Heroes of Champions Online III

By Shamus Posted Thursday Oct 8, 2009

Filed under: Pictures 63 comments

After everyone gave me such an encouraging response to the origin of Noctis Lex, I thought I’d gently lower your expectations again by sharing some other characters. All of which are stupid jokes and gags and not nearly as interesting as Lex.

Concealed Carrie

co_char_carrie.jpg

Concealed Carrie is my main. She hit level 30 last night, which is the end of the game as far as I’m concerned. She’s at the point in the game where leveling is slow and new rewards are few. There’s only one area left to unlock (Atlantis) and I just don’t want to see it that bad. It’s much more fun to level new characters than to work at old ones. Still, she’s the most fun character so far. It really is great to see a 12 year old girl mow down a bunch of goons with her minigun.

Tsunami

Yes, his foot is clipping into the ground.  Nice screenshot skills, Shamus.
Yes, his foot is clipping into the ground. Nice screenshot skills, Shamus.

I am known as the Tsunami. I was trained by the Red Dragon, the greatest teacher of martial arts and the only master of the White Sword Technique, who lives alone in the Temple of The Five Secrets. I was the first student in three hundred years to pass the test of the disappearing pebble and crush a single stone into powder with my fingertips. Thus I am the first in as many years to be proven worthy of learning the White Sword technique.

Okay, you got me. I’m really Bobby Anderson. I’m a stuntman from California. So sue me. I still wanna be a superhero.

(Tsunami is sort of a stuntman: His alternate costume is Star on Chest, and I use him to make my SoC comics, since the real SoC is still in the tutorial zone and unfit for travel in the big wide world.)

Apple iJolt

co_char_ijolt.jpg

(Explaining the joke: She’s like the iPhone, except she kills people.)

The new Apple iJolt, with six different ways to electrocute your foes. Also comes with built-in wireless internet, iTunes player, melee combat support.

The iJolt is an Electricity-based hero. Fun, but it’s been over a week since I played it.

Allison Chains

co_char_allison.jpg

I didn’t bother trying to cram her bio into the Twitter-space of the in-game bio box, but the upshot is this:

In Anime, there is this whole genre of shows where a young, doe-eyed little girl will find a magical artifact to grant her super powers. “Magical Girl” shows. They feature elaborate sequences where the girl transforms into her girly super-outfit, which is inseperable from the powers themselves. (Sailor Moon is probably the most famous example.)

Allison is based on the idea that not all of those artifacts will end up in the hands of little girls. Allison is the angry, bitter, self-destructive lead singer for “Bleeding Out”, a punk rock band that will probably never really go anywhere. She gets one of these artifacts that gives her super powers, but also puts her in this “adorable” pink outfit with butterfly wings, etc. About the last thing in the world Allison would want to be caught dead in.

For a power set: I’m cherry-picking all the overpowered and unbalanced abilities in the game, so she’s a mishmash of nonsensical powers.

Kirk, Spock, & McCoy

co_char_trek.jpg

Some friends and I (I stupidly forgot to get their permission to mention them by name last time we played) made a concept group. Kirk & crew have made it to level 20 together. Kirk is a melee brawler, while Spock & McCoy use various gadget powers. One of the powers is Orbital Cannon, which we jokingly refer to as Sulu bombarding the planet from the Enterprise.

We managed to start a supergroup (United Federation of Planets) and get big laughs wherever we go. Lots of fun.

Captain Butterwolf

co_char_butterwolf.jpg

This one isn’t mine. This character is owned by one of my friends. (One of the Trek crew, actually.) He decided to hit “random” on the costume creator and take whatever he got. He got this.

Understand that usually the random button makes something a lot more presentable than this. Butterwolf here is a sublime form of eye-gouging awfulness. Every detail is perfectly hideous in every way. Tiny booted feet. Flag on chest under a tie. Butterfly wings. Bushy wolf tail. Tentacle hands. Purple rock skin. Cybernetic arms. Gladiator helmet with a hood ornament on top. Truly, truly painful to behold.

 


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63 thoughts on “Heroes of Champions Online III

  1. UtopiaV1 says:

    That last one made me laugh. Totally made my day.

    The trekkie crew seems like a great idea. One of Kirk’s powers should be getting his shirt ripped…

  2. Jamie says:

    Great, after seeing Captain Butterwolf I’m going to have to go and gouge my eyes out, thanks Shamus…

  3. Mr_Wizard says:

    Haha, The Kirk and Crew is brilliant. I guess those friends will have a great time in Cryptics next MMO. :D

  4. nilus says:

    Just started playing this and man is it hard to actually play this game. I had the same problem with City of Heroes. I just sit there all day making new guys.

  5. Joshua says:

    iJolt is really spiffy looking. And I find Elec really fun once you pick up Spark Storm and can just stand there electrocuting everything around you, blowing up objects and knocking baddies flying.

