Champions Online Article Round-up

There are several more Champions Online articles to report about, so we thought we’d consolidate them all into one newsbit again.

First up is a new “State of the Game” address written by Bill Roper:

As usual there’s a lot happening around Cryptic HQ, across every team in the company. This means that not only is the Champions Online team working on making the game as great as possible, but our core technology teams are cranking out new things, as well. Social features like Twitter support, networking backend tools for better customer support and service, and the web group is putting together more and more features to make our community stronger than ever. Cryptic has done a lot of growing over the past few months, so when you see announcements of new features that aren’t purely game-only elements, that doesn’t mean we’re neglecting things.

Then we have a profile of Dr. Moreau:

Unlike his father, who was trying so hard to hide from the Moreau legacy, Philippe embraced it! He retook the original family name and obsessively studied all of his grandfather’s notes and journals. Reading those journals, for the first time in his life Philippe didn’t feel alone or alienated. Here was someone he understood, who understood him. Here was someone with drive, brilliance, and the desire to reshape the world into a better place! Young Philippe was determined to live up to his grandfather’s legacy and prove that the Moreaus were visionaries! It didn’t hurt that he actually really enjoyed torturing and vivisecting the small animals he first experimented on in his childhood.

Followed by previews on GameSpot:

The character was also clearly past level 11, the first level at which you can start player-versus-player battles, though Champions’ PvP system will let you occasionally pick up loot (that isn’t lost by your fallen foes, but rather, generated anew) and even gain experience points, reminiscent of the career-style PvP of Warhammer Online. After a quick once-over of our acrobatic, sword-swinging samurai’s powers, which primarily consisted of an offensive boost (or “buff”) ability, a passive ability that regenerated our character’s “endurance” (a limited meter that determines how often you can use your special abilities), and various other close-range, melee attack abilities.

G4:

It’s very hard to judge an MMO as big as Champions from a preview think of trying to decide if Warcraft was good based on the first hour or so you played it. It’s not until you’re several dozen hours into an MMO that it really becomes fair to talk about the gameplay. That’s a huge caveat, but what I saw of Champions seemed spot on. It’s obvious the game is going for a more action-oriented feel than some other MMOs so expect less time waiting around for powers to re-charge, and more time beating up bad guys.

And IGN:

Many heroes and villains from the tabletop game will find their way into Champions Online, but many new ones will be developed by Cryptic. Defender is updated for the MMORPG with a new costume and look. Dr. Destroyer has returned from the dead, but is he the old character or a new character altogether? We saw concept art of Armadillo, Grond and Foxbat, Talisman, Ironclad, Justiciar and Ankylosaur. The organizations VIPER and UNTIL continue to oppose each other, and the Lemuria continue to live underground.