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City of Heroes Going Rogue With New Expansion 100

Posted by Soulskill from the sinister-goatees-for-everyone dept.
NCSoft has announced a major expansion to City of Heroes, titled Going Rogue, which they say will "blur the line between heroes and villains." It is set in Praetoria, a parallel universe governed by an evil version of Statesman, the game's lead hero. As part of a new alignment system, "hero characters can become villains and vice versa, enabling hero archetypes to cross over to the Rogue Isles and villain archetypes to experience Paragon City." Brian Clayton of Paragon Studios said, "For years, players could choose between playing as a hero or a villain. Now we will present a third, malleable path where players can be affected by the results of their actions."
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City of Heroes Going Rogue With New Expansion More

City of Heroes Going Rogue With New Expansion

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  • Come A Long Way (Score:5, Informative)

    by GearheadX ( 414240 ) on Wednesday May 13, 2009 @05:23AM (#27935199)

    Good to see the game continuing to grow and change. They've come a long way from a studio that, in 2006, was cut down to just 15 people maintaining the game.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by b04rdr1d3r ( 1079225 )
      I Love CoX... much better gameplay and mature community than many other MMORPG (at least on the european servers). I also appreciate much the fact that my subscription fee goes to pay new issues that are regularly made available to me without additional charges (14 issues released with a lot of additional content to the game in 5 years and counting...) Way to go NCSoft, I wish you did not suck so much at advertising that game...

      • I'm sorry... (Score:1, Funny)

        by pHus10n ( 1443071 )
        Disregard that, I suck CoX?

      • Not that special (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Moraelin ( 679338 )

        While I do play COH and like it, I don't see it as that special in that aspect.

        For example WoW also released a lot of individual instances, story arcs, etc, for free in between the two expansion packs. E.g., the endgame content in both the original game and BC was released as such free patches, and even WOTLK has just seen for example Ulduar released as such a free patch. Just because they don't call them "issues" or make a big fuss about it, it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

        Furthermore, 14 issues sounds a

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by residieu ( 577863 )
          The great thing about City Of Heroes is the flexibility in getting a team together. If you want to run dungeons in World of Warcraft, you need a healer, a tank, and three others to fill out the team. In City of Heroes, if you want to run a task force with your blaster, and two scrappers (all DPS classes). You've got all tankers? That'll work too. Most of the "Defender" class don't concentrate on healing, some of them can't heal at all. Missions and task forces scale to your team size, so you don't have to w

      • Re:Come A Long Way (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Sage Gaspar ( 688563 ) on Wednesday May 13, 2009 @07:30AM (#27935889)
        I like CoH but it is pretty anemic on content compared to other games, which is fine for what it is. It's about dinking around making new characters and then trying it all over again. But there is far more content in one expansion for the major MMO of your choice than in the entire Heroes game from start to finish, and it's not 900 different versions of the Tech building or the Office building with herds of enemies plopped in by the computer. Plus they still get pretty much the same amount of additional content patched in the interim.

        The gameplay is a big draw for me. The one thing I wish they'd do is put in more bosses with interesting mechanics -- i.e. special attacks that require heroes to get out of the way, things like the Hollows trial where you need to split up to activate things simultaneously, etc. Apart from three or four fights in both sides of the entire game the deepest strategy is point the "boss" away from the rest of the team. In a game with as many mobility powers as CoH you can do sooo much better.

        • The last issue (i14) released the Mission Architect.

          The game itself already had over a thousand mission arcs, plus randomly generated missions from certain contacts as well as radio missions.

          Now, with the MA, you have access to effectively unlimited content. In the first month alone, they surpassed 100,000 (one hundred thousand) mission arcs generated by the player base.

          Granted, some of these were exploits and farms, which have since been nerfed. But the point still stands. If you want lots of content.

          • Lots of content != lots of copy-and-paste (Score:5, Insightful)

            by Moraelin ( 679338 ) on Wednesday May 13, 2009 @08:32AM (#27936661) Journal

            Quantity doesn't say anything about quality. If my hypothetical restaurant boasted 100 different recipes on the menu, but they're all minor variations of the same cheeseburger, you're not going to think it's the most diverse food around.

