Subscriptions and Expansion

Shock at Champions Pricing and Expanding a Universe

How much is too much to play a game? If an MMO is years old and without expansion should you pick up a lifetime membership? How does someone gauge how long a game is gonna last to estimate if it’s worth spending time and money in the world? Those are some of the questions I was confronted with this weekend as I looked to get back into Champions Online.

As I wonder at the longevity of an MMO, I continue my travels through the birth of the Marvel universe, or maybe it’s childhood or the pre-teen years as I march through 1965. In any case, Stan and Jack keep adding to the cast of characters in their world and it’s a fun time.

Lifetime or Bust!

I spent quite a bit of time bopping around in Champions Online back in the day. I had a lightning based character and a teleporting martial artist, a speedy brawler and a mysterious shadowy based character. I had 8 different heroes with many different abilities and it was a blast. Sure, it wasn’t the same joy I got from City of Heroes but it fulfilled my desire to create and play with superheroes.

With the news in the past week or so about the City of Heroes private server I thought it would be nice to check in with Champions to see how things were going and play around in that game world to see how things have held up over the years. Little did I know I was in for a shock the likes of which my lightning character could never inflict on me.

It seems Champions Online went free to play a while back but they’ve taken things to what I think is an extreme. Basically when I went back to the game this past weekend I had no access to any of my characters. Sure, I could see what they looked like and read their names but I couldn’t even check out their abilities. Somehow they were all designated “gold” characters and since I was no longer a subscriber, I only had “silver” access.

Ok, I could sub for a month and check out my characters. It’d be worth $10 or $15 to play around for a month and get my superhero fix for the year and if things felt right, I could keep playing longer. But that wasn’t a possibility.

Apparently in order to open up a “gold” free form character (free form because they could combine any powers rather than be restricted to an archetype) the price tag is $30. That’s 2 months of even the most premium of a triple A MMO subscription. And that would open up ONE of my characters to play.

I have 8 locked away so that’d be $240 to open up all my characters…or I could buy a lifetime subscription for $300.

Perhaps if the game was new and I was looking forward to exploring the world over many years and characters, I’d consider $300 for a lifetime subscription but we’re talking about a game that has been pretty much stagnant and without expansions for quite a while. So stagnant that many have questioned if the game is still alive.

So I’m in a bit of a dilemma. I’d like to try to the game out again but there’s no way I’m gonna pay $300 or even $240 to open the characters I created when I was subscribed. There’s not even a promise that the game will be around in a couple months so a lifetime might mean 1 month for all I know.

So the people running the game have forced me to pay ZERO. I’d gladly pay a subscription for a month or 2 as I played around with my characters and relearned the fun of the world but they’ve priced me out of that. My option is to play a free “archetype” character or just move on and not play at all.

For now, I’ve decided to give a new free character a shot but we’ll see how long that lasts since I’ve got a really bad feeling about this game right now.

Expanding the Marvel Universe

Fantastic Four #44 The Gentleman’s Name Is Gorgon! by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Joe Sinnott, and S. Rosen.  Published by Marvel Comics, 1965.

While we don’t get all the answers in this issue, we are introduced to Gorgon who it turns out is one of the Inhumans. Yes…this issue is a key piece of world building for Stan and Jack. They’re working on expanding the Marvel universe with a whole new race of characters and while things aren’t fully fleshed out yet, just the introduction of the powerful Gorgon and his relationship with Medusa (who was already a member of the Frightful Four) makes this an interesting Read. With Gorgon’s earthquake inducing stomping and Medusa’s brilliant red hair that she controls as extra limbs, they certainly make newlywed life for the FF anything but boring.

It’s a Wrap

So there it is…one world that’s growing and filled with promise and another that I’m struggling to justify spending time with. I do think I’ll hang out in Champions Online for a bit to see how the free characters work out. I’d like to at least see how some of the places I’ve been to previously have evolved over the years and try to figure out if there’s hope that the game may stick around for a while and maybe even expand.

In the meantime, I’m sure I’ll be coming back to Marvel over and over again as I’m just at the infancy of that wonderful world. I know not everything in the Marvel universe is great but I also know that on the whole it’s still around after decades of ups and downs and I’m looking forward to reading through some of those wonderful adventures.

Ramble #10 | Subscriptions and Expansion