The Business of Paragon City

Forbes Magazine is running an interesting article discussing the business side of the MMOG City of Heroes. It has some interesting background on the backer and some surprisingly detailed technical info about the game. "In the 18 months before the Heroes debut, Cryptic's staff of 35 made the art and story come alive in 480,000 lines of code. The code is separated into 740 computer instruction files that handle everything from dressing up a character in an almost infinite selection of outfits (a total 10 to the 27th power, in fact) to flying through the city, as well as 25,000 graphics files. At peak hours 30,000 automated villains roam each of ten versions of the city. "

Comments

30,000?

[chris_mahan]

>At peak hours 30,000 automated villains roam each of ten versions of the city

That's nuthin.

At peak hours 500,000 slashdotters roam the only version of the slashdot city.

30000 Villans!?

[glowimperial]

No wonder Paragon City needs so many heroes. Property values there must be terrible, with crime levels like that. I bet the homeowner's organisations are pissed as hell and not taking it anymore.

Re:30000 Villans!?

[Winterblink]

Just don't walk around with any valuables near the main training areas. A little look near Paragon City Hall and you'll see old ladies getting mugged -- and a whole lot of high level heroes not doing anything about it. :)

Plain old MMO

[l1nuxpunk]

City of Heroes is really fun, but it's nothing special. It's just an MMO.

I played it for a while, a few months back; and once the initial thrill of being a superhero (ie- I get to use fire beams!) wears off (ie- Why am I in tights?), it's just a boring MMO. If you can prove that treadmilling is some how better when you're a superhero, feel free to enlighten me.

Re:Plain old MMO

[NiceGeek]

If you've got a good team of people to play with it really changes things. Last night I had the best time ever in the game with a group of folks I'd never met before. Had so much fun we're going to form a Supergroup.

Re:Plain old MMO

[kannibal_klown]

Yeh.

I actually stoppled playing after 2 months. It was just "arrest bad guys, lvl up, buy enhancements, arrest bad guys, lvl up, etc." It grew tiring quickly, plus my character sucked. It looked like adult Trunks from Dragon Ball GT and had poor powers.

But then release 2 came out, so I figured I'd try one more month. After all, what's $15 USD. Anyway, I started a new character, and before long I had a cape (ooooh, cape).

However, I'm currently going to continue my subscription, not so much because of the level grind, but because I've hooked up with a friendly super group. It's kind of like a "clan" in FPS game. You're part of the group, and you guys go off and do missions together when you're online (if you feel like it).

Now, while it might sound lame, consider this. My biggest pet-peeve about online games is the sheer number of jerks out there: be it FPS games, MMORPG games, or RTS games. Normally you have inconsiderate b@stards or complete idiots ruining your day. But now, I I'm pretty much gauranteed to be able to play with a set of people that:
a) are not jerks
b) are decent players
c) are willing to lend a hand if I'm in a tight spot or give advice.
d) did I mention they're not jerks

This alone makes the game a lot more fun and bearable.

I'll probably stop playing again in a few weeks; but for now I'm having some fun.

Re:Plain old MMO

[Rhys]

You're playing to level. No kidding it's going to be boring, that's likely playing FFT to get all your crew to level 99. (Or worse as friend's I've known, use degenerator traps to level up as a high gain class, level down as a low gain, lather, rinse, repeat.)

Go out to do missions. Go to get badges. Go do task forces. Read the clues you get in story arcs. Find a roleplaying supergroup and actually role-play rather than blast the enemy to smithereens. Teach newbies the ropes.

One of the other great things about paragon city is even if you've quit and are now returning 6 months later, your equipment hasn't been outdated by the new stuff most other games use to keep people on the treadmill. There was a level cap boost providing a small additional treadmill, but if you're doing missions and such I doubt you'll notice the levels going by -- heck, last mission set I had I intentionally got a whole level of debt to retard my progress -- I was levelling TOO FAST to see the content (20-25 range).

That can be annoying itself, but hey at least I di dn't have to street sweep!

Re:Plain old MMO

[slaker]

I can't prove it, all opinion being subjective, after all, but I've wanted to have a decent super-hero game for a long, long time. I bought "Freedom Force" and "Superhero League of Hoboken" to support the genre, and that's originally why I bought CoH.

I wouldn't say I an MMO person. I never felt even a moment's interest in Everquest or DAoC. But I played CoH for my introductory month and I found it on the whole to be a lot of fun. The settings might be repetitive but I've had great fun pursuing the various story arcs and discovering the hows and whys of Paragon City.

Now I have a high-level character (I'll ding 45 this weekend), and to be honest I haven't really noticed the "grinding" aspect. I've mostly had a very good time with the people I play with (very small asshole factor) and I'm finally to the point of learning the "big picture" of the game; interdimensional wars among incarnations of the Prussian Prince of Automatons (by the way, I LOVE the conception of Nemesis... he has a great classic villain feel), Rikti suborning peaceful Hydra-men for war against Earth, the origins of the Freakshow and Devouring Earth, all these things have unfolded from reading the mission notes and paying attention to villain comments while I adventured.

In City of Heroes I really feel like I'm unique. I've met other people with roughly my combination of powers, but in playing I really DO feel powerful and heroic. It's a small thing that someone comes up to thank you when you defeat a villain on the streets of Peregrine Island, but I have to say it's a damn sight more than I remember getting in all those Fantasy games I played growing up. Because everything is instanced, I really am the person who gets to end the menace of Dr. Vahzilok... no two-day-long camps for the ultra rare Dr. Vahz spawn! And when my missions and contacts send me out of zones populated by Vahzilok's minions, I come away with the sense that, yes, I really DID stop the zombies from destroying the city. Even now, months after I did it, if I happen to click on a citizen wandering through town, she might remind me: "I heard that Angry-Frenchman gave Dr. Vahzilok the thrashing of a lifetime!".

I know it's all artificial, but it's a lot closer than I might ever have hoped to a fully-realized super hero world. I'm more than happy to take part in it.

10o000o00o0000o000o000

[Anonymous Coward]

That many combination of clothes, and my wife will still have nothing to wear :)

Darn lameness filter.

Couldn't resist

[redog]

Almost is almost the same word as virtually.
Virtually is almost the same word as almost.
Almost is virtually the same word as virtually.
Virtually is virtually the same word as almost.

Head Games

[jfisherwa]

We formed the 70's Supergroup Foreigner.

(We smoke as we shoot the bird.)

Re:Head Games

[Beyond_GoodandEvil]

Cool did you get the Foreigner belt?

Just you wait

[MacroRex]

So you want something like this? It's been announced etc. already, just no ETA yet.

Should take care of the n+1 punks whining at the lack of PvP. Also, should make the PvE side cleaner, as I've noticed that many of the inconsiderate and immature people I've met in the game seem to be waiting for CoV. It doesn't interest me much as my playstyle is very casual, but it'll be nice to get rid of the most obnoxious individuals who only make the game worse for the others.