Champions Online: The No-NDA Merged Edition

[Ghambit]

(sigh)  why didnt they just copy the damned pnp version? 

Because it is the kind of system that is highly exploitable as well as being highly gimpable.

And that's the whole point of Superheroes; exploits and gimps.
tbh I was never really a fan of the Champions system anyways.  I highly recommend those interested in this kinda thing check out "Wild Talents" (2nd edition if it's out)  It's an absolutely beautiful gaming system.

Ahh, in digging around the "who's who" of the site I found this on the Lead Designer Randy Motiondz:

Q: You've done a lot of writing for tabletop RPGs. What are some of the games you've written for?
A: Before working in video games I worked as a freelance writer and editor for Pinnacle Entertainment Group, a pen-and-paper game company run by Shane Lacy Hensley. I co-wrote a number of books for the Savage Worlds game system including Necessary Evil (a supervillains RPG), The Savage World of Solomon Kane (an RPG based on the Robert E. Howard character) and Noble Deceit (a fantasy RPG adventure). I edited 50 Fathoms (a fantasy pirates RPG) and Rippers: The Horror War (Victorian horror skirmish game).

I've got a LOT of Pinnacle stuff and it's ALL very good.  Savage Worlds is basically the cat's meow right now and I'd say Solomon Kane and 50 Fathoms are some of their best stuff.  These games have won a lot of awards also.
If he can translate the quality of his Savage Worlds stuff into ChampO it'll be win-win.  But, that's unlikely.  Nevertheless, you can see some theme overlap in the way ChampO is designed:  "Fast, Furious, Fun" supposedly... less about the crunch, more about the game (an oxymoron to the Champions system).  You can get creative with the characters, but not so much so with the numbers and specifics.

I think this proves the game really has nothing to do with the IP 'cept for name.  Cant say that's good or bad.

[UnSub]

I think Cryptic has always been pretty open that the Hero System and the Champions IP are viewed as two different entities and that ChampO wouldn't be using the Hero System. The timing of it pretty much indicates that Cryptic went looking to grab a superhero IP to develop their next title for, since the alternative was either scrap the project (probably not viable given they were self-funded at the time) or try to develop their own universe again (which would have required a ton of extra work).

Randy posts as Arkayne on the ChampO forums. If you are interested in Pinnacle, Shane Hensley is the lead at Superstition Studios (which is owned by CME / FireSky - HAHAHAHA) and trying to get a Deadlands MMO up.

[Nevermore]

Are hero names exclusive to an individual, like in City of Heroes, or can two heroes have the same name? (Nexus)

Rejoice, the days of name-squatting are over! In Champions Online, character names are unique to a single player's account. Everyone can now be "Odysseus." Each account can only have one "Odysseus," though. If Champions Online can't figure out the precise character you're referring to, you specify the player who owns the character. This is done by appending the player's  handle (also call an @name or public name) to it. For example, "Odysseus@poz," "Odysseus@Simmons," and "Odysseus@Homer."

Oh boy...

[Ghambit]

Randy posts as Arkayne on the ChampO forums. If you are interested in Pinnacle, Shane Hensley is the lead at Superstition Studios (which is owned by CME / FireSky - HAHAHAHA) and trying to get a Deadlands MMO up.

Good things come to good companies with good people.  Deadlands?  Now that they've expanded it a bit, is probably Pinnacle's (and savage world's) best product, even though it really started as a D20 game.  It'd take a total phuckin retard to screw up an MMO for it, and even more of a tool to mess up the marketing.  The "Weird West" is a genre that somehow just grabs everyone it touches.

Are hero names exclusive to an individual, like in City of Heroes, or can two heroes have the same name? (Nexus)

Rejoice, the days of name-squatting are over! In Champions Online, character names are unique to a single player's account. Everyone can now be "Odysseus." Each account can only have one "Odysseus," though. If Champions Online can't figure out the precise character you're referring to, you specify the player who owns the character. This is done by appending the player's  handle (also call an @name or public name) to it. For example, "Odysseus@poz," "Odysseus@Simmons," and "Odysseus@Homer."

Oh boy...

I'm chalking this one up as something that's gonna get axed in beta.  Seriously doubt we'll see stuff like:
"BEHOLD!  I am Galacticus@Finklestein!"

[raydeen]

Randy posts as Arkayne on the ChampO forums. If you are interested in Pinnacle, Shane Hensley is the lead at Superstition Studios (which is owned by CME / FireSky - HAHAHAHA) and trying to get a Deadlands MMO up.

Good things come to good companies with good people.  Deadlands?  Now that they've expanded it a bit, is probably Pinnacle's (and savage world's) best product, even though it really started as a D20 game.  It'd take a total phuckin retard to screw up an MMO for it, and even more of a tool to mess up the marketing.  The "Weird West" is a genre that somehow just grabs everyone it touches.

Are hero names exclusive to an individual, like in City of Heroes, or can two heroes have the same name? (Nexus)

Rejoice, the days of name-squatting are over! In Champions Online, character names are unique to a single player's account. Everyone can now be "Odysseus." Each account can only have one "Odysseus," though. If Champions Online can't figure out the precise character you're referring to, you specify the player who owns the character. This is done by appending the player's  handle (also call an @name or public name) to it. For example, "Odysseus@poz," "Odysseus@Simmons," and "Odysseus@Homer."

