Whether it’s good news or weird news or bad news or bad news that belatedly turns into good news, any post about Champions Online inevitably turns into a discussion about the health of the game. Some of the superhero fans on our staff hoped that Champs would capitalize on City of Heroes’ closure to revitalize and become a new home for superhero refugees from Paragon City, but PWE has focused on other titles for so long that even promises of content updates have people muttering “maintenance mode” in our comment sections.
I have a soft spot for Champs. I don’t want to see it go down.
Massively OP reader and Champs champion The_Grand_Nagus recently wrote to us about ways to save the game — specifically, how to fix the problems of the free-form character slot. See, subscription players have access to free-form characters — that is, characters whose skills can be chosen from all disciplines — but free-to-play players are asked to shell out $50 per character for that privilege. TGN proposes that since F2P players are more likely to stick with the game with a character they designed themselves (as opposed to selected according to pre-set archetypes), they should be given a single free-form character slot. That, he argues, would help turn new players into regular players and generate more money for the game over time.
I think it’s a good idea. If I were to go back to Champs, I’d probably pay for a single month of sub, and they’d not get much else out of me. There’s no way I’d pay $50 for a character slot that provides what I consider basic superhero MMO functionality. It doesn’t fly in 2015. You can buy a bunch of Steam games for that!
I’m not, however, sure that it alone would restore the game to glory.
What do you think? Would that help Champs? What would you to do “fix” the game?
Every morning, the Massively Overpowered writers team up with mascot Mo to ask MMORPG players pointed questions about the massively multiplayer online roleplaying genre. Grab a mug of your preferred beverage and take a stab at answering the question posed in today’s Daily Grind!
