My first Take

[Checkmate]

Way back in the mid 80's there was supposed to be a Champions computer game. I was so excited about it I almost wet myself. I kept looking for it in stores, checking the computer magazine (there was only one back then ) and eventually realized it was Vaporware.

 

Then I heard about City of Heroes, the excitement came back. The developers said that Champions was a huge inspiration, and my excitement increased. Then I got into late Beta, and it was awesome... for a week. The next week it was neat, then it was kinda cool, then I realized it was 50 levels of the exact same thing.

 

I mention all of that so you understand the excitement I felt when I heard there would be Champions MMO.

 

Let me start by saying I haven't made it very far into the game at all. There are whole aspects I haven't tried yet, and unfortuately I probably never will.

 

When you first load up the game and go through character creation, it's some pretty exciting times. You see how customizable things are you can choose power sets or mix and match your own. None of the power sets were really mind blowing, the typical Fire, Ice, Electricity, Martial Arts, 1 sword, 2 sword etc. Some of the Sorcery choices seemed interesting and you can expect to see a lot of "darker" characters in the likes in Image Comics Spawn. You chose 2 powers to start, and I'll get more into that later.

 

One really nice option is that you can customize your powers. For example, I made an Iceman Tribute (of sorts, he actually has wings and is called Ice Hawk, but I digress). I can go to my powers and choose the color I want my "beam" to be. I can also choose between having it shoot from my palm, chest, head, or fist. This is an OUTSTANDING feature.

 

 

When I got to make my costume I was just a little put off. The style of a lot of the things were either comical are very Anime (which I don't like). This is more of a style preference and some won't be bothered by this at all, but I've never come up with a costume that when I was finished, I sat back and said "That's AWESOME". I've seen one in game that I said that about, and a few that were pretty cool, but they were all power armor types.

 

Then you start the tutorial, it asks what control set up you'd like to use, Fantasy, City of Heroes, or one designed for Champions, I chose the Champions one. There isn't a lot of difference between it and most MMO's, you talk to people, and interact with Z instead of the usual right click, leaving Right click for other options (like Follow, nice addition).

 

As in most MMO's the tutorial starts with teaching about movement and then giving you a "drone" to test your powers on. This is where you learn that one powers does a little damage but recharges your END, and the other is "Chargeable" (hold the left mouse button down to charge the power) and does more damage and uses the END. The low damage is likened to Auto Attack in other MMO's.

 

There are differnces between the powersets, for example the Ice power set chargeable power uses ALL your END if you charge it all the way up, and the Archery one, uses only a small amount of END but seems to be interruptable.

 

The tutorial stories and missions are all typical of any MMO, defeat these mobs to find this, find this glowing object on the ground etc. and the stories are fine, nothing ground breaking, but certianly better than some. You level up and get more health and END, but you don't get new powers until you leave the tutorial.

 

That's the facts (as I see them anyway) now for my opinion:

As much as I want to love this game, it just isn't fun. It doesn't excite me in the least. The powersets seem bland, and none of them have my wanting to level up just to see what they do. Combat consists of clicking the one key (auto attack) charge up your big punch, wait for END to come back, charge up your big punch etc.

 

The one thing that does have me intrigued is there seems to be non-combat skills and/or crafting. I saw evidence of things like Alchemy and Mysticisim and am sure there must be more, so I intend to check that out this weekend, but I'm not hopeful. Right now, I'm just having more fun with other MMO's.

[Zed-F]

Re: My first Take

 

Just as a note -- you have to get past the tutorial and the first crisis zone (or both of them) for the game to really get going. I know I didn't feel like my beta character had even a basic suite of tools to choose from in combat until the late teens, and the same has held true since launch. Also, you don't get into relatively open areas with a significant selection of things to do until that time either.

 

You can't just hop in the game, play an hour or two, and come to an informed decision based on that. (You can come to a decision but it won't be sufficiently informed.) It really requires several hours of playtime at least to get a decent impression.

[Checkmate]

Re: My first Take

 

Which is why I made all that perfectly clear in my post. However I can tell you it isn't fun. When I played Star Wars Galaxies for an hour, I thought "this is fun", when I played Everquest 2 for an hour I thought "This is fun", when I played Vanguard for an hour I thought "This is fun", ect. Later on I may have hated the game, but the first few hours into it, I thought it was fun, or at least entertaining enough to get further into it. First hour of Champions I thought "This just isn't fun". Am I informed enough to tell the intricacies of the game? Of course not. Do I know every aspect of the game? Nope, and even stated as much in my post.

[Steve]

Re: My first Take

 

The tutorial scenario has some funny bits, but it was mainly run around and do tasks. I didn't start having fun in beta until I got to the Desert Crisis scenario and afterwards.

 

I tried the Canada scenario, and it was less fun to me than the Desert Crisis.

 

Millenium City was fun for me, although as a former COH player, it had this weird feeling of deja vu to it.

[archermoo]

Re: My first Take

 

To each their own. I've been being highly entertained by it since the closed beta.

[Guest Celt]

Re: My first Take

 

As said, things don't really start picking up until afte the Crisis, which seem like extensions of the tutorial to me. I prefer the Canada to the desert, but (playing tip) you can do the missions in both up until the final boss mission versus Gigaton or Rakshasa. For each new character I do both zone mission sets, and select the final boss based on the character's background and style.

 

I'm a closed beta tester as well, and have gotten the lifetime subscription. I'm very much impressed with the progress made in the game in the months since beta started,and expect it to continue improve. That's not to say I don't see flaws in gameplay now or limits that need to be pushed out, but I'm currently quite satisfied and glad Cryptic and DoJ came together.

[SvZurich]

Re: My first Take

 

You can kill both final bosses (Canada and Desert) if you manually leave the instance and return to the Crisis after killing the boss and do not turn it in. I've been killing Gigatron, then exiting the cave and doing Canada's Crisis. Once I get Rakshasa down, I end the Crisis, turn Rakshasa in, and go back to the Desert to turn in it's Crisis. Net result is rewards for both bosses and both perks. Might be a bug, but it works.

[Guest Celt]

Re: My first Take

 

You can kill both final bosses (Canada and Desert) if you manually leave the instance and return to the Crisis after killing the boss and do not turn it in. I've been killing Gigatron' date=' then exiting the cave and doing Canada's Crisis. Once I get Rakshasa down, I end the Crisis, turn Rakshasa in, and go back to the Desert to turn in it's Crisis. Net result is rewards for both bosses and both perks. Might be a bug, but it works.[/quote']

 

How do you manually leave the instance and not end up in the post crisis zone?

[SvZurich]

Re: My first Take

 

Walk back to the door to exit the instance. Do not select Dig out. You can go back to the Crisis desert and then just fly to the helicopter to go to Canada.

[cutsleeve]

Re: My first Take