test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
My State of the Game, October 2013
canadascott
Posts: 1,257 Arc User
Last year at about this time, I posted my thoughts on the state of Champions Online. Almost immediately thereafter, the game was pretty much dropped like a hot potato and with the exception of the Leviathan alert, it was dead as a stone until Neverwinter went beta. Since then, with Crush and Splosions working on power sets in their spare time and Cryptic North producing Forum Malvanum, Fatal Err0r, and bugfixes aplenty, we've had a minor renaissance. So how optimistic should we be?
My answer: be happy with wjat we're getting, but make no mistake, while much of what is being done is necessary and good, it's not going to excite players who aren't part of the player base.
Looking over the history of this game, two things are evident:
1 Vibora Bay was our last major expansion. Don't expect anything that requires a huge money and time investment ever again. Don't expect anything that requires a major revisiting of code.
There will be no Foundry. There will be no new zones. There will be no major nemesis expansion. There will be no end game revision. There will be no new Comic Series or Adventure Packs. There will be no customizable SG bases. There may be Hideout expansions, but that's extremely unlikely. There will be no Lair review. There will be no minizones, like Vibora Bay prelude. There will be no villain side. Millennium City will remain the way it is. There will be no Champions Online 2.
Yes, I'm in the depressed resignation stage of MMO grieving.
Cryptic simply does not believe this title is worth the risk of an even modest investment, and they may not be wrong. The code for this game is a mess and has been for a very long time. That this title could have (and should be) more profitable had some things been done differently -- well, life's too short to deal with might have beens.
It's time to let those go and focus on the possibles, which are small, but can still produce a good, enjoyable title.
2. This game is not going away any time soon. We've heard DOOM! since launch. Aiion, Going Rogue, DCUO, Cataclysm... was there ever a game that was allegedly doomed more times than this one? (Maybe WoW.
) The only thing that's proven more wrong than sunny optimism is DOOM!
If I was a betting man, I'd say we'll make our fifth anniversary. Whether we go completely into maintenance mode is another matter, but my slightly educated guess is that we'll have the same level of development that were seeing at the moment for at least the next six months and (barring a major collapse at Crytpic) through to the next anniversary.
Why am I encouraged? Aside from reading between the lines on dev rumblings, believe it or not, it's the inclusion of a wing and tail slider. Here's a feature that no one asked for, which everyone likes, that was initiated by someone at Cryptic North. That sort of initiative is the sign of a production team that's having fun and not just going through the motions ? someone in Seattle is passionate enough about this game to enjoy tweaking the derails and experimenting with possibilities, and that's wonderful to see.
But the game population and the dev investment is simply too low for me to do more than offer an occasional surprised smile.
That said, things can be done to improve the game, and since I am, as always, an opinionated ex-game designer, here are my suggestions:
Handling the Lowbies
With Smashes gone, players who like to alt and those who were addicted to alerts are getting the shakes. Here's a couple of solutions for the no alert Lowbie blues.
1. The Training Room
This is simply an area designed specifically for low levels to group and get XP together. This toom, identical to the Battle instance in the powerhouse, where you can run a combat simulation against VIPER, Argent, DEMON, or one of the Westside gangs. The fiction behind this is that Defender wants to help prep you for the field.
Players in two brackets (5-8, enemies set to L8) and (9-12, enemies set to L12) can queue for a team of 3 (we'll save teams of five for Alerts and the open world) and fight level appropriate foes. Completing a training ground sequence will yield a 15% experience bonus (as per a Grab alert), and a (500 x Level) XP award.
After each successful training mission, there's a 20 minute cooldown before the queue becomes available. Yes, I want to force you into the open world and actually play some main game content, or at least socialize a bit if you don't feel like running Westside. Yes, I am evil, a jerk, and all those other names you use in Zone chat. Why do you ask?
2. Canada/The Desert
You know how we keep going back and forth on Canada and the Desert as leveling paths'? It's time to change them yet again.
Let' revert the two crises to L6-8, and the early game content to 9-14 (in Canada, all the missions as far as Redsnake in Canada and Talisman in the Desert. Three leveling options for alts beats one any day. Yes, there'll be a content gap at 15-18. Let alerts and door missions fill those.
Events
Last year, I came down really heavily on Events. I'm a little less snarky now, but I'm not especially convinced that they do much to raise game population, at least over the long term.
I don't mind big events, and certainly having 6-8 big ones (at the moment, we have: Anniversary, Bloodmoon, Clarence, Lemuria, Nighthawk, April Fool's, and Independence Day) that can be rotated once per year keeps things from getting too stale. But I'd suggest that once you finish 1-2 more major ones, that you move on to smaller events.
Once every month, have Nemesis Day, where hourly someone's nemesis (tuned for five L40 players) randomly appears every twenty minutes in a random location in Millennium City, and drops a box of Questionite when beaten. If it's your nemesis, you get a bonus!
Hold the Great VIPER Hunt, also once per month, where random VIPER mobs appear hourly throughout the city. These VIPERs have a chance to drop Questionite boxes, but one VIPER agent has a 10000 Q reward: find him and collect it! When he's eliminated, the hordes vanish.
Have Lair Day, once per week on Saturdays. Each weekend, a new lair cycles into a queue; completing them on the same day awards Questionite, either 1000 (Awakening), 2000 (Teleios, VIPER, Moreau, or Necrull), 4000 (Andrith, Mandragalore, NemCon), or 6000 (Therakiel), doubled if played on the Elite setting.
Hold Adventure Day, once per week on Sundays Each weekend, a new adventure pack or comic series rotates into the queue, awarding 4000 Questionite (doubled on the Elite setting) if completed that day.
Hold Monster Killer Horror Tuesdays. Once each week, giant versions of some of the game's uglier critters appear hourly in remote locations in Canada, the Desert, and Monster Island, dropping Monster sidekicks and the occasional Become Monster and monster costume piece.
