Champions store getting new costumes, character slots and more
Filed under: Super-hero, News items, Champions Online
New costume pieces, additional character slots, retcons and more are all being added to the Champions Online C-Store this Tuesday. Using this exchange rate chart for Cryptic Points the price of a full retcon is $12.50, which isn't too high considering that a retcon allows a player to completely remake a character from the ground up. Costume pieces seem to cost around three dollars, which seems pretty reasonable considering that the Cyborg Beast and Epic Samurai are both rather impressive looking at that price. Lastly, buying four additional character slots costs the most at 1200 points -- which looks to be about $15 or so.
Overall, the pricing is lower than what we expected for costumes. Sure, the points system isn't ideal but generally speaking there's not a lot to be overtly upset about here.
Overall, the pricing is lower than what we expected for costumes. Sure, the points system isn't ideal but generally speaking there's not a lot to be overtly upset about here.




















Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Zanzabar said on 12:10PM 10-20-2009
Uhh nothing to be overtly upset about ? Are you kidding me? Asking us to PAY $13 for a retcon to ... respec our characters? This is just a very weak attempt at gathering more money from the faltering player base. Im surprised you can't see through this ruse.
Also, why is my CO account still active, 2 weeks after the time expired? LOL. My account was due to be closed on the 5th, yet it remains active.. hrm.. PLEASE COME PLAY CO!! PLEEEASE. lol.. This game is uber fail. Let it die please.
Take your REAL-WORLD money for a respec and shove it. Cryptic can goto hell.
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Syndica said on 12:30PM 10-20-2009
The problem with giving respecs away easily is because of the open power system. If respecs where cheap and easy then the open power selection would be meaningless. Right now players actually have to put some thought into power selection in order to make sure that everything works for the build that they are using.
But, whatever, I suspect that no matter what Cryptic does people will never like it. The complainers seem more interested in spewing hate at them as if Cryptic stole their virginity and their birthday all in one blow.
Angel said on 12:32PM 10-20-2009
Faltering player base? where are you seeing the numbers for that? Do you have population numbers in writing from cryptic the rest of us don't? I have not noticed any serious drop in population. There are just as many instances as there were at launch, with the exception of the Power House in the initial crisis zones. Those are a little sparse.
They have already displayed that they are going to hand out retcons when they change up some of the power functionality, so that isn't a problem. You can retcon using in-game currency, though it is true that can get pricey. Beyond that, use the PH to make sure you like what you have chosen before going out into the rest of the world.
I am no Cryptic fan-boy, I see the faults in the two games they have launched (no, CoV is not a separate game), but all of this doom and gloom over this game and others is telling me there seems to be a new pastime in the MMOsphear: nay-saying and apocalyptic prediction. It's really getting irritating. Apparently every single MMO that has launched or is going to launch are on an automatic fail-train.
Me thinks some people should really reconsider playing MMOs as a hobby. It seems to be eliciting an inordinate amount of salty nerd-rage. Like road-rage, salty nerd-rage is not healthy.
Psychotic Storm said on 1:19PM 10-20-2009
Sir some cheese with all this whine?
Sorry you are both wrong and overeacting, they have game two free retcons already, didn't take them back and promised they will give more free retcons when they do any more ground breaking changes.
Moreover if you really feel you need to know in advance everything, go to PTS skip tutorial go to the levelling agent raise your toon to lvl 40 and test your self out in powerhouse, oh do some bug hunting while you are there if you can.
solutions are there, people just want to complain.
xslipperyx said on 2:51PM 10-20-2009
I'm not renewing my sub because I'm having more fun playing Aion but come on... if people are still playing and want to pay for this kind of stuff it's not really a big deal. Just don't support it :)
Jae said on 8:47PM 10-20-2009
Oh please Zanzabar. 12.50 is completely cheap to respec a character in this game. You can do it in game as well. I don't see anything wrong with them offering this as an option.They have also already offered two free retcons since the game has launched.
Champions Online has impressed me since launch except for a lack of high end content. It was by far the smoothest launch I've ever seen of an MMO, even with the balance changes.
Also the player base always goes down a bit after the first month starts to lapse. This is NORMAL.
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Celestial Lord said on 12:22PM 10-20-2009
Yes, Champions Online will surely fail because Cryptic is the first MMOG developer to dare to charge real money for an in-game respec.
Please.
