Flash could run really fast. Then he hit lvl 20, and could run FTL. He also figured out how to use his speed to become Desolid, but you can only do that in the Champs PnP, not CO.
"Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"
In the beginning, even Superman couldn't fly, just "leap tall buildings in a single bound".
Yes, but he still began his career with Superleap. He retconned it to Flight later, and added Superspeed at 35.
"Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"
To me it makes perfect sense that you have to wait till lv 6 to get your travel power. I take the tutorial like a prologue to our hero story, and he is learning how to use his powers still.
I'm glad they give travel powers at lv 6, but I don't think I'd prefer to have them from level 1.
QWHich I really really hate is not being able to make a decent char in the first character creator, untill all options are unlocked, it's really stupid and almost made me quit when I cam back to play. Why should I make myself a hero that doesn't even look anything like the character I want to create? We should be given an option if we want the full character creator or the lite one.
In-game, of course, you do start off with your travel power - it's just that a side effect of the energy shields used by the Qularr to divide the city also cancels out everyone's travel powers. (Yes, even the technological or blatantly magical ones. It's comics logic. Just go with it.) So obviously, until you've put a stop to the invasion, you can't fly/teleport/tunnel/run really fast/leap tall buildings with a bound or two, maybe three if it's really tall.
"Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"
To me it makes perfect sense that you have to wait till lv 6 to get your travel power.
Well, in this game it makes sense anyway, since they explain that the bubble thing the Qulaar put over the city disables some powers. (At least, that's how I remember it... I could be wrong).
I take the tutorial like a prologue to our hero story, and he is learning how to use his powers still.
This would still be a problem if they didn't explain away why we can't use our travel powers, because it doesn't go with everyone's concepts. Say you wanna make a superhero who's old and close to retiring who's been doing this thing for 30 years now.
On top of that, the game usually treats the player as being as powerful as the Champions from the get-go. In the first version of the tutorial (well, first live version) Defender gets punked by Black Talon and you have to save his butt. That's not something that's likely to be done by some guy just learning to use his powers.
QWHich I really really hate is not being able to make a decent char in the first character creator, untill all options are unlocked, it's really stupid and almost made me quit when I cam back to play. Why should I make myself a hero that doesn't even look anything like the character I want to create? We should be given an option if we want the full character creator or the lite one.
Yeah this thing was a bad idea from the start. I don't think I've ever heard anyone talk about it in a positive manner.
In-game, of course, you do start off with your travel power - it's just that a side effect of the energy shields used by the Qularr to divide the city also cancels out everyone's travel powers. (Yes, even the technological or blatantly magical ones. It's comics logic. Just go with it.) So obviously, until you've put a stop to the invasion, you can't fly/teleport/tunnel/run really fast/leap tall buildings with a bound or two, maybe three if it's really tall.
Funny thing is that Sapphire would still fly around, and in the latest version of the tutorial, I think Kinetik speeds around in front of Champs HQ fighting the Qulaar.
Funny thing is that Sapphire would still fly around, and in the latest version of the tutorial, I think Kinetik speeds around in front of Champs HQ fighting the Qulaar.
It's my understanding that Qulaar don't have a solid grasp on human biology and superpowers. Sapphire is a mutant and Kinetik's cells were saturated with chemicals if I remember correctly. Perhaps the Qulaar nullification shield isn't as effective on them because their travel abilities aren't "3rd party" things like technology or magic, which the Qulaar are fully aware of and can counter?
Now that doesn't explain how player characters with innate flight or other travel abilities are affected but then again, we're levels 1-5 in the turorial and not as strong as the Champions are during that event.
then again, we're levels 1-5 in the turorial and not as strong as the Champions are during that event.
Not exactly... Our power levels (level) exist only as a game function and aren't taken into consideration story-wise. Like I mentioned before, Defender got his butt whooped by Black Talon and your character saves the day. And when you're in Champions HQ, Defender is level 6 or so.
It's one of the things I noticed early on in the game, that the Champions aren't just there to relegate tasks to other superheroes. They actually need your help, because you're a bad enough dude to rescue the president. They played that up quite well in the Vibora Bay Crisis, too.
Not exactly... Our power levels (level) exist only as a game function and aren't taken into consideration story-wise. Like I mentioned before, Defender got his butt whooped by Black Talon and your character saves the day. And when you're in Champions HQ, Defender is level 6 or so.
It's one of the things I noticed early on in the game, that the Champions aren't just there to relegate tasks to other superheroes. They actually need your help, because you're a bad enough dude to rescue the president. They played that up quite well in the Vibora Bay Crisis, too.
Have I mentioned before that I hate that?
Give CoH credit for finding a happy medium, where it took the Incarnate system to let players surpass the Freedom Phalanx in power. DCUO has to protect the lore, so players will never be more powerful than the Justice League (hence the nickname City of Sidekicks), while CO painted the Champions as putzes in the tutorial and never really recovered from it.
At least the tutorial revamp extended Defender's off-tank role to include the "get your arse kicked by Full Power Alert-Spec Black Talon" phase instead of getting pwned by a single tanglecoil grenade, but they still haven't given him a Z key to open the door to the Defense Control Room.
Choose your enemies carefully, because they will define you / Make them interesting, because in some ways they will mind you
They're not there in the beginning, but when your story ends / Gonna last with you longer than your friends
Give CoH credit for finding a happy medium, where it took the Incarnate system to let players surpass the Freedom Phalanx in power. DCUO has to protect the lore, so players will never be more powerful than the Justice League (hence the nickname City of Sidekicks), while CO painted the Champions as putzes in the tutorial and never really recovered from it.
At least the tutorial revamp extended Defender's off-tank role to include the "get your arse kicked by Full Power Alert-Spec Black Talon" phase instead of getting pwned by a single tanglecoil grenade, but they still haven't given him a Z key to open the door to the Defense Control Room.
Why would you hate that? In most games like this you're treated as a peon, doing work that's not important enough to get the attention of the real heroes. The Champions don't look like putzes, they look like your equal, right from the start. I'll take that above Super Errand Boy any day.