  6. Rhys Aronson says:

    I know what you mean by the game dieing around level 30, my character Lady Defenestrator is sitting on level 27 and all the quests are 3 levels higher than her and I just cant work up the mental fortitude to grind.

  7. Benjamin Orchard says:

    Butterwolf RULES! I’m tempted to get the game JUST for the character creator.

  8. Zeta Kai says:

    Captain Butterwolf made me actually laugh out loud. At work. I’m still smiling at what a hilarious abomination that is. It’s like if Rob Liefeld was trying to be funny, & succeeded. Truly a work of randomly-generated art.

  9. Kibrika says:

    Love the Allison idea.

  10. Peter H. Coffin says:

    I, too, look forward to reading the Allison manga series!

  11. Drue says:

    Gah, I’m trying to resist this game and each time you post about it I come closer to subscribing. I want to wait for a while to let the initial patches and whatnot go through rather than jump in so close to launch. Even better would be if they start offering a free trial. I hit up the free trial of CoX just to play around in the character creater. One of the characters I created was a punk rock fairy. I used the stalker class and her back story was about a tribe of evil fairies integrated themselves into city life when the city was first built. She resembled Allison Chains if you blend her two forms together.

  12. SolkaTruesilver says:

    All right. I just fell in love with your Star Trek crew.

    and Chekov would man the Enterprise’s weapons, no Sulu…

  13. BlackBloc says:

    Rhys Aronson: Have you used the Mission Computer to find contacts? I’m pretty sure you’re missing some missions as that range of levels is where I was always one level late (I had lvl 27 missions open once I got to 28, and so on, up to 29 or 30).

  14. RichVR says:

    I assume your Carrie character is dex/ego which got nerfed today. My munitions character is only level 16, so the issues aren’t very noticeable. But I understand that at 30 they are moreso. Not game-breaking, but lots of doooooooom posts on the forum.

    I’m not completely clear on it but I think it was a fix to bring dex/ego to where they should be compared to the rest. Not really a nerf.

    The Star Trek crew is genius.

  15. Ergonomic Cat says:

    There is a trial now, sorta.

    Lifetime subs get 3 buddy passes (this is from memory, so the details are sketchy) for 10 day trials.

  16. Matt K says:

    Capt. Butterwolf is awesome beyond words. I feel his shtick should be that he had to wear the tie since his kids got it for him for his birthday.

    Honestly that design is inspired. From the giant shoulder pads to the tail, to the butterfly wings and all the purple. Like I said, beyond words.

  17. Joe says:

    Despite the hilarity of Butterwolf and the Trekkies, Allison Chains has to be my favorite.

    iJolt is also fantastic, especially after reading the short story iThink Therefore I Am by Ken McLeod.

  18. Viktor says:

    Melee and 2 gadget supporters…you need a Defender. I suggest Ensign Ricky.

  19. Neil Polenske says:

    Kirk ‘n crew is a beautiful idea, but it’s incomplete. Lacks lvl 1 redshirt.

    Edit: Damn you Viktor! If ONLY I’d been quicker on the submit button…

  20. Deoxy says:

    The iJolt is really well done – the “tron” effects are very nice and fit the character concept, which is funny, but yet, completely believable in a super-hero world. Completely.

    The Star Trek thing is just down-right funny. Kudos.

  21. toasty says:

    Can I join your Star trek group? lol. That is beyond funny.

    I want more pics of stupid/inane heroes! Seriously, these posts have been some of your best in a long time I think.

  22. Alex says:

    Captain Butterwolf looks like Rob Liefeld vomited all over Anime.

    Except he’s still somehow awesome, in his own brain-damaged way.

  23. She hit level 30 last night, which is the end of the game as far as I’m concerned.

    THANK YOU! Somehow, I feel vindicated. I always have so much trouble leveling a character past 40 in ANY MMO that I play. No matter how much I love the character and/or the game, it always seems as if the game play becomes grindy, derivative and monotonous at a certain point. I thought I was the only person who experienced that.

    And Captain Butterwolf brought tears to my eyes – I was laughing so hard.

    Leslee

  24. Traska says:

    Okay, some comments from the person who actually said they didn’t like SoC.

    Concealed Carrie: I remember her from when you introduced SoC. I thought she was a very interesting character (like the little girl from Kick-Ass). Could be a very deep, interesting character with a different name, but CC isn’t a super-jokey name really, it straddles that line well.
    Tsunami: I love the idea. Very Booster Gold. The costume just screams “I’m a Westerner and therefore this is what I think all martial-arts guys look like”
    Apple iJolt: The concept is rock solid, and would make for serious RP capability if (again) you went with a less jokey name.
    Allison Chains: Would make an awesome “Americanime” web comic (for the record: Americanime is my term for American comic art that is way too heavily influenced by Anime. In this case, though, it would be very appropriate). Character is rock solid, and the name falls into that Concealed Carrie zone of almost too jokey but not quite.
    Kirk, Spock, and McCoy: Well, you know my feelings on over the top humor in MMOs, so we’ll leave it at that…
    Captain Butterwolf: …

  25. krellen says:

    What does Mrs. Butterwolf think of her husband’s heroing (and fashion sense)?

