Champions Online NDA has dropped

It is a completely different game from WoW. That said, the thing that makes WoW shine in comparison are the races of Azeroth. If you like playing only humans, mainly, you will like CO.


There are different options for that as well. This isn's a swords and sorcery mmo, so people expecting to play fruity little elves, will be sadly let down. With that said, there is millions of options to make your character to look the way you want, from bug heads, elf ears (sigh), demon wings, tails...you name it...you can make it. I played in closed and thouroughly enjoyed it. In WoW everything is a grind whether you like to admit it or not. Grind to level cap, grind to upgrade gear, grind to pvp....for what...to get gear that is replaced when a major content patch, or expansion is released. With CO, you dont even realize your "grinding/leveling", because the combat system (to me) never gets old, is fast paced, and you feel like the hero you are playing. It never gets old flying while hurling trucks at grps of enemies. I will admit it definately has a CoH feel to it, but in my opinion..it's what CoH should have been. Im going to point out some reasons you should play or at least not hate on it so much.

-Your character truly is unique when you make it, as opposed to the only thing that makes you look different in WoW is gear (which still only does so much)
-Group dynamics are great! It makes it so everyone can hold their own in combat. As opposed to being useless w/o the holy trinity. It doesn't rely heavily on it, because they want people to be self sufficient.
-Don't like the way your character looks? Go to a tailor and change it, and thats ANYTHING about your hero!
-No more waiting until a higher level for a form of transportation. You get a travel power at lvl 5, and there are many!
-Customization is the most expansive I have ever seen. Everyone knows about how you can make your costume look, but you can also edit the color of your powers, looks of your melee weapons (katana, mace, axe etc.), firearms (revolver, pistols, ak-47, shotguns)


There are many reasons why I will be playing this game, and im not saying it might be the best for everyone, but you should at least give it a try. If you are a traditional MMO fan with auto-attack combat, you might not like it. If you like fast pace real-time combat with interactive environments, then you will LOVE it!

In the end not all of us can be Champions Online, some of us will remain Losers....online.

I played through the first early part of the game. Only to level 10 or so. I did enjoy my time but will not be buying it till it probably falls in price.

For me, the game delivers the experience it is supposed to deliver, so its good, good enough to make me but a lifetime sub, yes I am that pleased with the game and have that much faith to the team backing it up.

I really appreciate all of the comments -- both positive and negative -- I have been reading here about this game.

My biggest source of exasperation in many MMOs is having to waste so much time in LFG ("4/6 -- NEED HEALER AND TANK!!!"... Aaaarg, I absolutely that kind of thing).

Am I understanding correctly that, in CO, I can solo a fair amount and/or group up with a friend or two and still accomplish a lot?

I am interested in seeing how you cover the "Open Beta Launch" SNAFU which is going on today. Everyone who downloaded from File Planet was first told they needed a 3.6 Gig patch and then told by Cryptic that they need to manually replace some files (as the installer got their location wrong) and then download a 1 gig patch ... but of course their patch servers seem to be crashing as quick as they can be booted and they patching is NOT incremental - which means if it crashed or droped the connection you get to start over.

From the forums, I don't think that anyone is starting the Open Beta today unless they were in the closed beta before.

Yes, Tom, you can. It's a much more dynamic system in the sense that there aren't your traditional roles. People will still build their characters more along the lines of tanks, dps, and healer, but that's mostly 'cuz the MMO industry has conditioned us to need that. In fact, it's a bit daunting at first to figure out what powers you should take or how best to build your character.

I've enjoyed the last couple of weeks in Beta, personally. Don't know that I'd get the lifetime subscription, but I'll be buying it.

I will admit, though:

1) there are a LOT more bugs in the game than I would expect at a point this close to launch
2) there could be a LOT better explanation of how some things work and where to go to do this or that
3) the character creator has a LOT of areas on a costume that you can change, but within each category, the options are more limited than CoX. For example, CoX allowed you to choose the chest section (which included the upper arms) and the gloves of your toon. In CO, you can change the chest section, the arm section, the gloves, add things to the upper arms, etc--yet in each area there were sometimes only 4 options. I hate to say it, but I'm suspicious that they're holding back additional options for either microtransactions or add-on packs.

Still, I've enjoyed the game thus far. And I haven't even gotten a character above level 9.

@Rozo
I didn't enjoy the gameplay. It was new and interesting but even that first night in March, I found the gameplay unsatisfying. Many others posted along with me to discuss why we didn't like it but we never got a response from Cryptic other than just a general "thanks for posting for the Wednesday night playtest."
@Aganazer
Not sure where you're getting your facts from. I think the only people still actively playing at the end of closed beta were already sold. Most of the folks like me tried very hard to make our points for a few months and then gave up and stopped posting. Every few weeks, I'd log in to see what had changed... the game got more polish but the essential gameplay mechanics failed to change.

