Archives for champions-online category
A few weeks ago, Champions Online put out the call for your best festively-themed screenshots in their Winter Screenshot Contest. They began this by saying that winter was “almost here” to which one reader replied that he’d spent 30 minutes defrosting his car and winter is not “almost” here, it “is” here. So now that winter has arrived, Cryptic was ready to see the community’s take on it. Whether it be a peaceful snowy scene or a raucous holiday celebration, they wanted to see your favorite shots.
The response was very enthusiastic — the submission thread hit fourteen pages in nine days, and Cryptic announced the five lucky winners of the contest on Tuesday. The submissions ran the gamut from quiet and peaceful to loud and celebratory to funny.
Each of the winners will receive a code for an in-game Retro Destroyer action figure. All of the submissions can be seen on the forum thread, while the five winning screenshots can be viewed here. Congratulations to the winners!
Filed under: Super-hero, Events, in-game, News items, Champions Online
Champions Online announces screenshot contest winners originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 25 Dec 2009 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Posted on December 25th, 2009 at 8:00pm by Rubi Bayer
Filed Under: champions-online, co, contest, cryptic, cryptic-studios, winter-screenshot-contest
Filed under: Super-hero, Patches, News items, Champions Online
Cryptic has revealed the free costume pieces in next week’s Nemesis Confrontation update, which come in addition to two unlockable costume sets. Among the new free costume items are some exceptionally sweet capes, although we’re sure many players will be filled with glee to see new weapons being added to the costume creator.
While these are only cosmetic costume options, they’re important to players who wield specific guns or swords. It may seem like a minor issue to some, but having an outfit that makes sense — and looks cool at the same time — is surprisingly important to players who revel in a game like Champions Online.
You can also now put guitars on the back of your characters; something that immediately reeks of potential. We have to wonder if guitars are going to be added as visual replacements for sword based powers, enabling us to whack enemies with our musical axes. If someone at Cryptic could make that so, it would be somewhere within the vicinity of pure awesome.
Free costume parts galore in Champions Online originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 21 Nov 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Posted on November 21st, 2009 at 4:00pm by Kyle Horner
Filed Under: Free, atari, champions, champions-online, costume, costume-pieces, costumes, cryptic, cryptic-studios, nemesis-confrontation, november, patch, update
Where did you buy your last MMO and where will you buy your next? Chances are you’ll be getting it on Steam or so the story goes according to Brad Wardell, head honcho over at Stardock. We’re inclined to agree with his assertion that Valve’s digital distribution platform holds roughly 70% of the PC market as many of us here at Massively have been buying our MMOs — and PC games in general — on the service for some time now.
So is it a good thing or a bad thing for MMO players? Our experience with purchasing games like Aion and Champions Online through the service has been positive, and so long as no complications arise via patches or other client issues we see no reason to stop utilizing the service unless better offers appear.
The only real MMO-related issue we can see is with collector’s editions. Some games offer a different set of bonus material for people who opt out of the physical copy and go for the digital, but certain items like art books, mouse pads and other bric-a-brac can’t be delivered through a wire… at least, not until sometime in the far flung future.
Now, as far as the Steamworks integration issue goes… Well, that’s a whole other sack of fishes.
Filed under: MMO industry, News items, Opinion
Steam estimated at selling to 70% of PC market originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Posted on November 20th, 2009 at 8:00pm by Kyle Horner
Filed Under: aion, atari, brad-wardell, champions, champions-online, digital-distribution, eurogamer, impulse, ncsoft, opinion, stardock, steam, valve
In a recent interview with Boomtown, Bill Roper spoke his mind on everything from Hellgate: London hate to Champions Online’s launch and future. In fact, the man spoke quite candidly on all topics, particularly that of Cryptic’s missteps with their second superhero MMO as well as their successes.
Of particular note, there’s a mention of how Champions Online will handle DC Universe Online’s 2010 launch given that the superhero MMO market hasn’t really expanded of late. Curiously, Roper says he feels that the Xbox 360 version will help to vastly expand Champions’ user base. There’s a chance Cryptic could be pushing to get into the console market by or before SOE releases their superhero MMO. Although given the headaches Cryptic has expressed at getting an MMO on Microsoft’s console, we get the feeling much of the developer’s focus is presently on Star Trek Online and continued live game support.
Filed under: Interviews, New titles, News items, Champions Online
Bill Roper on Champions Online’s launch, current state and future originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Posted on November 20th, 2009 at 6:00pm by Kyle Horner
Filed Under: atari, bill-roper, champions-online, cryptic, cryptic-studios, dc-universe-online, dcuo, soe, sony, sony-online-entertainment, star-trek-online, sto
“Companies should just stop gold farmers.” It’s a consistent complaint in many games, with “gold” replaced by your game’s currency of choice. As complaints go, it’s right around “somebody should do something about all the problems” in terms of overall utility, but heck, no one likes the practice and it should just be eliminated, right? Well, as Scott Jennings has pointed out recently, it’s not quite that easy.
As Lum points out, there are several common misconceptions about the entire process. Among them are the idea that the game company doesn’t step in because they’re getting kickbacks, which is pointed out to fail the simple test of Occam’s razor. When developers want to get more money from an existing game, there are usually better ways to run it, such as the Champions Online model or the Dungeons and Dragons Online approach. He also tackles the infamous statement that the farmers are paying customers and therefore the company has even less incentive to stop them.
So if everyone hates RMT, why is it still around? The article briefly touches upon it, but We Fly Spitfires had a recent post that articulates more specifically: more people buy gold than would necessarily admit it. Since no one will admit to it, no one ever asks, and as a result there’s a large culture of silence that publicly despises it and privately takes part. In short? As long as there’s a customer base, the farming will continue. Food for thought all around.
Filed under: Business models, Culture, Economy, Exploits, Opinion
Why RMT won’t go away originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Posted on November 20th, 2009 at 10:00am by Eliot Lefebvre
Filed Under: business-models, champions-online, co, culture, ddo, dungeons-and-dragons-online, economy, exploits, gold-farming, lum-the-mad, microtransactions, rmt, scott-jennings, we-fly-spitfires
