Champions Online Options

[Tanegar]

I am loving this game. The character system beats City of Heroes/Villains by a mile, largely by allowing you to mix and match powers from different sets. Want to make a blatant Ryu-ripoff martial artist who also throws fireballs? You can. Want a pistol-packing gunslinger who also raises the dead? You can do that, too, and also create a thematically appropriate costume quite easily. Champions Online also curbstomps CoX by giving you your travel power right away, rather than making you wait until level 20. There's lots of content: three colossal megazones available as soon as you leave your newbie area, full of contacts and missions, plus the mission journal includes a handy-dandy "crime computer" that lists all the NPCs who have missions appropriate to your level. You won't lack for things to do. Performance is generally quite good, with the important caveat that on a major content-release day and for a few days thereafter, Millennium City is a hell of rubberbanding.

Finally, two points really sell this game for me: the lack of focus on gear, and the sidekick system. You simply don't grind for gear in Champions Online. Rather than the yawnworthy head, torso, arms, legs, etc., slots we all got tired of years ago, you have nine abstract slots: a primary Offense, two secondary Offenses, primary Defense and two secondaries, and primary Utility and two secondaries. These generally only contribute stat boosts, although occasionally will change the way one or more powers behaves. As you play, you will find items appropriate to your powers and level, and that's the end of it. There are no gear checks, nobody lording their Holy Divine Celestial Full Plate Armor of Wankery +10 over you.

The other thing is sidekicking. In every team, there is the team leader and the team champion (not necessarily the same person). If you right-click on your own portrait and select "Start sidekicking," your level is temporarily adjusted to match the level of the team champion. That's right: you don't have to worry about outleveling your friends or being outleveled. Any character of any level can contribute to any mission of any level. You don't get any new powers if your level goes up while sidekicking, but you gain level-appropriate hit points and your powers function as if they would at the new level. You can also sidekick down to a lower level in order to avoid killing your teammates' XP gain. Why every MMO in existence doesn't do this, I cannot fathom.

The player base is generally mature and helpful; I have yet to encounter any aggressive dickwads in the three weeks or so I've been playing. Not sure if I'll hold true to form and get bored with it before my free 30 days are up, but I'm still looking forward to the things I haven't seen or done.

[Doc Chase]

Interesting. I enjoyed CoX for all the powers, but upgrading was always incredibly expensive. The other MMO's I try/play, with the exception of WoW, always had trouble with grouping. Whenever I needed to, people weren't around. STO had a nice auto-group feature for missions and Fleet Actions, but it was buggy. Blerg.

How does CO rate in regards to grouping and the social aspect?

[Tanegar]

I've never had difficulty finding a group when I wanted to, and the folks I've grouped with have been refreshingly non-douchelike. Upgrading in CO is free: you go to a Powerhouse, talk to a trainer, and pick your new power/talent (stat boost)/advantage(s) (optional features for your powers) and there you go. No cost in resources.

[Doc Chase]

Hm. I am a fan of the superhero genre. I may look at it later. I still have to play through New Vegas, however, and Cata drops in 45 days.

[Yama King]

I like champions.. but there is not enough content imho. They should create player made missions ala COx. A stroke of GENIUS in my opinion.

That's right... GENIUS!

-YK

[TommyTwoToes]

I like champions.. but there is not enough content imho. They should create player made missions ala COx. A stroke of GENIUS in my opinion.

That's right... GENIUS!

-YK

Although I also liked the play made missions, they tend to drown out the game's main storylines. Folks ended up just playing farmign missions in CoX to level.

I agree they need more content, to level up you really need to do every mission in the game.

[KarmaInferno]

I have a lifetime sub to Champions, but have been sticking to CoX for two main reasons:

1. I have a regular super-group that I hang out with there.

2. I like base building.

I have also been a little disappointed at Cryptic's business model of "Push the game live as soon as it's playable and we'll finish the rest as we go".



-k

[Voran]

I have a lifetime sub to Champions, but have been sticking to CoX for two main reasons:

1. I have a regular super-group that I hang out with there.

2. I like base building.

I have also been a little disappointed at Cryptic's business model of "Push the game live as soon as it's playable and we'll finish the rest as we go".



-k

I can agree with that sentiment. I did some light beta (I think..it was awhile ago) and pondered going lifer on subscription, but decided against it. I have to say that I enjoyed the experience for the most-part, but maxxed level rather quickly and sorta ran out of things to do. Did some nemesis stuff, was there for the halloweeny zombie stuff with the undead heroes etc. But I also heavily noticed the cryptic "put it out, we'll see if we can add stuff later' approach. My interest waned and then my subscrip ran out.

On the other hand, I'm a lifer over at Star Trek Online, they use the same model, 'go live, but not complete'. But being lifer allows me to play a couple months, leave a couple months and come back when new content opens up. Maybe I'll jump into champions again someday, but I doubt it. Though I think I'm just a masochist, as I've already pre-ordered DC online...I'd just like to find a stable, storied superhero game that I can call home.

[MortVent]

Well just got an email.

