When LOTR came out originally, I bought it, played it, and was bored to tears with it. When it went F2P I tried it again, and was again bored with it. I don't like it, and I never really will. But that doesn't mean I fail to recognize the product as meaningful to those who do enjoy it, and its free conversion was a great deal for the many people who play.

And I think Champions should get the same fair treatment. I enjoyed it quite a bit when it first came out, though I did give up eventually with the lack of content and things to do. I hear it's improved quite a bit in that aspect and I would love to try it again. And hey! It's free now! So why can't people rejoice for those who do enjoy this title now that they can play it for free?

It's not even as limited as most people make it out to be. The biggest concern I hear is the classes and not being able to choose your own different powers like gold members. That is a bummer, sure, but what other hero MMO lets you do that? City of Heroes and DC both place you in basic roles, so it's not like the silver members are getting completely shafted. There has to be SOME advantage to being a gold member, my God let's not forget this is still a company and they need to make a profit to survive.

I'm going to try out this freemium model and see how I enjoy it. Chances are it'll keep my interest for a while and then I'll be back to looking for the next great MMO within weeks. And that isn't Cryptic's fault. That is the fault of the genre itself, as we've yet to step into that next generation of new MMO's with fresh ideas.

Originally posted by TuxedoSLY

When LOTR came out originally, I bought it, played it, and was bored to tears with it. When it went F2P I tried it again, and was again bored with it. I don't like it, and I never really will. But that doesn't mean I fail to recognize the product as meaningful to those who do enjoy it, and its free conversion was a great deal for the many people who play.

 

And I think Champions should get the same fair treatment. I enjoyed it quite a bit when it first came out, though I did give up eventually with the lack of content and things to do. I hear it's improved quite a bit in that aspect and I would love to try it again. And hey! It's free now! So why can't people rejoice for those who do enjoy this title now that they can play it for free?

 

It's not even as limited as most people make it out to be. The biggest concern I hear is the classes and not being able to choose your own different powers like gold members. That is a bummer, sure, but what other hero MMO lets you do that? City of Heroes and DC both place you in basic roles, so it's not like the silver members are getting completely shafted. There has to be SOME advantage to being a gold member, my God let's not forget this is still a company and they need to make a profit to survive.

 

I'm going to try out this freemium model and see how I enjoy it. Chances are it'll keep my interest for a while and then I'll be back to looking for the next great MMO within weeks. And that isn't Cryptic's fault. That is the fault of the genre itself, as we've yet to step into that next generation of new MMO's with fresh ideas.

I agree 100% on everything you just said.

I am also going to sub now it is free to play just to give the game a good chance on the changes.

Originally posted by Quizzical

You might have better luck with the download if you don't try to do it while the servers are down.  The servers will be back up as soon as Cryptic can bring them up.  It's already taken longer than they expected, so we don't know when that will be.

I am currently downloading from here

http://www.fileplanet.com/218392/download/Champions-Online-Free-To-Play-Client

The servers from my link have no que time at the moment downloading at my full speed. Champions online website is being hammered at the moment so good luck getting a client download off it.

How big is CO anyways?

do people who use to sub get anything?or are we lumped in to the silver club

Originally posted by SergeantHam

How big is CO anyways?

The client I am downloading off FP is 3 gig. So probably 5gb once installed and patched.

I spent a few hours downloading the game up to about 40% and in the meantime my friend on Ventrilo logged in to his nephew's former account and come to find out all the toons are locked out as gold account. So unlike other F2P games you can't even play your former toons!

Next, I ask him if he can roll a new toon. Nope! No character slots left on silver account. So he logs in to his other nephew's account who also no longer plays and deletes a level 5 toon to see if he can roll a new one. NOPE!

So, here's the deal. If you're a former sub, DON'T BOTHER with CO! You would have to delete all of your old toons but one to get just ONE free slot to roll a limited power-set (customizability) toon.

Sorry Cryptic, I love STO, but this F2P model isn't even close to LotRO or EQ2Ext! Back to the drawing boards and you just lost the potential for any revenue from 8 accounts. Mine, my friends, his two nephews, two other friends, my brother, and his son!

Now that that is out of my system. Here's a fix. Unlock previous subs toons and allow two free slots for the new F2P toons! It's that easy, otherwise you're going to have alot of NON-returning accounts and there goes your planned revenue!

Also, unlock your forums for F2P accounts!

PS: It's like Cryptic has a good child (STO) and a bad child (CO); referring to the way the two games are perceived as being "customer friendly". The STO team seems to bend over backwards to make the game accessible, fun, constant improvements to the game, new content!!...tons of new content since launch. Then you have CO...hardly ANY new content since launch, perceived as being not so friendly to customers (F2P being the penultimate example of this) and so on and so forth. It's simply amazing how this has come to be. Cryptic please help dispose this perception by making CO F2P way more friendly, accessible, and standard with the norms of other F2P models. There is nothing you can say at this point to try to dissuade me from giving F2P a go with the current model. I'm not going to download your game to only remove 90% of my toons that I enjoyed playing (one of the things I enjoyed with CO's prior model was the character creation and customization process) prior to leaving your game; due to a ton of reasons I don't care to post right now.

I don't know what is going on right now.

Are servers up?

I can not convert my free trial characters OR create a new character.  Each time I hit start game, I get a "failed message" and get logged off.

To top it off, Cryptic did follow though with the stupid idea to lock all silver accounts from the forums, so no one can even cry "WTF is going on", so for all they know the game is working fine. 

