Champions Online looks to its one-year anniversary and beyond

I like what I see/ read.

I just started Champions Online less than a week ago. Ive heard such horrible things about it. Well Ive hit 23 and it has been worth the ride. For 20$ there is no better MMO or superhero game on the market, I would highly suggest this to anyone looking for a good time.

let's review the year

1 year into the game's life, and they have lost much of their playerbase, angered the remaining ones, released very little in the way of actual improvements and content, left bugs in there that were from beta, and have had a lot of their staff leave, quit, be fired, and reassigned.

Good times. Here is to another year, as sad as it may truly be.

For all of the bad press, you would think that the game was a train wreck, but I have to say that it truly is a great game. It's fun, slightly fast paced and the lore is pretty good. There seems to be a lot of improvements being done to the game, and if "staff leave, quit, be fired, and reassigned" so what, especially when the game becomes better for it. Most of all the game is FUN and that's why I play it. If you don't think so, move on find something else.

I resubbed for fun. I logged into Lumeria to find only one instance with only five people swimming around. For a AAA MMO with only one server. Did I miss something or..?

I played at launch, and it didnt capture my attention after the first month. I recently resubbed 2 months ago and I'm having a lot of fun with the game. I agree with the above poster this is the best superhero game out at this time.

Sure is planty in here.

I've played Champs since launch and it's a great game. It's just... these days I expect more from an MMO than it currently offers. As others have mentioned there are bugs that have been around since beta, powers that are still unbalanced (some since beta) and still a sizable lack of content for a game that is pretty easy to level in and is based mostly around making alts. STO is similair, but is getting meaningful updates at a better rate and the new diplomacy system and monthly episodes show where Cryptic is putting it's money. It's easy for new players to dismiss the bad press and I'm glad they like it, but they weren't around when the game launched and we had to go through the days of massive rebalancing that should have been done during beta (the launch day patch was covered here at Massively it was such a big deal) and the complete and total lack of content (also covered) that makes the game today look like a dream. Honestly, I feel that the state the game is in now is the state it should have been launched in.

Even with the Summer Update taking care of some bugs, if I know Champions it will create just as many if not more in the implementation and it should be stated that while the Ren Center update is nice and so are the SG Updates, I would much rather see work being done to power balance and power fixes (in particular eye beams, mini mines, molecular self assembly, and other powers that have been useless since beta).

I'm surprised Champions made it to year one, honestly, but I don't know if it can hang on with all the competetion coming out. DCUO especially is going to take a pretty large chunk out of it's already meager subs, which is too bad. I know I'm being mostly negative, but I do really like the game. It deserves much better than its current treatment and really could (and should) stand head and shoulders above it's older sister (CoX) if it got a little more love.

Regardless... cheers on seeing year one. Here's to hoping there's a second year anniversary to go to.

This game is as shallow as a kiddie pool. Not worth a sub whatsoever.

play.com in the UK has the game for sale at £1.99, well worth it for the 30 free days to try out. I really enjoyed the first 15 levels but then it started to drag into a grindfiest....and I realised I was just play CoH Mk II and the devs really hadn't learned very much.

There's still fun to be had with the game (zombie PvP! cool) but with CoH and DCU out I see champions as being the game that will suffer the most.

I honestly wasn't expecting the game to last this long. My prediction at the time of launch was "if it survives the first year, which is unlikely, it'll probably stick around".

At this point, if all the bad press and the dev team shuffling hasn't sunk it, it's got more life in it than people realise. I predict CO chugging along on whatever audience it can get, until Atari pulls the plug on it.

... no I'm too tired to even say anything about CO after STO and its troubles. Apart from these sentences, that is.

CO ends in November.