Time for COH 2.0?

I agree with Johnny. COH2 likely won't happen. The amount of money it would take to makef a COH2 that meets/exceeds the same standards that COH has set would be astronimical, and based on current subscription numbers, it wouldn't get near the return needed to make the investment worthwhile.

They could make a 'lesser' COH2, but would anyone want to play that?

The current game has a lot of life in it still; they just need to keep catering to the game's strengths. More costumes and hairstyles, new powersets, more options/mods for current powersets, more content (but they need to avoid playerbase-splitting content ideas like Praetoria). We could go for years on that.

One thing I would love for NCSoft to do is make a single player game that has the same setting as COH MMO, and essentially the same ATs, but modified and expanded so that a player can customize and interact more than is possible in an MMO (think Fable or Skyrim, but modern and for supers). I wonder what the market for such a game would be...

Well, I see a couple people obviously didn't do anything more than read the title and respond. For those that did - and yes, even disagreed - thanks.

For those that didn't, let me give you an example of a (continually re-)broken system - the tailor. How many times has that been reorganized? How many times have they broken it by adding pieces - or worse, a new category? I almost hate logging into servers I don't go onto very often, because if I visit the tailor, I'll have to grab a screenshot ahead of time and play "Hunt the face/other costume piece" to fix my character's look. A COH 2.0 (and I do agree, it would need a new name - not least because I'd hope it would be world-spanning) would have the structure supporting the tailor/character creator designed from the outset to be more flexible (and hopefully keep the internal name of pieces even if the label gets changed or position gets rearranged.)

This game has too much story to finish up and too much in it currently to launch a 2.0

Imagine starting CoH 2.0 with the amount of content that CoH had when it launched in 2004. Think about it.

Yes, dividing the playerbase/community would be bad.

If ever it were to happen, considering this is a Superhero MMO - the universe would have to fail, collapse, and be "rebooted" with most of what we know retconned out of existence So, I'd imagine in that scenario, CoH 1.0 would have to shut down for CoH 2.0 to launch.

For all of you saying that a City of Heroes 2™ would only attract people from the current player base, you're wrong. You're not "Dominatrix serves Tyrant" wrong, but you're 2 + 2 = 3 wrong. I keep one Twitter feed for all mentions of City of Heroes, and when the news got out that "City of Heroes 2" had been copyrighted it just EXPLODED! It got a whole lot of people exicted, and that's a whole lot of people who don't currently play the game.

City of Heroes is remembered fondly by a lot of people, and that's part of the problem. They remember it as a game from 2004, a really nice game for its time, but its time has long passed. Now personally I think that the folks at Paragon have done a remarkable job continually breathing new life into a nearly 8 year old game, but the perception out there is that, alas, it is an 8 year old game. But if you create a City of Heroes 2™ you combine the fondness people feel for the (again, perception here) old game with "new shiny hotness". That alone would make CoH2 one of the most eagerly anticipated games out there.

Of course there are major caveats. There's no guarantee that a new game built from the ground up would actually be any good. And for all of you saying "don't paint yourself into corners a second time", well, new corners will have to be made. It's just impossible to anticipate every single thing customers will want 5+ years down the line. It's a fact of programming life that by making any design decisions you paint yourself into a few corners, some of which you may not realize until after you try to go back and make modifications.

So City of Heroes 2™ would not automatically be a better game. But to say it wouldn't get a whole lot of interest outside the current player base is just ignorant.

Just to toss in my 2cents, with the new/returning players I see on a daily basis I think COH 1.0 still has quite some life left in it. I think with keeping in mind some of the financial issues going on the last few years, having a game that has less demanding requirements opens up the player base to those who can afford to spend some time/money on this game but can't work in a top of the line PC to run a game that would make their current rig explode in defiance. Personally, I think there are still alot of lore/stories that needs to be explored before any thought of a sequel really take hold.

Stuff I want in a super hero MMO, that just aren't feasible outside of a sequel:

-Total graphics overhaul to characters and environments. Fingers. Detail in faces. Non-static hair. We really can't do them without re-doing every animation in the game. If it comes down to that, you may as well be starting over. Same with ditching the old costume pieces and zone models.

-Destruction and environmental interaction. I want to punch people through walls. I want to rip a lamppost out of the ground and swing it at some one. I want collateral damage you'd expect from a super powered battle. I WANT TO THROW A CAR.
To do it right and not half-***, you'd have to redo every zone and map in the game, so again you may as well be starting over.

-A more flexible power and AT system. Deadpool, Ironman. You can't do characters like that who mix ranged and melee attacks. Even gadget guys like Batman, you're limited to their hand to hand capabilities only for the most part. Could be solved with Pool/Epic powers, if they were rolled them together and the devs created more of them and they were treated more like a Tertiary power set. But that's not likely from what I've seen.

-An extensive revamp to enemies AI and mission design. More elaborate missions that can be approached by a variety of play styles.

You get a mission that someone had been kidnapped and is being held in a warehouse.

Now:
You go to the mission door, click it. You enter into an instance of a stark warehouse map by the front door, all the enemies are standing around in neat little groups waiting for you to engage them one on one. The Boss is standing in the last room. The hostage stands there while you grind the boss down and then you lead the hostage out. End mission.
BORING.

What I'd rather see as an approach:
You go to the warehouse, gain entry via an unguarded skylight. Inside you sneak through the vents, making your way to the security room. You quietly take out the thug watching the security cameras and disable the alarms. From the security monitors you find out where the hostage is being kept. Then you make your way through the warehouse, avoiding detection or taking out anyone before they can alert others to your presence. You get to the boss, catch him unawares and fight them and the free the hostage.

Or, you could do the exact same mission with another approach:
You go to the warehouse and crash through the wall. Immediately the enemies start to swarm you amid alarms going off. You cut your way through the crowd and topple some machinery to block more from arriving. You free the hostage but the boss is trying to make a run for it in a delivery van. You block his exit, grab and flip the van onto it's roof and pull him out.


Now likely neither of those can be realized in an online MMO yet, but they should be what the devs aim for. The kind of complex and thrilling action you find in comics.

Guys standing around in static warehouses, waiting to be systematically defeated while you navigate a static maze of corridors (with occasional ambush) never screamed 'super hero action' to me. Neither do the current Trials, which are more like nonsensical dances; a series of hoops you must jump through to receive food pellets.




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