Time for COH 2.0?

Seriously? I dont see any real need for coh2 atm simply becuase we are murdering the rivals. CO is a poor wasteland of a joke. DCU has a very small niche fanbase that may last but I doubt it. Also NC Soft as our company is still working on GW2 atm so even though I dont think its a direct thing I doubt a company wants to dump funds into to many development projects atm.

Not to mention a good chunk of the cox pop I think is here because of our history here and all we have put into it. a full on new game rarely means any major data transfer and I dont exactly think many want a fresh start in a revamped paragon. so much as a fresh paragon for a revamped game.

I vaguely recall hearing somewhere that some old old MMO (older than CoH) once had its game engine replaced with something newer.

I mean, could that not happen here? Replace the old Cryptic engine with... what, a Paragon Engine? Something that could be backwards compatible with the old content, but allow for much easier and more powerful upgrades, changes and additions.

I have no idea how possible or feasible something like that could even be, though.

I don't know if a COH 2.0 would live up to our expectations. Firstly you can forget such a game having anyway near the amount of content this one has and will have by the middle of 2012. The endgame also wouldn't be anyway nearly as fleshed out as this one is starting to become.

Also does anyone really think the have the development resources to keep both this game and the new game fully ready for market with constant content churning out for BOTH games. If they hadn't just launched COH freedom I'd say yes. But with them having to constantly release "stuff" as you have to in a hybrid Free-2-play/sub game, no.

Something would have to give and I fear COH 1.0's now constant content would be what would.

EDIT: I can see them in a few years announcing 2.0 while at the same time starting to put THIS game into maintenance mode. But we'd know that they were coming with 2.0 as they'd probably announce it and we'd DEFINITIVELY feel the slow down in updates for this game.

I agree with some of the sentiment going on in here. The current engine has had so much stuff tacked on to it its not running the way it should. The game is far from seamless and the bugs we get each issue are just , well, they shouldn't be there.

They can announce that (for example) taunt auras on willpower tanks will be increased to 1 second, then all of a sudden purple sets don't work anymore as a result. What the hell just happened??? We see stuff like this crop up nearly every issue. The engine just doesn't handle polygons and all the added UI like a more refined engine would. Having tried half a dozen newer MMO's (and really not paying attention to any of them for long, don't worry about me there, I have to many friends and fun here), I am constantly reminded of just how bad CoH can look and perform in comparison. Now don't mis-understand me, by bad im talking about a purely technical aspect, nothing more.

CoH2? nah. Now if all they do is replace the current engine with a better one, that'll make all the difference we need

For the time being, we should look at streamlining the current engine. All the base salvage we used to use before IO's is STILL in there, i'll log onto the occasional character I might have floating around and its still holding base salvage, its time to wipe all that off the system. Same with all the different currencies, bring it down to 1 or 2 systems, not the 4 or 5 we have now, having a smaller database for the game to worry about is bound to help.

Anyway, its time to log in and spend some fun decimating mobs on my fire/fire/pyre tanker

What I would like to see from a CoH2:

1. Not to be named CoH 2.
Obviously, we can't call ourselves World of Heroes, but we could go to Country or Continent and keep the abbreviation, or alternatively expand on the multi-dimensional side of our game universe and call it Multi-verse of Heroes or Omniverse of Heroes.

2. To retain all the systems we know and love.
This is the hard one. I couldn't upgrade to a CoH 2 with less to do, even knowing it had better graphics/mechanics. I'd want SSK, Flashbacks, Bases, and MA at least. Adding these to a new engine instead of an old would allow them to be more functional and hopefully would make the game much more enjoyable.

3. To increase the potentials of the game engine.
The developers have done a lot with engine, but nevertheless they have been trapped by it. A new engine would hopefully allow much more options, even if the basic gameplay isn't largely changed. Said engine should allow things like negative Knockback (pulling instead of pushing) and get rids of quirks like an inability to slot for damage resistance debuff.

4. A greatly increased focus on lore and storytelling.
The original CoH was largely a blank canvas, with very little in-game story (the background was fine, but was largely not exploited). In essence, it was a large number of newspaper missions with more annoying objectives. We've gotten better through the years, but I'd like to see focus on story-telling throughout the game, perhaps with a system similar to SWTOR. I'd also like to see the game embrace its roots more, with more comic-book like cutscenes. Another cool option would be phases of the game featuring different comic-book eras, which could done by traveling in time or across dimensions.

