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Champions Online: One Month Out Q&A
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
MMORPG.com's Garrett Fuller posed five questions to Champions Online Senior Producer Chris Lena about the state of the game as it moves closer and closer to launch. These questions were submitted prior to the beginning of the open beta.
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MMORPG.com:
At this time, if an MMO player has not heard of Champions Online, how would you describe the game to them?
Chris Lena:
Champions Online is a super-powered action MMORPG with an unparalleled level of character customization. Hmm, maybe I should go into marketing.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
Chris Lena:
"The feedback has been really great. By taking both the feedback from the beta testers and combining it with our data mining we are able to make a lot of tweaks to mission flow and power balance (the kinds of things that having a lot of data makes much easier). For instance, we may see comments that indicate users didn't know where to go after finishing a particular chain of missions. That gives us a starting point where we can begin asking other questions... Is there an unexpected bump in the time it takes to get to the next level? Are the missions giving the expected rewards? Is there some sort of signpost that helps players get to more missions? Answering these types of questions helps us smooth out the play experience.
Another big role feedback plays at this stage is balancing powers. Are characters with a particular group of powers leveling faster or slower than others? Does every winner in PvP have the same specific power or set of powers? This is another area where beta players combined with data analysis is allowing us to make well informed tweaks to various powers."
How close is the release and shouldn't these issues already be well covered? Im sorry but I don't see their code monkeys having time to adjust these things. Word is not sounding good either. I hope it turns out to be a good launch.
Little bit of frustration with the open beta. After springing for a life time membership and pre-ordering the client I was also forced to subscribe to FilePlanet in order to download the beta. Not such a huge deal, except that the initial 2 GB download was faulty. Many of the data files weren't unpacked into the approriate directories. This resulted in another download process of the entire data set at first.
This error combined with unanticipated numbers of open beta users (can Cryptic not count?) caused some serious download issues.
Eventually Cryptic did upload a fixed version to FilePlanet, but simply moving the data files into the correct directories manually fixed some of the issues.
I expect download problems on the first day of open beta. That is what open beta is for. But the error with the FilePlanet download was plain sloppy.
Stop crying in my beer.
Realistically, these are issues that the dev team will have to adjust for the life of the MMO. Things like PvP balancing, mission flow, and power balancing are constantly being adjusted in all MMOs.
And the release is September 1st.
Actually, thats what I was saying (as well as many others) in CB. They made immense changes up until OB... their combat mechanic was changed suddenly and not overly tested the very last CB scheduled patch day before OB. Then suddenly all the Enemies had been over tweaked and half the population wiped on the tutorial multiple times, nor could they complete many missions in the crisis zones either which disheartened some of the CB community.
I think cryptic is just dead set on release... eventhough some of the community wanted it pushed back a bit longer... They didn't even start trying to balance mobs, powers, and items until the last 2 weeks of beta (sufficiently 2 patches worth of "major" changes) and it seems that its all cryptic thinks they need.
Fortunately i suppose everything is okay... the balance issues that are left and the mission problems and power problems are all parts of "polish" as they are very minor. I still may not agree with a number of other things they did in this game, but at this point theres no use in complaining.... its too late to change them.
Why did you need to subscribe to File Planet? You just needed to be a member if you already had an OB key from your pre-order...They were "testing" the launcher. That's what the OB is for....testing. It may have been rough for a some people, but mine downloaded in about an hour, and I was able to get into the game.
Yeah, not sure why you had to subscribe. I pre-ordered, was sent a key, that key was recognized by FilePlanet, and I got to download the fubar client.
Speaking of fubar clients, I'm not sure Crytpic understands how important a 0-issue launch is to the success of an MMO. The list of MMO's that launched poorly and never recovered the users is long and distinguished, and even more of a threat in this day of MMO's being released monthly. People get a bad taste in their mouth when they pay $60 for a client and can't play the game. The pre-orders being cancelled can be heard around the world.
People naturally (if not logically) connect how well the beta launched with how well the game will launch, and if Cryptic can't manage a handful of Open Beta users, how will they handle the "masses" of new, paying customers when the game goes live? How well the launch goes is a direct contributor to how many people flip the free 30-days into a recurring subscription.
Time to step up to the plate, Cryptic, because more mmo's swing and miss than hit home runs in this market.
