Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) are what their name suggests. A massive number of players log online to the game to role play with characters they create, interacting with other players in real time. The add an important social element to gaming, allowing you to meet with other people who share your interest in games, play with many players at a time, and compete with whole servers of people.
City of Heroes is now my MMORPG of choice and I couldn’t recommend it more highly.
How I Became a Player
I have loved video games for as long as I can remember. Some of my earliest memories involved playing Super Mario Brothers, Pac-Man, and Ice Hockey on the Nintendo Entertainment System with my Dad. My love of video games continued over the years, and has now branched out to include computer games. Role-playing games have always been one of my favorite game genres, so it’s not surprising that I also enjoy Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs).
My first MMORPG experience was with Everquest. My fiance and I were introduced to the game by a few friends of ours. We very much enjoyed and I still miss it sometimes, but we were more casual MMORPG players at the time. We weren’t deeply involved in the game. We didn’t spend years developing our characters with special skill sets. My fiance, who reads gaming magazines regularly, expressed an interest in trying
City of Heroes after seeing a number of articles about awards the game had received. Within a few days, I was hooked.
The Premise of the Game
City of Heroes is a superhero MMORPG. Players create super heroes to defend Paragon City against various groups of baddies, including the occasional super villain from the Rogue Islands of
City of Villains. Admittedly, this game peaked my fiance’s interest because he is a comic book fan. I’m not a comic book fan at all and the game has been just as fun and engaging for me.
Superheroes
Your character in this MMORPG is a super hero. I have been very impressed with the multitude of options for building your character. Players can choose from five archetypes (character classes), each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Some have higher damage, but low defense, higher defense, but moderate damage, and so on. Two more archetypes are unlocked when one of your characters reaches level 50. Multiple primary and secondary power sets are available for each archetype. For example, you can have a dual blade scrapper with the ability to regenerate or a dark scrapper with super reflexes. You may combine any of the available primary and secondary sets for each archetype, for example, a dark scrapper can have dark armor, regeneration, super reflexes, etc. You may also choose an “origin” to complement your character’s story. A robot character or a character that was built by man may have a technology origin, while a creature or dark character might have a magic origin, having magically come into being.
I have enjoyed playing every archetype. I do have my favorites (scrappers, defenders, and controllers), but I like the diversity of playing every archetype and the different powers in each set. Each power set has different graphics, sound effects, and properties, allowing you to create several characters of the same archetype without feeling like they’re the same.
This game has some of the best character design options I have seen. There are tons of costume options; capes, shirts, pants, skirts, gloves, boots, belts, chest emblems, and more. Certain costume parts can be earned in the game and with certain badges, including wings, which I will discuss in more detail later. Costume parts can also be made using the invention system. My fiance loves this part of the game, which he credits mainly to his interest in comic books. As a non-fan, I enjoy making costumes, but I don’t spend nearly as many hours slaving over them as the comic book fans I know.
You can get as in depth with building your character as you want. As popular as the game is, I don’t have too much trouble finding available names as I did in Everquest. Usually it only takes me a few tries before I am able to find a name I like that isn’t already taken. There were quite a few times I was able to name my character on the first try. In addition to designing a costume to fit your character, you can add a story to your character’s profile. I’m not really interested in this aspect of the game, since I prefer to get an idea of what I want for a character, design a costume that I feel reflects the loose “theme” I’m going for, and play. My fiance and many of our friends do take advantage of this part of the game. Often players run contests judging on costume design and character’s stories, so there is reward for being dedicated enough to put some work into your character’s story development.
As with other role-playing games, as you accomplish tasks in the game and defeat enemies, you will gain experience and level your character. As you progress through the levels, you will be able to choose more powers within your archetype power sets, as well as from power pools that are not specifically associated with your archetype. Some powers require you to be a certain level and have certain other powers within that set. These power pools include travel powers (flight, super jump, teleport, etc.), healing, fitness, invisibility, and fighting. Epic powers are available as you get close to level 50 (current maximum level), allowing you to choose a new pool of powers. Often these provide powers that may not regularly be associated with your archetype. For example, scrappers are a melee class. My dark scrapper was able to obtain a few ranged powers in her epic pool.
Many games have costume parts, armor, and other items that buff your character.