Consider also a few other special holiday events:
Hold Mardi Gras in Vibora, where all Vibora missions grant double their normal XP awards, and completing a special version of one of the missions (perhaps the Crimson Lounge mission) gives you bonus Drifter salvage and a perk and a Caliburn temporary backup.
Hold Canada Day on July 1. Run Necrull's lair on that day for a temporary Justiciar backup, and a small chance at a permanent one.
Hold Detroit Remembrance Day on July 23, the anniversary of the Battle of Detroit. On this day, XP, Recognition, and resource rewards for all Destroids are doubled, and you can take a special "Day to Remember" mission to reread the plaques in the Park, complete the Destroid Factory lair, and attend a memorial service in the park (a cutscene with Defender and Biselle saying a few words remembering the tragedy) for five Drifter salvage and a perk.
Alerts
Some further tweaks and additions need to be made to alerts.
We need at least one more Rampage and Burst type.
Replace the generic Nemesii in Dockside Nemesis with established characters. There are plenty of in-game villains that could be used here, and quite a few PnP villains who are visually more interesting.
Revisit the rewards for UNTIL Sky Carrier. A small chance to drop the latest lockbox vehicle would be nice, and scale up the Defense and Utility mods above L1. Use the same criteria that you use in Burst alerts.
Lairs
It's been indicated that the code for Lairs is a mess and that any significant change might wreck the lairs. Fine. Even so, look at revisiting some of the boss fights, sub-bosses, and rewards and see if you can boost them without wrecking the lair.
PVP
PVP needs to be rejuvenated. The community of dirty rat bastard PVPers can only do so much. Allow Acclaim to be traded for Questionite, and add some new items to the Acclaim store. Give Zombie Apocalypse a daily mission for Q. I'm sure our PVP community has their own ideas.
Make this a legitimate part of the game, not a sideshow.
Cosmics
Please reduce the spawn timers to something like 75 +1d50 minutes and upscale the rewards.
Vehicles
My main objection to vehicles in Champions Online is not that they're genre inappropriate (there are plenty of yehicles in comics) or that they overshadow our heroes (with the exception of some weapons that are ideal for farming, they don't), but that early releases didn't look like vehicles in the genre (more appropriate to an SF game) and that vehicle releases came at the expense of new costumes, emotes, etc. With the promise of new C-store costume sets and vehicles that look like they could have been designed by Kirby, my objections are largely muted. We'll never get decent ground vehicles, alas, but feel free to add some closer approximations to the mix.
Lockboxes
My only comment. I'm glad they're making money for Cryptic, but I'm sorry they've displaced C-store releases. Beyond that, I'll let others complain. They're far more passionate about the evils of these depraved containers of sin and vlle darkness than I am.
Nemesis
No, I can't let this go. Sorry.
I know what's been said, but please, please! reconsider adding Earth, Wind, and Heavy Weapon power sets to nemesii. Please also consider adding 8-10 more minions to the minion editor.
If you won't add new Archetypes or make varying start/end missions for the three existing types, please consider adding a SG Nemesis that a SG Leader can unlock weekly to battle the team. Let them generate a team nemesis, designate one of six hideouts (Crimelord hideout, Mad scientist hideout, Magician hideout, Martial arts villain hideout, Cosmic villain hideout, and Sewer villain hideout). Each of these is a medium sized hideout (feel free to liberally recycle pieces to make them easy to construct) with some tough minion groups leading to a nasty end battle with the SG nemesis.
There are unique rewards for the mission, and (if feasible) bonuses for beating the SG record completion time.
Social Instances/Hideouts
I don't think we need more social instances, though more sets for GMs to run RP events is always welcome. [Note once again to the anti-RP "no one's ever there" crowd; the point of these sets is to have an environment available to a GM when he wants to run a scenario, especially when they're running for more than four players. It's NOT to have an instance that is robustly populated 24/7.]
That said, there is one Social Instance that was taken away that I want to see return, and that's the Fighting Dojo in Westside. That was a staple of a lot of SG groups martial arts RP, as well as a decent costume contest venue. Ideally, it would be great to get back all three of the lost instances, but the Dojo was the most frequently used in RP in a long way.
If we can't get a Tim Horton's for the Canada zone, it would be nice to have the interior of Steelhead from Whiteout available as a social instance. Minus all the blood, of course.
Hideouts are probably not very cost effective to produce, however please consider adding that tropical beach getaway that Robobo was fond of. Just clip a bit of Monster Island with a nice beach area and a dock. Even if there's little to no customization, and you activate your bank and tailor by clicking on a hut, it would still be nice to have a small environment to serve as a summer vacation spot. Similarly, you could also clip one of the Vibora Bay graveyards and use it for some of our occult oriented players. People may complain that they wouldn't be worth 500 zen, but the Penthouse was highly underpriced.
Cosmetics
The costuming community, despite some sneers about this game being "a paper doll" game, has always been important to Champions Online.
Keep supporting them with new C-store sets. Sets for new hairstyles, uniforms, and new civilian clothes styles would be especially welcome. Revisit the old hairstyles, please.
Consider adding emblem size and position sliders.
Keep the emote packs coming. Give us the full range of NPC emotes.
I'm really looking forward to auras. I do hope there is an option to turn off our current Passive auras.
City of Heroes Fans
The "refugees" from CoX have largely been a positive and more needs to be done to keep this part of the player base happy.
Obviously, SG bases and the Foundry are the two things that they'd love most in this game. Unfortunately, as I said earlier, I don't believe we'll ever see them. But there are things we can do to help CoXers recreate their favorite characters more closely. Identify power sets (hint: elemental melee, sonic, and staves), costume pieces, emotes, and environments that were popular in that game, and create similar ones for Champions Online. I suspect these will have appeal beyond the refugee community.
Storytelling and Lore Development
One thing that I believe could stand to be beefed up is how we tell the stories. I;m thinking of how we present lore, not necessarily adding content; I'd like to add lore cutscenes when appropriate to set up the story, particular to throw the spotlight on groups, villains, and locations.
