What do you really think of Champions Online?

[hooligan x]

Hehe. Well I tend to play in the mornings as my wow group takes my evening time.
But I'll let you know next time I'm on.

I tend to work or sleep in the mornings. Tomorrow, it will probably be both.

[Nolgroth]

BTW, has anyone gotten the voice chat to work?

No. I just use TeamSpeak.

[Pattern Ghost]

I think I responded to this thread a looong time ago, about my experiences at launch. I guess I should give an update. I'm now playing as a Silver status account.

First, my impressions of the graphics for the character models hasn't changed. They still pretty much suck. However, since I'm now actually able to play the game, I've noticed that the MS that the females suffer from isn't quite as obvious when they're in motion, so at least that isn't too distracting. I was annoyed that when my high tech character whose costume took me a couple hours to tweak back at launch was converted to a Silver archetype, almost every single costume piece was removed from her model. With NO warning dialogue. Apparently, the parts I used are now parts of various costume packs. Since those were all parts that shipped on release, I call (NSF)Spoiler:

show spoiler

bullshit

on that. I paid for the box to subsidize the creation of those parts, they could have taken the high road and only put NEW pieces into their freaking costume bundles. I'm not going to spit out another twenty bucks worth of points to rebuild a costume. If I even could. Damned thing took a lot of digging through their menus to make.

It seems like some of the major game engine performance problems I experienced at release have been smoothed out substantially. I think they may have also overhauled the combat system, too, as it seems much more fluid now. Overall, a MUCH better experience in controlling the characters.

As a returning player, my character was moved out of the desert and into the city. (He was only level 6; the game was virtually unplayable for me before.) I really, really like the look of Millennium City. It looks BIG. Until you hit a wall and it all turns into black and white. Which is ALSO cool. I still don't like the models for the vehicles much, but I suspect if you get enough STR you can throw them around, and that may have been a concession for that purpose. CO does have a lot more diversity in vehicle models than CoH, though, and slightly more realistic numbers of them to give an impression of traffic. Overall, I like the graphics for most of the stuff in the world, and the impression of it being a world.

My current system is a 24" iMac that's going on 3 years old. It has a mobile gForce 8800GS with discrete RAM (I think 512MB), and an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.8mhz. It's not exactly a beastly system, more like what used to be a beefy notebook, really. The video card is not as good as my now dead desktop PC, but the CPU is MUCH faster. So, I'm not sure how much performance to attribute to better hardware (i.e., whether this is a CPU intensive game or a GPU intensive game), but it's running quite well on pretty modest hardware.

I've heard the game still has some bugs that need to be fixed, but I haven't been playing enough to notice any. I'm pretty much still on the tutorial stage, running a few of the archetypes through the tutorial and a little in MC to see how I like them. (They all seem to play well enough, given they only have 3 active powers at level 6 plus the travel power.)

As for the free to play model: I think they may have screwed up a little. The only real incentive to go Gold seems to be free form characters. They already have sixteen archetypes available. Every archetype they release just gives casual players who don't want to learn the character building system another reason not to go Gold.

And going Gold is important in this type of hybrid model. Pure cash shop Asian MMOs get a good influx of money because of their HUGE player bases. Some of them make WoW seem puny by comparison. However, the hybrid model that was started (or at least started the trend of A-list games going hybrid) by Turbine is meant for games with a lot lower populations.

There's no way any studio can produce enough new content to satisfy its players. Once everything is bought, then the player is ahead of the subscription. Since companies live and die by repeat business, a game company with a smaller player base needs people to convert to subs. Players already know that it's more cost effective to buy up all the parts of the game that they want or need versus a sub. So the subscribers need to have a very juicy perk to get those conversions.

Now, Cryptic undoubtedly has the numbers on this, but my concern is they will reach market saturation with those who want free form, since the more serious or hard core players are usually the minority in an MMO population.

I think what they need is more gated content, as well as a perk or two more for going Gold. The reason I went VIP (sub) on DDO is that I like having access to all of the content. I could simply buy all the content packs, but it's easier on the budget to spread out the cost, plus I can get it all NOW. Maybe time will take care of that one, as it takes time to produce the content.

As far as the store goes, I'm kind of ambivalent. While on the one hand, they seem to be giving away too much (for example, the comic book missions could have been gated content), they also seem stingy. The example above about making costume parts that were available on release unavailable for a former box purchaser is one example. There is no middle ground between totally free player and subscriber.

Turbine has Free, Premium, and VIP. Once you've spent some real money on the game, whether by buying points or by buying a boxed product. That Premium status gets you access to more stuff than a totally free player, like lifting chat, auction, and e-mail restrictions, raising the money cap, additional character slots, continued access to content that shipped with your box purchase (!), etc. VIP gets you access to almost all gated content, all race options, and most class options. This gives people at least some incentive to make that first point purchase and spend real money on the game. CO lacks that.

Another peeve with the CO model is that they don't give any discounts for purchasing larger point bundles. Every point you buy will cost you $0.0125. I haven't been paying attention long enough to notice if they ever run sales on Cryptic point bundles. The lack of any level of bulk discount makes them look cheap, even while they're giving away the farm.

Overall, their cash shop system is kind of odd, and I'll be interested to see if they can make it work, or if they'll tweak it. On the other hand, they give away quite a bit for free, so there seems like plenty to do for a Silver account, which is nice. I do plan to spend at least a few bucks on the cash shop, because I still have some birthday money burning a hole in my pocket, and because I'm pleased with the improvements that have been made so far, and hope they can fix anything else that needs fixing.

