Champions Online

City of Heroes INNN SPAAAAAAACE MMO Ship of Heroes posted an update on this summer’s “MIssion Beta”, in which I and apparently many, many others participated… Just boppin’ along… One item that came up again and again in their post was the lack of difficult content. Now, I played through the showcase mission arc solo, and didn’t have a lot of trouble. I did pick up on the consumable boosters, which weren’t clearly explained, and that helped me get through some of the tougher fights. Carefully splitting groups using the terrain to block NPCs or just sending in a ranged attack from maximum range meant I never felt overwhelmed, when the superhero ethos is all about barreling in and making a big splash. ...

…or so they would like you to believe. The GOVERNMENT says that we are in a GIANT SPACESHIP, a HUNDRED KILOMETERS LONG. How does that make any sense? DO YOUR RESEARCH! We, the ones the media disparagingly call “Round Earthers”, KNOW that we live on a spherical planet that circles a STAR. WAKE UP SHEEPLE! It’s City of Heroes… except in space (if you believe their lies, anyway). And it’s just part of larger push to bring the MMOs of yesteryear into the present day. ...

City of Heroes cast a long shadow over the superhero MMO landscape. There’s easily a half dozen efforts to resurrect the game in some form, either by recreating the original game, or building a clear sequel. As of now, though, there’s only two MMOs that can carry COH’s torch – superhero MMOs where you can build your own hero your own way. And those are Cryptic’s Champions Online, and Daybreak’s DC Universe Online. ...

It’s Developer Appreciation week. Whenever these come up, I really don’t know what to say. The games I’ve played have changed my life. When things were darkest, they maybe even saved my life. MMOs, in particular, have made it easy for me to “find my people”. I’ve played with the same group of people now for more years than I care to count. My daughter married someone she met in EverQuest. I’m living with someone I met there. ...

I don’t play every MMO that comes out – not by a longshot. But, I follow a lot of gamers, streamers, and game developers, and between me and them, I see a lot of discussion about the new MMOs that come down the pike. Crowfall was released a couple of weeks ago. Suddenly, everyone was talking about it. And then, suddenly everyone was not. What did it all mean? I asked Google Trends to help me analyze searches for a dozen or so MMOs to help understand what all was going on with MMOs today. ...

I read on Twitter today that Daybreak Games had bought out another studio, Cold Iron, who are working on a game set in the Ridley Scott “Alien” universe. The developers had previously worked on City of Heroes, Champions Online and many other MMOs. That reminded me of a comic I made back when Champions Online was in beta… There seems no better time that to start picking up content from my old blog, West Karana. So here’s a couple comics I made once. ...

A whole weekend lost in a Rift, but I think what I’ll remember most about this last weekend was this jerk in General chat – named, ironically, Karana – who was going on and on about how the quests and everything else about the game was a copy of WoW. Well, heck, I didn’t know Thomas Edison was resurrected just to offer his genius insights. But some people just can’t see past their own experiences with WoW. Like, the people complaining that every one of the classes will have a 50/16/0 point spec, as if the class-defining abilities of each ‘soul’ only happen once 50 points are spent on it, similar to WoW’s talent trees. ACTUALLY, the class-defining skill is usually given for free, at zero points. Smart players will have a synergistic three soul mix. Anyway, already went on about that, and though I’m loving Rift and have applied to a guild, I’m really tired of reading about it. ...

I suck at predictions, but everyone else is doing them. Luckily, I have a Magic 8 Ball. I’m just gonna list some games, and ask the Magic 8 Ball what it thinks of them. Question to the 8 Ball for all of these games: Will this game have a good year in 2011? Age of Conan: “Outlook Not So Good”. AoC released its first expansion, “Ride of the Godslayer”, last summer, and that’s pretty much the last I’ve heard of the game. I don’t think the Magic 8 Ball is correct; I think Funcom is content to support their current player base without feeling the need to go F2P. Their massively hyped launch should have helped them recoup their development costs years ago. ...

The Imperial Japanese Navy attacked Pearl Harbor 69 years ago today. Now we’re having a little payback at the expense of the whole world. I know a lot of people who plan to take days off to play their way through the entire expansion as quickly as they can. My cousin Tom even (jokingly, I hope), regretting that he had to work, thought he might let his son take the day off from school to play. ...

I find, these days, that I don’t make that much of a distinction between online RPGs – even Massive ones – and offline, single player RPGs. The only real difference is who I am playing with. Offline ones, I tend to chat with people about the game as I play on Twitter or somewhat slowly via this blog. Online, I chat with people about the game in game. ...