As the developer of the most successful superhero MMO to date (City of Heroes) Cryptic Studios really have only themselves to compete with when they eventually release Champions Online.

However, not willing to rest on their laurels, Cryptic is raising their own bar and they intend to prove it to all of us by posting another installment of "Ask Cryptic", an in-depth Q&A session with the designers and developers of Champions Online.

Ask Cryptic is back with answers on levels, hard numbers, mez powers, knockback and costumes. Thanks very much to Arkayne, Heretic and Absinthe for their answers!

Just how "level-ly" are CO levels going to be? Is my progression from level 1 to level 50 going to look like a progression from an 8-year old Robin (as sidekick to Bats) to any of the incarnations of Superman? Or will I still be able to recognizable at level 50 as still the same basic character as he was at level 1? (Captain-Spith)

Arkayne (lead designer): There will be a definite progression from low- to high-powered hero. Characters start off with a few starting powers and gain more powers and more customization options throughout the course of the game. This differs a bit from the Champions tabletop game where players start off with moderate to high-power and have marginal increases over time. We felt our constant power advancement model in Champions Online would be more appealing to players since they can always look forward to expanding and personalizing their suite of super-powers.

Will damage and defense numbers be published to the players (power X does Y damage, and Power A resists B amount) or will the CoX model of broad generalities (high, medium and low) be published? (whistlelock)

Arkayne: We definitely want to show more raw numbers to the players, whistlelock. We realize that some players want to tweak their characters as much as they can and showing them the fine details allows them to do this. Min-maxers of the world rejoice!

Read more at the Cryptic Studios Developer Blog

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