Author Topic: The Champions Online art style: My love/hate relationship  (Read 3201 times)

Captain Electric

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The Champions Online art style: My love/hate relationship
« on: December 01, 2013, 11:54:28 AM »
I'm putting this in "Other Games" because I don't think my intended audience is the choir, strictly speaking. If you've always loved Champions Online, you obviously won't relate to this. If you can't put a finger on what unsettles you about CO, read on, maybe you'll find that you can relate to me.

I HATED the art style in CO when I first checked it out (and by extension, the Cryptic art style in general post-COH); but weirdly, after being away from CO for 9 months, I find myself kind of missing it, and wondering if that's some strange form of MMO masochism. So I've been thinking about why that is. I think I finally put my finger on it.

I think City of Heroes, even with older graphics, had better art direction and its look and feel was more immersive than CO's super-glossy, super colorful and bright art direction. I also think the world of stories in COH had greater dramatic appeal and the plot lines a greater sense of urgency.

Nevertheless, I have a couple of characters of the classic four-color variety that actually "pop" better in CO. I feel like they're right at home there. That wasn't enough to make ME feel right at home there, but there's something about CO that I still miss. Fast forward a bit to NW's launch--a game that I have enjoyed. I think I can partly blame NW for softening me on Cryptic's glossy leanings. It's a darker game artistically; it's colorful but not as overtly. In NW, I was able to view the same deal from a different angle. I think the deal with Cryptic's games is, Cryptic doesn't want to be totally immersive to surreal degrees; they want their video games to look like video games, with exaggerated angles and pretty colors and whiz-bang special effects that make you want to stare at it all for just a little while longer.

Problem is--or was--that's pretty damn jarring coming from more down-to-Earth art direction like COH's. But it's also kind of where the industry is heading, outside of the last bastions of hyper-realism in MMORPGs like Funcom and CCP. For better or worse, I'm getting used to it and learning to like it. But I can't call any of these places home. They might as well have a sign above the gateway that says, "Not another world; just a video game." I guess it was just a matter of time until 21st Century cynicism caught up with one of the most escapist genres in existence.

CO slowly grew on me, through play and through recollection over the past 9 months. It's not home. It's the Saturday morning cartoon of the super hero MMO genre. Its story does not illustrate the most engaging comic book universe. But it's good, light-hearted fun, and fun to look at (now that I know what I'm really looking at).

saipaman

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Re: The Champions Online art style: My love/hate relationship
« Reply #1 on: December 01, 2013, 05:52:47 PM »
I literally cannot play CO for more than 30 minutes without getting a headache.

Exo-buster

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Re: The Champions Online art style: My love/hate relationship
« Reply #2 on: December 01, 2013, 06:24:14 PM »
It's rather hard for me to recreate the characters I had in CoH in CO, not just power wise, but also looks wise.  I mean sure the armor was easy enough, but the face customization in CO never not looked like something that made me immediately want to reach for a hatchet and kill with extreme prejudice.  Just, urghhh.
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Re: The Champions Online art style: My love/hate relationship
« Reply #3 on: December 01, 2013, 09:29:23 PM »
Problem is--or was--that's pretty damn jarring coming from more down-to-Earth art direction like COH's. But it's also kind of where the industry is heading, outside of the last bastions of hyper-realism in MMORPGs like Funcom and CCP. For better or worse, I'm getting used to it and learning to like it.

I concur. The more cartoonish look seems to be, if not taking over, at least making huge inroads into the market share of realistic character (and world) models...and sadly, I'm not learning to like it. I actually didn't mind it in CO, where  the entire approach is rather cartoonish and campy. Elsewere? It really doesn't work for me.

Thus I play TSW, Defiance, and occasionally TOR. TSW is a known quantity here, so I won't belabor various points that led it to become my main game even before my beloved CoH shuttered.  Defiance isn't an MMORPG (it's an MMOTPS), but the character and world modelling are very realistic indeed. TOR is not far from "final form" CoH in its realism, so it works for me in that aspect (if in few others).

I'm a roleplayer, for all that I can put on my "srs bzns" hardcore mode when the urge takes me. That may be the biggest reason that a more cartoonish approach doesn't work for me: it really hammers world immersion for me.

Brou

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Re: The Champions Online art style: My love/hate relationship
« Reply #4 on: December 01, 2013, 09:43:18 PM »
It may not be realistic textures, but the game environment and characters respond very well to mood changes in lighting in each zone. MC is not exactly a fair comparison, since it is very much what you'd get from a rush job that had to be released with 2 years of development, but it's the product, so no one can be blamed for that.

Zones that came out afterwards seemed to get a lot more love and detail.
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corvus1970

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Re: The Champions Online art style: My love/hate relationship
« Reply #5 on: December 19, 2013, 07:13:08 AM »
CO's art-style screams "UNCANNY VALLEY!!!" at me every time I've worked with the creator and played the game. After a while I just can't abide it.

