Destroy Us All

 
 

Champions Online Preview

Some of you may not know that I’ve played City of Heroes/Villains off and on for four or five some odd years. Well, now you do. I definitely enjoy the game, as it’s a bit more casual and ‘pick-up-and-play’ than most MMOs. The mission generation system gets a bit repetitive and boring, but the power that you wield and the different combinations of powers certainly keep things interesting for me. Not to mention the absolutely awesome character creation system.

Well, now Cryptic has once again decided to grace us with another superhero MMO based on a superhero pen and paper RPG of the same name; Champions.

Champions Online is still in it’s open beta stages, but the beta will be closing very soon and the game will be released next week. Now, I’ve been playing the beta for a few days now, and I have to say, it’s quite an update from CoH/V, and for the better too.

The character creation system has been expanded even more, you have a lot more powers at your disposal, you can mix and match powers from any powerset, (with certain downsides, of course), and there’s loads of new travel powers. The sheer amount of expanded content from CoH/V is quite staggering, and I’m happy to say that said content seems rather promising.

Firstly, most people who play CoH/V will tell you that it’s looking a bit dated. Champions rectifies that, using a rather awesome looking ‘cel-shaded’ style graphics engine, complete with black ‘comic style’ outlines around everything. The style in the game oozes comic flair, as certain moves that you or NPCs do sometimes yield ‘BAM’, ‘ZAP’, and ‘BOOM’ text bubbles, giving other players or you an idea of what might be coming your way. Currently, the engine still needs to be optimized a bit more, as a lot of players with high end rigs are complaining of low frame rates, but the dev team is aware and have been working at it. While I can’t say if it’ll be fixed by launch, I’d like to think so.

The powers you now have at your disposal is staggering. You have munitions (guns and the like), electricity, ice, fire, power armor, martial arts, and telekinesis just to name a few. All of these powers are available to you as you level up, and it’s up to you to choose the best combination for your character. While someone who started out with ‘munitions’ will have a harder time progressing down the ‘telekinesis’ tree, for example, it’s still very much doable, and rewarding. Every set of powers has an ‘energy generation’ default attack that you have available to you at the start. This is an ‘auto-attack’ power that is a toggle. Once you turn it on, you’ll continually attack your target until you toggle it again, or the target dies. Every hit you land with this attack restores some of the energy necessary to use your stronger, more devastating attacks. While this attack is toggled, you can key in your more powerful moves, allowing you the ability to continue to do damage, even while you wait for your energy to regenerate.

Another positive thing about Champions Online is the lack of downtime. Defeated enemies sometimes drop ‘orbs’ that give a player different benefits. Some are simple health or energy boosts, others are boosts to damage, defense, hold resistance, etc. Not to mention, your health and energy restore rather quickly when you’re no longer in combat, allowing you to get into the next fight fast. Every ‘build’ a character has will always have the potential to tank, DPS, or be support. The build system in Champions Online allows characters to select what function their build is going for, be it defense, offense, or support. You’ll get different bonuses by default depending on which style you pick, not to mention all relevant upgrades can be set up in that particular build, allowing you to switch on the fly.

While there’s no real ‘loot’ or ‘equipment’ in Champions Online, there are upgrades for players to collect and use. Upgrades offer different benefits, much like pieces of gear from other MMOs, but offer a wider range of advantages to the player. Upgrades can give various stat boosts, various situational modifiers, and boosts to different powers or skills. You can mix and match these to better suit your build, or you can trade or sell them to other players.

Somewhat borrowing a page from Warhammer Online’s book, Champions Online offers ‘open missions’, which any player is free to walk into and participate in. These ‘open missions’ allow players who aren’t in a group to be ‘grouped’ for that particular mission until it’s complete. How much you participate yields the rewards that you can claim, so even though you’re working together, there’s also a bit of competition involved as well. In addition, the regular mission system in Champions Online is significantly less frustrating than most quests in other MMOs. In Champions Online, completion of a quest only depends on two factors; vicinity and participation. Even if you start attacking a ‘mission mob’ late, that someone else is already attacking, as long as you continue to assist the player currently attacking the mob, you both get credit when it dies. This holds true for escort, capture, and killing missions. The only exception is collection missions where you have to secure an item. Sometimes the item just won’t disappear, allowing players to take turns grabbing the objective, but other times the item will disappear, forcing other players to wait. These missions are relatively few and far in between, so it’s not that much of a hassle.

Overall, the sheer amount of options available to you, coupled with more casual playing, as well as a much more user-friendly and frustration-free mission system gives Champions Online a lot going for it. It’s not perfect, but it’s probably the most fun I’ve had in an MMO in a long while. I haven’t had the chance to play with a set group or friends yet, so that’s promising to me, as most people come to find that ‘everything’s more fun with friends’. Champions Online lands on Sept. 1 2009, so if you’re planning on getting it, keep an eye out for @Zeris00x.

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