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sweep

Stay in the woods. Stay green. Stay safe.

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The Price Is Right

By sweep 14 Comments

Champions Online is a game that... well... It's kinda... yeah.

Is there even any point in me telling you what kind of game it is? 

I'm sure by now you already know and if you don't you should go and find out. Because it's free. Yep, you have no excuse not to play it. Unfortunately you then have plenty of excuses to stop playing it.
 
No Caption Provided

Being the broke chump that I am, I sauntered back into Millennium City riding the wave of freeness in all it's glory. Having arrived I was greeted by the familiarity of Champions Online's fantastic aesthetic and wonderful atmosphere. There are hundreds of dudes flying, teleporting, swinging, leaping, and whizzing around all over the place and when you are caught up in the hubbub it's a pretty magical spectacle to behold. 
 

Unfortunately

The general structure of the game remains overtly bland, with the city and it's surrounding locations so vast that it's easy to find yourself depressingly isolated for long periods of time. This is a shame, as it's the creativity of the playerbase in designing their heroes that makes Champions Online so vibrant. I have been playing a few hours a day for the past week and remain consistently underwhelmed with the gameplay, finding the core quest mechanics uninspired and monotonous - which is pretty much how I felt the first time I played it back when it was released. I'm level 11 with my current character and I only have two attacks other than my basic punch. One of them is a slightly stronger punch, and one of them if a leaping punch. As almost every mission involves going somewhere and fighting something, only having 2 buttons to press is absolutely mind-numbing. I spend most of my time mashing a single button before tabbing onto my next dullard opponent.
 
However it's important to remember that Champions Online is now free, which makes it a lot easier to overlook many of the games shortcomings. As a business model it works fantastically well, and I have on several occasions had to catch myself before handing over some of that Green Paper (that I don't have) in exchange for Atari Bones (That I don't want) so I could buy goofy shit (which I don't need). I stopped myself just in time when I realised that my Swamp Monster In A Tuxedo was already as awesome as it was possible to be. Perhaps more so.
 
This is my dude. He's called SWOMP, mostly because he SWOMPs people. 
This is my dude. He's called SWOMP, mostly because he SWOMPs people. 

The fact of the matter is, Champions Online is a fairly complete product already and you can enjoy it without having to worry about micro-transactions, though it remains a fantastically colourful world of entrapment and you may find it very hard to resist it's seductive manipulations. Just being exposed to the possibility of Rocket Boots is so sorely tempting that I spent a good 5 minutes looking at them and then researching how to buy Atari Points before I even remembered that I don't even actually like this game.
 
So Champions Online happened and is continuing to happen. There are many things in this world which I am prepared to pay for and Champions Online was once one of them, but in retrospect; free is a much more appropriate price for this specific brand of insanity. 
 
Thanks For Reading 
Love Sweep
14 Comments

14 Comments

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Lind_L_Taylor

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Edited By Lind_L_Taylor
I bought the Steam version of CO for $11 around Dec. 2010 so I could 
get the Steam achievements.  After it went free, I found that CO was pulled
from Steam.  However, on the CO forums, one of the developers was 
saying back in early Feb they were going to re-integrate with Steam &
more achievements would be added (it has a massive amount already!).
But I haven't seen a Steam version of CO re-added to Steam or the
product fixed for Steam achievements to work since. I even went back
in to the CO forum & updated that old Steam achievement thread to 
request an update for the folks that don't have the Steam version of
CO.  
 
In fact, there were rumors stating if an owner of the Steam version
deleted it from his hdd, he would lose his copy of Steam-based CO,
which would then mean you lose the achievements feature.  The
only way around it was to make sure you had a backup copy of
your Steam installation!  Which is good to know.
 
But in the end, most of those CO achievements are nearly impossible!
The majority are "Kill 5000 X".  5000 is a bit excessive.  Basically if you
kill 10 a day of the same monster for 1.3 years, you'll get the achievement.
 
So that said, my own End Goal will be the following:
1.)  Get a Hero to Max level.
2.)  Get all of the possible Steam achievements (avoid impossible).
 
If I'm still playing after those 2 goals are met, I'll see how far out I
am from the impossible.  I'm guessing 5 years of casual play to
actually get them.  Anyone going to S-rank Champions Online?  :-)
 
FYI: I've compared Champions Online Achievements to Fallen Earth
& FE's "Kill X" are far lower than CO's...way more realistic..most you
only have to reach 250.  I think there was one that had a 1000.

@Sweep said:

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breadfan

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Edited By breadfan

Now that it's free I may give it a try. Beware of the Ethiopian Avenger!

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sweep

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Edited By sweep  Moderator
@Oni: I don't understand that at all... if it's free and you aren't going to go back because you don't like the sound of the changes you might as well try it at least!? I mean... what have you got to lose?
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Oni

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Edited By Oni
@Sweep: Yeah but that's still a pretty radical change from what my character is. A lot of the coolest stuff, customization-wise, like travel powers and such, are locked behind the paid barrier, so I'd either go back for a month or so with a gold sub or not at all.
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sweep

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Edited By sweep  Moderator
@Oni: Actually, you have been grossly misinformed! You can convert 2 of your old characters over to Silver. This basically means you lose all your powers for that character and pick an archtype as a replacement - but you keep the same level, so if you are 40 you will still have all the relevant attacks. Your character will also lose any of the costume pieces that are considered "Gold" content, but when I moved my dudes across I didn't have to change a thing. A lot of the stuff you have to pay for is new, or the most popular stuff like the "Deadpool" archtype.
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kittencake

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Edited By kittencake

did someone say 'free'? sounds like my kinda game.

