City of Dress-Up Article

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I still shudder when I think of my first-ever character, The Amazing Dave. I knew before I'd reached Level 3 that he was all wrong, from his awful name to his big green afro to the vomitous rainbow swirls on his boots. I erased him forever, began a new character, and this time I thought about it. Simplicity is key to The Entomologist, and my tweaks to him as the levels wore on were reductionism, not expansion - bringing him ever-closer to the pure Pop Art, 60s superhero I wanted him to be.

I removed all patterning in favour of solid textures. He has no belt or shoulder armour - or trousers, for that matter. There are only four colours on him in total: his obsidian skin, including the insectoid antenna (his only visual link, stature aside, to his name); his red pants, mask, glove, and cape; his blue booties and robo-arm, and a touch of yellowy-gold on his cape's clasp. He wasn't complete until I added a giant, yellow E to his chest, the perfect finish to his straight-outta-Ditko silliness.

Now he is flawlessly ridiculous, but every inch of him (all 48 of them) nevertheless a superhero. Level 20 brought a cape, an event with a sense of importance and pride impossibly far beyond getting that last Purple armour drop. What greater proof of heroism is there than a cape, especially one that flutters impressively in the wind? Level 30 brings a glowing aura of some sort, but that's not terribly exciting, if I'm honest.

This lady will thank me by name once I defeat her attacker. COH remains a far cry from the anonymity of most every other MMO.

Which brings me to what's arguably COH's greatest problem. It blurts out its wish-fulfilment, its fantasy, its empowerment so soon. By Level 20, after just a few weeks of play, you've got your cape, you've got your transport power - super-speed or jump, flight or teleportation - and you've got your second costume slot. (In Ento's case, it's an all-white suit, a wonderfully unconvincing foot-long orange beard and a fedora through which his antenna jut. It's his secret identity, and it's fooling no-one. "Where's The Entomologist gone?", my colleagues would obligingly enquire whenever I changed costume.) And then what? Sure, there's new costume slots to unlock, a few new powers to earn, but really you're just locked into a rinse and repeat cycle of doffing up increasingly tough enemies. It's over, and that's why my returns to COH tend to only last a few days. I scratch my itch for leaping over tall buildings in a single bound, I pose heroically on top of cranes and giant plastic donuts, I terrorise the villain population of low-level areas just to feel mighty, and then I'm done for a few more months.

In a World of Warcraft, you're forever aware that there's bigger and better stuff beyond, both in terms of amazingly large swords and incredible bosses in high-level instances. There's just as much repetition underneath all the exploratory trappings, but it holds a carrot of progress in front of you at all times, a reason to keep playing. In COH, it's that much clearer from the off what you want to achieve from the game, and you really can achieve it. I love the game for it, even if it's now only an occasional presence in my life as a result. Most of all, I love it for Ento. I couldn't have made him in any other MMO.