The latest in a continuing series called "Ask Cryptic" has been posted at the Champions Online site. Fans are given the opportunity to ask questions of developers and have the answers publicly published on the site. This week features questions about character creation, villains, updates and combat. Check it all out:

There's been a little talk about some of the "dynamic new combat systems" being used, such as in Age of Conan. But what about those of us who don't have the refined reflexes of a belligerent teenager playing the latest FPS gankfest? Will there be a means by which those of us with mediocre hand-eye coordination & typing skills can still participate and feel that we're pulling our own weight, or will we be relegated to observer status? (Starhammer)

Jackalope (Chief Creative Officer): Rest assured, Starhammer. I confess that I have little, if any, hand-eye coordination (though my typing isn't so bad). We're not trying to create systems as complicated as say, a fighting game, where every twitch of the hand creates a new baffling maneuver. We're trying to create a system with more depth than "click A and pray," but not so much that old-school gamers can't keep up. One of our principles for combos, for instance, is never do anything that takes more than 3 button presses to execute.

How flexible is the game engine when it comes to updates and upgrades? We have faced a lot of situations in CoH where the answer to questions has been "it's just not possible because is hardcoded that way"? Are more features now soft coded in such way that it is later easier to expand on them? I.e. if customizable emitter locations are not possible initially, is the system created in such manner that they can be added later on? (Northlander)

poz (Director of Game Programming): Champions Online is built on Cryptic's new (and incredibly awesome) second-generation MMO engine. The major focus of the engine upgrade was making it much more general and data-driven. This lets the dev team modify all sorts of elements in the game that they've never been able to easily modify before. Besides giving a lot more power to the design team in general, this also lets us iterate and try new ideas a lot faster.

Will solo players still get to fight costumed villains? CoH dropped the ball on this one with their scalable content by having soloers mostly fight lieutenants instead of named bosses. They eventually brought in Elite Bosses, but something along these lines needs to be available from the outset. Not necessarily the top bosses, but at least a costume alternative (not just another cookie cutter thug with a different powerset). (Lionheart)

Arkayne (Lead Designer): You bet, Lionheart! Champions Online is full of custom-made super-powered villains you can fight one-on-one as well as more powerful ones that require a focused team of heroes to defeat. Even from the early stages of the game you'll fight unique costumed villains - but you might have to fight past their evil henchman to get to them first!

Will you pay careful attention to NPC/mob escalation and work to avoid situations where, as in some other MMOs, my mid-level "superhero" ends up fighting Tommy-gun wielding mobsters, sword-obsessed gang punks, and chapped-off miners (i.e., opponents traditionally more appropriate for a lower-level heroes)? Additionally, will you be designing overall content so that NPC skins aren't reused throughout the games levels (which results in situations where, say, a Nazi soldier mob type that gives me challenge level 20 is appears at level 40 and gives me an equal challenge - tainting the illusion of my character's growth in power?) (MarvelZombie)

Arkayne: We are definitely watching for this, MarvelZombie. We believe it is very important to give players a sense of progression as they play the game. Even the predominant villain groups found everywhere the Champions Universe, like VIPER, escalate in power as you encounter them throughout the game, ranging from the rank-and-file foot soldiers with uniforms and simple munitions to assault troopers with power armor and rocket launchers.

You guys have mentioned under game features that every villain has its own unique abilities and combat specialties and that you will need to use your head. Does this mean that boss battles will be much more like console games where there is actual fun interactivity and strategy needed to defeat them instead of the high HP slugfests where you simply stand and deliver that happens in most other MMOs? (cbeaulieu)

Heretic (Lead Powers Designer): Our goal is to minimize the frequency of hit point slugfests wherever feasible, particularly with boss battles, but sometimes even with lesser ranked mobs as well. Strategy, teamwork, character builds and tactics should all be factors.

The exact way each of these elements will factor in will vary. Sometimes this will mean blocking at the right time, sometimes it will mean changing your target priority in the middle of a fight and sometimes it will mean interspacing world geometry between you and the flurry of energy beams trying to cut you down.

We are working to incentivize movement and choices. When that mob charges up, do I have time to try to move behind that pillar, or should I block and reduce most of the damage? That villain is doing tons of damage, but he is lifetapping his henchmen - do I target the villain or the henchmen first? We've already talked about how many powers can be charged up - frequently charging up a power will increase or otherwise modify how wide the radius or area of effect is.

Is eye color going to be a costume option? (GhostHack)

Absinthe (Lead Character Artist): Yep! Players will be able to change the pupil and the whites of their eyes. In addition, they will be able to make them glow any color they choose.

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