Champions Online NDA has dropped
by James Egan 
Aug 17th 2009 at 12:30PM
Filed under: Betas, Super-hero, MMO industry, New titles, News items, Champions Online
Champions Online closed beta testers, please observe a moment of silence for your now-deleted characters. They died yesterday as part of the server wipe to make the world a better place for open beta, which kicks off today. The biggest news here is that the NDA is now lifted, and we're expecting there will be a flood of impressions about Champions Online in the coming days from people who've spent time in the game.
The Cryptic Studios superhero MMO will enter open beta today at 10 a.m. PDT, and will last through August 24th at 10 a.m. PDT. Barring unforeseen technical issues, daily server downtime is scheduled from 1 a.m. PDT - 3 a.m. PDT. Aside from that, open beta testers have a solid week of gameplay ahead of them.
Also, those of you who've pre-ordered and are in the Early Start Program will get to play the official release in advance of the Champions Online launch on September 1st. The Early Start Program will let these players join in a special world event where enemies will drop unique items.
Not that many of you haven't done so already, but now it's "officially OK" to let us know -- what do you think of Champions Online?
[Via MMORPG.com]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
ScytheNoire said on 12:37PM 8-17-2009
I can't wait to hear the comments of people who have been biting their tongues. I've listened to a number of podcasts that took a negative tone, but couldn't say more. Should be fun.
I really thought they'd hold the NDA all the way until launch day.
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Infexion said on 12:38PM 8-17-2009
FP key was just unlocked as well at 12:30 est. Click your "check" button guys :p
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Darthkirby707 said on 12:53PM 8-24-2009
It was a lot of fun. I'm not buying it, as I'm more interested in APB, and I despise MT's, but it was a lot of fun. I liked it more than CoX personally.
Wait until you get to like level 6 and get to the Powerhouse. The travel powers are really great in this game. As is the power color chooser. You can also choose where they shoot from (at least some powers)- palm, fist, chest, head.
If anyone has any questions I can talk for a bit. I've been in it for a while but more messed around with the powersets and costumes and whatnot than leveled all the way. My highest level was like 10, I just had like 6 10's.
DrPurple9 on AIM, at least for a bit.
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Mr Angry said on 12:53PM 8-17-2009
I mentioned before, I'm not going to comment in my usual manner because I figured I just wasn't a fan of the genre. I played for around 5-6 hours and didn't enjoy my time, other than to experiment with the avatar generator.
It felt like a console game from the late 90's, I just didn't get into it. I don't know if I'm alone in this, but it didn't appear to be a very good game, and some of the powers are ridiculously overpowered, it didn't seem very balanced at all. I got used to the comic style graphics, but I just didn't dig it too much.
Mr Angry buys EVERY MMO as it's released, I just won't be bothering with this one, sadly. I really hope STO is many orders of magnitude improved over this IP.
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ToyChristopher said on 3:48PM 8-17-2009
I played more than you and also didn't have a fun time. The game doesn't control well and honestly the powers are practically all the same except for the few overpowered ones. Mixing and matching powers wasn't really plausible and wouldn't matter much anyway. Combat became boring and repetitive very fast, especially because you basically have all the powers you need right at the beginning. Tanking, healing, crowd control, while technically in the game are all unnecessary.
Despite being promised character customization I couldn't make my hero looked like I wanted and it really just felt like a subpar mmo.
OneTen said on 12:56PM 8-17-2009
I was in beta and i wont be buying it. if you think CoH was instance heavy wait till you see every time you zone there is a list of 100 instances of the zone you want into. there are no separate servers you are limited to 10 characters total. in a game with this many character development options its just downright mean.
there aren't enough powers in each framework
Oh yea and when they release it for xbox 360 later this year say goodbye to big content patches
as of the last beta build it has huge balance issues in PvE and PVP and many many bugs. oh yea and client crashes. its items system seems forced and unintuitive. crafting isnt anything special, all the different types of crafting are clones of eachother that use different materials.
good things? the character creater is crazy good. you never have to fight for your name, since your full character names will always be yourname@youraccount. the travel powers in general are a lot of fun. as long as the game stays free to play (read: open beta) i'll stick around and mess with making new characters.
just please please try it before you buy the lifetime subscription.
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Aganazer said on 1:10PM 8-17-2009
OneTen, no offense dude, but there are some things you said that weren't quite right.
1. You have 8 character slots not 10, but you can buy more.
2. There are plenty of powers in each framework, but it doesn't matter either way because you can choose powers from ANY framework.
3. I don't think there is a release date for the Xbox version yet.
4. All games have balance issues.
5. The nasty crash bug of Wednesday's play test was resolved on Friday. Other than that one day the client never crashed one me ever during 4 months.
6. The crafting schools aren't clones of each other. They all focus on different stats and have different node buffs. They have a couple common elements though. They all include bags and heal consumables.
Wisdomandlore said on 1:01PM 8-17-2009
I was in CB for the last two weeks. The game has it's strong points and also some very negative points.
Good:
-Great graphics
-Fun (if unbalanced PvP)
-Combat makes you feel like a superhero
-Awesome character creator
-Ability to customize your skills
-Relatively bug-free.
-Easy to change your skills if you make a bad decision.
Bad:
-Very little incentive to group. Few group quests. Most group missions can be soloed. And group play boils down to soloing with other people...there's no group dynamic. Little need for heals, buffs, tanking, etc.
-Incredibly easy...or frustratingly hard, depending on which powers you choose
-Defense > Offense. Defensive skills are OP, in PvE and PvP.
-Story might as well be non-existent after the intro.
-Newbie unfriendly. Many game mechanics are poorly explained. It's very easy to buy a broken power or one you can't use. Many skills have hidden stat components that aren't indicated in game.
