Who wins in the fight between these two superheroes?
by Rubi Bayer 
Oct 13th 2009 at 1:00PM
Filed under: Super-hero, City of Heroes, Reviews, Opinion, Champions Online
No, not those two, we're not touching that question. We're talking about the two Superhero MMOs: old favorite City of Heroes and newcomer Champions Online. Are you wondering how the two compare and which one comes out ahead overall? Big Download wanted to know too, and did us the favor of lining these two up side-by-side to find out.Since character customization is a huge feature in both games, Big Download started there. CO's character creator has the advantage here, in that it's built on the model that CoH used, and can be seen as a new and improved version. Big Download named it the winner here for its superior, more flexible editor.
However, CoH was viewed as superior for overall customization, thanks to the sheer amount of content. CO will need some time to catch up to that. Champions came out ahead again when Big Download moved on to a combat comparison, for the same reason as before: they took CoH's excellent model, built on it, and improved it.
The advantage moved back to CoH when looking at content, though, which is really the most important point in the end, for most players. CoH is the winner by a mile, because it's got the advantage of time. Paragon Studios has done a great job perfecting what Cryptic started with CoH, and it's had time to add and improve content throughout the game, while Champions is just getting started.
Overall, Big Download viewed City of Heroes as the winner: it's got time and experience on its side. Champions Online is the new kid in school and has a lot of catching up to do, but it's off to a great start and aims to improve with age.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
dudemanjac said on 1:05PM 10-13-2009
Maybe a better comparison would have been to compare their launches, but I guess that wouldn't really matter to someone going out to buy it now.
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Nef said on 1:13PM 10-13-2009
CoH's account reactivation this past weekend was pretty well timed... Just before the Blood Moon event and a good month after CO had been out. Did some comparing of my own during it.
The part that stuck out the most to me seemed to by the city/world design of CoH, it felt better to me. Perhaps getting the travel powers in CO so early just caused me to not notice the terrain that was speeding past... Or the more open zones.
In any case, while CoH can be seen as 'ahead' at the moment if the graphics don't get an update soon it won't matter. The more content CO adds in and the more improvements they make will eventually overcome CoH.
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Arrow-Pop said on 3:29AM 10-14-2009
@Nef
i agree. CoH / CoV have a much better world design.
Honestly i was anticipating CO so much, i bought into all the hype. I pre-ordered it & bought it. I played the early beta, then the early launch then the full release even through the recent patches; hoping beyond hope that they would make it worth playing. But they never did.
I still find the graphics to feel more low res despite the newer engine & the color scheme still seems too raw & hostile to my eyes.
Not to mention the game is just a lot less fun. Grouping is infinitely harder, the mission system seems a lot more disconnected & the balance is waaaay out of wack.
CoH was better at launch than CO is now. and CoH is [b]WAAAAAY[/b] better now than CO is. I think if you took a group of people (who have never even heard of either game) and sat them in a room w/ both games they would say that CoH is the newer game & the better game.
Skypp said on 1:14PM 10-13-2009
I have an extremely hard time accepting the thought that someone going to buy a game right now, this very second, would get City of Heroes and be happy with it. Champions is not in much better condition. Instead of building a new game, they just further pushed a game engine to its limits, a game engine that was not very good to begin with. Champions at least LOOKS semi-recent. Sadly I think SOE is going to mop the floor with both, and I hate calling an SOE game better than something. You likely will not play DCUO and think "i've been here before" as you do with Champions.
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dudemanjac said on 1:46PM 10-13-2009
Actually, from the vids I've seen of DCUO, that's exactly what I think. In fact, it looks more like CO than CoH. I'm still gonna be front and center when beta comes out. I'm willing to see what anyone has to offer.
What is it you didn't like about the game engine? I have to say, if they could find a way to emulate CO's engine more and freshened up those graphhhhhics, I'd have to go back for at least a month to take a little look-see. The customization in CO is what won me over. Not to mention the chance to look at different environments from what I had been dealing with for the past 5 years.
I've had fun in both games, but it will be a while before I find myself back in CoH. But I'm pretty sure I will go back at some point. I'm a bit ADD when it comes to my mmos. I do them in month spurts and then go back to an old one.
I'm prtty sure I'm done with WoW forever, though.
Davy said on 1:50PM 10-13-2009
Sounds like a fair comparison to me.
CO has a lot going for it. The major places I favor CO is in their character creator (including stances -- friggin' awesome!) and new travel powers (swinging FTW), yet CoH still feels more like you're immersed in a world instead of playing a console game.
CoH did themselves a huge favor with the way they handled power customization this past update. Two colors, multiple palettes, and some limited options for different animations. Not only did it blow CO's power customization out of the water, but it also left CoH with a lot of options for future updates and expansions.
