GameTap users and staff have expressed a lot of interest in this upcoming MMO. I suggest we use this thread to organize a GameTap group so we can all start on the same server, forms guilds etc, and discuss the game.

Champions Online is coming out next Tuesday, 09.01.09. It will be available in the GameTap Shop on Tuesday at 1PM EST.

So, who's interested?

Aren't these the guys who made City of Heroes, originally? What happened?

I tried the trial for CoH a few months back and noticed that "Cryptic Studios" was mentioned in the loading screen.

Preorder and closed beta tester here.. Cuthy,, CO's only going to have one server. It's going to be instanced with a limit of 150 or so people per instance per zone however.


Now, there are ways around this.. they do have a global chat channels system, so setting up a gametap chat channel wouldn't be a problem at all. Goodness knows we had one in beta for the RPers


That, I think would be an excellent idea. Oh yes, and while the game is being distributed on the 1st,, preorders get a 3 day headstart on the 28th, or friday. which means I need to get my rear into gear and finally beat titan quest by friday as I will be useless to the offline world after that.

jcj1992 wrote: Aren't these the guys who made City of Heroes, originally? What happened? I tried the trial for CoH a few months back and noticed that "Cryptic Studios" was mentioned in the loading screen.

Cryptic Made CoH and CoV then sold it to NCSoft.

Can you explain the combat system? Is it the same mmo stuff?

isisprince wrote: Can you explain the combat system? Is it the same mmo stuff?

From what I've read, it sounds more action-oriented like how Phantasy Star Online works. But I'm probably wrong, since I haven't read anything on it in a while.

buster42 wrote: isisprince wrote: Can you explain the combat system? Is it the same mmo stuff? From what I've read, it sounds more action-oriented like how Phantasy Star Online works. But I'm probably wrong, since I haven't read anything on it in a while.

Closed beta tester here,, and yeah,, it's kinda like PSO in that it's actiony.. yeah, you've got the standard world of warcrack style hotbars, but there's no cooldowns,, if you press a button and you've got the energy, the power goes off or toggles or starts charging, so you can chain together a lot of quick attacks or build up energy and let off a haymaker or something similar.

Not entirely right. Some of the higher level powers have cooldowns, (unless you meant the global cooldown requiring you to wait to setup other attacks) I don't remember the name off the top of my head by there is one in gadgets that causes an orbital strike (probably called Orbital Strike hehe) and has a 25 second cooldown. A lot of the other big abilities do too. That said, most have little/no cooldown but you need to block. A lot. Learn to block early and often. The beginning stuff is a breeze, after around level 25, if you don't know when to block, you will be eatting pavement all the time. If you have played CoH/CoV then the game play isn't going to shock you. Stats can be a bit confusing but there are several guides on the forums for setting up your characters. I didn't have much time to mess with the nemesis stuff, I made it to level 29 before they did the free boost to 40. Was fun for what I experienced though and makes a nice change by giving you a bit more personalization.

Some of the power sets were noticeably stronger than others, but it was a beta and they have time to smooth things down. Can't really complain about bugs, again was a beta, they were expected.

One thing I was a bit disappointed in was the character Creator. Now they have a lot of options, but several that seemed like common sense ones to add were missing. The female side was lower in choices and some costume pieces that should have worked ok (a cape with a Kevlar vest) weren't allowed. You can still get a lot of things done and they kept adding stuff during the beta, so I am sure it will improve.

It isn't a bad game, I enjoyed the beta and spent many hours playing it. Not sure if it has enough to keep me interested long term though and I haven't bought a lifetime sub because of that.

Is there any kind of crafting system or professions?

Yeah, they have Science, Arms and Mysticism which are broken down into various specialties in the trees. Arms can make bags to trade with other players giving you more inventory space. There is a break down when you talk to the trainers that details what each type of crafting gives you and what stats won't appear on the gear, so you can more easily pick what you need for your power set. You have to go around finding crates/occult materials/bones/etc that give out a random item or two used for crafting stuff from the tree you picked. You can only loot from the type dedicated to your crafting choice but you can go 30+ loots getting the exact same items. It helps that there is a combination system that lets you change over some items into others for that tree. I didn't progress high into any of the trees though (150ish was my max rank) , figured spending all the time scrounging up materials that would be wiped soon wasn't as fun as blasting people in the face with a sonic arrow.

I only did a little pvp and things were incredibly skewed in there, something the developers admitted and said they were looking into fixes for. Most of the time the Hero Games were down while I was on though so don't have a ton of experience there.

