City of Heroes Purchased By NCsoft

Rock, Paper, Shotgun comments on the big news from late last night: NCsoft has announced that it has purchased City of Heroes/Villains from Cryptic Studios, the Massive game's original developer. Everyone on the team has been offered a new position with the newly formed NCsoft NorCal studio, and many of them have accepted. As far as the players are concerned, NCsoft only intends for them to see freebies as a result of this deal: "Now back to you, the players. You are the lifeblood of our game. In celebration of our new studio and our exciting plans, and in order to thank you for the fantastic community that you have built, we are pleased to announce the following: All players with City of Heroes retail accounts will now have access to City of Villains, and all City of Villains retail accounts will now have access to City of Heroes. Players that didn't previously have access to "the other side" will find that they do now. Just log in to check it out! After the launch of Issue 11: A Stitch in Time this Fall, we are removing Debt from all characters and giving you a fresh start ... Also after the launch of Issue 11, all Supergroups will receive an additional 20,000 Prestige per Supergroup member."

Huh, what do ya know

Chalk this up to stupidity but I always assumed it was NCSoft for both because of adverts from NCSoft portraying the two together.

I've had a CoV account a while back and stopped playing... I may have to start again if all this is more than a rumor.

No Free Lunch

I have no experience with either, but allowing access to both cities is a great move. Forgiving debts, giving away points, etc not so much. Smart players will exploit this and just run up debts. Dumb players won't, either because of misplaced ethics or because they don't know how to read.

Maybe it's not the same, but in the games I play online, I hate to see this kind of virtual pandering.

Re:No Free Lunch

Debt doesn't work like that in CoH. It's essentially negative experience points that accrue when a player is defeated - having it halves the rate of experience gain until it is paid off. It isn't like debt in the sense we usually think of it, where you get something in exchange for a future obligation; the player gets nothing for their debt in CoH.

Re:Debt was already capped

When I was more obsessive about not out-leveling story arcs and hidden contacts, I would regularly run a character into groups of tough mobs and politely wait for them to hand my ass to me. Fortunately, that particular stunt is going to become unnecessary when the Flashback system goes live.

I can see some people running up debt on their idle 50's, in order to get a sliver further into the various XP debt badges, but overall this seems to be nothing more than a nice (if kind of empty) gesture.

I'm definitely turning 'ignore Supergroup invites' on for my unaffiliated characters, though. Random pubbie invites were common enough before; the prospect of signing bonuses is going to whip them into a frenzy.

Who cares? I switched and dumped them.

Bought my mac in January and dumped this game and moved to WoW. Theres a reason why WoW has a couple million players and these guys don't... it's because you can play Wow on ALL platforms due to them supporting openGL and not DirectX. More game developers should start learning that open game development especially now that VISTA has bombed is in their best interest; other OS sales numbers are not going down and we are just going to dump your game when we switch.

"and many of them have accepted"

To be exact, all but one member of the dev team are moving to NCSoft

As an avid player...

I've got to say that I'm kind of worried. One of the best things about CoH is that the developers seem to focus a lot on what the players want. There have been several instances of major changes being brought to the game simply on player request, and it's greatly appreciated. I'll be kind of upset if NCSoft abandons this policy in favor of their plan to "aggressively develop and expand the franchise."

I'm mildly curious at the motivation

I mean, was it just that NCSoft offered unrefuseably large piles of cash?

I met & interviewed Jack Emmert at E3 the year before CoH released - if there's anyone who was developing a game as a labor of love, it was him. He was almost a caricature of the Simpsons' comic book guy, but it was in a charming way because he was so genuine. I agree with his characterization of comic books as 'modern day mythology' and while I can't quite yet personally consider them quite 'literature', there are some fantastic stories being told.

It was such a product of his particular personality and desire, I'm curious what it would have taken to get him to relinquish creative control.

Best Designed Game Evah!

I really hope this helps expand the audience for this game in some manner. It deserves more exposure in my opinion. I have always thought of this as one of the best designed games I have ever seen. Cryptic just seemed to do everything right for the most part. The game has always represented top quality design and development for me.

Sure, its a niche market, its not for everyone, and its got a narrow focus. I admit its limits. But in my opinion no other MMORPG out there (past or present) can hold a candle to COH/COV for the quality of the group combat experience. I am part of a group of folks who regularly revisit the game for months at a time, and its usually because we are unable to find the same addictive high quality group combat experience in other games. The next great hope is Pirates of the Burning Sea, which has some great potential,

I'm surprised anyone cares anymore.

My "supergroup" and I left CoH a long time ago. Why?

Because we no longer felt heroic. We had run every taskforce (Including the first from that portal realm - 11 HOUR MARATHON), done everything - we knew the game, constantly created new characters ... AND we were still having a blast!

