actually because I don't think they chose to take the risk, it probably means CO sells well enough for them to allow more life subs.

@Psychotic Storm
actually, lifetime doesn't mean they have to run the game for any set period of time. It could be canceled in a week and they'd still have the $250. No refunds.

Also means if some1 quits the game, say for example if Atari/Cryptic decide to nerf XP to death & make costume parts insanely difficult to get through gameplay (but sell them for real $ in their virtual store). Then Cryptic doesn't care, they already have you for full retail price + 14 months equiv game time (16 months if some1 did the 6 month deal first).

Also people who make such a large investment will be more willing to go along w/ and purchase microtransactions. Same deal as Tom Sawyer convincing Ben Rogers that whitewashing the fence is what he really wanted to do. It weakens their self-defense mechanism & makes them more malleable.

I was on the fence about this game until beta. It is just broken & they seemed to have painted themselves in a corner w/ how the fundamental game is designed. & many of the aspects which dont work cant be changed w/o requiring severe change in how the game functions. (i.e. low population instances & outdoor quest crowding/griefing). Teaming & quest sharing yet no quest re-completion bonus. Having in game items available as microtransactions but requiring 15-80 hours of grinding to get EACH ONE through game.

I don't think any amount of revision and debugging will make this game a success. I give it one year, maybe two before closing up shop. With at least 6 months before it approaches what the rest of the industry would consider gold (i.e. not beta) status.

This is just Cryptic fixing their own mistake, that forum announcement linked here:
http://forums.champions-online.com/announcement.php?f=2&a=7
was "stealth edited", thanks to Google here's the original cached version of the announcement:
http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:gsV1ByDl4k0J:forums.champions-online.com/announcement.php%3Ff%3D5%26a%3D7+http://forums.champions-online.com/announcement.php&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk

Make up your own mind but it left a bad taste

@ Arrow-Pop

What you say is true, but, I held Cryptic as a fair company that has interest in its longevity and so far I am pleased with their game design decisions, under this, your argument is purely academic in value, since an established studio is there to stay.

Yes, and I wonder how many people will try to make some lame-ass conspiracy theory out of the reinstatement: "Oh, evil Cryptic planned this all along as a marketing gimmick !!!1!!"

Because, you know, it's always easier to float a conspiracy than it is to actually admit that maybe someone may have thought, "Oh, we screwed up" and fixed things. Self-righteous rage is so much easier to post about, and your school friends think you're so much kewler ... :-)

"Self-righteous rage is so much easier to post about, and your school friends think you're so much kewler"

I didn't think they had friends...

Yeah maybe we will not hear the QQers about the sub going away because they couldn't afford it at the time or the excuse that I was GOING to get it, but I had to wait for mom and dad to give me more money.

I honestly never got all whiney about it, I was on the fence about it and I understand they are running a business, and maybe just maybe they didn't think they would hit their cap numbers. There is a point when selling lifetime subs to a game they hope to make money off of gets unprofitable, and I just think they crossed the line before I made up my mind, and I accepted that I missed the deadline.

That being said when they reinstated them I did decide to put my money where my mouth is and purchase the lifetime. If WAR can make it a full year (and trust me I was plenty patient with that) I am positive this game can make it that far, so I have no worries about getting my money's worth. Now just add earth and wind powers and I will be golden

Whatever.

really? Weird considering it's COX 2.0 (I say that in a good way) why hasn't COX "going the way of HGL." ?

That's what I did... I wasted no time in breaking out the credit card, before they reversed the reversal of their offer. :)