What I don't get is, why Cryptic has all these advertisements and ad banners and such for STO, and NWO, but never any for Champions.
I mean, sure, STO and NWO are both highly-recognized properties in their genre, they deserve the advertising just as well.
But why not Champions? How can the devs expect a game to do well if hardly anyone knows about it? Though, yes, I do recall COH hardly getting any advertisement in it's era, but that was before superhero movies and other financially-successful forms of media were not as culture-centric or common as they were now, back in '04. Heck, with all the movies out now showing awesome superheroes, I'd be more incensed to play CO after being inspired. I see it as a cycle, either way.
More advertising = more prospective buyers = more money being exchanged to add to the quality of a game. On the reverse side, there's no advertising/game notoriety through word-of-mouth only = few dedicated players = game that continues to be -average/mundane-.
I understand the risks in spending money on advertising, but isn't conducting business and selling a product itself a risk, when you get down to brass tacks?
Just another average RPer, costume part collector, and tabletop gamer.
Not exactly... Our power levels (level) exist only as a game function and aren't taken into consideration story-wise. Like I mentioned before, Defender got his butt whooped by Black Talon and your character saves the day. And when you're in Champions HQ, Defender is level 6 or so.
It's one of the things I noticed early on in the game, that the Champions aren't just there to relegate tasks to other superheroes. They actually need your help, because you're a bad enough dude to rescue the president. They played that up quite well in the Vibora Bay Crisis, too.
I know that levels mean squat to the story but it's still representative of our character's level of ability. During the tutorial our repertoire of attacks and powers is limited and we're considerably weaker in comparison to ourselves during the VB Apocalypse(even though we would have been killed just as easily as the Champions were had we taken those hits instead).
Give CoH credit for finding a happy medium, where it took the Incarnate system to let players surpass the Freedom Phalanx in power. DCUO has to protect the lore, so players will never be more powerful than the Justice League (hence the nickname City of Sidekicks), while CO painted the Champions as putzes in the tutorial and never really recovered from it.
At least the tutorial revamp extended Defender's off-tank role to include the "get your arse kicked by Full Power Alert-Spec Black Talon" phase instead of getting pwned by a single tanglecoil grenade, but they still haven't given him a Z key to open the door to the Defense Control Room.
The champions are not really iconic heroes of the setting they were just templates that players could get out of the PnP. Personally, if you want to actually be the hero, you can't be in anyone else's shadow, and if the "icon's" are always over you putting you in their shadow then you have no chance to be a hero.
And personally, CoH never found that happy medium, because until the Incarnate system, you were always in the iconic heroes shadow, then they committed series sepuku by not killing off one or two of the cover box icons, but three of them. And I know a few people felt it was done out of spite rather than developing an actual story.
While I got what they were trying for, they went too far with it, honestly, and the result was the baddest of the bads weren't even that much of a threat.
I know that levels mean squat to the story but it's still representative of our character's level of ability. During the tutorial our repertoire of attacks and powers is limited and we're considerably weaker in comparison to ourselves during the VB Apocalypse(even though we would have been killed just as easily as the Champions were had we taken those hits instead).
I dunno, I think I disagree. I mean, in your first thirty minutes of the game, you help stave off an alien invasion alongside the best of the best. I think the vision they had is that you're always a powerful hero. But it's difficult to translate that when you have a level 7 next to your name and you're beating up gangsters.
However, you do some pretty great stuff, like prevent Poe from setting off that big-**** bomb, then you prevent Hi-Pan from summoning a Death Dragon, and this is all before you're level 20. Then you take off to Canada, eh, where you single-handedly foil the plots of terrorist organizations, or go to the desert and prevent them from firing a giant dirty bomb at wherever that thing was supposed to go.
Throughout the game, front to back, you do some pretty heroic stuff. I don't think it's ever meant to feel like your powers and power levels are progressing.
I don't think progressing so much as your understanding of how to use them grows. But in a theme park system that is hard to convey with a solid leveling system, and to be blunt, CO's haphazard freeform system with no actual real themes to powers or providing a decent framework that would conform to some comic book ideals.
Honestly, I think Champions could have done better by making the power sets more developed and offering greater choices and be stricter would have benefited more than actually been a hindrance as many believed it would have.
The champions are not really iconic heroes of the setting they were just templates that players could get out of the PnP. Personally, if you want to actually be the hero, you can't be in anyone else's shadow, and if the "icon's" are always over you putting you in their shadow then you have no chance to be a hero.
And personally, CoH never found that happy medium, because until the Incarnate system, you were always in the iconic heroes shadow, then they committed series sepuku by not killing off one or two of the cover box icons, but three of them. And I know a few people felt it was done out of spite rather than developing an actual story.
While I got what they were trying for, they went too far with it, honestly, and the result was the baddest of the bads weren't even that much of a threat.
I was legit sad when they killed off Statesman. He was a pretty cool character.
Would have been nice to see a decent successor to the role, instead of some nobody crook getting his powers.
Heck, even Tyrant admitting his mistakes and changing his identity when he arrived at Paragonian-Earth would have been mildly more acceptable.
But, yeah, aside from that, I agree with Biff, there. It didn't really feel like I was the Phalanx's errand boy when I played through the game in COH, I was mostly under the impression that my heroes worked closely with the authorities on big cases, like with Surnoff and Kodiak and Antone Whatshisface in CO. It felt more like the big heroes were more mentory towards the PC heroes, hence the term 'trainers'.
Then again, I could be completely misremembering everything.
Just another average RPer, costume part collector, and tabletop gamer.
I was legit sad when they killed off Statesman. He was a pretty cool character.
I wasn't much of a Statesman fan but going out with a cheesy grin at the hands of a gutter punk like Darrin Wade, after Sister Psyche and Miss Liberty died from our ineffectualness and chronic idiot balling, was not something he deserved.
For the few trips through redside I took I definitely felt like more of a lackey than I ever felt like a sidekick blueside.
I haven't really felt like a sidekick in CO at all.
Of course I wasn't a fan of the Incarnate system and what it did to task forces if everyone wasn't an Incarnate. If the powers past alpha would've been limited to Incarnate content it would have been a lot less disruptive for all the sub-50s.