The characters we had planned out ... from level 1 to 50 were all suddenly useless. All the planning and effort to tweak builds, respec builds and come out with something of 'heroic' proportions were deemed 'too powerful' and the system was changed to what we were told was "How the devs originally wanted it" .... only a year and a half after the initial release. We didn't even get a thanks for beta testing for them (oh, and paying for it too).

Suddenly, we were no longer in the "City of Heroes" - we were in the "City of Mediocrity" as the devs continued to tune down the classes so no one could feel like an epic hero anymore.

Which really defeats the purpose of the game.

Bzzt, wrong

Bzzt, wrong. Look at some of the early comics, and super-heroes were just that: unassailable gods with perfect morals.

Superman, for example, started with no vulnerability whatsoever. The whole "kryptonite" thing was invented as a tongue-in-cheek explanation when they had to skip an episode or two for the radio version later, for example because the actor was on vacation. And even there it wasn't actually used _in_ any story line. Superman didn't have to battle anyone wielding kryptonite at that point.

Mind you, if you're going to say that that's not (necessarily) much fun in a game, we can even aggree quickly.

But that's a limitation of video games, not a limitation of super-heroes. Literary or comic book characters can be as god-like as the author wants, and still be fun and popular.

Heck, you don't even have to look only at superhero comics. Take Terry Prattchett's Diskworld books, for example. Cohen the barbarian is, for example, so good at dodging that in Interesting Times he even dodges a cannonball from a gun that got teleported right in front of him and fired. Rincewind is comically incompetent except he always ends up on top, even if by sheer luck and without fully realizing what he's done. The witches are just short of god-like in their own right, and can pretty much get what they want even from Death himself. Wossname the monk learned from yetis how to "save and reload" IRL, so he just comes back after being beheaded. Etc, etc, etc. Almost every single major character in those books has some kind of super-power that makes him completely invincible and unstoppable, even by the whole freakin' army of China (or the DW equivalent of it.)

Does that make the books any less fun to read? Nope.

Think action movies. Rambo can stand tall with a machinegun in front of a whole tank division, or get in a pissing... err... shooting contest with a gunship and come out on top. Jedi in SW movies are just about gods that can only kill each other. But they're way out of the league of mortal soldiers or drones, even when those are in brigade-sized formations and with AT-AT and air support. Etc.

And you know what? I dare say that that's actually good character design. People want to be told a nice story where the hero overcomes everything, and everything ends with a happy ending.

Not many people want to be told a tale where the hero thought he could fly circles around the Death Star, but the laws of firepower always beat the rules of literature. Or not many want to be told the story of the guy who thought he could jump in front of the enemy company with a pistol, and was riddled with bullets before he even finished the clip. Those are depressing stories of failure. They're not fun.

We want to be told stories where one determined guy changes the world for the better, and nothing whatsoever can stay in his way. Not one where he fails in the first 15 minutes.

But, again, I can see how that doesn't translate into a fun video game. We just have to accept that it's simply different media, with different rules.

My impressions.

I played City of Heroes for a couple of years, from a few months after initial launch up until shortly after the launch of City of Villains. I experimented with a few alternate characters but I had reached level 45 with my main; 5 levels below the level 50 cap.

I got into the game on the recommendation of my brother and another friend of ours. I played Everquest years earlier for a few months, shortly after the first expansion. The demanding nature of that game, including the reliance on grouping burned me out quickly. What attracted me to CoH was the ability to solo and lack of reliance on gear. It was kind of like a socialist MMO.

What really hooked me was the pace of combat. The game gets really exciting during a fight; I don't think there's been another MMO yet that matches the pace of that game. It's as close to direct, active control as I've seen thus far. Apparently a new powerset is being introduced which even allows for combos.

Additionally, a lone hero could face a group of upwards of 5 foes and emerge victorious, depending on the class. It was fun to jump into the midst of some villains and beat the hell out of them all. So in that regard, it was a very satisfying game.

The pace of leveling was fairly quick but, like all other MMOs it still had considerable grind. And that's really where things broke down. There was nothing else to do but fight. Every single thing in the game revolve around beating up badguys. There were conditions for some missions, like clicking on glowing items, but even then it required getting past hordes of villains. Story was presented in dialog boxes; at the time there were no cutscenes. Alternative skills, comparable to blacksmithing in fantasy MMOs were finally introduced a few months ago. This was after years of promising they were coming soon.

Apparently the skill system was completely redesigned at least 3 times over because it was deemed to not be fun enough. I haven't played what was finally implemented but from what I've read I'm not impressed. It looks like it's merely an adaptation of the supergroup base item building feature.

The character customization is excellent, and probably still surpasses what's available in most other MMOs. Beyond that, however, there's only one way to improve a character. And that's through enhancements which is comparable to stats for other games. Basically, enemies "drop" these enhancements which are then applied to a character's powers. So a player can boost damage, or the power's secondary debuff effect. That was all well and good until the developers decided they didn't want people focusing on a single aspect of any given power. So, every power has 5 slots, if I remember correctly, but using more than two slots for the same boost was essentially a waste. This was supposed to encourage enhancement diversity but I think it resulted in standard ideal templates for specific powers.

