A lot of the in-game content of Champions sort of steals from City of Heroes. Even though Cryptic initially worked on CoH, they shouldn’t have used animations, similar costume pieces, powers, enemies, themes, war walls, sounds… the list is long, from City of Heroes like they have. Luckily they didn’t steal any of Floyd Grubb’s “professional developer” ideas on “balance” though. That guy destroys CoH/V left and right, while Champions Online is actually fun in the same areas Floyd’s nerfs have devastated CoH/V. I wouldn’t let this guy even work on Killzone 2 DLC heh. Not to mention Matt or whoevers incompetence to make some costume pieces tied to taskforces in CoH, when grouping is impossible (and not wanted) because only 5 players are on across 10 servers or whatever it is at 11pm to 5am) is crazy. In Champions you can solo these things and have fun, which is much better for people who play off hours or don’t like to group with idiots/kids and just want the costume pieces and don’t care about booooring story lines they all skip reading anyway.

This is also actually a funny slightly off-topic comparison, but while the players I’ve known since the release of CoH (or most mmos I’ve played) just skip through story to accept the mission, they actually closely look over player-made missions in the Mission Architect, with a magnifying glass, and if the story isn’t perfect they rate it bad. It’s pathetic. I really love CoH and Villains. It’s got some great aspects to it other games don’t, and it might be the first mmo I’d recommend to people who want more freedom in how THEY WANT TO PLAY, (unless the Rogue expansion coming makes us group to go beyond 50)but at the same time because of some of the developers and the strength of some of the known forums pos(t)ers hold over them, they are turning the game to trash.

Sketchy? Hardly. If there were ANY other superhero MMOs, and Cryptic approached the players of more than one, it would seem like an intelligent marketing move. As it is, there ARE only the two superhero MMOs. Where else are they going to go to recruit? As for “stealing” ideas or constructs from CoH…hey, Cryptic INVENTED them. They’ve been revamped enough for reimplementation in CO that it’s hardly theft; they are two very different games. And as for NCSoft crying “EULA vio!”, where is their concern the other 23 hours and 59 minutes of the day when every gold delivery/power levelling service on the internet is constantly spamming every players’ in-game email? Isn’t THAT an EULA vio? Is NCSoft doing anything about THAT? Not at all. Their last feeble effort at spam-control was over a year ago, was easy enough for an autistic 2-year-old to circumvent, and simply made in-game email completely useless. In fact, I believe the most recent “issue” (free upgrade) released by NCSoft granted the players (after years of pleading) the right to completely disable in-game email (NCSoft’s non-apologetic gesture of defeat). They have never done enough to even attempt to control EULA vios, so where do they get off playing this card now? Competition has been on the horizon ever since development of CO was first announced (doubly so after DCUO was announced), yet NCSoft chose not to act to improve their own game (like Madeline says, they’ve been running it into the ground for years). Brass balls, NCSoft, and tough noodles. The only reason you’re crying now is because you know your game can’t really stand up to competition. You should have listened to the diehard players who complained about the problems with the direction you were taking, instead of allowing developers like Chris Bruce (“Back Alley Brawler”) to declare openly and frequently that “complainers are put on ignore lists.”

Craptic should be their names. Sick of that Avery person and others who work for it posting positive things like they are not working for them, when they really are. Shady studio, low talent.