  26. J Greely says:

    Krellen, obviously Mrs. Butterwolf is dating an insectoid supervillain on the side, named Ant Gemina.

    -j

  27. 1d30 says:

    Love the trek crew. Do their faces look like the real thing? The poses are definitely perfect – I don’t know if that’s because you got to pick the poses or because the trek show posed the actors like superheroes :P

  28. Ergonomic Cat says:

    “Understand that usually the random button makes something a lot more presentable than this.”

    I have rarely seen things as awesome as Mr.Butterwolf, but I have yet to see anything from random that wasn’t horrific….

  29. Dave says:

    I’m not sure what power types you’d use… But you need an Uhura to travel with you. :)

  30. Tesh says:

    The Trek crew as CO heroes… brilliant. Made my day, in fact. Who needs J.J. Abrams?

  31. oleyo says:

    hehe, Butterwolf is awesome. I don’t think you could generate a more mish-mashed character even if you tried Shamus. *Are you asking for a CHALLEEEEEENGE?!*

    btw, LOVE the trek crew, and the fact that an orbital weapon is in the game makes me want to play it.

  32. GEBIV says:

    I have to admit, you make this game so very tempting. But I think I’ll stay addicted to WoW for just a little longer.

  33. mark says:

    I cant stop laughing at captain butterwolf!

  34. Haviland says:

    Argh! I was thinking while looking at the Trek Online character creation video that I must see what I could do, Trek-wise, with the CO creator.

    Well done Kirk, Spock and McCoy.

    Arse, I suppose I’m stuck with Red Shirt.

  35. MichaelG says:

    I got this silly game just because of your reviews, but my graphics card isn’t quite up to it. Play is really sluggish and I haven’t spent much time there.

    I have created a character though. It’s here:

    Fembot

    So let’s see some from other people….

  36. Nick C. says:

    Okay, the anime one totally cracked me up. Very entertaining post here.

  37. Mari says:

    Alison Chains amuses me, probably because I’m a fan of the magical girl genre and a non-orthodox goth. The best part is the mish-mash of nonsensical powers that are all seriously overpowered. It’s so authentic. Way to go, Shamus.

  38. FFJosh says:

    Shamus also neglected to mention that Captain Butterwolf is just a bit over four feet tall. So not only is he a grotesque, overbuilt, hideous purple monstrosity, but he’s also tiny.

    Probably the first MMO character I could ever have nightmares over.

  39. Randy Johnson says:

    McCoy/Butterwolf here. First off, if anyone wants to join The United Federation of Planets with a character, feel free to send Me, Shamus, or FFJosh a tell ingame.
    Contact info:
    McCoy@rason
    Spock@FFJosh
    Kirk@shamus_young

    Second, The Trek character’s faces all look perfect, except McCoy. Old is very hard to portay in this game. You are either Palpatine or a Superman. Btw Chekov joined the show late, so it was originally Sulu’s job.

  40. J Greely says:

    The coolest thing the randomizer has thrown at me is a sexy alien I named Beer Goggles. Lots of awfulness, of course, mostly not worth saving or playing.

    The characters I’ve actually designed and played a bit are affectionately nicknamed The Disfunctionals.

    I think my next design effort is going to be Color Test Pattern Guy, to document the lighting problems in the game in the hopes they’ll get fixed soon. I’m going to cram as many different colors as possible into one costume, to show how they’re ruined by the harsh lighting in many locations.

    -j

  41. Tuck says:

    So when are you gonna try the Discworld MUD Shamus?

  42. WWWebb says:

    @J Greely (#26)Butterwolf was worth a chuckle but that was a ROFLcopter.

  43. Veloxyll says:

    AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! That looks so tempting but no I will resist even though making a variant of Alison Chains is so tempting. Even if her leg looks a bit wierd.

    Also the Star Trek crew is adorable.

    edit: Thesaurus, I needs one.

  44. Steve C says:

    I started reading this post and each character got me laughing harder. By the end I literally was bent over double howling in laughter. After I recovered I had to dry my desk of my tears.

    Kudos.

  45. Sam says:

    Instead of lowering my expectations, you’re instead convincing me ever more to purchase this game and waste the next few weeks creating characters and doing nothing else in life. I’m not yet sure whether or not this is a bad thing.

  46. TSED says:

    All I can think of is that Allison Chain’s definitely NOT in a punk band.

