Remember that bully in school who used to think he was tough because he’d regularly beat up the kids in your D&D club? That same kid who used to take your milk money and give you wedgies for the sheer pleasure of it?
Barring an amazing growth spurt, or a lot of time at the local martial arts club or gym, you were left to dream of the day that you would be getting back at him… Until now! NCsoft has released their new City of Heroes Architect Edition that allows users to create and publish their own missions. Not only can you turn that bully into a virtual Jaba The Hut and take your long-awaited for revenge upon him, other CoH players can enjoy kicking the crap out of him too!
The Mission Architect lets you create missions that you can test privately and then publish online for others to play. This focus on player-created content is just the thing that City of Heroes needed, especially with Champions Online and DC Universe Online in the works for the superhero MMO subgenre. The Mission Architect is shaping up to be one of the most exciting additions to an MMO in quite a while.
You can customize almost everything, including the environment and objectives, types of enemies and their scripting, and the list goes on. Although it sounds quite complicated, NCsoft has managed to keep everything within three screens that make creating a mission from scratch much easier than you would expect. You can actually get a complete mission done in under five minutes… Although it won’t be as robust or immersive as those missions that hardcore players spend hours upon hours building, writing dialogue, creating intricate plots, etc, but the fact that they’ve made it so simple is amazing.
Unfortunately there’s no way to create a new layout or environment. Your choices are limited to existing office buildings, caves, etc. Recreating a replica of your high school so that you can give that bully a swirly in the girls bathroom is out of the question. Spawn locations are and attacks used by NPCs is also out of your control due to exploit concerns.
So how do you know which missions are great, and which ones are just grinder levels to earn some extra experience? One of the best features of the Mission Architect tool is the criteria-based search function and the five-star rating and feedback system built into it. The highest rated games are placed into a Hall of Fame so that players can easily access them. NCsoft will also have a Developer’s Choice section to highlight their favorite missions as well.
Anytime someone completes one of your missions and gives it a favorable rating, you’ll receive tickets that can be used to unlock new NPCs or environments to use in future missions that you create. Players that try out missions will also receive full XP, in addition to tickets that they can use to purchase loot. This makes City of Heroes the first MMO that lets you level entirely on user-generated content. All player-generated content will be directly accessible from any Architect Entertainment building located throughout the world, which means you don’t have to waste time traveling.
Check out the City of Heroes Architect Edition Screenshots!
We've also got several City of Heroes Architect Edition Videos that will show you some of the new features, as well as show you how easy it is to create a mission.