City of Heroes: Lo, There Shall Come A Tutorial!

Welcome to part two of our preview of City of Heroes. Be sure and check out part one for a guide to the class system and guide to character creation.

In this edition, I'll take you through the tutorial code-named "Outbreak," which I have nicknamed "Tutorial City". Your newborn hero will spawn next to a police officer named Officer Flint and you'll be given instructions to talk to him. You'll also be told which keys you use to move your character and how to initiate a conversation. It's just like preschool.

Officer Flint wastes no time in telling you that he has an important mission that he needs help with and asks if you'll do it. Once you have accepted the mission, a "way point" will appear on your screen telling you which direction to travel and how far you currently are from your destination. This is a good time to talk about your interface.

City of Heroes uses a very intuitive GUI that the average game player should clue into right away. It includes an obvious health and endurance meter, both of which you'll use during combat.

It also includes a customizable tool bar that you drag and drop the powers you want to use in a given situation. Mine currently has the two powers I selected during the creation of my character, a sprint button and a basic punch.

Another window manages various communications and other messages. The damage you inflict/receive will show up here as well as messages from your party, characters around you, characters in the same map location and members of your Super Group (commonly known as your clan or guild). There is also an in-game email system in case you need to contact a player that isn't online.

A compass and map system are at the top of the screen and you can use them to guide you to your next destination as well as find trouble areas where scum and villainy might be running wild. A journal of sorts is also available to tell you what the next step in your mission is, assuming you have one.

Using the interface, guide your character to the first stop, which is just a short walk down the street to the medical center. If you were to fall in combat, the nearest medical center is where you'd end up.

Officer Flint wants you to deliver a blood sample to the medical center, which you'll do without questioning why he couldn't walk 150 yards down the street and do himself.

Once that is done, you'll return to Officer Flint who wants to introduce you to a new contact. Contacts are the NPC characters in the game who will give your hero missions to accomplish for experience and influence (money).

Your next contact is a longer walk down the street. Along the way you'll start to notice the nicely detailed landscape of the city. Lights and shadows, blowing leaves, innocent victims…err… citizens walking the street, moving and parked cars create a realistic and believable environment.

The next contact wants you to learn how to handle yourself in a fight and has arranged some instructors and practice targets for you to work with. The gist here is that City of Heroes uses a system common in other MMORPG games. The color of the targeted enemies name gives you a quick clue as its level and capabilities. Green and blue names will be an easy fight for you, while red and purple names should be avoided unless you have backup.

CoH takes this system a step further by telling you the exact level of the enemy and if it is a minion, lieutenant or boss character. In other games, a purple name could be anywhere from 5-50 levels above you and you wouldn't know how tough it was until the fight was started (at which point it was usually too late to run). Likewise a boss character will be a more challenging fight than fighting a minion of the same level. Bosses will have more damaging and debilitating attacks.

Nearby are some practice drones for you to take shots at. Once you've gotten out some frustrations, you'll return to your contact who wants you to travel to a nearby hot zone and defeat two thugs. Finally, a real fight!

After a short walk, the city landscape will change to something far less serene. This part of town, is overrun with criminals and is ripe for the pickings of a plucky young hero looking to make a name for his, her or itself.

Using the TAB key, you'll locate a few criminals and go to work (it is so refreshing to fight people rather than giant rats or deadly butterflies). This being the tutorial, you should have no problem dispatching the superstitious and cowardly lot. The only real challenge here is that your target may decide to run from the fight if things look hopeless. If you don't have a power that keeps the criminal from running (wall of fire, grenade full of webbing, etc…), you'll spend a fair amount of game time chasing down wounded thugs.

Having dispatched two lowlifes, you'll be introduced to a new contact who wants to teach you about inspirations. Inspirations are brief, one time use boosts to your powers or health. You can only carry a limited number at any given time so don't feel the need to hoard them as you acquire them. Inspirations can be purchased from contacts and will also occasionally be put in your inventory after you defeat a criminal.

The various inspirations include an increase to damage, increase to accuracy, increase to defense, endurance and health boosters as well as a the ability to bring yourself back to life without waiting for another character to revive you or a trip to the medical facility. Cryptic Studios has really taken a lot of the pain out of dying.

Your new contact will give you a few inspirations to play with and send you out to tackle another four thugs. POW! BAM! KABOOM! Another mission accomplished.

Your reward from completing this mission will be your first enhancement. Most MMORPG games offer various items of reward when finishing a task or defeating an enemy. The twist that City of Heroes offers is that the items that drop are not the usual "shield of +1 defense" or "bracers of invisibility" fodder that is so common. Instead of traditional loot, enhancements will drop that attach to your current set of powers. Each power you acquire will have a limited number of enhancement slots where a variety of enhancements can be attached.

This opens up a variety of options as different players will equip with different enhancements in different ways. I may choose to make my laser blast more damaging, while the player next to me may have chosen to make each blast cost less endurance. To give even more versatility to the system, enhancements can be replaced or upgraded as your character progresses.

You may change your mind about the enhancement you've attached later on and the game won't punish you for doing so. You'll simply acquire the enhancement you want either by fighting bad guys or buying them at a store and discard the old enhancement. Since almost all of the enhancements can be purchased in stores, there is never any infighting amongst the players when an enemy drops loot.

Attach your first enhancement to one of your powers and get set for your next mission. You'll be instructed to visit a nearby office building or sewer, defeat the enemies inside and retrieve something they have. Most of your missions throughout the game are like this, but with varying difficulty. The more powerful of hero you are, the more challenging you mission and the more heroes you may need to fight at your side. Each of these office building or sewer locations is only accessible to you and those members of your party.

You don't actually have to do missions as there are plenty of purse snatchers, hoodlums and loiters to thwart out in the open but completing missions offer challenges and rewards.

A way point will appear directing you to a door. Any players not in your party trying to open the door will be told the door is locked. This is another thing that happens in most online adventure games that drive players nuts, and Cryptic Studios has addressed it. Players not on your team won't be able to kill steal or interfere with your mission and prevent or slow you from completing it. Your mission is your mission and only you and your friends can complete it. Each mini dungeon…err…office building is only open to you and your party.

Once you've completed that mission, you'll have gained enough experience to advance to a level two hero and you've completed the tutorial. Travel back to your contact and he'll send your heroic butt to the big city for some real hard nosed crime fighting.

I'll talk about trainers, trams and daily tribulations in our next installment.

City of Heroes

Michael Goodson