200000+ sales for a pen and paper game is much better than similar sales for an MMO. PnP typically needs only small teams – it’s a book with some art and a system thought up by whichever people were considered the “big brains”.

Then you add expansions, sourcebooks, modules. A team of 20 or so could churn them out at a fair clip, and with 200k owners of the core game books (usually more than one book!) would at least buy some of them.

Too bad everybody interested have scattered all over the world. Will have to look into some of the online-based PnP tools..

It seems to me they planned CoH to be a lot like Champions Online is planned to be. With CoH they eventually compromised with a class-based system with every character occupying a group niche. I felt the combat also lost its shine after awhile; running around the city smacking down entire gangs is quite nice, but it took way too long to get new powers and having a given set of powers lended themselves to the same one or two combos over and over and over again.

That said, CoH is still one of the very best MMOs out there. Even if you have to mold your idea around the system rather than the other way around, the customizable ID card and wealth of outfit choices went a long way to delivering on their promise. They’ve supported it very well with additions like the black market and the Invention system, the ‘Issues’ look like an excellent example of episodic content (love the newspaper mission arcs), and that they now have a successful and well-developed superhero MMO in their portfolio just might give them the financing and ability to make Champions Online the game they, and I, wanted CoH to be.

They’re spot on with the character customisation though. The biggest problem with MMOs (especially WoW) is the feeling of your character being so generic. I spent as much time in the CoH character generator as I did in the game, and if they’re extending this to the powers as well… it sounds like it has an awful lot of potential.

You wear all black? They stole their clothes from a clown. You use Fire? They use Ice. You are thin, tall, and young? They are fat, short, and old.

It feels like City of Heroes 2. It looks like City of Heroes 2. Neither of these things worry me in the slightest.

I wonder if you could let the program do that FOR you. I mean, can they write a…script…programme…thing that reads your character’s name, attributes and powerset and extrapolates the most interesting villain from there? e.g.:

Spider-Man
Young Male Hero
Agile
Superstrong
Locomotive Abilities/Accoutrements
Animal-Based
Science-Based
Distance attacks
Close Combat
Honourable Hero (c.f. Anti-Hero, Vigilante, etc.)
Romantic Hero

Click the…dooberry…and you get

Doctor Octopus
Older Male Villain
Dark Mirror Villain (reflects the hero’s personality/looks. See also Scorpion, Venom)
Superstrong
Locomotive Abilities/Accoutrements
Animal-Based
Science-Based
Close Combat

Green Goblin
Older Male Villain / Young Male Villain
Obsessed With The Hero
Superstrong
Locomotive Abilities/Accoutrements
Science-Based
Dishonourable Villain (not always a tautology)
Distance attacks

Black Cat
Young Female Villain
Agile
Animal-Based
Close Combat
Honourable Villain
Romantic Foil (Spider-Man does less damage when he attacks because he thinks he can “save” her…for Romance!)

etc., etc..

I mean, why give yourself an easy ride with The Looter (Piss Weak/Thick As Pigshit/Science-Based/Rides A Hot Air Balloon) when you can match wits with The Vulture? It would seem more like a story, then.

Oh, Christ, I know SO LITTLE about programmings and compters!

//\Oo/\\
(see how I resisted the “Surprise “O-Face” Attack” joke?)

Hopefully this will put Champions / HERO System “up there” with the other big ones (which it has already surpassed, being one of the best P’n'P rule sets there are).
It’s of course bigger in the state, but here overseas in a non English speaking country it’s hard to find. Maybe that’ll change with Champions Online.

Nothing was so satisfying as being able to create a cosmic ray (10 pts) that would do minor damage to a target (3 pts), deliver massive stunning damage to everyone around that target (15pts), but would leave you slowed for the next round (-5 pts) and unable to speak for 10 minutes. (-3 pts)

If you introduce classes to this kind of gleeful insanity, I will cry.

But the combat sounds like they are just removing auto attack. I will need a lot more details about that before I get excited, especially since fast and frantic is a lot less entertaining to me than thoughtful and slow.

(If you want 12 you’ll have to wait for the expansion pack.)