Champions Online, developed by Cryptic Studios and Atari, recently released a new in-depth video to help hype its Serpent Lantern Expansion Pack out now.

The Serpent Lantern Expansion Pack features new weapons and armor, new dungeons and bosses to tackle and many more upgrades to the game. The expansion moves the story of battling the villainous Vipers ahead with the unleashing of the evil Serpent Lantern, asking players, will you be able to stop the Great Spirit Serpent?

To check out the video and sign up for a free trial, head on over to the Champions Online official website.

Cryptic Studios has released their Champions Online State of the Game report for June 2010. In it, Executive Producer Shannon Posniewksi lays out what the team has learned from the first Champions Online adventure pack, the Serpent Lantern. Also discussed is the big summer update to the game, scheduled for August, and a reminder that today is the latest “Play with the Devs” event.

New additions to the game include the difficulty slider for instances, which allows players to make instanced missions and even general maps harder in order to secure better rewards and items, and a Veteran Rewards system for long-term subscribers. Some of these veteran rewards are actually quite substantial, such as low-level experience boosts and a health and energy recharging item. For the future, “Poz” mentioned the creation of an interactive event calendar for Supergroups, as well as streamlining for pet powers and many new emotes for the summer update.

To read the full state of the game, visit the official site.

Atari has released a brand new trailer for Champions Online: Serpent Lantern Adventure Pack. The Serpent Lantern Adventure pack will take Champions Online players on an epic adventure for the magical artifact, capable of granting unimaginable powers to its possessor through the skyscrapers of Millennium City to the jungles of Africa. You just need a character who’s level is above 11 and some free time on your hands. The trailer is available for watching here.

Champions Online has announced details concerning the Serpent Lantern Adventure Pack set to arrive next month.

The expansion offers many new updates to Champions Online. The “adventure pack” features new enemies, locations and items centered around battling the games VIPER nemesis as you search for a powerful and mysterious object – the Serpent Lantern. There will also be new NPC’s to interact with, new costumes to unlock, three new perks, action figures to collect and a slue of other add-ons that will flesh out the new expansion.

For the fully detailed article and trailer from Champions Online on the Serpent Lantern adventure pack, click here.

Cryptic Studios recently answered questions posted to them by gamers on their forums surrounding Champions Online. The general Q&A centered around the latest developments the design team have in store for the game.

Questions for the team ranged from whether the team will be implementing a new power pack to questions about expansions for the Nemesis system and much more.

Read the full Champions Online Q/A interview here.

Both Star Trek Online and Champions Online were originally developed with the goal of eventually releasing versions of the games to console platforms. If you’ve played Champions Online, you may have noticed that it has had strong Xbox 360 controller support since the beta phases, a side-effect of this long-term production focus. Now Cryptic Studios, home of the developers behind both games, has officially confirmed that neither game will be coming to consoles any time soon.

The first announcement came in the form of a forum post for Champions Online by Cryptic co-founder Jack Emmert, stating that “100% of our focus is on making the current PC product the best it can be. There are no current plans for a console version of Champions.” More recently, Executive Producer Craig Zinkievich was interviewed by VideoGamer.com and had sad news for Star Trek Online as well, saying, “It’s pretty much in the same boat as the Champions console version right now.” Stating that the technology was there, but that it was “a little difficult to make that final leap on the business side of things,” Zinkievich confirmed that the console projects for Champions Online and Star Trek Online are now on the back burner.

It really seems like this market is going under-utilised at the moment, but as MMOs are an expensive gamble to begin with, I can understand why companies, especially publishers, are likely balking at the idea of pushing into mostly unexplored territory.

In short order after releasing the first round of previews, Blizzard has released the second and third, each chock full of information on the expected Cataclysm class changes. Represented now are nine of the ten classes – all but the lonely Paladins now have small smoulderings of information to keep them warm through the cold nights of anticipation. What have the holy knights done to earn such disdain from the gods of World of Warcraft? A mystery indeed, but for now let’s content ourselves with the rest – as before I have only plucked the new abilities from the previews and included links for the full articles due to their length.

New Warrior Abilities:

Inner Rage (Level 81): Whenever the character reaches a full 100 Rage, he or she will gain a buff that causes attacks to consume 50% more Rage and do 15% more damage for a short amount of time. This is a passive ability so it won’t need to be activated by the player. The goal for this ability is to provide a benefit for hitting max Rage instead of it feeling like a penalty. However, we also don’t want warriors to feel like they’re supposed to pool Rage and do nothing until they hit 100, so we’ll be closely monitoring how this plays out during the beta testing, and making adjustments as needed.

