For those individuals that have questions about Champions Online, it
seems that every time you turn around the team behind the game has
brand new answers to the common community queries. The developers have
again scanned their forums and have divulged answers to some of the
questions that have been burning within the community for months. Ten
Ton Hammer has reprinted the article for your viewing pleasure, and we
hope you find answers to anything you want to know about Champions
Online! (Editor's Note:
The original article can be found style="font-style: italic;"
href="http://www.champions-online.com/node/82" target="_blank">here style="font-style: italic;">.)

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There's been a little
talk about some of the "dynamic new combat systems" being used, such as
in Age of Conan. But what about those of us who don't have the refined
reflexes of a belligerent teenager playing the latest FPS gankfest?
Will there be a means by which those of us with mediocre hand-eye
coordination & typing skills can still participate and feel
that we're pulling our own weight, or will we be relegated to observer
status? (Starhammer)


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Although Champions Online may have a new combat system, it won't leave the gamers without fast reflexes in the dust.

Jackalope (Chief Creative
Officer): Rest assured, Starhammer. I confess that I have
little, if any, hand-eye coordination (though my typing isn't so bad).
We're not trying to create systems as complicated as say, a fighting
game, where every twitch of the hand creates a new baffling maneuver.
We're trying to create a system with more depth than "click A and
pray," but not so much that old-school gamers can't keep up. One of our
principles for combos, for instance, is never do anything that takes
more than 3 button presses to execute.



How flexible is the game
engine when it comes to updates and upgrades? We have faced a lot of
situations in CoH where the answer to questions has been "it's just not
possible because is hardcoded that way"? Are more features now soft
coded in such way that it is later easier to expand on them? I.e. if
customizable emitter locations are not possible initially, is the
system created in such manner that they can be added later on?
(Northlander)



poz (Director of Game
Programming): Champions Online is built on Cryptic's new
(and incredibly awesome) second-generation MMO engine. The major focus
of the engine upgrade was making it much more general and data-driven.
This lets the dev team modify all sorts of elements in the game that
they've never been able to easily modify before. Besides giving a lot
more power to the design team in general, this also lets us iterate and
try new ideas a lot faster.



Will solo players still
get to fight costumed villains? CoH dropped the ball on this one with
their scalable content by having soloers mostly fight lieutenants
instead of named bosses. They eventually brought in Elite Bosses, but
something along these lines needs to be available from the outset. Not
necessarily the top bosses, but at least a costume alternative (not
just another cookie cutter thug with a different powerset). (Lionheart)



Arkayne (Lead Designer):
You bet, Lionheart! Champions Online is full of custom-made
super-powered villains you can fight one-on-one as well as more
powerful ones that require a focused team of heroes to defeat. Even
from the early stages of the game you'll fight unique costumed villains
– but you might have to fight past their evil henchman to get
to them first!



Will you pay careful
attention to NPC/mob escalation and work to avoid situations where, as
in some other MMOs, my mid-level "superhero" ends up fighting Tommy-gun
wielding mobsters, sword-obsessed gang punks, and chapped-off miners
(i.e., opponents traditionally more appropriate for a lower-level
heroes)? Additionally, will you be designing overall content so that
NPC skins aren't reused throughout the games levels (which results in
situations where, say, a Nazi soldier mob type that gives me challenge
level 20 is appears at level 40 and gives me an equal challenge
– tainting the illusion of my character's growth in power?)
(MarvelZombie)



Arkayne: We
are definitely watching for this, MarvelZombie. We believe it is very
important to give players a sense of progression as they play the game.
Even the predominant villain groups found everywhere the Champions
Universe, like VIPER, escalate in power as you encounter them
throughout the game, ranging from the rank-and-file foot soldiers with
uniforms and simple munitions to assault troopers with power armor and
rocket launchers.

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Heroes in Champions Online will be fighting super heroes in solo as well as group content.

You guys have mentioned
under game features that every villain has its own unique abilities and
combat specialties and that you will need to use your head. Does this
mean that boss battles will be much more like console games where there
is actual fun interactivity and strategy needed to defeat them instead
of the high HP slugfests where you simply stand and deliver that
happens in most other MMOs? (cbeaulieu)



Heretic (Lead Powers
Designer): Our goal is to minimize the frequency of hit
point slugfests wherever feasible, particularly with boss battles, but
sometimes even with lesser ranked mobs as well. Strategy, teamwork,
character builds and tactics should all be factors.



The exact way each of these elements will factor in will vary.
Sometimes this will mean blocking at the right time, sometimes it will
mean changing your target priority in the middle of a fight and
sometimes it will mean interspacing world geometry between you and the
flurry of energy beams trying to cut you down.



We are working to incentivize movement and choices. When that mob
charges up, do I have time to try to move behind that pillar, or should
I block and reduce most of the damage? That villain is doing tons of
damage, but he is lifetapping his henchmen – do I target the
villain or the henchmen first? We've already talked about how many
powers can be charged up – frequently charging up a power
will increase or otherwise modify how wide the radius or area of effect
is.



Is eye color going to be
a costume option? (GhostHack)



Absinthe (Lead Character
Artist): Yep! Players will be able to change the pupil and
the whites of their eyes. In addition, they will be able to make them
glow any color they choose.