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[Champions Online] Psychic zombies, robot pirates, and Killdozer. 'Nuff said.

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Posts

  • Rodent242Rodent242 Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    korodullin wrote: »
    So I was under the impression that Gold players (subscribers and Lifetimers) got an expanded set of Archetypes as opposed to the freebies. Yet when I log on a friend's Lifetime account, there's nothing but the Silver ones.

    Did Cryptic really, really not even bother making a set of Gold Archetypes for the F2P launch?

    Only gold archtypes availible at the moment are the savage and the specialist, theese are unlocked on my lifetime account.

    Rodent242 on
    LIVE: Nitzer 24 , CO: @Rodent, Steam: http://steamcommunity.com/id/Rodent242/
  • korodullinkorodullin What. SCRegistered User regular
    edited January 2011
    Rodent242 wrote: »
    korodullin wrote: »
    So I was under the impression that Gold players (subscribers and Lifetimers) got an expanded set of Archetypes as opposed to the freebies. Yet when I log on a friend's Lifetime account, there's nothing but the Silver ones.

    Did Cryptic really, really not even bother making a set of Gold Archetypes for the F2P launch?

    Only gold archtypes availible at the moment are the savage and the specialist, theese are unlocked on my lifetime account.

    Meh.

    korodullin on
    ZvOMJnu.png
    - The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    I'm surprised there isn't a powered armor archtype for gold players at least. Gotta capitilize on the Iron Man phenomena.

    Undead Scottsman on
  • WaftWaft Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    Has anyone played with that werewolf device from the c-store? Is it a useful thing or a fluff purchase like those action figures?

    Waft on
  • AccualtAccualt Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    Huh, they have some interesting pricing ideas. Considering how much costume sets and whatnot cost the Adventure packs are actually a reasonable price. Everything seems too expensive for my cheap ass, just like with DDO, but I'd rather subscribe for the power choice freedom anyway.

    Anyone know what The Variety Pack includes?
    "Add a ton of new parts to your wardrobe! This pack contains 100 new parts and 15 new textures for your heroes." 720 points

    Think I'll make a Glacier until I convince myself to throw down for a sub again.

    Accualt on
  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    Can't you, in theory, acquire everything (or most everything) in DDO without paying a dime? (You get currency to buy stuff by playing the game, IIRC)

    Undead Scottsman on
  • PsycohedPsycohed On a Fool's ErrandRegistered User regular
    edited January 2011
    Can't you, in theory, acquire everything (or most everything) in DDO without paying a dime? (You get currency to buy stuff by playing the game, IIRC)

    More or less, yeah. It'll take you a while, that's for damn sure, but yeah.

    Psycohed on
    brig_banner.png
  • korodullinkorodullin What. SCRegistered User regular
    edited January 2011
    Accualt wrote: »
    Anyone know what The Variety Pack includes?
    "Add a ton of new parts to your wardrobe! This pack contains 100 new parts and 15 new textures for your heroes." 720 points

    Looking through the costume options, I see a lot of costume bits that were freely usable before the F2P switchover now have a little unlocked icon next to them. I suspect they locked some stuff and put it into a pack for more money.

    korodullin on
    ZvOMJnu.png
    - The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
  • AkinosAkinos Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    I just remade "PA CO" (I guess it expired?) so join that channel!

    Akinos on
  • Just_Bri_ThanksJust_Bri_Thanks Seething with rage from a handbasket.Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited January 2011
    I'll be there about midnight Eastern time.

    Just_Bri_Thanks on
    ...and when you are done with that; take a folding
    chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
  • Doctor DetroitDoctor Detroit Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    Man, really surprised to not see Power Armor on the Archetype list.

    And no Martial Arts, either.

    I guess that helps make it easier which two characters I want to move over if/when I switch to free.

    And while I understand the philosophy, I find it somewhat annoying that while Fire and Ice are free Archetypes, Fire Flight and Ice Slide are Gold only (or purchasable for Silver).

    Oh, here's a question...If I get an extra character slot through a Veteran Reward, and then downgrade to Silver, do I keep the extra slot? Or is it only available when I'm a paying customer?