I can hear the screams right now. Not that I care what you think, but I'm talking about cutscenes that are player prompted (not automatic) don''t interrupt combat, and which may be exited at any time with the ESC key, and hopefully well acted. Does that make you feel any better?
I think there are probably at least a dozen places in game which could benefit from a cutscene presentation of lore. Here are a few:
1. VIPER ? who are these guys? A brief history, spotlight on some of the nastier agent types, their villains and vehicles. You can talk with someone in UNTIL HQ, Steelhead, and Greenskin to get the briefing.
2. ARGENT -- similar deal.
3. Foxbat. Available from Julie Morgan at the start of the Foxbat chain. This one should be fun.
4. Club Caprice. Talk to a bouncer to get a brief history of the club, what it's all about, code of personal conduct.
5. The Battle of Detroit. We really should have a cinematic flashback of the battle. The dramatic possibilities are such that it's a real waste that we don't have one. Why don't we have one?
6. The Gadroon. These guys nearly conquered the world until Destroyer showed up on our side. There is a great story to be told here.
7. UNITY. The first time you enter UNITY HQ, tell us about the team and the organization.
8. The Star*Guard/Star*Guardians. You may never get to develop these boys, but it wouldn't hurt to give us an advance peek, available from Socrates or in UNITY.
Also, Mechanon. Give him a debut soon, and make it a big one.
Community Involvement
I'll reiterate what I've said elsewhere. Our community is small, but there's some enormously talented people here. Where you can, give them access to tools that let them participate.
Commuication
It's good to see dev communication on the upswing. Every modern MMO needs a communicative and accessible dev community. Looking forward to the blogs.
In Conclusion
Like many other MMOs, Champions Online is rather moribund. I think we're stuck in a cycle where the game needs something big to rejuvenate it, and we're not likely to get it. Enjoy what you've got folks, not what we might have gotten. And truthfully, even with our current dev resources, we can still have nice new things on a regular basis.
However, the Thing that Sucks the Most...
Two other things have made this game poorer over the last year: the deaths of Angel of Caine and H2Orat, joining Andy Matthews (who's remembered in Matthews Park and who was also stolen from us by cancer at far too young an age) in the great Champions game in the sky.
Real life always trumps the game. If you can folks, give to cancer research and hospices as generously as you can. Be a hero.
My answer: be happy with wjat we're getting, but make no mistake, while much of what is being done is necessary and good, it's not going to excite players who aren't part of the player base.
Looking over the history of this game, two things are evident:
1 Vibora Bay was our last major expansion. Don't expect anything that requires a huge money and time investment ever again. Don't expect anything that requires a major revisiting of code.
There will be no Foundry. There will be no new zones. There will be no major nemesis expansion. There will be no end game revision. There will be no new Comic Series or Adventure Packs. There will be no customizable SG bases. There may be Hideout expansions, but that's extremely unlikely. There will be no Lair review. There will be no minizones, like Vibora Bay prelude. There will be no villain side. Millennium City will remain the way it is. There will be no Champions Online 2.
Yes, I'm in the depressed resignation stage of MMO grieving.
Cryptic simply does not believe this title is worth the risk of an even modest investment, and they may not be wrong. The code for this game is a mess and has been for a very long time. That this title could have (and should be) more profitable had some things been done differently -- well, life's too short to deal with might have beens.
It's time to let those go and focus on the possibles, which are small, but can still produce a good, enjoyable title.
2. This game is not going away any time soon. We've heard DOOM! since launch. Aiion, Going Rogue, DCUO, Cataclysm... was there ever a game that was allegedly doomed more times than this one? (Maybe WoW.
) The only thing that's proven more wrong than sunny optimism is DOOM!If I was a betting man, I'd say we'll make our fifth anniversary. Whether we go completely into maintenance mode is another matter, but my slightly educated guess is that we'll have the same level of development that were seeing at the moment for at least the next six months and (barring a major collapse at Crytpic) through to the next anniversary.
Why am I encouraged? Aside from reading between the lines on dev rumblings, believe it or not, it's the inclusion of a wing and tail slider. Here's a feature that no one asked for, which everyone likes, that was initiated by someone at Cryptic North. That sort of initiative is the sign of a production team that's having fun and not just going through the motions ? someone in Seattle is passionate enough about this game to enjoy tweaking the derails and experimenting with possibilities, and that's wonderful to see.
But the game population and the dev investment is simply too low for me to do more than offer an occasional surprised smile.
That said, things can be done to improve the game, and since I am, as always, an opinionated ex-game designer, here are my suggestions:
Handling the Lowbies
With Smashes gone, players who like to alt and those who were addicted to alerts are getting the shakes. Here's a couple of solutions for the no alert Lowbie blues.
1. The Training Room
This is simply an area designed specifically for low levels to group and get XP together. This toom, identical to the Battle instance in the powerhouse, where you can run a combat simulation against VIPER, Argent, DEMON, or one of the Westside gangs. The fiction behind this is that Defender wants to help prep you for the field.
Players in two brackets (5-8, enemies set to L8) and (9-12, enemies set to L12) can queue for a team of 3 (we'll save teams of five for Alerts and the open world) and fight level appropriate foes. Completing a training ground sequence will yield a 15% experience bonus (as per a Grab alert), and a (500 x Level) XP award.
After each successful training mission, there's a 20 minute cooldown before the queue becomes available. Yes, I want to force you into the open world and actually play some main game content, or at least socialize a bit if you don't feel like running Westside. Yes, I am evil, a jerk, and all those other names you use in Zone chat. Why do you ask?
2. Canada/The Desert
You know how we keep going back and forth on Canada and the Desert as leveling paths'? It's time to change them yet again.
Let' revert the two crises to L6-8, and the early game content to 9-14 (in Canada, all the missions as far as Redsnake in Canada and Talisman in the Desert. Three leveling options for alts beats one any day. Yes, there'll be a content gap at 15-18. Let alerts and door missions fill those.
