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City of Heroes MMO Leaps Tall Buildings?
Decaffeinated Jedi writes "This week, GameSpy is serving up a variety of articles regarding Cryptic Studios' upcoming massively multiplayer superhero PC roleplaying game, City of Heroes (following up on its December 2003 preview). The preview offers hands-on impressions of the game, a look at the origin and ongoing adventures of Kingblade (an in-game character created by one of the editors), a roundtable with the developers, several screenshot galleries, and more. City of Heroes is currently in beta and scheduled for released on April 27, 2004. Will it join the ranks of Freedom Force in breaking the legendary superhero game curse? Only time will tell, true believers!" There's more info on this NCSoft-published game at COH Stratics and the official site.
This game truly should have been done with a mor exaggerated or comic-book-ish style of art.
I see the screenshots, and it just looks to me like an x-men movie would have looked if they kept the blue and yellow spandex. Visually, it seems disjointed. The models are too close to photorealism, the effects too snazzy for the costumes and subject matter to work.
At the very least, I'd de-emphasize the comic-booky style costumes - but i'd prefer the art more stylized: more exaggerated characterization, exaggerated heroic posing, a less sharp image, kinda ham it up a bit.
maybe it's a minor quibble - but I think it's fairly important to establish mood and genre. Spandex-style superheroes are not mainstream culture the way black leather is (xmen, matrix). And spandex just doesn't look right in a more photorealistic setting.
I'm not saying the graphics are -bad-, they just don't fit the game. Either the visuals are presented too 'realistic' for a more casual gameplay, or the gameplay and visuals are too realistic for the costumes.
Consider World of Warcraft -- the thing oozes consistent style with their professed gameplay. It all seems to fit together. Then look at the screenshots for City of Heroes: undoubtedly well crafted, a beautiful engine - but the heroes, their poses, and half their powers just look out of place.
Maybe it'll be a fun game, but you gotta wonder if the conflicted focus carries through to the gameplay.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
So lemme get this straight...there are no bad guy players? Everyone's good? That sucks! The idea of being a Dr. Octopus or Riddler or Lex Luther or something and trying to orchestrate crimes without getting caught, not to mention trying to kill the do-gooders, would have been a blast! I think they're seriously missing out on a demogrphic here.
--trb
"
One social feature of the game that deserves special mention is the "sidekick" feature. In a typical massively multiplayer game, high-level characters can't really effectively adventure with low-level characters -- if your friends develop their characters past you, you might as well kiss them goodbye.
City of Heroes combats that problem in a way that fits in with the title's "all action, no hassle" gameplay. If you want to team up with a high-level character, you become that character's "sidekick." All of your existing powers are souped up, almost to the level of your mentor's, so you can participate in all of the high-level missions. The experience a sidekick gets will only be proportional to his/her level, but at least nobody gets left out of the action. It's a fun way to make sure that everyone can enjoy the game, and it fits in perfectly with superhero fiction."
Anyone that has played MMO's will appreciate this feature. I like to play with my wife on Dark Age of Camelot, but I find that it takes her about 10x as long to XP her toons up as me, unless I spend all my time PL'n her. This is a way for me to play at my pace, and include my non-junkie friends in the adventures without having to feel like I need to slow down or them get discouraged they are left behind.
This game looks great, I will definately give it a try.
I'm still waiting for a good console MMORPG. A video card to support this probably wouldn't be too bad, but I've yet to see a breakout MMORPG for console. Unfortunately, I think that'll have to wait until the next gen of console games, I've a feeling that console MMORPGs are holding back for things like PS3s.
Popular culture is far more than youth culture friend. The 'leather clad' look my attract the teens and tweens, but there are an awful lot of thirtysomethings and fortysomething playing MMOGs, and we remember the superhero's of our youths.
I'm sorry to say that the more I read about this game, the worse and worse it sounds. It looks like the only thing "massive" on Cryptic's hands is a massive failure. There's this little problem of no PC villians. 'Nuff said. I'm brushing off the "it would be too hard to do" or "they looked at it" excuse--that is no excuse. It wouldn't have been the first game to have a sucessful system with evil PCs.
