Game Companies: Don't do Micro-Expansions, instead do shareable DLC!

The Evolution of DLC:
From Traditional to Shareable

Introduction

To begin, let us understand what a micro-expansion, aka micro-DLC, actually is. Micro-expansions are a subcategory of micro-transactions. In many cases, a micro-expansion, much like a larger game expansion or DLC, asks that every person buys it to gain access to it. This can include a wide variety of game aspects, such as dungeons, battlegrounds, areas or zones, and even other typical micro-transaction staples such as characters, classes and aesthetics.

The issues with micro-expansions are similar to the issues with micro-transactions when looked through the lens of what social damage it does to players in a game. This includes pay-to-win concerns from players who cannot participate in the dungeon to get loot from it, and therefore it is similar to a loot-box in the resulting benefits for the person who bought it. It fragments the player base, meaning less people can potentially play together. It becomes what the game design leans into, so that money can be excised from the player base instead of earned. All of these leads to upset players, who may stop playing because they cannot find the fun in the game anymore.

Which is where my proposal comes in: If you sell DLC for single access dungeons, then allow the person who bought it so share that access with anyone in their group. It gives access to the content to people who cannot afford to buy the DLC, and yes for some people even that $2.99 can be too much, and it helps with the problem of fragmenting player bases. If you have a free vs monthly/battle pass model, you can even give one free dungeon to those who buy a battle pass, and that way those in guilds could cover all the seasonal content by working together on what free dungeon they pick.

The Problem with Traditional DLCs

So why did companies leave making traditional DLCs, large patches of content that often times feels like a sequel within the same game engine. The player base often looked forward to such expansions every two to three years. People would renew accounts, start preparing for the expansion, and often play through the game quickly and drop their subscriptions again after a few months. Even though many players would continue to leave subscriptions on while not playing or even would actually continue to play after these rushes, the growing amount of players and the need to adjust to the size of the rushes meant that companies would have to invest in extra servers that they would end up no longer needing or would need to continue to operate after it was no longer profitable to their margins.

Producers have been seeking out how to diversify their monetization so that they do not have to be stuck in one model. Producers have pushed Developers to decrease the space between one expansion and the next, which begins asking players to pay for a new expansion every year.

There are benefits to faster smaller DLCs for developers as well. It helps keep player engagement up, since the space between DLCs is smaller, and therefore people who only play for new content stay subscribed longer. It has less risk of being wrong in a design choice, as in making a mistake in design did not waste multiple years development time and money, and is instead less impactful to the bottom-line.

This all leads to the current state of games, which are Battle Passes over the traditional monthly subscription. Battle Passes offer rewards over the top of the free to play model. They reward players coming back to the game daily, and therefore generate player engagement. They often allow you to earn in game currency or other rewards for playing and doing daily check ins. This model often sells other micro-transactions, but allow you to earn the next battle pass, or at least earn more value based on in game currency than normal in game currency purchases would.

This all leads to the new problem games are heading towards, which is, selling where you can play. Lands to explore, arenas to fight in, dungeons to delve, are all being sold piecemeal and are not being included in the purchase of the subscription or battle pass. These micro-DLCs are going to magnify the issue of traditional DLCs in that you will start to see hyperfragmentation of the player base. Leading to a point that someone could buy the DLC, and have no one to play it with.

My Proposal: One DLC for the Whole Party

The idea is simple: If you want to sell a dungeon individually to people, allow them to share it with their group. The idea behind this is similar to Dungeons and Dragons having a DM who usually has all the books and the players join and get to participate and use the book content without having to buy the book themselves. Most of the people who would take advantage of this would not have bought the DLC themselves, and the player gets to enjoy what they purchased without worrying that no one else bought the DLC. Because the benefits are higher for those who do spend the money, and the loss of monetization to the company is minimal, since most people taking advantage of this would not have made the purchase, there is little worry of missing out for the company.

You could even give out a free dungeon for taking up a battle pass or paying a subscription. That way with this model, players can coordinate with their guilds or friend group to cover their bases. It increases the desire for people who play in groups to join guilds or invite friends.

The issue of dungeons being glorified loot boxes can also be resolved this way. Usually selling a dungeon is like selling a loot box, but you have to play through it first. This allows a reason for players to want to run the dungeon with the player who bought it. Sharing the dungeon could also increase their drop rate of materials or non-equipment goals. It makes sharing worth it, and makes purchasing the DLC worth it as well.

