Both Age of Conan and Warhammer Online feature collision detection as a standard feature. In layman's terms, that means players won't be able to walk through one another, they'll push up against each other instead.

It's not new for an MMORPG, but I'm hoping that both games will be able to match their rhetoric in how this can be a useful game mechanic.

How NOT to do it:

In City of Heroes, at the lowest levels any player is able to "tank" mobs by literally holding them back, especially through doorways. That was great, but I guess Cryptic decided it was too easy, so at higher levels virtually every mob was given the ability to either fly or shoot past the tank. The end result was the same tanking via taunt-like abilities that we're used to in most of these games.

Collision detection in CoH was reduced to nothing more than an immersion tool and a way for players to annoy each other.

Let us mess with it:

When I first heard AoC would have collision detection, the scenario I imagined was one of a wall of tanks, with casters behind them building up spell weaving momentum. I'm imagining this could work in PvP too, letting the numerous barbarians and assassins smash up against that wall of tanks.

That may just be dreaming of course, the standard zerg tactics would probably give way, but even just the occasional attempt is worth it. We need this kind of new avenue for combat strategy. I hope Funcom doesn't fall in with the easy balance solutions, they should let it go ahead and be messy for a bit so they can observe and learn to innovate. It should be sandbox time.

WAR's method of collision detection has an interesting twist, it only happens between enemies. Friendly targets can still walk through each other. This sounds like it may favour collision-aware strategies, because teammate placement won't be as difficult. Your team won't have to be a well-oiled Spartan machine, but that may be a downside too, it may be too easy to defend from an invading army.

The MMO that was two-games in one universe is now one. City of Villains was a natural followup to the excellent City of Heroes, but it wasn't really an expansion, nor a sequel either. It left the game in an Us vs Them situation, not just in the intended gameplay of the factions, but with which product you actually purchased. Well now they've merged.

Whether you purchased the City of Heroes box or City of Villains, it doesn't matter anymore, you'll have access to both sides.

The merge is part of the player perks NCsoft is promoting to ease any fears with their full acquisition of the game from Cryptic Studios, announced yesterday (press release).

I've met most of my current friends online, in one form or another (some as far back as the BBS days), so I think the cliché of the anti-social geek is a lie. In fact, the primary usage of any network is exactly that: networking. Socially, business and otherwise.

But the social value of different networks is not equal. For instance, I don't lend much credit to the so-called "social network" websites: The MySpace, Friendster, LiveJournal, Facebook, Orkut, etc.-- perhaps because there are too many of them, making it easy to be a tourist or transient. When the temporary visitors far outnumber the core citizens, social value can get drowned in a sea of nonsense. It all depends on how well the network handles the different kinds of traffic. Regardless, it's a place to interact and that's the core.

The same is true for online games.

Games are a more specific interest that can strengthen social value. When I recommended to my girlfriend that we start playing City of Heroes rather than just chat on MSN, she was wary. Soon enough though, she developed connections with my other friends that were playing, plus now she agrees that chatting while fighting evil villains is more fun than just chatting.

On the other hand, game activity as community has limitations, similar to the way Flickr brings together Photographers but is not likely to be used for other purposes. It works if most of your friends are Photogaphers / Gamers.

Social value also may not be the prime directive for a game developer, which can lead to conflicting results. We've been playing World of Warcraft for almost 3 years now and some social implications have become evident.

The downsides with WoW.

The first, most obvious social problem with WoW is how impossible it is for players of disparate levels to spend quality time together within the game. If I'm level 40 and my friend is level 65, the only way we can quest together is if he "powerlevels" in level 40 areas with me, making my quests trivial with his ease of completing them.

Even once the "Endgame" is reached at max level, WoW's content divides like a pyramid to the top tier of players. Content is restricted based on achieving goals of faction-reputations, quality of gear, attunements, etc.. Finally, the highest tier content is WoW's raiding system, which requires almost military-like adherence to schedules that just aren't realistic for many people.

Getting the most from WoW, then migrating.

Personally, I've tried very hard to make my social circle work within WoW's limitations. I've held back to let others catch up, helping where I can. Our group of guild leaders have attempted to stick to the Endgame content which keeps most of us at an even pace, but that also has the side effect that some players may feel like they are held back. Most of us have also given up on raiding content which we could enjoy if it were more reasonable to play with friends.