Oh boy...

I'm chalking this one up as something that's gonna get axed in beta.  Seriously doubt we'll see stuff like:
"BEHOLD!  I am Galacticus@Finklestein!"

Dibs on the username URMOM.

[Ghambit]

Dibs on the username URMOM.

I've thought about using Shonuff@Harlem

[Nebu]

So... I could be in a group with 5 toons named "Fartman", they will just have different tags on their names?  Odd.

[Nevermore]

Good things come to good companies with good people.  Deadlands?  Now that they've expanded it a bit, is probably Pinnacle's (and savage world's) best product, even though it really started as a D20 game.  It'd take a total phuckin retard to screw up an MMO for it, and even more of a tool to mess up the marketing.  The "Weird West" is a genre that somehow just grabs everyone it touches.

Deadlands did not start off as a D20 game.  It was re-released as a D20 game at some point, but originally it had it's own very unique game mechanics.

[Ghambit]

Good things come to good companies with good people.  Deadlands?  Now that they've expanded it a bit, is probably Pinnacle's (and savage world's) best product, even though it really started as a D20 game.  It'd take a total phuckin retard to screw up an MMO for it, and even more of a tool to mess up the marketing.  The "Weird West" is a genre that somehow just grabs everyone it touches.

Deadlands did not start off as a D20 game.  It was re-released as a D20 game at some point, but originally it had it's own very unique game mechanics.

Yah, I realized my error in that assumption post-post.  Thing is though, I dont think the game really set off until it became D20.  Yah, people played it and liked it but not like they're liking it now as D20 or Savage Worlds.  I see now why Pinnacle kinda dropped the ball with support for their Deadlands product though (even though it was vastly superior); a big chunk of their staff are building damned MMOs now.

[Lantyssa]

I have mixed feelings about the naming policy.  On the one hand I see where it's going to be very, very bad.  On the other, with the CoX reactivation I tried to make the original Tanker I wanted.  Invul/Dark where the Dark was actually gravity manipulation for flavor.

Dark Matter
Dark Materia
Darkmatter
Strange Matter
Quark
Various fundamental particles, variations thereof, physics concepts relating to gravity and condensed matter, etc.

I must have tried thirty friggin' names.  And in a super hero MMO, the name is incredibly important to the concept.  Who cares if there are five hundred Wolverines?  Not like any of them are worth talking to.

[Ingmar]

The name thing is interesting. My first reaction was "that will never work" but really, maybe it will. It seems like there's some griefing potential there though.

[Montague]

Are hero names exclusive to an individual, like in City of Heroes, or can two heroes have the same name? (Nexus)

Rejoice, the days of name-squatting are over! In Champions Online, character names are unique to a single player's account. Everyone can now be "Odysseus." Each account can only have one "Odysseus," though. If Champions Online can't figure out the precise character you're referring to, you specify the player who owns the character. This is done by appending the player's  handle (also call an @name or public name) to it. For example, "Odysseus@poz," "Odysseus@Simmons," and "Odysseus@Homer."

Oh boy...

Makes sense, it's not too much of a stretch from COH's global handle system, and yeah coming up with names in a 2-3 year old game was craptacular.

[Koyasha]

I fully support character names not being unique, but there being a global chat handle to differentiate which version of that name you're talking to.  I've always found unique character names to be an annoying part of post-UO MMOG's, and a global chat handle resolves the problems of being able to uniquely identify a character, while allowing infinite numbers of the same name.  This should be the standard.

[FatuousTwat]

You are all over-reacting.

[Nevermore]

I can see the appeal of being able to pick any name you want regardless of how many other people have the same name, but losing some of the uniqueness of your character has its downsides as well.  It's not a clownshoes decision by any means (I never said it was), but they're going to be trading one set of issues for another.

[Merusk]

That's pretty damn nice. I'd like to see more MMOs do it.   I'd much rather see a thousand "Killers" than  "Kiilar" "Kíller" etc.

[Ghambit]

All this mechanic really does is make 2 screenames instead of 1.  It's the equivalent of having first and last names (which many games have done in the past, like Tabula Rasa).   I just think it's dumb and unimmersive presented this way though. 

Why not just do like most Supers games do and have REAL NAMES as well as Nicknames?

Are we trapped into using our Login name as our public tag?  Or it the tag completely customizeable (either per character or per account)?  It's kind of an ambiguous mechanic.

[Nevermore]

It'll probably be something like your global name in CoX.  Something you can set once but then you're stuck with it*.

*In CoX you can change your global name once, but once in a blue moon they give you another chance to change it.

[Lantyssa]

I can see the appeal of being able to pick any name you want regardless of how many other people have the same name, but losing some of the uniqueness of your character has its downsides as well.  It's not a clownshoes decision by any means (I never said it was), but they're going to be trading one set of issues for another.

I agree and I'm interested in seeing how it pans out from a purely academic standpoint.

