MMO “Champions Online” Goes Free To Play

“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

Product placement means prizes – Empire of Sports MMO

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We are all used to in-game product placement, those vote Obama adverts in EA games like Battlefield and Burnout for instance. Now the online competitive sports title Empire of Sports is teaming up with winter sports equipment brand Völkl to bring us prizes in return. Continue reading “Product placement means prizes – Empire of Sports MMO”

Empire of Sports – March Online Gaming Competition

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To sports gamers/fans wanting to try a different online competition Empire of Sports is holding a virtual Skeleton Championships where players try to beat everyone else winning real prize money in the bobsleigh.

While having a chance to win cash prizes does require a subscription to the game the first few qualification rounds are free to play so it might make for a nice distraction at the very least. It is taking place until March 28th so there’s a week of enjoyment to be had for anyone who is interested. The graphics are not fantastic but the game is enjoyable enough to be worth a look.

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Since Empire of Sports has been a bit under the radar to this point at it’s prologue (open beta) stage it simply can be considered an MMO where you start a character and level up by playing tennis, football, basketball, bobsleigh, skiing and finally a good bit of track & field. You have a small city environment to begin from with mingames and shops so that provides a nice change for RPG orientated gamers.

To take part be sure to check out empireofsports.com for more information and a list of prizes.

EA Revamps NFS Series, Splits it into 3 Franchises

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EA has decided to hit the restart button and split the franchise into 3 different franchises: ‘core’, ‘casual’ and MMO.
Continue reading “EA Revamps NFS Series, Splits it into 3 Franchises”