Rate My Champion!

[modeps]

The Champions Online (http://www.champions-online.com) website now has a pretty darn cool feature. It allows users to go there and flip through a slideshow of sorts, rating champions found within the game. The catch here is that these champions are ones created by players of the game.

Cryptic Studios™, a leading developer and publisher of massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), announced a new “Rate My Champion” feature on the Champions Online website which will allow the public to view, and rate, characters created in the Beta version of their upcoming game, Champions Online (www.champions-online.com).

Well known for the extensive character creation options in their games, Cryptic Studios is now out-stripping their own prior accomplishments in the area of character customization. "The Champions Online character creator defines the new standard in avatar customization in MMOs," said Randy Mosiondz, Lead Designer for Champions Online. The new “Rate My Champion” feature on the website makes public for the first time the vast array of customization possible in the soon to be released game.

Visitors to the website are invited to vote on their favorite Champions using a ranking scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest (www.champions-online.com/rate_my_champion/).

The geeky version of Hot or Not!

[Evil Avatar]

This 'Hot or Not' feature might not be such a good idea. Most of the Avatar's I'm looking at seem pretty ass-tastic.

The art doesn't seem nearly as good as City of Heroes and City of Heroes is a pretty old game.

[lockwoodx]

I agree with Evil. My first impression was "Look they are using the old engine. Lame."

Also there is a lack of nipples...

Sorry AoC spoiled me >.>

[Evil Avatar]

Browsing through I see a few problems...

Only about 2 Helmets. I have seen the same 'Master Chief' style helmet on about 30 characters.

A ton of people also have little tiny heads on big bodies. Perhaps that is people trying to be funny, but it looks stupid.

Only about 1 set of Robot parts/arms.

A total lack of characters who have some kind of symbol in the middle of their chest. I know that was a big deal in CoH and almost no one is doing it in Champions Online. Is that due to lame testers or a lack of options in the menu?

[Darcydian]

If this game was on consoles all the Avatars would probably look much better, Evil or otherwise.
Just another reason pc gaming sucks

[Shatterjack]

If this game was on consoles all the Avatars would probably look much better, Evil or otherwise.
Just another reason pc gaming sucks

It's on the 360 as well as the PC.

[gojira]

Most of the avatars look poor because Cryptic is trying to use "cell shading" to make their game look more cartoony/like a comic book. That makes the result look kinda blurry and low res because of all the pixel shaders they use.

Also, those are tiny avatars shot from one angle. The screen shots they've released look a lot better.

I'm still on the fence about the whole "cell shading" thing. It was cool in Jet Set Radio because it was the first time anyone had seen it. Other than that, my scant knowledge of programming pixel shaders makes the whole cell shading thing look more like a technology demo rather than a real, working graphics technique. I've never seen one cell shader that looked "good." JSR was cute but not high res, cutting edge graphically.

[S1n1star]

[QUOTE=gojira;1706624]Most of the avatars look poor because Cryptic is trying to use "cell shading" to make their game look more cartoony/like a comic book. QUOTE]

No, the avatars look poor because they have a shitty art director. Spend 5 seconds in 4 year old CoX and I challenge you to find any of those characters worse looking than the crap they are spewing in ChampO. I can't believe that SOE can make a better superhero game than Cryptic, but DCO looks leaps and bounds better.

[lost]

Looks kinda poor. I remain steadfast in my pre-release preference for DCU.