Champions Online Preview
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When describing Champions Online, Emmert frequently tosses around the term "total customization." While City of Heroes' costume generator is often hailed as its finest feature (much to the lament of the game proper), Champions wants to do more than just outdo its daddy's fashion sense.
In addition to a costume-creation system Emmert describes as at least as robust as COH's, aesthetic modifications can be made to your individual abilities -- roll up purple bolts of electricity, and call yourself Violet Thunder, if that's your thing. "You can modify your powers with some special abilities," adds Lewis, "like maybe you shoot lightning bolts, but you add in a piece of gear or some other upgrade that allows you to set people on fire."
For Champions (and COH before it), the word "gear" presents a conflict of interest: Superman don't need no plate mail to stop a bullet -- then again, gearing up has proven to be a major part of certain MMOs' appeal. "It's definitely a philosophical shift," says Emmert, adding that in Champions' universe, the word "gear" has a much broader definition than codpieces and swords. "Some upgrades are 'gear' -- actual physical equipment -- but some of them are more ephemeral, like training or a radiation bombardment, things like that, to cover the full gamut of different superhero upgrades."