Developers can target people who do not have the micro-DLC in other ways, to help build monetization. Playing in a shared dungeon can lead to earning points to purchasing the dungeon for free, and therefore cascade dungeon runs out across the population. As people earn the dungeon, the dungeon sharing rewards naturally decline, incentivizing recruitment of outside players, "Come on! You can play for free and I can share the dungeon with you!" as free advertising. Not to mention that such models are viewed so favorably with players that it fosters an extremely positive view of the company.

Actual Real World examples of not using Shareable Content DLC

One of the major content companies using shareable DLC is actually tabletop gaming. Even in a digital space, places like Roll20 ask only that one member of an adventure of the DLC to be able to share it with others for that adventure.

Companies focused on short term monetary gains over the life long monetization of their product are moving away from that into the realm of individual micro-transactions and micro-DLC. Wizards of the Coast and by extension Hasbro is looking to follow Blizzard into the hellpit of micro-DLC to nickle and dime every player out of money, despite making billions of dollars already, and having HAD one of the most profitable games in their respective market.

And the same way that Blizzard Activision has lost its ability to earn trust in their player base to the tune of being bought out by other companies and having their entire team disbanded for failure of the executives, so too does Wizards of the Coast have the specter of doom looming over their future business model.

Already evidence has shown that people left WoW for FF14, and people have migrated from D&D to Pathfinder, with 4 more major D&D-a-likes coming out that address the issues with the game, and have the promise of freedom of creation to 3rd party makers.

Conclusion

So often companies start off with passion about their games. They make games in service of gamers. In turn those gamers create huge buzz and talk about the game that it reaches the general zeitgeist. Gamers grow up and become content creators: artists, writers, directors, producers. They make content for people, which references these games in sacred terms, and popularizes them.

Then the companies abandon the gamers, and target the average consumer. The average consumer, not having time to game all day, loves the shortcuts and purchases they can make with real dollars to shortcut their advancement so they can enjoy the game. Which is exactly where micro-transactions have value to those casual gamers.

This abandons future gamers, people who would love that original game experience like their parents had had 15 years earlier, but who now cannot enter the game without micro-transactions. They abandon the game, and suddenly future revenue drops as the casual gamers pay-to-win themselves out of content and migrate to another game.

Mitigating that migration, requires treating your game as if people could leave it at any time. If you realize that you do not have perfect control of people's desire for your game, then you have to design it in a way that it engages them. Things that remove people's ability to engage, can be managed with sharing. You can strive for engagement with rewards for sharing, and create natural endings to it so that in the end, you have received enough engagement from all those participating in your game, and those who pay to play, have enough people to play with.

Dungeons & Dragons: Neverwinter

So Cryptic has Neverwinter out on Steam, which I thought was a perfect opportunity to jump in and play this F2P MMO. Now, Neverwinter does not play like Champions Online, though I wish Champions played a little more like Neverwinter!

I'm not very far in and haven't gotten a companion yet. Here are my impressions thus far.

A) Quests auto-update and change as you go through them

This is a big plus for me. For a long time, in older games, you would have all the objectives as is already on there, and you would finish a quest and get a new one added.

B) Dialogue trees

Even if they don't lead anywhere, the conversations are nice.

C) Voice acting on the main plot

This is becoming more common as MMOs continue. This is nowhere near lets say, SWTOR, but feels more than I remember from WoW.

D) Player created Missions and stories

I suppose people who played City of Heroes might know about player created content. The Forge lets you create a series of events and combats for the player to deal with. I haven't explored it much yet, but I've played one level, and the amount of things that they did, were nice, and I can see a great deal of possibility in this game.

E) Dynamic, action based combat.

I feel that the game's combat is similar to videos I've seen of Wildstar. You see where enemies will attack, and you dodge those areas, while playing an almost 3rd Person Shooter. Very fun.

F) Group Events and Beatdowns, ala Champions Online

These like mini-instances. Go in, fight off waves with a team, and take down a big bad. Your involvement decides your reward.

G) I haven't felt the pressure to buy yet

10 levels in and I haven't felt any restriction to my game play. Not saying it won't happen eventually, but they have a game that is more than fun enough on its own, and they give you space for profession materials, and I've earned one extra bag so far (which I haven't even needed yet).