Events
Last year, I came down really heavily on Events. I'm a little less snarky now, but I'm not especially convinced that they do much to raise game population, at least over the long term.
I don't mind big events, and certainly having 6-8 big ones (at the moment, we have: Anniversary, Bloodmoon, Clarence, Lemuria, Nighthawk, April Fool's, and Independence Day) that can be rotated once per year keeps things from getting too stale. But I'd suggest that once you finish 1-2 more major ones, that you move on to smaller events.
Once every month, have Nemesis Day, where hourly someone's nemesis (tuned for five L40 players) randomly appears every twenty minutes in a random location in Millennium City, and drops a box of Questionite when beaten. If it's your nemesis, you get a bonus!
Hold the Great VIPER Hunt, also once per month, where random VIPER mobs appear hourly throughout the city. These VIPERs have a chance to drop Questionite boxes, but one VIPER agent has a 10000 Q reward: find him and collect it! When he's eliminated, the hordes vanish.
Have Lair Day, once per week on Saturdays. Each weekend, a new lair cycles into a queue; completing them on the same day awards Questionite, either 1000 (Awakening), 2000 (Teleios, VIPER, Moreau, or Necrull), 4000 (Andrith, Mandragalore, NemCon), or 6000 (Therakiel), doubled if played on the Elite setting.
Hold Adventure Day, once per week on Sundays Each weekend, a new adventure pack or comic series rotates into the queue, awarding 4000 Questionite (doubled on the Elite setting) if completed that day.
Hold Monster Killer Horror Tuesdays. Once each week, giant versions of some of the game's uglier critters appear hourly in remote locations in Canada, the Desert, and Monster Island, dropping Monster sidekicks and the occasional Become Monster and monster costume piece.
Consider also a few other special holiday events:
Hold Mardi Gras in Vibora, where all Vibora missions grant double their normal XP awards, and completing a special version of one of the missions (perhaps the Crimson Lounge mission) gives you bonus Drifter salvage and a perk and a Caliburn temporary backup.
Hold Canada Day on July 1. Run Necrull's lair on that day for a temporary Justiciar backup, and a small chance at a permanent one.
Hold Detroit Remembrance Day on July 23, the anniversary of the Battle of Detroit. On this day, XP, Recognition, and resource rewards for all Destroids are doubled, and you can take a special "Day to Remember" mission to reread the plaques in the Park, complete the Destroid Factory lair, and attend a memorial service in the park (a cutscene with Defender and Biselle saying a few words remembering the tragedy) for five Drifter salvage and a perk.
Alerts
Some further tweaks and additions need to be made to alerts.
We need at least one more Rampage and Burst type.
Replace the generic Nemesii in Dockside Nemesis with established characters. There are plenty of in-game villains that could be used here, and quite a few PnP villains who are visually more interesting.
Revisit the rewards for UNTIL Sky Carrier. A small chance to drop the latest lockbox vehicle would be nice, and scale up the Defense and Utility mods above L1. Use the same criteria that you use in Burst alerts.
Lairs
It's been indicated that the code for Lairs is a mess and that any significant change might wreck the lairs. Fine. Even so, look at revisiting some of the boss fights, sub-bosses, and rewards and see if you can boost them without wrecking the lair.
PVP
PVP needs to be rejuvenated. The community of dirty rat bastard PVPers can only do so much.
Allow Acclaim to be traded for Questionite, and add some new items to the Acclaim store. Give Zombie Apocalypse a daily mission for Q. I'm sure our PVP community has their own ideas.Make this a legitimate part of the game, not a sideshow.
Cosmics
Please reduce the spawn timers to something like 75 +1d50 minutes and upscale the rewards.
Vehicles
My main objection to vehicles in Champions Online is not that they're genre inappropriate (there are plenty of yehicles in comics) or that they overshadow our heroes (with the exception of some weapons that are ideal for farming, they don't), but that early releases didn't look like vehicles in the genre (more appropriate to an SF game) and that vehicle releases came at the expense of new costumes, emotes, etc. With the promise of new C-store costume sets and vehicles that look like they could have been designed by Kirby, my objections are largely muted. We'll never get decent ground vehicles, alas, but feel free to add some closer approximations to the mix.
Lockboxes
My only comment. I'm glad they're making money for Cryptic, but I'm sorry they've displaced C-store releases. Beyond that, I'll let others complain. They're far more passionate about the evils of these depraved containers of sin and vlle darkness than I am.
Nemesis
No, I can't let this go. Sorry.
I know what's been said, but please, please! reconsider adding Earth, Wind, and Heavy Weapon power sets to nemesii. Please also consider adding 8-10 more minions to the minion editor.
If you won't add new Archetypes or make varying start/end missions for the three existing types, please consider adding a SG Nemesis that a SG Leader can unlock weekly to battle the team. Let them generate a team nemesis, designate one of six hideouts (Crimelord hideout, Mad scientist hideout, Magician hideout, Martial arts villain hideout, Cosmic villain hideout, and Sewer villain hideout). Each of these is a medium sized hideout (feel free to liberally recycle pieces to make them easy to construct) with some tough minion groups leading to a nasty end battle with the SG nemesis.
There are unique rewards for the mission, and (if feasible) bonuses for beating the SG record completion time.
Social Instances/Hideouts
I don't think we need more social instances, though more sets for GMs to run RP events is always welcome. [Note once again to the anti-RP "no one's ever there" crowd; the point of these sets is to have an environment available to a GM when he wants to run a scenario, especially when they're running for more than four players. It's NOT to have an instance that is robustly populated 24/7.]
That said, there is one Social Instance that was taken away that I want to see return, and that's the Fighting Dojo in Westside. That was a staple of a lot of SG groups martial arts RP, as well as a decent costume contest venue. Ideally, it would be great to get back all three of the lost instances, but the Dojo was the most frequently used in RP in a long way.
