Champions Online Interview

MMOCrunch had the opportunity to grill Cryptic Studios’ Bill Roper about the launch of Champions Online and the team’s plans for upcoming content.

Certainly CO has room for expansion with regards to new powersets and missions, but are there any more (killer features) coming down the pike? Also, are there any features that needed to be cut from the original release that you feel have to get in at some point?

We’ve added quite a bit into the game that is far beyond just new missions and power sets, although we added those, as well. Crossover Missions allow players to share any mission with another person, even if their character isn’t eligible for that mission. As opposed to the helper getting the same Primary version of the missions, they get a special Crossover version that has all the same goals, but a different reward scale. This gives them incentive past just being a good person to help out someone, even if they have already completed the mission in question.

Next week we’re opening the doors to the Nemesis Confrontation lair that combines the UNITY and Nemesis systems. Top level players will be able to get a UNITY mission that end up with a team of 5 heroes battling against their Nemeses and a villain powerful enough to draw such a conglomerate of evil together. We always wanted to be able to have multiple Nemeses in a fight against the heroes that created them, and now we have it.

In December, we’re going to be launching some new technology that allows players of any level to fight side-by-side against a common enemy. This is huge because it allows us to balance an encounter for a number of heroes regardless of their level.

Moving forward, we have a few systems on the drawing board that will allow players to investigate and find their own crimes to combat, as well as a few other surprises to really extend the life and fun of the game.