    Doctor Detroit on
  • DigitoDigito Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    So free-to-play's finally here huh? Kinda considering maybe trying it, but I'm not sure I'm sold yet on it... what's involved in F2P again? I know you're limited to just the Archetypes, but if someone could give me a rundown on how they actually play that'd be nice. Given there's nothing but the harddrive space to lose, it seems worth at least a shot.

    Digito on
  • AccualtAccualt Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    Oh junk, I can't create a new character I have to convert one over. Double junk since I don't really want to convert any of these guys.

    Here is a very quick breakdown of everything you need to know about F2P from Massively.

    Accualt on
  • PsycohedPsycohed On a Fool's ErrandRegistered User regular
    edited January 2011
    The official forums are a fucking nightmare to navigate, so I'll try my hand here.

    I've got six old characters back from when I was subscribed that are now (I assume) "Gold" characters. Now if I'm understanding things correctly, they should just sit around and gather dust until I either convert them to Silver or upgrade my account to Gold.

    Does anyone know if those characters count towards my two character Silver limit? Because I can't seem to make a Silver character. (Aside from converting one of my Gold characters, anyway, which I'm trying to avoid doing.) There's a little silver hex with a big yellow "2" in the middle of it on my character select screen, but damned if I can get it to let me make a new hero.

    Psycohed on
    brig_banner.png
  • DocshiftyDocshifty Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    MrPsycohed wrote: »
    The official forums are a fucking nightmare to navigate, so I'll try my hand here.

    I've got six old characters back from when I was subscribed that are now (I assume) "Gold" characters. Now if I'm understanding things correctly, they should just sit around and gather dust until I either convert them to Silver or upgrade my account to Gold.

    Does anyone know if those characters count towards my two character Silver limit? Because I can't seem to make a Silver character. (Aside from converting one of my Gold characters, anyway, which I'm trying to avoid doing.) There's a little silver hex with a big yellow "2" in the middle of it on my character select screen, but damned if I can get it to let me make a new hero.

    Yes, they do count. You either have to convert one to silver so you can play him, upgrade your account to gold so you can play any of them, or delete at least 5 of them to get down to your character limit and create a silver character.

    Docshifty on
  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    Akinos lives!

    Undead Scottsman on
  • Doctor DetroitDoctor Detroit Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    Accualt wrote: »
    Oh junk, I can't create a new character I have to convert one over. Double junk since I don't really want to convert any of these guys.

    Here is a very quick breakdown of everything you need to know about F2P from Massively.
    Characters can also make a one-time conversion if their subscription status changes. If you decide you want to upgrade to a Gold subscription, you can convert your Archetype heroes to fully customized Freeform heroes. If you decide you want to let your subscription lapse, you can also convert your Freeform heroes to Silver Archetype heroes. However, this can only be done once per character, and you cannot use characters converted to Freeform if your Gold subscription runs out.


    Oh, TO Freeform...for a second there I read that as FROM Freeform. It makes a lot less sense that way.

    Not sure why there's a one conversion per character limit, though. I guess to prevent abuses of the system.

    Doctor Detroit on
  • AccualtAccualt Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    Docshifty wrote: »
    MrPsycohed wrote: »
    The official forums are a fucking nightmare to navigate, so I'll try my hand here.

    I've got six old characters back from when I was subscribed that are now (I assume) "Gold" characters. Now if I'm understanding things correctly, they should just sit around and gather dust until I either convert them to Silver or upgrade my account to Gold.

    Does anyone know if those characters count towards my two character Silver limit? Because I can't seem to make a Silver character. (Aside from converting one of my Gold characters, anyway, which I'm trying to avoid doing.) There's a little silver hex with a big yellow "2" in the middle of it on my character select screen, but damned if I can get it to let me make a new hero.

    Yes, they do count. You either have to convert one to silver so you can play him, upgrade your account to gold so you can play any of them, or delete at least 5 of them to get down to your character limit and create a silver character.

    And this is probably the biggest bonehead move Cryptic made. I'm sure the bitching about this will be legendary. At the very least we should have been able to delete a Gold to create a new Silver. As is I can't create a new Silver character, I have to convert an old Gold. Would be nice to run through the tutorial again since I haven't played in so long.

    Accualt on
  • DocshiftyDocshifty Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    Accualt wrote: »
    Docshifty wrote: »
    MrPsycohed wrote: »
    The official forums are a fucking nightmare to navigate, so I'll try my hand here.

