Why I Quit Champions Online
Filed under: MMORPG Related, Opinion | 14 Comments »
Even though I purchased the six month package for Champions Online I haven’t actively played the game in weeks. I’ve kept the client up-to-date just in case, but since I reviewed Champions Online in mid-November I haven’t put in anywhere near the time that I had previously. My absence from VioletPreston has nothing to do with being busy. The holidays didn’t stop me from logging in, neither did other video games, or even other MMOG that I play. I didn’t play Champions Online because of the game itself, no other excuses.
Plan and simple, Champions Online lost its hold on me. I continued to dive into the game, move around the world, soak up the atmosphere, read about its future and most importantly, evaluate the content beyond my reach. What I definitively learned, and I hope my review hinted at, is that the game lacks legs. The atmosphere has always been incredibly disjointed thanks to the instancing of most zones. Even though all of the settings make sense in the universe, they lack a cohesive flow. And the multitude of characters aren’t employed effectively either. Because of these continued slip-ups through the middle to later levels, Champions Online gets boiled down to its diverse arcade-y combat. In essence, it becomes a soulless experience.
Signing up for an MMOG to me is more than just playing a game, I am signing up as a partner to the company. I expect certain things from the service provider, and when I don’t see those things I can get upset, annoyed and even downright angry. Cryptic Studios has managed to make me feel almost all of these emotions. I was expecting the cast of Champions characters to be used in an intriguing way. I was hoping that the game would offer better grouping and dungeon experiences later on. I maintained a desire to play alternate characters (perhaps CO’s greatest strength), but was hamstrung by being forced to do the same content over and over. Instead of fixing these issues with content updates, Cryptic turned around and announced a premium content patch. Adding content to the end game and charging for it – that was the last straw for me.
The tragedy of all of this is that my experience has made me incredibly stand-offish to Cryptic’s just released MMORPG Star Trek Online, a title I was originally excited for. I’ll likely play it, but my experience and the handling of Champions Online to date, assured that I wouldn’t purchase an advance subscription, or even the game at launch.
My Champions Online account is subscribed for another month plus, so Cryptic can do right by me. But the outlook is grime for my Champions Online characters. It just couldn’t satisfy me in the long run.
What’s an example of a soulful mmorpg? As opposed to one with a soulless experience?
Can I have your account?
EQ, WoW, Fallen Earth, DDO, LoTR, just to name a few. Something with a more cohesive world that flows together in design and in lore.
But you are correct, there are far more games that are highly instanced and soulless.
DDO is a cohesive world? IT’s a city full of dungeons. At release it was far less of a game than some claim Guild Wars is.
The simple fact is he got bored like we all do with a game at some point and moved on. It’s not some magical event that everyone playing mmos for any length of time is not familiar with.
Good writeup. Charging people for a sub AND content is a big no-no in my book. This reeks of Bill Roper’s bad business tactics.
Soulful MMO experience: No EVE?
I agree with Bob. Most of us get bores with the same MMO after a while. WoW just happens to be really good at keeping people, but I left when They nerfed my main, and I really really did not want to spend the time, doing the same content leveling another charachter…
I agree about CO at is lacking some major elements that make or break an MMO. Although we can argue about soulless or soulful semantics, but this game is missing some major hooks to keep people playing that most MMOs take for granted.
1. Not enough variety in content. Not enough content period.
2. Small and not immersible environments. Instancing is only splitting it up and makes the environment seem even smaller
3. No grouping incentive.
4. No goals for community to build and maintain guilds.
5. After getting all the good powers there is no motivation to level up because the additional powers are not making any impact on the way you play the game.
In short it sounds like a single player game with multi-player elements, why should the players pay box price + monthly fee + MT and be charged for DLC is beyond reason. I got more game-play and content out Borderlands without paying a cent after buying the box.
I like to think of the soul of a game as the “it” that little extra something that you cant always identify or see, but that keeps you coming back to the game for some reason. IMHO CO definitely lacks the “it”
Sounds like most of you held out WAY longer than me. I had high hopes that things would get better than the beta, but after the patch and lackluster first month support, I didn’t even bother subscribing at all.
Do you see yourself coming back now that Cryptic has backpedaled on their paid content pack/expansion and put out some olive branches to the community?
I knew this game would flail and lose players during the beta. It needed another six months to a year at that point, not 30-60 days.
Luk, that’s a great summation of everything CO is missing. I think the writer hits the nail on the head though, the game just doesn’t seem like its own world. To many people that idea is very important, whether they realize it or not.
Sounds like that new game freshness blinded you a bit.
Still play it, it’s got far more soul than games like WoW. (IMO)