Rift: Free 2 Play

So Steam did this big splash screen about having Rift Free to Play. So I decided this is the perfect time to try the game. No start up cost, just jump in and play. I played the game for about 6 hours then uninstalled.

Not because it was a bad game, but because I started seeing potential issues with the game, and didn't want to invest deeply into it. For one thing, I played it for six hours straight. I can't even pull off doing that with League of Legends. This was mostly due to discovery and experiencing a new game, but there was a feeling of constant activity in the game.

The final 2 hours were spent in this sort of random group questing, where you are piled together with several other people, and just rampaging across the countryside finishing off quests. I'm not even sure where the quests were coming from, just that I went from killing spiders to plants to boars without batting an eye. Rewards in this were fast, and I didn't feel like I had earned it.

The Rift system is interesting, but at one point there were 30 guys just bashing some rock or something. Again, rewards were easy to get in this. Because of the easy rewards system, I was able to get pretty good pants and weapon for my level (7 dps jumping up to 14 or 21 or something, can't remember the exact numbers).

I didn't get deep enough into the soul system, but I was annoyed at the auto-leveling that it tries to trick you into (I thought pressing the pop up would let me go set the points, but it automatically places the points).

Questing was a brain dead endeavor, where you don't read anything and just follow the mini-map (very much like WoW). Which really put me on edge with the game. I did like the everyone has a pet kind of thing (my Teleporting Rogue had a pig from the hunter tree, and my warrior had a pet cat).

The other negative was that the races just felt like different flavored humans. The only MMOs I have played where I enjoyed the race selections where EQ2 and WoW.

So, if you want to try out a F2P MMO, Rift is very decent. I never felt forced to pay, though they do a good job of letting you know you can (I didn't play long enough to need more bagslots btw, but that would be one reason to pay). The RMT in the game seems reasonable, though it does the one thing I dislike, which is converting real money to their play money. Though that seems to be the standard, so there's not much to do about that.

This is a recommend to check out, though in the end it wasn't for me, because I can't afford to lose myself for such long periods of time.

F2P StarCraft 2 Multiplayer

PC Gamer has been talking to Dustin Browder, a lead designer of Star Craft 2, about how they could make SC2 free to play.

Dustin says, that they have no idea how to monetize it. Obviously, you couldn't just give it for free, because SC2's main point is multiplayer, and putting it out for free would mean that sales of it might stop, unless someone wants to know more about the storyline.

They don't want to sell units (thank goodness), so what can they do? Well, how about alternate unit sprites? This provides a small advantage, when an opponent can't immediately identify your unit because they can't tell what it is.

Can you imagine having the humans replaced by fantasy units? Eldar as Elves? Etc etc? Diablo or Zombie themed Zerg instead?

You can also add value to the units by giving them new sound files as well. This would be a purely cosmetic upgrade, and available only through real money.

Along with that, they can make alternate units. These would replace a unit, fit a similar function. These are unit replacers that they can turn on or off. The idea is that they are not better, but maybe better in a different situation while losing something somewhere else.

These could be earned through gameplay or sold for money.

Would these be enough to make it free to play? Would they sell units by groups or one at a time? Would it be $5 for a new unit, or would they aim for impulse buying at $1 or $2? A whole team for $20-$30?

Would alternate sprites be sold by the group and alternate units individually? Could they make a grab bag with a random 3 units? Would you be able to trade them? Would you be able to morph them into a 3rd alternate currency... or send it to your WoW account as a summonable pet, that you could then battle with others?

Could you crunch it into resources for your Diablo 3 character? Or.... have it become a boost to be able to earn points faster for new alternate units.

Well, hopefully they think this through.

City of Heroes; dies

Unfortunate news comes out that NCsoft is closing down City of Heroes. The article says 80 employees will be affected. This is (according to the article) happening about a year after the game went free-to-play. I think its important to look at the fact that free-to-play is not some sort of balm you can apply to your game and have it become more popular or make more money.

The sad thing is, that City of Heroes/Villains, was not even considered a bad MMO! It wasn't excellent, but it wasn't a bad game. Their free to play model was interesting in that they had 3 tiers (free tier, one for if you had bought something before, and a VIP monthly membership).

