Champions Online.
August 24, 2009
Now that the NDA for Cryptic’s Champions Online has been lifted, Its time to spill the details on this Super Hero MMO…
I was fortunate enough to join Champions Online Closed Beta at the start of august and have been playing off and on ever since.
I found the game easy to jump in and learn the basics with some nice tutorial windows that pop up when you load in for the first time. A few ‘hand-in’ quests later and your on your way through the Starter Zone.
I cannot carry on without mentioning the character creator. The options available to the player are nothing less than stellar. Just pressing the random button will quickly show you the options available to you throughout the creator. I’ll admit I spent a couple of hours getting used to all the features available to you but what still gets me is that I cannot select a cape when wearing some chest armour.
Now the starter zone is a closed off area that you need to complete to move on to the main game, the next areas being Canada or the South-western Desert. Each of these zones start off as a Crisis Zone and what that basically means is that an immediate problem such as a Super Villian has caused havoc and its up to you to sort out. At the Crisis Zone’s completion the actual zone will open up reveiling other areas in which to quest. I liked the way Cryptic have done this… the quests are a little bit more exciting now you can see an actual effect that they have on the enviroment for example. The negative which stand out for me is that it might be difficult teaming up with your friends because thay might be in the same area, the same instance as well but they might not be in the same ‘Stage’ as you, which will lead to some confusion. Apparently all areas start out this way, from tiny little crisis that you find yourself in at Canada or South-western desert to the epic story crisis that are in the endgame on Monster Island for example.
What may come as a surprise to people is that CO is all on one server, in theory… Its instanced to buggery though like Guild Wars for example. It easy enough though to meet up with friends and team members as CO tries to stick you all in the same instance as soon as you zone, nice little feature.
With the PvP I have experienced it reminds me of Warhammer. There are scenarios you can join (albeit only one at the moment) from a button on your minimap (like WAR). Now these are not a capture the flag, capture the point etc affair, its very simple red team verses blue team in a team deathmatch-style scenario. What annoyed me though is where WAR will put you all in a team/group when your in the scenario CO won’t do that, leaving you to make the team and invite everyone else in.
After building my main up to 15 and her being well on her way through the South-Western Desert I can say that I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Champions Online and have already put down for the six month subscription. Heres hoping CO will have me hooked till way past that 