Gushing Wound (Level 83): This ability will apply a bleed effect to the target. If the target moves, the bleed gains an extra stack and refreshes its duration, up to a maximum of three stacks. The ability is currently planned to have no cooldown, cost 10 Rage, and have a 9-second duration. Gushing Wound is designed to be weaker than Rend with one stack, but better with three stacks, which will be reached when fighting a moving target.

Heroic Leap (Level 85): This ability makes the character leap at their target and apply the Thunder Clap ability to all enemies in the area when they land. Heroic Leap will be usable in Battle Stance and shares a cooldown with Charge, but the Juggernaut and Warbringer talents will allow Heroic Leap to be used in any stance and possibly while in combat. The cooldown for this ability might be longer than the Charge ability, but it will also apply a stun effect so you can make sure the target will still be there when you land.

New Death Knight Abilities:

Outbreak (level 81): Outbreak infects the target with both Frost Fever and Blood Plague at no rune cost. This ability allows death knights to apply diseases quickly when they are switching targets or when their diseases have been dispelled.

Necrotic Strike (level 83): Necrotic Strike is a new attack that deals weapon damage and applies a debuff that absorbs an amount of healing based on the damage done. For context, imagine that the death knight can choose between doing 8,000 damage outright with a certain ability, or dealing 6,000 damage and absorbing 4,000 points in incoming heals with Necrotic Strike — the burst is smaller, but a larger overall amount of healing would be required to bring the target back to full health.

This ability is meant to bring back some of the old flavor from when death knights could dispel heal-over-time (HoT) effects. It also gives the class a bit more PvP utility without simply replicating a Mortal Strike-style effect.

Dark Simulacrum (level 85): The death knight strikes a target, applying a debuff that allows the death knight to copy the opponent’s next spell cast and unleash it. Unlike Spell Reflection, Dark Simulacrum does not cancel the incoming spell. In general, if you can’t reflect an ability, you won’t be able to copy it either.

New Rogue Abilities:

Redirect (available at level 81): Rogues will be getting a new ability to help them deal with changing targets. Redirect will transfer any active combo points to the rogue’s current target, helping to ensure combo points aren’t wasted when swapping targets or when targets die. In addition, self-buff abilities like Slice and Dice will no longer require a target, so rogues can spend extra combo points on those types of abilities (more on this below). Redirect will have a 1-minute cooldown and no other costs.

Combat Readiness (level 83): Combat Readiness is a new ability that we intend rogues to trigger defensively. While this ability is active, whenever the rogue is struck by a melee or ranged attack, he or she will gain a stacking buff called Combat Insight that results in a 10% reduction in damage taken. Combat Insight will stack up to 5 times and the timer will be refreshed whenever a new stack is applied. Our goal is to make rogues better equipped to go toe-to-toe with other melee classes when Evasion or stuns are not in play. This ability lasts 6 seconds and has a 2-minute cooldown.

Smoke Bomb (level 85): The rogue drops a Smoke Bomb, creating a cloud that interferes with enemy targeting. Enemies who are outside the cloud will find themselves unable to target units inside the cloud with single-target abilities. Enemies can move inside the cloud to attack, or they can use area-of-effect (AoE) abilities at any time to attack opponents in a cloud. In PvP, this will open up new dimensions of tactical positional gameplay, as the ability offers a variety of offensive and defensive uses. In PvE, Smoke Cloud can serve to shield your group from hostile ranged attacks, while also drawing enemies closer without the need to rely on conventional line-of-sight obstructions. Smoke Cloud lasts 10 seconds and has a 3-minute cooldown.

New Hunter Abilities:

Cobra Shot (level 81): A new shot that deals Nature damage instead of Physical damage. This ability will share a cooldown with Steady Shot. This will give hunters an alternative to Steady Shot on heavily-armored targets, and we will have talent incentives in the Beast Mastery tree to make this a signature shot.

Trap Launcher (level 83): When used, the next trap can be shot to a location within 40 yards. This provides the current Freezing Arrow treatment to all traps and, as a result, we will be removing the current ability Freezing Arrow. 1-minute cooldown. No global cooldown.

Camouflage (level 85): The hunter enters an obscured state that prevents him or her from taking ranged damage. The character would still be subject to melee or area-of-effect attacks, and dealing or taking damage will break the Camouflage effect. The hunter can move and set traps when under Camouflage, and will receive a damage bonus when attacking while under Camouflage (which will then break the effect).

New Druid Abilities:

Thrash (Level 81): Thrash deals damage and causes all targets within 10 yards to bleed every 2 seconds for 6 seconds. The intent here is to give bears another button to hit while tanking. Talents will affect the bleed, such as causing Swipe to deal more damage to bleeding targets. 5-second cooldown. 25 Rage.

