Champions Online has Awesome Werewolves!

[Vagrant]

First of all, I shall just show you three images I took of my first werewolf character, from front, side, and back angles.

Front: http://i25.tinypic.com/1zof7ma.png
Side: http://i32.tinypic.com/w7zae9.png
Back: http://i29.tinypic.com/9k81eq.png

Awesomely, these werewolves can run on all fours (with the Beast animation set).

Running: http://i25.tinypic.com/b8v59h.png

Champions Online is a superhero MMO, which is pretty fun to play. What makes it awesome though is the level of customisation, you could even have a gun-toting werewolf, or a high-tech werewolf, a werewolf in armour, one with less fur, one with more fur, one with different coloured fur, one that has pets, and so on.

I also love the travel powers, you can super-jump, teleport, ice-slide, have rocket boots, swing like spidey, have a hoverboard, and many more. The one I have with my werewolf is tunnelling, he digs his way underground and then speeds along, only to explode up and out of the earth where he pleases.

Being clever, I even managed to create a human side for my werewolf so that I can successfully roleplay him, shifting between the two as I like.

This is posing a serious challenge to my interest in Warcraft Worgens, especially since the game is so fun to play (it drops you right into the middle of an alien invasion at the very start!) and these werewolves have tails!

[Werewolf]

Nice, it seems to have a cell shading look to it is that how that game is?

The werewolf looks nice, and the tail is a plus though the feet look a little off but maybe that is just the angles.

I'm guessing it's made by the custom character creation and not a standard model though, or maybe parts that are standard?

[Vagrant]

Nice, it seems to have a cell shading look to it is that how that game is?

Everything in the game is cel-shaded, yep. It's designed to have a painted comic-book appearance.

The werewolf looks nice, and the tail is a plus though the feet look a little off but maybe that is just the angles.

I was dinking with custom scales, I think I might've made the feet a bit too big, I'm going to work on that some, though.

I'm guessing it's made by the custom character creation and not a standard model though, or maybe parts that are standard?

There is no "standard" in Champions Online, you have loads of sliders for every individual body part (head, legs, arms, torso, et cetera) with a few presets for the lazy, and then you can 'decorate' them with various colours, costume pieces, and so on. So you get the basic body shape, and then you build up from there, adding bits of fur, setting various colours, and so on.

[Vagrant]

Okay, I dinked around with the scaling of the various body-parts a bit more and tried to achieve a better colour balance. I went for a more lean visual appearance this time, and that seems to help things, and the colour balance is definitely better. The feet look a tiny bit odd though, but that's just the odd 'epic pose' angles that the character creator uses.

Overall however, I'm getting better with this!

http://i27.tinypic.com/8xv6ew.png

[Wingman]

Vagrant, are you using the Beta or something?

[Wselfwulf]

I like what they've done with the forearms

[Vagrant]

[Vagrant]

[Wingman]

Hmm, some of those screenshots look very retro, and maybe not in a good way. I suppose I'll have to wait until I can try out a trial or something to actually decide, but in all likelihood I'll buy a copy.
I'm going to guess the lifetime subscription is only available to beta players?

[Silent Hunter]

I would mind if you did me actually, V. I have been curious about this game.

[Vagrant]

Hmm, some of those screenshots look very retro, and maybe not in a good way.

I've heard that said about comic books too, and Champions Online is a very comic-booky sort of game. With all its outlines and it's Silver Age attitude.

It's just a modern re-imagining of the silver age, if that kind of thing appeals to you, or if older comic books ever did, then so will this. If not... this won't either.

I'm going to guess the lifetime subscription is only available to beta players?

I actually found out today that it's only really been readily available to closed/open beta testers and those who've played Cryptic's previous games.

I guess it's a case of the loyal being rewarded.

I always did like Cryptic. <.<

[Sebiale]

Discount Lifetime and 6-month is available for pre-orders.
I made a werewolf char, but I didn't like the game enough to stay, it has interesting features, but nothing revolutionary enough to keep me. I might go back one day.

[Vagrant]

[...] but nothing revolutionary [...]

Heresy! I made a Munitions-based Werewolf and gave him the swinging travel power, the travel powers themselves (swinging, ice-slide, rocket boots, and hover-discs especially) are amazing compared to other games which tend to use mounts. And it has travel powers even City of Heroes could only dream of including.