Mainly because unlike global handles in CoX, they'll be forcing it for the server players are on.  Tabula Rasa did handle it well, though making all heroes have the same last name doesn't really work here.  If it's going to require meta-gaming for chatting though, they should just allow an account handle without the "longassnamehere@account".

[Sky]

I'd rather spend an hour coming up with a good name than have fifty people all going by my handle and I'm stuck with Cosmic Anomaly@stupiddevidea. I still come up with good names for EQ2, after a server merge and years of characters being created. Sure, I get blocked a few times, but I'm not shooting for Raistlin, either. Non-unique names is a horrible, horrible idea I hope dies before release.

Those screenshots linked a few posts back were the first I've actually seen of the game. Looks hot, I'm interested now. :)

[Ghambit]

Lotta videos here that arent present on the ChampO site.  Some rather enlightening.  They've also got some screenies that are pretty informative also.

[Merusk]

Zone Trailer

It boasts "...a pit so deep that there is no escape. Not even death."  So they took the Darkfall 'you will fall forever and we can't stop it' bug and turned it into a feature?   

[Numtini]

My first reaction to the naming thing is really negative. Yes, I am lucky. I snagged Kathy (my name) on my server in EQ2 and pretty much nobody else is interested in Numtini. But I'd rather be Kathliene which is my usual misspelling if I can't snag Kathy than kathy@numtini. I also really see much potential for griefing--"Hi, i'm the guy who stole your name, pay me 10 gold and I'll delete the character and you can have your name back"

[shiznitz]

The naming system is brilliant. Your customers should be able to name their character what they want. That said, it could hurt initial box sales because we all know at least 10 people who buy every MMO just to name-claim.

[Ghambit]

I'd have a game mechanic to force the players to duke it out for the right to have the name; just like when pretenders show up in a comic and the super has to deal with him/her.  Like, the top ranked Spiderman gets to keep his name... while all the rest are merely denoted as clones e.g. Spiderman@johnny

I'd start with level first... and then use pvp rank, rep grinds, and gear.

[Ashamanchill]

I'd have a game mechanic to force the players to duke it out for the right to have the name; just like when pretenders show up in a comic and the super has to deal with him/her.  Like, the top ranked Spiderman gets to keep his name... while all the rest are merely denoted as clones e.g. Spiderman@johnny

I'd start with level first... and then use pvp rank, rep grinds, and gear.

That's an interesting idea.  It would probably fuck me over, as I'm a lazy casual gamer, but I would be willing to put up with that. 

Using their current mechanic, what happens when you snag the hame you want for your handle, then want to use it for your toon as well?  Like Batman@batman or something?

[UnSub]

I'm pretty sure you could do that. Or it would make sense to because you aren't really breaking any kind of common sense rules.

It's a nice solution to CoH/V's issue of running out of good names, but it does leave the door open for confusion between players at a glance. You'd have to make pretty good use of your friend list to ensure you caught the 'right' one.

EDIT: Meant to say that if you compare the newer screenshots with the older, first released ones, the comic shading has really dialled back and it looks like they've tried to make things a little less cartoony.

[Velorath]

I'd rather spend an hour coming up with a good name than have fifty people all going by my handle and I'm stuck with Cosmic Anomaly@stupiddevidea. I still come up with good names for EQ2, after a server merge and years of characters being created. Sure, I get blocked a few times, but I'm not shooting for Raistlin, either. Non-unique names is a horrible, horrible idea I hope dies before release.

Like Lanty said, there's a pretty big difference between coming up with an actual name, and coming up with a superhero name (which is much more tied in to your character's concept).  If you're playing EQ2, there's practically an infinite number of names you can come up with.  If you're playing a superhero game and you and your friends want to make a Confederate superhero team, you're pretty much fucked when your sonic powered character can't get the name Rebel Yell, and the guy who transforms into rock can't get the name Stonewall.  Then you have to come up with a whole new concept, and go through character creation again, and hope this time your names aren't picked.

[eldaec]

Can't say I ever found it that hard to come up with a decent name in CoX.

And the solution, having a clunky addition to charname which will have to visible everywhere you see names of players, seems worse than the problem.

[FatuousTwat]

I'm not gonna say much, but you guys are getting one of your basic assumptions wrong.

[MisterNoisy]

NDA was dropped.

Have at it.

I think it's the press NDA/embargo only.

[Montague]

NDA was dropped.

Have at it.

I think it's the press NDA/embargo only.

You were That Kid in school, weren't you? 

[Hutch]

NDA was dropped.

Have at it.

I think it's the press NDA/embargo only.

Edit:  I'm sure of it, actually... 

Man, I've screwed this up for like every game ever.

I always forget that I "count as press."

I'll let Trippy handle this one then, he's "press" too.

... so if there's a "press NDA", and it's been dropped, and you count as press, what does that mean, exactly? Are you allowed to write a front-page article about it, as opposed to, say, posting in a forum? What is the distinction?

[Sky]

I'm wearing a fedora, that makes me press!

[Nonentity]

Yeah, I was looking at this thread and went hunting for information today, it's Press NDA only.

C'mon, you silly press, spill it!