Like Star Wars, end game in City of Heroes was only available to those who were VIP members. Other strange VIP only things were the ability to write in forums, creating super groups (if you were not middle tier you couldn't even join), the ability to talk in all channels (if you were a free tier you couldn't even whisper people, only local and team chat).

So here you have a game where the free model is nothing more than a trial that goes all the way to the end. Fine if you and your friends have communication outside of the game, and if you have no care about doing something at the end of the game.

I think that it wasn't that they went free to play, or that they had a game that wasn't good enough. I'm not even sure about their population numbers or income. (...here...125k active subs in 3rd Q 2008, which meant bringing in $5.3million) What I do know is that executives didn't want it anymore, and that their free-to-play model was poorly executed. I found in the comments of the article linked on top of the page, that they were down to a couple of thousand active players (not sure if they were even VIP or not). I'm not sure of the accuracy of that number though.

With this in mind, keep an eye out for what SWTOR is actually going to be providing free-to-play members. It could be that giving more than they should (the whole story arc) is what makes people play the game and desire to spend money to raid etc.

I hope that all those affected by this land on their feet.

Going Back to Champions Online - part 2

I created a new custom character (custom as in powerset) and leveled her up to level 9. A few things from where they were 3 years ago. The game makes the story much more about what YOU are doing. New cutscenes help strengthen that concept.

The Qular invasion intro is much leaner. The positive is that they also bridge the gap between invasion and helping out the city much cleaner and have it make more sense than before. Overall that starting storyline is simply better than it was at launch.

Pre-level 10, the game is very much like the CO of old. You get your powers and what not, but the introduction to gear is done in the powerhouse, with a gift of 3 pieces of primary gear. Even unlocking things with the token system is a better choice (you earn tokens as random drop or as quest rewards).

Tokens allow you to purchase costume pieces, unique travel powers (that can NOT be bought) and gear (if none of the costumes/travel powers interest you). I tried doing a quick search (no more than 30 seconds invested) and I was unable to find images of what the costumes look like. This means that its more of a gamble than the C-store purchase, but I don't believe these are available anywhere else.

Powers also reinforce being used within a single set or origin set (there are crossovers with the elements for example). I built a wind/lightning hybrid, where the idea is that the wind is a natural power and the lightning comes from a special powersuit they have. I ended up picking up a powerform that enhances both crushing (wind) and electric damage, which is great considering the combination I have going.

Coming at 10 is something I experienced with my other character, which is customizing his powers based on what their superstats are. This makes for interesting choices on both the stat level and the role level. You can still customize your powers with things that are particularly good for tanking (it generates more threat), but I wish that ability would change based on your role instead (so that it would do less threat if you were in an offensive position).

But the main issue with the game for many people is how much of it is behind a pay wall. To this point I can agree with the fact that the best parts of the character creator (custom build, travel powers, costume pieces) are not available for free. Despite that, the majority of costumes are free, and there are plenty of travel powers that are free.

I see it like this, you can play the game for free, and if you get to the point where you feel you are having fun and want to invest more in the character, then you are able to do so. Playing the game to completion is not only possible without paying, the only reason to pay is because you feel that the game is something you want.

For those who are now used to this model, getting a custom build for a silver account will cost $50 (this will be a permanent unlock of allowing custom build choices only), most travel powers cost a bit over $5 (becomes available for every character), and most powersets cost about $12 (powersets also are for every character).

I'll be going back and building a character using a powerset to talk more about that and powers in general in the next installment.

Champions Online: Consolidated Q & A

Over here to check it out. One of the key answers that I read was that Gold members are distinguished from Silver by how much they can customize. I think I stated this in my last post, but most of the fun in Champions Online is from making your ideal super hero.

Still, many people make similar power choices, and archetypes are repeatedly stated as not being all from the same power set (though early ones will be predominantly of one power set).

If anything, I think they will get more people playing. It might also give them the incentive to pump out more adventure packs and power sets. Both of these are "free" to Gold members, and paid for by Silver members. This can cause Silver members to pay, and Gold members to keep their accounts active.

Champions Online: State of the Game

Well Tobold pointed out real quick that Champions Online is going F2P. But they are also pushing through several improvements to the game. I'll try to go over all the benefits of being either Silver (free) or Gold (paid) member.