And if you get creative then you can really have inventive characters, the likes of which simply aren't seen in any other MMO out there (not even CoH/V, which locks you into powers). I had a midget-sized clockwork man in the open beta called Mr. Tiktok, he had a mix of various powers; telekinesis (the use of technology-based forcefields), gadgeteering (the ability to send exploding teddy bears marching at people), and power armour stuffs (pewpewpew lasers!).

It's the notion that you can create anything you like, unchained, that makes champions online so amazing. Want to create a stealthy ninja-robot that uses swords for close range attacks, acrobatics to achieve distance, and then via an aerial travel power reigns down laser death on their opponents? You can! In Champions Online, you're not just "a tank", or "a DPS", or "a healer". You're whatever the heck you want to be, and you can even have different builds with different costumes to change between!

For example, I have a werewolf character, he has a sort of human-form hobo character who favours guns, and he has a werewolf form that favours claws and melee attacks. I can start off ranged, hammering stuff with twin SMGs, then I can leap in -- shifting as I go -- land next to my opponent and tear into them, clawing them up real good.

And let's say that werewolf befriends a mad genius and gets his own version of Q? I could add some gadgeteering stuff to the werewolf form, allowing him to have a chainsaw gauntlet which he could use at will, and some distance laser powers, and I could have yet another costume with Mr. Wolfy in full power armour, with rocket boots as his travel power!

If that's not a revolutionary concept, I don't know what is.

In Champions Online, if you spend time with your characters, they can evolve in ways that no other game out there allows for. In most games, you select a class, and that's it, you're that class from level 1 to level whatever. And that kind of play suits some people, there are those who don't want to put any personality or individuality into their characters, and I suppose I can understand that...

But having complete control over my characters and being able to evolve their story over time, by adding things to them as their story goes on and as they gain new friends and find new abilities, is amazing for me.

[Wingman]

Customization and personalization is nice, but what sort of impact does it have on gameplay? I'm all for roleplaying, but does making a nonfocused character result in you being useless against whatever challenges you'd be facing?
Also, I'm inferring from your comments that you can switch between 'builds', in addition to the multiple costumes they brought over from CoX?

Does the beta give access to the Nemesis thing, and if so, have you tried that yet?

[Shadow Wulf]

I'm hoping they will have a free trial for this. I would love to test this game before actually buying it. MMORPG never really interested me much. But this one might make the change for me.

[Vagrant]

Customization and personalization is nice, but what sort of impact does it have on gameplay?

Pick an MMO, any MMO you like. Let's say... World of Warcraft. Now Priests are fun to play, as are Druids, and Warriors, and Hunters, but those are separate classes. Now what if you could pick the bits you enjoyed the most instead of having to choose a singular class, and what if it worked in a perfectly balanced way?

That's the impact it has on gameplay. It's the Ultima Effect, you be what you want to be, and you play what you want to play, and that allows for unique ways of playing the game that perhaps not even the developers had considered. No more cookie-cutter classes, unless you want to play that kind of thing (presets are available for those who want them).

but does making a nonfocused character result in you being useless against whatever challenges you'd be facing?

Nope, it just means you'll be handling them differently from the next guy. There aren't any really impotent mix-ups, just ones that go about things differently. Think of your favourite comic book characters, and envision them as game characters. They all have their unique ways of going about things, but they can all find their way to surpass any given challenges with equalled success.

And that's the joy of a comic book Universe, there is an implied equity between heroes.

Also, I'm inferring from your comments that you can switch between 'builds', in addition to the multiple costumes they brought over from CoX?

Yeah, there are items now which have various stats as well, and even the items you have will affect how you play. Think of it like armour from an MMO, but it's more like nanotechnology, or concoctions you drink before going into battle, that kind of thing. So you can keep your visual appearance. Now when you switch builds, you can switch those item sets aswell, which will make some powers more powerful, and others less so.

Therein lies the balance, you have different builds which play to the strengths of various sets of powers you wish to use. You can tailor your build stats to one power set, and then you can tailor another build to another power set. And these can be switched between.

So it's not just a visual thing.

Does the beta give access to the Nemesis thing, and if so, have you tried that yet?

The beta's done with now.

And the nemesis thing is pretty awesome. For example, my werewolf's nemesis is actually the Mad Scientist who captured and turned him. I had a lot of fun with that, German guy, bald, tall, thin, dark glasses, long gloves, cybernetic implants, maniacal grin. It's a laugh.