    I've got six old characters back from when I was subscribed that are now (I assume) "Gold" characters. Now if I'm understanding things correctly, they should just sit around and gather dust until I either convert them to Silver or upgrade my account to Gold.

    Does anyone know if those characters count towards my two character Silver limit? Because I can't seem to make a Silver character. (Aside from converting one of my Gold characters, anyway, which I'm trying to avoid doing.) There's a little silver hex with a big yellow "2" in the middle of it on my character select screen, but damned if I can get it to let me make a new hero.

    Yes, they do count. You either have to convert one to silver so you can play him, upgrade your account to gold so you can play any of them, or delete at least 5 of them to get down to your character limit and create a silver character.

    And this is probably the biggest bonehead move Cryptic made. I'm sure the bitching about this will be legendary. At the very least we should have been able to delete a Gold to create a new Silver. As is I can't create a new Silver character, I have to convert an old Gold. Would be nice to run through the tutorial again since I haven't played in so long.

    Yes you can. I deleted seven golds so I was down to one character and then made a silver.

    Docshifty on
  • AkinosAkinos Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    Akinos lives!

    Hello! Just got online, had to make a new character. :)

    Akinos the [email protected] at the moment. (Zombie assassin Akinos from another dimension).

    Akinos on
  • PsycohedPsycohed On a Fool's ErrandRegistered User regular
    edited January 2011
    Docshifty wrote: »
    Accualt wrote: »
    Docshifty wrote: »
    MrPsycohed wrote: »
    The official forums are a fucking nightmare to navigate, so I'll try my hand here.

    I've got six old characters back from when I was subscribed that are now (I assume) "Gold" characters. Now if I'm understanding things correctly, they should just sit around and gather dust until I either convert them to Silver or upgrade my account to Gold.

    Does anyone know if those characters count towards my two character Silver limit? Because I can't seem to make a Silver character. (Aside from converting one of my Gold characters, anyway, which I'm trying to avoid doing.) There's a little silver hex with a big yellow "2" in the middle of it on my character select screen, but damned if I can get it to let me make a new hero.

    Yes, they do count. You either have to convert one to silver so you can play him, upgrade your account to gold so you can play any of them, or delete at least 5 of them to get down to your character limit and create a silver character.

    And this is probably the biggest bonehead move Cryptic made. I'm sure the bitching about this will be legendary. At the very least we should have been able to delete a Gold to create a new Silver. As is I can't create a new Silver character, I have to convert an old Gold. Would be nice to run through the tutorial again since I haven't played in so long.

    Yes you can. I deleted seven golds so I was down to one character and then made a silver.

    Awwww, poo. That's less than ideal. Oh well. Thanks!

    Psycohed on
    brig_banner.png
  • Regina FongRegina Fong Allons-y, Alonso Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    I've been having fun with my re-vamped force dude but I booted off the server mid serpent lantern and now I come here to stew.

    Regina Fong on
  • AkinosAkinos Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    MrPsycohed wrote: »
    Docshifty wrote: »
    Accualt wrote: »
    Docshifty wrote: »
    MrPsycohed wrote: »
    The official forums are a fucking nightmare to navigate, so I'll try my hand here.

    I've got six old characters back from when I was subscribed that are now (I assume) "Gold" characters. Now if I'm understanding things correctly, they should just sit around and gather dust until I either convert them to Silver or upgrade my account to Gold.

    Does anyone know if those characters count towards my two character Silver limit? Because I can't seem to make a Silver character. (Aside from converting one of my Gold characters, anyway, which I'm trying to avoid doing.) There's a little silver hex with a big yellow "2" in the middle of it on my character select screen, but damned if I can get it to let me make a new hero.

    Yes, they do count. You either have to convert one to silver so you can play him, upgrade your account to gold so you can play any of them, or delete at least 5 of them to get down to your character limit and create a silver character.

    And this is probably the biggest bonehead move Cryptic made. I'm sure the bitching about this will be legendary. At the very least we should have been able to delete a Gold to create a new Silver. As is I can't create a new Silver character, I have to convert an old Gold. Would be nice to run through the tutorial again since I haven't played in so long.

    Yes you can. I deleted seven golds so I was down to one character and then made a silver.

    Awwww, poo. That's less than ideal. Oh well. Thanks!

