Champions Online launch day round-up
by Shawn Schuster 
Sep 1st 2009 at 9:00AM
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Glean info in this video walkthrough of Champions Online's tutorial If you've been wondering what the starting area for Champions Online was like in moving pictures, you'll be happy to know that a two-part video has surfaced online for your viewing pleasure. The video is new gameplay footage blended a little bit with older trailers. Overall, if you're looking to see what the game actually looks like while being played, this video is a decent place to start. |
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Ten things to know when starting Champions Online Every time a new MMO launches, there's always a good list of things that wouldn't hurt for a new player to know, and Champions Online is no different. We're all about making your first steps into an unknown game as grief free as possible, so check out Syp's list if you're interested in such a proposal. He's got a very good rundown on things you need to know when entering the tutorial zone. |
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Travel powers trailer for Champions Online Yeah, we know the Champions Online open beta is out and many of you have probably been messing around with all these travel powers already, but it's always nice to get a preview of all your options in one nicely packaged trailer. Plus, trailers are a great way to kill a minute or five, depending on the game in question. |
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The Digital Continuum: Five reasons to play Champions Online It's been a long wait since the announcement of Cryptic's next project, so long that some of us began to run around our houses wearing towels around our necks. Thankfully, September 1st is now less than a month away. Open beta? That's even sooner. Before we know it the game will be sitting on our desks and shelves. |
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What'd we think? Staff impressions of the Champions Online beta Here at Massively, we love betas. We don't always get into every one of them, but when we can grab ourselves a key, we jump in head first. The recent Champions Online closed beta is a perfect example as more than just one or two of us were lucky enough to get in. |
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Champions Online melee powers trailer, plus teleporting We know plenty of you have been itching to see all of Champions Online's melee powers in motion, and that's what you'll get with this recently released trailer at IGN. Additionally, Cryptic's seen fit to show off the teleportation travel power, which we're completely in love with and know you'll be too if you're a melee user. There's nothing quite as awesome as appearing out of thin air, right behind your soon-to-be victim. |
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Massively Hands-on: Champions Online Desert Crisis zone We've given you a look at Champions Online's character creation, combat and first five levels -- plus we just began our Create My Champion feature yesterday. Today, we're here to tell you about one of the two zones you'll encounter after completing the tutorial zone: Desert Crisis. |
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Champions Online explains microtransactions, high level UNITY missions Cryptic Studios has released a Champions Online State of the Game for July 15. Although it highlights some of the beta happenings of late, it's likely this won't affect many of our readers. However, the info they've dropped about microtransactions and high level content is definitely worth a read for any fans of the game, whether you're a Champions Online beta tester or not. |
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Champions Online PvP explained There are three kinds of PvP encounters planned for launch and the whole system pays homage to the creators of Champions Online, Hero Games. The Hero Games is a system of sanctioned and unsanctioned PvP that branches into three areas: one-on-one dueling, a free-for-all zone known as Bash and the fully sponsor endorsed Millennium City Ultimate Tournament of Champions -- where players can queue up and go into combat alone or in a group of five friends. |
Filed under: News items, Features
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Agerath Sep 1st 2009 9:08AM
Welcome to championsonline.com!
Itanius Sep 1st 2009 9:13AM
Clearly you mean www.champions-online.com
Joshua Meadows Sep 1st 2009 9:25AM
OMG! There's a non-WoW post on WoW.com! How will I cope! How will my brain survive realizing that there are other games! How can I accept this intellectual assault against my precious worldviews!!!
I know, I'll leave a snarkastic comment on WoW simultaneously expressing my disappointment with this rape of my WoW-blog as well as my passive-aggressive finger-wagging at the author who dared invade my WoW-space with this awful, awful superhero ridiculousness.
That'll teach them!
snowleopard233 Sep 1st 2009 9:31AM
I kind of agree. Although it’s not the end of the world, I come here to see WoW news and go to massively or joystiq for anything else. Seeing Champions Online coverage posted here while it’s been all over Massively for the last ten months just seems inappropriate. I’d be lying if I said I’d like to see more posts like this on this site.
Corvana Sep 1st 2009 12:01PM
It's a valid point. How, precisely, does this relate to WoW again?
snowleopard233 Sep 1st 2009 3:49PM
Geez, I guess people don’t like it when others disagree with them.
Budokan Sep 1st 2009 9:15AM
For any WoW players thinking of trying out Champs let me just say that you will feel pleasantly at home with the interface, movement/targeting/combat, the questing system etc. This game innovates on many levels, but it certainly made efforts to feel familiar with respect how you interact with the world. It's obvious they looked at WoW and said "why is it so popular, and what lessons can we learn from that", and then incorporated those things into the game (very successfully too).
Freak Mojo Sep 1st 2009 10:00AM
I like the sound of that. As WoW has been my only MMO ever, I've been bored to death with it and have been intrigued by it... especially the comic book aspect of it. But I watched a gameplay trailer and it left me very underwhelmed.
So how about it wow.com? give us a review and comparison to the "standard" MMO champion.
Any other WoW players have some feedback on it?
