Vibora Bay Becomes Revelation

The expansion formerly known as Vibora Bay has a new, more descriptive name: Champions Online – Revelation! We’ll be talking quite a bit more about it in the coming weeks.

It’s Free!

We heard our community and we acted. Champions Online – Revelation will now be available to everyone at no extra charge. That is a free expansion pack for all Champions Online players.

A True Expansion

Champions Online – Revelation is a full-fledged expansion. It’s a brand new way for you and your friends to enjoy the game together.

March, 2010

 Revelation will be available mid-March, 2010. Video, screens, interviews, previews ... . All will be coming very soon.

Check out the full story here.

[Thanks Christopher8 for the tip!]

 Good job community, there is still hope after all (ok, I know it's not true, from the way this sounds this will be the only "expansion" free ever especially as people will be more used to the idea of paying the next time).

While some see this as a victory, I see it as a desperate, flailing attempt to satisfy whatever customers remain. If they make this expansion free and continue to do so with future ones, only charging if they offer a significant content update, a new gameplay feature, or something else that's worth a separate charge like other MMOs do, then I'll see it as a victory.

Originally posted by Comnitus

While some see this as a victory, I see it as a desperate, flailing attempt to satisfy whatever customers remain. If they make this expansion free and continue to do so with future ones, only charging if they offer a significant content update, a new gameplay feature, or something else that's worth a separate charge like other MMOs do, then I'll see it as a victory.

Yeah they saw the Nuclear Fallout of their idea and thought "maybe this wasn't such a good idea"

It will be interesting to see how this plays out, whether this will actually accomplish the damage control needed or if they're merely locking the barn after all the horses have escaped.

Ah cool :), good for the CO players ^^

As much as I dislike Cryptic's business practices, I have to give credit where it's due. Good move Cryptic. Good decision. I'm sure many of the champions players will be happy to hear this, and it will translate over to STO in level of confidence in developer dedication (which has plagued their forums for a while now).

I personally do not subscribe to any cryptic games, but im sure for all involved, this comes as a breath of fresh air from this company. Kudos.

As much as I'd like to look at this through rose-coloured spectacles and think this is a first step towards Cryptic doing the right thing by their subscribers from now on... I kind of doubt it. At least the CO players get what they deserve in this particular case though. It really makes me sad that the industry has become what it is...

Seems to me like they caved to customer displeasure and decided to make it free. It has to make you worry about the future of MMORPGs when companies think its a good idea to charge a subscription fee and put out "expansions" every 6 months as a way to get more and more money. One of the reasons I've avoided EQ/EQ2 over the years is their constant release of expansions and "packs".

You may not like playing WoW or Blizzard as a whole but they put out a lot of new content for each of their "expansions". And companies like NCSoft have put out free expansions over the entire life of their games (Lineage, Lineage 2, Aion). Even Guild Wars which has been out for almost 5 years is averaging 1 expansion every 18 months and they don't even charge a subscription.

I would really hate to see a new trend in MMOs of companies putting their games out asap and charging for "expansions" for content that should have been in from the start and for content updates that until now is mostly considered part of what companies should be using the monthly fee for.

p.s. There is a difference between turning over a new leaf and doing just enough to prevent a riot. Its awfully early to think of this as the former.

Once you are on the defense, it is hard to regain momentum. I don't want to be in their place. If they take money its robbery, if they hand it out free, its desperation. ;)

I for once will not judge what it is, but say that it is a good move.

Most of my guild now has moved to STO, so I have no idea how CO is. I really wish the game luck, tho I fear a company is quite overburdened with keeping two MMOs running and up to date at the same time. Making CO and STO at the same time was just an epic fail. Two so-so games instead of one good.

Still, even if both MMOs would close in a year after launch, with just 2 years in the making, a small number of devs with all the box sales and lifetimers Crptic prolly made their profit. If I were evil, I'd say they never aimed for more, but since I am nice I won't say it.

Originally posted by Elikal

Once you are on the defense, it is hard to regain momentum. I don't want to be in their place. If they take money its robbery, if they hand it out free, its desperation. ;)

I for once will not judge what it is, but say that it is a good move.

Most of my guild now has moved to STO, so I have no idea how CO is. I really wish the game luck, tho I fear a company is quite overburdened with keeping two MMOs running and up to date at the same time. Making CO and STO at the same time was just an epic fail. Two so-so games instead of one good.

 

Still, even if both MMOs would close in a year after launch, with just 2 years in the making, a small number of devs with all the box sales and lifetimers Crptic prolly made their profit. If I were evil, I'd say they never aimed for more, but since I am nice I won't say it.

Considering everytime i used Fly i moved like a Star Ship i figured i'd cut out the middle thing and just command  real star ship.