If we can't get a Tim Horton's for the Canada zone, it would be nice to have the interior of Steelhead from Whiteout available as a social instance. Minus all the blood, of course.
Hideouts are probably not very cost effective to produce, however please consider adding that tropical beach getaway that Robobo was fond of. Just clip a bit of Monster Island with a nice beach area and a dock. Even if there's little to no customization, and you activate your bank and tailor by clicking on a hut, it would still be nice to have a small environment to serve as a summer vacation spot. Similarly, you could also clip one of the Vibora Bay graveyards and use it for some of our occult oriented players. People may complain that they wouldn't be worth 500 zen, but the Penthouse was highly underpriced.
Cosmetics
The costuming community, despite some sneers about this game being "a paper doll" game, has always been important to Champions Online.
Keep supporting them with new C-store sets. Sets for new hairstyles, uniforms, and new civilian clothes styles would be especially welcome. Revisit the old hairstyles, please.
Consider adding emblem size and position sliders.
Keep the emote packs coming. Give us the full range of NPC emotes.
I'm really looking forward to auras. I do hope there is an option to turn off our current Passive auras.
City of Heroes Fans
The "refugees" from CoX have largely been a positive and more needs to be done to keep this part of the player base happy.
Obviously, SG bases and the Foundry are the two things that they'd love most in this game. Unfortunately, as I said earlier, I don't believe we'll ever see them. But there are things we can do to help CoXers recreate their favorite characters more closely. Identify power sets (hint: elemental melee, sonic, and staves), costume pieces, emotes, and environments that were popular in that game, and create similar ones for Champions Online. I suspect these will have appeal beyond the refugee community.
Storytelling and Lore Development
One thing that I believe could stand to be beefed up is how we tell the stories. I;m thinking of how we present lore, not necessarily adding content; I'd like to add lore cutscenes when appropriate to set up the story, particular to throw the spotlight on groups, villains, and locations.
I can hear the screams right now. Not that I care what you think, but I'm talking about cutscenes that are player prompted (not automatic) don''t interrupt combat, and which may be exited at any time with the ESC key, and hopefully well acted. Does that make you feel any better?
I think there are probably at least a dozen places in game which could benefit from a cutscene presentation of lore. Here are a few:
1. VIPER ? who are these guys? A brief history, spotlight on some of the nastier agent types, their villains and vehicles. You can talk with someone in UNTIL HQ, Steelhead, and Greenskin to get the briefing.
2. ARGENT -- similar deal.
3. Foxbat. Available from Julie Morgan at the start of the Foxbat chain. This one should be fun.
4. Club Caprice. Talk to a bouncer to get a brief history of the club, what it's all about, code of personal conduct.
5. The Battle of Detroit. We really should have a cinematic flashback of the battle. The dramatic possibilities are such that it's a real waste that we don't have one. Why don't we have one?
6. The Gadroon. These guys nearly conquered the world until Destroyer showed up on our side. There is a great story to be told here.
7. UNITY. The first time you enter UNITY HQ, tell us about the team and the organization.
8. The Star*Guard/Star*Guardians. You may never get to develop these boys, but it wouldn't hurt to give us an advance peek, available from Socrates or in UNITY.
Also, Mechanon. Give him a debut soon, and make it a big one.
Community Involvement
I'll reiterate what I've said elsewhere. Our community is small, but there's some enormously talented people here. Where you can, give them access to tools that let them participate.
Commuication
It's good to see dev communication on the upswing. Every modern MMO needs a communicative and accessible dev community. Looking forward to the blogs.
In Conclusion
Like many other MMOs, Champions Online is rather moribund. I think we're stuck in a cycle where the game needs something big to rejuvenate it, and we're not likely to get it. Enjoy what you've got folks, not what we might have gotten. And truthfully, even with our current dev resources, we can still have nice new things on a regular basis.
However, the Thing that Sucks the Most...
Two other things have made this game poorer over the last year: the deaths of Angel of Caine and H2Orat, joining Andy Matthews (who's remembered in Matthews Park and who was also stolen from us by cancer at far too young an age) in the great Champions game in the sky.
Real life always trumps the game. If you can folks, give to cancer research and hospices as generously as you can. Be a hero.
/
Post edited by canadascott on
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Forgot this the first time but allow gold members and Lifetime subs open 5-10 chest per day for free.
Of course, then I'd want to see a Dunkin' Donuts in MC, and maybe a Starbucks in Greenskin Base or VB...
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
It took you 4 years to figure this out?
I held out for 2 or 3.
But from what I perused, I think the Op and I are basically on the same page. And I'm sure we're not alone.
Unlike another poster offering a similar topic, this post remains honestly without getting overly derogatory. Of course, I can't blame anyone for feeling harshly towards CO, so much potential down the drain.
Given that there were no Adventure Packs and Comic Series four years ago, it took awhile for the data to fully come in.
That would dilute their IP and open their other games to hacking.
Also open source doesn't work without popularity there's thousands of projects to prove that. Like my Demolisher program for Champions Online and other Cryptic games' demo files, its open source, its in a stupid easy programming language with free IDE. Ain't nobody even usin' it.
My Amazon author page
How to build a freeform character...the Kenpo way
Demon Keypo's Building Guide
Freeform Builds Directory (Last updated: 04/23/2016)
Serving since September, 2009 / 65 Characters, 63 Level 40's
Optional ones along the lines of the tutorial vids in the Powerhouse but about things that happen in the world would make the game more fleshed out and feel immersive. Its just about due that we get some flashbacks of important events that brought things to the way they are in the present. Snippets of what's happening in the world.
There needs to be more fluff in the game other than just power updates and fixes. More heart.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHBYXtqmerY
No giving up.
I've stopped waiting for new content and focus instead on what CO will always do well: letting me create exactly what's in my imagination. This is why most of my suggestions focus on making powers or sets work better or giving more thematic choices.
It's still fun for me to come up with an idea, flesh it out with a costume and build, and take it out for a spin.
