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 in February 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.
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. 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.
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.
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.
- 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 the perfect examples of a Blaster. Tight squeezes are a blaster's worse 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. 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. Some of the Controller's higher level powers are quite impressive visually and in how much they can help a strong team: pets can be summoned to fight and enemies can be de-synced with reality, rendering their attacks useless on your teammates.
- 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.
- 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 prime 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. They can also help raise the defenses of those in their group. Because of their ability to withstand heavy amounts of damage, Tankers are good at fighting groups of enemies by themselves. Most of the gameplay a Tanker experiences is up close to the villains he or his group is fighting as they are not ranged characters. The biggest downside to the Tanker is the lack of variety; there is in essence only one type of way to attack the enemy for a Tanker.