[danbuter1]

I had quit playing the end of last year, when there were some serious issues about things. I started up again last month, and I think the game has improved quite a bit since then. If the game was released today as is, it would have been a hit. Too bad it was only half-finished when it was released 2 years ago.

[Peace]

I like the game.

I started with the public beta and unless I'm away on vacation I'm in-game multiple hours a week and nearly every night. I am a pre-launch life time subscriber.

Strengths:
- Character creation from a powers point of view
- Character creation from a costuming point of view
- Cohesive content
- Solid look and feel in the graphics

Weaknesses:
- Redundancy of missions from a mutliple Alt point of view
- Challenge level of content is fairly low in most instances
- Limited differences in designing the facial look of human characters
- Lack of real archtypes limit need for teaming

Prior to playing Champions Online I had played City of Heroes for most of five years. I actually like the older game's character costume/look design system better as I could get a greater variety of appearances in human characters. However, the power set design in CO is far superior. Still with that superiority comes the challenge that a person can design a balanced character that needs no other to do the missions in the game. An MMO without the need of teaming is less multiplayer and more just a game with a chat system.

My thoughts. Your mileage may vary.

- Peace -

[Tech]

I haven't read every post - and I definitely do not have the time to dig through all the forums on the Champions Online forums - but I have a concern about the game: where's the marketing and publicity??

[RexMundi]

It's Cryptic. They don't do that. Now that Perfect World owns them, they'll do even less. BUT, you can play a Jedi clone there now on the f2p set up ....

~Rex....considering dumping his gold account...... may give it another month....

[Alleyne]

I think that Cryptic will start advertising for CO once all the new stat changes and such are done.

Really, I just wish that there was more HERO Lore and that the PnP guys would have more say in how things of that nature in the game are actually implemented :/

Vanguard was not an archer...that whole debacle could have been avoided with enough communication.

[Pattern Ghost]

The wiki says:

Explorer and anthropologist Jeffrey Sinclair discovered a mysterious Tibetan palace containing a strange golden statue which transformed him into the powerhouse superhero Vanguard. At one time leader of the superteam Justice Squadron and a partner to the mystic hero Drifter, Vanguard was considered the single most powerful hero in the world. He had also had several brutal altercations with Dr. Destroyer, and was counted among Dr. Destroyer's greatest enemies.


Vanguard died in the opening moments of what became the Battle of Detroit, using his great strength to stop an asteroid heading for earth, sacrificing himself in the process.

Did they have him as an archer at first and then change it?

[Alleyne]

The wiki says:


Did they have him as an archer at first and then change it?

The wikis are all fan run. As far as the actual NPC, of whom I've never seen since I didn't really try Blood Moon, I'm not sure if they have changed it or not.

[sinanju]

Well, I just started playing the FTP version. So far I'm enjoying it. I'm playing a Behemoth (Iron Maiden), and still figuring out what the heck I'm doing. (CO, like Star Trek Online, is severely lacking in useful tips on how things work. I went through the tutorial, but that only gives you the basics. When it comes to what you SHOULD be doing--what powers/etc to buy, when to buy them, what not to bother with, etc.--you're on your own.

After I finished the tutorial, I went to the Powerhouse and acquired some trinkets. Then went on a mission to deal with the Purple Gang and got my ass handed to me over and over and over and over and over. Eventually, thru the use of Google Fu and the CO Wiki, I discovered that I hadn't actually EQUIPPED the stuff I'd gotten from the Powerhouse. Once I did that, I did a lot better at surviving battles. Thanks for telling that, CO. Not.

Still, I am having fun with it. Playing solo, though. Teaming up might be nice, but I don't know any other players and don't pay much attention to the chat window.

[Pattern Ghost]

Here's a post on the Behemoth archetype in a Might (the power set the Behemoth uses) guide:

http://forums.champions-online.com/s...53&postcount=7

Should be a good starting point. Rest of the thread probably worth a perusal.

I wouldn't worry about getting into too much research at this point, as the stat system is getting a major overhaul soon.

[Pattern Ghost]

The wikis are all fan run. As far as the actual NPC, of whom I've never seen since I didn't really try Blood Moon, I'm not sure if they have changed it or not.

Still, they usually rip the flavor text right out of the game, so assuming it once said that somewhere. Or not. The CO wikis aren't the best out there.

[Alleyne]

Still, they usually rip the flavor text right out of the game, so assuming it once said that somewhere. Or not. The CO wikis aren't the best out there.

This is very true, and I have been doing the recent blood moon and no. No they have not. Vanguard is still an archer...

And Amazing Grace apparently saw a religious apparition in a piece of toast, and at that very moment a meteor fell to earth, thus causing a power surge, and thus causing the toaster to electrocute her giving her super powers...which she attributed to a miracle.
Thats, y'know, totally how Champions Universe said how it happened.

[Certified]

This is very true, and I have been doing the recent blood moon and no. No they have not. Vanguard is still an archer...

And Amazing Grace apparently saw a religious apparition in a piece of toast, and at that very moment a meteor fell to earth, thus causing a power surge, and thus causing the toaster to electrocute her giving her super powers...which she attributed to a miracle.
Thats, y'know, totally how Champions Universe said how it happened.

Alright, I'll bite, what was the pre-CO cannon on Amazing Grace?