I'm in roughly the same boat as Mr. Angry, way back on p1: after a few sessions I had a horribly low opinion of CO, but I found a thread which fixed my vista + DX10 issues to yield a decent performance and gave it another go - didn't enjoy it any more than previously but at least I can respect it now.

I won't be taking an interest in it any longer, but for posterity my top 3 issues were:

* For all its strengths, I couldn't see passed the flaws creation system - the options (and even some basics) that weren't transferred from CoH, the low-res textured articles, the unintuitive structure and most of all the faces. I just found it very hard to arrive at a satisfactory look - felt like trying to put CoH graphics characters in to a more 'advanced' graphical world.

* Quest & story presentation not characterful or compelling at all, particularly beyond the tutorial zone. I know that I've played very many text-in-box games over the years, but just something about the boxes, fonts or vanilla writing had me clicking through CO windows as fast I could.

* The big one: the unique art style was a major turn-off - specifically I get no sense of the CO world being 'tactile'. Outlines on-or-off it seemed like my character wasn't connecting with the environment at all - floating along scrolling backgrounds performing animations in isolation. This discontent got even worse post-travel-power when the Z-axis becomes even more fluid; actually got worse when I tried ground-based ones with my character effortlessly & jarringly bounding up vertical slopes and the like.

Overall I can only class CO as uninspiring, though it has deepened my appreciation of the MMOs that do 'click' for me. Certainly CO (and Aion too) have driven home for me the importance of play-testing MMOs as opposed to getting over excited about what they offer conceptually.

very nicely laid out. Thanks!

After reading true this comments I think they better off to put the NDA up again ;)

Wondering when Massively is going to report on the Fustercluck that is the Open Beta: fubarred downloads that require a 3.6G patch, instructions from the dev that actually make the problem worse, and lack of infrastructure/bandwidth for users patching the client.

Let's just say that Cryptic should know better: an Open Beta is not really the time for your users to spend the day on downloading a patch. Yes, it is a beta, but when you can't get the most basic functionality working (patching the fucking game), it doesn't make people feel good about the game.

My my my! So many negative comments, and all of them by people who clearly have NO EXPERIENCE with this game!

As someone who was in closed beta, and therefore has been playing longer than this morning, I'd like to say that every one of these nay-sayers are just clueless WoW addicts who don't know what they're missing. ;)

Champions Online's combat is fast-paced and reactive. More about using using your powers in the right way and in the right situation than the typical hum-drum routine you'd expect from traditional MMO's.

All of the powers are different. Even between two attacks that are both single-target damage, one of them might have a knock-back component, and the other might tick damage at a faster rate the longer you maintain it. Further diversifying the powers is a choice when you level up between increasing the basic qualities and overall power of your powers or adding on more interesting effects. For example, I might have the option to make a power do double damage to enemies suffering from a hold, at the sacrifice of less general power. Or one power that I normally have to stand still and focus solely on maintaining I might choose an advantage that lets that power be toggled on and used on the move and alongside other attacks.

In general, if you want a fun, fast-paced, action-packed, and slightly casual game where you can live out your own special superhero fantasy, Champions is the game for you. If you like spending an entire evening killing thousands of bunny rabbits until you find the one drop you need to complete a quest, so you can earn enough gold to buy a new shield... well, then you're boring, and you should stick to more boring MMO's. ;)

To be honest, I'm excited about this game since it offers something new. In all my years of playing fantasy mmos the formula never changes much so things do get old. At least what intrigues me about this game is the action combat mechanic, which is something different from the click and auto attack style that so many MMOs have done.

The open beta fluster is a bummer, but to be fair it's an open beta, it's not like they forced you to pay for the game and fack up at launch, that would definitely be something to be pissed about. Guys, you are trying this game for free right now, be lenient to the Dev guys who are probably working their ass off right now trying to fix this mess.

As for Aion, I'm playing the Chinese version since they released it already, and believe me it's the same old formula as any other Fantasy MMOs out there. The quests are all about kill X mob, collect X loot. True it's an eye candy seeing it uses the Cryengine, but game mechanics wise it's Aion is just recycling the same old WoW, Everquest. DAoC formula. At least to me CO is refreshing in terms of game mechanics, but Aion is just taking some old fantasy MMO give it graphics polish add some flying elements and bam instant hype. I really hope Aion gives people an Open Beta so they can play the game for themselves before plunging 50 bucks and regretting it. I still have 121 hours left on my Chinese Aion account which is a true waste of money.

