A tanker confronts an Arch Villain (Dr.Vahzilok) in City of Heroes. City of Heroes is a massively multiplayer online role-playing computer game based on comic book superheroes that was developed by Cryptic Studios and published by NCsoft. The game was launched in North America on April 28, 2004. NCSoft Europe plans to launch City of Heroes in France, Germany and the UK on February 4th 2005 with Scandinavia, Italy, Spain and Benelux to follow. As of 2004, Cryptic was developing the game's first expansion, City of Villains, to allow users to play as supervillains.
In the game, players create superhero player characters who can team up with others to fight various villains in Paragon City and its surrounding areas. Heroes must battle villain members of a gang or organization and complete quests given to them by NPCs in order to accumulate experience points and increase their security level. As City of Heroes is an MMORPG, it is continually updated by the developer and new plot developments and villains are added.
Overview
Players begin their adventure in a tutorial that teaches them how to play the game. It is here they learn about the level system and how to determine which enemies to attack. As a hero's level increases, he gains benefits such as more health, more powers, more belt slots for holding power-ups, and more enhancement slots for powers. Enhancements are power-ups which players can socket onto powers to improve them. The more enhancement slots a power has, the more pronounced the potential improvements.
Both enemies and heroes have security levels; a hero's chance to hit an enemy is determined by the difference between his level and the enemy's. Low level heroes always have trouble successfully damaging high level villains. Paragon City, the city in which the game takes place, is divided into different zones by giant energy walls (also known as "War Walls"). The force fields prevent any large threat from ever threatening the whole city at once; they also reduce enemy movement from zone to zone as the only way to travel between zones is by trains operated by the Paragon Transit Authority or roads that are guarded by police drones. Players can also travel to hazard zones, zones outside of the city proper which can be teeming with large groups of powerful enemies, and the city's sewer system.
Heroes move around the zones themselves by running and walking, initially. As heroes grow in level and accumulate more powers, they usually gain the ability to choose one of four traveling powers: teleportation, super speed, super jumping, and flight. All four have their own advantages and disadvantages. In addition, a less powerful but related travel power must first be learned. This is because the travel powers are all power pools. While each archetype (listed below) has its own unique set of powers and abilities, all players have available to them powers from one of the 10 power pools. The power pools contain generic, non-class specific powers such as Invisibility, Provoke, Recall Friend, and Boxing.
There are a variety of different villain organizations and gangs in City of Heroes, each with unique attributes. Groups of villains, all from the same gang and usually all with similar security levels, roam around areas of Paragon City. Certain gangs are more likely to appear in different zones. For instance, Circle of Thorns (magic using villain) members can almost always be found in the hazard zone of Perez Park. Increasing in level usually consists of traveling to different zones and fighting certain villains until your character's level is too high to benefit from the experience given by successful arrests.
Quests (known in City of Heroes as missions) are also given by non-playable characters which create random dungeons inhabited by a particular gang, except themed to Paragon City, so typically sewers or warehouses or abandoned office buildings. As heroes venture further into the dungeon, they usually have to confront a boss villain, rescue hostages, or find a particular clue. Heroes can adventure into dungeons together if they form a team and choose a particular quest as the team's objective. The difficulty level and number of the villains is adjusted according to the strength and number of the heroes grouped together. Since the release of issue 3 expansion, the player is now able to set the difficulty of the missions by visiting an NPC.
Amid the random quests, story arcs will emerge. These are a series of missions which, when linked together, form a bigger story. Often, these give the player new insights into the history and mythos that is Paragon City. Sometimes, these story arcs affect the player hero directly as well.
Missions also sometimes reward the players with a badge (feature that was released with issue 2 expansion).
Teamwork is a very important and large part of City of Heroes. Players can form supergroups reminiscent of classic comic book groups such as the X-Men or Justice League of America. Supergroups pick a name, a motto, an emblem, and two colors. Heroes can then enter 'Supergroup Mode' and change the colors of their normal avatar to those of their supergroup. Roaming groups of amazingly unique color coordinated heroes destroying enemies form some of the game's most pleasing visuals. Players can also form Taskforces to take on extended missions or temporary teams of logged on players to go on missions and fight villains together.
