A lot of upset has been swirling around the Champions Online community lately. Much of it has been due to the announcement of a paid zone expansion and implementation of a “Kitchen Sink” patch that was pushed out too soon. In an effort to heal wounds and correct mistakes, Cryptic has released a new State of the Game targeted at addressing player concerns.
There are a couple big things to take away from this news. For one, the expansion is now completely free. It’s also now known as Champions Online – Revelation and is due out in mid-March 2010. New play areas, new powers, new rewards, and greater challenges are all promised by Cryptic. Expect a tidal wave of screenshots, videos, interviews and sweet juicy information in the coming weeks.
The other big change is the way in which the Champions Online team is interacting with the community. They’re adding a bevy of new features and community events — like a Cryptic Studios Supergroup in-game — that should help open up the lines of communication and hopefully add some much needed transparency to the game.
Filed under: Super-hero, Patches, News items, Champions Online
Champions Online expansion is now free originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 09 Feb 2010 22:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Posted on February 10th, 2010 at 3:25am by Kyle Horner
Filed Under: breaking, champions-online, co, cryptic, cryptic-champions-online, cryptic-co, cryptic-studios, free-expansion, revelation, state-of-the-game, vibora-bay
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
“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
What’s more dangerous than an interdimensional prison in which malevolent creatures of immense power plot the destruction of the entire Champions Online world? That same prison being taken over and used as a lair by your hero’s Nemesis and the dangerous Shadow Destroyer. After hints and the surprise playtest event, the official site has unveiled a preview of the upcoming Nemesis Confrontation, which looks like an interesting jump forward in the content offered by the game.
Obviously, the Lair in question is the highlight of the update, which features combat against alien gladiators as well as a collection of powerful villains. There are other rewards to be earned as well, however — ranging from a number of different hero enhancements to costume pieces in the vein of the enemies fought within the lair. If you can’t wait to run the lair in order to get the costume pieces (perhaps you have a perfect character concept to start with), the preview promises that they will also be available in the C-Store. Champions Online isn’t going to make players wait long for the event, either, as it’s launching on the 24th. It should give players quite a bit to be thankful for — when they’re not battling extradimensional alien gladiators, at least.
Filed under: Super-hero, Events, in-game, Patches, Previews, News items, Champions Online
Champions Online previews Nemesis Confrontation originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 18 Nov 2009 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Posted on November 18th, 2009 at 10:00pm by Eliot Lefebvre
Filed Under: Previews, champions-online, co, costume-pieces, cryptic, cryptic-studios, in-game-events, microtransactions, nemesis, nemesis-confrontation, news-items, patches
And they’re not going to tell you! However, you can probably make a few guesses as to the secret if you haven’t already, when you participate in their secret playtest tomorrow. Champions Online Community Team member David “Daeke” Bass posted this interesting piece of news today: “We’ve got a big feature coming out next week, but we want your help to test it before then. We can’t give too many details now…”
When this super secret new feature hits the PTS tomorrow, it will not be as a timed event, so you can log in and take a look at your leisure. Don’t have any speculation as to what it is yet? A few simple instructions on what to bring to the party might help. Daeke requests that you bring a 5-man team of level 40 players and interestingly, a Nemesis.
If you want to participate you can either transfer your own characters over from the live server, or level up using the contact outside the Millennium City Powerhouse.
Champions Online promises more information tomorrow — we can’t wait!
Filed under: Super-hero, Events, in-game, Champions Online
Champions Online has a secret originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 17 Nov 2009 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Posted on November 17th, 2009 at 10:00pm by Rubi Bayer
Filed Under: champions-online, co, cryptic, cryptic-studios, daeke, david-bass, playtest, secret-playtest
