NCsoft: Customization, tights separate City of Heroes from competition

by Jason Dobson { Nov 28th 2008 at 10:45AM }

As more publishers continue to enter the ever-crowded MMO market, it's become increasingly difficult for some titles (even those with heat vision and a magnetic colon) to remain relevant. Joystiq recently unmasked Matt "Positron" Miller, and spoke to the senior designer for NCsoft NorCal at length about the company's plans for both City of Heroes and Villains. Specifically, we touched on what NCsoft is doing to separate its super-powered MMO duo from the competition, something he said the company is currently "stressing."

"City of Heroes still has one of the best character customization systems ever made," boasted Miller. "It seems that a lot of new MMOs are stuck in the 'gear = looks' paradigm that games like Everquest and Ultima established. City of Heroes offers billions (no exaggeration) of possible costume combinations right from level 1." Take that, gear.

Look for our complete interview with Miller on Monday, where he opens up on a number of other topics, from next week's Issue 13 update to microtransactions and what took so long to find capes to fit users on the Mac.

Tags: city-of-heroes, city-of-villains, issue-13, mmo, mmorpg, ncsoft, ncsoft-norcal

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Muffin Lad @ Nov 28th 2008 11:00AM

Gotta say APB may take the crown of best customization in an MMO

Felipe @ Nov 28th 2008 11:41AM

the second one to the left on the picture looks like Gordon Freeman. Does he have crowbar powers?

Steph @ Nov 28th 2008 11:50AM

Man, that's got to be an old picture. To bad they couldn't get something more recent to show some of the cooler character customizations added in past couple years.

MowDownJoe @ Nov 28th 2008 12:04PM

If only for the Trenchcoats...

Ryan @ Nov 28th 2008 12:21PM

The costume editor is what kept me playing this game for as long as I did.

(15 months)

Master Bruce @ Nov 28th 2008 12:22PM

Sure there can be billions of costume possibilities, but apparently they can only make 5 different maps for the missions.

That's the main reason my friends and I stopped playing. Only so many times you can go into the same warehouse.

Rentaro @ Nov 28th 2008 1:54PM

And the few moments where you go to the cave, inside of the warehouse

Sirch @ Nov 28th 2008 2:10PM

Sure, the character creation is pretty sweet but once that novelty fads you realize you have no trade skills, no epic loot, and the same 3 missions until you hit high levels (and then there are 5).

I loved this game.. I wish it could have been so much more than what there is available. You have to have a pretty big carrot to dangle in front of the donkey to compete with the other major MMOs out there these days.

Gavin @ Nov 29th 2008 2:27AM

Yeah, I agree. I love the game just because it allowed you make a hero and fly around and that was pure joy for awhile for diehard comic book nerds such as myself. But ultimately the mission structure bored me to tears and the grind became unbearable. I had been burnt out on fantasy MMO's so COH/V was a great change from that, but once I got bored and tried WoW I never looked back.

I hope they learned their lesson and have more variety of missions in Champions. I'd hate to see that game turned into yet another endless warehouse hunt.

MadHatterMan @ Nov 30th 2008 5:36PM

actually with the addition to recipes and Ultra Rare recipes and this year the up coming create your own missions feature the game is looking promising