"The feedback has been really great. By taking both the feedback from the beta testers and combining it with our data mining we are able to make a lot of tweaks to mission flow and power balance (the kinds of things that having a lot of data makes much easier)."
This just cracks me up, the beta forums have been FILLED with people talking about how bad the game is. Complaining non-stop and being totally ignored by the developers.
I plan on checking back on this game about 1-2 years post release. Maybe by then they will have fired most of the people now working on it and fixed the game. But I would not bet on it.
This game should do GREAT for about 3 months, and then they will start to run out of new people and the game will crash.
What makes me say this? The same group of people who I beta tested CoX with all quit this beta because it was so boring. All 5 of us just could not make ourselves even log into this free beta... Somehow I don't think any of us are going to pay for it.
Ok i can agree with this, Even though i find CO fun i have began to loose interest, though i atribute that mostly to Zone Malize. With all the player wipes in Closed Beta i never got out of Real Milinium city (14+) and played the tutorial melinium, crysis desert, real desert, crysis canada and real canada so much i could do them in my sleep. Hell on one of my toon i neever died once till i reached real millinium.
Ok i got to chime in. The first day of open beta was less than desired but being a member of multiple betas that is to be expected not one of them goes perfect especially the open beta closed one was smoother in this case. As far as the game goes i created 8 characters in closed beta and got them up to at least 18 and not once did i get bored with it sure the missions ware the same but the different character builds offered different experiances. I just have to say IMO its a fun game and i can't wait for the official launch day. But on a side noke to enjoy the game you have to be a comic book and superhero type of game fan.
FYI if you are having toruble with the fileplanent beta i just torented the thing, look for my id NekoLLX in the coments.
It's the file stright from fileplanet and installed fine for me so should be good for everyone else.
I've been on the fence about this game... at times really wanting it, then that feeling subsiding.. but now hearing about the Nemesis thing.. I really like that, and may actually go ahead and get it.. I had some fun with CoH/CoV so I'm sure this'll at least be as good, if not alot better.
Its Great, its amazing!
I don't know why MMORPG.com bothers with PR speak releases like this. Check the Champion forums on this site to get a feel for the pros and cons of the game. Yes you have your fanboys and eventually you will get the anti crowd, but between that you get an honest impression.
Can't be that important since Ive never seen a "0 issue launch" of an mmo, ever.
Apparently stating the truth in my sig is "trolling"
Sig typo fixed thanks to an observant stragen001.
Nice publicity piece. However, this game is for the superhero crowd, and I doubt between the stylized graphics and the way the game plays (think VERY console friendly) it's going to sway a ton of people outside of that particular sphere to pony up.
Add in microtransactions (read: you've been roperfied!) and you have something that a lot of us western players that aren't superhero nuts don't care for: it should either have an optional sub AND MT's, or just a flatout rate. Not a manditory sub AND MT's.
I understand some companies want to explore what the market will tolerate, and yes I've tested this game. Mob balance is very peculiar. A mob lvl 3 may hit 3x less hard than a mob lvl 4, and the same type of mob may vary in how hard it hits and the likelihood you will die depending on where it spawns.
If you enjoyed CoH/CoV I have no doubt you'll love CO. But if this is your first foray into a superhero mmo, CoX might be better, I really don't know.
Just my two plat, take it for what it's worth, it's just an opinion and nothing more...
-Cym
Couple of things... first... "handful of testers"? They have 50k fileplanet keys, plus there were some french sites(from canada) giving out keys, plus they invited 10k people into closed beta a couple of weeks before the OB, plus all the pre-orders.
second... read the boards if you want to know how the game is? Look, you go to the boards you are going to see a LOT of people whining or complaining. Why? cause the rest of us are too busy playing it and enjoying it.
third... "This just cracks me up, the beta forums have been FILLED with people talking about how bad the game is. Complaining non-stop and being totally ignored by the developers." Ok, see my second point. Also, just cause you don't like how a power works, or feel that someone else is too strong, or anything else, does not mean that you are right. You want to make a case for it, take some metrics. Spreadsheet it, chart it, post it up. Otherwise, I am going to have to assume that they know more. In every game I've been in, you have the people who start screaming nerf on the forums and then the company nerfs it and then you have the people who complain about the nerf and blame it on the "whiners". Just because you want them to nerf something, doesn't mean it needs to be nerfed. Just because you don't want it nerfed, doesn't mean it shouldn't be.