Originally posted by nekollx

Originally posted by Elikal

Once you are on the defense, it is hard to regain momentum. I don't want to be in their place. If they take money its robbery, if they hand it out free, its desperation. ;)

I for once will not judge what it is, but say that it is a good move.

Most of my guild now has moved to STO, so I have no idea how CO is. I really wish the game luck, tho I fear a company is quite overburdened with keeping two MMOs running and up to date at the same time. Making CO and STO at the same time was just an epic fail. Two so-so games instead of one good.

 

Still, even if both MMOs would close in a year after launch, with just 2 years in the making, a small number of devs with all the box sales and lifetimers Crptic prolly made their profit. If I were evil, I'd say they never aimed for more, but since I am nice I won't say it.

 

Considering everytime i used Fly i moved like a Star Ship i figured i'd cut out the middle thing and just command  real star ship.

It's true of course, we really are flying around like starships, but it is fixed on the public test server and in the SotG they apologize for dumping that code on us with insufficient testing, so maybe it was a one time thing and won't happen again.
 

Originally posted by championsFan

Originally posted by nekollx

Originally posted by Elikal

Once you are on the defense, it is hard to regain momentum. I don't want to be in their place. If they take money its robbery, if they hand it out free, its desperation. ;)

I for once will not judge what it is, but say that it is a good move.

Most of my guild now has moved to STO, so I have no idea how CO is. I really wish the game luck, tho I fear a company is quite overburdened with keeping two MMOs running and up to date at the same time. Making CO and STO at the same time was just an epic fail. Two so-so games instead of one good.

 

Still, even if both MMOs would close in a year after launch, with just 2 years in the making, a small number of devs with all the box sales and lifetimers Crptic prolly made their profit. If I were evil, I'd say they never aimed for more, but since I am nice I won't say it.

 

Considering everytime i used Fly i moved like a Star Ship i figured i'd cut out the middle thing and just command  real star ship.

It's true of course, we really are flying around like starships, but it is fixed on the public test server and in the SotG they apologize for dumping that code on us with insufficient testing, so maybe it was a one time thing and won't happen again.
 

you really belive that? Clearly STO is their new favorite child...atleast until their NEW mmo comes out.

We won this battle, but the war isnt over yet!

Good news for the CO players i guess. wtf were they thinking charging money for that bullshit "expansion"? :p

Originally posted by Proson

We won this battle, but the war isnt over yet!

 

Good news for the CO players i guess. wtf were they thinking charging money for that bullshit "expansion"? :p

"Players are stupid, let's get more money"

Amazing.

The phrase "damned if you do, damned if you don't" comes to mind.

Cryptic does something to please their customers, and something that pretty much every customer wanted, by making the expansion free and it still gets turned in to a negative.

Originally posted by HeliosXII

Amazing.

The phrase "damned if you do, damned if you don't" comes to mind.

Cryptic does something to please their customers, and something that pretty much every customer wanted, by making the expansion free and it still gets turned in to a negative.

After pulling bakc the carpent to reveal the pile of poo poaiting it gold doesnt change the underling poo

The point is, they're now giving you something for free what they were originally intending on charging you for.

You should be thanking them, or at the very least acknowledging that it's the right thing for them to do.

Regardless of what you want to believe their motives are, doing this is the right move for them. You can call it an underhanded scheme to try and milk their oblivious customers for all their worth, but give them credit where credit is due FFS. I think they've at least earned that, with all the bending over backward they've done to appease the gluttonous, ungrateful masses that play their games.

Originally posted by HeliosXII

Amazing.

The phrase "damned if you do, damned if you don't" comes to mind.

Cryptic does something to please their customers, and something that pretty much every customer wanted, by making the expansion free and it still gets turned in to a negative.

Changing your mind and doing something you should have done in the first place isn't a "positive". Especially when you were basically forced to do it by your playerbase who is already pissed off at everything you've been doing to this point.

If you blindly believe that this one decision means Cryptic has changed their design philosophy when it comes to money then I got some news for you...

Originally posted by Simsu

Originally posted by HeliosXII

Amazing.

The phrase "damned if you do, damned if you don't" comes to mind.

Cryptic does something to please their customers, and something that pretty much every customer wanted, by making the expansion free and it still gets turned in to a negative.

 

Changing your mind and doing something you should have done in the first place isn't a "positive". Especially when you were basically forced to do it by your playerbase. If you blindly believe that this one change means Cryptic has changed their design philosophy when it comes to money then I got some news for you.

No, I don't. But I also don't believe it's as morally repugnant as you'd like us to believe. Whether it's what they should have done in the first place or not, it's something they didn't HAVE to do. They could have kept it as a paid expansion, but they didn't. They deserve credit for at least that. And yes, there are people out there who WOULD HAVE bought the expansion if they had decided to keep it a paid expansion.