Stampeding Roar (Level 83): The druid roars, increasing the movement of all allies within 10 yards by 40% for 8 seconds. Stampeding Roar can be used in cat or bear form, but bears might have a talent to drop the cooldown. The goal of this ability is to give both bears and cats a little more situational group utility. 3-minute cooldown. No cost.

Wild Mushroom (Level 85): Grows a magical mushroom at the target location. After 4 seconds the mushroom becomes invisible. Enemies who cross the mushroom detonate it, causing it to deal area-of-effect damage, though its damage component will remain very effective against single targets. The druid can also choose to detonate the mushroom ahead of time. This is primarily a tool for the Balance druid, and there will be talents that play off of it. No cooldown. 40-yard range. Instant cast.

New Mage Abilites:

Flame Orb (available at level 81): Inspired by Prince Taldaram’s abilities in Ahn’kahet and Icecrown Citadel, this spell allows the mage to cast a flaming orb that travels in front in a straight line, sending beams that cause fire damage to passing targets. Once it’s cast, the mage is free to begin casting other spells as the Flame Orb travels. While the spell will be useful to any spec, Fire mages will have talents that improve it, possibly causing the Flame Orb to explode when it reaches its destination.

Time Warp (level 83): Grants a passive Haste effect much like Bloodlust or Heroism to party or raid members. It also temporarily increases the mage’s own movement speed. Time Warp will be exclusive with Bloodlust and Heroism, meaning you can’t benefit from both if you’ve got the Exhaustion debuff, though the movement-speed increase will still work even when under the effects of Exhaustion.

Wall of Fog (level 85): Creates a line of frost in front of the mage, 30 yards from end to end. Enemies who cross the line are snared and take damage. The mana cost will be designed to make Wall of Fog efficient against groups, not individuals. This spell is intended to give mages a way to help control the battlefield, whether the mage is damaging incoming enemies (Blizzard can be channeled on top of Wall of Fog) or protecting a flag in a Battleground. 10-second duration. 30-second cooldown.

My friends Ivan and Shamrokk over at The Big Freaking Podcast had a chance to sit down with Jack Emmert, Chief Operating Officer of Cryptic Studios. Cryptic has released two big AAA titles within 6 months of each other: Champions Online and Star Trek Online. He is proud to say that Cryptic is the only developer to release four MMORPG’s in its game developing lifetime. Counting City of Heroes, City of Villains’, Champions Online and most recently Star Trek Online, not many studios come close.

Jack Emmert, an avid comic book fan who reads over 90 titles monthly, says his favorites are The Green Lantern and The Hulk. He holds multiple academic degrees and was approached to do City of Heroes while he was working on his dissertation about animal sacrifices. He left a possible career of being a professor of Greek and Latin to create Cryptic Studios with Rick Dakin in 2000. While he reminiscing about the lean years during the parting of ways from NCSoft he says, “He never got misty eyed” over selling The City of Heroes/Villians franchise but thought they would be working on for the next decade. He claims that Cryptic and NCSoft had “divergent interests” and after rescuing the company from the brink of financial apocalypse they acquire the Star Trek IP along with the Champions IP (Intellectual Property, the right to an idea.)

It sounds like Jack Emmert has been through hell and back with Cryptic. He’s passionate about his products and like everyone who creates a product for a particular market he has to deal with the critics. The mention of the different ratings systems and the mediocre scores would seem to have an impact on future customers for both games. But as Jack Emmert explains how the ratings system itself is quite imbalanced. When websites like Metacritic, Massively and Gamespot reviewed Warhammer Online and Age of Conan they didn’t expect the player sudden player drop off. Leaving many of the reviewers burned [sic] by loss of credibility.

Jack Emmert says it isn’t the reviewers or the fans that are ruining the MMORPG industry, “Wow has almost destroyed the MMO genre” he says. “Not in a bad way”, he follows, it’s because (wow) epitomizes everything that an MMO is, leaving all the others to be compared to it. This is why many reviewers judge a game on what it is NOW instead of what it COULD BE. But he also feels that it will take a lot of money and a strong IP to rival the World of Warcraft. After spending over 100 million dollars he feels that Bioware’s upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic could be the game to rival WoW.

The future plan for Cryptic Studios looks very promising. Jack Emmert seemed very positive about the new upcoming updates for both games, Star Trek Online’s Season 2 and Revelations for Champions Online. An entire survey of the taken by the Star Trek Online community is going to be created into the next expansion called Season 2. “What the players want is exactly what we’re going to give them”, Jack says with authority. When posted a question of a death penalty or lack thereof, he admits that the community has strongly requested it and it will be in an upcoming patch. “What is fun about a death penalty” he jokes but then tells us a deep, dark developer secret that the only reason why a death penalty is incorporated into a game is to get the player to play longer.

