In Depth: City of Villains
We get our first full taste of the villainous life in The Rogue Isles
Tags: City of Villains Categories: PC Previews, Previews
Posted by Daniel "monk" Pelfrey on Jun 13th, 2005
This year at E3 we had the pleasure of meeting Jack Emmert, Statesman himself from City of Heroes. He was on hand showcasing his upcoming sequel/companion title City of Villains, which, as the name implies focuses on the “other” side of the costumed coin.
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City of Villains will have three major game features. First and foremost is “Make players be super villains” – just as City of Heroes made players feel as if they were living the life of a hero ripped from the pages of a comic, this should give players the feeling of being a villain ripped from the four color pages. Second is “PvP – Player versus Heroes and Player versus Villains”. Lastly City of Villains will focus on base building – this allows super groups as well as villainous gatherings to build a headquarters from which to base their operations from.
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Bump mapping, refractions, specularity, and while City of Heroes wasn’t exactly bargain basement video card requiring, new technology is being used with City of Villains so the bottom rung of the PC ladder with CoH will need an upgrade to play CoV. Some of these graphical upgrades will kick into City of Heroes automatically, and some will come with a free update shortly after City of Villains launches. Don’t be thinking that this will be require a Doom 3 level of an upgrade though. This is still very much a “gaming for the masses” kind of game.
Naturally there are new costume pieces for the nefarious at heart. CoV features the same character creation and costume choice depth that CoH has. This time the focus is a bit… darker. Skulls, spikes, chains, whips, scars, fangs, horns, talons – anything that your parents (well, most parents) would find inappropriate to take a date to the prom.
The actual city in City of Villains is a chain of islands in the Atlantic Ocean outside of any territorial waters (particularly those of the United States – outside of the jurisdiction of the costumed folks in Paragon City). Originally settled by the French who eventually abandoned the colony which then became a haven for pirates for well over a century. In the 1950’s Lord Recluse emerged out of the shadows and brought a semblance of “law and order” to the area that had become known as The Rogue Isles.
The rest of the world’s nations were grateful to have the general and rampant lawlessness of the region controlled, creating a “no man’s land” where things were contained (and conveniently handy if any shady deals needed to be done). A blind eye was turned to this modern day Casablanca where nobody wears a white hat.
City of Villains will have eleven zones that tell a story through the gameplay and it is this backdrop that provides the foundation of what helps to make City of Heroes different from many other MMOs today. There will be seven Player versus Environment (PvE) and 4 Player versus Player (PvP) zones when the game ships.
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Like CoH, there are various story arcs that will present themselves to the player via missions. One scenario had players planting bombs inside of a secure bank facility for the first mission. The second has the player attempting to steal a mystical relic from a bank vault before it is sent to another facility. To help the stories be told, cut scenes have been added to the game. In this instance, the player is reminded of the explosives that were planted in the first mission.
While attempting to take the artifact after blowing the vault door, Mynx, one of the heroes from Paragon City appears to put a stop to the nefarious plan. During various points in the game, other heroes that players should recognize from City of Heroes will put in an appearance to help keep the world not only realistic but to help connect the two games.
The overall goal is to gain the notice of Lord Recluse by moving up the ladder in villainous society. At the high levels of the game players will be doing just that – Lord Recluse’s bidding.
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Base building is a rather deep aspect – much in the way that the character creation was given a good kick in the pants by CoH. Platforms can be raised, ceiling lowered, columns placed, all easily done within seconds. General layouts are extensive, and various trim options help to give players almost any type of villainous lair desireable. No worrying about blueprints, CoV will automatically place doorways as well asn suggesting places within the layout that a new room would be suited for to help with connection points.
Objects can be placed in various spots to either enhance the look of the headquarters or to serve an actual gameplay function. Items of power can be gained and placed within a headquarters, and it is these items that can be won or lost when a base is infiltrated by a group of heroes or villains – another instance of PvP play. Full supergroups can do battle – 75 on 75.
Beta testing is currently scheduled to start this summer, and a 2005 launch is planned. City of Villains and City of Heroes are both stand alone products, but there is a lot of overlap. No other massively multiplayer online game has done what cryptic Studios and NCSoft have – generate two different games that can be played side by side and enhance each other.
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Tags: City of Villains
Posted by Daniel "monk" Pelfrey on Jun 13th, 2005 and is filed under PC Previews, Previews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