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Flolah said on 12:33PM 10-20-2009
While not quite as vehement as Zanzabar, I do agree that it is pretty ridiculous to ask characters to pay IRL money for something that other games have in-game solutions for.
Costumes? Events, achievements, or rare dungeon drops.
Full respec? In-game trainers, who use in-game money
At least, this would make sense if this was a Free-to-Play game, that only used micro-transactions, or had a really low monthly fee, but really, $15 a month without those perks seems fairly steep.
Yes, Blizzard charges for certain changes in WoW, and they, too, have a comparable monthly fee. But theirs involve server changes, faction changes, and other things that are not available (or an issue) with CO.
Where's my security token, Cryptic?
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Clockwork said on 1:21PM 10-20-2009
Well, you -can- get a full retcon in game, it will just cost you a lot of in-game money (At least, I believe that's the case. Correct me if not.)
You can also unlock new costume pieces through Perks and suchlike, and if I recall correctly, Cryptic has said that any costume pieces available in the store will be available in-game as unlocks, as well.
The thing that I'm in arms about is the $15 for a new character slot. Really, cryptic? You want me to pay the equivalent of my damned subscription fee for one new character slot? Absolutely bloody not.
Psychotic Storm said on 1:30PM 10-20-2009
apart from costume pieces that we expected and IIRC CoH does the same just bundling them in bigger packages, retcon is something obtainable for free in game, yes it costs, but whoever does not want, to does not need to pay and for now players do not have much to do with in game currency anyway.
I hope that last part changes soon.
Psychotic Storm said on 1:37PM 10-20-2009
@ clockwork that would be about 12 EU for 4 character slots so approximately 3 EU per slot, its not that bad.
Clockwork said on 3:02PM 10-20-2009
@Psychotic Storm: Ah, I misunderstood. I thought the article was stating that it was $15 per character slot. Thanks for clearing that up for me!
Skypp said on 4:09PM 10-20-2009
Saying that costumes are achievable through in game means is false.
Cryptic saying that nothing being payed for can't be obtained in game is a poor paraphrasing of a quote that they issued. What Cryptic said was that anything that has anything to do with GAMEPLAY(read: raiding, grinding) will be obtainable in game. This proves true in that you can pay in game money for a retcon(its expensive).
Costume pieces do not fall under this category.
Like someone else said, even if the game was better than it currently is, I would still not subscribe because its a full blown Micro-trans store inside a subscription game. Give me one or the other: Subscription with free updates or Free-to-play with Micro-trans. Not both in one game. Soon companies will be charging for mid-expansion content update patches... oh wait, LOTRO is already doing that too.
Prisemy said on 11:21AM 10-29-2009
I'm subscribed to CO. It's killing me that they are asking me to pay more money for costume sets. Seriously, if I am already giving them money I should have access to all available costumes pieces, I don't mind earning them in game. But to make them C store only!! that's just greedy.
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snowleopard233 said on 12:51PM 10-20-2009
Yeah, it seems a little crazy that you need to spend real money just to change what your character looks like, when in other mmo’s your appearance changes every time you equip new gear. WoW does charge you to change your character’s face, skin tone, race and gender, but it doesn’t charge you just to access new skins and hair styles when you make a new character or to change your armor. The fact that you have to pay just to be able to put the skins on a new character seems somewhat outlandish to me.
Psychotic Storm said on 1:39PM 10-20-2009
where does this misinformation comes from, not only you have costume slots ingame for free, but you can radically change each costume ingame.
the aditional costumes are aditional costume pieces for your characters, not paying to change your characters costume.
JP said on 12:53PM 10-20-2009
I wonder how PvP will be affected when power adjustments are made, and it's all the FotM builds that are effected, and they just buy a do-over for the next FotM build. I guess when powers are changed, they'll see a revenue spike.
Also, the Halloween costumes not being in-game event rewards is down right cheap, IMO.
Overall, this news + Blood Moon's weak impression makes me very happy I'm not playing this game. It does make me sad that I doubt I’ll ever see Star Trek b/c this seems to be their business practice going forward. Oh well. LOTRO until TOR I guess.
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Psychotic Storm said on 1:52PM 10-20-2009
JP if you do not even play the game how on earth you know?
really?
Plus BM gives its own Halloween items for "free" if you work for them.
JP said on 2:00PM 10-20-2009
How do I know what? Form a complete question, FFS.
Psychotic Storm said on 2:09PM 10-20-2009
If you do not even play the game, how on earth you know what happens in the game and what the real situation is, how can you have a detailed informed opinion if you are just a distant observer?