Cryptic Studios' superhero MMO Champions Online will become a free-to-play title with some very thick strings attached starting Q1 2011.
When the changes roll out, anyone who makes an account for the game will be able to level to the cap, buy supplemental items at will, and… well, that's about it. Non-subscribers will be locked out of a large portion of the game's pre-existing content, will roll with lowered amounts of inventory, bank, and marketplace space, and won't be able to assign character powers. Existing and new subscribers, however, will get full, normal access, according to a recent Cryptic blog post.
If you want the full details, and there's a lot of minor stuff that free owners will be limited to, check out this official features matrix. Notice that the subscription option will continue to cost $15 a month and Lifetime members are automatically enrolled into the subscription tier.
Wow. That is one sexy, sexy superhero. == TEASER ==According to Eurogamer, the beta testing phase for this switch will start November 9. I'd imagine the official site will offer sign-ups at some point, though, the existing base might be enough to pull it off.
We've seen a lot of MMOs switch to the F2P structure of late. Turbine's Lord of the Rings Online is the most mainstream, but lesser-known games like Dungeons and Dragons Online and Global Agenda have made the hop from subscription-exclusive to F2P rather lucratively. I wonder if Champions Online will get the same sort of positive boost?
"There are so many of these MMOs going free-to-play, who has the time to try them all properly? The MMO bubble just needs to burst already. WoW has won. "
In terms of players? Absolutely, WoW has won and it's unlikely any game will ever come close to pulling those kind of numbers. In terms of actual gameplay? There are far better games out there.
Guild Wars 2 for example is going for almost the complete opposite of what WoW is doing in every aspect and looks to be the far, far better game. But likely still won't come close to the number of players it has.
Really seems to be a growing trend now with some of the bigger MMOs has to be something to do with not being able to compete with WoW, in a way I can understand too, now just waiting till Lord of The Rings Online is available in Europe free as it's been delayed, which sucks as I have been waiting months.
Enjoyed the game for 1/2 month more or less. The most fun you will get it the character creation, its just that good. I usually spent between 30mins and 1h to make a character and you could always get a different result.
Theres something strange about their business model though, you payed the monthly fee and on top of that if you wanted basic stuff like more character slots you had to buy it.... I mean, im all for a little extra stuff to sink cash in, but make you pay twice for relatively basic game features is stealing.
" Cool. because I have no interest in actually playing the game but do want to fuck around in the character creator "
you can actually do this now, there's a free unlimited time trial, it limits you to the first zone and only one or two characters, but it is free forever.
Non-subscribers ... won't be able to assign character powers.
This makes no sense to me. Does it mean non-subscribers will have to use pre-existing templates and their level progression is all done automatically? Wouldn't that produce a lot of clone characters running around the game world? Doesn't that entirely remove the most (and only) appealing feature of the game, that is being able to create your own superhero? I bought the game when it was new, played it for about a month and cancelled my subscription. It's a tedious kill-em/collect-em MMO with practically no interaction between players. Communicating with others in the game world is unusual and I felt like I was playing a single-player game most of the time and not in the good way because there is no real story. I might consider giving it another go as a F2P if some of these restrictions weren't so limiting. If I can't make my own superhero the way I want her to look and be powered, why bother? "
If you really want to play a F2P MMO, I'd suggest LOTRO. I played it back when there wasn't much midgame content at launch so I quit at level 30ish, but the Hobbit burglar I played was loads of fun and I'm sure the game has as much endgame content as WoW with all the work Turbine has done the past few years.
Non-subscribers ... won't be able to assign character powers.
This makes no sense to me. Does it mean non-subscribers will have to use pre-existing templates and their level progression is all done automatically? Wouldn't that produce a lot of clone characters running around the game world? Doesn't that entirely remove the most (and only) appealing feature of the game, that is being able to create your own superhero?
I bought the game when it was new, played it for about a month and cancelled my subscription. It's a tedious kill-em/collect-em MMO with practically no interaction between players. Communicating with others in the game world is unusual and I felt like I was playing a single-player game most of the time and not in the good way because there is no real story.
I might consider giving it another go as a F2P if some of these restrictions weren't so limiting. If I can't make my own superhero the way I want her to look and be powered, why bother?
Hmm... on one hand, it's making a game I wasn't interesting in buying available to me for free! On the other hand, I still don't have too much interest in playing.
Still, it's a nice thing for people who wanted to play and couldn't afford it!
" Cool. because I have no interest in actually playing the game but do want to fuck around in the character creator "
The character creator, much like in CoH, was amazing. I played it at launch, and it was the one thing in the game that felt complete. I hope they don't chop a bunch of the basic options out of it and sell them as micro-transactions. The biggest problem I had with this game was the lack of polish and content. By level 20 the content was feeling pretty thin. Also the instancing made me wonder how this was a $15 a month game. Combat system was solid enough.
Definitely will give it a look when it goes full on free to play. Wonder if my old characters are still there?
This isn't the way I wanted it to go, but I can't fault Cryptic for it. Because of the whole lifetime subscription thing, I can understand why made this sort of F2P model.
However, I vehemently disagree on the constricting leveling system for silver members. I feel that not choosing which powers you want for each level interval takes away the the heart of MMORPG's.
" There are so many of these MMOs going free-to-play, who has the time to try them all properly? The MMO bubble just needs to burst already. WoW has won. "
^ Crazy person. If you think everyone should just give up and stop innovating when somebody releases a good product then you are crazy. WoW hasn't 'Won', theres still a few billion people not playing WoW so its not like the market isn't there. Mostly people just ship cruddy buggy MMOs and people don't want to put up with that anymore.
I played champions online for a couple of months but bugs, slow internet and some major balancing issues made me stop. But I still want to go back to it because even with it's faults I kinda liked it.
So they're basically copying the Lord of the Rings/DDO model, right down to the chart. I don't think we're talking about the same quality as LOTRO, though. Cryptic lost a lot of credibility with me after the Star Trek Online launch.
Incidentally, LOTRO was doing just fine before it went F2P. Of course, nobody pulls WoW-level numbers, but the game was successful. Turbine made Dungeons and Dragons Online F2P with a microtransaction store, and it did something ridiculous like quadruple their profits on the game. So they did the same with Lord of the Rings.
There are so many of these MMOs going free-to-play, who has the time to try them all properly? The MMO bubble just needs to burst already. WoW has won.
" Nice job missing the entire point of going Free to play. "
Not really, "Free to play" is just a marketing illusion used to cover up the fees that it wants you to pay for extra content or upgrades. Calling something free implies there's something else you could pay for. Which is why you would hardly ever call flash games free to play. "
That's some lovely semantics stuff but I was actually talking about how other MMOs go free to play to increase the playerbase in hopes of attracting more customers who then pay smaller quantities for extra things they actually want instead of severely limiting the player in every single aspect.
" Nice job missing the entire point of going Free to play. "
Not really, "Free to play" is just a marketing illusion used to cover up the fees that it wants you to pay for extra content or upgrades. Calling something free implies there's something else you could pay for. Which is why you would hardly ever call flash games free to play.
i personally like how sony has handled everquest 2 as a free to play game out of all the recent free to play transitions. still haven't tried lotro yet but man, its kinda sad the shape of the MMORPG market is in right now.
Champions Online is actually a really fun game to mess around with for a few months. I dig the freedom they give you with choosing your powers and customizing the way they look. The downside is that the content in the game isn't varied enough to keep my attention. Gets boring after a little while.
Too bad free-to-play is never really free to play. They lock you out of so much content that it's not worth the time or effort. Just look at what Battlefield Heroes turned into.
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