This is my Risian Corvette. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
go to the desert and prevent them from firing a giant dirty bomb at wherever that thing was supposed to go.
The military base that was just under a kilometer away from the radioactive hole which tells me that the real estate agents in this universe are really good con men.
The champions are not really iconic heroes of the setting they were just templates that players could get out of the PnP.
I would disagree with that sentence.....sorta. In the 80's Champions was D&D's only real rival yes there was other PnP's about but mostly it was the D&D and Champions show. Heck Champions even spawned some actual comic books..BUT as the years rolled on D&D took a strangle hold of the PnP market and Champions fell by the wayside.
If CO was about in the early 80's Defender and Witchcraft would have been far better known by the games playerbase. Shame we didn't have decent PC's and the internets back then.
Its somewhat ironic that Cryptic do both Champions and what could be considered the main D&D mmo.
And once again D&D gets all the love....and I'm feeling old :I
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
I would disagree with that sentence.....sorta. In the 80's Champions was D&D's only real rival yes there was other PnP's about but mostly it was the D&D and Champions show. Heck Champions even spawned some actual comic books..BUT as the years rolled on D&D took a strangle hold of the PnP market and Champions fell by the wayside.
If CO was about in the early 80's Defender and Witchcraft would have been far better known by the games playerbase. Shame we didn't have decent PC's and the internets back then.
Its somewhat ironic that Cryptic do both Champions and what could be considered the main D&D mmo.
And once again D&D gets all the love....and I'm feeling old :I
I don't think templates still make them iconic because people still tend to mention other NPCs over the Champions when it comes to the setting. To me, them becoming iconic is a recent thing because of CO, not because they were always there which is kind of a backwards analogy since again, they were pre-made templates for players that didn't want to, were still learning the rules, or just wanted to get into a quick game.
As far as PnP rivals... I never heard of Champions when I was young as it was never in my gaming store. I would think DnD had bigger competition from GURPs Palladium, and FASA than Champions, because most of the time if there was an alternative talked about it was either GURPs, Rifts or Shadowrun, generally. In the 90s I say White Wolf took center stage, as White Wolf games were practically everywhere, including video game deals. Of course, palladium rules were just a straight up rip off of DnD rules with only a few changes, but otherwise yea.
I would even wager that Deadlands was up there from Pinnacle during the 90s to, because that was my favorite setting and rules system. Hell, Deadlands had crossovers printed up as well as adventures for said settings for d20, GURPs, White Wolf, and one other. I even think there was a plan to adapt it to hero system but it never panned out.
I don't think templates still make them iconic because people still tend to mention other NPCs over the Champions when it comes to the setting. To me, them becoming iconic is a recent thing because of CO, not because they were always there which is kind of a backwards analogy since again, they were pre-made templates for players that didn't want to, were still learning the rules, or just wanted to get into a quick game.
As far as PnP rivals... I never heard of Champions when I was young as it was never in my gaming store. I would think DnD had bigger competition from GURPs Palladium, and FASA than Champions, because most of the time if there was an alternative talked about it was either GURPs, Rifts or Shadowrun, generally. In the 90s I say White Wolf took center stage, as White Wolf games were practically everywhere, including video game deals. Of course, palladium rules were just a straight up rip off of DnD rules with only a few changes, but otherwise yea.
I would even wager that Deadlands was up there from Pinnacle during the 90s to, because that was my favorite setting and rules system. Hell, Deadlands had crossovers printed up as well as adventures for said settings for d20, GURPs, White Wolf, and one other. I even think there was a plan to adapt it to hero system but it never panned out.
You mostly mentioning late 80's 90's stuff , re-read my post im talking early 80's here. I agree with most of what you say here but thats a different period in time altogether.
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
You mostly mentioning late 80's 90's stuff , re-read my post im talking early 80's here. I agree with most of what you say here but thats a different period in time altogether.
GURPs, Palladium and FASA were all 80s
No, I don't think the Hero System was as big a rival as you claim because, again, I never even heard of Champions when i grew up. They had other obscure company titles but Champions I never saw. Hell when I moved to a bigger city when I was a little older they still didn't have Champions products and this gaming store I have right down the street from me sells everything else but Champions it seems, hence why I have to keep buying it online.
I would disagree with that sentence.....sorta. In the 80's Champions was D&D's only real rival yes there was other PnP's about but mostly it was the D&D and Champions show. Heck Champions even spawned some actual comic books..BUT as the years rolled on D&D took a strangle hold of the PnP market and Champions fell by the wayside.
Not how I remember it. Champions was why I went to RPG gaming conventions but Rolemaster, Call of Cthulhu, Star Wars (West End Games version), Cyberpunk, and GURPS were every bit as represented as Champs.
Not how I remember it. Champions was why I went to RPG gaming conventions but Rolemaster, Call of Cthulhu, Star Wars (West End Games version), Cyberpunk, and GURPS were every bit as represented as Champs.
I gotta agree with ashen here (and would add Middle Earth Role Playing to that list). I started RPing in 1982 and didn't really see much about champs until late 80s...even then it wasn't a staple at RPG clubs. However, when I did start playing it I loved it, and still do to this day.
I love the Hero system cause you can play all types of campaigns/settings in it. I remember playing in Call of Cthuhu, Judge Dredd, Forgotten Realms, William Gibson-esque, John Carter of Mars, Watchmen and Wildcards universe(amongst others) all using the Hero system
No, I don't think the Hero System was as big a rival as you claim because, again, I never even heard of Champions when i grew up. They had other obscure company titles but Champions I never saw. Hell when I moved to a bigger city when I was a little older they still didn't have Champions products and this gaming store I have right down the street from me sells everything else but Champions it seems, hence why I have to keep buying it online.
Thing is up until 3 years ago I didnt know what Pitfall was and how important it was to future games like Super Mario Bros or Zool.
Thats my point. Without Champions, we wouldn't have had CoH ( was inspired by the Champs PnP ) then its follow up an actual Champions Online we also wouldn't have had DCUO from Sony.
