Played Lately: Champions Online

• In Jayedub's July roundup, he wrote something that caught my attention:

[...] and I've actually played some Champions Online and really enjoyed that as well. I haven't played CO since the f2p conversion, and boy has it changed since then. It's good, it's fun and I think I am going to be playing more of it again!

• It has been a long time since I played CO. More than a year? Yikes. So I updated the client and jumped into the game. Jaye was right! I can't believe how much has changed.


• I almost didn't recognize it. They changed the title screen, the loading screen, messed with the UI, and threw a huge intro for the latest patch up on the screen. It was overwhelming, but everything looked great. As I am want to do, I immediately backed out to the title screen and rolled a new character.

Aside: I've always heard that people in superhero games tend to accumulate alts like crazy. Since I like to devote my time to one main character, I tend not to branch out into alts unless I've been in a game for a long, long time (e.g. Guild Wars, World of Warcraft). I have eight different superheroes of various levels now. I may need help.

• I was amused to find that Cryptic has streamlined the tutorial (which I never ever skip). They blocked off a section of zone where a couple of frivolous quests once appeared. And they removed Kinetik from his trap. It was much quicker to move through the zone and get to back to Millennium City. And that's when I discovered how much they have updated Renaissance Center and Westside (again!).


• It's crazy to me that I've been away from the game for so long that I have trouble recognizing it. Everything is still familiar; it's still hot keys and powers and costumes. But the details have changed enough that it feels like discovering a new game. That has been a very pleasant surprise.

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© 2012 Marty Runyon. All rights reserved.