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Oni

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Edited By Oni

Hey awesome, you used a screenshot of my character, Proto X, a robot created in the year 20XX!
 
I felt the urge to go back to champions and have the free client installed, but after being greeted by the fact that I can't use any of my existing characters because they aren't the predefined free archetypes, so I'd either have to delete 'em and start a new one or fork over cash, I quit back out of it. If I can't play Proto X I won't play at all!

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Rowr

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Edited By Rowr

I'm with arbitrary waters on this one. I bought this game on launch, probably the only mmo i have played in the last 15 years. I was excited about the awesome character creation, I played it a bunch for two days and then never again, it's worth noting i had alot of time at that juncture. 
 
Now days i barely have time or motivation to finish the AAA game i bought a week ago. Let alone wasting this free gaming time on a game that isn't going to fulfill anything in me and i'll have nothing to show for. 
  
At this point i'm really playing games for A) An awesome story. B) New game mechanics. 
 
Or some kind of fantastic presentation of the two.
 
Anything else i play it just feels like i'm wasting time. Zero returns.
 
I'll be keen to adopt an MMO when it becomes an actual game on par with current games, I'm looking forward to seeing what the old republic can achieve on this front. Kill x amount of blah may have worked twenty years ago in gaming but nowdays i need more. 
 
That's just me though, if your free on time and mmo's do it for you, its worth checking out at least for the awesome character creator.

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ArbitraryWater

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Edited By ArbitraryWater

There is no such thing as free. Sure, I wouldn't have to pay for Champions Online anymore, but I'd still be paying in time time for what is undoubtedly a middling MMO that isn't really a MMO because it's instanced all to hell. Obviously, one pays in time for all things, but since you don't have to pay money you are even more acutely aware of the time you are spending. At least, that's how I feel as someone who has never understood the appeal of these kinds of games, paid or no.

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RandomInternetUser

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Edited By RandomInternetUser
@Sweep said:

"whizzing around all over the place
 

Seems like there should be laws against that.
 
 
Edit:  And yeah, I played Champs Online when it became free, and completely agree.  The only fun I really got was out of making ridiculous characters and screwing around with them for a bit and laughing.
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MisterDunlap

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Edited By MisterDunlap

Took me a minute to get the Swomp/Sweep thing.

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BraveToaster

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Edited By BraveToaster

He Swomps people.

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Tylea002

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Edited By Tylea002

Champions Online always seemed like an instanced to fuck version of City of Heroes that won't run on my laptop. 
 
So I decided to play City of Heroes instead. Definitely the right decision there.

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sweep

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Edited By sweep  Moderator

Champions Online is a game that... well... It's kinda... yeah.

Is there even any point in me telling you what kind of game it is? 

I'm sure by now you already know and if you don't you should go and find out. Because it's free. Yep, you have no excuse not to play it. Unfortunately you then have plenty of excuses to stop playing it.
 
No Caption Provided

Being the broke chump that I am, I sauntered back into Millennium City riding the wave of freeness in all it's glory. Having arrived I was greeted by the familiarity of Champions Online's fantastic aesthetic and wonderful atmosphere. There are hundreds of dudes flying, teleporting, swinging, leaping, and whizzing around all over the place and when you are caught up in the hubbub it's a pretty magical spectacle to behold. 
 

Unfortunately

The general structure of the game remains overtly bland, with the city and it's surrounding locations so vast that it's easy to find yourself depressingly isolated for long periods of time. This is a shame, as it's the creativity of the playerbase in designing their heroes that makes Champions Online so vibrant. I have been playing a few hours a day for the past week and remain consistently underwhelmed with the gameplay, finding the core quest mechanics uninspired and monotonous - which is pretty much how I felt the first time I played it back when it was released. I'm level 11 with my current character and I only have two attacks other than my basic punch. One of them is a slightly stronger punch, and one of them if a leaping punch. As almost every mission involves going somewhere and fighting something, only having 2 buttons to press is absolutely mind-numbing. I spend most of my time mashing a single button before tabbing onto my next dullard opponent.
 
However it's important to remember that Champions Online is now free, which makes it a lot easier to overlook many of the games shortcomings. As a business model it works fantastically well, and I have on several occasions had to catch myself before handing over some of that Green Paper (that I don't have) in exchange for Atari Bones (That I don't want) so I could buy goofy shit (which I don't need). I stopped myself just in time when I realised that my Swamp Monster In A Tuxedo was already as awesome as it was possible to be. Perhaps more so.
 
This is my dude. He's called SWOMP, mostly because he SWOMPs people. 
This is my dude. He's called SWOMP, mostly because he SWOMPs people. 

The fact of the matter is, Champions Online is a fairly complete product already and you can enjoy it without having to worry about micro-transactions, though it remains a fantastically colourful world of entrapment and you may find it very hard to resist it's seductive manipulations. Just being exposed to the possibility of Rocket Boots is so sorely tempting that I spent a good 5 minutes looking at them and then researching how to buy Atari Points before I even remembered that I don't even actually like this game.
 
So Champions Online happened and is continuing to happen. There are many things in this world which I am prepared to pay for and Champions Online was once one of them, but in retrospect; free is a much more appropriate price for this specific brand of insanity. 
 
Thanks For Reading 
Love Sweep