First of all, if you are a lifetime subscriber you get Gold for free. Essentially, you are in the same boat you are in now, and perhaps a bit better off. If you are paying a monthly fee, you can keep paying and play the game the same way. If you are not paying for Champions Online, playing F2P will be best for you. I think some people who are Gold will switch to Silver, as the restrictions would not be enough to keep them from enjoying the game.

So with those claims made, lets review what the main difference is for not paying a monthly fee.

As Silver your main limitations (or perhaps advantages) are:

• no customized power sets: You get Basic Archetypes (8), and purchasable Gold Archetypes (coming later, these are automatically available to Gold Members, it is more cost effective to do one time purchases for these). These are predetermined power sets. You can only customize where you spend your advantages. The Archetype examples they gave were "The Blade" or "The Brute". Since choosing if you are a Brick or a Striker is based on what advantages you choose, it is not exactly like picking a class.
• Only 2 character slots: You can purchase more. Gold members start with 8 and can not only purchase more, they can EARN (having a Gold account for over 200 days, and 1 for each character that reaches 40) more, which Silver members cannot.
• Need to pay for Adventure Packs: although like other F2P games, it might be better to be able to do the one time purchase. This will depend on the cost of the adventure packs.
• Not all costumes available at start: There are over 3,000 costume pieces available. There are then Gold Costumes that Silver will have to purchase, as well as Premium Costumes that both have to purchase. Again, it might be better to just be a Silver player and purchase these costume pieces as you need them.
• No Bonus Costume Slots: Except for the Super Group bonus, Silver members must pay for additional Costumes. Gold Members earn costumes at 15, 30, SuperGroup and by being a Gold member for 300 days (as well as purchasable).
• Only 1 bag slot: 3 more purchasable. This may end up being cheaper as a one time purchase.
• Not all Travel Powers Accessible: They have Basic and Gold Travel powers, this is once again a situation where the one time purchase is better.
• No Power tinting: Only Gold Members can change the colors of their powers. Not purchasable.
• Auction House limited: Silver members can only post 5 items at a time. Gold can post 10 at a time. The ability to post more at a time is available to both Silver and Gold members.
• Temporary Limitations for Chat, Mail and SuperGroup CREATION: for the first 20 hours there are some chats and mail can not be done and the rate (or amount) you can send is limited, and SG creation is not available for the first 20 hours of Silver Accounts.
• Forum limitations: Silver members can read all forums, but can only post in certain areas.
• Customer Service: Silver members only get Knowledge base type help. Gold Members get live support (they say free, but you are paying $15 a month for it).
• No priority Login: Only Gold members get priority login.

So looking over the above bullet points, it will be better for most people to switch to a Silver account, and purchase things as they need or want them. Silver members will have access to all base zones, and all levels. Silver members would have to purchase 2 character slot packs (comes with 4 slots each) character slots for $30, 1 costume slot pack (which gives 2 additional costume slots) for $5, 3 bag slots (price unknown), adventure packs (unknown prices), gold archetypes (unknown prices), gold costumes (400 of them at an unknown price) to come as close to a Gold Membership without having to pay a monthly fee.

They are reworking the opening tutorial, and the progress and narrative of the first 10 levels or so into a more streamlined experience (their claim, I'll post about it when it happens). The other question is, if you still need to buy the game to start playing it (and if you get a free month of Gold). I posted the question in the forums, and I'll let you guys know if I get a response.

Are all these changes final? Actually no, they are going to start a F2P beta in November, and this isn't slotted to come out until the first quarter of 2011. Some things might still change, regardless of all that, is that as it is right now, if you don't care about changing the color of your powers, priority login and or making a customized power set, then Silver will be your best choice.

Edit:
Got my answer pretty quick:

Hey Pangoria,
When Champions Free-to-Play launches, a retail copy will not be required. Players can download the client for free.

Because physical retail copies are still in circulation and digital clients will continued to be offered at places like Steam and D2D, we're going to try and price that client at $14.99. It will also still include 30-days of free gameplay, which will functionally become 30-days of Gold Membership. So, if you buy the box or a digital client when Champions Free-to-Play launches, you pay the same price as one month of Gold Membership and you get one month of Gold Membership out of it. That seemed like the most elegant solution.

To reiterate, a box will not be necessary. You can still download the free client and either play as a Silver Player free of charge or elect to subscribe and become a Gold Member.

I hope that answers your question.