** A Sketch a Week **
http://www.sketchplease.com
I think it's fairly obvious by now that the major publishers suddenly woke up sometime in late January and said, "Hey, there is no market for MMOs!" Microsoft canceling Mythica and Ubisoft dropping Uru and Matrix Online are demonstrative of the sudden realization that MMOs are not the goldmine they were once perceived as.
Personally, I hope City of Heros does well, if only to further the cause of good superhero games, that is (assuming that it is good). The post by weasel to this story makes a good case for a wasted opportunity by the makers of City of Heroes on not creating a highly stylized and "mood-inducing" game, though. Also, the this-game-is-simple angle might work, but I wonder how many people will justify paying $49.99 + $X/month for game that seems to lack depth. Simplicity as an extension of a way to capture that ever-elusive mainstream market surely didn't help either Uru or the Sims Online. Moreover, my guess is that in terms of polish and accesible design, any game that's out now probably won't stand much of a chance against Blizzard's World of Warcraft.
My guess is that City of Heroes barely missed the cut. I can't help but wonder that if City of Heroes were anything but almost finished, NCSoft, or any smart publisher, would have pulled the plug on it.
I can't tell if you're arguing with me, or not.
On a personal asthetic level I agree with you - I'd prefer they make the game more like the comic books of yore - with the outrageous costumes, the goofy cliches, stylized architecture, etc. I would not fault them however, for going for a more 'realistic', dark-and-trendy, approach.
I just wish they would be consistant with one approach or the other. Their game is somewhere in between and it just doesn't look right.
They are keeping the spandex-style outfits but the rest of their game looks straight out of the new trendy 'realistic' book (the models, the environments, the posing, the colors, etc)
Everything aside from the costumes emphasizes plausibility and realism over exaggeration and heroism. It conflicts visually.
Again, I'd prefer they make it look like a comic book -- maybe not cell-shaded, but certainly exaggerated, 'heroic', colorful, dramatic, etc.
What they have now, is comic-book-ish textures on 'realistic' models. Animations that are kinetically sound, not heroic or exciting. The settings are architecturally plausible rather than dramatic.
The heroes in this game wear the same clothes as comic-book heroes - but they don't look like Superman. They don't brood like Wolverine, Hang like Spidey, fly like Superman, strike-a-standing-pose like Captain America, or drive cars like the Batmobile. When they punch it looks like you or I swinging - not like Hulk Smash.
The entire game, with the exception of the costumes represent the photorealism and 'plausibility' trend. I'm just saying the two elements conflict. You can't do both. It doesn't say 'grey, gritty, realism', nor does it say POW! 'We're Superheroes Dammit!'(pun-intended).
It tries to do both, and accomplishes neither. Regardless of which way would be 'better', simply picking one or the other and being consistant would be better than what they have.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
City of Heroes is a huge disappointment. Not sure how many of you have actually followed its development, other than looking at the occasionaly screenshot, but it's been a constant story of 'that's too hard.'
The developers have had MMORPG experience. Instead of using that experience to improve themselves and innovate, they are using that as an excuse NOT to innovate, "Our experience shows that it's not a good idea to even try that."
Every major decision that a MMORPG could make has been answered that same way. Can I do foo? 'No, that causes too many problems.' Did you make a solution for X? 'X is something that will ALWAYS happen in MMORPGs.'
I thought at first that it seemed like they just weren't trying. Then it seemed more like they were actively NOT trying. Every choice they made seemed to be calculated to make life easier on the developers instead of making a better game, or a better experience for the player.
I started to become disinterested.
Then they started releasing their video clips. That's was finally chased me away. In a game about SuperHeroes, they showed a clip of a person who's super powers were...a glowing sword, and shooting fireballs. They took this person and went into a dungeon, and started wiping the floor with henchmen (goblins.)
They had taken a normal fantasy MMORPG, hadn't changed one ounce of formula, simply put a different skin on it. It was a deathblow to any interest I ever had in the game.
Suggestions for a better game:
1. Super Villians. i.e. PvP. What could be more natural? Good Guys vs Bag Guys.
bah...I'm not interested anymore...I'm not going to make a list.
Or rather, the interface sucked when you had to control more than one character. Play Superhero League of Hoboken; that's a good superhero game.
Rob