Without the champs pnp Cryptic wouldn't have made City and in the long run Neverwinter the mmo wouldn't be a thing.
The only two PnP in those chain of event are Champions and Dungeons & Dragons.
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
Thing is up until 3 years ago I didnt know what Pitfall was and how important it was to future games like Super Mario Bros or Zool.
Thats my point. Without Champions, we wouldn't have had CoH ( was inspired by the Champs PnP ) then its follow up an actual Champions Online we also wouldn't have had DCUO from Sony.
Without the champs pnp Cryptic wouldn't have made City and in the long run Neverwinter the mmo wouldn't be a thing.
The only two PnP in those chain of event are Champions and Dungeons & Dragons.
You wouldn't know that for sure honestly. While it might have taken longer, and Champions was indeed the inspiration for City of Heroes, DC and Marvel were certainly interested in the MMO before then. Champions also was not the only super hero PnP RPG on the market, there were several including one from Palladium and GURPs. So maybe City of Heroes might have been inspired by one of them instead. So imagining a what if scenario sort of lacks definition, especially since Champions didn't exist in a void, nor was it the only Super Hero based PnP ruleset at the time.
You wouldn't know that for sure honestly. While it might have taken longer, and Champions was indeed the inspiration for City of Heroes, DC and Marvel were certainly interested in the MMO before then. Champions also was not the only super hero PnP RPG on the market, there were several including one from Palladium and GURPs. So maybe City of Heroes might have been inspired by one of them instead. So imagining a what if scenario sort of lacks definition, especially since Champions didn't exist in a void, nor was it the only Super Hero based PnP ruleset at the time.
True it wasn't the only super PnP and eventually a super MMO might appeared others ways...but the Champions PnP was a thing and peeps behind City loved it.
People tend to be oblivious to how much impact Champions a niche PnP had on the MMO scene.
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
You wouldn't know that for sure honestly. While it might have taken longer, and Champions was indeed the inspiration for City of Heroes, DC and Marvel were certainly interested in the MMO before then. Champions also was not the only super hero PnP RPG on the market, there were several including one from Palladium and GURPs. So maybe City of Heroes might have been inspired by one of them instead. So imagining a what if scenario sort of lacks definition, especially since Champions didn't exist in a void, nor was it the only Super Hero based PnP ruleset at the time.
Even if COH had been inspired by GURPS it would have been inspired by Champions. I would be surprised if Kevin Siembieda's work on Heroes Unlimited didn't get some pretty significant influence from Champs as well.
I don't personally recall any superhero games predating V&V myself, but it doesn't seem likely to have been a huge influence on Champions (so very different).
True it wasn't the only super PnP and eventually a super MMO might appeared others ways...but the Champions PnP was a thing and peeps behind City loved it.
People tend to be oblivious to how much impact Champions a niche PnP had on the MMO scene.
It's hard to consider the impact on the MMO scene because the major movers and shakers were Ultima Online, inspired by Richard Garriot's Ultima seres (becoming the first major commercial success for MMOs) and Everquest from Sony (by setting the bar and raising the stakes above the competition of the time, aka UO two years after UO launched). The other movers and shakers were Dark Age of Camelot with the what was hailed as a revolutionary realm versus realm system, and in a way FunCom's Anarchy Online with basically how not to design an MMO so it doesn't crash operating systems. Star Wars Galaxy I would almost say was a landmark but its systems were similar to UO with more stringent systems and even had one of UOs most notorious producers in the lead, Sunsword. Though it brought it into the 3d world and introduced Star wars nerds to the MMO genre
While City of Heroes had some achievements to its name, that much is certain, it's competition was World of ********, which came out later that same year, and we know how that took the MMO world by storm. Until then the largest MMO on the market was Everquest 1, which had peaked off at 500k subs, though quickly fell after that. UO's biggest peak was 250k lasting for a while, same with Dark Age and SWG had a similar run until the systems were gutted and changed. City of Heroes respectively started off at the 250k mark, I will grant that, but it never retained that high number nor did it ever surpass it at any point in its life.
While CoH did have a comic series it was not the first, in fact the canceled UO2 had such a large following of fans that there was a novel trilogy actually written about the setting itself, many fan songs were created, stories and so forth, creating what would now be a common practice in the modern MMO setting of fan created songs, parodies and so forth.
UO is a nice little game but many consider CoH to be the first triple A mmo.
Uhh..? That doesn't even make sense there. Not by a long shot, considering triple A is just a marketing gimmick term mostly in reference of how much money is being thrown at it, not on quality of actual work. I find the term Triple A to be dubious at best, when again, it definitely wasn't the first if we are going by quality of the product. Hell, if we were just going by those standards then you are forgetting Everquest, Dark Age of Camelot and Star Wars Galaxies which all were huge commercial and financial successes. In fact, arguably Everquest was the only MMO until WoW that actually had commercials on television for it, and even saw a few in the movie theater.
Hell Star Wars Galaxies alone would have easily taken the triple A title card if it even existed just because it has LucasArts and the Star Wars brand name behind it.
Uhh..? That doesn't even make sense there. Not by a long shot, considering triple A is just a marketing gimmick term mostly in reference of how much money is being thrown at it, not on quality of actual work. I find the term Triple A to be dubious at best, when again, it definitely wasn't the first if we are going by quality of the product. Hell, if we were just going by those standards then you are forgetting Everquest, Dark Age of Camelot and Star Wars Galaxies which all were huge commercial and financial successes. In fact, arguably Everquest was the only MMO until WoW that actually had commercials on television for it, and even saw a few in the movie theater.
Hell Star Wars Galaxies alone would have easily taken the triple A title card if it even existed just because it has LucasArts and the Star Wars brand name behind it.
I still play Ultima Online to this day but you cant really call it great. Its a top down hack and slash thats online. Fun but nothing great. Everquest is a bit iffy always has been , controls are still a bit well..arse.
Dark Age of Camelot is no where near the big boys of the early 00's.
If you go back ten years the games that ruled the MMO scene where WoW, CoH and FFXI.
The odd thing is both WoW and XI are still the most profitable MMOs around.