But ya, since I pre-ordered CO I'll hold in my rage and unleash it if they mess it up during launch day. To be honest, I'm glad they are encountering all these troubles now, it's better than facing them during launch when people paid money for the game already and are sitting on their 30 days game time. Good games will have good sales and high subs if people find that it keeps them in, initial sales won't matter jack if they don't have an active subscriber base. I mean look at WAR, they had a pretty good launch sale, but they're not faring as good right now in terms of sub numbers. So people, don't fret if the open beta flopped, for most of you, you're trying this game out for free, no strings attached. Nothing is perfect, so don't expect CO to get everything right from the start, MMOs evolve to become better, I don't remember WoW being the biggest and best MMO since day one.

I wanted to respond to a certain defense that I've seen used several times - Sinxlegend just happened to have posted the most recent version of this defense so I'm not picking on him I'm only using his words as an example "...to be fair it's an open beta, it's not like they forced you to pay for the game..."

Actually, they are forcing you to pay for the open beta. Either you must have a paid subscription with FilePlanet or you must pre-order the game. Either way, you are paying to be in the open beta (unless you were a previous closed beta tester). In this way, it isn't really an open beta, it's a "paid" beta.

More and more games are using the "paid" beta model in order to bring in money before launch. The FilePlanet/Direct2Drive partnership method is becoming more popular and, if people are willing to pay for it, then they are certainly willing to take your money. Do us all a favor and stop paying companies to test their games.

Can there be a true balance issue if anyone can take any skill? So there are some overpowered abilities. If you are that worried about being the best of the best, take the overpowered skills. At least everyone is playing on an even playing field then. If you enjoy gear grinding games of meaningless achievement, then go play World of Warcraft. If you would like to create a story, a character, a nemesis, or a super group, then this game is for you.

I got to play a couple of days in the beta. I spent most my time creating and refining my character. The combat felt much better than the auto-attack borefest of the standard MMO model. I don't care for the holy trinity, and I'm glad this game progresses away from it somewhat. If you felt the combat was boring, you probably didn't go past the tutorial events or only fought mobs significantly weaker than you.

Just a couple of things:

1) Yes, the controls are console-like. The plan was originally to have the XBox 360 and the PC versions come out simultaneously and run on the same game server. Due to licensing and other issues, that did not happen (yet).

2) The issue with having to have a defense is one known to long time paper and pencil players. Most power sets have a defense in them, however, and since you can cross power sets to pick up a defense it just needs to be relayed.

3) The 'white filled' and 'green filled' areas mentioned in the crisis zones are specific boss encounters that 'end' the individual crisis. The rest of the crisis is not that way, though since your area is limited the terrain does not vary much. After the crisis mission is completed, things open up.

I was impressed enough with the game to purchase a lifetime subscription. I would have done so even if the Star Trek Online beta was not included. I played CoH for 4 years, and I feel CO is a big improvement on that game so playing this for a long time is definitely not out of the question.

I would like to remind everyone that in many cases, the dissatisfied get the most attention. Those that are content or happy with the game tend to stay quiet, while those that do not find it fun create huge posts detailing their problems (as we saw on the beta boards). There is nothing wrong with this, but don't think that the most vocal (ie, the dissatisfied) are representitive of the beta population as a whole.

I have been in beta since March, and I can say that this game has made leaps and bounds towards being a very fun and different game. The developers were very good about listening to the suggestions of the community and responding to lots of topics. If there is one reason that I think the game will do well in the long run, it is because the devs have proven that they are willing to listen to the community and make the changes that are needed.

Some general information about the game:
There are no classes or archetypes in the game, instead you are left to choose any powers that you want (which you can recolor) and any combination of stats to make your character play the way you want. Combined with the massive character creator, this allows for tons of customization.
The questing system is similar to WoW, with mostly outdoor "kill x" or "find y" quests, with instanced boss missions at the end of an area or quest line.
There are no servers, instead the zones are divided into "shards" that fit a certain number of players. You can switch shards at any time, so no need to worry about being on a different server than your friends.
Weapon cussotmization was (at the end of closed beta) handled by an option at the tailor. There was no option at character creation (although it was being worked on), and the tailor is accessible at the end of the tutorial. Additional weapon models were unlocked through special items that were found as mission rewards, crafting recipes, and random drops, totaling in the hundreds.
The teaming system was not fleshed out very well, and most people ended up using the zone chat to look for teams.

Some opinions:
I found that the game was much more fast paced than your average MMO. Fights were fast and downtime was minimal. I enjoyed this playstyle.
I do think the game gets a bit repetitive, but what MMO doesn't?
Although the teaming system makes things a bit difficult, I still felt that teaming was fun and beneficial. I grouped up whenever the opportunity presented itself, and I had lots of fun doing it.

Overall, the game needs work to live up to its potential. Right now it is not polished enough to be a real threat to games like WoW. I am confident that the dev team is capable of turning this game into something great after a little time, and I look forward to seeing that game.