The poster formerly known as Lightwave!
I will be very, very happy to be proven wrong.
Confident based on what?
My Amazon author page
How to build a freeform character...the Kenpo way
Demon Keypo's Building Guide
Freeform Builds Directory (Last updated: 04/23/2016)
Serving since September, 2009 / 65 Characters, 63 Level 40's
Lol and you thought Mitt Romney would be president.
I agree completely. I particularly like how the cutscenes from some of the comic series blend animation, comic-book-style art, and voice overs. I'd love a few more of those. Harbinger/Lemuria had them and Sky Command.
But I also feel every cutscene in the game needs to be able to esc-key out after you've seen it once.
See, I really don't understand the no foundry thing. I'll assume that the game is either .net or java under the hood. I do IT staffing for a living. In most of the country, external .net developers can bill 85/hr. Java or LAMP is more expensive, runs about 100/hr. High-end UI/Graphics are more but I don't *think* the foundry uses much of that since it's mostly recycling objects, not developing new ones. In-house salary rates are about half that, less for lower-level people.
Unless I'm mistaken, I remember a dev blog from STO saying that implementing the foundry took 200 hours of development. It's amazing to me they can't scrap together between $7,000 and $20,000 to do it for Champions. Even if we assume it's harder here and will take double the effort... I mean... hell that's almost low enough to go on a credit card.
Maybe the STO dev was only talking about part of it, maybe it's way more difficult than that, maybe I totally misremembered the post, but really, this is the one thing I find the most confusing.
So little effort for such huge payoff.
As far as I could guess, this game couldn't be Java. I call C++.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
...the ultimate Contrast Moe (or not).
That explains it.
I do actual development for a living. With development, testing, QA, etc, you're going to need a lot more than 200 man hours.
I agree that a foundry would be fantastic but we need to be realistic.
Generally speaking, that's not how business works. Businesses want to maximize their return on investment (ROI). If a business has choice between spending $X on projects A or B and believes that project A will have a ROI of $Y and project B will have a ROI of $2Y, project B gets the investment.
And since most attempts to get money by investing in CO have produced lukewarm results at best, I'll hazard a guess that CO isn't going to receive a lot of investments going forward.
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
I think you may have mistaken the 200 hours of development with 200 missions of quality gameplay made by players using the Foundry. Regardless, the invested time put into developing the Foundry was a lot less effort than if they made those 200 missions themselves.
If CO wants all that content to spring up, they ought to make the Foundry. But anything put into CO now is solely put in to push sales. Foundry missions don't makes sales for some reason? I don't know. It seems that having new, regularly added content for players to play in the game is what pushes sales the most. Cryptic doesn't think that applies to CO, yet does for NWO and STO.
Also, The Foundry brings things for the authors too like a Questiontie Tipping System, Reviews, Unlocks, Perks/Titles, and so on which can be earned as an incentive to make things beyond the basics of "It would just be cool to make stuff."
The thing is that once things like this are added to CO then it actually becomes easier to market/advertise the game. Well, I guess if you want to be 100% honest doing nothing is easier than this but doing this has a more positive ending than doing nothing about it.
Join Date: Aug 2009 | Title: Devslayer
The Foundry, a new Zone, and a level cap raise.
The Foundry is my most wanted of these and sadly apparently the most unattainable. It's been said about five zillion times that the Foundry would fix every problem people have with CO (wanting more zones, wanting more customization, wanting more content, wanting more things to do, wanting a different tone, etc) so I won't harp on that. If I saw Cryptic making moves to make the Foundry in CO they'd have me as a customer for life, hands down.
A new Zone: We've been teased a few times about having a city Zone geared more towards street-level style heroes like Batman or Spiderman and while I'd love that honestly I'd just love to see ANY kind of major expansion to the game, even if it was pay to access. No, ESPECIALLY if it was pay to access, as that would give the devs incentive to work on it. Do you hear me devs? I -want- to pay you for new expansions!
Level cap would be nice to see alongside a new Zone though honestly even if we just got a level raise and we had to grind our way up to 50 or something via already existing content that would at least be SOMETHING TO DO. I haven't been logging into CO much because there is nothing to do but play content I've played a hundred times already on characters who are already level 40 and have impressively modded purples in every slot.
I cancelled my sub around the start of the month and am now coasting on a few game card codes. When they run out, I'm unlikely to re-up in any way unless I see something new and interesting out of CO. Being a Silver is better than paying for nothing. I really -hate- the idea of dropping my sub, too. I really loved this game. I still do in some ways, but it's a love that I've been all too aware for far too long is not reciprocated. So I've decided upon an exit strategy. I really want to see improvement, but I'm starting to think maybe I should just accept the not-that-graceful glide towards maintenance mode.
Not to mention authors promoting and players doing playthroughs of those missions and posting them in places like Youtube for more free advertising.
Join Date: Aug 2009 | Title: Devslayer
I haven't seen a new zone in over 2 years. I saw new zones in other MMOs within 6 months or less. I saw multiple expansions within 2 year periods, just not here.
Going back to RoI, there's just not enough here to justify heavy investment, which is why we are seeing the minor fixes that took years versus the big changes we were promised. I remember Grav being touted the first of the Rampage alerts.... yet it's still the only one. I remember Comic series being promised to in effect act as action packs. I don't think whiteout will actually ever see a continuation.
A lot of us have seen so much potential in this game, but financially its too much of a gamble for them to invest that much into an aging game. This game never had the fanbase or resources of something like WoW. I doubt it even came close to SWG during its hey day. I almost regret the time I've invested here, but then I'm reminded of all the great people I've met along the way.
At this point I expect the game to cruise along with minimal development until a decision alienates a large enough portion of the customer base that they leave in a mass exodus.
The stories (imo) in STO are better than average, enjoyed that alot. Maybe it's just me, but the missions and stories in NWO are so well written compared to other games it's not even funny. We need that here.
This is a pretty grim account of Champions Online's current state.
