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Champions Online: F2P Version Launching Jan. 25th
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Not to be overshadowed by that -other- super hero game, Champions Online developers announced that the free to play version of the game will be officially launched on January 25th.
Atari Inc., one of the world's most recognized videogame publishers, and renowned MMO developer Cryptic Studios, have announced today that the Free-to-Play update to the superhero MMORPG Champions Online™ will be available worldwide on Tuesday, January 25, 2011.
Champions Online: Free For All also features additional premium content for purchase. Adventure Packs, items, powers and costume pieces can be selected a la carte inside Cryptic's innovative C-Store. Additionally, current players may continue subscribing as Gold Members, while new players may also optionally upgrade to Gold status, which unlocks most of the game's content and includes extra features for a set price of $14.99 per month.
Read more here.
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Hell Yeah!
Nice response to DC universe
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My Guild Wars titles
I wanted to ask this one the champions forum but apparently you cannot even post there if you are not a paying player.
I guess having paid for 2 years or whatever makes no difference.
Anyway.
How will it work if I have a bunchof characters on there already? If I decide I want to play the f2p will I be able to use any of my old characters?
The Stranger: It's what people know about themselves inside that makes 'em afraid.
Don't, play COH instead.
"He's no good to me dead."
From the F2P Faq:
Your heroes are still available, but they may not use Gold features. To play them as a Silver Player, you will need to convert them before playing.
Characters will remain when switching from Gold to Silver. However, players will not be able to play them until either they re-upgrade to Gold or convert them into Silver characters. Exactly how this conversion will work is still being determined. Please note that we never delete character data. If a Gold Member cancels his or her subscription and decides to restart it at a later date, all of that member's characters and associated items will be intact.
YEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH finaly!!!!
You can convert characters to the f2p mode.
The way it is set up is that "Gold members" [or whatever subscribers are called] can make characters just like now - nothing changes. F2p players can only make certain types of characters [Archetypes] which are all the same and get the same skills on level up. There are a few minor choices allowed [choice among 3-4 travel poweres for example] and, of coarse, more options that you can buy ala carte.
Already extant characters can be converted to archetype characters, but I don't think that they can be converted back even with a subscription.
Having only played a month as a subscriber, I still saw many differences between the archetypes and my vision for my characters. That said, my nephew had a good time playing a fire-based nuker archetype.
<p align=center><a target=_blank href=http://www.nodiatis.com/personality.htm><img border=0 src=http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/20.jpg></a></p>;
No kidding! Dropping this announcement on the very day of DCUO's launch was well played. Even more interesting is that CO will have its F2P system up and running before the first 30 days of free game time is over at DCUO.
I may give this game a whirl since it will be F2P in just a coupel of weeks.
Having played every superhero mmo game on the market anytime in the near future, I'd have to say my favorite is still city of heroes/villains. That being said, I wish them well, but think that even that being the case dcuo is gonna eat champions cookies even if they're free to play. What this does however is make champions a real threat to city o... no wait it doesn't. Champions just doesn't fit in and it really... really... wasn't all that good.
Shadus
And that's pretty much it in a nutshell.
I'm a lifer for that game. Someone asked me whether I felt ripped off because it is going Free To Play. I said no, because the F2P people get a gaming experience that is far chopped down from what I get.
They basically get a glorified free trial to the game. I support this approach to MMORPGs, and I believe no MMO should launch without either a F2P option or a comprehensive free trial in place. These are games that you can neither take back nor trade in, you see, and since they offer vastly different experiences (don't laugh) you need to be able to determine for yourself whether they're right for you before you shell out the cash.
There are very few MMOs whose forums you can post on without an active account. Anyway, you have two choices with existing characters: 1) convert them to F2P, 2) resub. If you convert them to F2P, they wont have anything that is beyond the limits of the F2P settings, meaning you might lose some of the high end gear you have. But you dont have to do that if you dont want to; they wont make you convert. Your free to either resub or create new characters with F2P account if you want.
You don't lose gear when converting. Just your powers are changed to archetypes and you may lose some costume peices. Even a lvl 40 silver player can get the same blues/purples that gold members can.
