Considering Champions Online

first in a comparative series

Despite my best intentions and the encroaching virtual apocalypse I find myself unwilling to log in to Paragon City.

The whole situation pisses me off and depresses me in nearly equal measure, which renders me inert- I sit and stare at the monitor, unable to escape the knowledge that notwithstanding a miracle, every one and everything I see will cease to exist in a matter of weeks.

I realize that as a response this makes zero sense, roughly equivalent to greeting an onrushing cement truck by sitting down in the middle of the highway.  But there it is.


And I'm also put off the official forums, having reached my limit with the "mature", "rational" assholes who make it their mission to fingerwag and hector those who dare to have an un-approved response to impending dissolution, 'un approved' being any reaction other than awaiting the guillotine with head politely bowed, perhaps while discussing what an awesome game Guild Wars 2 is.

So I've been messing around with CO in a desultory way.
It's not by any measure a good game, but it's better than DCUO and in the rarified world of superhero MMOs that makes it the default runner-up.

As a game, it is cursed by its origins.
It began life in hot pursuit of two demographics - console gamers & WoW refugees. Trying to build a great MMO on such a foundation is like running a marathon with a ten pound weight on each ankle.
Just getting to the finish line is an incredible achievement, but forget medaling.


So you have a superhero game set in a contemporary city environment with currency straight out of Generic Fantasy World Number Eight Thousand- gold, silver & copper, with little colored icons just like WoW.  And you have an superhero MMO with a combat system heavily reliant on gamepad-style mechanisms like blocking and tapping.  But lacking the more involved mechanics of a true fighting game, so combat basically boils down to save up endurance then mash your best attack endlessly, then save up more endurance so you can start mashing your best attack again.

Etc etc etc.

It's that old saw about serving two masters rendered into...well, not flesh exactly- more like plasticky looking 3d models of superheroes.  It apes WoW without capturing any of that games deeper enjoyments, it conformed to the technical and interface limitations of consoles without, in the end, receiving the financial benefit of their participation.  Both are self-limiting behaviors and resulted in a game largely devoid of a compelling identity.

But right now it has two major recommendations- it isn't shutting down, and it isn't DCUO.

In the interest of seeing the glass as half full, here are couple of things I feel it does better than CoH:

1:  Handling Mez.

Its console genesis actually pays off here, as they made escaping from mez an active thing that everyone can do- if you get held or whatever, just bang away on your Z key until you erase the purple bar.

Voila!
You're free!

2:  The ALERT! system

An automated queue of mini-missions anyone can join any time.  The missions themselves are supremely basic, but I like them for the reason I liked DFB and DIB- you can use them to easily level a team-centric character without having to go through the bother of actually finding a team.  And unlike the CoH queue system, this one actually works- pick a mission, join the queue (or join several!) and in a few seconds or at most minutes you'll be getting some nice rewards.

3: .....uh......

Well, I guess that's it.

No wait, PVP!  That's it, PVP.
Not that I've done any, or have any interest in it, but I see people dualling all over the place, and pretty much every time my son wants to check out the little arena environments they have in the Powerhouse someone pops in and actually wants to fight, which is so different from CoH it actually took me a few seconds to parse what was happening.


They seem to have put a huge amount of effort into the character building side of things, which is unfortunate for me as I'd rather do ANYTHING ELSE than worry about building the perfect character.  Which is  odd since back in the day I spent countless hours poring over my Champs rulebooks in search of the ideal balance of powers and disadvantages.  Building the characters that populated my pen and paper campaign  took longer than the gaming sessions they fueled.

But in the virtual realm, I find I much prefer the initial simplicity of CoH's archetype system. On the CO forums one of the big motivations to sub up is access to a 'freeform' slot which lets you min-max to your hearts delight, cherry picking powers from any AT in the game.  A prospect with all the appeal of a head-on collision between a van full of nuns and a semi truck loaded with incontinent hogs.


It isn't terrible, but its problems are systemic rather than cosmetic.
They could work on CO until the end of time, but absent a complete re-roll it'll still be the bastard offspring of WoW & and Xbox.