    You should be able to have some amount (6? trying to find out right now) of gold characters in "storage" and still be able to create new silver characters.
    I've been having fun with my re-vamped force dude but I booted off the server mid serpent lantern and now I come here to stew.

    I almost had my first new Archetype character through the tutorial. :(

    Akinos on
  • DocshiftyDocshifty Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    Well, it didn't give me the option to create any silver characters until I'd deleted all but one of my gold.

    I could convert them, but they were all low level anyways.

    Docshifty on
  • AkinosAkinos Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    Docshifty wrote: »
    Well, it didn't give me the option to create any silver characters until I'd deleted all but one of my gold.

    I could convert them, but they were all low level anyways.

    Dang. I'm still trying to get details on how it should work, but OMG THE SERVERS, etc.

    Akinos on
  • DocshiftyDocshifty Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    Akinos wrote: »
    Docshifty wrote: »
    Well, it didn't give me the option to create any silver characters until I'd deleted all but one of my gold.

    I could convert them, but they were all low level anyways.

    Dang. I'm still trying to get details on how it should work, but OMG THE SERVERS, etc.

    Yeah, I'm hoping you're right and its just a weird bug. It would kind of suck to have to delete all of them.

    And it would make it really hard to subscribe occasionally but still have silver characters to play when you don't want to/cant subscribe.

    Docshifty on
  • Regina FongRegina Fong Allons-y, Alonso Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    Well at least the server exploding means that the FTP launch has generated lots of interest.

    Regina Fong on
  • Regina FongRegina Fong Allons-y, Alonso Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    I'm really surprised how limited the archtypes are. I figured there'd be an archtype for every powerset, but as is you can't even get a electrical or power armor guy without going freeform.

    Undead Scottsman on
  • GlalGlal AiredaleRegistered User regular
    edited January 2011
    Almost like they want you to subscribe or something.

    Glal on
  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    Glal wrote: »
    Almost like they want you to subscribe or something.

    I'm talking about subscription archetypes too.

    Undead Scottsman on
  • GlalGlal AiredaleRegistered User regular
    edited January 2011
    Can't you just make your own when you subscribe? Why would subscribers care about ATs?

    Glal on
  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    You can only use an existing archetype, or go completely freeform. You can't make your own archtype.

    Undead Scottsman on
  • GlalGlal AiredaleRegistered User regular
    edited January 2011
    I'm sort of equating freeform with my own AT. Or am I missing something and the prebuilt ATs get something that you couldn't just build in freeform?

    Glal on
  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    With a freeform character, as soon as someone is done with the subscription, they lose access to the character and the incentive to boot up the game while it's free. With an archtype, if they like the character, they can pay for the archetype.

    Subscription fees are nice, but considering they made this whole free-to-play system, they apparently think there's more money to be made in micro transactions than in sub fees.


    EDIT: 'course, since you get an allowance of points for subscribing, it kind of defeats my point.

    Undead Scottsman on
  • AkinosAkinos Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    One thing you would want an certain Archetype for is if you wanted to do Archetype PvP.

    That said, new Archetypes are slated to be rolled out semi-regularly!

    Akinos on
  • AccualtAccualt Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    I actually like this trailer!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1a97Y01GuA&feature=player_embedded

    Patch Notes for the hardcore among you. They are huge. So huge they are broken down wiki style.

    Accualt on
  • ArchonexArchonex No hard feelings, right? Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    So some folks might remember me saying there were some features I wanted to discuss, but couldn't.

    Well, F2P is out now, so I can.


    Of interest to me is the ability for players to purchase side-kick NPC's. Or henchmen NPC's. There are currently, as of the last time I logged in on beta, only two NPC's buyable, and they only last for an hour per use, but quite a few people made a good point of pointing out that this system is ludicrously expandable.

    The tools are technically all there (An adapted nemesis editor could be used to create your own side-kick.) to create your own side-kick, if they want to go down that route in the future.

    I could see this becoming an awesome CO-specific version of the "First Officer" system that keeps getting mentioned on the STO forums, with a bit of work in the future. Provided things play out well with the F2P update.

    There's a bunch of new items in the C-Store. Too many to list here really. Of note, there's also an interesting set of devices that let you turn into a werewolf at will. Complete with their own power sets that grow as you get higher in level.

    On the costume side of things, I see at least 13 new costume sets. One set of which happens to be "100 variety pieces" for costume making.