There was also the incessant complaining by those who had chosen classes that were less effective solo who felt it was unfair that other classes could solo so effective. Nevermind the fact that the best solo builds weren't always well-suited for groups. So a lot of work went into addressing that with mixed results and to, I feel, the general detriment of the game.

Another problem I came to find with the game was the excessive reliance on templates for environmental design. Basically, upon entering a zone the first time a player had a good sense for how the rest of the zone looked. And many of those features were reused in most other zones. So where other MMOs have a varied and dynamic landscape City of Hero's was a bit contrived. It was tiring running through the same laboratory with a random, nonsensical layout for the 5th time in a few hours. Despite that, the art style was great. It was a lot of fun traveling amongst those skyscrapers. The game simply could have benefited from more variety.

One thing that was good about CoH/CoV was how Cryptic has maintained a close relationship with the players. They've never disclosed the math behind the stats, but in general they've kept the players very well informed about what is going on. I have the impression, however, that the game has been a bit stagnant. The time between updates has grown considerably and there hasn't been a lot that's truly significant since I left a few years ago.

NCSoft may allow for greater resources to help build out the game. However, I'm a bit skeptical that this will be a good thing. I haven't been impressed with NCSoft's own games. I'm concerned that instead of improving the game where it needs it they're going to fundamentally change the game. They could completely ruin the game in the same way as Star Wars Galaxies.

City of Heroes Purchased by NCsoft

NCsoft plans to install it on Friday and just play like, all weekend.

I saw this last night

So glad I don't play this anymore. A part of me was pissed that I bought both versions, now they are just giving the other side away for free. I'd play again if they gave everyone a free month if they already owned COV and COH.

This is not your father's CoX

I've been with City of Heroes since open beta 3.5 years ago (just missed the closed beta). I've seen several posts here on /. saying basically "Been to CoH, didn't like it, left the game" and I'd like to say a little about how the game has matured since then.

Today's CoX (so abbreviated since both City of Heroes and City of Villains is really the same game) has changed massively during those 3.5 years. There's City of Villains, 2 years old as of last week, which nearly doubled the number of playable archetypes (think classes). There's tons of new zones (over 30 now) to play in. There's different mission types - rescuing hostages, destroying or defending the urban landscape - than the original "beat up all the bad guys". And there's Inventions, which is the CoX crafting system, a fairly new system that's still growing.

Bad things have happened too. Enhancement Diversification, unfortunately abbreviated ED, upset a lot of people by basically capping the amount by which you could improve your powers. Just over 2 years ago, there was a massive nerf to defense that made melee archetypes much squishier. And plenty of the little nerfs that every MMORPG gets along the way.

One thing that has not changed in the entire 3.5 years is the dedication of the CoX team to the community. The faces have changed - we've had several community representatives, the original lead designers for both CoH and CoV are gone - but the team has continued and has been very open with us about how the game is doing and their plans. Sure, they don't tell us everything, just as I wouldn't tell my clients everything about how I run my consulting business - but they're very open with everything they're allowed to share. And we get new updates (called issues) typically once every 3 months or so, which is great for keeping the game fresh even for us old-timers.

Another thing that continues to grow is the player community. Sites like http://www.paragonwiki.com/ [paragonwiki.com], http://www.cohtitan.com/ [cohtitan.com], http://coh.redtomax.com/data/ [redtomax.com] and http://www.badge-hunter.com/ [badge-hunter.com] are continually adding more support for players.

This NCSoft acquisition is a good thing for the game, in my opinion. The developers will no longer have to worry about two masters (Cryptic and NCSoft) - even when both your bosses are in agreement, red tape can cause problems, much less when they don't agree. That issue is gone. NCSoft has shown their commitment to maintaining the game through their offers of employment to practically the entire development and support team, as well as the creation of the NorCal studio. Personally I won't get much out of the in-game gifts, but it says a lot about NCSoft that they're reaching out to the community in this way.

Re:This game is still around?

As opposed to go into dungeon, kill 100 rats, level, go into another dungeon, kill 100 larger rats and level... all so you can get to level 1000 in order to go into the Dungeon Of Fat Loot with 50 other people to kill the Uber Rat Of Doom?

This is a MMOG we're talking about here :).

Re:CoH and CoV

Sidekicking/exemplaring is undoubtedly the best feature of CoX. I played World of Warcraft this past summer, and thanks to my addictive personality I was constantly outleveling my friends and having to start new characters if I wanted to play with them. Every time I did, I wished that I could just say "exemplar me" and play with them using my favorite character. Ironically, in CoX it's actually a lot more fun creating additional characters thanks to the customization available in terms of powers and appearance. There are definitely things that I really like about World of Warcraft, and on the whole it's always going to be a larger game than CoX ("duh"), but the fun factor of the latter is higher for me.