Posts Tagged ‘free for all’

Champions Online: Free for All Character Generator Recap

28 January 2011 | No Comments » | iTZKooPA

One of the main features of the original Champions Online was the ability for a player to make any type of character. Not just visually, but the toon’s playstyle and role could be nit-picked to the last detail. Want to shoot beams out of your chest while dual wielding pistols? You could do that. Fancy lasers firing from your dome and an endless supply of health and/or armor? That was possible too. For better or for worse, the amount of customization meant players could totally gimp their character, just like in Dungeons and Dragons Online.

Guilty as charged.

That’s why the introduction of archetypes for the F2P re-launch are a double-edged sword. There’s so many damage types, abilities and spells present in CO that even seasoned MMOG players can be easily confused. With relatively no barrier to entry for the game, it was wise of Cryptic Studios to create a diverse set of pre-built roles for the flood of new players. Structure and direction are very good attributes for newbies. The other edge is forcing players to pay for the most-touted aspect of the game, complete freedom over character development and playstyle.

We’ll have to wait and see how that monetary choice turns out, but as the video shows there’s still plenty of customization present in the character generator. And even the archetypes give players some semblance of diversification. It just happens to be very late in one’s superhero career.

And if you’re looking for a wager; I expect Champions Online: Free for All to make Cryptic Studios a bank vault full of money. Just like like DDO and LotRO did for Turbine.

Champions Online: Well, This Sucks

27 January 2011 | 14 Comments » | iTZKooPA

I downloaded, installed and patched Champions Online: Free for All when it re-launched the other day, like thousands of others. Fearing the inevitable crush of the servers, I decided to sit back and enjoy War and Peace the patch notes. The reading was to hype myself up for how much the game has grown since I last logged in to Violet Preston, the gunkata assassin inspired by Equilibrium (amazing action movie) and Ultraviolet (not so much), well over a year ago. Wednesday I attempted to begin her career anew.

Attempted, because I was meet with this little diddy.

That’s exactly the kind of restriction gamers should be afraid of when a title changes its business model. I paid for six months of Champions Online, an early adopter no less, and now my character, albeit far from level cap, is behind bars. Since Violet was created before the re-launch, she’s a completely custom design. For better or worse, she’s an amalgamation of a few different archetypes – marksman, endurance, blade – but it’s the character I wanted to play.

I have two options, either pay to let her out of jail, which means subscribing as long as I want to use her. Or downgrade her from a Gold character – former or current subscriber – to a Silver character to match my Silver account status. The only hurdle to downgrading is being content with placing her in a specific archetype, which means ruining my movie-inspired design. I’m not about to do either, so she’s going to continue to gather dust. As is the installation of Champions Online.

Ideally, I’d like to be able to pay a one-time fee to unlock her for FFA play as she was designed. There’s just no option to do this. Or at least, not one I can find. And I’m completely willing to pay for it. I don’t think it’s asking too much of Cryptic Studios. I would see it as an olive branch from the company to former players. A way of saying thanks and tempting us to return, while still having us play by the new rules (and leeching a quick $5-$10 from us).

I bet there’s numerous former subscribers in this same boat.

You can check out the full offerings from the Champions Online Store, aka C-Store, here.

Champions Online Now Far More Tolerable

25 January 2011 | 5 Comments » | iTZKooPA

It's a flippin' ninja!

It’s no secret that I didn’t have a good experience with Champions Online. So poor was my time with the game that I abandoned it well before my 6-month timeshare was up and shrugged away from Star Trek Online. The title didn’t…resonate with me, to put it politely.

A couple of months ago, Cryptic Studios announced the no-brainer transition to the popular free-to-play model. Like DDO and LotRO before it, the re-launched Champions Online would support itself on the freemium model. Players would jump in the game for free, only having to pay for addition content. While I still believe Cyptic is shooting itself in the foot (which may be in its mouth) by relegating the customization, the game’s best, features to the pay-for category, I expect the “new” game to make bank.

The re-launch, dubbed Champions Online: Free for All is now live (currently, login servers are being hammered).

In fact, there’s a very good chance I’ll dip my toes back in the pool. After numerous balance and content patches, months of beta testing, new opening areas and “reordered, rescripted and augmented” zones, the game is probably a radically different experience. Just look at the insanely long patch notes.

Seriously, I’ve never seen that many documented changes for a game before.

You can sign up here and check out the Free for All trailer after the jump. Continue Reading