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I don't understand the folks who buy the farmed items/gold and have thus created this "industry". Games are fun, you don't "win" by having huge piles of crap you didn't actually earn in-game, why are people spending real money on this stuff?

I've recently started playing City of Heroes (check the news archive for a free 14-day trial if you're interested) and I wouldn't pay for in-game items even if they were offered to me... I'm playing for fun, not to "beat" some other nerds.

I did appreciate the Influence (that's $$$ in CoH terms) some friends and one totally random player gave me, but I wouldn't have hated the game without it.

Such a thing is already here...

Be the bad guy: http://www.cityofvillains.com/
Be the good guy: http://www.cityofheroes.com/

City of Heroes has a downloadable 14-day trial, no credit card or anything required. Voila, the best way to check out this MMOG... a demo.

It worked on me (Ex-calibur on Victory).

Wow, that's news to me. I thought I had been watching the official boards pretty well, but I guess I was slack. This is exactly the kind of information that I was looking for, thanks for posting!

Just for reference, one of the references was in this thread in the forums, citing an article in the March 2005 issue of PC Gamer:

The "Issue #4" update will also introduce amazing "body scaling" technology to Paragon City's protectors, allowing them to tweak the size of waists, arms, and cheekbones... among other body parts. And direct from NCsoft's arists in Korea comes new costume-design elements inspired by anime and manga.

The weird thing I've noticed is that a lot of the new costume options are restricted to one gender or the other for no real reason. Quick background here, most costume options are unisex, but there are some obvious ones, like metal bikini-thing, that are restriced.

The developers have stated several times in the CoH Forums that the new costume elements were added for the official release of CoH in Japan and Korea, and that the American and European players got the new costume elements because it was relatively trivial to add them once they were already coded. The gender-specificity was due to the gender-specificity of those costume elements in anime and manga; I expect that, over time, we'll see more variations on these, and at least some of the gender-specificity removed, but I'd rather get what had already been created now than wait until all the variations were created. And there are still some things, like samurai armor, that were originally requested back near the release of the game that we have yet to see. New costume elements take time to make.

Well I, for one, think that Mark Jacobs is 100% right.

I don't want to get all nostalgic, but does anyone else in here remember the ancient days of yore when an RPG was played with maps, miniatures, and funny-shaped dice, when the object of the game was to have fun by escaping into fantasy worlds and pretending you're someone else, someone who may be like you or may be as different from you as night and day? We used to make fun of people who got too much into the game mechanics. We called them "roll" players.

I feel sorry for people who have grown up recently and only know of RPG's as computer games. Something important has been lost when the creativity and imagination of a game master was replaced with a computer's unrelenting adherence to game rules and regulations. The goal is no longer to escape and have fun, it is to WIN. Now, players will do anything to have a bigger and better sword than the next guy has, who is trying to have a bigger and better axe than you have.

Don't get me wrong, I like some of the games out there today. I play City of Heroes myself, and I enjoy it a lot, but it's not the same. It's hard to feel very heroic when you have to deal with typical conversations like, "Hey, can you help me with a sewer run? I'm trying to get to level 38 and need to farm some krakens. We don't need to kill the hydra, because I'm only two bubbles away." When I stick solely to roleplaying and completely avoid game-speak, I get accused of being a weirdo and generally avoided. (Disclaimer: Yes, there are exceptions, very few and far between.)

The whole online auction stuff is a wonderful illustration of just how non-RP computer RPG's have become. I have a question for people who participate in such silliness: If you're not going to acquire your goodies by playing the game, why bother playing at all? Why not just stick to Progress Quest and save yourself all of that tedium of having to actually earn stuff?

As for Sony, I guess Mark covered it pretty well. Can't you see that what you're doing is hurting the genre of RPG's more than they already have been? What the hell does buying a sword on "Station Exchange" have to do with role playing? Nothing. In the article, Mark says:

We will gladly 'leave money on the table' to ensure that whether or not you like our games, that they remain as that, games and not an entertainment version of day-trading.

I say hooray for him and for Mythic for not selling out, once and for all making the R in RPG meaningless. As for me, I've never played EverQuest, and now you can count me out for good. Apparently, there's a large market of people out there playing this game who believe owning virtual goodies is more important than role playing, and because of this, it is obviously not a game I would be interested in.

Evidently you've never played City of Heroes.
I'll never get those eight months back. It was so worth it though...

You can simply look at the examples in the CoH webpage.

How many superheroes CAN there be running around before it gets...boring?

Just make a City of Heroes style football game where users can make their own teams, design their own players, logos, etc, and have a txt import function for player names & stats.

Oh my. This one will find she has many new e-friends (read: stalkers) the next time she logs in.

If you're in the mood for a chuckle, check out this contest that City of Heroes had for people to dress up like their hero. Some of them are actually pretty good. Who would have thought?

City of Heroes Paragon Times newspaper, containing recent events in game, interviews of participating players commentary...