Joshua Meadows Sep 1st 2009 10:53AM
Coming dangerously close to self-pimping, I wrote a pretty involved review of it after the open beta began and the NDA dropped. I've played WoW since before BC launched so it's certainly what I'm more familiar with, and despite playing other MMOGs routinely I still always come back to WoW. Nevertheless I definitely think Champions Online has stuff to offer and I thought it had a really innovative and fun approach to gaming. The review is on my site which I won't link to directly out of courtesy to WoW.com, but you can find it at joshuameadows.com if you'd like my perspectives of the game as someone who's spent the most amount of time in WoW.
Monsterman Sep 1st 2009 9:24AM
maybe i'm just fed up of same-old WoW, but I'm pleased to see the guy in the pic punching a voidwalker..
Deadlock Sep 1st 2009 9:26AM
I've been playing Champions recently (additional instances bug ground my WoWing to a complete halt and Blizz seems to ignore my server entirely, QQ) and can say the travel powers are fully awesome. Try out swinging and the rocket boots once you get to level 5, they're not as easy to use as the others but they're great fun.
There's something off about the graphics though, they look five years out of date sometimes.
Dotixi Sep 1st 2009 9:56AM
I give Champions Online a solid Meh. I leveled three characters during the beta and each time it was exactly the same. Unlike WoW, Champions only has one starting area which you have to fully complete before you can go anywhere else. Each area is instanced so you can't run from Booty Bay to EPL, for example, without taking a helicopter or teleporter. While the flight power are awesome there is really no use for them consider Champions is not an open world like WoW.
The best parts of Champions is the character creation. You can choose any abilities from any "class" to make your character or you can choose a "power set" like Fire, Power Suit or Duel Wield Swords.
Champions was fun to mess around with for a week but I wouldn't pay a monthly fee for it.
Joshua Meadows Sep 1st 2009 10:09AM
"I give Champions Online a solid Meh. I leveled three characters during the beta and each time it was exactly the same. Unlike WoW, Champions only has one starting area which you have to fully complete before you can go anywhere else. Each area is instanced so you can't run from Booty Bay to EPL, for example, without taking a helicopter or teleporter. While the flight power are awesome there is really no use for them consider Champions is not an open world like WoW."
Well this is slightly inaccurate.
Yes, you start out in one area, which is your home for level 1 - 5 (which if it's your first time playing will probably take you an hour to get through total.) This is the equivalent of the same starting areas in WoW before they sent you to pick up quests from the first major city. There's certainly a difference between being able to start a new character in WoW and run wherever you want off the bat, but Champions is allowed to be its own game and not a copy of WoW.
After you complete this tutorial area you're given the choice of two secondary zones to go through that get you from about 5 - 9/10; again, another forty-five minutes of play. Once you complete that, you have the choice of at least three and possibly five zones (or more, I can't remember) to do content in. The developers have said that each "zone" can completely serve as the entire home of your character until the endgame; if you want to make a character and level it solely in one zone, you can. Or you can do ten levels and take it to another zone and do another ten there. There's a really wide chance for replayability, which is something WoW certainly can work on.
Overall I liked Champions. WoW's been what I'm more comfortable with and have played significantly longer than anything else, but I definitely enjoyed the beta enough to take advantage of one of the six-month discount offers before launch.
T Sep 1st 2009 10:20AM
I agree with your review. I played through beta, and I have never encountered an MMO that puts you on rails to the point this one does. You do the starter zone, then you have to go to either Canada or the Southwest. After that, back to Millennium City. Sure the zones are huge, but if you get sick of the look and feel of an area you only have one other option. It is ironic that the zones are so huge because it feels like an incredibly tiny game world. Based on my beta impressions I canceled my pre-order at Gamestop. There just really doesn't appear to be much to the game at this time.
Joshua Meadows Sep 1st 2009 10:50AM
Aion is significantly more locked-in than Champions is, for example. Not only do you have one starting zone that you're stuck in for ten levels, you have the same background as everyone else. (IE, fallen hero of your people, attacked by a great foe and rescued with amnesia and no knowledge of who you once were.) So for ten levels you're doing quests in one very narrow, predefined path, with no choices or variation between them, all the while every character references the same bio as every other player. How many fallen heroes did this war have?
Thorie Sep 1st 2009 10:00AM
is there PvP in champions online? like can I choose to play as a villian and go walk down the streets firing laserbeams at people who play as the good guys? or do we have to play as a hero?
Biskit333 Sep 1st 2009 5:42PM
At the end of closed beta (the last time I played) there was no way to play as a villain. They do offer pvp in the form of dueling, 5v5 arena, and one (more planned) battleground style scenario. All of these are run through an ultimate fighter style organization in the game, so it is more like hero vs hero extreme sports than hero vs villain wars.
Chilblain Sep 1st 2009 10:00AM
City of Heroes is really popular enough to support another superhero game? I don't think people actually "play" that game anyway; they just create characters and have costume contests.
machoflaco Sep 1st 2009 10:16AM
God, when are they going to realize there's mac users out there too. There's no mac version. Guess they aren't getting my money.
Amritrao Sep 1st 2009 10:53AM
You can always go out and purchase a coy of Windows to play games in Bootcamp, although I have to admit I've never been able to make any game work in Bootcamp on my 2-yr-old (ancient!) macbook.