In the long run though, we've had friends (some which had played with us across many other games) leave WoW because of these exact problems. The core of our group has decided it's soon time to migrate to another MMO more likely to strengthen our social bonds again. City of Heroes had a "Sidekick" feature that made leveling characters much more positive as a group and that was a very big difference, but it had a lack of great content overall. Age of Conan reportedly has a similar feature (called Master / Apprentice), but that's just one reason we're looking at that game, it seems full of community-building features.

It's important to me that I'm able to keep up with my friends. Not just the hardcore gamer ones either, but the ones I see occasionally. I like to bump into them in real life, but it's even more likely that if we have a common online "home" we'll see each there too. And when we do, let's fight a few baddies.

. . .
(PS: Our guild has launched a new forums site to assist in our little migration from WoW to Age of Conan @ path.gameslate.com.)

I'm a big fan of how NCsoft does things, especially their support software. If you've played a few MMORPGs, you know the frustration that sometimes regardless of how well the game is designed, the software for patch downloads, logins, etc. is often very poor, not to mention the lack of server stability. NCsoft however, excels at these things, at least in my experience.

I love NCsoft's PlayNC Launcher:

Specifically, I love the PlayNC Launcher because it runs all of the time, scooping up any patches for the games it supports while you're away from your PC. No waiting to play after you get home from work, just because it's a patch day.

Back when I was playing City of Heroes, I loved their background downloader built into the game. Unlike downloaders from other companies (*cough* Blizzard *cough*) it was unintrusive, didn't add noticable lag or performance issues to the game and most of all it meant little or no manual downloading needed for patches. It was mess-free and hands-off. Because of its robustness, Cryptic was able to patch City of Heroes in small increments to solve problems quickly, which meant almost no major bugs or issues when larger content patches were added (again, unlike other companies).

I haven't played CoH in awhile, so I'm not sure if the PlayNC Launcher / Downloader replaces the built-in patcher, but I hope it doesn't and simply integrates and augments it instead.

Extra notes on Server Stability:

I was seriously impressed with the City of Heroes servers: in the 9 months that I played, I had only once experienced unexpected downtime on the server my characters were on and even then it was very brief. In fact, I had a hard time convincing our guild to switch to WoW because it was like night and day with so many problems on launch compared to what they were used to with CoH.

City of Heroes also had a flawless launch, which is almost unheard of within MMORPG history.

I just learned that Age of Conan will have a Master / Apprentice feature, much like the Sidekick system from City of Heroes. To say that I'm enthusiastic about Sidekicking would be an understatement, it was the most innovative feature of City of Heroes.

From the City of Heroes manual:
Sidekicks are a special option that allows low-level Heroes to team up with Heroes of a much higher level. The lower-level Hero, the sidekick, gains a temporary boost in fighting ability that allows him or her to fight alongside the higher-level Hero.

So for example: If you are just level 11 and your friend has out-leveled you to level 40, you can quest with them and while grouped and sidekicked, you will fight as if you were level 39 or so. You aren't given a whole host of powers, but the ones that you do have will be boosted to that level.

Disparate levels in MMORPGs has always made it difficult to quest with your friends, something that I've only ever seen solved by City of Heroes. In most other games, differing levels have almost been used as a promotional tool to keep people playing, but I can note several friends who list this problem as the number one reason they've quit WoW.

Sidekicking added a ton of fun to City of Heroes, so it's very encouraging to hear that something similar will be included in Age of Conan.

City of Heroes / City of Villains is planning an interesting event for Valentines. They are going to be pairing up Heroes and Villains together to cooperate in unique missions with a common goal. So if you can't get a date on the romantic holiday, you can always just stay home and trade oohs and ahhs with your arch-nemesis.

Frankly, Blizzard should have thought of something like this. "And the Gnome shall lay with the Tauren". Instead, all they have are yet more faction quests.

Awwwww, shucks.

As a nice cap to my adventuring in City of Heroes thus far, I've added a photo album of my favourite screenshots from the game.

Some of the shots are amusing and others just highlight my various characters and the heroes that I've teamed with. I don't think I've ever felt such comradrie in a game before and I've played many many multiplayer games (since pre Doom folks). In a couple of years those screenshots will be quite the nostalgia for me.

I'm doing the unthinkable.

I'm playing both City of Heroes AND World of Warcraft.