City of Heroes uses an enhancement system. Enhancements are “slotted” to increase different attributes of your powers. Powers can be enhanced by only enhancements that apply to the attributes for that power, for example, a range increase wouldn’t be used on a melee attack. Enhancements are gained through random drops, purchasing them at stores, inventing them with salvage, or participating in a Hamidon Raid. As you level, you can use (and afford!) more powerful enhancements. It is easier to compare enhancements, as the enhancement system gives you easy to read percentages of how much each will increase various attributes of your powers. I found it much easier to use than previous MMORPGs I’ve played. I can just scroll over each power and see how much each enhancement is improving that power. I think the simplification it provides makes concentrating on game play easier. I don’t have to spend large amounts of time managing an inventory and my character’s statistic.
Game Play
City of Heroes game play is very mission-based. You will progress through story arcs by completing missions, which can consist of defeating a base boss and his cronies, rescuing hostages, hacking computers, protecting artifacts, or hunting baddies on the street. The stories are very engaging and usually a story arc consists of 8-10 missions. Missions may be done within zones, in buildings, caves, or sewers, or in instanced zones. The maps can be annoying, as many are made to be more “difficult” which really translates to “take more time.” Some are very unique, for example, you could receive a mission that instructs you to “Break up Troll Party” in a warehouse with laser lights and trolls dancing. These maps keep the game interesting and break up the monotony of doing missions. Missions are obtained through different contacts, including a police radio which has continuous missions for you to take, including “Safeguard” missions in which you stop villains from robbing a bank in a zone of Paragon City.
I enjoy doing missions, though once in a while you’ll get a long mission that puts you out of a video game mood. Some of them can be frustrating and several people we play with have complained about it, but personally I’m happy with most of the missions. The mission background is interesting, but can be a bit long. Sometimes I accept missions without actually reading the description. I love the missions with interesting maps and missions that are on the short side.
Some of the more interesting missions in the game occur in special zones. The new Rikti War Zone offers the chance for heroes from
City of Heroes to work with villains from City of Villains to fight off the Rikti invasion. The latest issue added the Ouroboros zone, where your character can travel time to complete old story arcs and set different trials to earn rewards.
Combat within the game is much better than I’ve seen in other MMORPGs. Your powers are activated by your control, though not like a console game. Choosing a power will perform the action of that power (if it’s a multiple punch power, your character will punch multiple times). I was incredibly impressed by this, especially after having played Everquest where the ‘Q’ button triggered an auto attack of your character doing the same repetitive motion over and over again. The only frustrating this is in some situations, your character won’t move until the action is completed. If my character is in the middle of a several punch attack, she won’t move until it is finished. This can be a problem if you’re dying.
The “con” system is simpler than I’ve seen in other games. Enemies names are color coded to reflect their levels, with up and down arrows under them that match up with the colors as a level indicator. Clicking on the enemy will reveal its level and rank (minion, lieutenant, boss, elite boss, arch villain, or giant monster). It’s very easy to follow and gives you a very accurate idea of how difficult the enemy will be to defeat.
The villain groups in the game are diverse (both visually and in background) and interesting. You’ll encounter common thugs, sinister creatures, evil corporations, wayward robots, and super villains from the Rogue Island of this game’s evil counterpart, City of Villains. Each has a different story and goal. As you level, you’ll encounter more and different villain groups, while you’ll run into some repeatedly throughout the game. My favorite is the Circle Of Thorns. They’re a group of ghosts, demons, and mages who always seem to be stealing some artifact or taking someone hostage. I always find their storylines to be engaging and I think they’re the most interesting group visually. The maps for their bases are always quite intriguing, with mystical objects throughout, like crystals that increase your regeneration, floating rocks, and obelisks.
In addition to the stories, the game offers diverse and interesting zones. Some are cityscapes, while others are islands. As you progress in level, you will be sent to more zones with higher level villains. Traveling between zones is easy using the trains and ferries. Traveling is made easier by the travel power pools I mentioned earlier. By level 14, your hero can be flying or teleporting through a zone. Before the travel powers, moving around is significantly more arduous, but your patience will pay off.
City of Heroes is one of those games that offers something for every type of player. For the dedicated players who like to level their characters quickly, the missions are perfect. For those who like more epic tasks, characters can be involved in task forces. A task force is a group of missions to accomplish a goal, usually consisting of very difficult missions. Each requires a certain number of players and each must be above a minimum level. The last mission of each task force tends to be very epic. An example is the Statesman Task Force, which is requires a full team of 8 players, all very high levels. The last mission involves defeating multiple arch villains from the Rogue Islands, including the evil super villain Lord Recluse. This mission is extremely difficult and completing it will bring you several prestigious rewards, including badges.
