Champions Online

[UnfluffyBunny]

well the lifetime sub went down before I had the funds free, and I dont plan on paying for 2 subscriptions at once, so i'll be playing Aion till SW:TOR comes out

[Alaric]

well the lifetime sub went down before I had the funds free, and I dont plan on paying for 2 subscriptions at once, so i'll be playing Aion till SW:TOR comes out

You may want to read this.

[UnkoMan]

That's what I thought too, Bunny, but actually... it just came back.

http://www.champions-online.com/exclusive_specials

I think I will get this, after all. Yes indeed. Hey, did you say you can't play with us in North America though? Because that'd be quite a lame thing. Anyhow, hopefully some folks are still sticking around. If not FR, we'll build some kinda team. I was thinking of maybe not using Unko as a main anyhow.

[Tomato]

Just gonna quote the article, since Unko and Alaric beat me to links 

Earlier this week, we gave notice that we were running out of special Lifetime and 6-month promotional subscriptions. Within a day, the rest of our supply had been sold out, leaving a number of you confused and upset. The response to this promotion has been overwhelming and we want to thank everyone who posted on our forums, called customer service and sent e-mails over these past few days.

After further consideration, and to meet the needs of our community, we have decided to reinstate the Lifetime and 6-month subscription promotional programs with no supply limit until 11:59 p.m. (Pacific time) on August 31st.

At Cryptic, we are dedicated to our community. We look forward to seeing you when Champions Online launches this September!

[UnfluffyBunny]

it keeps telling me my credit card is expired, even tho it's a new card >_>

[Alaric]

it keeps telling me my credit card is expired, even tho it's a new card >_>

From the CO forums:

Just an update: Our server is currently being hammered by everyone due to the excitement this has generated. Please be patient if you're trying to buy a subscription. Remember, you've got until Tuesday to buy one, so if it's not working tonight, try again tomorrow.

[UnfluffyBunny]

it was opera not showing the expiry date fields for the card @_@

[getting errors, guess it's busy, will keep trying]

[BentonGrey]

If I had the money to burn, and if I could be sure that my good friends were going to get the game, I'd do the $200 deal.  It's really not a bad deal.

[Tomato]

I'm not a good friend Benton? *sobs in a corner*

[Xenolith]

You know, $200 for a lifetime isn't a bad deal.  Maybe my burnout will be gone in a few weeks.  I'll have to think about it.

If I do play I'd be happy to join an FR team.

[BentonGrey]

I'm not a good friend Benton? *sobs in a corner*

*Quietly hates Tomato*

[Uncle Yuan]

So, at 14.99 a month you'd have to play for 14 months to get it to pay off.  Now, I played CoX for at least that long before getting sick of it . . . but I guess I need to know that there was something enough different about the game that it would hold me for that long after playing CoX as long as I did.  The buzz around the webs is generally more positive than around here, and even here it is more "guardedly hopeful" than negative.

Plus, Arkham Asylum is going to keep me busy for the next two months at least!

[Core]

I thoroughly enjoyed the open beta, and I am looking forward to my early start tomorrow.

I got my preorder through Gamestop, so I've been trying to come up with a good bug-hero to attach the insectoid airfoil to.

[stumpy]

This is just a general comment, since I haven't played CO (or CoX), but I have read this thread and been curious about the pay-to-play options. The comment is that I tend to be a little wary about the way CO has set up the $200 lifetime deal. Not that I am against paying for lifetime memberships on principle; they are often a good deal and I've been happy with them at times. But I have two issues, one more in general to lifetime subscriptions and one related particularly to how CO is doing it.

In general, even though they can be a good deal, people ought to consider that you are giving up some of your authority as a consumer when you buy a (nonrefundable) lifetime membership. You can never have a complaint and let the company know that you are thinking of canceling your subscription if they don't take action on it. For sure, no company wants customers (lifetime or monthly) who aren't satisfied with the product, even if just to avoid the bad publicity and negative word-of-mouth reviews that impact future subscriptions. But, to some degree, lifetime subscribers become part of an underclass of subscribers who don't directly matter economically to the company, which is not something you want to be. I think this issue is particularly important when the product is one that's likely to change quite a bit after it is released.

