The Digital Continuum: City of Heroes 2

by Kyle Horner Jan 10th 2009 at 9:00AM

Filed under: Opinion, The Digital Continuum, Rumors

A surprisingly large amount of people didn't believe me at all when I said something to watch out for in 2009 was an announcement for City of Heroes 2. In fact, pretty much everyone has disagreed with me here. That's fine, but they're all wrong, and in this week's Digital Continuum I'll explain why I think as much.

Buying the cow

NCsoft didn't buy City of Heroes from Cryptic, they bought the complete intellectual property. Meaning that they invested in something more than just City of Heroes and City of Villains as we know them now. And while I'm sure they'll continue to support the original games with both free content updates and microtransactions, I don't think we'll see a full-on expansion for the game. Why not? Because a lot of the features coming in the free updates are expansion-worthy themselves. I'm certainly not alone in this feeling.

The long road

So when any company invests in something, they want to make sure their investment has both long-term and short-term livelihood. Part of the reason we see so many sequels in the videogame industry is because companies like to keep their intellectual properties as known quantities. Example: Sonic games may not have the best reputation as being wonderful experiences, but everyone sure knows about them and when new ones are coming out. City of Heroes 2 isn't happening just because NCsoft is feeling lucky or some such nonsense. It's on the way because they made an investment in a strong property and they want to see it grow into something more -- specifically, something that makes more money.

Trimming the "fat"

Yes, I'm aware that NCsoft is experiencing some financial rocky times right now. They've done crazy things like cancel Tabula Rasa while it was up-trending, which made no sense ... Unless they did it for a reason we're not fully aware of yet. I can't help but get the feeling that while one game was scuttled for short-term gain, other projects were receive more funding. Why would City of Heroes need more funding? It's doing quite good on its own.

When a company fast-tracks something, it requires some more money. And when you want to grab the attention of a crowd with growing interest in something like Champions Online, it's never a bad idea to announce your big sequel around the same time competition is launching. Raise awareness of your brand, draw attention away from the "next big thing" and remind people that you were the first and will continue to be the "best" superhero experience.

A new crowd

One argument I keep hearing is that people who're playing City of Heroes right now wouldn't want to move over to a second game. Well that's fine, I don't think NCsoft largely expects them to do so. What I expect is that City of Heroes 2 will be much different mechanically than the first game. You'll still have deep customization; something along the line of power "sets" and probably villain-play as well. Aside from that, though, I wouldn't count on things like combat, crafting and PvP to be too similar.

The reason for the difference is simple: NCsoft is going for a different crowd. They're targeting the same newer group of people that games like DC Universe Online and Champions Online are aiming at -- they may even finally make that long-promised console MMO. Don't hold me to that last bit, though.

Growing money

You gotta spend money to make money, but spending it wisely is essential. Is a sequel wise? I don't know, it largely depends on how good the game is I suppose. I can say that a sequel seems all the more likely coming from a publisher who's produced Lineage 2, Guild Wars 2 and- oh hey, don't forget about Lineage III!

NCsoft is not afraid of making sequels to games they perceive to be prominent in the mind's eye of the gaming community. So don't be too surprised when they announce City of Heroes 2, and while there's always the chance that I'm wrong -- there's a very good chance that I'm right.

Tags: arenanet, city-of-heroes, city-of-heroes-2, coh, coh-2, dc-universe-online, featured, guild-wars-2, joystiqfeatures, lineage, lineage-2, lineage-3, nc-norcal, ncsoft, soe, the-digital-continuum

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

HexDSL said on 9:47AM 1-10-2009

no way! biggest news EVER! am sooo excited!

I just hope this progresses at a reasonable rate, too may things get announced then forgotten for god knows how long (see GW2)

i think this just topped GW2 as my most anticipated release though.

Epiphanize said on 10:04AM 1-10-2009

Did you actually read the post? It still has not been announced, he is just making his case for why he believes CoX 2 will be made.

Tom said on 10:01AM 1-10-2009

I may give City of Heroes a try now that it's available for Mac, but if you're getting hopes up for City of Heroes 2 from this company, I think you need a wake-up call. I hate to rain on your parade, but...

