True Loves: City of Heroes

Every once in a while I'd like to take a chance to write about a game I've really loved. Not just the games that I thought were really great, but the games that for whatever reason, held my attention for years at a time. Seeing as its Valentine's Day, I thought I'd take this week to go over two of these very special games starting with the original super hero MMO, City of Heroes.

Seven years ago, MMOs were a very different industry than what we see today. They were harsh beasts, heavily reliant on teams and quick to punish failure. Back in the days before WoW became a household name, EverQuest was the game to beat and NCSoft took up the challenge by making a game as different from EverQuest as possible. Where EQ took part in a Tolkienesque fantasy realm with knights and wizards, CoH placed you in a modern city with spandex clad champions. It took on the difficulties of team reliance with scaling missions that made it easy to accomplish something in half an hour by yourself, or challenging for up to 8 players at a time. Most importantly, it gave players the freedom of exploring its world the only way a hero knows how; zipping through the streets, leaping from rooftop to rooftop, or of course, soaring among the clouds.

Most unique of all, City of Heroes has a very different goal from most MMOs. It's not a game about getting stuff. Until very recently, there was no real loot to speak of and little means of showing it off anyway. Instead, the game encourages creativity, giving you access to an unmatched number of character creation options and letting you pick your own set of super powers to create whatever crazy concept you had in mind. Cyborg katana wielding ninjas, mystical weather controlling witches, stomping giant monsters, savage cat people, guys in power armor, and nearly any other creation you can think of are not only possible, but common among the streets of Paragon City. Before Microsoft had unleashed Achievements onto the world of gaming, City of Heroes had you running missions for the simple thrill of collecting little badges to mark all of your adventures and heroic deeds.

What truly matters in any MMO, however, is the community it attracts and the people that inhabit its world. This, more than anything is what kept me enthralled with the game and not for guilds or raids or any other group activity, but through the boundless creativity of the community. NCSoft created a massive sandbox of powers, costumes, and adversaries where magic and science, Batman and Superman could all coexist, and the players drawn to it were just the kind of people looking to create an endless series of unique persona. Even outside the roleplaying community, you'll find every pick up group to be full of off the wall character designs complete with 2-3 paragraph biographies explaining their origins. More often than not they're simply itching for you to compliment them, and eager to fill you in on all the ideas they have for their hero or villain. In classic noir fashion, this city is one where everyone has a story to tell, and long after I had created dozens of characters and run every mission I could find, I'd continue to play just to hear what crazy dream the game would inspire next.

NCSoft's follow up, Champions Online, unfortunately abandoned a lot of the freedom of their original for a more structured, theme park experience that didn't quite capture my attention. I have yet to give DC Universe Online a try, but I am eager to see how it measures up after it's had a few months of bug fixes and content updates. I do hope someday there will be another game as creative and open to the player's imagination as City of Heroes. Until then City of Heroes will always hold a special place in my heart; a city that feels like home, where I can simply wait beside the gargoyles perched upon the rooftops until someone calls for my help, leaping into the sky to fly to their rescue. There are a lot of games that try to make you feel like a superhero, but few can match the experience quite like that.