Particular to what I am hearing about this CO deal, isn't it a bit annoying that they are only offering the lifetime memberships for a limited time before the final release? Ideally, you would pay month-to-month for a month or two with the actual release of the game, and then decide that you liked it so much that you plunk down the lifetime fee. There will undoubtedly be updates, patches, etc. to come; just think of how much CoX has changed since the pre-release stage. I am surely a cynic, but here's the question: Why won't they let people play for a while and then buy the lifetime deal? And, don't think that it's some sentimental reward for beta testers or whatever. If they weren't thinking it helped the bottom line, they wouldn't be doing this. If you have to commit to the lifetime fee before the final release, then it's like they don't have confidence that you will want to commit when it's out or that you'll be happy with how fast they address issues and offer upgrades. They should be confident that people will want lifetime subscriptions because they love the game, not just because people are worried about missing out on a "limited-time offer" deal (which, as I hope people know, is a well-known marketing ploy to make things seem artificially rare and valuable and encourage rushed purchasing decisions).

Anyway, maybe they've addressed these issues, but that's what popped into my head.

[BentonGrey]

Interesting point Stumpy.  I figured that it was simply par for the course on something like this.  Do other MMO's offer lifetime subscriptions without a deadline?  They are all designed to get the most out of you they can, so I figured it fit right in.

[Xenolith]

I think that since open beta was popular they thought "Hey, let's see how much quick cash we can get right away!"  I can't decide if "15 month like the game" or not.  If there are no content updates, then heck no.

[UnkoMan]

There will almost definately be content updates. They are working on a new power set right now, actually, along with their Halloween event. At least, according to Twitter.

I just think they were trying to gauge popularity at first, but when they stopped the lifetime thing and heard so many complaints and people saying they would cancel their preorders and quit, they got a bit scared and threw it back up. But I think I've seen lifetime accounts offered with games before, I think. For limited times. I could be making that up though. It's possible they will bring back the offer at some point. Hopefully it won't mean they just have a bunch of money up front and then no other funds and go under and everything was useless. I don't know. I don't want to be cynical about this game, for some reason. As stated I really like it graphically and the way power choice is handled. I really think it'll be great in a few years.

Which is why I've got my lifetime subscription. I'm @UnkoMan, in case anybody wondered. I'll be playing it sooner or later, but maybe not really until October.

Anyhow, at least some folks ought to try it. I'm sure they'll have free trials sooner or later. Benton, don't you want to be able to hang out with Sea Lad?

[JeyNyce]

Well the life time came back and I got it.  Played with my friends last night/ early morning and I'm not regretting it.  The controls and finding everything will take some time to get use to, but the game over all is very fun.  I like it better than COX only because it seems you have more freedom with your hero, but if you play COX before and play this, you'll see that they ripped off a lot of stuff from them.

[BentonGrey]

You know it Unko!  Actually, the existence of an underwater area in the game is one of the major points in its favor as far as I'm concerned.  I just don't think I can pay full price for a game that I'm not sure about, especially considering the fact that I'll only have a month to make up my mind.  When there is some kind of demo available to try it out, I will definitely do so.  I really hope it turns out to be awesome.  This would be so perfect to play with my gaming group.

[Zapow]

I'm on @Zapow and my character name is Force of July is anyone wanted to play in-game.

Has anyone started a supergroup yet?

[Alaric]

We should probably make more of a concentrated effort to contact each other in-game. Personally, I'd be happy to start a SG- just want to coordinate with other people, make sure we have enough interest, get some feedback on a SG name, etc. Also, wanted make sure everyone isn't founding their own separate group. At this stage, aside from people playing with other groups of friends, we should probably stick with a single SG, to make things simpler.