So yeah you where right. Though some people consider CoH to be the first tipple A mmo that crown most likely belongs to FFXI :P
I would disagree with that sentence.....sorta. In the 80's Champions was D&D's only real rival yes there was other PnP's about but mostly it was the D&D and Champions show. Heck Champions even spawned some actual comic books..BUT as the years rolled on D&D took a strangle hold of the PnP market and Champions fell by the wayside.
If CO was about in the early 80's Defender and Witchcraft would have been far better known by the games playerbase. Shame we didn't have decent PC's and the internets back then.
Its somewhat ironic that Cryptic do both Champions and what could be considered the main D&D mmo.
And once again D&D gets all the love....and I'm feeling old :I
Actually, the most prominent D&D rivals, prior to the emergence of WoD, were Chaosium Basic games (mainy Runequest and CoC) and GURPS. They are of course slightly younger than Hero system, but they had more presence on RPG market. Things like ads in RPG magazines, for exampl. Both game systems were quite popular in Europe as well.
That's taking more or less "universal" game systems, not more specific mechanics like MERP or WFRP who were limited mostly to their respetive settings.
GURPS Superheroes can't be compared to Champions, though, as it has no setting. It's just a GURPS mechanic for superhero RPG, players had to supply their own game setting.
Actually, the most prominent D&D rivals, prior to the emergence of WoD, were Chaosium Basic games (mainy Runequest and CoC) and GURPS. They are of course slightly younger than Hero system, but they had more presence on RPG market.
That's taking more or less "universal" game systems, not more specific mechanics like MERP or WFRP who were limited mostly to their respetive settings.
See that shows how old I actually am. If its not D&D and Champs its not on my radar. Thanks Megatron you've made me feel over the hill.
NOW GET OFFA MY LAWN! :O
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
I still play Ultima Online to this day but you cant really call it great. Its a top down hack and slash thats online. Fun but nothing great. Everquest is a bit iffy always has been , controls are still a bit well..arse.
Dark Age of Camelot is no where near the big boys of the early 00's.
If you go back ten years the games that ruled the MMO scene where WoW, CoH and FFXI.
The odd thing is both WoW and XI are still the most profitable MMOs around.
So yeah you where right. Though some people consider CoH to be the first tipple A mmo that crown most likely belongs to FFXI :P
If I go back 10 years, the game that ruled was WoW, CoH subscriptions had already dropped below 200k by the time WoW hit the scene, it wasn't a ruler.
Furthermore, Dark Age of Camelot was perhaps one of the biggest innovators, because the company, Mythic, would actually reinvest in their product with expansions that not only added new content but actually upgraded the graphcis along with the engine capabilities. I would dare argue Dark Age was the first to include things like real time shadows and reflective water before it became standard in an MMO, and long before CoH even tried with Going Rogue. And Dark Age of Camelot had a subscription base of 250k strong players, which was over what City of had at the same time, and even retained that up through the early 2005 when WoW really started picking up steam.
Saying Dark Age of Camelot was no where near the big boys is just grossly wrong.
Also, FF11 being their highest grossing game after X time period is kind of not a major achievement considering how often they bother to actually market or sell their other FF products.
Dark Age of Camolot (*Apparently its initials are censored) had the fortunate/unfortunate, depending on how you want to view it, role of being a bumper. It was released at a time players were getting tired of EQ and just before WoW was released. It helped break the idea that UO/EQ was the only way mmos should be made. It certainly had its merits but it also had its problems, though it certainly had role to play in how pvp was going to be handled.
As far as other pnp games go we also had White Wolf's take on it with Aberrant and Mutants and Masterminds, I don't know their exact release dates but at least the concepts of M&M were around in the early 90s and then became a full fledged pnp around the time the d20 was being released. Both of these I had played long before I heard anything about the Hero Games. Call of Cthulhu was also semi popular back in the 80s, as was Cyberpunk.
Dark Age of Camolot (*Apparently its initials are censored) had the fortunate/unfortunate, depending on how you want to view it, role of being a bumper. It was released at a time players were getting tired of EQ and just before WoW was released. It helped break the idea that UO/EQ was the only way mmos should be made. It certainly had its merits but it also had its problems, though it certainly had role to play in how pvp was going to be handled.
As far as other pnp games go we also had White Wolf's take on it with Aberrant and Mutants and Masterminds, I don't know their exact release dates but at least the concepts of M&M were around in the early 90s and then became a full fledged pnp around the time the d20 was being released. Both of these I had played long before I heard anything about the Hero Games. Call of Cthulhu was also semi popular back in the 80s, as was Cyberpunk.
I don't think you could list a single MMO (including WoW) that doesn't have problems. However, when it comes to PvP, most long veteran PvP players almost always ask or at least comment about how great Dark Age's PvP was compared to any MMO, old or current. Even though today Dark Age and all the oldies are little more than minor blips on the radar, one has to say that's staying power when Dark Age is often the defacto PvP system that gets mentioned almost all the time with affection. And when people think of MMO housing, it's usually UO with secondaries being SWG that get mentioned before any other MMO as well.
Hell, when WoD and their housing system was announced for WoW's next expansion, Blizzard directly mentioned UO as the only housing system that actually felt important, compared to other MMOs that often instanced the houses off from the rest of the world, isolating them off from most of the player base outside of special considerations and making them not all that important in the grand scheme of the game.
Without Champions, we wouldn't have GURPS. Steve Jackson has stated that he was inspired to create what became GURPS by the first point-buy RPG, the Hero System, and its first game, Champions. He wanted to make it simpler to calculate stats, and to streamline figuring abilities and purchasing skills. (Seriously, I don't know how complicated it is now, but you should check out how stats are purchased, and secondary stats are figured and purchased, as late as 3rd Ed. A HUGE block of stats, none of which are really dump stats, and several of which have a base level that involves adding, multiplying, or dividing other stats. And let's not even get into OCV and DCV... Meanwhile, GURPS has four basic stats, and everything based on them can be figured with addition alone.)
