Champions Online: ION Interview with Victor Wachter

Stradden

MMORPG.com's Carolyn Koh has been attending the ION conference in Seattle. Her first article is an interview with Cryptic Studios' Community Manager Victor Wachter about their upcoming game, Champions Online.

Cryptic Studios has stirred the waters recently with a few announcements. They announced that they had sold their City of Heroes/Villains game to NCSoft, they had ceased development of Marvel Universe Online and they announced a new game in development, Champions Online.

I finally caught up with Victor Wachter, Community Manager for Cryptic Studios, here at the 2008 ION Games Conference in Seattle and I pried what information I could out of him.

“Lock, stock and barrel?” I asked of their sale of City of Heroes/Villains. “Pretty much,” he confirmed. “We sold them the game together with the development team. That was part of the deal, that they hired the CoH/CoV development team.”

Read more here.

Zarraa

While CoX is a great game Champions has the potential to be huge. Titles that have pre-established lore  have a big headstart.

I'm betting Jack & Co have learned from their past mistakes (I5 & ED debacle) and will deliver an excellent title. While I wish they hadn't decided on Cell Shading it does fit the comic book theme.

I'll be keeping my eye on this one..

FomarThain

 

Originally posted by Zarraa


While CoX is a great game Champions has the potential to be huge. Titles that have pre-established lore  have a big headstart.

I agree. I think Cryptic has the huge advantage of designing and tweaking another hero game. I enjoyed CoH/V a great deal both for the character creation and the consistent (well for the most part) issues they would release.

If it is implemented smoothly I really like the idea of the "create your own nemesis". That would be so cool to meet up with him/her in missions!

 

therain93

Only a year into development...interesting.  I guess some of the MUO work went out the door.

dr2pepper

This game is going to be so kick a$$ i have been watching it from the start. Keep your eyes on this one.

Jamkull

i'll definitely have to give this game a shot once it comes out, love the CoH/CoV game... the customizable features of your character in those games are light years ahead of everyone else.  Being able to have multiple costumes to switch to at anytime you feel like it is outstanding.  plus ongoing content. 

Hope they keep with having live events like in CoH/CoV, even  go a step further with it.

Not sure how i'm going to like the cell shading, but as from a comic book stand point it does fit the picture.  although I prefer the graphic system in CoH/CoV.

but with the promise of more customization features and more indepth story elements for your character this may be better especially with a PnP background to help get things rolling on a good start.

one i will keep a close eye on for sure.

Diener

I like the cell shaded look. I wish they would have went a little more into the secret identity aspect of the game. That excites me as much as the nemesis stuff.

ValiumSummer

I've had loads of fun playing City of Heroes.    

 

I always get  a bit nervous when devs start talking about implementing "some twitch" elements to combat.   I start to wonder how lag will play into combat, or consider games like tabula rasa where the necessity to aim is aided or just seems like an illusion all together.   I think someone said you could actually go into the options in Tabula Rasa and turn "Auto aim" on or off.     Could you imagine that option in any real FPS?  BAH! 

It would be quite a feat to marry the two types of combat.    Lets hope they pull it off.   I'm TOTALLY without game right now.      I actually have time to spend w/ my girlfriend and THAT IS NOT GOOD PEOPLE...I NEED  A GAME TO PLAY!

Elthris

I for one can not wait for this game to come out.I have not had the chance to play coh/cov but from what a lot of people said that game is awesome so i am definitely looking forward to this game

FomarThain

Originally posted by Elthris


I for one can not wait for this game to come out.I have not had the chance to play coh/cov but from what a lot of people said that game is awesome so i am definitely looking forward to this game

There's a 10 or 14 day trial floating around. You should give it a try. It's a really fun game.

Elikal

CoH/V was one of the most fun MMOs ever. I just hope they stick to the "no loot/gear" concept and have more places than the ever same offices/caves CoH's has.

Crazybear

Originally posted by Zarraa


While CoX is a great game Champions has the potential to be huge. Titles that have pre-established lore  have a big headstart.
I'm betting Jack & Co have learned from their past mistakes (I5 & ED debacle) and will deliver an excellent title. While I wish they hadn't decided on Cell Shading it does fit the comic book theme.
I'll be keeping my eye on this one..

 

Unfortunately, I think history shows that MMO developers or more prone to make the same mistakes in their future offerings.

sythrael

This is very exciting, and I'll be watching this eagerly. 

It's true that mmo devs seem to recycle and share mistakes, but after the great work that cryptic has done with CoX I'm willing to believe they can pull this off admirably. 

Pardon me while I get a napkin, I seem to have developed a salivation problem.