There is a ton of stuff that could be exploited. I would love to use ouroboros to see the Nemesis take-over, for instance. Additionally, I'd like to see more exotic locations and threats, like fighting Shiva in space or Rularuu in the Shadow Shard.

5. The closing of CoH1
I wouldn't like to see a huge division between the new game and the old one, as our playerbase is narrow enough as it is. Instead, I'd like all current CoH subscribers to get a free download of the new game, which would probably use the same freemium model as this one. I'd also like to see this game's servers shut down so that all of our population would be in the same game.

This means that CoH 2 cannot change so much that it alienates players from this game. For example, it cannot become a WoW-clone with superheroes, and it can't rely on the old MMO holy trinity.

6. A move away from Paragon
I'd like to see us find another city. Alternatively, Paragon could get a huge revamp. I'd like to see a much more "city-like" city, instead a bunch of boring buildings and more locations around said city. Oh, and no walls. I'll address that later.

I mentioned earlier that I'd like more exotic locations, but I also want the "normal" zone to be upgraded. Preatoria was a set in the right direction (new Atlas was not). Such a city would have: more than three types of buildings, a difference between zones greater than sky color, differing types of architecture (little China-town, residential areas, "old-town", etc.), and each building would have a history. Instead of a building being randomly picked for an instance, I'd like for the locations to be set, for example the mission "Go to the Crey, Inc. offices and stop the Countess!" would send you to the Crey office building, which would probably be obvious in-game with Crey logos, statues, etc.

7. Remove the War-Walls!
They have some fiction behind them, but they are basically an example of in-game limitations. Instead, I'd like to be able to travel from one zone to another without going through a gate or being stopped by a wall. To do that, I'd like to have more travel powers. Instead of just having flight, I'd like to have an option for "Very-Very fast flight", which would allow me to travel between zones. In ordinary zones, you would use regular travel powers (which would be more customizable than the travel powers of today), but when you get to the land between zones you would pick up your speed at scream across the zone to get too the next area. This would make you feel like more of a superhero, but the fast-movement segment would basically be in place of a loading bar (ie, it would be a loading-bar game).

8. Improved graphics
Specifically, on our characters. I'd like to see realistic faces and skin textures, and more options to make our characters distinct (as opposed to just our costumes). I'd also like to retain the costume options from this game, but updated for 20xx. With a totally new engine, I'd like to see options for moving fingers, swaying hair, and vastly improved power customization (location customization, emanation from an object, etc.).

I'd also like to see improvements made so that even the vanilla of the game looks realistic. I like the general graphics style of the game, but it could be less plasticy for characters and cardboardlike for zones.

I'd also like to see more animations rigs, so that we can fight enemies that are currently impossible. On the same subject, I'd like to see the ability to fight much larger enemies, starting on the scale of Rularuu and the Super-Meks and going up from there. I see Shiva as being the size of a small moon, for instance.

9. Keep the AT-powerset mechanic
I'd like to see a return of our ATs, but probably with a little combining of classes. I'd probably end with Blasters/Dominators, Controllers, Defenders/Corrupters, Scrappers/Stalkers, MMs, and Tanks/Brutes, with the classes with a / between them combined. This means blasters and dominators would be combined into one class that focuses on blasting with a minor in crowd control (improve blaster secondaries or swap dominators around), defenders and corrupters would be combined as a higher damage defender with scourge, scrappers would have options to either scrap or stalk, and tanks would get the Fury mechanic.

For what it's worth, during today's Ustream, Zwil introduced us to a new team member (whose name I regretfully cannot recall) who replaced The Television. Why? Because The Television has been moved from CoH to Paragon Studios' "upcoming project".

Ain't saying it's CoH 2, but you never know ...

I also think the next version shouldn't be "City of Heroes 2", just a new "City of Heroes".

It will be a very different game, because it's a very different MMO market out there. It needs to be a much smaller game, but with an emphasis on replayability. For example: missions would be given certain parameters at random, so even if you've done it before, you may need a different plan this time.

I think player-driven (but not necessarily player-created) content would be a good idea, like setting up challenges for other players, or being able to control NPCs on certain maps to see how much havoc you can cause/loot you can steal before a PC arrives.

It will obviously be free-to-play, so get ready to buy a lot of costume packs!