Champions Online offers free weekend during Blood Moon

What an excellent way to get players to try your game, I've been debating if CO was worth trying, but I didn't want to spedn $35 and be disappointed.

Wasn't real keen on closed beta but may give it a try next weekend to see how it's going.

I was surprised to see this mail. I was in the open beta and subscribed for the first month. My crappy video card, launch bugs, and a lack of low level content made me decide to just play for the month. I got a new card and have kept an eye on news related to CO. Things seemed like they were going better so I signed on for another month last night. I can see why they're offering free play for the weekend of Bloodmoon. The game doesn't seem to be retaining players well. The interesting thing about not have separate servers is that you can easily judge how many people are still playing the game based on the number of shards for a given zone and the game is VERY empty compared to the month of September. The first month of an MMO's like should be extra busy with people trying out the game but there are, by my best guess, a third as many shards as there was last month. The game's launch wasn't nearly as rosey as they've depicted here but I didn't think *that* many people left. They're trying to entice people to come back and give it another try and it looks like they need to pretty badly. They've clearly smoothed a few things out but that hasn't helped the lack of content. Reintroducing the game with Blood Moon is a good idea but it had better be a pretty sweet update because you can't reintroduce an MMO every 8 weeks and expect people to keep coming back.

Smart move for a niche game in a niche market.

Laughable.

Not even AoC gave away a free weekend this fast. The subscription retention numbers for this game must be abysmal.

Considering lag and login issues prevented many people from playing at all on Saturday and it took them a good 6-8 hours to even detect the problem, what makes anyone think CO will even have the servers be up for Blood Moon?

Not me. Cryptic has washed their hands of this one and have already moved on to Star Trek. PvP is a joke, there's almost no post-40 content, and an entire zone, the underwater area of Lemuria, has such atrocious lag and rubberbanding that it's unplayable for 90% of the population...what's left of it, that is. Nearly two months into the game and only 4 out of the 5 zones are playable. That's unacceptable.

Blood Moon is going to be a disaster. Supposedly there's a "winter event" that ol' Roper and Co. have planned, I expect it to be equally lousy (ice monsters and probably a new power set, that's it) and the major content upgrade in early 2010...well, will anyone still be around for that?

Atari's got to be thinking about pulling the plug. I forsee the winter event being equally disastrous, and the post-holiday sales in January aren't going to meet Atari's numbers. I call it 50-50 that those bad numbers turn into the big early 2010 content patch getting delayed until summer, and that'll be it for CO.

I've seen this roller coaster before. Might be better to jump off before it crashes.

I know for myself, I was hoping for CoH 2 but got something much different. And I hate the sharded system.

Are there any EU servers yet* - a free trial is tempting but with my geography & hardware the beta performance was abominable for me?

If there are EU servers now, I'm a definite yes - if not, not really worth the download and precious Halloween weekend gaming time.

*Yeah, I know "no 'servers' just shards etc." - but whatever set-up they're running it's using big ol' machines, so I don't care about the terminology I just want to know if any of these big ol' machines are located outside the US now.

a logical marketing decision, so typical that raising the above negative comments looks odd.

Because I think Arcadian needs to be coutered by someone who is a little more level headed and honest, I'll step up and say that he is not being completely on the level. The simple fact that he says it is unplayable by 90% of the populace tells me that he has an agenda. And I'm sure Cryptic has "washed it's hands" of a game that is under two months old. Really, try to make a compelling arguement and believe will find it much easier to buy your silliness.

Let me give an honest assessment.
1) I'm lvl 30 and have yet to run out of content once. There was a brief moment in my 20's that the missions were one or two lvls above me, but in thisgame that is not an issue. I still was able to solo most of those missions if not all.

2) I never had a problem finding a group when I really wanted to. And I'm talking middle of a weekday. Yes, it would be nice if you could somehow talk to all the shards at once when making a group. I have on occasion had to go to another shard to complete the group. But honestly, I have yet to really try the LFG tools except for in beta in my teens.

3) They added new content already, and with blood moon there will be even more content. They are adding a a new powerset to give people the dedicated healing that they ask for (despite the fact that a dedicated healer was already possible if you tried).

I can't comment on the supposed ruberbanding issues in Lemuria. Is it everyone? Is it some? Is it a few and then a lot od ne'er-do-wells jump on to it as a reason to complain? I also don't know what happens when you hit 40. I here there is no end game, but I'm not really sure what that means because that's as far as anyone has gone to explain high level content. Do you hit 40 and there are no missions? Are there repeatable missions? Are there raids? I really don't know. And if you are someone who is going to buy the game and get you free month of play to find out, go for it. It costs less than an xbox game and if you don't like it you're hardly out.

I love it though.

I think from now on I will not be buying boxed games.

Much cheaper to wait for these free trial weekends and then subscribe.

The stupid thing about this offer is: What about those who signed up on a lifetime subscription of the game? (I pity the fool). What benefit is this to them, with an additional free weekend?