Badges are perfect for those of us who like competition. What’s a better way to compete against other players than to see who can collect more prestigious badges? Badges are earned for many different tasks. Some are very easy to obtain, while others require more time and work. Badges can be found throughout zones (exploration badges), by learning the history of each zone, by completing certain mission, reaching certain levels, completing task forces, inventing enhancements, selling salvage, and earning combinations of badges. Recently, veteran’s rewards were added to the game. Players earn a badge for every three months their account is active, along with other rewards such as powers and costume parts (including angel and demon wings).
Many zones have special occurrences and spawns that have badges associated with them. Giant monsters spawn, such as Sally the Sea Monster in Croatoa. Taking down these monsters can be difficult and usually requires multiple teams, but it can be a lot of fun and very rewarding.
For those players who enjoy fighting other players, there are a number of player vs. player (PVP) zones, where you can fight villains and other heroes. Each zone has different level requirements and rules. Some allow you to fight only villains, others have “bounties” for you to hunt, etc. I don’t PVP often, though I do spend a good deal of time in the zones earning badges and getting certain powerful temp powers that are available in the zones. When I do PVP, I find it to be enjoyable much of the time. It can be frustrating as some of the archetypes are misbalanced as far as PVP. The different zones keep it interesting, though. Recluse’s Victory is my favorite PVP zone. This is the highest level PVP zone, where you conquer pill boxes and can control “heavies,” in addition to defeating villains.
Players who enjoy crafting and becoming wealthy in games, will love the new salvage and invention system. Invention salvage and recipes are randomly dropped while you play, but can also be purchased at the ebay-style auction house, Wentworth’s Consignments. These components can be used to create enhancements and rare costume parts. These can be used or sold at Wentworth’s. This update to the game has radically changed the economy and improved the game in a lot of ways. Rare drops that you pick up allow your character to earn more influence (money) that you can use to buy enhancements for your character. Low level characters used to be very poor and I was always struggling to keep my enhancements up, until I was almost maximum level. Now, most of my characters have a decent cash flow, even at very low levels.
As if the aforementioned content isn’t enough to keep you busy, there are special events every few months. A few weekends per year are “Double XP Weekends,” when players earn double the experience for everything they accomplish in the game. There are special events associated with holidays and certain times of year. The winter event, which happens every December, gives heroes and villains the opportunity to team up in Pocket D for missions and skiing. Every Halloween, players Trick or Treat at building doors for special drops.
There are a lot of aspects of this game to explore, but all are relatively easy to learn. Considering how often the game expands and changes, I think this is important. I like that when new content is added, I don’t have to spend many hours learning it. Tutorials are provided for most parts of the game and the rest is easy to figure out. Some MMORPG snobs have this mentality that if it isn’t difficult to grasp, it’s not prestigious enough to play. I’d rather spend a few minutes learning the basics and be able to play right away. As a video game fan, I’d much rather spend my time playing games than learning them. For those who want a little extra information, the
City of Heroes Game Guide is available.
Game Stability and Customer Service
City of Heroes is played on eleven servers, in addition to a test server where issues and events are tested by players before they go live. Each server has its own character. Some are busier and have more team opportunities, while others are quieter and more adults tend to be on these servers. The servers are well maintained and down time is schedules for two hours daily (9AM-11AM EST). Maintenance rarely takes the entire time and sometimes the servers aren’t brought down at all. In the rare instances when the servers need to be brought offline at other times, information is usually provided on the website. I rarely have a problem logging on when I want to. The stability of the servers is impressive.
Bugs are inevitable, as in any online game. I do noticed some from time to time, especially after a large update, but it is rare that impacts my game. In-game problems can be dealt with by GMs in the game A simple in-game petition is used to report problems and have them dealt with. In the five or six instances I’ve had problems in missions, I was able to petition and receive a response and help from a GM within 20-30 minutes, at most. The GMs have always been polite and helpful.
Constant Evolution of the Game
One advantage MMORPGs have over other games, as far as maintaining players’ interest, is their ability to constantly evolve.
City of Heroes is updated frequently. Previous games I have played have had expansions available for purchase.
City of Heroes has provided eleven “issues” at no extra cost to their players. Each is about equal in content to the pay-expansions I’ve played in other games; adding new zones, badges, costume parts, and more. One Issue added the invention system, bringing a whole new economy to the game. Issues are released every few months, timed well enough that you’re just about finished with the content of the previous issue when the new issue goes live. I’ve been pleased that the developers have worked so hard at releasing new content and I think it’s great that they aren’t making players pay for the extra content.
