style="font-weight: bold;">Jackalope:
Well, Drakos, some of the stuff will be pretty darn obvious! We're
lifting some terminology straight from the HERO System and putting it
into Champions. However, the HERO System and style="font-style: italic;">Champions Online
won't be
identical.



For those of you who don't know Champions
– go out and buy it
right now – and just settle for my very brief description. A
player receives a certain amount of points at character creation and
then allocates them into a variety of areas: characteristics, powers,
skills, etc. There's a single commodity, these hero points, which
players use in both character creation and advancement. The beauty of
the system is its flexibility. You can create just about any power, any
character you can imagine.



In terms of powers, you start out with a very generic description.
Let's say you wanted a long range flame blast. First, a player selects
"Energy Blast" (every blast in Champions
starts out as an Energy
Blast). Then he'd select a variety of advantages to simulate long range
and damage over time. After applying these advantages, a player
calculates the final cost. There's another step – what sort
of
power structure you can place the power in – but I'll leave
that
alone for the moment.



To compare this system to others, there is no such thing as a "Dark
Blast" or an "Ice Blast" in the HERO System. Mechanically, everything
is just an Energy Blast, but with different advantages and even
limitations applied.



If we turn to Champions
Online, we won't be using the exact same point
system, power advantages, characteristics, power limitations or
disadvantages (all of this is Hero lingo). We are using systems that
are essentially the same, but fit the MMORPG genre somewhat better. In
Champions Online,
we will have Dark Blast, Ice Blast, etc. Now, a
player will be able to affect how these things develop, but this won't
be an orthogonal to the choices in the HERO system.



Our inspiration from the Champions
RPG is to allow players to customize
their powers. Rather than trying to copy the specific power advantages
and limitations (and the +/- fractions), we're trying to achieve the
same goal of power customization. So yes, we'll have advantages and
limitations, but they won't be the same type in the HERO System core
rulebook. They'll be different ...

style="font-weight: bold;">Arkayne:
Yes there is rabb1t! There are skills you can learn, develop, and use
to affect your environment. For example, while raiding a VIPER base you
may come across a team of VIPER agents accessing a Draysha Gas station
to make themselves more powerful in combat. If your Science skill is
high enough, you may be able to shut down the gas vents or reconfigure
it so you can gain the benefits (and drawbacks) of the gas! We have a
good distribution of Skill-based interactions throughout the game so
players will have lots of fun figuring out how to turn an environment
to their advantage or unlock bonus elements.

style="font-weight: bold;">Arkayne:
Excellent question, Ex_Machina! One of the things we learned from
previous MMOs is that while a bag o'hit points villain is fun to take
down once in awhile, you also need more interesting boss fights. As
part of the Nemesis system, there will be special "Showdown" scenarios
based on forced confrontations with your Nemesis and his or her
minions. The scenario differs each time with different objectives so
it'll keep your Nemesis fights interesting.

style="font-weight: bold;">Arkayne:
The "death penalty" is fairly simple, Hythian. After a player is
defeated, he or she can choose to wait until another nearby player with
healilng powers puts them back in the fight. Failing that, the player
can choose to go to a nearby recovery point. Those points are spread
throughout zones and instance maps.



Regardless of what the player chooses to do, they have to pay a small
price for defeat: upgrade degradation. Upgrades are pieces of
equipment, imbuements, special training, etc., that players use to make
their character more powerful. Every upgrade has a condition associated
with it. Whenever a player is defeated any upgrades the player has
slotted degrade. If the condition of an upgrade is reduced to 0, it
stops providing a benefit. Upgrades can be restored to full
effectiveness for a resource cost at most hero safe areas throughout
the game. This represents items being repaired, re-exposure to
experimental rays, combat technique montages, etc.

style="font-weight: bold;">Heretic:
You will auto-target your opponent, but there are a couple of changes
to how we are approaching player powers that should minimize the
"fireball following them around corners" issue.



First, we have shortened activation times as much as possible. This
makes the game feel faster and more responsive, but it also
significantly reduces the frequency of projectiles following around
corners.



Second, we are relying more heavily on charge-up and maintained
attacks. The advantage of these type of attacks is that they give the
player the opportunity to block or move to put walls and other objects
in the way and close off line of sight from their attacker.

Is it your destiny to be
a super hero? Will customizable powers entice you to play another super
hero game? href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?p=216194#post216194">Let
us know on the forums!