I think part of the reason Champions never really caught on was that it took so much math to figure things out. In my college gaming group, that was actually a plus, but... There was also the fact that a single combat could take over an hour to work through, once you started figuring out the range modifiers to the attacker's OCV and rolling the dice (a fairly typical attack was 10d6; sometimes the dice were reduced because there was a special advantage on the attack, like No Normal Defense), and then asking the GM whether your attack was hitting the target's Vulnerabilities and recalculating the damage based on that...
"Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"
GURPS Superheroes can't be compared to Champions, though, as it has no setting. It's just a GURPS mechanic for superhero RPG, players had to supply their own game setting.
Not true. GURPS International Super Teams, or IST. A very cool, very practical, look at a world where powers and abilities have long-term impact on the world socially and culturally.
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- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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I'm glad they give travel powers at lv 6, but I don't think I'd prefer to have them from level 1.
QWHich I really really hate is not being able to make a decent char in the first character creator, untill all options are unlocked, it's really stupid and almost made me quit when I cam back to play. Why should I make myself a hero that doesn't even look anything like the character I want to create? We should be given an option if we want the full character creator or the lite one.
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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Well, in this game it makes sense anyway, since they explain that the bubble thing the Qulaar put over the city disables some powers. (At least, that's how I remember it... I could be wrong).
This would still be a problem if they didn't explain away why we can't use our travel powers, because it doesn't go with everyone's concepts. Say you wanna make a superhero who's old and close to retiring who's been doing this thing for 30 years now.
On top of that, the game usually treats the player as being as powerful as the Champions from the get-go. In the first version of the tutorial (well, first live version) Defender gets punked by Black Talon and you have to save his butt. That's not something that's likely to be done by some guy just learning to use his powers.
Yeah this thing was a bad idea from the start. I don't think I've ever heard anyone talk about it in a positive manner.
Funny thing is that Sapphire would still fly around, and in the latest version of the tutorial, I think Kinetik speeds around in front of Champs HQ fighting the Qulaar.
It's my understanding that Qulaar don't have a solid grasp on human biology and superpowers. Sapphire is a mutant and Kinetik's cells were saturated with chemicals if I remember correctly. Perhaps the Qulaar nullification shield isn't as effective on them because their travel abilities aren't "3rd party" things like technology or magic, which the Qulaar are fully aware of and can counter?
Now that doesn't explain how player characters with innate flight or other travel abilities are affected but then again, we're levels 1-5 in the turorial and not as strong as the Champions are during that event.
Not exactly... Our power levels (level) exist only as a game function and aren't taken into consideration story-wise. Like I mentioned before, Defender got his butt whooped by Black Talon and your character saves the day. And when you're in Champions HQ, Defender is level 6 or so.
It's one of the things I noticed early on in the game, that the Champions aren't just there to relegate tasks to other superheroes. They actually need your help, because you're a bad enough dude to rescue the president. They played that up quite well in the Vibora Bay Crisis, too.
Have I mentioned before that I hate that?
Give CoH credit for finding a happy medium, where it took the Incarnate system to let players surpass the Freedom Phalanx in power. DCUO has to protect the lore, so players will never be more powerful than the Justice League (hence the nickname City of Sidekicks), while CO painted the Champions as putzes in the tutorial and never really recovered from it.
At least the tutorial revamp extended Defender's off-tank role to include the "get your arse kicked by Full Power Alert-Spec Black Talon" phase instead of getting pwned by a single tanglecoil grenade, but they still haven't given him a Z key to open the door to the Defense Control Room.
They're not there in the beginning, but when your story ends / Gonna last with you longer than your friends
Why would you hate that? In most games like this you're treated as a peon, doing work that's not important enough to get the attention of the real heroes. The Champions don't look like putzes, they look like your equal, right from the start. I'll take that above Super Errand Boy any day.
I mean, sure, STO and NWO are both highly-recognized properties in their genre, they deserve the advertising just as well.
But why not Champions? How can the devs expect a game to do well if hardly anyone knows about it? Though, yes, I do recall COH hardly getting any advertisement in it's era, but that was before superhero movies and other financially-successful forms of media were not as culture-centric or common as they were now, back in '04. Heck, with all the movies out now showing awesome superheroes, I'd be more incensed to play CO after being inspired. I see it as a cycle, either way.
More advertising = more prospective buyers = more money being exchanged to add to the quality of a game. On the reverse side, there's no advertising/game notoriety through word-of-mouth only = few dedicated players = game that continues to be -average/mundane-.
I understand the risks in spending money on advertising, but isn't conducting business and selling a product itself a risk, when you get down to brass tacks?
Looking for a lore-based Superhero RPSG? Why not http://earth-guard.shivtr.com/?
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I know that levels mean squat to the story but it's still representative of our character's level of ability. During the tutorial our repertoire of attacks and powers is limited and we're considerably weaker in comparison to ourselves during the VB Apocalypse(even though we would have been killed just as easily as the Champions were had we taken those hits instead).
The champions are not really iconic heroes of the setting they were just templates that players could get out of the PnP. Personally, if you want to actually be the hero, you can't be in anyone else's shadow, and if the "icon's" are always over you putting you in their shadow then you have no chance to be a hero.
And personally, CoH never found that happy medium, because until the Incarnate system, you were always in the iconic heroes shadow, then they committed series sepuku by not killing off one or two of the cover box icons, but three of them. And I know a few people felt it was done out of spite rather than developing an actual story.
While I got what they were trying for, they went too far with it, honestly, and the result was the baddest of the bads weren't even that much of a threat.
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I dunno, I think I disagree. I mean, in your first thirty minutes of the game, you help stave off an alien invasion alongside the best of the best. I think the vision they had is that you're always a powerful hero. But it's difficult to translate that when you have a level 7 next to your name and you're beating up gangsters.
However, you do some pretty great stuff, like prevent Poe from setting off that big-**** bomb, then you prevent Hi-Pan from summoning a Death Dragon, and this is all before you're level 20. Then you take off to Canada, eh, where you single-handedly foil the plots of terrorist organizations, or go to the desert and prevent them from firing a giant dirty bomb at wherever that thing was supposed to go.
Throughout the game, front to back, you do some pretty heroic stuff. I don't think it's ever meant to feel like your powers and power levels are progressing.