            What I'm trying to say is that in COH

            A) all missions are one of:

            - kill NPC and everyone else in the same room

            - click on glowie

            - rescue hostage

            - kill everyone on map

            - defend an object

            And I don't mean at a conceptual level (as in, both Deadmines and Ulduar involve killing an end-boss in WoW), but they're all a map full of NPC groups and you have to do largely the same thing yet again on a different map. But what makes it worse is:

            B) maps aren't very different. Like in the old Daggerfall, maps are made of a small number of huge and easily recognizable chunks, that are just interconnected in different ways. So for example it's very easy to recognize that you're in the same 4-level cavern room you've already seen a gazillion times before, or that you're in the exact same lobby with an overpass, or in the same 4-way warehouse junction.

            Once you recognize that, you don't just know the exact architecture and have seen it before. (As in, at the level of, "oh, around that corner are the cubicles and around that other corner is a ramp up.") After a while you also know exactly where the enemies can spawn and around which corners you should be careful.

            In WoW terms, for whoever is more familiar with that, think how memorable the cave with the ship was in the Deadmines when you saw it the first time as a newbie. Now think if it were reused in a thousand other dungeons, and you're seeing the same bloody room again from level 1 to level 80. Because it's reused again and again and again.

            Just saying that it's a lot of missions is kind of misleading, when you run into such copied and pasted rooms over and over again.

            And even worse...

            C) The number of different combinations of those pieces is also rather limited. So not just the chunks of some maps can be what you've already seen before, but the whole bloody map can be an exact duplicate of something you've already played a hundred times.

            And sometimes it's as if they don't even try to hide it at all. In fact as if they try to rub your nose in it.

            E.g., I can think of one teen-level task force where three missions in a row are identical. As in, you do the exact same map, with the exact same layout, and the exact same enemies, 3 times in a row. It's just placed in different buildings around the city, but it's the same mission again. What was the purpose of _that_? Just to make sure I know it's a copy-and-paste time sink?

            Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the game as a whole sucks or anything. That's a matter of personal tastes, anyway. But saying that it has lots of content is IMHO highly misleading, since actually it's very little content copied and pasted over and over again. Repetition doesn't really make it more content.

            • In WoW terms, for whoever is more familiar with that, think how memorable the cave with the ship was in the Deadmines when you saw it the first time as a newbie. Now think if it were reused in a thousand other dungeons, and you're seeing the same bloody room again from level 1 to level 80. Because it's reused again and again and again.

              So, kinda like the non-instance caves (of which there are about 30 copies each of three designs) or the forts? One of the first things I noticed when I got WotLK was "Hey, new castle design!"

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Endo13 ( 1000782 )

                Kind of, in the broadest of terms. The difference is that in CoH, all your missions (quests) take place inside the copy-and-paste caves, office buildings, or warehouses. Well, except for if you choose to do the still-more-bland street missions that involve a.)killing xx number of xx baddies, b.)delivering an item to an NPC, or c.)click some pay phones.

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by Chas ( 5144 )

                  Not QUITE true.

                  There are a fair number of outdoor maps available to you. In-game, you don't see them a lot until later levels.

              • Sort of, yes and no.

                Yes, there is a lot of duplicated geometry in WoW too, and I should know, I've played both games more than some would consider healthy.

                No, the overal feeling isn't the same. As the general feeling goes, in WoW sometimes you're in a cave, sometimes you're in the woods, sometimes you're on some snow-covered mountain, and sometimes you're in a fort, etc.... There's some copied stuff, but on the whole there's a _lot_ of content anyway. Even if you see some of it twice or thrice, there is nev

            • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

              by Endo13 ( 1000782 )

              Unfortunately, what Parent posted here is 100% correct. And unfortunately, what he posted is also largely correct of the "custom" Mission Architect missions. The only thing you can actually do with MA is create your own custom baddies and baddie groups. Oh, and write the dialog... which is very important, because everyone always reads that, right? Not only can you not create your own maps, you can't even place the baddies or items yourself. (Besides the vague options of "front", "back", or "middle" of the m

