Champions recruits beta testers from COH

By Oli Welsh Published 20 March, 2009

Superhero MMO rivalry turns sour.

Crytpic Studios has admitted to contacting players of NCsoft's City of Heroes through that game's official forums and in-game messaging system, inviting them to the beta test of its own game, Champions Online.

The move has been interpreted as the first hostile shot in the coming war of the superhero MMOs. Cryptic, having developed City of Heroes itself before parting company with NCsoft, clearly wants to win back the audience for the genre it created.

According to a post by one of his employees (spotted by Massively), Champions Online's community manager Ivan Sulic said, "a few of our employees thought it might be a good idea to contact avid MMO notables and various guild leaders floating about to see if they wanted to test".

Sulic continued: "I'm certain this wasn't meant to be a malicious attack on a competing product, nor did anyone intend to steal players, violate user agreements, kill babies, or knife hardworking farmers in the back... If a line was crossed, it was totally inadvertent and no harm was intended... Shills, poaching, bullshotting... No chance, man."

Cryptic's actions came to light via a post on f13.net. "This isn't just two restaurants competing for the same customers, this is one restaurant sending service staff into the other and trying to get people to walk across the road with them. It's. Just. Not. Done," said the poster, UnSub.

It may have been going on longer than that; NCsoft felt moved to post a "word regarding outside solicitations" last week.

"Although we cannot stop someone from initially communicating with you - whether it be RMT (real money transaction) related, another game company trying to lure you to their competing product, or general spamming...we are in a position to investigate the situation (and potentially take action) once a solicitation has occurred, for it is a direct violation of our Rules of Conduct and EULA (End User License Agreement). "

Massively has taken a stand too, calling it a "highly unprofessional move" and saying "this is not the sort of behaviour we want the industry to feel is acceptable".

Storm in a teacup, or a step too far? Champions Online is due out for PC this spring, and you'll find plenty more at the Champions Online gamepage. Also, look out for the City of Heroes mission editor launching before the end of the month.

Picture of Oli.

About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

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Comments (8) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • DFawkes #1 3 years ago

    I'd have thought any CoH players interested would've joined the CO forums and applied for the beta anyway. I know in my time with it, it was mostly CoH players.

    Does seem a bit low though.

  • optimusprym8 #2 3 years ago

    Just goes to show there are only so many MMO players to go around and these are desperate times.

  • Darkedge #3 3 years ago

    Cryptic being unprofessional like this? WHo would've thought it. Not cool at all, esp in game messaging.

  • MrChuckles #4 3 years ago

    Well, tbh it is the best place to find beta players for your new superhero game. Not actually illegal, just a bit harsh.

  • butler` #5 3 years ago

    Though at first I just giggled a little and thought, well, it isn't the worst thing in the world.

    But the more I think about it the more I think it's a pretty sucky move by Cryptic. It's unprofessional to the core and really not good PR.

  • Silvervein #6 3 years ago

    Truth to be told, a friend of mine is interested in this one. Myself, being coh player and having my reservations for mmo's meant for pc and console at once, I wasn't really that interested. Still, yesterday I did some search on champions online footage.

    Here's my impressions.
    It's stylized, and very action oriented. As a matter of fact, it seemed like copy of freedom force, a decent (if a bit old now) superhero singleplayer game. Only without physics engine making fights a bit dull (how many times can you watch one and the same animation before it goes stale?) and with overdone power animations, looking more like something from korean grinder crossed with fourth july firework show.
    They didn't show or mention how is the story (a game element I'm interested in) going to play into general experience, or how many of those are going to be there. I can only guess based on history of city of heroes, which at first offered little other than endless fighting of baddies on the streets.
    All in all, it feels like console action game that might have been released couple years back (when in game physics wasn't in games that often).

    PS. Champions online footage I saw comes from gametrailers.
    Edited by 1 at 20/03/09 @ 13:38

  • aufi #7 3 years ago

    small beer.

  • levitate #8 3 years ago

    Oh. My. God.

    This might well be the event that future historians will be convinced started World War III. The silent cybershot that made a rivalry and cold war between MMO companies go into ballistic mode, killing the interwebz and its users one by one.