I'm hoping they will have a free trial for this. I would love to test this game before actually buying it. MMORPGs never really interested me much. But this one might make the change for me.

I think the fact that you can give your character guns and play the game with shooter controls might be a big allure for you, Shadow, eh?

That's actually another interesting part about CoH though, you can use it with a pad and play it like a console superhero game (along the lines of Marvel Ultima Alliance), you can have the controls setup to play it like a standard MMO, or you can have it behave more like a shooter.

It's quite ingenious like that.

[Sebiale]

I felt that the customization was nice, but still just aesthetic.
Abilities could be thrown together, yes, but there were no real new mechanics in the game.
It's good, just not my kind of game *shrugs*

[Aki]

I'm hoping they will have a free trial for this. I would love to test this game before actually buying it. MMORPG never really interested me much. But this one might make the change for me.

This sums it up for me.

I don't often get interested in MMORPGs (well, in a serious way, anyways) and didn't have much interest in CO until now, but it looks interesting (especially the very toolset-esque character evolution). Though I won't get it without some means of trying it out myself without having to put down money.

[Vagrant]

I felt that the customization was nice, but still just aesthetic.

For the appearance of the character, it's supposed to be.

It's not an old MMO fantasy Universe where one gets a shiny new sword every two hours to replace the last one, where the new one is larger, more brightly coloured, and has better stats.

I'd cringe if I ever heard Defender (the Captain America of the Champions Universe) talk about phat loot and was changing his costume twice a day (or more).

The idea of a superhero Universe is that the hero in question is supposed to be recognisable by appearance. Look at iconic heroes like Green Arrow, Superman, Wolverine, The Punisher, and so on, and whilst they have the odd cosmetic upgrade (the costume tailor is there for that, in-game), they generally look the same.

This is because a superhero isn't a flavour of the month hero who can barely be recognised from one moment to the next.

The inevitable conclusion of this is that they had to separate the powers and stats from the visual appearance, so that you could grow in power whilst not really changing how you look. Thus the superhero ethos is maintained.

If people were constantly swapping out mismatching costume bits, it wouldn't be a superhero game because none of the heroes would be recognisable from day to day.

If you see me in game, you'll know me, you'll remember me, just as you would a comic book character. Whereas if you were to see a character from most MMOs, they are -- by their very nature -- exceedingly forgettable and faceless.

The cosmetic side of things has to be aesthetic for this very reason, and I'm actually thankful it was that way.

Abilities could be thrown together, yes, but there were no real new mechanics in the game.

This is true at the very start of the game because it's designed to allow all characters to start out on even footing with no obvious 'best' choice (because then everyone would pick that). As time goes on the powers available become more varied as they become more powerful.

It's rather silly to think that an army of drones which chase you and your friends around and heal them up based on need is the same as, say, close quarters dual sword-fighting. Or that either is the equivalent of a character that can scatter mines, stealth up behind a bunch of critters, surprise them, and speed away leading them over the aforementioned mines.

These are just a few examples and each of them detail a very different way in which the game can be played, each with their individual mechanics.

There's plenty of variety that has a huge impact on the game, just not in the first hour of the game. But in all fairness, that time is spent as a tutorial in which the player is acclimatised to the game and the choices aren't too important, hence the lack of variety within that tutorial area.

This approach is common to all MMOs though, even the class based ones. In a class-based MMO you may pick any one of a number of classes but they'll all start out with a singular offensive attack that works in slightly different ways.

That's true of Champions Online too, and that tutorial element is exactlyy what you're describing. Such a sampling of the game is hardly indicative of what makes up the rest of the game.

It's good, just not my kind of game *shrugs*

I can understand that, but you're painting a portrayal of the game based on a very short time spent playing it (I can tell) and that's something I can't help but want to counter, given that I've put time into developing a strongly individual character which renders such a portrayal incorrect.

You may not like the game, but it's still an incredibly varied game and one with some of the most off-the-wall characters and ways of playing that any game will have.

The only way to get out of that is if you follow a very cookie-cutter path and just pick all of your powers out of one pool, but thankfully very few people seem to do that. Classes in other games have to be made to seem varied via abilities that seem different but they're still cookie-cutter because someone who plays the same class and build as you is inevitably going to be very similar.

In Champions Online, finding two people who actually use the system properly and play the same way is amazingly rare. There have been instances where I've just had to stop and think "Oh my, that's clever." because some people will use groupings of powers in even ways perhaps the developers had not anticipated.