They have perks (achievements) in the game, if you plan on collecting them you should check http://forums.champions-online.com/show ... hp?t=38737 . There are vendors that sell costumes/items/figures for perk points. They require certain perks to have been unlocked as well, so making sure you are gathering all the perks possible is wise from the start. They mentioned starting a wiki for the perks, I don't know if that is up yet. Oh and if something is flashing, click on it. Tons and tons of little information/lore plaques and books and stuff laying around. They give you money as well as perks for collecting them.

I want a free trial, I guess. I'm looking for a new mmo, and by new I mean not the same old auto-attack-and-go-get-lunch games. I have some pretty hard single player games that really exercise my abilities and to date MMOs have felt rather 'dumbed down.'

What's the point in never dying, you know?

One also has to mention the insane amount of pop culture references.


For example, in Canada, there are two mission givers named Robert and Douglas McKenzie (anybody that's at least 30, or canadian should get this one, otherwise, take off, eh?)

Also, there's one questgiver in Millenium City named "Burt Jackson", a truck driver who's truck "The Pork Rind Express" has been stolen by chinatown's resident gang. One of the quest rewards you get for finishing his quest chain is a 'Six Demon Bag"


And that's only the beginning. There's a town full of robotic cowboys (Westworld, anybody?) and some of them tell you to "Bite their shiny alloy aft".


Long story made longer, even if you find the combat somewhat repetitive (and it is, but it's still FUN), you'll be too busy laughing to care.

nedflthngs wrote: I want a free trial, I guess. I'm looking for a new mmo, and by new I mean not the same old auto-attack-and-go-get-lunch games. I have some pretty hard single player games that really exercise my abilities and to date MMOs have felt rather 'dumbed down.' What's the point in never dying, you know?

I think Star Wars Old Republic will meet your needs (hopefully), I'm hoping CO will hold me over until its release.

I'll be buying CO, but not through GameTap. I'm preordering from Gamestop for early start and the other perks like flying from the beginning and the insectoid airfoil.

blueblaze02 wrote: I'll be buying CO, but not through GameTap. I'm preordering from Gamestop for early start and the other perks like flying from the beginning and the insectoid airfoil.

More like for the airfoil.. within 30 minutes of creation (less if you hardcore it) you can be lvl 5 and out of the tutorial and abvle to get your travel power.


Granted, I preordered for the airfoil myself (I have a character concept that's faespawn so I figured the airfoil might be useful.

A GT bases group/guild could be fun, I'm gonna pick the game up soon though with my current funds it might take me a week or so after release.

I'm in since I have an account anyway. Same name.

I want to make a superhero league consisting of superheroes made from out of copyright comic strip characters -_-

Cryptic has a rule against that because Marvel sued them about that in CoX.

blueblaze02 wrote: Cryptic has a rule against that because Marvel sued them about that in CoX.

Uh no, characters out of copyright are out of copyright. No one can sue them for some one making out of copyright characters. On that note, Marvel, nor anyone else, can sue them for making superheroes of greek/roman/norse gods regardless of Marvel's characters because Marvel would have to prove that their characters are significantly different from the public domain figures and the "infringing" character significantly rips off their 'unique' interpretation thereof.

Marvel/DC would argue that, because Cryptic took subscription fees from the person who made the copyrighted character, that cryptic was profiting from it and thus, an accessory to the crime, as it were.

What he's saying is characters that nobody owns the rights to anymore, or public domain figures like Thor and such.

I am wondering how many characters there are that have fallen out of copyright. Let's find out!

Oh hey, there's actually quite a few (just click on any of the links with (comics) next to them):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Public_domain

buster42 wrote: What he's saying is characters that nobody owns the rights to anymore, or public domain figures like Thor and such. I am wondering how many characters there are that have fallen out of copyright. Let's find out! Oh hey, there's actually quite a few (just click on any of the links with (comics) next to them): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Public_domain

Some one from CO emailed Marvel, and what I said is what they said, but without the details.

Heh, of course that doesn't stop a legal team from deciding it's profitable to sue. (Sorry I'm in legal cynic mode today, something about Patent squatters has me irked, yes I know it's not exactly the same, but close enough!)

So is anyone actually playing this.

I have been. Picked up Batman Arkham Asylum though too, so probably going to be playing that for a week or so until they smooth out some of the bugs in CO.

Oh, and Cryptic has some of the worst patch notes and customer communication I have ever seen. It can quickly frustrate you.