City of Heroes: Through the Years

Just like most MMOs, City of Heroes has been under constant development, with most of its additional content being provided to subscribers at no additional charge. Some things are such a big aspect of the current game that it's hard to remember what the game was like without them, or hard to believe they weren't there all along. In this article, and in the next couple, we'll take a stroll down memory lane and look at the changes that City of Heroes has gone through over the years, as the game approaches its sixth anniversary. It should be stated that I am a big fan of the City of Heroes franchise, and my feelings for the game may come through in these articles. Those looking for an unbiased account of the game's history may wish to look elsewhere.

2004

Released five months before World of Warcraft, which would go on to redefine the meaning of "successful MMO," City of Heroes wowed players and the gaming media with its innovations. Winning several 2004 "Game of the Year"-type awards from various gaming magazines and websites, the game attracted comments such as this one from Computer Gaming World: "City of Heroes blows a super powered gust of fresh air into an increasingly stale sword-and-sorcery MMO world." The game launched with the most detailed character creator ever seen in an MMORPG, as well as game mechanics rarely (or never) seen before. Sidekicking allowed characters of various levels to play together, and instanced missions negated much of the traditional spawn camping seen in other games.

Before 2004 was over, the game would see several major updates, both to content and to game balance. The infamous "Purple Patch" made it so fighting enemies several levels higher than your character was much more difficult. Issue 1: Through the Looking Glass was released just over two months after initial release, and raised the level cap from 40 to 50. Issue 1 also introduced the Peregrine Island zone, the ability to have multiple costumes, and new mission mechanics (5th Column and Circle of Thorn prisons, outdoor mission maps). Issue 2: A Shadow of the Past came out in September, and introduced many important game mechanics such as badges, capes, respecification, and exemplaring ("reverse sidekicking"). Issue 2 also featured the first appearance of the Hollows and Shadow Shard zones.

In October, the first Halloween Event took place, featuring trick or treating, new (mostly re-skinned) enemy groups, and special event badges. The Halloween Event has returned every year since, except for 2005, and was the beginning of the City of Heroes holiday-themed events.


Subscription numbers within the first few months of game release were around 170,000, but dropped to just under 125,000 by the end of the first year. An initial drop off of subscribers can be expected with any MMO, and the release of World of Warcraft in November probably didn't help that number any. The game would rebound in a big way during its second year, however.

2005


2005 was one of the biggest years for the franchise, with many ups and downs. A whopping four free content updates were released in 2005, along with the game's first (and so far only) "expansion." In addition to all of the undeniably good things that entered the game during this year, there were two very significant groups of balance adjustments that caused a lot of controversy at the time.

The year started out with a bang, with the release of Issue 3: A Council of War in January. In addition to introducing epic archetypes (Peacebringers and Warshades, available only to players who had already leveled at least one hero to max level), the Striga Isle zone, and the ability to increase the difficulty of missions, Issue 3 also saw the removal of the 5th Column enemy group, replacing them with a new group called the Council. Many people speculated (and continued to speculate, until fairly recently) that the 5th Column were removed from the game because of their ties to the Nazis. The game was about to be released to the European market, and some reasoned that the 5th Column had to be removed because of German laws prohibiting the depiction of Nazi propaganda. These charges were unfounded (especially since the 5th Column character models and mission maps didn't actually use any Nazi symbols or images) and were repeatedly denied by the developers, who stated that the Council takeover of the 5th Column was purely story-driven. Now that the 5th Column have returned to the game world (starting with Issue 11, and continuing with several of the next few issues), it is obvious that their removal had nothing to do with German laws.

Issue 3 also introduced Global Chat to the game, another of City of Heroes' hallmark innovations. With Global Chat, players can communicate with each other no matter which characters they're playing or even which server on which they're playing. Global Chat also allows players to create custom chat channels, for conversation purposes and also to announce events of various types.

The game's first Winter Event took place in January of this year as well, introducing players to the Winter Lord and his Winter Horde. Later incarnations of the Winter Event would include present opening and a mission to save Baby New Year.


Issue 4: Colosseum, released in May, brought player versus player (PvP) combat to the game in the form of arena matches. It also featured a lot of new costume options, the ability to further customize character bodies with scales, and the introduction of supergroup coalitions (basically, alliances of different supergroups). PvP was, and continues to be, a controversial element of the City of Heroes game, and the development team has spent a considerable amount of time and effort in trying to achieve optimal balance between opponents.

Issue 5: Forest of Dread came out in August, introducing the zone of Croatoa (featuring enemies similar to those seen first in the Halloween Event). It also featured several new powersets (Archery, Trick Arrow, Sonic Attack and Sonic Resonance), as well as new zone events (Hellion Arson and Troll Rave) and new mission types (hostage/escort and villain ambushes).

Issue 5 also introduced the first of two major balance changes of the year. The Global Defense Reduction (sometimes called Global Defense Nerf or Global Defense Decrease) reduced every character's base damage resistance and defense, and also lowered defense and resistance values for nearly every applicable power in the game. Nearly every character was affected in some way by these changes, and the GDR was understandably met with much resistance in the community. Trying to make the community feel better about the changes, lead designer Jack Emmert said that "We've finished making large changes to the power sets."

While this statement was technically true, something was about to happen which would no doubt make Emmert wish he had never made it.


Issue 6: Along Came a Spider was released in conjunction with City of Villains, the game's first expansion, in late October. Introducing player character villains and their base of operations, the Rogue Isles, to the game, City of Villains also breathed new life into the game, in terms of new technology, better designed missions/contacts, and increased subscription numbers. Supergroup bases were available for the first time, and "salvage" was introduced as a new type of reward drop. PvP, which had previously been limited to the arenas, was now available in three new zones, each featuring its own "mini-game." Mission and storyarc design was hailed as a vast improvement over that found in the original City of Heroes game.

But with all the good also came more bad. Late in the closed beta testing of City of Villains, the developers added Enhancement Diversification to the featureset of the expansion and accompanying issue. Enhancement Diversification (which came to be known as "ED," and the sharing of the initials with "erectile dysfunction" was an irony not lost on many players) is a system of diminishing returns when powers are slotted with several of the same enhancements. This had a dramatic effect on how most people played their characters, and didn't sit well with many in the community, especially after Emmert's statement a mere month before. Emmert's excuse was that when he made that statement he was talking in particular about changes to power sets, which to him was a completely different thing than enhancements. Many players saw that explanation as weak and misleading. At least one player felt so strongly about ED that they broke their closed beta nondisclosure agreement to post about the change on the official forums, forcing the developers to go public with the news shortly before they'd originally intended.

The controversy didn't ultimately hurt the game's subscription numbers. Subscriptions had started to bounce back from their post-World of Warcraft low and had risen steadily throughout 2005. City of Villain's release brought in many new players, increasing the overall subscriber base to a new high of almost 195,000 accounts by the end of 2005. The City of Heroes/City of Villain franchise was an unequivocal success, but there were trying times ahead.

Next time: staff reductions, more updates, and Cryptic says good-bye.