Sure, it's a game feature run by the creators, but the intent is there... right now, its being used as a means to move the plot along, to keep players informed of what new enemy groups are forming and what may be coming down the pipe in expansions, all done from the perspective of being inside the game.

Part of providing such a safe environment means we must ensure that all character names are created in a clean and positive light to meet the Teen Rating of the game while also following all copyright and trademark standards. In order to meet those ends, we have created a name filter to ensure that character names are acceptable for play within City of Heroes. This name filter is in place at character creation, meaning that each time a character is created and a name chosen, it must pass through this filter. Names that are included on this filter include certain copyrighted and trademarked characters, and also a slew of different categories (see below list) reflect derogatory names, foul language, ethnic slurs, inappropriate conduct, and referenced to body parts.

Did anyone feel like playing City of Heroes from this movie?

I posted my brief review and comments on my AQFL Web Site.

And guys, see it on DLP format if you can!

Already answered:

CoH Forums Linux thread

Recently I started a thread on the COH suggestion forums that got a high rating about wanting a new ski area zone after having seen how ice worked in one of the missions I played. I also mentioned in a later post if there was a map editing tool I'd probably make it myself.

Do you think most future MMORPGs are going to stay with the developer-based content model like COH and Everquest, or do you think we'll begin seeing more user-based content such as in Second Life?

Do you think Cryptic will ever release some kind of content editor (aside from the already incredible character creator) to the users?

Interesting that there was no mention of Cryptic Studio's game, City of Heroes http://www.cityofheroes.com/ Recently hit the 200,000 subscriber mark and is still going strong.

So far CoH is a nice change from any other MMORPG that I have played. No items, no player economy, no camping and lots of action. Hopefully the fun factor in this game will influence new games in the future to think outside the box...

It's interesting to compare this situation with that experienced by the developers of City of Heroes. There, the developers blabbed about their pie in the sky ideas to the press years before the game came out. As the launch came closer and massive revisions of the original concept were done, disillusioned fans rose up in arms. A good subsequent design and a successful launch has since made CoH a fan favorite, but even today Jack Emmert (the lead designer) states that that was the biggest mistake the team made in the design phase. Given Mr. Molyneaux's experience in the industry, my tendency is to think that the marketing department may have had something to do with the high expectations for the game. All that said, I think it's very honorable for him to fall on his sword this way for the game. A man with principles, there.

A world of heroes just doesn't work. We can't ALL be off killing Darth Vader.

Outdoor Mission Maps:

* The villains of Paragon City have taken the fight to the streets. Battle your foes in instanced outdoor missions within the city itself, or journey to bizarre alternate worlds and spread justice throughout the multiverse.

http://www.cityofheroes.com/news/updates.html

City of Heroes also uses ogg. The sounds folder contains .piggs, which are expandable into oggs. A thread (which can be found here) on the official City of Heroes boards discusses various methods of messing with these for the non-ogg-aware. Most welcome is the ability to get rid of the Targetting Drone and Forcefield sounds.

Okay...

"RPG based on Star Wars" == "News For Nerds"

Sure, I'm cool with that.

But surely news on a ""RPG based on comic books" is equally nerd-worthy.

And yes, there have been a couple of /. stories about City of Heroes-- but there are a ton of SWG stories on here, and nobody mentions exciting COH news.

Are comics truely more mainstream and less nerdy than Star Wars these days... or is it SWG that is more nerdy and less mainstream than SWG? I don't get it.

City of Heroes?

I have only read and heared good things about that game. If i had a job i'd probably play it. :P

IMHO, in a MMO, the community is what makes it or breaks it. After all, it's the interaction what you pay for.

I recently played the free 14-days trial (still available). I was impressed and see how it can be addicting even though the game was choppy on my aging Athlon XP 2200+ machine with an ATI Radeon 9800 AIW (128 MB) video card. I have to say that a lot of has changed according to the timeline (quite funny too).

I hope City of Heros will be doing the same when it reaches its one year anniversary. I will have to check this game out after I upgrade my system and when I have more free time in a few months.

I know a few gals who like MMORPGs like City of Heroes and Star Wars: Galaxies.

I understand why most online RPGs have items and money, and therefore economies...
But I have to say that I'm really enjoying the comic book goodness of City of Heroes-- The inventory is limited to a dozen or so slots where you can store power-ups (One-time use powerups called "Inspirations", and longer term but still not permanent powerups that enhance your powers called "Enhancements").
The only currency to speak of is "Influence"-- which can only be gained by defeatomg bad guys, and which can be used to obtain Inspirations and Enhancements to a degree...
But the focus of the game is pretty much to get your your bad (err, "Good" I should say) super-hero self together with some super hero buddies, form a super-hero team, and go beat some evil-doer butt.
Extremely satisfying, and delightfully free (in my opinion) of feeling like you're "level grinding". Plus, designing your very own super-hero outfit is disturbingly satisfying.

...to bring it back to the discussion about virtual economies, the choice of the developers in this particular game to exclude such things really, for me at least, makes the game more enjoyable, and just seems to work with the comic book theme.

Here's Garriott's take on Tabula Rasa about a year ago.