Quiet but not Silent

I've been very busy, so its been awhile since I've updated. Posting is fun, so lets see what I can talk about today. Social gaming comes to mind as a topic that is on many peoples lips.

What I keep reading is that Social games are going against the entrapping stages, and the best Social games of the future will be closer to true casual games. So what are differences that must happen for a Social game to become a Casual game with social structures installed.

1. Gaining skills, and mastering them: This means the player has to get a sense of getting better. In the case of puzzle games, they will start getting a higher score. If you create a level system, then there should be a significant difference between levels so that they can feel like they have improved.
2. Allow the player to have choices. Choices (especially if its beyond a binary choice) give players a sense of power. Allow them to see and know all the things they can do (too much can also be overwhelming so its good to have some limits).
3. Allow the players to feel that what they are doing matters to the game world (Farmville, for example, has plants die if you don't water them and harvest them on time).
4. Don't just throw rewards at the player. Larisa recently pointed out how dissatisfying that can be.
5. As a social game you want to allow the player to interact with his friends, but avoid anything that spams. Everyone hates spam.
6. Allow for parallel competition with others. This is a social game, and it is good to be able to compare levels or restaurant size. Raid progress and sitting by a flight master with your drakes is similar to this.
7. Make the game fun! This should really be number 1. This means to give tools and then challenge the player into using those tools. Everyone once in a while you up the challenge. Keep the player learning new things, and they will keep having fun.
8. Have a long term goal. Why should the player keep playing? What is all this learning skill for?
9. If you are going to make players use RMT, then make it worth their while. It shouldn't allow for someone to "cheat" their way to the top, but it should have a use, and it should be more than a minute one. (Amazingly enough, color changing is worth the investment, as the player gets to control the look of their avatar, and that has quite a bit of importance).

Well, what do you think? Would these changes to Social games make them true casual games, and lead the absorption of many "non-gamers" into real gaming?

New items in the C-store

Champions online Microtransactions proceed full steam ahead, and with Halloween around the corner, they released, the Halloween Costume Set. Each set sells for 240 points each (about $3), and you can buy all 3 halloween sets for 640 points ($8, saving you $1 for buying the whole pack). If you look at the Cryptic points store, the minimum you can buy is 500 points for $6.25 (5.44 eur, so they seem to be price matching, though I don't know what the conversion rates are). Buying more points will not lower the cost per point which is .0125 (or 1 and a quater penny). Cryptic points are for all cryptic games and don't expire, so your star trek game can use these too.

Also for sale is a Cyborg Beast costume set ($3) and an Epic Samurai Set ($3). In addition, costume sets for for all characters in the account you purchase it for.

3 emblem packs for $1 each, and for all characters.

Now for the big stuff, additional character slots, full retcons, character rename, and additional costume slots.

You can add 4 more character slots to your account for $15.

Full retcons ($12.50) and Character renames ($3.50) are for one character on the account at a time. Of course, now we'd have to see how much a full retcon in game costs to see what the value of ingame currency is versus RL money.

Finally you can get 2 additional costume slots for ALL characters ($5).

So is this the doom and gloom that everyone thought it would be?

Champions online, open beta

There's currently alot going on, and the forums at cryptic are abuzz with people who after playing Open Beta, decided this wasn't the game for them.

The biggest hang ups are, A) It's NOTHING like the Champions Pen and Paper game, B) It's going to have Microtransactions, and C) Zones are instanced.

So why isn't it like the Champions Pen and Paper? Well, quite simply because the reason that the Pen and Paper worked was because of your imagination. Instead in the MMO, you have to use powers and costumes they've designed, and either hope it matches you imagination, or tweak your imagination so that it matches what you get. This leads into the fact that it's also a level based MMO. So you start off as a weak hero and learn more of your abilities as you gain levels (which doesn't match a superhero pen&paper game at all). As for the look of your character, let's remember no MMO is ever truly "done" and they can always add more later. Which I'm guessing is their plan.

What they have now is pretty good, but after awhile you do start feeling limited (I'm saying around the 1000th hero you see you'll start seeing similar heroes). To be fair, I've seen look-a-likes of Jesus, Lincoln, Samus Aran, Superman, Batman, Hulk, Ironman, Goku, Vegita, Spawn, Obi-wan Kenobi, Warhammer Space Marines, a Draenei, various Succubi, and more.

