Different From Everyone Else?

[Truvidien]

Greetings!

Just curious on what you guys are aiming for as making SoH different from the other MMO's such as City of Titans and Valiance Online. Haven't really heard much about you guys except for the teaser video from Youtube.

Thanks

[Consultant]

If you enjoyed playing COH, you will enjoy playing SOH. But there will be significant differences. Gameplay and combat are going to be different since we will allow players more freedom to select and improve their powers. This is a double-edged sword since players will have more ability to make characters that reflect their personal styles, and along with this freedom, more of an ability to make characters that do not work well. Also, we'll be showing our current character creator shortly, so it will be obvious that you can design characters with widely different appearances, and with a substantial increase in realism compared to COH. Of course, the setting, enemies, story and NPC characters will all be new and different. We're not creating another 21st century American city with cops and robbers, arsonists and firemen, superheroes and supervillians, pizza shops and mailboxes. It's definitely not Gotham, Metropolis or Paragon. We are creating a successor, not a remake. And then there is the business of visiting planets...

[Silverphish]

We're not creating another 21st century American city with cops and robbers, arsonists and firemen, superheroes and supervillians, pizza shops and mailboxes. It's definitely not Gotham, Metropolis or Paragon. We are creating a successor, not a remake. And then there is the business of visiting planets...

The way that was worded made me kinda happy. Of course, there could always be a particular timewarp-retro planet that has a lot of these things. Who knows what might be lurking in an infinite universe?

[Truvidien]

If you enjoyed playing COH, you will enjoy playing SOH. But there will be significant differences. Gameplay and combat are going to be different since we will allow players more freedom to select and improve their powers. This is a double-edged sword since players will have more ability to make characters that reflect their personal styles, and along with this freedom, more of an ability to make characters that do not work well. Also, we'll be showing our current character creator shortly, so it will be obvious that you can design characters with widely different appearances, and with a substantial increase in realism compared to COH. Of course, the setting, enemies, story and NPC characters will all be new and different. We're not creating another 21st century American city with cops and robbers, arsonists and firemen, superheroes and supervillians, pizza shops and mailboxes. It's definitely not Gotham, Metropolis or Paragon. We are creating a successor, not a remake. And then there is the business of visiting planets...

Thank you very much for answering this. Do you guys have a planet or map in mind to give players if they wanted to visit that sort of thing? What I'm getting at is like a back in time sorta like how Fry in Futurama always wanted to go back and visit his family. Since SoH will be in the future.

[Consultant]

Allowing players to go back in time would be very interesting. One of the many benefits we get from forums posts like yours is that we get to hear what is on our player's minds. The idea of going back in time is definitely coming up in the forums, in the interviews and in PMs we receive, so this idea is much more visible with us now. the only thing that pushes back against the time travel idea is that we need to complete the core of the game, so time travel at launch may be a stretch -- it sort of depends on how well our Kickstarter goes. But we hear this idea often, and we want to be responsive to the ideas we receive.

[Pyrion]

@Consultant: I am a bit worried about that information piece where you said that you allow players more freedom to select powers. Full freedom usually results in everybody being a tank mage healer, destroying interdependence and leading to everybody soloing. Bad example is champions online. Please don't follow this road, i have high hopes for your game.

More freedom inside one archetype might be ok, that would have to be seen.

[Consultant]

Pyrion, I probably created the wrong impression with that answer. I definitely do mean that players will have enormous freedom within their archetypes. Archetypes provide structure to the powers that are available and how they will work. Powersets help settle what a character is good at, within an archetype -- but no character is at once an unkillable tank, and a superpowerful ranged damage dealer, and remarkable healer...you pick one and then select powersets, powers, and upgrades to the powers (similar to enhancements) to enable your preferred playstyle. We will definitely not allow Ship of Heroes to devolve into a game where one build is the "best" for everything. We specifically want to head in the opposite direction.

And while we are carefully working to make solo play fun and rewarding, we do intend to reward team play in many ways. And teams benefit when each character has a role to fulfill.

[Griffin]

And while we are carefully working to make solo play fun and rewarding, we do intend to reward team play in many ways. And teams benefit when each character has a role to fulfill.

Yes, yes a thousand times, yes.

-Griff

[brawlizard]

What will be different here than Champions Online?
(I'm praying you have differentiators from them, as there is a real need for another/more modern superhero mmo with freeform characters)

[Eulb]

Ok Consultant i love what your saying " here will not be aone best build " .... I love to solo streets but love the team play too so I'll hold that up to you that you wont devolve the game into "ONE BEST" TY