Two Cool and one Crappy

Champions Online website integrates your in-game friend’s list and in-game mail so you can see which of your friends are playing, and reading any mail you might have.

One major steaming pile of dog-scrap though: special subscription offers have “run out”. This was posted last night. The first that anyone had heard of a limited quantity to these things. Now we see this. Someone please explain how “Until September 1st” turns into, “Time runs out when we run out of a virtual item that isn’t really manufactured.”

I understand WHY they limited the quantity of these subscription packages, however, since they didn’t make that fact clear ahead of time, it really ticks me off (and a lot of others looking at the forums). It’s not illegal per-se, but it is incredibly misleading and ethically dubious. It makes me sad, because I had high hopes for the this companies integrity. It really does seem more and more like the only MMO company who is really trying to be decent, and cares about it’s players is Mythic. Despite what you may think of that game, as a company, Mythic has done the best job I have ever seen of keeping clear, open, and honest lines of communication going with their subscribers.

Bah, I hate being let down. I’ll still be playing the game, but this has tainted my view of the whole quite a bit.

Real Ultimate Power

No, not what you’re thinking (old internet memes ftw).

Last night was the last night of the open beta for Champions Online, and they decided to give us all a taste of what capped level characters felt like, and the taste was powerful. To get this supreme power, they placed an NPC that auto-leveled you up once you talked to them in Millennium City. Of course, all this new-found power couldn’t go to waste, so they let us cut our teeth on some powerful villains.

Destroids had invaded the city. Every where you looked, 4 story tall robots that reminded me of sentinels constructed by a drunk Master Mold, roamed the streets. Cosmic was their challenge ratings, and everyone threw all they had against them. A good twenty people in one small area using every beautiful power they had, all at the same time, and I finally felt a bit of lag. Well, more than a little bit, it was a bit rough, but I kind of expected that. The powers in this game are graphically intense. Shell casings and tracer rounds show up, visual distortions in the air, like heat waves, when some TK powers are used, and a host of other tiny details really eat up system resources. It’s kind of nice to realize my computer handled it well, but it was the server that seemed to be lagging more than anything else from so many people doing so many things in one spot, at once.

It was pretty fun, and I’m definitely going to be buying the 6 month subscription, and look forward to getting to play the game once the world is birthed.