            • As much as I've enjoyed COH/COV over the past several years, there's real truth in this. Thinking back on some of the most memorable stuff in the game, what comes to mind are the very few instances with unique mission art. Even then, they're usually still the same basic map, but with different textures, objects and furniture - and that's enough to make them really stand out from the overall sameness of the rest of the game. (I'm thinking of things like Mother Mayhem's Asylum, some of the Freakshow-specif
          • It's more a gameplay comment than just sheer amount. People are using WoW but it's the case in an increasing number of MMOs, when you walk into a boss fight you have to expect the unexpected. Dodge bombs they chuck at you or beams they shoot. Break teammates free of ice they're encased in. Dodge behind rocks or pillars to avoid getting hit with an attack. Dodge tail swipes and dragons breath. Cut teammates free before a sword impales them. Dodge a giant on a wyrm making passes at you down a hallway while yo
          • How is the PVP? Can I get form a band of Merry Men and duke it out with a Nefarious Alliance of Evil? If captured, will my goodie be dragged back to an evil scientists lair for examination? Will my baddie be thrown into an asylum to be drugged and psycho-analyzed? Can I then do an escape quest with my main or run a rescue with my alt? I am just curious, because those elements would be huge selling points for me.
    • Ok, I like the game, quite a lot. I've played it off and on since it launched. I'll probably go back to it for another spin soon because I've gotten a hankering for superhero ass-kicking again. But. Let's be honest here, the game is not growing. It might be holding steady with periodic increases or decreases in subscription rates but it most certainly is not growing...

  • Good Idea (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Lifyre ( 960576 ) on Wednesday May 13, 2009 @05:47AM (#27935311)

    And like most good ideas it depends on implementation. If the path to Good from Bad and vice versa are nontrivial actions then this stands to add a significant amount of replayablity to characters and personal attachment to a character.

    A well thought out quest path that leads to the opposite faction with good story lines, moderately difficult to difficult quests, and tangible rewards can make this a tremendous addition to the game.

    If NCSoft has made the path back and forth a toggle switch then it becomes just another piece of fluff that adds little or nothing to the actual game istelf.

  • Reliable Entertainment (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Tempest451 ( 791438 ) on Wednesday May 13, 2009 @06:00AM (#27935353)
    This is why this game has been chugging along for so long, great updates and a strong player-base.
  • Had some lag issues, but they seem to resolve quickly when away from large concentrations of player characters (100+, typically).

    I think I might get a subscription. EVE is good, but hard work. Sometimes I just want to blast something for a laugh.

  • The first thing I thought after seeing the headline was "Good! Another 20 years and they'll go Nethack" :-)
    http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20060522&mode=classic [userfriendly.org]

  • I was wondering when they were going to annex Joehio.

  • Reminds me of something, I'll get it in a moment...

    Do you get villages of minions to torture, or do you have to be satisfied with PKs?

  • When City of Heroes(Villains) (CoX) was first launched, it was absolutely the only super-hero MMO out there, and as such filled a niche that wasn't being satisfied by anything else at the time. It was a good game in that it worked fairly well, was fun to play and had some interesting storylines to play through. However, in my opinion, there isn't any real depth to the game unless you're *really* into the stories and want to experience every single last one of them, despite many of them being essentially the

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Vohar ( 1344259 )

      Well, there are dozens of fantasy-themed MMOs out there. Each new one doesn't necessarily hurt the ones before it too badly.

      I'm sure after DC Universe and Champions Online come out we'll start seeing fanboys of all 3 superhero games frothing at the mouth and crying heretic when a game other than their chosen one is mentioned.

      Look at any story here about an MMO. It'll be that, with names changed.

      • Fanpeople aside, the challenge for CoX is going to be that they've got a 5 year old game engine (that is very, very limited, but very solid for the few things it does) that they're charging people $15 a month to play going against 2 brand-new game engines that at the least look a lot better and most likely will have fewer limitations and will also cost $15 a month to play.

        I don't know that just letting people change alignments is going to be sufficient to keep people on the old system paying the same price

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by jandrese ( 485 )
        For what it's worth, Champions Online is coming out pretty soon, but the lead developer is the same guy who developed City of Heroes, so don't expect major differences between the two. From what I've heard, a lot of the old disgruntled CoH players that went over there are hopping mad at how the game has turned out, since they left CoH to get away from the very conventions that are starting to show up in CO.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by slaker ( 53818 )

          CO is maddening for several reasons:

          1. It's dumbed down for console play. Ugh.

          2. It does not particularly respect the source material. Champions as a pen and paper franchise is at least 20 years old, but it was essentially pasted on the CO game engine.

          3. It's being run by Jack "Statesman" Emmert. I've met the guy. He's a comic book fan. But he has a particular idea of fun, and anything that does not match his vision isn't going to be part of the game. A lot of the issues that CoX had in the past stem from s

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by slaker ( 53818 )

      Having seen what a 2 billion infamy build is capable of, I'm not sure how much more "epic" the game could be.

