COH2 predicted by Massively

COH 2 will probably take the form of a paid-expansion to the existing game, much in the same way as WoW and LOTRO.

I think there'll be a serious update to some of the graphic elements of the game, along with a very serious expansion of the environment. Space has been muted a number of times, and we've seen experimentation with underwater environments (well, swimming) If it's space, I hope they'll add lots of space-suit costume parts If it's under-water, wetsuits and more Scuba gear than just a Re-breather (cylinders, spear-guns, fins etc...)

More base love. Sorry, but I don't want an underground secret base. I want something that wouldn't go amiss in a bond movie. Stromberg's Atlantis from the "spy who loved me", or inside a volcano, a space station and above all something with some flippin' windows in it! Oh, and some partition walls, and flooring that you can't see through when you stack it half way up the room. And would a fridge, washing machine, drier and Microwave be too mush to ask for? A phone is fine for dialing out for Pizza/take-away but even super-heroes/villains like to eat healthily.

There's also the chance to be a real thorn in DCUO's side. Marvel sued NCSoft and Cryptic for the character generator and the ability to create characters that reflect their established universe. MUO died when they thought it wouldn't make enough money, but what if NCSoft (after buying the all the rights from Cryptic) turned round to Marvel and said "How about a piece of our pie as yours has gone off?" That gives Marvel a chunk of the Super MMO pie, and NCSoft a really big stick to whack the other MMO's with. Unlikely, but it's a nice idea.

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Union: @Ban-Sidhe

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COH 2 will probably take the form of a paid-expansion to the existing game, much in the same way as WoW and LOTRO.

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Which is the same thing as an expansion pack.

The argument against that is that it wouldn't enable PvP to be fixed, as that requires a complete rewrite of all the powers and ATs (and we all know how popular that is in a live game, don't we - NGO, ED etc).

Also, porting everything into a shiny new (and properly designed) engine, like the one Aion uses would alow the graphics to remain competative for many years to come.

the game would also benefit from having fewer, higher quality zones, and I don't see how you can remove zones in a "add on".

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I really should do something about this signature.

Weird I've always wondered if "City of" could be touted to marvel or even DC in some form of mutually beneficial agreement its pretty clear what "NCsoft would get out of it but what about Marvel(or DC) i doubt rights to print stories based in the CoH universe would be anuff to tempt them.

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I wouldn't remove the zones. Shiny new graphics are a must, I agree with you Praf, and would make the game competitive for many years to come. EVE is an excellent example of this.

My biggest, personal, gripe is actually to do with the hero-side missions. Compare them to the villains and the villain mission, TF and Zone design blows the hero side out of the water. After getting a villain to lvl50 I tried to do the same with a hero (got there eventually) and having to traipse most of the way across the city is a royal pain in the rear end. Villains is so well thought out by comparison, that's why it's so fun! As for PvP... I don't want to get into that particular argument, and it's pointless because it goes on "ad infinitum" Personally I'd be very happy with either a PvP zone flag to say "I want to PvP" or a more common "Challenge/Response" ala WoW. I know that WAR has championed the RvR arena, but isn't that just a more advanced version of COX's PvP zones?

I'd love to see the war walls taken down. I also would love to see a proper world event take place for the 5th anniversary. Thoughts of meteorites falling from the sky, crashing and disgorging loads of Shivans comes to mind. but none of us know whether that's going to happen. I think that RockJaw has given a big enough clue in his predictions for 09. He's probably not allowed to say more. Remember, he did used to work for NCSoft, and while he might not have been privy to the hard-core stuff, I'm sure that there's a glimmer of realism in there.

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Union: @Ban-Sidhe

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I'd love to see the war walls taken down.

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The zones aren't ajacent to each other. There are several miles of unmapped uninteresting city between where the action takes place.

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I really should do something about this signature.

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The argument against that is that it wouldn't enable PvP to be fixed, as that requires a complete rewrite of all the powers and ATs (and we all know how popular that is in a live game, don't we - NGO, ED etc).

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You would think that even for the very slow to learn, the penny must have dropped about PvP.

Surely they must have got the idea that people in the most part dont play this game to PvP by now, especially after this last fiasco.

I cant see PvP being a hurdle for an expansion.

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I'd love to see the war walls taken down.

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The zones aren't ajacent to each other. There are several miles of unmapped uninteresting city between where the action takes place.

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I think it's a given that taking the walls down means the entire city would have to be rebuilt/redesigned into a single zone, expanding the interesting bits, reducing/culling the dull bits.