Knowing that power customization was possible (in an update, no less) thanks to the the influx of money that came when NCSoft bought the property, it leaves me with high hopes for the actual new expansion next year, "Going Rogue." And we should learn more about that later this month, at HeroCon. If anything is going to keep CoH competitive for its next five years, it will come out of this expansion.
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kooda said on 2:11PM 10-13-2009
I ordered champions online from play.com on Sunday but so far i haven't even had the email to say its been dispatched :| (Tuesday night) so when it gets here (if it does) then ill give it a spin and make allowances where it needs improvement because it is the new kid.
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Anjohl said on 2:16PM 10-13-2009
Champions Online was supposed to be a free to play game. Now instead, they have a monthy fee AND a microtransaction model. Until they go back to the original design, the game won't have a chance at dethroning COH.
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eyeball2452 said on 2:29PM 10-13-2009
CO reminded me of a traditional MMO with some superhero flavor and I don't want a fantasy MMO experience with superhero character models.
CoH was great, but it needed some new ... different content somewhere along the way. However, spending a few minutes in CoH still brings a smile to my face. CO reminded me more of WoW or LotRO, which I have no intention of going back to.
dudemanjac said on 2:46PM 10-13-2009
That's crazy talk. Going F2P isn't going to help it "dethrone" anyone. In all the time I've been following it (well over a year) I have never heard anything about it being free to play. And as far as the microtransactions go, so far the only thing you can buy is little dolls to run around behind you. I delieve they are supposed to be adding costume pieces and you will be able to purchase character slots.
Psychotic Storm said on 5:10PM 10-13-2009
Since when was CO supposed to me F2P?
sorry you are plainly wrong here.
ZombiBambi said on 9:22PM 10-13-2009
The only thing you can buy with microtransactions are non-combat pets which don't do anything more than follow you around. To compare this to a full RMT-enabled game is a bit absurd. There is no benefit to paying for items from the C Store.
Lepton said on 2:50PM 10-13-2009
I'd like to point out that this is ridiculous comparison to make at this time with these parameters. Champions Online has been out a month or so while City of Heroes is a mature, established MMO that has had a number of expansions and content packages offered. By Mr.Murff's logic, one should select a FPS based off the original Source engine because it has more content through mods rather than buy Left 4 Dead 2.
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jimanda2 said on 3:33PM 10-13-2009
I don't agree with this.
If I went out to buy a superhero MMO right now, I'd had only two choices: one for $20 and one for $5, with both having identical monthly fees. From a consumers standpoint who doesn't care how long either of them have been around and just wants to play in a world of skyscrapers and tights, I'd say they are VERY comparable, certainly moreseo than your example.
jimanda2 said on 3:34PM 10-13-2009
Er, that should be $50, not $5.
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Lepton said on 7:02PM 10-13-2009
Then I daresay you would choose to buy the original Halo from the bargin bin than Halo:ODST. Or deferring not to your own choices but that of others, we can wholly assume that more people are playing EQ2 than WOW since EQ2 and all its expansions can be bought for 40 bucks off of Steam, right? Or Free Realms??
drjones said on 4:00PM 10-13-2009
Maybe it depends on what rig you have but with a pretty fast machine CO on max looks miles better than COH on max. If one has an old box the difference might be less noticeable.
I like COH and played the heck out of it. Superjump is still one of the best powers in any RPG ever. But it got real repetitive many years ago so CO does not have to try real hard to beat it. I mean Bauldurs Gate II was an amazing game but I am still not going to play it instead of Dragon Age.
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Cyryus said on 5:30PM 10-13-2009
Well said Dr. Jones! well said.
MrBounce said on 4:32PM 10-13-2009
re: Anjohl
I've followed CO for quite a long time, and I don't ever recall hearing CO was going to be a F2P game... Care to back up your claim?
re: jimanda2
Following that logic, every consumer would just go out and buy the cheapest FPS out there, or the cheapest RPG out there, or the cheapest Sports game out there because well, they're cheaper. Who cares about the actual fun factor in the games / the future of the game right?
re: Rubi Bayer
What exactly was the point of this article other than to show that you know some basics about two MMO's...?
The only MMO "comparison" you can do is for MMO's that have launched close / near to each other, and even then it's a tough task. You can't seriously compare two MMO's that have had almost a half a decade in between their releases.
Mind boggling to say the least / why this was allowed to be published on Massively.
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jimanda2 said on 5:32PM 10-13-2009
Sorry, my point wasn't that a $30 difference was a measure of quality or which a consumer would buy first, just that a new player to either game is less likely to care which game is new and which is old when it comes to comparing the two titles.
In the area of genre and monthly fees (ignoring MTs of course), they ARE the same and thus comparable regardless of age. That was my point. Admittedly I shouldn't have even mentioned price of box.]\
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