Be thankful if you didn't get the lifetime membership. (unless they do like Lotro did, where my lifetime means free points and lots of bonuses and permant vip)

They are going free to play after the first of the new year (1st quarter of 2011)

[KarmaInferno]

Yeah, the "free" Silver accounts will have restrictions on them, with the option to "buy off" some of the restrictions via microtransactions.

Lifetime and Pay-per-month Gold members will continue to get full access to everything and premium treatment. Four times the character slots, access to premium powers and costume parts, priority logins, etc.

The big one is only Gold accounts can mix and match powers from multiple powersets - Silver accounts can only select whole pre-packaged powersets instead of individual powers.

It still feels like a raw deal, though



-k

[Karoline]

Yeah, the "free" Silver accounts will have restrictions on them, with the option to "buy off" some of the restrictions via microtransactions.

Lifetime and Pay-per-month Gold members will continue to get full access to everything and premium treatment. Four times the character slots, access to premium powers and costume parts, priority logins, etc.

The big one is only Gold accounts can mix and match powers from multiple powersets - Silver accounts can only select whole pre-packaged powersets instead of individual powers.

It still feels like a raw deal, though



-k

The pre-packaged thing kind of sucks. Seems like on of the big draws of the game is the ability to mix and match. I wonder if you can buy it off or not.

Personally I like the 'free to play but buy some options' model if it is done right.

DDO for instance does it right. It is entirely viable to go from level 1 to 20 (max) without buying anything, and most things that you can buy won't actually help you very much. What you get from the things you buy is options. You gain access to a wider verity of quests (so you don't get bored), more race and class options, and a few perks like extra storage space (Oh, and you can buy bonus xp stuff so you level faster and some healing items which are generally available in game). But there is really nothing that you can look at on a character gameplay wise and say that the person is or isn't a free-to-play account. There isn't any sort of 'you must pay to play effectively' like so many other games that use the model. And awesomely enough, you can get 'pay to play points' from in game actions, as well as unlock certain features such as some races/classes and such.

Not entirely sure if Champions is going to go this route, or the seemingly more popular "You must spend hundreds of dollars if you want to be in end game, give us your money! RAWR!"

[Thanee]

They are going free to play after the first of the new year (1st quarter of 2011)

Neat! Gonna have to try it, when they make the change. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Bye
Thanee

[Doc Chase]

Neat! Gonna have to try it, when they make the change. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Bye
Thanee

Ditto. We'll make a prepackaged super-team!

Wonder powers activate, and all that.

[Karoline]

Ditto. We'll make a prepackaged super-team!

Wonder powers activate, and all that.

I'll join. We get to be evil right? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/devil.gif)

[Doc Chase]

I don't see why not. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[Karoline]

Oh, just noticed it is the same group that does DDO. Hopefully that means they'll do alright with it.

[KarmaInferno]

Same publisher (Atari), different development house.

DDO is Turbine.

CO is Cryptic Studios, the guys who did Star Trek Online and City of Heroes.




-k

[Karoline]

Oh, well... somewhat less hope then, but maybe they can glance over at how well turbine is doing (AFAIK) with DDO and take some notes.

[Karoline]

Well, that kind of sucks. You can't get past the tutorial with a trial account. You don't even get more than those first two powers. Now I think I'm just going to play around with the costumes for a few hours.

Edit: How much is a lifetime membership?

[Tanegar]

Well, that kind of sucks. You can't get past the tutorial with a trial account. You don't even get more than those first two powers. Now I think I'm just going to play around with the costumes for a few hours.

Edit: How much is a lifetime membership?

Wait, what? I'm reasonably sure I got past the tutorial on my trial. Maybe they changed it. Anyway, lifetime subscriptions are no longer available for CO; the monthly rate is $14.99; I went with $29.99 every three months. In good news, the massive rubberbanding that plagued Millennium City after the recent release of the Demonflame adventure pack has been fixed. Yay, responsive devs!

If any of you care to look me up, my handle is @Hakkonen.

[Karoline]

Hmm, I'll try again, but every time I tried getting into a chopper it just pulled up ads to buy the game and talked about continuing my adventure.

My characters are Feonia and Karoline. Not sure which one I'm going to continue with if I can in fact get past the tutorial.

[Karoline]

Yep, have to get the full game to get out of the starting area, which is fairly lame, as that limits you to around level 6 and you never get any powers beyond your first. It gives a decent idea about the basic gameplay, but I think seeing the improved powers and such is a kind of important part of the game. Real shame when you max out the trial in an hour or so.

[Tanegar]

Well, CO is available through Steam for $19.99 and includes 30 days of play. Dunno how much it is on disc.

[Karoline]

Well, CO is available through Steam for $19.99 and includes 30 days of play. Dunno how much it is on disc.

Yeah, I did see that, but I don't like to pay monthly for games. I'll likely wait till next year when it becomes F2P.

[Thanee]

Cryptic is also doing the next Neverwinter Nights.

I read an interview recently (dunno where, unfortunately), which was quite promising. They havn't done everything right in the past, but they are well aware of that fact, and are very eager to move on and put out some real quality products (of course, everyone would say so, but he did seem honest enough (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) ).

Bye
Thanee