When considering how one plays Champions Online, it's as varied and different as one wants it to be and as one makes it to be, one can take a cookie-cutter approach or they can do really out there things.

The tools are there.

<Edit>

In fact, I think I'll stress this point further with my own character.

My character is sort of a hit-and-run character who lives in the moment and takes insane risks but isn't afraid to bolt out of a situation if it's necessary, he sizes up a battle, takes the best route in, and if things aren't going his way he already has the best route out.

I find a nice ledge to start on first, somewhere away from my prey; and then I open up with dual pistol-fire, I also use a taunt to draw them in, all the while I'm blasting at them as they're running in close. From there, they either come in close or they start hitting me with ranged, which lets me decide the next element of my attack.

If I think I can take them with ranged and they're using ranged attacks too, I'll keep up my gunfire, if not I'll use a diving kick attack, which can take me across a great distance. If they're primarily close quarters fighters then they'll come to me and I'll keep up the gunfire until they're close enough for me to open up on them with close quarters attacks.

If close quarters does come into question, then I open up on them with my arsenal in that regard; I'm an all out feral fighter with a bit of training, I'll use claws, bites, and even a bit of kickboxing since my character has particularly powerful looking legs. And I'll keep at it. If they're getting the better of me and they have no ranged, I'll utilise my zip-line, swing a distance away, and then I'll open up on them with the pistols again to see if that'll do them in.

If things aren't going my way, I'll use a smoke bomb which gives me a means of exit, and I'll either heal enough to swing in and take another chip at them or I'll retreat to fight again another day.

That's my way of doing things, I don't use drones, mines, gadgeteering, crowd control, healig, or anything of the sort, it's just me and my prey. When looking at my character, he's a werewolf who's been trained in basic firearms and kickboxing-based fighting styles. My stat-build means that I don't have a whole lot of heatlh, so I can't last long, but my energy regeneration is fast and my attacks are powerful.

So I either get my prey or I have to bugger off, I'm not built to last, but some people are. I'm also built to be a very finesse-based fighter, with my Upgrades and my power focuses I'm designed to do a lot of accurate strikes, not that powerful ones but my increased chances for critical hits often make up for that.

And that's another thing to consider, focuses and upgrades can switch stats around, and these can greatly change how powers work too, it's a system one needs to understand if creating a truly individual hero.

The thing with Champions Online is that you tell the game how you want to play, rather than picking a class and having the game tell you how to play. If you don't know what to tell the game, it doesn't know how to respond, and the end result can be uninspired. But I've seen such inventive characters that I know that the game can be played in many different ways.

And anyone here who has a character in mind before playing the game, who knows how that character will fight, and who can tell the game what sort of hero they're going to be, is going to have a character which is different than most (if not all) others out there, because the player creates the game mechanics, and that's how it works.

[Vagrant]

Oh and just because I like showing him off...



*** Vagrant flees the thread for now, off to fight crime!

[Sebiale]

I made it to level 16.

[Vagrant]

I figure some might be interested, so...

---

To start off, this is my character's human form:



For contrast (in the same location), his gestalt form:



And here's my character using his new flintlock pistols:



I may lighten the metal a bit so they look less like iron, but the colour levels at the moment appeal to me, so I might just keep them as they are. I'm undecided about that.

(Edit: Fixed the incorrectly applied colours now.)

Vagrant, ready to rend and tear!:



Oi, you, have some floaty-mines!:

Don't walk too close!

(This one was too big to have in the thread as an actual image, really.)

Smokebombs?!:



Hooray for well animated claw attacks!:



I love my swingamajig:



---

Once I've mastered the timing of it, so I can actually catch a bloody decent shot, I'll add one of the kickboxing. But he kicks so fast! D: It's hard to try and catch a good one. But when I do, I'm hoping it'll be one of his boots to the head.

[Xiroteus]

That looks great.

[Wingman]

Characters seem crisply distinct from the background, rather than getting lost amid the textures, that's a good thing.

Is the maco-making stuff from the City of games intact? I had great fun with that, yelling "SPOON!" as I charged into battle.

[PariahPoet]

After stumbling across Vagrant in the CO forum I figured I'd check in and see if there's a thread here on the Pack. Lo and Behold!

We ought to get a Pack SG going!
The mate and I are usually up for team missions as well. If anybody needs a team we're on as PariahPoet and ID10T16.