I believe that the market will force the MMOG industry to abolish the up-front fee within a few years. Some publishers are already doing that (and more), but the majority seem dead-set on requiring me to pay $49.95 to test the waters. This has kept me away from some that I might otherwise enjoy. Those that offer free trials are in the minority, and should do more to tout their low-barrier-to-entry. Horizons, made by the same folks who brought us the excellent Mordor, might be good, but until about ten minutes ago, I had assumed that they, too, required the initial investment to try out.

Commercial and shareware demos exist because there's so much competition there -- consumers can usually overlook a title that doesn't allow them to kick the tires. Given the sheer number of MMORPGs that exist, I think it it won't be long before their publishers follow suit. Guild Wars' model -- free play, with sales generated from expansions -- is a great way to differentiate it from other games. And what better way to hook someone? C'mon, man. The first one's free.
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Amusing trivia: Will Wright on his first game, Raid on Bungeling Bay: "I found that I was having more fun actually creating and editing these islands than I was actually bombing them in the game."

We had a TERRIBLE time with the Sasser worm at work today. When I went home afterward I decided to run the Windows Updates (that I almost never do) to patch my game machine at home. My XP-Pro machine on a cable-modem was running clean (I've been playing City of Heroes since Saturday) before the Windows Updates. Ran the patches. Rebooted. Hangs on reboot. Hangs on reboot again. Hangs on a third reboot. After an hour of percussion therapy I booted into Safe Mode w/ Networking and updated a newer Video driver. Rebooted. Works fine now. It's amazing to me that Microsoft's own updates can render a machine unbootable (to a desktop).

I'm wondering if there's any way people (the world?) could begin a Class-Action Lawsuit against Microsoft for lost time, mental anguish, etc. due to their crappy software! Everytime this stuff happens I'm reminded of the Bill Gates cameo in the South Park movie. The memory of that scene never fails to make me smile!

City of Heroes looks interesting...I'm awaiting beta :)

And the game is definitely unique/different...in a good way :)

City of Heroes Link

Presumably, most people here have a fair familiarity with the MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game) phenomenon, but here's a rundown of the major products out there from my bookmarks, for anyone who's interested but not wholly informed. Feel free to correct any of this if my understanding of any of these games is in any way flawed:

Anarchy Online
Asheron's Call
Dark Age of Camelot
Everquest
Shadowbane (just released - very buggy)
A Tale in the Desert
Ultima Online

Horizons
Eve Online (final beta - close to release)
City of Heroes
Dragon Empires (in beta)
Everquest 2 (in development)
Lineage II (in development)
Star Wars Galaxies (closed beta)
Imperator (very early development)
World of Warcraft (very early development)

Most of these games don't release specific subscriber base numbers. However, a series of very good guesses is compiled here.

It's about a superhero who couldn't give a toss about saving the world.

One point in the story line was that there were multiple universes. In one of these universes it was all populated with superheros and only one normal person, who was being pestered the heck out of.

In a world where everyone wants to be a hero, who plays the normal people?

One of the things, well really the only thing that makes MMORPG's is the human element. I think this alone is what may stunt the growth of such games. If all the normal characters are NPC's then there are no worries about secret identitys and a lot of players will treat the NPC's as fog of war.

By the way, anyone who can't wait until 2005 I recommend you check out City of Heroes which plans to Beta test in early 2003 and has some nice movies of the gameplay. They also have a very indepth FAQ (Geek level :)

There is a super-hero MMORPG already in the works that will let you roll your own hero. Should be out sometime next year. It is called City of Heroes

Hopefully Sony will buy out NCSoft before City of Heroes comes out. Screw Star Wars, being PKed by half a jillion identical Dark Jedi named Darth HaX0r0048 doesn't appeal to me.

A large order of Justice with a scoop of Truth and The American Way on top, now, THAT'S a game.

That being said, City of Heroes looks pretty damned cool.

Yes it does, however the only thing it is lacking is the ability of being a villan. This may cause for some not so exciting and repetitive action, with everyone day after day battling the same AI. I guess with the exception of the Arena combat the FAQ talks about. What I would like to see is Rockstar get into the worlds of MMORPGs, maybe a Liberty City simulator, (AKA GTA4), where people can choose what kind a hood or vigilante they'd want to be, Mafia, Triad, Diablo or otherwise common hood. But if that ever came out, I think I'd lose my job, girlfriend and all ambitions in life. (So bad idea, don't listen to me Rockstar...)

From what I hear this will actually be pretty different in the structure. I hate dealing with the I'm IRC'ing feeling that I get while trying MMORPGs. It's IRC with a lot of clicking.

That being said, City of Heroes looks pretty damned cool. One thing I think a lot of the RPGs are missing is an actual real-time realistic combat system. If I'm holding two swords, or a sword and a shield, I want to be able to use both the way I want to. I don't want any autoblocking, or a 'Two handed slash attack'. I want to see realistic fighting in these games.

I know it takes a lot more resources to code, and handle, but damnit it would be sweet.