» Hero announces 6th Ed in 09, Champions MMORPG?
Monday, February 18, 2008
Hero announces 6th Ed in 09, Champions MMORPG?
Yesterday at DunDraCon, Hero Games‘ home-base convention in many ways, they announced that they’d be doing a revision of the HERO System for next year, in the form of two core books (one for character building, one for everything else) and a Champions book. That isn’t the end of the news for Champions, though: our sources at the Game Developers Conference in SF this week (as in, the for-real game developers, the computery kind that make money? Yeah, those) say that Champions has been licensed to an online game developer that aims to produce a competitor for City of Heroes. We don’t have much in the way of details yet, which is to say it could all be bollocks. Watch this space.
17 Responses to “Hero announces 6th Ed in 09, Champions MMORPG?”
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Dai Oni Says: February 18th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Hmm. D&D goes 4e. HERO goes 6e.
Any more RPGs having an edition makeover?
James S. Says: February 18th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
A Champions MMORPG is going to have a LOT of problems gaining traction in the market with both a Marvel and a DC game both already under development.
Scott R. Krol Says: February 18th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
The Marvel game was canceled. And according to this post (http://www.joystiq.com/2008/02/14/champions-online-the-latest-superhero-mmo-from-cryptic/)the Champions game is coming from the same developer as City of Heroes, so they’ll just be competing against themselves.
Amusingly, the site that I linked from doesn’t sound like they even know that there is a Champions pen and paper game and think it’s going to be some sort of original IP. Always peeves me off when new gamers don’t know/care about the roots of gaming…
misuba Says: February 19th, 2008 at 12:26 am
I’d wager that two of them at most will actually make it to market.
James Says: February 19th, 2008 at 3:37 am
The Marvel MMO is already dead:
http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/2008/02/13/marvel-mmo-bites-the-dust/
And it’s been almost two years since anyone heaard anything about the DC MMO, innit? After all, once it became associated with Jim Lee, it just kinda disappeared… and the rate Lee completes works (All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder, anyone?) I dunno if we’ll see this until after the next, last, Crisis…
James S. Says: February 19th, 2008 at 4:09 am
I’m not taking that bet. I hate losing money.
John Says: February 19th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
Cryptic Studios is said to be the company that picked up the rights to a Camps MMORG. The Marvel Online project is dead - which may be why Cryptic moved to secure Champions. As they are the folks who created City of Heroes, I think that they may be the ones who could pull this off. I play COH and like it - I would like Champs online more…if they keep to the game concept. Should be interesting
Mike Sugarbaker Says: February 19th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
(I apologize to everyone for the way comments are getting lodged in WordPress’ throat lately)
Scott R. Krol Says: February 20th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
Champions Online website now live…
http://www.champions-online.com/
Chris Says: February 21st, 2008 at 3:50 pm
I think I wanna know what the reasoning was behind letting people know 18 months out that you will have a new edition of the game. Seems like a long way out…but there ya have it.
misuba Says: February 21st, 2008 at 4:12 pm
That depends on how much transparency and community involvement they bring to the creation of the new edition. Since they’re Hero, not WotC, I’m betting that they’ll bring plenty.
Chris Says: February 21st, 2008 at 4:40 pm
Hell yes, managed to get the WoTC hate in this thread too! Woo!
James S. Says: February 22nd, 2008 at 8:00 am
I just hope the HERO guys are getting a good kickback outta this and/or some financial royalties. I’m not a big fan of the system but I used to play Champions way back when in college. At least the video game money coming in would help keep them in business.
misuba Says: February 22nd, 2008 at 11:10 am
The deal is actually that the Champions intellectual property was sold to Cryptic outright, and Cryptic have given them a license, I believe a permanent one, to the IP that used to be theirs, for tabletop purposes. So I imagine a decent sum changed hands for the rights. If I were Hero I would have sought back-end participation, definitely, but who knows.
Tori B. Says: February 22nd, 2008 at 3:37 pm
Misuba has all the specifics right: Cryptic is now the owner of the IP for Champions, and Hero is the licensee. A few other data points: 1.) as I understand, Cryptic was formerly part of or doing development for the Marvel MMO, and some has suggested this move to Champions is a way for them to salvage the developed compenents of that MMO in progress. The DC MMO is, afaik, dead as well. Cryptic’s also no longer the owner of CoX as I understand, it having been purchased and managed for the last year or so by NCSoft. Given that I am not a big fan of the CoX play mechanics (great character models, though), I’m hoping Cryptic will do this one justice.
Allan Sugarbaker Says: February 22nd, 2008 at 9:12 pm
Chris said: I think I wanna know what the reasoning was behind letting people know 18 months out that you will have a new edition of the game. Seems like a long way out…but there ya have it.
misuba said: That depends on how much transparency and community involvement they bring to the creation of the new edition. Since they’re Hero, not WotC, I’m betting that they’ll bring plenty.
There was a new Hero Games website relaunch that look place during DunDraCon (as if they weren’t busy enough), and at the con seminar, Steve Long mentioned that he had pre-stocked the new 6th Edition forum with numerous threads posing questions about how 6th Ed should approach various rules, in order to get discussions going. So it seems the company is looking for plenty of community input, and giving itself enough time to properly consider any suggestions. Seems like a solid start.
Dai Oni Says: February 22nd, 2008 at 9:22 pm
“Hell yes, managed to get the WoTC hate in this thread too!”
Not cool.