City of Heroes News & Events & Guides

3. PvP in City of Heroes is an ongoing mess. No, really, it is. There's just no other way to describe it. City of Heroes didn't launch with PvP as part of the game, although they say it was planned from the beginning. It never did gain a huge following, and changes made to the PvE game because of PvP just irritated those who didn't care for it in the first place. Despite the relatively small size of the PvP community, though, it was an active and passionate group that held regular arena tournaments and organized their own competition ladders. Then Issue 13 happened. The massive PvP overhaul that Issue 13 brought baffled most avid PvPers to the point where many people who'd never PvPed felt sorry for them. A community rep even admitted that the Issue 13 changes weren't made with the then-current PvP crowd in mind. (That community rep left very shortly after making that statement, perhaps not coincidentally.) What was a huge focal point of the game for a very vocal minority disappeared in the blink of an eye, and PvP in City of Heroes is even less of a factor than it was before. NCSoft alienated a group of players who kept playing the game because they loved the way PvP was, and it was in the name of "further PvP changes" that so far haven't come to pass. And with all the other big stuff coming down the pike (powers customization, the Going Rogue update, etc), it's hard to believe that these "further PvP changes" will actually ever come to pass. Cryptic is including PvP in CoH Influence from launch, and even attaching rewards to it (something that City of Heroes is just now getting around to). Let's hope that Cryptic does PvP better this time around, and they'll learn from NCSoft how NOT to treat this part of the community.

4. Cryptic now has five years' worth of hindsight. Even though some things I've seen from Champions Online make it appear that Cryptic is ignoring some good things from City of Heroes (yes, I think instanced quests are better than open-world quests, so sue me), I'm still hopeful that they've learned a lot over the last five years. They haven't been involved in the development of City of Heroes for some time now, but between their time with that game and their observations of what has happened since then, they are in a great position to cater to the wills of players who have been unsatisfied with City of Heroes in recent months. One thing that made World of Warcraft into the juggernaut that it's become was taking things that other games had done and making them a lot better (being made by Blizzard didn't hurt WoW's chances either, of course). Let's hope that Cryptic does the same thing with Champions Online. The wheel doesn't need to be reinvented, but mistakes from the past should not be made again.