City of Heroes Players Outdo Developer

Keane Ng

New member
Sep 11, 2008
5,892
0
0
City of Heroes Players Outdo Developer



User-generated content has taken MMOG City of Heroes by storm, with players creating more content in a single day than developer Paragon Studios has in five years.

City of Heroes recently launched the Mission Architect [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/89736-Hands-On-with-City-of-Heroes-Mission-Architect], a system that grants users the ability to create their own full-fledged missions with the game to share and enjoy, effectively making real the thousands of roleplaying scenarios that have lain dormant within players' imaginations for years now.

And when we say thousands, we mean thousands. The response for the Mission Architect, which went a little over a week ago, has been, as Paragon's Matt Miller wrote [http://www.cityofheroes.com/news/news_archive/issue_14_follow-up_from_positr.html], "astounding." According to Miller, within an hour of release, there were already 360 entire "Mission Arcs." By midnight that day there were 2600, and exactly a day after the feature went live, there were 3800.

"We did some data mining of our own, and 3,800 surpasses the amount of content that we, the developers, have made for all of City of Heroes and City of Villains combined. In just one day our users did more than we could in almost five years," Miller said.

There are currently 20,000 published and playable Mission Arcs.

The content has also fostered a vibrant sub-community based around user-created missions, says Miller. People gather in the forums to critique each others designs, and have created their own posters, comics and even machinima to promote the content they create. "We never expected anything like that even in our wildest dreams when designing the feature, and I think that is totally cool," Miller said.

The staff at Paragon are completely overwhelmed by the response, Miller says, and are still trying to process what it means for their game and for the MMOG genre as a whole.

"Players and the press have been calling this revolutionary, and I think we at Paragon Studios are just bringing our heads up to see exactly how revolutionary it actually is," he said.




Permalink
 

cainx10a

New member
May 17, 2008
2,191
0
0
Now, WoW just need to consider 'borrowing' Paragon/NorCal's idea into their own, and WoW might actually stay at the top of the MMO Food Chain for a while ;)
 

Onyx Oblivion

Borderlands Addict. Again.
Sep 9, 2008
17,032
0
0
Well, this basically allows players to make their superhero fan-fiction plotlines real. Which explains a lot, if you think about it.
 

Sparrow

New member
Feb 22, 2009
6,848
0
0
Hmmm. I keep hearing good things about this game. Does it have membership fees? And if so, are they worth it?
 

Cpt_Oblivious

Not Dead Yet
Jan 7, 2009
6,933
0
0
cainx10a said:
Now, WoW just need to consider 'borrowing' Paragon/NorCal's idea into their own, and WoW might actually stay at the top of the MMO Food Chain for a while ;)
This would only work if the player weren't in charge of loot.
It might bring me back into WoW if they implemented it.

And it's not 'borrowing'. All the best ideas are stolen, and imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Paragon/NorCal would be a little bit happy methinks.
 

cainx10a

New member
May 17, 2008
2,191
0
0
Sparrow Tag said:
Hmmm. I keep hearing good things about this game. Does it have membership fees? And if so, are they worth it?
$15 a month I believe. The game and expansion cost me $49.99 both. It's worth it, but I didn't stay long because I just found the instance quests to be way too repetitive, well, maybe I played the game the wrong way, but it was certainly fun .
 

Eric the Orange

Gone Gonzo
Apr 29, 2008
3,245
0
0
Unfortunately this has the same problems as all things dictated by user made content in that while there may be gems you'll have to rummage through sewage to find them.
 

Thanatos34

New member
Mar 31, 2009
389
0
0
Actually, this is happened several times before, thought I'm not certain it's been done for an online game.

Take Neverwinter Nights. The community generated modules/modifications number in the tens of thousands, if not even higher. Since the game's community is 5,000,000+, I wouldn't be surprised.

The Witcher is the same way, though since it's a newer game, there are fewer user modules, though there are already about 50.

More games should do this, it makes their game last much, much longer.
 