They're two entirely different games really, but it's pretty unusual for anyone to play more than one MMORPG at a time, mostly because these games are so immersive. The costs per month are nothing to sneeze at either, although both are reasonable, it does add up (mind you, as addictions go, MMORPGs are one of the cheapest).

On one hand, we have City of Heroes: A game where everyone's personality can be as bold as the moon and as bright as the sun. After 8 months of playing the game, I've never seen two players look alike, unless they had planned it that way (ala Agent Smiths). Character creation is almost a worthwhile game unto itself, rivaled only by The Sims in the sheer amount of choices and roleplay value.

City of Heroes also has the best action I've ever seen in an MMORPG. The collision detection is excellent, something that every other MMORPG does very poorly. The controls are reasonably responsive and most things feel immediate. You actually feel like you're whooping ass on the baddies.

Teaming up with players of different levels works well, thanks to the great sidekick and exemplar features. Overall, the team tools work excellent, allowing the sense of comraderie to prevail.

They have also done a great job at Cryptic when it comes to adding new content. The level cap has gone up since I've started playing. I've seen new levels, new artwork. They added fantastic looking capes and special effects and apparently there's even more content still on its way. I'm really not done with this game.

On the other hand, we have World of Warcraft: A game that cultivates Blizzard's impressive sense of style and substance. It has the depth of Everquest & Ultima Online, there are tons of things to do. Skills. Trades. There's a war going on, with two distinct sides, allowing Player vs Player action in both limited and open ways (depending upon your server selection). The storyline and adventuring is fantastic, the world is huge and the different factions are distinctive.

What World of Warcraft doesn't have is much uniqueness in character. You can't select height or width of your characters, so everyone in your race has the exact stature. Want to play as a thin Elf mage? Nope, if you're an Elf you can only be of the 7 foot buffed muscle-bound type. On the other hand, much like Ultima Online, you'll go through a variety of clothing, so your personality can either shine there or you may get stuck with the looks of your best affordable armour.

I love the pets in World of Warcraft, they have both combat and non-combat pets (I can get a parrot! Well, if I could afford one). I adore the seamless travel (fly on a Gryphon over other players) and the massive world, although it can get tedious sometimes to go from point A to point B.

All in all, I have to reiterate, these are two very different games. I'm going to play both for awhile and it remains to be seen which one will hold my attention the longest. At the moment World of Warcraft is shiny and new, so expect to see me there (I'm predictably "Rog" on the Silvermoon server, Alliance side).

My original plan of playing City of Heroes until World of Warcraft comes out has run into a snag: City of Heroes is really, really good and I'm still enjoying it too much to quit now. World of Warcraft's release date is tomorrow (I'm not certain if it will actually be released then, does anyone know?) but it looks like I won't be joining for a few months yet.

After more than a month of playing, I'm still really enjoying City of Heroes. It has far exceeded my expectations and I'll look at all other MMORPGs with an even more critical eye than I did previously. Yeah, it doesn't have some of the features that people cry out for most (like housing, uber-item trading, giant clans, etc.) but frankly it's nicer to skip those features than see them done poorly or used just to prop up games with lame content.

I guess when it comes down to it, I appreciate a game that's so character driven and that you can just jump in and have fun, rather than feel like you're on some sort of conveyor belt grinding system. One could look at the features set and call City of Heroes shallow, but it sure doesn't feel that way when playing the game. In fact it has more depth, in the areas that are used most (combat for instance, character development as well).

In any MMORPG you should be able to create a new character and have it open up enough new options to make it seem like a different game. City of Heroes does that so well, now it looks like other games haven't put much effort in characters at all. We aren't just talking tailor-made missions, the differences are deeply within the nature of the characters themselves.

In other games you'll have the two basic types: the melee characters and the characters who stand in the back (casting spells, healing, whatever). In City of Heroes this is still true on the surface, there are melee classes (Tankers, Scrappers) and casting classes (Blasters, Defenders, Controllers) but the way that a player's powersets grow and expand is so incredibly different between players, it's very personality based, your powers seem to evolve from your own choices.

And that's all I have to say about that for now. I could go on and on but I'd just muddy what I'd like to be relatively clear: City of Heroes rocks.

My original plan had been to play City of Heroes in the meanwhile before World of Warcraft comes out. Now I can honestly say that once WoW is here I may be very torn about leaving CoH.