    No self-respecting punk band would call themselves “Bleeding Out.” That’s an emo band name. That’s a metalcore band name. Possibly mallcore, but probably not.

    That’s not a punk band name. Punk band names usually shout at society, not make references to viscera. (Crude references to viscera is the domain of brutal death metal and grindcore. See: ‘Vomitory’, ‘Carcass’, ‘Cryptopsy’, ‘Goatwhore’, etc.)

    Besides, real punks know they’re not going to make it big. If they do, they’d be selling out!

    Right, anyways, musical elitism aside… Did you use the enrage / gadgeteer cooldown / whatever else it uses trick to make her stand like 40 feet tall? Or the gadgeteer shrink power? Because that soldier in the bottom of the screenshot is TINY.

  47. Stormkitten says:

    I’m guessing he’s not small, he’s a long way away, since the butterfly girl is flying.
    And the small girl/big gun combo never gets old. My highest level char is a pink-and-white clad girl with braids. And an assault rifle.

  48. sparty says:

    Am I the only one here who notices the description of Butterwolf’s costume is totally and completely wrong?

    He doesn’t have tenticle HANDS, he has tenticles coming out of his ARMS. which are actually tubes but thats just extra details.
    He doesn’t have cybernetic ARMS, although he might have cybernetic hands.
    He has barbed wire on his arms and legs, which wasn’t mentioned.

    He does not have ‘purple rock skin’, he has a purple, rock-like mesh on his shirt. You can tell that because his neck and legs are normal skin color.

    that just seemed like a whole bunch of mistakes for noone to notice.

    also for those not paying enough attention, i can make guesses at the reasoning behind his name. “Butterwolf” is because he has both butterfly wings and a wolf tail, and Captain for the helmet and the ammo on his belt.

  49. Zaxares says:

    Actually, I think both Tsunami and Allison Chains would make great character concepts for a more light-hearted, silly approach to superheroing. :D

    And truly, Captain Butterwolf is a specimen of such hideous travesty and magnitude that I’m compelled to ask… “Are you SURE your friend didn’t create him deliberately?”

  50. I want more on Allison Chains, perhaps a story set against the time her band got booked as a emo band for a villain bar or something.

    And a description of her powerset.

  51. Nyaz says:

    I’m not sure I would want to be rescued by Captain Butterwolf… urgh…

  52. TSED says:

    @Sparty:

    Have you played with the creator in-game? The things on his arms and legs are genuine chains, not barbed wire. The ‘rock skin’ is actually rock skin; it merely doesn’t have the texture applied to the rest of him.

    His hands are the tentacle hands option.

    His arms are arms with some tubes on top. ‘Cybernetic implants’ are what it’s called in-game.

    He did describe it accurately, from an in-game POV.

    And yes, everyone who’s gotten the game is familiar with the character creator because COME ON SERIOUSLY YOU ASK WHY?

  53. MelTorefas says:

    *tears of joy or possibly intense mental anguish*

  54. Duncan says:

    Man, I want to try this game.

    But it’s Windows only. Gah.

  55. Andrew says:

    @TESD & Sparty:
    I can’t even look at the guy for more than 30 seconds without crying. How on earth did you withstand looking at him long enough to actually analyze him?

  56. ps238principal says:

    You really should play “The Lemurian Crisis” that leads to what you call “Atlantis.” It’s ripe for material, especially the boss villain.

    I don’t know if the “trick” to defeating her/it is still the same (as they’ve changed several things with each release), but if they haven’t, it’s one of the most counter-intuitive mechanics I’ve seen this side of killing the thief in “Zork.”

  57. TSED says:

    @Andrew:
    Simple. It’s not actually that ugly. It’s not particularly aesthetically pleasing, but he has a certain charm about him.

    People who cow and whine about their eyes on the internet have got to be over reactors.

    Either that or I have some sort of freakishly powerful fortitude / will saves going on. Maybe I’ve got a bunch of class levels?

  58. jubuttib says:

    Traska: There’s a somewhat agreed upon term for that type of cartoons already, at least here they’re called pseudo-anime, even in printed media.

    Anyway, Allison Chains instantly reminded me of Sailor Nothing by Stefan Gagne. I stumbled upon it while stuck on yet another excursion in the endless maze that is TVTropes. It deconstructs the whole mahou shoujo genre pretty hard. Are you sure you haven’t read it Shamus?

  59. Lord Xyfets says:

    Hooo…
    Could NOT stop laughing at Butterwolf. Classic. :D

  60. Cain says:

    iJolt reminds me of my own Art Deco themed electric heroine: D’ecollewattage. She shoots lightning from her cleavage.

  61. Gildan Bladeborn says:

    Captain Butterwolf had/has me laughing so hard it’s starting to hurt, he’s just so ridiculous! And yet I know that had I inadvertently created a character like him, it would instantly be my main for the sheer absurdity of it, heh.

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