I'm not sure what makes me sadder, the state of the game right now or hearing about Angel of Caine...
That's really too bad, because I've been hoping for the past year-and-a-half that it might convince me to give in another chance, sadly it seems ol' Tiga's days as a Superhero will remain on hold.
I still remember my time in Champions Online quite fondly, even when the future didn't look so bright and I do hope others get that opportunity.
Also canadascott, I still remember you and I do hope Thundrax will keep on fighting for our future.
*Happy Kirbish* Poyo! */Happy Kirbish*
---
SPrime
This.
For an event so central to the history of the game's setting, they could do more with it. Such an event seemed like an obvious shoe-in. Plus, it'd be amusing to see Biselle spout more cheesy political one-liners like "Never forget!" and such.
The fact the Remembrance of Detroit mission exists in the first place was a nice touch. I think the various statues throughout MC were also meant to reflect that. But with On Alert dropping the flavor text on items and the lack of new content that deeply draws from the lore, it seems that Cryptic lost whomever they had that was really fluent in the game's lore a while ago. Radioscience seems to be knowledgeable, so there might still be some hope on that front.
According to Gamasutra, the average salary of people working in the computer game industry in 2011 is about $80,000/year (1). Assuming this boils down to a 40 hour work week (which I hope is more realistic than it was when I was working back in the industry in the 90s), that's an average salary of about $40/hour.
Now I'm willing to bet that Cryptic salaries are below average, based on some talks I had with the company about five years ago. However, these are just salaries, they don't cover benefits, they don't cover vacation, they don't cover equipment or utility expenses. The rule I was taught back in my producing days is that every employee's cost to the company is about double their salary. Let's be conservative and assume an average cost per employee of $50/hour (and that pretty much means salaries about 30% below industry average, so we're already on the frugal side). That's $2000/week per employee.
Now, let's assign a team. We're designing a new zone. The team for a 3 month development cycle would probably look like this.
1 producer (12 weeks): $24000
2 level designer/writers/scripters (8 weeks): $32000
2 environment artists (12 weeks): $48000
2 animators/character designers (12 weeks): $48000
2 programmers (12 weeks): $48,000
1 concept/cut scene artist (8 weeks): $16000
1 sound designer (4 weeks): $8000
2 QA personnel (8 weeks): $16000 (assuming an entry level salary)
1 miscellaneous person (marketing, share of sales, share of HR, GMs, 12 weeks): $24000
Total: $278000
Should this be taken as gospel? No. Please don't quote these in other threads as definitive data. The sound you're hearing is probably Lordgar and Robobo snickering at the numbers. I could fine tune the numbers further by taking the industry average per position, and there are many possible mitigating factors both positive and negative. But I've produced computer games, albeit in the distant past, and I know enough people currently in the industry that I'm pretty sure that my team numbers aren't wildly exaggerating the needed manpower.
Even $150,000 is a lot of money, and lowballing your numbers is a good way to get egg on your face -- and go broke really fast.
The lesson: computer game dev costs are scary. The question that Cryptic has to ask is: how much reward are they going to get when they invest over 200K in a project.
(1) http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/167355/
The Foundry does make sales. At least the Cryptic COO Craig Zinkievich gave a very long speech saying that it indirectly leads to sales:
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1016471/user-generated.content-in-mmos
Down near the end there's two sections "how do you monetize authors?" and "how do you monetize UGC players?" where he says that you don't monetize the foundry directly, and especially never make an author pay to make a story, but getting people to play means they get attached to the game and user-generated content gets more people playing and more people spending in the store.
Also, I don't know about neverwinter, but in STO you get dilithium from it and via the exchange a portion of dilithium generated leads to zen sales.
Yeah, a level cap increase in such an alt heavy game would just be horrible. I think i have around 40 lvl 40 characters .. now leveling them all up to 50 and then gearing them all up again ? No thanks.
Its FORTRAN .. i'm really sure of that
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
Either that or they're using CO to develop something they want to use in another forthcoming title.
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
I too sadly feel resigned to what I feel is the fact that Champions-Online is never going to be fulfilling the potential Jack Emmert teased five years ago.
Historically Cryptic Studios (under all of its publishers and especially now under Perfect World) have barely scratched the potential in the intellectual property they bought outright from Hero Games and the game has no long-term development plan as far as I can see.
This is (in my opinion) because PWE/Cryptic do not have CBS on their **** about this title. They own the IP outright so have just sat on their hands with major expansion since Revelations.
Although I appreciate an effort was made with the aborted adventure-pack and comic-series initiatives - they have all been brushed under the carpet as time showed even that scheduling wasn't possible with the time and resources Champion-Online was being afforded (first under Atari and now under Perfect World Entertainment).
The fact that I am far more excited about Star Citizen (which is still over two years off) - over this MMO which I invested $323.68 in back at closed beta, have spent a lot of money on via the C-store since, and additionally would also be prepared to spend $15 a month on if only PWE/Cryptic showed some kind of faith in the title - is a sad sad state of affairs.
This will have and has had repercussions on my consideration of all further Cryptic titles, and as it has done with both STO and NeverWinter. I am just.not.interested.
There is also the 'elephant in the room' of why is there so little respect for the player-base as was very evident by the fifty players asking the same question of 'where is this game going development-wise' back at the last Ask Cryptic - and Cryptic completely blanking us. Unbelievable.
I have been gone from this game for over a year now, and every single bit of news released to the website fails to excite me.
I have the game's official site bookmarked, I check regularly every couple of weeks it appears in-vain. I just don't see the evidence of PWE/Cryptic investing in this title and it saddens me. Such potential utterly squandered through sheer publisher and developer apathy.
I wish all of you who are holding on for better days the very best of luck, I really really do, with every fibre of my being, but I'm down to my last one-percent of enthusiasm with Cryptic and this title as I have lost my patience with their lack of creativity, enthusiasm and development for the title.
Good luck Champions!.