Honestly, I think Champions could have done better by making the power sets more developed and offering greater choices and be stricter would have benefited more than actually been a hindrance as many believed it would have.
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I was legit sad when they killed off Statesman. He was a pretty cool character.
Would have been nice to see a decent successor to the role, instead of some nobody crook getting his powers.
Heck, even Tyrant admitting his mistakes and changing his identity when he arrived at Paragonian-Earth would have been mildly more acceptable.
But, yeah, aside from that, I agree with Biff, there. It didn't really feel like I was the Phalanx's errand boy when I played through the game in COH, I was mostly under the impression that my heroes worked closely with the authorities on big cases, like with Surnoff and Kodiak and Antone Whatshisface in CO. It felt more like the big heroes were more mentory towards the PC heroes, hence the term 'trainers'.
Then again, I could be completely misremembering everything.
Looking for a lore-based Superhero RPSG? Why not http://earth-guard.shivtr.com/?
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I wasn't much of a Statesman fan but going out with a cheesy grin at the hands of a gutter punk like Darrin Wade, after Sister Psyche and Miss Liberty died from our ineffectualness and chronic idiot balling, was not something he deserved.
For the few trips through redside I took I definitely felt like more of a lackey than I ever felt like a sidekick blueside.
I haven't really felt like a sidekick in CO at all.
Of course I wasn't a fan of the Incarnate system and what it did to task forces if everyone wasn't an Incarnate. If the powers past alpha would've been limited to Incarnate content it would have been a lot less disruptive for all the sub-50s.
Wait? Whaaaa..?
I would disagree with that sentence.....sorta. In the 80's Champions was D&D's only real rival yes there was other PnP's about but mostly it was the D&D and Champions show. Heck Champions even spawned some actual comic books..BUT as the years rolled on D&D took a strangle hold of the PnP market and Champions fell by the wayside.
If CO was about in the early 80's Defender and Witchcraft would have been far better known by the games playerbase. Shame we didn't have decent PC's and the internets back then.
Its somewhat ironic that Cryptic do both Champions and what could be considered the main D&D mmo.
And once again D&D gets all the love....and I'm feeling old :I
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I don't think templates still make them iconic because people still tend to mention other NPCs over the Champions when it comes to the setting. To me, them becoming iconic is a recent thing because of CO, not because they were always there which is kind of a backwards analogy since again, they were pre-made templates for players that didn't want to, were still learning the rules, or just wanted to get into a quick game.
As far as PnP rivals... I never heard of Champions when I was young as it was never in my gaming store. I would think DnD had bigger competition from GURPs Palladium, and FASA than Champions, because most of the time if there was an alternative talked about it was either GURPs, Rifts or Shadowrun, generally. In the 90s I say White Wolf took center stage, as White Wolf games were practically everywhere, including video game deals. Of course, palladium rules were just a straight up rip off of DnD rules with only a few changes, but otherwise yea.
I would even wager that Deadlands was up there from Pinnacle during the 90s to, because that was my favorite setting and rules system. Hell, Deadlands had crossovers printed up as well as adventures for said settings for d20, GURPs, White Wolf, and one other. I even think there was a plan to adapt it to hero system but it never panned out.
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You mostly mentioning late 80's 90's stuff , re-read my post im talking early 80's here. I agree with most of what you say here but thats a different period in time altogether.
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GURPs, Palladium and FASA were all 80s
No, I don't think the Hero System was as big a rival as you claim because, again, I never even heard of Champions when i grew up. They had other obscure company titles but Champions I never saw. Hell when I moved to a bigger city when I was a little older they still didn't have Champions products and this gaming store I have right down the street from me sells everything else but Champions it seems, hence why I have to keep buying it online.
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Not how I remember it. Champions was why I went to RPG gaming conventions but Rolemaster, Call of Cthulhu, Star Wars (West End Games version), Cyberpunk, and GURPS were every bit as represented as Champs.
I'm not so sure. I imagine that we would see the characters that were more prominent at that time.
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I gotta agree with ashen here (and would add Middle Earth Role Playing to that list). I started RPing in 1982 and didn't really see much about champs until late 80s...even then it wasn't a staple at RPG clubs. However, when I did start playing it I loved it, and still do to this day.
I love the Hero system cause you can play all types of campaigns/settings in it. I remember playing in Call of Cthuhu, Judge Dredd, Forgotten Realms, William Gibson-esque, John Carter of Mars, Watchmen and Wildcards universe(amongst others) all using the Hero system
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Thing is up until 3 years ago I didnt know what Pitfall was and how important it was to future games like Super Mario Bros or Zool.
Thats my point. Without Champions, we wouldn't have had CoH ( was inspired by the Champs PnP ) then its follow up an actual Champions Online we also wouldn't have had DCUO from Sony.
Without the champs pnp Cryptic wouldn't have made City and in the long run Neverwinter the mmo wouldn't be a thing.
The only two PnP in those chain of event are Champions and Dungeons & Dragons.
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You wouldn't know that for sure honestly. While it might have taken longer, and Champions was indeed the inspiration for City of Heroes, DC and Marvel were certainly interested in the MMO before then. Champions also was not the only super hero PnP RPG on the market, there were several including one from Palladium and GURPs. So maybe City of Heroes might have been inspired by one of them instead. So imagining a what if scenario sort of lacks definition, especially since Champions didn't exist in a void, nor was it the only Super Hero based PnP ruleset at the time.
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True it wasn't the only super PnP and eventually a super MMO might appeared others ways...but the Champions PnP was a thing and peeps behind City loved it.
People tend to be oblivious to how much impact Champions a niche PnP had on the MMO scene.
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Even if COH had been inspired by GURPS it would have been inspired by Champions. I would be surprised if Kevin Siembieda's work on Heroes Unlimited didn't get some pretty significant influence from Champs as well.
I don't personally recall any superhero games predating V&V myself, but it doesn't seem likely to have been a huge influence on Champions (so very different).
Really Champions was the spark for the genre.
