And we're sort of back

So, with the hopes of me getting into the WAR beta dwindling, my MMO addiction manifested itself in the most unlikely of ways recently, with me giving City of Heroes a second look. Yeah, it surprised me too.

I had previously played from launch to somewhere before Issue 3 came out. So WAY before City if Villians, way before the Invention system, or PvP, or much of anything other than the kickass character generator and the ability to run around and punch the same guy forever. I had heard from several people that it was a much deeper game now, and still fun, so I figured what the hell.

So I reactivated my CoH account, grabbed CoV from direct2drive, and started up a villain. She's an Ice/Dark Corrupter on Justice, named Winter Soulstice if you wanna hit me up. I'm only up to level 11, due in part to the fact that I haven't had tons of time to play, and in part to the fact that the character generator is STILL so kickass that I make tons of alts that are sitting at level 2-4 just because I wanted to make them. So in addition to my "main", I also have a Zombies/Poison Mastermind (Mama Nightshade), a Superstrength/Electric Brute (Cardiak), and a Storm/Dark Defender (Darkyn Stormy). When Issue 11 hits tomorrow, I'll make an Archery/Devices Blaster, almost solely because I can have a compound bow with a purple laser sight, which is extremely pimpin. Or, you know, maybe I'll try to actually level my main, since there's tons of options and customization stuff that pops up at 20+.

Thats the strange thing about CoX. I find myself SO EXCITED about cosmetic and prestige stuff like costume options, wings, auras, cool looking new alts, etc, that I don't really think very much about the game. I mean, I do a bit of forum sharking for good builds and thinking about what powers to take, but when I look forward to level 20, it's not because I get Stamina. It's because I get a second costume slot. In other games I didn't really care too much about that. I cared a bit, in terms of trying to get matching sets of armor or buying expensive dyes, but it was an afterthought when there was nothing else to do at endgame. Here I'm not even at the point where people say "the game really starts" and I'm already planning 2nd costumes for characters and planning multiple other alts just based on appearance or cool names or powersets. I want to play around with a stalker, and the new Dual Blades looks neat as well.

Is the supers genre just that much more fun to customize than the fantasy genre? Would I have the same amount of fun doing this if it were a fantasy game (or a sci-fi game, or whatever) with the same level of visual customization? Is it the fact that no other game has the diversity to have a team consisting of a spandex-clad Golden Age cliche, a fallen angel, a werewolf, a gritty elven archer, and an army of ninjas? Or is it something more than that?