"If you're going to act like a noob, I'll treat you like one." -Caskio
Adventurers wear fancy pants!!!
Cryptic had already announced it was going F2P early last month or so, but to RE-announce it on DCUO's launch was a PR masterstroke. It remains to be seen just how many people will hear that message but it was the best card they could play.
The interesting part about what you said which ties in with Bill Murphy's review of DCUO is this part he posted:
Thats one two weeks maximum. So let's say someone plays the game and thinks it's okay, but they've capped. Even though people HEAR 'content is coming', they don't like to wait around for it. So they may figure "I'll go play CO for F2P instead of paying for a monthly sub while I wait."
Or, they may think "since I'm subbed to one, I'll play CO for free at the same time".
"TO MICHAEL!"
lol classy on the day of DCUO release.
I didn't really like the art work and graphic style but I would be willing to give it a shot if it were free, hell yah why not lol.
Well, it seems that most people are assuming that hitting the level cap is the end of the gaming experience. In my opinion, I think hitting the level cap is just the point where experience stops - you can still complete content. As long as they have some group/progression content to work on at cap, I'll be content. Even if there isn't load of content at cap, superhero games were meant to have a million alts - I've played CoH on and off since its release and still don't have a max level character; I'd get to my mid-30's and decide to reroll just because I thought of a cooler concept char.
Problem I had with this game is that I never felt like a badass superhero. I felt more like a superpowered military grunt constantly doing work for the government.
I'll stick with DC Universe, thanks. I'd much rather save someone from jumping off a building just like freaking Superman, who by the way I can also hang out and do missions with, such as beating down Doomsday, the guy who killed Superman once before, than find someone's missing office supplies because some nameless soldier in an army tent commanded me to.
Ahh the age of the (company has lost too many subs to be able to charge a fee) CASH SHOP is upon those who play broken titles like this. What can ya do?
Changing the business model isn't about trying to save a failing game. It's about trying to maximize revenue. WoW would go "free to play" if Blizzard thought they'd make more money that way.
And for the zillionth time, it's really just an extended free trial. It's not limited by content, level, or gear, but it does sharply restrict your builds. Well, non-subscribers would have to pay to get access to the adventure packs, but that's a very small portion of the content. The archetype builds are strong enough to do whatever content you want, but they are markedly weaker than what you can create with a custom build.
Fantastic news: Nothing worse than a cash shop in a subscription based game. Making this game FTP is more consumer friendly imo. Should give Smed a run for his money in the superhero genre too.
It's still going to be a subscription based game. The subscription just gives you most of the important stuff in the "cash shop", plus some really important stuff such as custom builds that aren't available except by subscription.
This game was so dreary and generic I would struggle to go back if they paid me, the real problem is what this new model means to long term development because there are few games out there that need it more desprately than this one.
No surprise here, but imo not even worth F2P ^^
Sweet! A new costume/environment generator for my PnP Champions game!
I have a feeling that there's going to be a big bait-and-switch by Cryptic shortly after the F2P goes live. I don't know why but call it a gut feeling. Initially it looked like they were going to be extremely stingy with what would be available to F2P and more-so what would be available a la carte. It still is too stingy IMO, they should add more customization options to the a la carte. However it is still a ton more than I would have expected from them.
I have a feeling though that a month after F2P releases they are going to take away a bunch of options from a la carte purchasing and put them back into the subscription model... making people reconvert their characters with those a la carte purchased options back to F2P. They also could get everyone stoked about F2P and in the 11th hour before F2P launches take a bunch of stuff away from the F2P model. I guess it may just me being paranoid and having zero faith in Cryptic, but we'll see.
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"Searchers after horror haunt strange, far places..." ~ H.P.Lovecraft, "From Beyond"
Member Since March 2004
Cryptic hasn't tried to fool anyone before although they have tended to bite off a little more than they can chew. From what seems apparent the F2P is just a stripped down version of the full blown subcription accounts, which will still exist. If you recall even the full accounts were subject to c-store purchases for new costumes and such. I just hope they have everything working so players who have never played it get to enjoy it even at a F2P level. I'll look in on it later and who knows, maybe I'll jump back in.