First off: Yeay for a new Superhero game Far to under-presented this genre (if it comes to open world with character creation/customization that is).

So far I have played a bit CoH/V when it still was on (not much of it though); CO quite excessively for some time & DCUO also till some of their endgame stages. Sooner than later they started to become boring & stale

So, what are Valiance plans to offer what the other don't? What would be the 5 biggest "Yeay, but in Valiance you can ...., forget that in [other game]" counterarguments one could bring in an Valiance Online vs. (other Supes MMO) discussion?

Are you kidding? Valiance Online will:
- Convert all your voicemail to text, then IM you on all platforms to make sure you don't miss anything.
- Convert all your texts into a daily Voicemail so you don't miss them when you check your VM
- Pick up your supershoes
- Take out your supertrash (wait... yeah)
- Turn all of your chat into speech
- Turn your speech into chat
- Change the abstract thought process on how powersets work
- Result in a much better social life. Chicks dig Valiance. (Dudes do too)
- Give you wings
- Make perfect toast every time and always pick up the crumbs

Other than that... the in game stuff?

I think one think I really like that I keep hearing is that the 'war walls' will just keep getting farther and farther away as the map expands... it will all be one gigantic, infinite world - not a bunch of zones and trains. I'm sure in the end there will be some quick transit / teleport system or something, but would be very nice to be able to fly from one end of the world to the other imho.
The powerset and slotting system is very cool. I like where they are going with it. Useage / clicking will remain familiar, customization can be pretty much as simple or complicated as you want. I like that. Definitely a cut above anything out there now if it turns out half as good as it sounds.

Top 5? Probably best if the devs weigh in on the real specifics. This is still pre-alpha.

When my friends ask me I just say, "Valiance is going to define the superhero MMO genre", because that's how I feel. We're offering a ton of stuff that we feel our community will really love. I truly believe we'll have the deepest RPG elements every seen in an MMORPG, regardless of genre/classification. We're building a true living-world environment where things are just going to happen. Someone can set-off a bomb, collapse a building, and the next time you get on, the area will be surrounded with paramedics, police, investigators, and the aftermath of the destruction. All of a sudden you'll have new NPCs to talk to, and new event-based missions that you will never have an opportunity to experience if you miss it.

We're currently upgrading our character generator to what we feel is one of the most in-depth character generators in any MMORPG to date. We have elements that far surpass Blade & Soul, Black Desert Online, and Bless Online. Not only will you be able to color your outfits, you'll be able to use the same mask regions from the coloring mechanic to selection materials and patterns. Don't like the spandex rubber look? Great, make it metallic leopard patterned fur. Taking a step further, we're going above and beyond with the bio element of the character generator. Not only allowing players to write a small bio blurb about themselves, but using a trait systems like The Sims, you'll choose from various pros and cons that must balance out. Maybe you have super sonic hearing, but in order to have that trait you have to choose from blurred visions as a result, or chronic headaches following the use of your super hearing; reducing your accuracy for a short-time after.

To top that off, we're going to add a profile section where the player can profile his character in great detail, going as far as to target various elements of their character's body to specific details about it. Other players will be able to view other profiles, and see specific details on what makes that character so special. Zoom in, and select your character's eyes, and write a small blurb about how toxic chemicals spilled in your character's eyes which gave him his extraordinary vision; further define why your character has those odd looking eyes. Then, other players can click on your character's profile, and see annotations about the character's eyes.

Our biggest planned feature is the separations of Combat Careers and Profession Careers. Some players may want to spend their entire gameplay experience in a laboratory developing serums, and curing diseases. Those players can do just that. They have no combat abilities at all. The same way Combat Career players level up with combat, they level up by studying books and successfully building chemical compounds. Players with combat and profession roles can then depend on each other for goods and services. Since health serums don't come cheap, a brawler can really benefit from having a friend behind the counters at the laboratory. Since the lab engineer isn't going to make it across town without one hell of a struggle, they could sure use a brawler to insure their goods make it across town more frequently.

This is the type of atmosphere we're trying to build. A massive, cooperative, collective of players living day-to-day in this enormous sci-fi, fantasy, living-environment.

All of that was really interesting but this stuck out most to me.
IronSight wrote: Will that separation be a Star Wars Galaxies type of thing where you have can go from full combat to full crafter and anything in between but not having full combat and full crafting at the same time, or will it be the more traditional one where you level them separately but can get both to max?

Looks like some very interesting stuff in the making. Especially the last part sounds like it could evolve into a secret ID system which, to use the analogy, offers not only game-play to Superman but also to Clark Kent. Maybe this cat & mouse play you have from the comic books/movies with hiding and keeping up an identity is what I miss in the long run in the other titles. Its just jumping off, beating up the bad guys, loiter around till a party gets together for the same in bigger scale *sigh*. No diversions, nothing that gets personal while a superhero is all about hers or his personality (besides looking awesome in spandex ).