As for powers, the energy builders (auto attack that increases you energy, aka endurance, which you use for bigger attacks) or end-builders, are pretty basic, and they did a good job making alot of them feel different, if even slightly. Each powerset (Electricity, Martial: Claws, Force, Telekinesis, Fire, Might, etc) has it's own flavor and provide some sort of direct damage and aoe attacks. Furthermore they have passive abilities (some are defensive and others are offensive), and you can build your character to act as a tank, dps or support.

The idea of tanking is to get the enemies attacking you, and you want to be able to take a hit. There are "advantages" you can get on some powers that make them generate more threat. Then you have your dps, whose goal is to kill things, and when in that role they do less threat (roles can be switched by bringing up your "builds" screen. Support can be done in two ways, either you're locking down enemies, or you're healing allies (support also has it's own role that can be switched to). These roles provide bonuses to health, damage output, end-building, buff/debuff strengths and more.

The game is more "action" than WoW, in that you can block incoming attacks by using a block button, and it's almost completely necessary to do so to prevent and early death (blocking will change a 200 hit attack to only hit for 80, for example). Aside from that, I didn't notice much of any real difference other than having more attacks that do knockback. The fights are also faster paced than WoW, in that ON level there are some specials that are strong enough to oneshot enemies (archers Sonic Arrow for example). And some attacks use a charge mechanic (in that you hold it down to make it stronger).

The environments have alot of destructability to them, and as your strength goes up, you're able to pick up larger things to throw or bash enemies with. Each stat gives bonuses that are clearly labeled. Strength for example, increases the size of objects you can pick up, improves your change to knock someone down, and helps you break out of tangible holds. There's constitution (health), endurance (energy), dexterity (crit chance and evade change), intellect (pet increase, and better intangible hold escaping), ego (crit damage increaase) and recovery (increased equilibrium and rate of energy building).

Now at times as you level you pick a "superstat" this stat is what your dps increase comes from. So for example you pick Intellect. At that point, Int increases your damage, but you'll still want dex and ego to do crits and bigger crits. You will end up with 2 superstats, so that's something to think about. If you want to tank, you'll likely choose Constitution as a superstat, since you'll be stacking it for survivability it will also increase your damage. This isn't very clear "ingame" and is one of my nitpicks about the game (that it doesn't explain it clearly).

That's how the game plays. You level up, increase your stats and group up to take down evil-doers. Very MMORPG like. There's PVP, but right now it feels like a joke, some players you can't kill even if they stand there and do nothing (since some defensive passives are too powerful right now).

The game plays kinda like Phantasy Star Online, several abilities can be used faster in a sequence, or charged for more effect or damage (sometimes it's better to do 2 shots real quick for 80 damage instead of charging a shot for 100). The world is instanced in that if you go to Canada you'll be in one of 30 Canadas with 100-200 people each. You can switch to another Canada if you want (let's say your friend is in Canada 9 and you're in Canada 18). Zone chatting is for that instance only, but you can whisper your friends on other instances. Grouping let's you guys go together into a zone. This can create some interesting situations. For example, going to city hall, I can go inside, which is it's own zone. I can come from zone 8, you from zone 6, and your friend from zone 18, and we'll all end up in the same City Hall Zone.

Each map has it's edge point, where you can no longer go any further (though at least you can "see" further. This combined with the instancing makes people feel like they're not in a single massive world, and was a reason I've heard repeatedly, as to why people were disappointed with the game.

Finally, there's the microtransactions. This is something we don't really have info on, but just the idea of it was enough to sully the game for some people. When I find out more about what's in the C store, I'll post it.

Bottom line, if you were expecting an emulation of the pen and paper, or want the world to be all together and not sharded across several instances of a map, or if you don't like microtransactions at all, this is not going to be the game for you.

This game is not like WoW, and it might not be what you're looking for. The combat is fun, and the travel powers are great, but the game currently doesn't have fishing.

PS: I STILL haven't found the AH, and I don't know who to ask for it.

PSS: If you don't like superheros, that might be a barrier to entry as well.

PSSS(is that even human?): Thanks for the comment on where the AH is, once I check it out I'll do a post about it.

Microtransactions+Subscription fee, will such a system work?

http://forums.champions-online.com/showthread.php?t=23349

Pretty long topic, currently over 4,500 posts. I've done a few posts towards the end.