I'd love to see this (I hate those damn walls, especially after playing WoW, LotRO & WAR), but it ain't gonna happen in an expansion pack.

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I cant see PvP being a hurdle for an expansion.

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Kirbs are smaller than a hurdle, but more people trip over them than one might think.

But I totally agree with what you said, Londoner. They should stick to their strengths, which is PvE based. This way in CoX2 there should be a lot more content and more advanced mechanics, which imo would please a lot more people in the long run.

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More people fall over kirbs because hurdles are easier to see.

I think CoH2 could do really excellent PvP though, and with CO apparently dropping the ball in that department, I think it would be worth making the effort to do it right, which wouldn't be hard to do if you built the PvP system first then used that as your basis for pvE.

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I really should do something about this signature.

I actually think PvP should be the cornerstone of any next gen CoH/V but not PvP as we have known it here or anywhere else to date.

Villains should generate content in a dynamic way for Heroes to resolve and Heros should generate challenges and obstacles for Villians to pursue their ambitions. Its a mutual dynamic whereby one side creates content dynamically for the other and vica versa (antagonist against protagonist exactly as the genre and good storytelling demands)....not just face to face slugfests but more varied mixes of pve and pvp content that develop, get resloved or else evolve over time. Via a mix of semi staic instances and the introduction of overlapping territories this could deliver a game which has new challenges each and every day to replace those painfully repetative aspects of the mmo genre.

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the entire city would have to be rebuilt/redesigned into a single zone, expanding the interesting bits, reducing/culling the dull bits.


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99% of RL cities is dull though. I pass the endless housing estates on the train every morning.

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I really should do something about this signature.

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More people fall over kirbs because hurdles are easier to see.

I think CoH2 could do really excellent PvP though, and with CO apparently dropping the ball in that department, I think it would be worth making the effort to do it right, which wouldn't be hard to do if you built the PvP system first then used that as your basis for pvE.

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Or they could just not bother wasting all that money in the hope of getting an extra 2% subscribers , and do what they are good at.

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If they DID make a CoH2 instead of just an expansion, I think they should set it in a REAL city, rather than in Paragon. I'd LOVE to fly around a modeled version of NYC or LA for example, and it'd make the world seem more real too.

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@FloatingFatMan

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

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If they DID make a CoH2 instead of just an expansion, I think they should set it in a REAL city, rather than in Paragon. I'd LOVE to fly around a modeled version of NYC or LA for example, and it'd make the world seem more real too.

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Having just played GTA 4 on the pc and seen what a really good city can look like, i'd love to see that.

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I think the Hero-zones were built with the "Build it and they will come" philosophy, in which case maybe they were expecting the zones to be a bit crowded with the thousands of players all in a zone at the same time. You wouldn't be able to move for spandex! Of course the reality is quite different, and is probably for discussion in another thread. Like I said though... I'd love to see the War walls taken down, but I know it ain't gonna happen. Not without a huge overhaul of the system, which would probably change a few fundamental ways of doing things. Environment scales would have to change for one thing, along with heaven knows what else.

NCSoft have a 5-year old toddler on its hands in COX. It's growing out of its baby clothes. Computing will always move on, and I really do think that there is something on the horizon that is going to blow our minds away. I14 Architect is imminent, and they've had a really big team beavering away in the background for the better part of a year now. Having done I10, I11 and I12 on a bare-bones team, I13 didn't really "feel" that much bigger. So what has a 30+ team been doing for 12 months? Here's to 09

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Union: @Ban-Sidhe

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the entire city would have to be rebuilt/redesigned into a single zone, expanding the interesting bits, reducing/culling the dull bits.


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99% of RL cities is dull though. I pass the endless housing estates on the train every morning.

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Sure, but 99% of the countryside is too and WoW, WAR & LotRO manage to make single zones work (although in the case of LotRO at least, the majority of the maps are large and empty) and not seem too silly.

It wouldn't be simulating a real city, there's no reason to include dull areas, the whole city can be playable area - GTA has shown us that at least. Adding some more locations like shopping malls and airports would go a long way towards filling the empty space, although since we all have travel powers, a certain amount of empty space might not be so bad - we could get away with more than WoW does, at least.

To me, the war walls are far more immersion-breaking than a single city with a mugger on every corner would be (since that's effectively what we see anyway).

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Hell no not a real life city. Keep it in Paragon, renovate it, open new parts up, have building work change place, but please, don't change the city.

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If they switched to NYC, Marvel would probably sue again.