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Tenzhi

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Re: The Champions Online art style: My love/hate relationship
« Reply #6 on: January 01, 2014, 10:49:57 PM »
I much prefer stylistic to realistic, but even so the look of ChO - while it never really bothered me, it also was never wholly *right* to me.  Especially the faces.
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Relitner

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Re: The Champions Online art style: My love/hate relationship
« Reply #7 on: January 02, 2014, 02:25:36 PM »
Maybe it's just me, but the CO art style feels a lot like WoW in a modern setting. CoX character animations were silky smooth, whereas CO animations are disjointed and feel choppy.  World objects are big, blocky, and lacking realistic texture or detail. Flying over Millennium City feels like flying over a Duplo pleyset. Paragon City looked and felt like a city. The zones had great variety, fantastic textures, and a level of detail you just don't see in MMOs (Secret World, maybe, being the exception). My only real complaint with CoX were static faces that sometimes looked painted on, and a lack dynamic lighting. I know they explained why this couldn't happen, but it still would have been nice to see.
I also agree that CO missions are mostly campy and silly. CoX really shined in the story arcs and missions. There was often a sense of danger and intrigue (The Crimson missions were outstanding, IMO).  And even without voice acting, they found a way to make me care about the outcome. I can only imagine how much better it could have been, had found a way to use cut-scene tech on mission contacts.
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LaughingAlex

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Re: The Champions Online art style: My love/hate relationship
« Reply #8 on: January 02, 2014, 04:30:13 PM »
My love/hate relationship in CO is more the playerbase and the community than it's art style.  I enjoy roleplaying with those I roleplay with, but I distrust everyone else.  In fact, I feel somewhat malicious towards most of the CO community, due to the sheer amount of, forgive me for saying the words, but the sheer amount of bullshit you see on the forums and in the zone chat really makes me feel CO's own community is it's worst enemy.  The game, from what I can see, will die eventually, but it's going to be it's own player bases fault, with all the nerf-tools and the especially bad trolls that really drive the new players away and existing veterans in some way or another.

Because most of CO's players who'd left, left due to nerfs and the toxicity seen from the communities size having become so small.

Do I love CO as a game?  Actually yes, it's simple and that can work for it, but the above really tears it down for me.  The only other thing I dislike is it's lack of depth but that is another subject.
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JaguarX

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Re: The Champions Online art style: My love/hate relationship
« Reply #9 on: January 02, 2014, 06:18:20 PM »
My love/hate relationship in CO is more the playerbase and the community than it's art style.  I enjoy roleplaying with those I roleplay with, but I distrust everyone else.  In fact, I feel somewhat malicious towards most of the CO community, due to the sheer amount of, forgive me for saying the words, but the sheer amount of bullshit you see on the forums and in the zone chat really makes me feel CO's own community is it's worst enemy.  The game, from what I can see, will die eventually, but it's going to be it's own player bases fault, with all the nerf-tools and the especially bad trolls that really drive the new players away and existing veterans in some way or another.

Because most of CO's players who'd left, left due to nerfs and the toxicity seen from the communities size having become so small.

Do I love CO as a game?  Actually yes, it's simple and that can work for it, but the above really tears it down for me.  The only other thing I dislike is it's lack of depth but that is another subject.
yeah but seems to be about the same amount from COX community during it's time. Barely could have a decent discussion on the forum without someone grammar trolling and ignoring the entire point but all of a sudden want to act like grammar and misspellings are a big deal simply because they disagreed with the point. Yet they ignored their own misspellings, and their friends misspellings and the errors of the people that made a point they agreed with.

Then especially on the PVP side plenty of "Well don't like me acting like a butt in the pvp zone, leave." And many people did. While the other people didn't particularly partake they did nothing to stop it and kind of turned a blind eye to it. Until someone said something about it then it was flame city.

Then there was a fair share of nerf trolls. Not to mention the judgment based on "how many posts and forum title" Lot of forum cartels first thing out of their mouth regardless of the point, "Well look at your post count, that means you point is less important than mine" or  "I've been playing such and such long so I know more."

Even in COX, the first thing when someone complained about those types of people is to blame the victim in that it's up to the victim to take action and press ignore and the perp do not need t be responsible for their own actions. But of course that seem to only apply to COX and the community were perfect angels and anyone that had issue with it were just taking things too serious but any other game, "Oh the community is terrible, people troll, and it drives new people away." The thing is, LA, I see what you saying I'm surprised people in CO didn't see the actual effect and the outcome that is possible with toxic people hanging around. Less people that play that means less money, less money, means more likely to get cut when "cutting back" or refocus" time comes around.

And what you're feeling is the same feeling many felt in COX community and got flamed silly for it. And to this day, when someone say that about COX, the first thing said is, "Well you should just ignore the person" and the denial that toxic people in community can have an effect on whether people stay or leave in COX and it's successors, just as it do in other games. COX is not nor was above that effect. Closing the eyes nor hiding the head in the sand do not solve any problems.

I guess it's simply easier to see when one is the stranger in the other land and not a long time resident.


Maybe one day there will be super hero MMO that is ran by people that realize that how well the community is affect population, and not only population in every game they don't like or do not love and  population while no effect on the game they do love. Or rather the belief that in the game they do love ignore function is enough and everyone should close their eyes and hide head in the sand from the issue while in other game, the same sort of ignore feature is "ZOMG it don't work". It's the same. 

Brou

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Re: The Champions Online art style: My love/hate relationship
« Reply #10 on: January 02, 2014, 06:29:44 PM »
Anyone remember the pwnz forum?
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JaguarX

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Re: The Champions Online art style: My love/hate relationship
« Reply #11 on: January 02, 2014, 06:34:28 PM »
Anyone remember the pwnz forum?
jeebus.