      • Before Enhancement Diversification and the various reductions in the effects of Area of Effect attacks, players could very easily take down literally hundreds of opponents single-handedly. Back when I first played, my scrapper (Dark Melee/Regeneration) would pay people to join my teams and then sit by the doors of missions so that I could maximize the spawns for fighting. Even on the highest level of difficulty with the largest possible spawn sizes, I pretty much couldn't be killed. I used to solo multiple

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by slaker ( 53818 )

          Signature characters exist in MMOs to give the developers a basis for content. You can't be a signature character; people playing DCUO won't ever get to be Batman, either.

          Any MMO world does have to remain largely static. Changes happen in CoX when new updates are released. I'm fine with that. From a mechanical standpoint I don't see what the developers could do that would allow players to legitimately change the game world.

          Still, my level 50s are considered peers of their villainous patrons. They've rid the

          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by thesandtiger ( 819476 )

            There's a difference between being a signature character and having an impact on the world, and there are a lot of things that can be done to let the players feel like they're having an impact on the game world. I don't accept that MMO worlds need to remain more or less static - I actually think that's largely a relic of the initial constraints on the genre coupled with a lack of effort on developing non-static game worlds; there have been several games that actually do let players change things fairly dram

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by FnordX ( 115944 )

              I agree that the zones all really need redesigns. There are zones, like Perez Park, or Boomtown, etc., which are never used these days. They need to re-design them like they did to Faultline.

              The thing, though, is that, when asked about this, the Devs say that it takes only slightly less time to re-design a zone as it takes to make a new zone.

              The players, when questioned if they would rather have a new zone, or a re-designed zone, always say that they want a new zone. It's really sad, though. They have a

              • That is a really good point. But, I think the solution is hinted at by what's in the game already: Mission Architect. One of the CoX devs said that within 48 hours of the MA going live, players had created more missions than the dev team had in the 5ish years the game's been live. Granted, 99.99% of it would be really craptacular, but some of it is good stuff that could be ready for inclusion in the main game with a little polish.

                So what if the devs released a basic level/zone design tool, specs for texture

  • The New Mission Architect stuff has totally renewed my interest in this game. I've designed two missions now:

    "Dorothy is Dangerous" a Wizard of OZ themed map where munchkins and flying monkeys protect Dorothy, the Tin Man, ect.... as your team tries to take them out as a favor to the wicked witch...

    And "Judgment" where ten Arch villains, each with very different abilities, are on the same map, and your team (or solo) tries to arrest the hell out of them. I've had only two people send me messages where they

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by slaker ( 53818 )

      Weird that I've seen four or five different takes on the Wizard of Oz among MA missions. They've all been pretty good, too. "Oz" must be a code word for someone trying to actually use the storytelling aspect of the MA.

  • I played CoX for a month, and I had a lot of fun. Sure, everything is instanced (and what isn't is horribly annoying) but I had fun. It has a very friendly feel, and I love super heroes. Problem is its also very, very lazy. Take the aforementioned task forces. It is widely acknowledged - by positron himself in fact - that the first one is nothing but horrible suffering and pain. I went through it with my Warbringer. Wow was he right. But they don't intend to fix it. Or the mission that's taken from the

    • Having heroes or villains be able to swap sides is a cool idea - one I had about 10 minutes after they announced City of Villains 3 years ago or whatever. To call that one feature a major expansion (ok, to be fair, it sounds like they are building new zones and things into this expasion too, and probably lots of other stuff as well), but really, switching sides seems like a minor feature at best, and something they should have had in the game a long time ago.

      The actually *really* interesting feature which C

  • You know, the one where Statesman and his Cryptic crew leave NCSoft to start their rival game.

  • I still think City of Heroes/Villains has, by far, the best fighting system of any MMO. It's the closest any game has come to real-time action. It's engaging and can be a lot of fun.

    When I was playing there were a handful of interesting storylines and entertaining missions. However, virtually every single mission consistent of entering one of a handful of environments and beating the crap out of every enemy contained within. While it's very entertaining taking on 5 or more enemies at the same time it does g

  • I picked up CoX at Biglots for $4. It even included a free month. I installed it and used the free week or so they give you when you sign in. It just wasn't very compelling. It looked nice enough, but I couldn't really get interested in it. I may use the free month sometime if I am really bored. I'm sure I'll get $4 worth of gameplay out of it.

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