Case in Point 1: Guild Wars 1. Great game. Fun to play, and now all but abandoned by the developers (though not by the players), ostensibly because all their time and effort is going into Guild Wars 2. What news has there been of Guild Wars 2? Nothing lately, very little overall. I think players deserve better treatment than this. Other MMO developers know how to keep potential players interested in their upcoming products; NCSoft offers its players only a great wall of silence.

Case in Point 2: Tabula Rasa. A game with promise. A game that was fixable. A game (and its players) utterly abandoned.

I am just leery of NCSoft these days. There are better MMO companies out there and better games in development. I think NCSoft shows a kind of effete disregard for their players and a lack of commitment to their products. I no longer expect much from them.

Epiphanize said on 10:29AM 1-10-2009

*IF* this does happen, and that is a big IF, NC is going to have to find a way to reward players of the original in the new game. A lot of people have put years of their life into CoX, and have a small town's worth of level capped toons. Being asked to just throw that all away for a whole new game is not going to sit well with the community.

Tom said on 2:05PM 1-10-2009

Sadly, that is almost precisely what is happening with Guild Wars 1 and Guild Wars 2. Characters developed in Guild Wars 1 will not be portable to Guild Wars 2 and -- no -- that doesn't sit well with (much of) the GW community.

I wish NCSoft had "sublet" Guild Wars 1 to another game developer, because I think the game still has a lot of great features that are scheduled for termination in Guild Wars 2: it's heroes, its instancing, its marvelous soloability (all "group content" is all soloable through the use of NPC/henchmen assistance). Few other online games offer anything like this.

I imagine much the same fate will befall CoH1 if a CoH2 is ever produced.

MrGutts said on 11:08AM 1-10-2009

Doesn't everyone mean if Atari LET's NC do it.. :)

Dlangar said on 11:36AM 1-10-2009

Well as long as we're *speculating..* My *speculation* is Kyle Horner is spot on.

For all the reasons he gives, plus a few more. It makes no sense for NCSoft to sit on that IP. There are two other major entries coming out next year in the superhero genre -- they want to compete against that.

CoH, as much as you may love it, is over four years old, and was made *before* WoW even was launched. It's wrapped up in a lot of design paradigms that were all the rage for MMO's back in 2003, but because of WoW's popularity, have changed. The only way to change some of those things at the fundamental level, is to start fresh.

CoH needs an entire graphics engine overhaul. The game -- both the art style and the technology -- looks dated. If you're going to rebuild your rendering engine (as they should), you would have to have your head seriously in the sand if you dont think CoH 2 isn't just down the road. Maybe late 2009, I'd speculate more like 2010. But it's coming.

Speculatively speaking, of course.

Nathan E Burke said on 12:33PM 1-10-2009

This is one of the most redicilous things I have read on this site.

First the CoH devs have said they will not be doing a sequle at all. End of story.

What they want to to is expand the current CoX universe with expanshions. The reciend increase influx of cash that NC gave them has nothing to do with a sequle. What they are planning to do and have already done is take the patheticly low amount of staff and beef it up.

I think they said they have already hired 15 people in various positions. Even with that they are getting latter and latter with the updates they do. That may or may not change this year.

Second they would not spend so much time revamping PvP if they were going to start a new game. It was also a huge mistake to do that as they lost several SGs that were PvP centric because of it.

I do agree that they need to do something and fast as the new kids on the block are going to start hitting them where it hurts. The sad thing is so far all they have done is drive a part of the player base to other games with stupid changes no one wanted.

As much as you want a CoH2 I can say it will never happen. The only way I can see them even thinking about it is if CO or DCUO takes such a large part of their players and NC decides to cancle CoH, and the dev make a plea to start fresh. If they do not loose that many and they can still make money then they will keep on doing what they are doing. Even at that point I doubt NC will even bother with letting them try.

Skypp said on 12:59PM 1-10-2009

even if they announce it... your article before was about games coming in 2009. If they announced COH2 it would be like 2 years minimum for it to get out the door. Just seemed like you slipped a small hope in an article that had nothing to do with it.

