Monday, September 28, 2009

Improvements to economy

It finally feels like I'm making money in Champions, though not much at all. Enemies are dropping around 51 resources at the 16 level range, where before they dropped around 10.

The Marketplace still feels bare as far as searching for what you want. The items aren't selling anywhere near what they should be, the inflation in item price is insane (5000-500,000%). When an item vendors for 4c and is put on sale for 1g; I think the currencies are Local (c), National (s), and International (g).

The question is, ARE these items selling at the current mark-up? I have sold things, but I always try to be resonable with my pricing. I really hope they'll improve the market place.

Monday, September 14, 2009

Champions Online, the First 2 weeks

I've purposefully been making slow deliberate progress in Champions. I'm trying to absorb information, and I am testing some of the limits of low level game play.

With that in mind, there are frameworks I still haven't touched, and I've been mostly doing custom frameworks. On another interesting note, they are planning to add more frameworks down the line (for free), which is something rather nice to look forward to.

I haven't had much chance for grouping, and many of the bosses are scaled for a well played single player, and their little zones scale up with more players. This is true of grouping in general, and you may find yourself overwhelmed if you're grouped up, but running around solo. But this doesn't cover enemies higher than Super Villains, at which point you WILL need a good team to defeat. Most of your stats come from gear, and your superstats (which increase with your level). You get SOME stat bonuses from leveling, when you train in the powerhouse for it, but without good gear, you won't see much of an improvement in your guy.

After Crisis (essentially the first 10 levels of game play), you will have a choice of leveling in the Desert, Canada, or Millennium City. There really aren't low level quests in MC, so I suggest doing Desert and Canada first, and only heading to MC to do Super Group registration, Marketplace, or to check it out in general. Doing BOTH post-crisis zones of Desert and Canada, will only get you around level 17-18, at which point you'll really want to do the MC missions. (McMissions, they're really close by, and over with pretty quick ^_^ ).

That's my current highest level, finishing off, MC, trying to get to 20.

Auction House, or in this case the Marketplace, is still in it's infancy. I've sold all of one item so far. It doesn't show up on the map, and only displays the first 100 results. There is still much to be improved on it, so luckily we're in an MMO, and understand that it might be completely revamped.
Crafting is still developing, but as a suggestion, do NOT level up crafting to over 100 etc, until you have ALL the recipes of that level. If you don't grab the recipes you'll have to wait until you're retraining professions (which apparently is something they WANT you to do, since you don't forget recipes). Power Replacers can be sold to others, and some of them unlock costumes replacements for weapons.

Costumes are interesting, and as you level up you get extra costumes slots (currently the first time you do it will be free, but this wasn't always true), also when you join a Super Group. Costumes can be a complete remake of your character or a modification of your current one, and allows you to do things like role-play a Hulk type character, or a Secret Identity of your hero. The Tailor that you go to do your costume changes also lets you change the look of your weapon.

I touched on this in a previous post, but there's also sidekicking, which ups your level to the high level leader's point, and with the exception of gear, let's you join your high level friends in missions they're doing. Grouping in this game often times means tagging along for someone else's mission, and if feels it's easier to group if you're not going after only YOUR goals.

The dev team is very dedicated to this game, and fixes, and patches are coming fast and often. They're constantly doing little improvements, and come the Halloween event (Blood Moon), they'll have their first free "expansion".

Overall, the first 2 weeks have been fun, and the game is still in it's nascent stages of development after going live. The team's dedication I saw during Beta is what made my descision to get a lifetime account. I truly feel that this game has the potential to become great.

Of interesting note, I read in an interview that their UI will be universal for all their games, so expect Star Trek Online to play similarly to Champions, and any and all fixes applied to Champions to make it to STO and back.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Full Free Respecs in Champions for any toon made before 09/10/09

Go to the Power Trainer, click on Respec, then type /character_usefreerespec

Redid my Main toons abilities, especially after being so disappointed with Personal Forcefield.

Also with this patch, I had to update my video drivers, and redo all my video settings.

A few bugs right now with dying resetting where your abilities are in the tool bar.

Monday, September 7, 2009

Costumes that I like



Meh, guy got in the way of the old man superhero (3rd pic). Also note, these were other people's hero's, I'll be posting mine later.

Champions Online AH


Arrgh, this is a frustrating thing.


Only 100 items listed, no sorting, hard to find items you want for a good price (it's an unsorted mess currently).


No cost to list items (I've only done ingredients so far). No time limit (that I've seen so far).
PS. No Bid/Buyout options.
PSS. Here for the forum Suggestion link I made, if you like what I want added, please add to the suggestion. The more visible it is the better.

Sidekicking

You get into a group, you're a mere level 12. You got a level 18, and a 15, 16 and a 17.

Suddenly, they pass leadership to the 18, and they all become 18!

You ask, and they tell you, right click your portrait, and choose to sidekick!

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Champions online microtransactions, part 1

Let me start off by saying, after having the servers down all day, by the time I could get the patcher running it had a 1124mb download. News on their site blame it on the new guy, but they are giving all subscribers a free day (I'm thinking of posting that lifers should get 80 free points).

This brings me to what happened after I plugged in my Champions online preorder key. I got 400 cryptic points (the offer from Gamestop was that I'd get 5 cryptic bucks, which I assume are worth $5). Right now, you can pick a bunch of "pets" to follow you each worth 80 points (12 total meaning 960 points). With 400 points I can pick 5 of them.

This also means each "toy" is worth $1.

Now to see what else they'll add, but this is hardly doom worthy, and simply means that unlike WoW, they want you paying for you vanity figures. Also, by defeating bosses you are able to get some in game.

PS 3 hours now and the patch is still going, even after I fell asleep in this horrible Autumnal heat.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Creating a Champion, tip #4

Keep in mind what kind of crafting you want to do. As you go through the tutorial, pick items that match the kind of crafting you want from one of the 3 main choices. This is because, once you get to the Crisis Zone (Desert or Canada) you'll start crafting and in this game you can take apart items to get components and skill up your crafting.

There are 3 main catergories, Science, Mysticism, and Arms. Further more, each one has 3 subcategories.

Arms Upgrades:

Fighting Techniques (Blueprint name: Kata)
Alien Biology (Blueprint name: Dossier)
Ordnance (Blueprint name: Diagram)

Mysticism Upgrades:

Arcana (Blueprint name: Grimoire)
Avatars (Blueprint name: Apotheosis)
Enchanted Gear (Blueprint name: Imbuement)

Science Upgrades:

Inventions (Blueprint name: Schematic)
Mutations (Blueprint name: Mutagen)
Exposures (Blueprint name: Catalyst)