Character Classes
Origins
When creating a character, the player must first choose his character's origin. Unlike races in fantasy MMORPGs, the origins only decide who the player's contacts are and what type of enhancements (collectable power-ups) they can use.
- Natural - No superpowers. Naturals train themselves to the peak of physical condition.
- Mutation - The superpowers of the character were encoded in his genes.
- Science - A character's powers are a result of some sort of science experiment, e.g. radiation exposure in a test lab.
- Technology - The use of devices enables a hero with powers.
- Magic - Supernatural powers are employed by a hero.
Archetypes
The superpowers of each character are chosen based on archetypes (similar to character classes). Most of the character archetypes have a wide variety of group oriented powers. When the game was launched there were the five basic archetypes, but Issue #3 introduced two new "Kheldians" archtypes that were available to players who had already achived level 50 with another avatar.
- Blaster - Blasters are long ranged fighters with a strong offense and weak defense. They can damage enemies substantially from a distance with the highest offense in the game and also help fulfill one of the more classic superhero roles: the flying, energy blasting hero. Marvel Comics' Human Torch and DC Comics' Starfire are examples of Blasters. Tight squeezes are a blaster's worst nightmare as his lower defenses can be exposed to multiple enemies' attacks; this is less of a concern with a strong group of other heroes.
- Controller - The most team-oriented archetype in the game, Controllers, like DC's Green Lantern or Marvel's Jean Grey, are able to hinder the enemy in a way other than dealing damage. They have a wide variety of powers, ranging from the ability to put the enemy to sleep to creating illusionary storms, all of which are designed to take the enemy out of the fight temporarily. Some of the Controllers' higher level powers are quite impressive visually, and their ability to incapacitate enemies is always an asset to a team. Most of the controller power sets allow players to summon creatures, called "pets," to fight with their characters. Controllers are generally more difficult to play than some of the other archetypes, as their powers take a bit more finesse and familiarity than a Blaster's.
- Defender - A Defender's main strength is his ability to augment his teammates and/or deter his enemies. Characters of this archetype can be strong leaders and make their team faster, stronger, and physically more devastating to enemies. Defenders can also be the best healers in the game. Healers, especially in the earlier levels, typically have very little trouble finding a team thanks to their life-saving powers. They can also do their fair share of Blaster-like damage but have trouble fighting groups of enemies by themselves. As with the Controller, playing as a Defender is difficult and takes some advanced knowledge of the game in general. Because a defender's powers are so tied to the game's mechanies (healing damage, increasing defences, decreasing opponents' accuracy) it's difficult to find examples in comic books. Violet Parr, from the movie The Incredibles, is an example of a Defender with force field powers.
- Scrapper - Scrappers are the archetype that, like the Blaster, represents some of the best known comic book characters. Marvel Comics' Wolverine and DC Comics' Batman are examples of Scrappers. They are fierce melee fighters who can deal large amounts of damage to enemies while sustaining damage, as well. In City of Heroes, Scrappers can do very well fighting by themselves against groups of enemies. Scrappers can usually do better against higher level enemies, too, due to their speed and highly offensive powers. Enemies prefer fighting these heroes and they may have a hard time fitting into a well diversified team, but they can still be some of the strongest characters. Scrappers can look very impressive while fighting, each of their different attack types (katana, claws, spines) having elaborate attack animations.
- Tanker - Tankers have the strongest defenses of the archetypes. Because of their ability to withstand heavy amounts of damage, Tankers are good at fighting groups of enemies by themselves. Because most of their attacks are in the melee range, most of the gameplay a Tanker experiences is up close to the villains he or his group is fighting. The biggest downside to the Tanker is the lower damage compared to the Scarpper archetype. Soloing can be slow for a Tanker without the added damage provided by teammates. Marvel Comics' Hulk is an example of a Tanker.
