- The day many (Several? Some?) people have been waiting for has finally arrived. The Revelation expansion has launched for Champions Online. Free for all subscribers, all you have to do is log in, download the patch, and you're ready for Vibora Bay. Assuming you're reached level 37, of course. (How's that coming, Blue Kae?)
- I already patched the game this morning before work so I'd be ready to play tonight. I guess I'll have to take some time off from the old Xbox 360 to investigate the new zone. I hope to see a few familiar face back in the game soon.
- As an aside, we know (or can safely assume) the Cryptic would love to start charging for these expansion size patches. While they backed down on Revelation, they can't live on subscription fees and C-Store transactions if they want to grow the game. Since the coming Adventure Packs are supposed to be free, will that grease the communities wheels enough to let Cryptic charge for the next expansion?
- Anyway, I hope to see you Vibora Bay!
- EDIT: If you didn't catch it live (like me), check out the latest Cryptic Dev Chat. Lost of good info popping up.
© 2010 Marty Runyon. All rights reserved.
I am level 39, actually. About 300k XP from 40, so I wouldn't be surprised if I hit 40 during the process of getting through the Vibora Bay unlock/crisis missions. See you in the game.
ReplyDeleteOh, I forgot, there's a pretty good interview with Jack Emmert linked on the Champions site: http://www.champions-online.com/node/594898. Well worth listening to especially since the interview is only about the first 50 minutes of the podcast.
ReplyDeleteI honestly have forgotten why people were so upset with having to pay, on paper Revelations looks to have an ok amount of content. Surely it would be worth say ten to twenty bucks.
ReplyDelete@ Blue Kae - Good show, sir. I look forward to you reaching 40.
ReplyDeleteAnd thanks for the heads up about the podcast. Guess I'd better start downloading.
@ Jayedub - The primary complaint was that people didn't appreciate Cryptic charging for a new expansion while current content was so thin.
Jaye, ut was a combination of things:
ReplyDelete* It was within 6 months of launch which most thought was too soon for a paid expansion.
* Cryptic made no mention of what it would be priced at and people jumped to the worst-case scenario (shocking I know).
* There's a general opinion that there are still thin spots for content, and Vibora was supposed to fill in some of those in the 37-40 range.
* The way the announcement came out. Bill posted about Vibora coming, people were very excited, and then Daeke made an off-hand post that it wasn't free.
All of these combined to produce a nerd rage nova on the forum. The thing is there's not much in the way of content gaps anymore, I'm just recently to 39 and I've not had any problems finding missions.
I think it's mostly a case of people getting a bad first impression and never updating it. I just had a conversation with someone the other day who still thought respecs were too expensive in-game and you had to buy them to use them, something that's been corrected since a month or two after launch.
Anjin - Syp/Justin has a decent summary on Massively if you prefer, still worth a listen though. :)
ReplyDeletehttp://www.massively.com/2010/03/23/cryptics-jack-emmert-no-plans-for-consoles-sto-over-100k-subs/
Now that Cryptic has seemingly closed up the content gaps, it will be interesting to see if they can get away with charging for adventure packs. SOE tried it in EQ II, but eventually abandoned the model and starting giving them away for free to new subs.
ReplyDeleteSoM in LoTRO bordered on it, but Turbine managed to get players to perceive as a "mini-expansion" rather than a content patch by rasing the level cap and implementing a major new system with it (and, indeed, I sure as heck got my $20 out of it).
It's also worth noting that CoX has given away more "free" content over the years than almost any other sub based MMO. That has to have some effect on the perceptions of the CO audience.
Based on what they've said in dev posts, there are plans for additional free adventure packs in the coming months, but there's be no mention of paid content. Things can change of course, but I think they're still pretty tentative about the community reaction. I expect it'll be September before they release anything paid.
ReplyDelete@ Yeebo - Blue Kae is right. They've been trumpting the free-ness of the adventure packs. That's what leads me to believe there will be the eventually paid expansion plans in the Revelation style.
ReplyDelete@ Blue Kae - Maybe I should leave Champions commentary up to you from now on? You've got me beat, hands down. :)
Sorry about that, several times I've caught myself thinking I should turn these into posts. :)
ReplyDeleteJust shows how much time I've spent on the forums *shudder*.