Kyle Horner said on 1:47PM 1-10-2009

The article in question was about "MMOs to watch for in 2009" It wasn't about games being released specifically.

HexDSL said on 1:54PM 1-10-2009

i know its not a confirmation, thanks for acting like Im a special child. but the fact that a large site like this one is using phrases like CoH2 makes it look like there's a chance.

i want to know what they KNOW that they are not allowed to actually SAY...

SomeDude said on 2:41PM 1-10-2009

Never gonna happen.

Champions Online.
DC Universe Online.

Why would they bother trying to compete with those two when the risk to even get CoH people to move to CoH2 is so great (EQ2 anyone?).

In short, pipe dream if you think CoH2 will be a reality.

InfamousBrad said on 6:33PM 1-10-2009

"NCsoft is not afraid of making sequels to games they perceive to be prominent in the mind's eye of the gaming community." Uh, no. NCsoft has made sequels to two games: Guild Wars and Lineage. They /have/ to make sequels to Guild Wars; being entirely F2P, the sequels are the only ongoing revenue stream there is to pay for the servers. And the Lineage sequel was a disaster for the company, raising costs exponentially without increasing subscriber revenue by one thin dime.

NCsoft will probably continue to enhance City of Heroes for quite some time yet, in hopes of duplicating the success of EVE Online. Some of those enhancements may be as elaborate and expensive as some of the improvements to EVE Online have been. But there's never going to be a CoH2 for the same reason there's never going to be an EVE2: they're too smart to stick themselves with double maintenance costs and too smart to fragment their customer base, diluting the customer experience.

aliasisudonomo said on 8:21AM 1-11-2009

Yeah, I'm gonna say... no.

In a world where Everquest is still more popular than EQ2 - STILL more popular! - sequels to MMOGs just don't make much sense. After all, the entire point is the ability to upgrade the game on the fly! It would be easier for the team to completely redo the graphics engine from the ground up like the original EQ upgrade (and add much-requested things like power customization) than roll the dice on a sequel.

For all that CoH is supposedly 'dated', a good many of its features were never adopted by such as WoW and others are still ahead. Several games copied the exemplar system, but almost none allow sidekicking. I still can't fly on my second evening in most other games (a stylistic measure, true, but I like to fly, lots). I still haven't seen a game with as customizable an avatar short of Second Life, which isn't a game.

I'll be realistic and say I do expect more booster packs and very possibly a major paid expansion.

UnSub said on 10:37PM 1-11-2009

As some others have said, I really don't think we'll see a CoH/V 2. Sequels to MMOs have a short and rocky history and I don't think CoH/V has a population base large enough for a sequel (although apparently it has been very profitable for its size, which is why there has been all this reinvestment and purchase away from Cryptic who were making Marvel Universe Online - now Champions Online - at the time).

But... I do think we'll see a major expansion for CoH/V announced. It's been my belief for a while now that NCsoft would like to move CoH/V off the Cryptic Engine v1.0 and onto something that they control, as well as allows for increased expansion over the next few years. A new engine can bring with it the graphics upgrades with it, as well as DX 10 functionality. A boxed expansion would also allow for a bump in CoH/V's recognition at a time when two major competitors are entering its space.

If CoH/V announces that they are allowing for increased powers customisation as well as adding a whole new side and maps it will do a lot to stop players potentially moving elsewhere. A box will do that while also keeping the majority of its existing player base.

Lemmo said on 12:31AM 1-12-2009

Through my own internet curiosity, I discovered that NCSoft owns the .com domain for World of Heroes. While this might not mean anything at all (most likely just a preemptive move to make sure any possible future properties are protected), it seems like the positive direction for a sequel, especially since Jack Emmert loves to hit his own former game for being locked to "just a single city".

World of Heroes. I think it has a competitive edge. Oh, and if they let you import your characters (in some fashion) from CoH to the sequel (something EQ didn't do), that'll pretty much solidify a subscriber base.

Demona said on 9:41AM 1-12-2009

If what you say of the URL is true, then I'd imagine you've uncovered the title of the next boxed expansion, not a sequel. It would make perfect sense to expand CoX out of Paragon City and the Rogue Isles.