“Champions Online” goes Free To Play, adding a multitude of new features, as well as the option to play without subscribing.
On the January 25, Cryptic’s latest superhero MMO “Champions Online” will be going Free To Play. This change is going to involve a great deal more than just having the option to not pay, however. There’s a ton of changes coming at the end of this month, and Millenium City is never going to be the same again.
Now I know what you’re all thinking, “’Champions Online’, isn’t that the crappy superhero MMO that launched last year? It was supposed to be the ‘City of Heroes’ killer but it bombed!” The answer to this is yes and no. When “Champions Online” was released, it was essentially still in beta, and as such was filled with hundreds of bugs. Cryptic tried to delay the release date so they could iron everything out, but Atari, in its infinite wisdom, decided to push it to live, and boy were people pissed.
But all that’s changed. They’ve spent the past year squishing all of those pesky bugs, adding tons of new costumes and impressive new powers, and putting in some really impressive new Zones and Adventure Packs.
“Champions Online” has a great community to boot. The remaining players are very keen on keeping the game afloat, and the developers listen intently to player feedback. There’s plenty of powers and costume pieces that were added at the recommendation of the players.
Now you can get to the maximum level and go anywhere you please if you are going the Free To Play route, but you’re going to get much more bang for your buck if you pay the monthly fee. You’ll have access to the a completely freeform power system, where you can choose powers from any number of powersets, and you’ll gets hundreds more costumes to choose from for your caped crusader. You’ll get a monthly stipend of Atari Points, which you can spend on items in their store to get new costumes, powers, and items, like the giant growth device, or the summonable sidekick.
And to any of you naysayers to the Free To Play model, “Dungeons and Dragons Online” and “Lord of the Rings Online” have both been thriving now that they switched, with the latter tripling it’s revenue since last year. And with “Champions Online” being the first Free To Play MMO on the market, and DC Universe Online getting poor reviews for the PC, we’re looking at a bright, hero-filled future.
For more information, go to http://champions-online.com/f2p
If you want to contact me in-game, shoot me a message @Loganius