City of Heroes News & Events & Guides

In my previous article, I ruffled some feathers by saying that City of Heroes had nothing to worry about concerning the impending release of Champions Online, its first competitor in the superhero MMO market. Maybe "nothing to worry about" is a little too strong. There are lots of valid reasons for the developers of City of Heroes to keep an eye on Champions Online, and I have no doubt Champions Online will do quite well for itself. While I don't believe that City of Heroes will just shrivel up and die in the wake of Champions Online's release, what follows are some of the reasons I think Champions Online could steal much of CoH's thunder.

1. Champions Online is new and shiny. It's the new kid on the block, so of course people are going to be interested in it. Even diehard City of Heroes fans like myself can grow jaded sometimes and yearn for something different. Up until now, that something different has meant World of Warcraft or some other non-superhero MMO. Having an alternative to City of Heroes that still allows us to indulge our comic book fantasies is mighty appealing. Being built with five-year-newer technology, of course, should mean that in all technical aspects, Champions Online is a better game. And while I don't care too much for the cell-shaded-like graphics of Champions Online, there are many others out there who like it a lot. There's no denying that it looks very different from City of Heroes, and that in and of itself will draw some people in.

2. The debacles centering around the Mission Architect left a bad taste in many people's mouths. There were problems with CoH Influence the Mission Architect, centering around how easy it was to powerlevel (i.e., level much faster than the developers intended) using the MA, when Issue 14 (the update that included the MA) was in closed beta testing. Those, and other MA problems, were virtually ignored by the developers and the update was allowed to go live with massive exploits. It wasn't until after a "free" weekend designed to lure old players back into the game that punishments were retroactively handed out to the biggest "offenders." The whole thing was handled very poorly, and for those who were iffy on staying with City of Heroes in the first place, this was plenty enough to push them over the edge. A more minor, but still poorly handled, Mission Architect issue had to do with the game's badge system. Dozens of MA-related badges were removed from the game because, according to the developers, they led to people creating easy-to-farm badge missions in the MA. They never really satisfactorily answered questions about this, or suggestions for a different fix to the supposed problem, at least not in my eyes, or the eyes of many others. Even ignoring these problems, many City of Heroes player believe that the Mission Architect has actually taken away from the game itself, because so many players focus on nothing but the MA and ignore the rest of the game.