Dropping my knitting to buff you whilst hitting - Proudly protecting Millennium City's little ones since 2009.
@Mothers_Love
i feel the exact same way, i haven't played this game in over 6 months as well, and i check hoping there is something major in the works, but i also know that deep down its not going to happen, even with a so called new dev team.
the new alert really annoys me the most considering that it well over a year late, and the person who created it probably isn't even playing anymore, and to me thats a really big slap to the face.
IF city of titans even gets made i can guarantee you that that a lot of people will be leaving this game for that one.
The Nemesis system needs fixing and here's ideas:
A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business. Henry Ford
You developed a game with a very specific genre- so specific, in fact, that there are only two other games in that genre. Sure, times have been tough, but you're hanging in there, and you've got players. Suddenly, your single biggest competitor shuts down. All of that game's players are now, after years of building a community, looking for a new home.
So what do you do? If you're Cryptic/PWE, apparently, you basically ignore them. You've been given quite literally the biggest gift a company can get- your competitors customers.
Look at that huge influx of players CO had when COX shut down. Those players had been playing COX for years. But now, how many are still playing CO?
PWE should have welcomed the refugees with open arms. That was the time to invest in the game, to keep those players playing CO. To make them feel welcome. To give them a new home.
But that's not what happened. We had, basically, a few posts welcoming the new players to CO. I think there might have been one in-game, minor event, and a brief sale. Honestly, it was so underwhelming that I can't remember what the heck PWE did.
It's not any surprise that CO is limping- PWE blew it.
You don't have to pay to use the costume creator... so just park a character next to the Tailor and log in when you want to use it?
Some of the things people say around here are really baffling...
Oh and I didn't even realize this was a negativity thread, here I thought the OP was all about hope and progress. Silly me ^_^
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
That even Scott has lost all hope is indeed a very bad sign.
I'm not hopeful about the bigger things that we've wanted for the game for most of its history.
However, I *am* hopeful that we can still receive a lot of good, little things that can keep the game enjoyable for the people that are still here: new costumes/emotes, new power sets and mini-sets, new events and small lairs, and bug fixes to shore up the code and keep the game operational over the long term, as well as giving it the polish it deserves. My optimism level on that is higher than it's been in quite awhile. Cryptic North seems pretty competent and dedicated so far.
I'd love for something to happen to give us one more population surge, I don't think it's going to happen. But unless Cryptic collapses, or until a major publisher comes up with a new supers MMO -- and as much as I'd like to see them succeed, the deck's pretty heavily stacked against CoT -- I think CO will be stable at its current level for the duration of its run. I just wish it was more.
And yes, Star Citizen looks sweet. Chris Roberts is a great guy and I hope he hits it out of the park. Wing Commander's one of my favorite games of all time, and I'm greatly looking forward to getting back behind a joystick again.
Its just that this part says so much :
Cervando, you kinda lost me here. You can use an empty character slot to access all of the costume creator functions and content without ever loading into the actual game. Do you mean an "offline" creator?
My Amazon author page
How to build a freeform character...the Kenpo way
Demon Keypo's Building Guide
Freeform Builds Directory (Last updated: 04/23/2016)
Serving since September, 2009 / 65 Characters, 63 Level 40's
I think he means like what SPORE did for it's creator, it's a stand alone program for making looks and creatures. While that does sound kinda neat, I still like to community that I'm friends with and enjoy spending time with. So I'm the same boat as a lot of folks, the shine has worn off, and it's frustrating in how we've been treated, but the recent changes speak of a bit of renewed hope... a potential for the game again, just this time around we are jaded, so Cryptic (hopefully) will keep that in mind along the way.
@Aleatha1011 in CO | Keeper of the Cheesecake since Nov. 2011| Bunni BOT is on PRIMUS! | Come check out my deviantart page!
He can get that for free from Saints Row III and IV.
Or from Ubisoft in a Unity 3D powered web browser interface like I suggested CO should do probably more than a year ago. I guess that's "online" though and as hilariously limited as Neverwinter.
Mixamo Fuze looks like a great outlet for that character creation impulse.
You will not get what you want for christmas. You will not stick to your new years resolutions. Your parents will get divorced. Your best friend will sleep with your girlfriend. Your girlfriend will get pregnant with his kid. You will not marry your girlfriend. Your girlfriend will marry your best friend. You will not get invited to the wedding. You will get drunk at home alone and cry while eating an ice cream flavor you don't even like. Your dog will pee on your living room carpet. Your car will not start tomorrow morning. You will not get a promotion at work. You will lose your job. You will lose your house. Your car will fall off a cliff. Your cat is not your friend. Always be selling.
I back all of this up with my soul crushing lack of hope for the future, which itself is based off of my lack of hope for the future.
Sorry Jon, I tried... and failed miserably.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Actually, I felt quite welcomed by the community. Trail Turtle showed up in the CoX chat channel quite a bit to welcome us and help people out. There were quire a few people who knew the CO universe that were great about helping RPrs make or adapt character concepts.
The people in the build forum were generally patient with all the CoX people being obsessed with "controls are so weak over here" and most of the people I directed to ask in the forums for help with a build got the help they needed.
There was a double exp weekend right after CoX officially shut down, a couple welcome to CO events, etc.
Generally, we refugees were the biggest problem. So much grief and angst about "cox was better" all the time. Sure cryptic could have done something more official but in general the CO community said "welcome how can we help you have fun?" and far too many CoX people said "thanks but this game sucks CoX was better" before they even gave it a real chance.
Some of that was inevitable, CoX shutting down was a huge surprise and people weren't ready, and they weren't looking for a new game they were looking for a CoX clone. Which CO isn't. So, nothing could have made most of them happy.
Still, I play with a group of friends from CoX here, and another group over in STO, and I touch base regularly with even more in the CoX chat channel. The Cape Radio has had vastly more success here in CO than over in Secret World where it dual broadcasts. No, it's not the hundreds of people who came over at first, but quite a lot of us found a home here.