Lastly... Its really had to tell where it is going to go yet. Partly cause of the constant wipes(a LOT of people never got to hit nemesis or unity), and partly because of people's mentality in beta. I had one guy trying to start a supergroup(read: guild) yesterday and everyone in global chat started telling him not to bother cause its just beta and we will be wiped anyways. A lot of people aren't bothering to group up or connect with people because of this as well. (Just as a side note, I wound up having to tell him how to start his SG, cause people got so caught in the "why should we bother, this is just beta" convo that he couldn't get any info).
The game is a lot of fun, and once we hit release, it will be a lot more fun.
The game is turd.
Been in beta now for ages. While it has good points its nothing amazing, nothing addictive and is mainly button mashing due to the fact that its designed for a console.
I expect a Conan style fall out with this one.
Be warned.
Game is excellent fun. Suggest everyone tries this one.
Ive never really been big on asian style mmorpgs but if its CO with p2p & Mt's & DC coming out very soon, I think Ill try out some Aion.
Seeing as invulni was nerffed and pff was buffed and more i think this is not as big of a deal , the real issue is the lack of group content before lvl 27.
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
It takes more skills than wow or aion not much to complain about.
I have read a posts where a person complained, when i use my abilities on nothing i lose energy , i don;t like this. WELL DON'T USE YOUR ABILITIES ON NOTHING (stuff thats los'ed, ps you can turn this off in options).
My cracter has to turn off his auto fire, click a proc line up a shot with aoe then charge it then autofire on then repete with a extra proc and that toons only 15.
Another has to contently line up his attack becuase hsi base auto fire is a cone attack and all my damage is tagged on to it via 100% proc abilities on cool downs (thats more movement of my character, and in pve mobs, than wow or aion have).
You have to chase enemies to use youe maintianed melee attack on them or set them up with root, snares, holds or stusn before using them or charged melee abilities, all once agian takes more thinking and effort than wow or aion.
So when you say its button mashing i laugh becuase i guess some characters could do this but in pvp and to be very effective in pve you couldn't be more wrong.
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
Yeah, the microtransactions are the reason I'm on the fence about the game. Since the game is just launching, I can't tell how far they're going to take MTs. I don't want to spend money on a P2P, only to have the game become "not fun" without paying for MTs in addition to the P2P sub. If that happens, then all those months spent on the sub become a waste. They could have been spent on a different MMO.
To clarify, I'm in the beta, and the game is fun and looks like it has potential. It also has some repetitiveness and lack of polish that isn't surprising in a launch MMO. MMOs are constantly changing, especially in the first year. When making a change, devs can sometimes choose to:
For example, if players feel that crafting is too grindy. Do you add a cash shop item that speeds up crafting, or do you change the crafting system to be more interesting and less repetitive? An F2P would add the cash shop item. A P2P shouldn't because it's part of the sub.
With microtransactions involved, it seems a lot smarter to wait a year and see how far they take MTs (and how well the game develops) before putting any money into it.
One thing I'm certain of is that paying for a lifetime sub is a bad idea when microtransactions are built into the game (and the user agreement) from the start.
Micro transactions mean this is defiantly going to be one I won’t play from launch. If it turns out to be fluff only I may consider it.
Not exactly superheroic is it?
“Hang on Justice League we need to stop of at the cash shop for our health and armour boosts!”
“Dammit we are going to have to run there as I am out of petrol money for the Batmobile.”
Maybe enough anti RMT feeling on the boards will alter their stance on the cash shop but I doubt it.
better not make any mmo plans then, cash shops arnt going anywhere so you better get used to it.
Apparently stating the truth in my sig is "trolling"
Sig typo fixed thanks to an observant stragen001.
Right now pvp is limited to cage match. Just wait till the open areas you aint seen nothing until a 40 ton tank comes flying into your group and wipes your squishes....the aoe thrown objects is oh so cool. Right now I can only throw crates in the cage match hehehe.
This game is such a sleeper hit that when you wake up you wont even remember a game called WoW.
i can't throw tanks yet but i can throw a semi...