I can think of 3 things it (will) have that the others didn't.

-They plan to implement fully destructible environments. Probably not on the entire city but even in small instances/ areas is fine enough to tickle my destructive tendencies. Imagine being able to fly and you're on a building then all of a sudden it crumbles beneath your feet. Or getting slammed through a wall a la' Dragon Ball Z style.

-League bases/houses/. Eventually we'll get fun hangouts that we can customize and really enhance the Role Playing element. Can't wait to kick some ass then kick back and pretend to drink some tea.

- The ability to give you the best blowjob ever. Maybe not really, but the idea of what this game can be makes me FEEL like I'm getting the best blowjob ever.

As amazing as all of this sounds.. What will happen if you guys don't really do well within your crowdfunding campaign? I really hope the project comes along smoothly.

Truvidien wrote: Probably the same thing they've been doing that got them to, incredibly, where they are already at now... just keep working with the limited resources they have. The whole thing is to actually get real funding so that they can get even a fractional bit of compensation for themselves, so they could dedicate even more to the project, additional tech and such needed for it, and get it done much faster. Maybe even some more of the bolder goals at launch, rather than down the road? Would be cool.

I just hope they decide to stick with their own funding campaign on this website, rather than go Kickstarter or anything like that again. It just leads to too much pressure, and often leads to misunderstood intentions by the granularity people go into.

Either that or venture capital if there is an interested group that wants to dump a wad of cash into the project that is willing to put forth an earnest interest with a realistic understanding of time to return on investment when it comes to a game. Especially a MMORPG of any size.

I'm a huge fan of anyone that doesn't jerk me around. These guys (and gal - hey... is Skipjack still around?) are an awesome bunch of people so far as I've experienced. I really hope they get all the funding they want and then some. A team that is not stressed for time or resources will do an even better job. Which is a high bar to beat already. Here's hopin!

Exactly what Haplo said.

If you read their press release on the forums it states this as well. They have been doing everything to this point in their spare time unpaid.

With enough funding they can leave their day jobs to dedicate themselves to creating the game and moving production along at a faster rate. A successful funding campaign could see the game in some form of late Alpha/Beta before the end of the year easily. A VERY successful campaign would potentially allow them to up the number of developers some and get more content produced even quicker.

Basically, if you want VO and you want it "NAOW!" Donte and post on ever place imaginable about the game. Whenever I get some time to get in I'll be taking video and screenshots to start posting.

One thing they want to implement is to be able to explore space. Other Superhero-MMO´s promised this feature also, but no one could really implement a space exploring feature.

As far as I have seen and read here in forums they won´t go new ways or try new things. Everything else will be more like a "I copy the best features and mechanics from ohter mmos because people don´t like experiments"

But I´m very happy with VO. It looks much better than "City of Titans" and "Heroes and Villains"
I hope it will be more exiting and variable than DCUO
And I hope it will be more adult and serious than Champions Online

(I bet this will be used to troll against me)

Gerald Deemer wrote:
That's definitely a new perspective. The only thing I could offer along the lines of that thought process is that as a development team, and as a community - although nothing is completely set it stone for sure - we already went through the major 'hammering out' stage together over the last couple of years. These forums are a new iteration. I kind of wish there was an archive of the old forums too. Lots of awesome stuff in there.

If you're referring more to the idea of the whole 'best features from other mmos because it's safe' thing... I'm not sure where you're coming up with that. Sure there are plenty of mechanics that have been done before, simply because there are a lot of cool things out there now. Why not include what you know people like? However, they have quite a few firsts planned for (especially a superhero) MMO. As you mentioned, space is a good example. A truly living world environment is a big step.

There are quite a few things that they've stated or hinted at over time that sound pretty exciting, but I won't hijack the thread here. We could start a new thread just to throw around ideas old and new. As usual, I have a bad habit of being too long winded!

There are not that much new things but variations of whats already there to be done in a Superhero MMO. What the others lack for a complete comic/movie like Superhero-feeling would be some system & personal storyline for the woman/man behind the mask and a vehicle system (not like that strange thing in Champions Online but more like Saints Row).
Haplo wrote:
That is not hijacking; that is precisely on topic

Haplo wrote:
I'm here for the next CoH. In order for it to be what I need, it needs to have a whole lot of overlap with CoH in design terms - with nostalgia and gameplay. I'm not looking for the most creative new crazy superhero mmo. I just miss CoH and want to play something as close as possible to that.

Gray_Scale wrote:
Keep in mind, you are able to go ahead and download Pre-Alpha and play it right now and see what you think of it. Again just keep in mind, nothing in it is final.

Yeah I've had a go and given some feedback! It's already headed down the path of CoH look and feel that I need.

Gray_Scale wrote:
Glad that you like it.