There is one thing to be wrong, but not to stay wrong. At certain  times during the interview Mr. Emmert admits to certain points where bothChampions Online and Star Trek Online they could be improved. He is looking to improve the company overall and make better product for the public. But the problem is a logistical issue of manpower, he doesn’t want to be detract from the developer team that is making new content to go back and fix certain issues. Problems ranging typos to quests that don’t tell the player where to go and ultimately description of powers and items that don’t make any sense, it will take manpower to make these changes.

Their latest campaign is to actively reach out to the community and the press to find their place amongst this universe of games. One of the many steps they are taking is something they practiced during their days as developers of City of Heroes/Villains’, they did this from taking a page from Richard Garriot’s book. By creating characters and actively getting involved with the players firsthand they get to see the game through the gamer’s eyes instead of a developer. In doing this they are looking to bridge the gap between gamer and developer.

Enter Bill Roper, the good cop to Jacks bad cop. As Shannon Posniewski ascends from the position of a software engineer to an executive role, this frees up Bill Roper to be the one who is going to oversee all games. One of Bill Ropers new roles as troubleshooter is going to be “making sure he play tests all of the taskforces in Star Trek.” Jack abruptly ends this subject with, “there is a little bit more going on than everybody knows yet.” Hmm, could there be a big surprise coming from Cryptic this year at E3!

Could it be Jack Emmert’s dream project of making a Godzilla MMO? Nah, never happen and I’m not one to speculate but one thing is confirmed that it will not be made for any consoles. “Consoles are not a current focus” he confides to the surprise of both Ivan and Shamrokk, he says he’s looking to “make the best PC products they possibly can.”

I will stop here; I don’t want to give everything away, but this was one of the most in-depth, personal and honest interviews I have ever had to chance to hear. This is a man that has made some tough decisions, choosing on becoming a video game developer than a college professor. During many sleepless nights he held up this company with the help of his staff. His employees look to him and put their trust in him not just as their boss, but as a leader.

Jack Emmert and Cryptic Studios seems resilient, they have bounced back from numerous setbacks. The selling of a successful MMO franchise to release other successful MMO’s and in dealing with bad press they learn from their mistakes and keep the future in focus. According to Jack, 100,000 subscriptions is a success and their mission is to keep that level of quality. This builds confidence in their customer base and opens the door for future business.

But his main focus is on his employees that depend on him and his customers that look to Cryptic Studios to have fun by playing their games. That is the bottom line over at Cryptic Studios; they are just looking to make fun games, at the end of the day Cryptic is just a bunch of gamers. To hear the rest of the interview and catch up on past shows head on over to The Big Freaking Podcast, download and enjoy!

Until then…

Play safe,

Frank Inktomi

Two weeks ago I specified a few reasons why I was going to walk away from Champions Online when my subscription expired.  Normally, I try to look at the positives of a situation, but my experiences with the game, Cryptic’s handling of it and the future plans didn‘t sit well with me.  Or the rest of the playerbase, as a few readers explained their issues with the game in the comments section.

Last week, Cryptic backpedaled on its decision to offer paid for high-level content.  Champions Online – Revelation, what the company claims is a “full-fledged expansion,” didn‘t go over well.  The decision was reversed after people like us spoke our minds about paying for content in a game that is lacking just that.  Commentator Snorlax returned to the post to pose a very good question:

“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?”

Initially, no.  The company lost a good amount of my trust, the damage had been done.  But Cryptic followed up last week’s olive branch with another State of the Game address that focuses on the free “expansion.”  Costumes, perks, and additional lairs are always welcome additions.  Two bullet points really caught my attention – Adventures Packs and Monthly In-Game Events.

Adventure Packs are story driven packages that are playable at “nearly any level.”  That will make them perfect for all of the altaholics out there (and casual players).  Personally, I am excited to see the story part take shape.  Who wouldn‘t want to battle with “villains both new and established.”  The more Foxbat the better.

If there’s something that small companies and small MMOGs excel at it’s usually community.  Cryptic Studios is looking to be a large part of that by joining us side-by-side.  We’ll be seeing a lot more of the developers in the virtual space they created thanks to the monthly in-game events.  Dates, times and details will be announced as they happen.

Cryptic, you’ve got about a month to win me back.  It’s been a good start.

Champions Online – Revelation will go live in mid-March.  More information will be revealed when the official mini-site launches this week.

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.