Patches are released via the game updater as well. These are typically downloaded before you begin playing. Patches are made available quite often to fix various bugs in the game. Issues are downloaded after you play, a week or two before the content goes live. This is an efficient way of handling these downloads, which tend to be very large and take a while to download.
Controls
There is almost no learning curve when it comes to the controls in this game. Everything is easy to use and intuitive, but for those who have other control preferences, there are tons of options. Every game control can be reassigned to a key of your choice. Movement can be done with the arrow keys (which I prefer) or with the mouse (which my fiance happens to prefer).
Social Aspects of the Game
The
City of Heroes chat system is as easy to use and intuitive as the game controls. It is easy to use the chat to send private messages, broadcast information through a zone, or speak with your friends in chat channels. Channels are easy to set up and configure. Individual windows can be set for each type of chat or combination of types (a window for tells if you please, etc.). The only improvement I hope they make is to allow each individual tell to show up in a separate window, similar to instant messages. If you make a window for tells, all of the tells from all players show up in that window. Separate windows would allow you to respond to tells without having to type commands. The few chat commands are easy to learn and use.
I like that it is very much up to the player to decide how much they socialize in the game. Most missions can be done with a team or individually. Super Groups (SGs) add another element to the social dynamic of the game. A super group is a group of players, similar to guilds in other MMORPGs. Super group members can build a base to convene in, with portals to zones to make it easier to travel. Bases can even be made raid-ready and SGs can raid other bases. My fiance and I have become good friends with our SG mates and this has been a big part of our gameplay.
Graphics
So the content could be great, and the game could be easy to use, but how does the game look? Great! I’ve been quite impressed with the graphics in
City of Heroes. Of course your computer’s specifications will influence the game’s performance and how high you can tweak the graphics settings, but at full quality, the graphics are excellent. There are tons of details such as leaves falling from the trees and bullets remaining on the ground, getting moved around as you pass. I was also impressed by the look of glass in this game and the ability to see through it, specifically in windows in missions and in buildings such as Wentworth’s Consignments. The colors are very vibrant. Shadows give the game a very realistic feel (ask my fiance who I’ve actually caught moving his character away from cars that can’t hurt him). I also love the way the game fades scenery in from a distance. Instead of buildings just appearing on screen when you get close enough, they fade in and sharpen, just as objects would in real life. This game is compatible with the PhysX Processing Unit, allows you to take full advantage of the great physics.
The character details are the most impression. Shiny metallic surfaces actually look that way, when the graphic settings are up. The developers were meticulous about seemingly every detail, especially when designing the costume options.
As you lower the graphics options, some of the little details aren’t displayed. Shadows disappear and leaves will fall off trees, but they don’t remain on the ground. This lower setting also decreasing the detail in character models; faces are a bit blurry, metal surfaces are less reflective, etc. It certainly helps if you don’t have a great graphics card, providing a sharp increase in performance. I experience a lot of lag on my laptop at the higher graphics settings, but it runs very well on the lower two settings.
Sound
Sound is good in this game. The music is catchy. The sound effects are hit and miss. Some of them are very good, while others can be very annoying. The sound effects for the electricity and healing power sets grate on just about anyone’s nerves. Meanwhile, the effects for the broad sword power set are impressive.
Computer Requirements
Minimum system requirements are:
Microsoft Windows 2000/XP
Intel Pentium III 800 MHz or AMD Athlon 800 MHz
512 MB RAM
DVD-ROM
4 GB Available HDD Space
NVDIA GeForce 2 Series, ATI Radeon 8500, or Intel i865G and above Video Card
16-bit Sound Card
56k modem
DirectX 9.0c
Recommended system requirements are:
Microsoft Windows 2000/XP
Intel Pentium IV 2.0 GHz or AMD Athlon XP 2000
1 GB RAM
DVD-ROM
4 GB Available HDD Space
NVIDIA GeForce 6200, ATI Radeon 9500 Series Video Card
16-bit Sound Card
Broadband Internet Connection
DirectX 9.0c
Price
City of Heroes was $29.99 at the time I purchased it. As with most other MMORPGs, a monthly fee is required to play. The game comes with a free month, with each subsequent month costing $14.95. This fee covers the monthly fee for both this game, and City of Villains. This is one of the cheaper monthly fees I have encountered. Discounts are available for multiple month purchases online. You can purchase up to a year on your credit card, at a price that is discounted $3 per month. Game cards are also available for purchase in most electronics and game stores, for 3 months of game play.
Recommendation
I highly recommend
City of Heroes for any gamer looking for an MMORPG to get involved in, especially comic book fans.