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
It's hard to consider the impact on the MMO scene because the major movers and shakers were Ultima Online, inspired by Richard Garriot's Ultima seres (becoming the first major commercial success for MMOs) and Everquest from Sony (by setting the bar and raising the stakes above the competition of the time, aka UO two years after UO launched). The other movers and shakers were Dark Age of Camelot with the what was hailed as a revolutionary realm versus realm system, and in a way FunCom's Anarchy Online with basically how not to design an MMO so it doesn't crash operating systems. Star Wars Galaxy I would almost say was a landmark but its systems were similar to UO with more stringent systems and even had one of UOs most notorious producers in the lead, Sunsword. Though it brought it into the 3d world and introduced Star wars nerds to the MMO genre
While City of Heroes had some achievements to its name, that much is certain, it's competition was World of ********, which came out later that same year, and we know how that took the MMO world by storm. Until then the largest MMO on the market was Everquest 1, which had peaked off at 500k subs, though quickly fell after that. UO's biggest peak was 250k lasting for a while, same with Dark Age and SWG had a similar run until the systems were gutted and changed. City of Heroes respectively started off at the 250k mark, I will grant that, but it never retained that high number nor did it ever surpass it at any point in its life.
While CoH did have a comic series it was not the first, in fact the canceled UO2 had such a large following of fans that there was a novel trilogy actually written about the setting itself, many fan songs were created, stories and so forth, creating what would now be a common practice in the modern MMO setting of fan created songs, parodies and so forth.
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UO is a nice little game but many consider CoH to be the first triple A mmo.
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Uhh..? That doesn't even make sense there. Not by a long shot, considering triple A is just a marketing gimmick term mostly in reference of how much money is being thrown at it, not on quality of actual work. I find the term Triple A to be dubious at best, when again, it definitely wasn't the first if we are going by quality of the product. Hell, if we were just going by those standards then you are forgetting Everquest, Dark Age of Camelot and Star Wars Galaxies which all were huge commercial and financial successes. In fact, arguably Everquest was the only MMO until WoW that actually had commercials on television for it, and even saw a few in the movie theater.
Hell Star Wars Galaxies alone would have easily taken the triple A title card if it even existed just because it has LucasArts and the Star Wars brand name behind it.
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I still play Ultima Online to this day but you cant really call it great. Its a top down hack and slash thats online. Fun but nothing great. Everquest is a bit iffy always has been , controls are still a bit well..arse.
Dark Age of Camelot is no where near the big boys of the early 00's.
If you go back ten years the games that ruled the MMO scene where WoW, CoH and FFXI.
The odd thing is both WoW and XI are still the most profitable MMOs around.
So yeah you where right. Though some people consider CoH to be the first tipple A mmo that crown most likely belongs to FFXI :P
Also the most profitable FF http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-06-25-ff11-is-the-most-profitable-final-fantasy-ever ( gotta feel so sad for VI fanbois :P )
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Actually, the most prominent D&D rivals, prior to the emergence of WoD, were Chaosium Basic games (mainy Runequest and CoC) and GURPS. They are of course slightly younger than Hero system, but they had more presence on RPG market. Things like ads in RPG magazines, for exampl. Both game systems were quite popular in Europe as well.
That's taking more or less "universal" game systems, not more specific mechanics like MERP or WFRP who were limited mostly to their respetive settings.
GURPS Superheroes can't be compared to Champions, though, as it has no setting. It's just a GURPS mechanic for superhero RPG, players had to supply their own game setting.
See that shows how old I actually am. If its not D&D and Champs its not on my radar. Thanks Megatron you've made me feel over the hill.
NOW GET OFFA MY LAWN! :O
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If I go back 10 years, the game that ruled was WoW, CoH subscriptions had already dropped below 200k by the time WoW hit the scene, it wasn't a ruler.
Furthermore, Dark Age of Camelot was perhaps one of the biggest innovators, because the company, Mythic, would actually reinvest in their product with expansions that not only added new content but actually upgraded the graphcis along with the engine capabilities. I would dare argue Dark Age was the first to include things like real time shadows and reflective water before it became standard in an MMO, and long before CoH even tried with Going Rogue. And Dark Age of Camelot had a subscription base of 250k strong players, which was over what City of had at the same time, and even retained that up through the early 2005 when WoW really started picking up steam.
Saying Dark Age of Camelot was no where near the big boys is just grossly wrong.
Also, FF11 being their highest grossing game after X time period is kind of not a major achievement considering how often they bother to actually market or sell their other FF products.
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As far as other pnp games go we also had White Wolf's take on it with Aberrant and Mutants and Masterminds, I don't know their exact release dates but at least the concepts of M&M were around in the early 90s and then became a full fledged pnp around the time the d20 was being released. Both of these I had played long before I heard anything about the Hero Games. Call of Cthulhu was also semi popular back in the 80s, as was Cyberpunk.
I don't think you could list a single MMO (including WoW) that doesn't have problems. However, when it comes to PvP, most long veteran PvP players almost always ask or at least comment about how great Dark Age's PvP was compared to any MMO, old or current. Even though today Dark Age and all the oldies are little more than minor blips on the radar, one has to say that's staying power when Dark Age is often the defacto PvP system that gets mentioned almost all the time with affection. And when people think of MMO housing, it's usually UO with secondaries being SWG that get mentioned before any other MMO as well.
Hell, when WoD and their housing system was announced for WoW's next expansion, Blizzard directly mentioned UO as the only housing system that actually felt important, compared to other MMOs that often instanced the houses off from the rest of the world, isolating them off from most of the player base outside of special considerations and making them not all that important in the grand scheme of the game.
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I think part of the reason Champions never really caught on was that it took so much math to figure things out. In my college gaming group, that was actually a plus, but...
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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D&D, Call of Cthulhu, GURPS, Champions, Star Frontiers.
In college, Champions was definitely in the B list of 'really successful games that aren't D&D.'
Nowadays...
(Mind you, in 80s/90s, I HATED how numbery HERO is)
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
Not true. GURPS International Super Teams, or IST. A very cool, very practical, look at a world where powers and abilities have long-term impact on the world socially and culturally.
I feel your pain with the last part of your post :I
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