Yesterday, after a couple of days of alt-itis, I finally made a CO version of my FR avatar, the Verdant Vowel. I just wanted to see how he'd come out. I ended up getting him to level 12- he'll probably be my main character, for now. I'm giving him a somewhat unusual build, in keeping with the character's background, which will probably eventually become something of a self-nerf- already, he has some damage-dealing deficiencies, but I'm having fun. Of my other characters, I'll definitely keep playing Brain Boy (the young genius), the Demon Queen, and Y Ddraig Goch (Welsh heroine). I like the Omega Monster's look, but I made a mistake with a power choice, and it would cost a lot to respec, so I'll probably just reroll him- he's only level 6. My first character, Some Guy Named Al, based on my old T-shirt avatar, is made somewhat superfluous my the Vowel- I'm not deleting him right away, but if I need room, I might. Note that I tend to include the definite article, "the", in my character names when warranted, even though it makes NPC dialog a little strange- I wish CO handled "the" the way CoH does...

The Verdant Vowel:


Original design by MJB, some additional tinker and suggestions by Glitch Girl, Juancho (though I couldn't find an appropriate hair style, I'll include him anyway), Tomato, Midnight (and, yes, it's hard to see in that pic, at least on my monitor, but that's actually very dark green, rather than black), myself, and possibly other- apologies if I've forgotten anyone...

[JeyNyce]

I'm on @Zapow and my character name is Force of July is anyone wanted to play in-game.

Has anyone started a supergroup yet?

I'm in a SG, but I can make an ALT to put in if FR makes a Super Group.  Anyway Zapow, how are you likeing the game? (Yes, I do value you opinion)

[BentonGrey]

I'm on @Zapow and my character name is Force of July is anyone wanted to play in-game.

Has anyone started a supergroup yet?

I'm in a SG, but I can make an ALT to put in if FR makes a Super Group.  Anyway Zapow, how are you likeing the game? (Yes, I do value you opinion)

Ditto.

[UnkoMan]

I was thinking I would do Unko Man for a FR team. But what sort of level are we starting at here? I'm not a power gamer by any stretch, so I've never leveled characters super quick. In fact, in the six months or so I played CoH, my highest character was only ever level 16. Granted, they have way more opportunity for alts, and I mostly stick to soloing, but still...

I want to be able to keep up if we do an FR team. Without sidekicking and looking like a chump.

[BlueBard]

Here's a question... How does CO handle "sidekicking" from the perspective of someone who's actually played it?

One of the hard things with CoH was that I never seemed to be the right level to play with anyone from FR at any given time.  The few times I managed it were mostly accidental.

One of the hurdles (different toons on different servers) doesn't exist in CO, so that's good.  But if I still can't effectively play with friends and acquaintances who may be at different levels than the hero I want to play, it makes the game less attractive to me.

[JeyNyce]

CO does offer sidekicking    .  It's funny, those are the only 2 MMO games , that I know of, that has that feature.

[Alaric]

CO does offer sidekicking    .  It's funny, those are the only 2 MMO games , that I know of, that has that feature.

Well, CO was created by the same company that created CoH, even if they later sold CoH. They took what they liked from their earlier game, and got rid of what they didn't like, more or less.

[BlueBard]

CO does offer sidekicking    .  It's funny, those are the only 2 MMO games , that I know of, that has that feature.

Well, CO was created by the same company that created CoH, even if they later sold CoH. They took what they liked from their earlier game, and got rid of what they didn't like, more or less.

Yeah, but I'm looking for some details about how "playable" it turns out to be.  Does it make it a lot easier to team up without sticking lower-levels in the gimp role?  Or are sidekicks basically "along for the ride" like they often are in CoH?

[UnkoMan]

I'd suggest we set up a time and place for a Freedom Reborn team meeting... and also have everybody around the same level. But nothing too high, so Alaric and whoever else, STOP LEVELING UP. At least for whoever you plan to use for this team. That way we can play through together with those particular fellas.

That would work well for me, since I tend to use a ton of alts. I'd just play Unko on the FR team and other guys for other things.

How about the rest of you? What do you say to an idea like that?

[BentonGrey]

I....hate you all.  You are really making me want to get this stupid game.