Today's entry on the Champions Online Daily News official blog is a lengthy column by Design Director Bill Roper discussing how Champions will be different from other MMOs currently on the shelves. He says perhaps the biggest difference between his superhero game and other MMOs is the level of customization players can enjoy as they create their characters. As opposed to a fantasy game, where you're told exactly what spells and abilities you can learn, Champions gives you access to all the powers in tha game and tells you to make a hero.

"The lesson we’ve learned from looking at the games that have been released in the last few years is that you must create an experience that is unique, but that feels natural to the player. And you must give the player as much ability to customize and create as possible. Everyone who plays Champions Online will enjoy a unique experience, and that’s the key difference for me."

Roper also says there's more levels of combat scaling in Champions. For example, you could be fighting one powerful villain or a large groupof henchmen. Check out his full column below.

It’s impossible to launch an MMO and NOT take the time to think about the games that have come before. It’s impossible, specifically, to avoid spending time thinking about World of Warcraft in terms of its achievements, its design, its audience and its status as a very strong competitor.

Some games are more fully a direct competitor with WoW than others. Warhammer Online was always going to be a more direct competitor to WoW than Champions Online. It’s a fantasy setting. It’s got orcs. It’s got dwarves. To a certain degree, it feels similar to WoW. Conan was a competitor because it’s a fantasy setting. You’ve got fjords and shields and magic spells and rogues and wizards. You’ve got core fantasy components and very similar mechanics in terms of combat, how many guys you’re fighting at one time.

Champions Online has a very different focus. Perhaps the biggest difference is the customization that is available which is such a core element of the superhero genre. In a classic fantasy, MMO progress is all item driven - you’re going up in levels so you can get the next level of loot, but when you get to the level cap, every warrior or character class looks the same because they’ve all gone out and there and won the same loot.

So all their equipment looks exactly the same. The difference in their character is going to be whether they’re a big brawny guy or maybe a smaller guy. It’s going to be a silhouette but every piece of gear they have is probably going to be the same. My top end fighter looks just like everybody else’s top end fighter.

In a game like Champions Online it’s about being able to create an iconic character. That’s something really unique and makes it a very different type of game. Of course I want to be finding gear and equipment and items and costume pieces and these things that I can use to make my character better. But I can create an iconic look for my character and if I never want to change it I never have to. I am able to equip these different upgrades and elect not to show them off so that my character looks the same as when I created him or her.

In Champions Online we want to give you as many choices as possible to make a really unique hero that stands out and is iconic in the world.

There are also differences in combat. You’re running around as a solo hero and you see a pack of three or four thugs and henchmen and you wade in there and duke it out with them. Or maybe you fight two or three lieutenant level guys. Or you fight a more powerful villain or a master villain.

It’s represented more naturally with the fact that when designing characters we expect you to fight up to four or five guys at the same time or smaller numbers of more powerful enemies. There are more layers of combat scaling. You’re a superhero, after all.

Okay, so to a certain degree all MMOs are about applying damage to an enemy. But presentation is extremely important. You could have two games that were using exactly the same game mechanic but seem very different because of the look and feel.

Arguably, the concept behind World of Warcraft was ‘let’s make the best Everquest possible’ and that’s what they did and they were massively successful in doing it. There’s no real difference in the game mechanics at the core. You have various defined character classes and they work together and they fight guys. There are subtle differences but the core mechanic is the same; the difference is just in presentation.

You could try to argue that fantasy spells and Champions Online superpowers are kind of the same thing but there are huge differences in presentation, of course, but also in the fact that you’re not restricted by a peer class system.

If I’m playing a fantasy MMO, I’m maybe taking a wizard, so here are the spells a wizard can learn and those are the only ones they can learn. In Champions Online we say ‘here are all the powers in the game – go make a hero’. You can make your hero into anything you want, with any number of powers combinations.

If I want to stick to a power set and I want to make my guys go deep into all the fire-based stuff, that’s fine. I can make an awesome hero out of just the fire-power set. But I can also mix it up. I can have some fire and some ice and whatever else I want. This is a huge difference from what we’ve seen before in MMOs, where characters classes are restricted and their progress is largely pre-defined.

At this point certain things - some game mechanics or UI for example - are standardized in the MMO space. You know that if you see an exclamation point above an NPC’s head he has a quest for you. There is no point in trying to come up with some other wacky symbol or some other way of doing that.

But that doesn’t mean you don’t also then come up with other methods to give players missions or quests. The trick is to know what works just fine, but also look for new ways to entertain and progress the game design and innovate.

The lesson we’ve learned from looking at the games that have been released in the last few years is that you must create an experience that is unique, but that feels natural to the player. And you must give the player as much ability to customize and create as possible. Everyone who plays Champions Online will enjoy a unique experience, and that’s the key difference for me.