This has to be the most bone headed decision I have seen in awhile.

CRASH AND BURN

I had been considering installing this game again today with F2P being here, but after reading the list of stuff that's locked out unless you pay a sub and reading the woes of former subscribers i'm not going to bother. The free2play tag on this is more like free trial.

Originally posted by Kabaal

I had been considering installing this game again today with F2P being here, but after reading the list of stuff that's locked out unless you pay a sub and reading the woes of former subscribers i'm not going to bother. The free2play tag on this is more like free trial.

Well put Kabaal. It should be marketed as "free trial" not free to play. There's absolutely nothing for returning subscribers to return to! Sad but true.

:(

---

Maybe there is a difference between a great AAA fantasy MMO going f2p compared to a half assed super hero MMO made by one of the most hated companies in the business.

There is almost 0 hype around the internet of this change for a reason.

---

Just out of curiosity, did any of you with full character slots try converting one of your old characters to an Archetype? If so, which one, and what prevented you from getting in game?

Thanks,

Stormshade

Originally posted by Stormshade

Just out of curiosity, did any of you with full character slots try converting one of your old characters to an Archetype? If so, which one, and what prevented you from getting in game?

 

Thanks,

Stormshade

I converted one of mine and played for about 2-3 hours and uninstalled the game again. Still a crappy game.

The people who are experiencing failed conversions/creations are picking the 2 AT that can't be played by silver players. But there is nothing on the conversion/creation screen to tell you that. So they are picking Specialist and Savage and failing. Again, Cryptic is run by morons.

The other thing that hacked me off was that I had 5 characters on my old account and in order to play I had to convert one which isn't reversable or delete 4 characters to get a silver slot to open....Which insures I would NEVER sub later because I was forced to dump good charaters I had time invested in.

Good luck with that.

Originally posted by severius

Rift isn't that exciting, sorry to rain on your parade lol.

 Beta started with 32 servers and needed 10 more withing 2 hours to hold everyone. Nope not exciting at all.

i logged in(forced to convert my already exsisting character...got in just to find the same dull game i played 7 months ago...dc universe really spoiled me in the beta..the only thing champions has that is better is character customization....and that is it.1 inventory bag for free2play???nothings more frustrating then gimped bag space....anyway..i stand by my stance about cryptic..very very sad to see neverwinter nights being handed to them :(

btw to the guy saying rift isnt good...that will be your little secret,the game is wildly popular..though it adds nothing new to the genre it does alot right..

This game seemed terrible to me,  the movement and models were iffy at best.

I really don't know what Cryptic is thinking with this F2P model. In DDO, you start creating a character and you're immediately presented with clear information on what is available for free, and what is available by purchase. From the outset, you are given the option of essentially "renting" the whole game for a monthly subscription, or buying individual pieces of it permanently. Seems fair enough.

In Champions, you start creating a character and are given the option of classes. There is no indication that subscribers can essentially design their own class, or that they can select from a wider variety of powers. The game doesn't even tell you that the fire-based class, for instance, doesn't have access to all the fire powers available. It doesn't offer you to buy these things -- it doesn't even make any indication that they exist. A new player, for example, would have absolutely no idea that you could create a superhero with lightning powers, but only if you subscribe. Why on earth they simply didn't allow F2P players to create freeform heroes, but have many of the power sets locked and purchasable, is beyond me.

This seems like a really dumb move on Cryptic's part, because one of the very few things Champions definitively has over DC Universe Online is the much larger variety of powers available. For whatever reason they've decided to actively hide this content from players.

Having a great time with some friends, the archtypes are not that terrible. Adds some dimension to the game, in addition to the block mechanic.

Not shortage of finding a group after F2P launch.

I think the FTP model fits this game very well. Though am not sure about its specific implementation.

The game is not bad, very similar to COH. Honestly after playing DCUO and Rift beta, I actuall would say this is the better game, especially when it is free.

See lots of people online and new, FTP might be just what this game needs.

Originally posted by Spispopd

I really don't know what Cryptic is thinking with this F2P model. In DDO, you start creating a character and you're immediately presented with clear information on what is available for free, and what is available by purchase. From the outset, you are given the option of essentially "renting" the whole game for a monthly subscription, or buying individual pieces of it permanently. Seems fair enough.

In Champions, you start creating a character and are given the option of classes. There is no indication that subscribers can essentially design their own class, or that they can select from a wider variety of powers. The game doesn't even tell you that the fire-based class, for instance, doesn't have access to all the fire powers available. It doesn't offer you to buy these things -- it doesn't even make any indication that they exist. A new player, for example, would have absolutely no idea that you could create a superhero with lightning powers, but only if you subscribe. Why on earth they simply didn't allow F2P players to create freeform heroes, but have many of the power sets locked and purchasable, is beyond me.

This seems like a really dumb move on Cryptic's part, because one of the very few things Champions definitively has over DC Universe Online is the much larger variety of powers available. For whatever reason they've decided to actively hide this content from players.

Cryptic have never been terribly good at information.  OTOH, maybe they were thinking of leaving something to the social side of the game?  As an ex-subscriber, I know how much fun the freeform builds can be, and even today I found myself extolling their virtues in Zone chat in response to a newbie's questions.  Don't know if I influenced him at alll, but maybe that's the sort of thing Cryptic are hoping for - more of a community vibe coming from the subscribers.