    The sets themselves range from wild west cowboy sets, to high fantasy "knights in full platemail" sets, to 300 style spartan armor, to a ninja costume set, to anime mecha style sets of armor.

    So the initial boost of content seems to run the full range of options, provided I haven't overlooked something, and these armors aren't just armors that were removed from public access in the F2P transfer.


    There was also an excellent post on the forums some time ago by a PR guy stating things that could be put in in the future. I wish I could dig it up, as it pointed out some crazy possible features, like new henchmen NPC's possibly going in, viking costume sets to let you rampage through downtown, possibly a viking powerset (IE: Drunken rampage with other viking NPC's. Though I may be mis recalling that part.) and a ton of other random ideas that were being kicked around.






    As for my thoughts about the F2P update. It's definitely a step forward in terms of making the game interesting, and bringing players back.

    It seems that CO was getting minimal support from Cryptic prior to this update, as their content updates were not coming at anywhere near the pace that STO's content updates are.

    To put it in perspective for those unfamiliar with STO and CO's respective paces of development, STO got a major content update at least once a month, and several interesting C-Store additions were included each month that people enjoyed.

    The last C-Store addition to CO was sometime back in the beginning of summer, and had been a requested feature since mid to early beta. Demonflame was the last real content update CO had, and it was rather short too.

    This is arguably what did the most damage to CO. CO, like all MMO's, requires a steady stream of actual content to be placed into the game. An adventure pack every few months which consists of a few instances is not really content to satiate the greater whole of the playerbase, hence the slow trickle of players to other games, as they got bored.

    The lack of updates to improve the game on the scale that STO was improved (Compare the game at release to how it is now. They're almost entirely different games. For one, there are now more meaningful things to do in STO, then just blow shit up.) also helped to draw people off to other games.


    So hopefully this F2P update will turn that lamentable aspect of the development of the game around. Only time will tell though.


    What's important now is that the game needs to diversify itself from DCUO, and quickly, as DCUO has a rather solid end-game set up that can keep people subscribed. This means expanding the content that CO has. More meaningful end-game content, for instance, is crucial.

    The F2P refit to the game looks to have given the devs a solid base to work with, and has added some stuff in that will keep player's interest for some time to come.

    Given the F2P refit, I think it's safe to say that the path to the end-game is rather filled in now, and the F2P update opened up alot of opportunities to expand the game in ways that DCUO just can't, currently. Furthermore, there's enough stuff there in the F2P update to keep most players (Hardcore players, as usual, will blow through the content rather quickly.) for a month. Maybe a bit more.

    All in all, it's a good start. The developers need to add more stuff to do in, however, if they want to keep the popularity of the game where it's at, or increase it. If they go back to the whole "update once in a blue moon" with content schtick, the game will be back to where it was in a year or two. Possibly even worse, as the F2P update likely brought a large number of folks in who had never thought to try CO before, and alienating them could seriously hurt the playerbase in the future.



    Edit: Doing a bit more perusal, it looks like the Viking costume set is already in. So I guess I wasn't hallucinating that post.

    They also expanded the number of henchmen and sidekicks.

    Archonex on
  • AkinosAkinos Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    Docshifty wrote: »
    Akinos wrote: »
    Docshifty wrote: »
    Well, it didn't give me the option to create any silver characters until I'd deleted all but one of my gold.

    I could convert them, but they were all low level anyways.

    Dang. I'm still trying to get details on how it should work, but OMG THE SERVERS, etc.

    Yeah, I'm hoping you're right and its just a weird bug. It would kind of suck to have to delete all of them.

    And it would make it really hard to subscribe occasionally but still have silver characters to play when you don't want to/cant subscribe.

    So, this is definitely a bug. You should only ever be stopped from making a new silver character if you were at your old max for gold slots. So you should be able to delete ONE gold character and create a new silver character no matter what. You should never have to delete all of your gold characters, this is a bug and should be fixed shortly.

    If you have already deleted character you wanted to keep for this reason, please contact CS!

    Akinos on
  • Just_Bri_ThanksJust_Bri_Thanks Seething with rage from a handbasket.Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited January 2011
    Logging in now.

    Just_Bri_Thanks on
    ...and when you are done with that; take a folding
    chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
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