a Robbie Reed clone? (Sockamagee!) (For those completely lost, look for some of the older 'Dial H for Hero' comics at the next convention in your area).
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
There was a good amount of flexibility in costume design, and a fair amount in terms of character design, but it wasn't to any degree you wanted.
Champions Online provides more flexibility in character and costume design than City of Heroes, despite the critique it often receives from fans of CoH.
What made CoH so great, such that it was better in many ways than CO despite the latter transcending it in some features, was a combination of game design and community, along with Paragon Studios generally getting the genre and providing same.
The game setting was excellent, providing a believable comic book world to adventure in that was of original design, so they were free to develop it as they saw fit. The hero side was a large city, and the villain side a series of offshore islands. There was a wide assortment of well designed villain groups for the players to oppose from street gangs to global threats.
Players had a lot of freedom in character design and play compared to many MMORPGs as the game didn't require any sort of particular party setup for success. Groups could follow the standard trinity if they wished, but there were many other options just as viable.
Supergroups could custom design their own bases. Though this wasn't the most user friendly of systems many groups designed some fantastic bases with the tools that were available. Players could also create their own missions. This was especially handy for role-playing supergroups, as they could make their own custom stories they could actually play through.
Players that found the game too easy due to their skill in character building could alter the game so it was more suited to their needs or desires. You could choose to play as though you were higher than your actual level, so that foes in instanced missions would be more powerful. You could also choose to play as though you were a group rather than an individual, so that instances had more enemies. For the strongest, they could do both.
The game allowed players of different levels to play together easily by allowing them to shift their levels so that they were more suited to facing challenges other than that for their actual level. This allowed for more options in terms of grouping, and was especially handy for players of different levels in a supergroup to play together.
The community was generally friendly and helpful compared to many other games, such that pickup groups had a pretty good chance to be a pleasant experience. Many often held impromptu costume contests, and often gave out fairly decent prizes. One could look forward to interacting with most in the community rather than dreading it.
The game allowed for both hero and villain play, and allowed for characters to change from one to the other along with taking up roles between these opposites. For players wanting a break from the story missions, they could tune in to the police radio (heroes) or consult the paper (villains) to choose one of a pool of missions offered.
The game just had so much going for it I can't help but think I'm just scratching the surface here, and I've no doubt forgotten something important that I will later lament not including.
In summary, it was a great game that has become a huge, irreplaceable loss.
Man, I miss it. But, such is life.
One can't live in the past.
As far as the new games coming out capturing the essence of it, who can say. We'll just have to and see. It wasn't just the game that made CoH special, but Paragon Studios and the community itself. That kind of synergy really can't be built by design, but it is plausible that circumstances will align such that something similar emerges with time.
In CO, where the creator is even more "open" than CoH was, and the IP itself has not too many memorable (
You can find plenty of such characters and themes and builds on the web or on Youtube, but it is always added that it's only for the fun, and make/play them at your own risk.
Of course with a different look, the power selection can't be copyrighted, so for example you can make this Iron Man themed build (https://youtu.be/6cMsSWnemCk ) on a guy with a jetpack, call it some random name and that's fine. Actually it is a pretty viable build.
Mentor/Sidekick, customization/re-colouring the powers, open world missions, story is all there in CO
Villains side and Architect is missing sadly... for the "evil" side you have the Nemesis system which is not even close, and the Onslaught, not enough either.
Architect was a first indeed, but not only Neverwinter has it, STO too, and both versions are much better than the Architect was.
When STO got the Foundry, many of us asked when will CO has it as well, but by then they already put CO on the side (almost onto maintenace mode), so it never happened. Recently they presented some love to CO again, but I'm sure it won't be enough to add a Foundry. Which is unfortunate, the CO community is all about costumes and roleplay, they'd simply love a Foundry.
edit: whoa, Knight added a wall of text while I typed
The number of characters that were based on those from the comics was a tiny minority in comparison to those that made original characters, at least on the servers I played on, and they were fairly vigilant in addressing clones, until the closure was announced. To suggest the game ended up a sea of clones isn't accurate.
That the game shifted from subscription only to f2p/optional subscription before the closure suggests that NCSoft wasn't pleased with the revenue CoH was generating despite it being profitable. That they ended out closing the game down anyway suggests that even with the change the game wasn't performing as well as they wanted.
I say suggests because NCSoft isn't saying, so all one can really do is examine their actions in the context of what would cause a for profit company to take them.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Cryomatrix
You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.