Trendkill6

New member
Dec 14, 2008
570
0
0
cainx10a said:
Sparrow Tag said:
Hmmm. I keep hearing good things about this game. Does it have membership fees? And if so, are they worth it?
$15 a month I believe. The game and expansion cost me $49.99 both. It's worth it, but I didn't stay long because I just found the instance quests to be way too repetitive, well, maybe I played the game the wrong way, but it was certainly fun .
hehe i just got the game at Gamestop a week ago for 10$
it is pretty good though
 

Cousin_IT

New member
Feb 6, 2008
1,822
0
0
I hear the future crys of many a potentially redundant story & mission developer in my ears...actually I think im just being overdramatic :D
 

Trendkill6

New member
Dec 14, 2008
570
0
0
Gormourn said:
Trendkill6 said:
cainx10a said:
Sparrow Tag said:
Hmmm. I keep hearing good things about this game. Does it have membership fees? And if so, are they worth it?
$15 a month I believe. The game and expansion cost me $49.99 both. It's worth it, but I didn't stay long because I just found the instance quests to be way too repetitive, well, maybe I played the game the wrong way, but it was certainly fun .
hehe i just got the game at Gamestop a week ago for 10$
it is pretty good though
Yeah I got mine for 10 or 5 $ Canadian two years ago =P

It became even better after they allowed everyone to play on both sides without buying the special edition - because City of Heroes and City of Villains were stand alone titles, sort of. I first only have the 'Villains, and I couldn't make heroes.
yeah the one i got was heroes/villans
im not too found of being a villan, their world just depresses me D:
 

Nimbus

Token Irish Guy
Oct 22, 2008
2,162
0
0
If the devs can spin this the right way, this could be the biggest change in the MMO scene in the last 5 years.
 

Trendkill6

New member
Dec 14, 2008
570
0
0
Gormourn said:
Trendkill6 said:
Gormourn said:
Trendkill6 said:
cainx10a said:
Sparrow Tag said:
Hmmm. I keep hearing good things about this game. Does it have membership fees? And if so, are they worth it?
$15 a month I believe. The game and expansion cost me $49.99 both. It's worth it, but I didn't stay long because I just found the instance quests to be way too repetitive, well, maybe I played the game the wrong way, but it was certainly fun .
hehe i just got the game at Gamestop a week ago for 10$
it is pretty good though
Yeah I got mine for 10 or 5 $ Canadian two years ago =P

It became even better after they allowed everyone to play on both sides without buying the special edition - because City of Heroes and City of Villains were stand alone titles, sort of. I first only have the 'Villains, and I couldn't make heroes.
yeah the one i got was heroes/villans
im not too found of being a villan, their world just depresses me D:
Yeah, it's definitely darker and less varied then heroes' zones. But I like robbing banks =D

And villain archetypes, for the most part, seem more fun then hero ones. Dominator is certainly more fun then a Controller, to me at least. And mastermind... they are awesome.
Yeah, love being a necromancy mastermind.
Do my bidding zombie army,muhahaha! :D
 

Erana

New member
Feb 28, 2008
8,010
0
0
Haven't seen that game in years...
All I remember is my friend in the CoV beta being upset about the necromancers summoning ninjas, or something like that.'
/cluelessness

I vaguely remember it being very enthralling.

But how DO they make sure that the missions are quality?
 

PieMaker

New member
Oct 7, 2008
81
0
0
Erana said:
But how DO they make sure that the missions are quality?
They filter content, and have weekly developer's choice. Players can also report missions that aren't suitable or do not follow the TOS (even though that is a bit sketchy).

They have also made it so that players don't have a great advantage playing architect missions in contrast with regular missions. Drops have been substituted by tickets which can be traded at a special npc, which limits reasons to farm said missions, for example.

This measure could be taken in consideration if any other MMO decides to open itself to player-created content.
 

cainx10a

New member
May 17, 2008
2,191
0
0
Erana said:
Haven't seen that game in years...
All I remember is my friend in the CoV beta being upset about the necromancers summoning ninjas, or something like that.'
/cluelessness

I vaguely remember it being very enthralling.

But how DO they make sure that the missions are quality?
As far as I can remember, there was no set "Necromancy" class, but a summoner class known as Mastermind which could be customized into the players' liking: The player had to choose which category of pets he wanted - Zombies, Robots, Ninjas etc ... So the player could be a Necromancer, or mad Scientist and corrupt Ninja Lord.

Like someone previously mentioned, if the player can have access to modify the loot table with the Architect module, then it can be disastrous but I really doubt that, or there would be all sort of complains flying over the intra-web. And players are also limited to a set amount of custom story arcs per account, and I would assume that they would be using a rating system to help people find out which custom missions are among the best.