Basically it's a fun, well-designed superhero game...but not a great MMO. T
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Tom said on 1:20PM 8-17-2009
Thanks for composing this list, Wisdom. It was very informative.
However, I would have moved your first "Bad" point into the "Good" list, but that's just me. ;)
usagizero said on 1:23PM 8-17-2009
"there's no group dynamic. Little need for heals, buffs, tanking, etc. "
Sounds like a great positive to me, destroying the "holy trinity". Any game that kills people asking "you heal?" is a god send in my book. That and if you can't find a healer/tank you can't do missions.
I also saw someone somewhere mention items not being "great", also good. I hate that in games like WoW and other mmos, you need a certain "gear level" to get things done or in groups.
*haven't played yet, still waiting for patching to start playing, but even if it's CoH 2.0, i'm probably going to sub.
Loopy Garou said on 2:19PM 8-17-2009
Wisdomandlore - a great list, very fair and accurate, I think. The only one I'd quibble with is the "lack of story" comment. I think there's a lot of story in the quests throughout the game, though admittedly it's not as dynamic and in-your-face as in the crisis zones.
Shot said on 4:21AM 8-18-2009
@usagizero - I gained access to the beta a long while ago, and stopped playing after 4-5 weeks of playing with a RL friend. We both enjoyed the game at first, but dissatisfaction grew the more we played.
Regarding the lack of incentive to group - it's not that this game has removed the holy trinity. It's more that it's completely removed the group aspect of a large part of the game. You can solo and never need any help with half of the frameworks. They bumped up the difficulty of some missions and called them group quests at some point during the beta (by which point I'd stopped playing), but from what I heard it was a half-hearted gesture.
The customisation isn't as huge as they make it out to be. Character customisation isn't really any better than CoH/CoV - it just has different parts. You can mix and match powers, but you won't - it's impractical and ineffective. You can change the colour of your powers and choose whether they come out of your fists, palms, head or chest - and the head and chest animations are pretty generic and poor.
TL;DR - It was interesting at first. I won't be buying.
HouseDecados said on 1:03PM 8-17-2009
I participated in the beta up until a few weeks ago, and I can say that I have NO intention of buying of playing this game AT ALL.
The game makes me feel like im playing one of those old school arcade games where you have to press one of the buttons as fast as you can in order to build endurance. You have to spam your endurance builder to get enough end to be able to fire off one of your main attacks..and then it's back to spamming the end button. *sigh* It reminds me almost of the old Decathalon game for the atari back in the 80's.
In CoX we had those wonderful little inspirations that went directly to our own tray. In CO, those drop out into the open, so that it's a race between the members of your own team. (or possible someone just running by) to grab them.
The character creator has a ton of options and i'm not going to diss that, though all of the characters look like they're little more than inflatable dolls, made out of some kind of vinyl. (I expect to see one of those little blow up valves on their back)
The open world architecture makes the missions seem ABSOLUTELY unheroic. "Hi there...some of the moose are acting strange.. i need you to go get me 6 snow moose livers". They're badly disguised WoW missions, complete with boss camping, and interference from other players. Nothing new there AT ALL.
As of the time that I played, you could not skip through the tutorial, and after the tutorial you were forced into a special crisis zone. This means that you really can't interface with your friends at all until level 8. Sure, if they create characters at the same time as you, you can run with them. But you surely can't just whip up a character go to join friends.
Now, while I like and play CoH, I do realize that it has it's warts as well. I was just expecting SO much more from this too. They did a decent job of transfering over the ...meager.. IP they were given. (The champions world is just a thinly rehashed marvel universe).
This game wasn't for me at all. I don't play console games and that's what this exectly felt like. some kind of pew pew pew pew console game. (add to that, that in the beta there were huge numbers of people who said "this game plays SO much better with a controller than the keyboard)
I hope the folks that like the game have fun with it. I truly do. It just certainly isn't my cup of tea. This game reminds me that it's nothing more than a game at every step, moreso than other games that i've played.
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Aganazer said on 1:17PM 8-17-2009
"You have to spam your endurance builder to get enough end to be able to fire off one of your main attacks..and then it's back to spamming the end button. *sigh* It reminds me almost of the old Decathalon game for the atari back in the 80's."
You quit playing a LONG time ago didn't you? The endurance builder has been a toggle for over 3 months. No more button spam.
You might want to give the game another shot since a lot has changed in the last few months.
MrGutts said on 3:27PM 8-17-2009
Yes, the smashing of the endurance button is less often is all..
PeterD said on 3:29PM 8-17-2009
Not only is the endurance builder a toggle (no need to spam the button) you now start with a healthy chunk of endurance and can launch some heavy attacks at the outset, then have to build back up.
CO has many faults, but the endurance system is an improvement over CoH.
Rozo said on 1:03PM 8-17-2009
This seems to be the general consensus from the Beta, that the game isn't very good at all. That's disappointing as I was really looking forward to playing this game. now i'm bummed.
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Aganazer said on 1:13PM 8-17-2009
Consensus from beta? Is that why the vast majority of beta testers said that they are definitely pre-ordering and buying at least the 6-month sub option or better?
Celestial Lord said on 1:03PM 8-17-2009
I was in the closed beta. I've purchased two lifetime subscriptions. 'Nuff said.
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Kaphik said on 1:07PM 8-17-2009
I got one lifetime sub. The game is very fun. Of course beta was easy, so people could get to higher level to test that content out more quickly. Graphics are fantastic, the character creation alone one can spend hours on playing around with options, you are very free to make the hero you want. A lot of people seem to be comparing CO to MMOs they are more familiar with, which isn't the case. No, it's not new and groundbreaking, but it is very different from what people may be used to. Definitely worth playing for any comic book fan.