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If they build the whole of Paragon, it would kinda make more sense. For example, Atlas Park is supposed to be the safest place in the city, right?
Why, they, is it filled with bit-players like Hellions and Clockwork Sprockets? For low-level stuff, yes.

However, canon wise, only the biggest and nastiest villains would have a hope in hell of getting anywhere near Atlas (and possibly get the Phalanx dropped on them....hmm, potential missions galore).
So, if the whole city was mapped, the likes of the Hellion and Skulls could be the typical alley muggers and suchnot, lounging around or gang-fighting like they do in Villains or the Hollows.

Personally, Im happy so long as CoX keeps on going, the potential of new stuff is always nice, even if we get a few squibs in our times.

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I don't see why they cant at least begin to push back the war walls maybe link up a few of the areas reclaim perz park etc etc

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T'be honest, the War Walls dont WORK. They dont serve their original purpose, i.e. keep the Rikti out. The damn things come on in anyway! duh...

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Heroes could have secret ID's that enable them to go into the Rogue Isles and travel to instances within them....with a big reward xp and £ wise - the disguises have statistical chances of being penetrated and the character then being open for attack both pvp and pve. defeat outside the instance would see you scooped up by a flyer and thrown into a mini sub game battling Arachnos soidiers trying to board/bring down the flyer.

Villians should then have a similar system via disguises, with certain areas easier to infiltrate than others. Defeat sends you to Jail and a sub game where you form an escape with passage back to the rogue isles

The two systems should be similar but subtly different in form to promote the gamestyle....it opens some community links, badge hunting for those that wish to use them and opens the door for some instance based contentious missions.

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T'be honest, the War Walls dont WORK. They dont serve their original purpose, i.e. keep the Rikti out. The damn things come on in anyway! duh...

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Uh....yes they do. It's thanks to the War Walls the Rikti War Zone isn't the entire city. What were you expecting them to do against an orbital assault? The Rikti didn't even do that in the first war.

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Chairman of the Charity of Pain; accepting donations of blood and guts.

Prophet of the Creamy Truth; "If it's empty, fill it with cream."

The main thing I would like to see from CoX 2 would be to get a three- or more sided foundation, rather than today's two-sided foundation of villains or heroes. Bring a City of Spies or City of Monsters or some other new cityscape into the balance and tie the three (or more) cities and gameworlds tighter together than is the case today with City of Heroes and City of Villains.

The Cities don't have to be geographically separate cities as such, either. "City of Monsters" could well exist as catacombs, sewers and sub-marine cavesystems under Paragon and the Rogue Isles.

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If they DID make a CoH2 instead of just an expansion, I think they should set it in a REAL city, rather than in Paragon. I'd LOVE to fly around a modeled version of NYC or LA for example, and it'd make the world seem more real too.

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I think City of Heroes without Paragon would be like Batman without Gotham or Superman without Metropolis but I do see where you're going with this, Paragon does need an extensive overhaul conceptually as Cities are not planned like the one we currently have, let alone grow over time to become how they are usually in a multi-layered, multi-faceted city.

Citys need to reflect:

#Relatively Juxtapositioned economic desparation and wealth.

#Ethnic themed zones as in RL communities do tend to gravitate together, China-towns etc

#Nobody is asking for GTAIV levels of realism in a city, but seeing the example of New York in Spiderman Web of Shadows, that kind of quality re: a cityscape like that would be worthy for a sequel to this beloved game in my opinion.

If I were creative director at NorCal the first thing I'd do re: a cityscape redux would be to send the art team into a city like New York or Chicago with digital cameras and a pile of memory sticks and snap away at absolutely everything. Citys are not perfect like Cryptic's first attempt with Paragon, they are haphazard both architectually and chronolgically regarding planning.
In their inherant 'thrown together' and built upon state lies a convincing cityscape social fabric.

I'd go for a redux of the cityzones we have now and take the franchise global through using the cities airports.
Definately agree that a more varied range of enviroments are going to be needed. Fighting Tsoo in a neon Hong Kong or Snakes in back-alley Cairo slums would be awesome. CoX easily has enough enemy groups to go global, and I doubt Recluse's meglomania could be contained for long in one city (Paragon) although he should have an unhealthy obsessive focus on Paragon for storyline continuity.

Cimerora is a welcome first step though re: different enviroments, the Roman city is nicely planned and multi-tiered with buildings on different levels, up on hillsides etc. The thing about Cimerora is that there is not that much to do there outside of the Imperious TaskForce, I'm always left wanting more of a sandbox experience when I go into small zones like that. It is really just a staging post for the ITF as opposed to a fully-fledged zone like Peregrine Island.

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