- Kheldians Peacebringer - Peacebringers are natural Kheldians who have merged with human beings and have access to the Luminous Blast and Luminous Aura power sets.
- Kheldians Warshade - Warshades are a fusion of a human and a Nictus (a Kheldian who has undergone radical scientific experiments to become a being of pure darkness) with access to the Umbral Blast and Umbral Aura power sets. These Warshades refuse to feed on the life forces of others as most Nictus do, instead warring against their dark brehren.
Expansions
Cryptic expands its game with both purchasable expansions and freely downloadable patches/updates:
- [Issue #1 (http://www.cityofheroes.com/features_update1.html)]: Through the Looking Glass (June 29, 2004) - high level content
- [Issue #2 (http://www.cityofheroes.com/features_update2.html)]: Shadows of the Past (September 16, 2004) - added capes, always-on "aura" effects, new zones, new villains, respecification of powers, and a dance club.
- [Issue #3 (http://www.cityofheroes.com/features_update6.html)]: A Council of War (January 4, 2005) - epic archetype (Kheldians), epic power pools, new zone, global chat (Still in development), new task forces, mission difficulty settings
- [Issue #4 (http://www.cityofheroes.com/features_update7.html)]: Colosseum (pending, 2005) - PvP Arena combat, Anime-centric costume extensions, new mouse controls, multi-guild chat system
- City of Villains (pending, 2005) (website (http://www.cityofvillains.com/))
Subscription
As in other MMORPGs, players must pay the publisher (NCsoft) a monthly fee to continue playing City of Heroes. Portions of the subscription costs go to supporting a full-time "live" team, which develops additional content for the game; other portions support the significant server maintenance and bandwidth costs. Paragoncity.com has an article on why MMORPGs have recurring fees.[1] (http://www.paragoncity.com/data/618~Pay-to-Play.php) In addition to paying subscription fees via credit card, another option is pre-paid cards that are available at video game retailers. Once purchased, the player inputs a code from the card and their account is updated to allow as many months of play as the card is good for.
Payment Options
- 1 month for $14.95
- 3 months for $41.85 ($13.95 per month)
- 6 months for $77.70 ($12.95 per month)
- 12 months for $143.40 ($11.95 per month)
The Comic Book
North American subscribers to the game receive the City of Heroes monthly comic book in the mail. The comic is written by one of the game's designers, Rick Dakan, and is available to non-subscribers at some comic stores. The comic follows the adventures of fictional Paragon City heroes and ties into the game's plot development at times. Art is done by Brandon McKinney and coloring is done by Moose Bauman. In early 2005, publishing will be taken over by Top Cow Productions and written by noted comic book writer Mark Waid
Suit by Marvel
In November 2004, Marvel Comics filed a lawsuit against City of Heroes developer Cryptic Studios and publisher NCSoft alleging that the game not only allows, but actively promotes, the creation of characters whose copyrights and trademarks are owned by Marvel, and that Cryptic has intentionally failed to police these infringing characters. The suit seeks unspecified damages and an injunction to force the companies to stop making use of its characters.
Some have noted that Cryptic already includes in its end-user license agreement (EULA) language forbidding the creation of copyrighted characters and has been known to delete or rename such characters. Others have pointed out that the EULA also includes a clause which gives ownership of created characters to Cryptic.
Cryptic has replied that the lawsuit is frivolous. Many intellectual property analysts agree, but others have noted that trademark law is structured such that if Marvel believes their properties are being infringed upon, they have little choice but to file a lawsuit, regardless of its outcome. At least one has noted similarities to Fonovisa, Inc. v. Cherry Auction, Inc., a case in which a company that ran a flea market was successfully sued over intellectual property infringement because a vendor had been selling bootlegged records at that flea market. Although Cherry Auction had not been directly selling the infringing items, the court found that it was vicariously or contributorially liable for the infringement.
As of December 2004, no other comic book company has commented on the suit against the game or filed a similar suit.
External links
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