Champions Online is Hysterical

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#championsonline #mmorpg #neverwinter #startrekonline

[@Gandoan]

This games character creation legitimately made me mad at DC's character creation.

[@TheBmills415]

Bruuuhhh

[@venicethehedgehog4122]

This proves you can have a marvel universe online i legit made a hulk

[@zayzuess7120]

@@venicethehedgehog4122 man I’ve seen just about EVERY SINGLE Marvel character in this game

[@Wandasolosurfavs]

Dcuo is better

[@venicethehedgehog4122]

​@@Wandasolosurfavs i mean its a good game but vhrist the customization on there is so bland

[@gaetanlancelle1173]

I still think it's one of the best Character customization ever made It was nuts how crazy you could go

[@heartoffire5902]

I really appreciate the fact you actually play through so much of the game before posting your full video about it. A lot of people don't, and it massively skews their opinion and credibility and can misrepresent a game (one way or another). You also have me consistently laughing throughout with your great sense of humor. Love what you do, man.

[@thant0s]

There are more people idling in City of Heroes’ intro zone right now at this very moment in one singular emulated fan server than have played Champions Online in a year. One of these two has also received significantly more content updates than the other in recent years.

[@towershieldvt]

CO had a lot of potential early on but it was held back by both Atari and later Perfect World who opted to add the microtransactions. You weren't missing much by not doing any of the Lairs. Some of the devs that joined later said that Lairs were barely held together by code they didn't understand and had no documentation about, so they chose to simply leave them alone and focus on other things. The real jewels are the community run events like the costume contests held in the Powerhouse Theater, that was specifically made and tailored for these kinds of things. Your review was fair and did the game justice. I'm glad to see people still giving it a shot over a decade later.

[@knitejax659]

This game had so much potential.

[@jeremiahkivi4256]

It's still good. Just don't expect to do big group stuff unless you have a dedicated super group, a.k.a. guild/clan.

[@NotCthulhu]

Nah, cheap knockoff of City of Heroes, R.I.P.

[@jasonglebe3235]

@@NotCthulhu You can play CoH again

[@knitejax659]

@@NotCthulhu CoH is superior, I agree. That's why I'm currently playing CoX on the Rebirth server and not Champions Online. That doesn't mean CO didn't have potential; the nemesis system and a more in depth costume creator to name a couple areas of that potential.

[@zeehero7280]

Past tense.

[@MoonTiger88]

Champions Online still exists?! That's actually wild in and of itself.

[@thehatter9400]

Life time subs still exist too. Did you know gearbox now owns it?

[@boxtank5288]

@@thehatter9400 I don't know whether to say that's going to be good or bad for the game in the long run considering they're now in the hands of Greasemeister Randy Pitchford...And that fuckin' SCARES me.

[@stephenEs3532]

game was never good lol City of hereos rebound

[@ryandean3162]

City of Heroes/Villains was always better, despite being their earlier superhero MMO. Also shows in that, despite technically not officially existing anymore, it apparently still has about 5-10 times the player base of Champions Online on the City of Heroes Homecoming player run servers, with around 10-20k people playing a day compared to 500-2000 on Champions, with Excelsior being their most populated server.

[@ded2thaworld963]

I played it way back when it first dropped, i loved that game back then.

[@Alex.Holland]

coh is better, but not in absolutely every way. Champions had some capability to make characters that you couldnt in coh, and it had some fun ideas like the nemesis system. COH is just a ton of fun, even now, and its truly free to play, which is rad.

[@ded2thaworld963]

@@Alex.Holland lol…i still remember the big ass style competitions we had.

[@TeKnoVKNG23]

Yeah as someone who played CoH/CoV from beta to server shutdown, I could never get into Champions the same way.

[@Hazrett]

played the shit out of it back then. First char Energy/Kinetik Blaster. (hey first time^^). But got a nice guild and lots of good memories. :)

[@seleuf]

9:20 "My only problem is that they lasted only 30 seconds." The average amount of time Mitch gets to sleep between all these MMOs.

[@lordpenguin2248]

The fact this game is getting attention now gives me hope. It has its flaws but its extremely underrated.

[@thehatter9400]

Im surprised too, but this game has been so dry for any new content that it makes the gobi-desert look water logged. I've lost hope for it getting better. So im surprised anyone is making a video about it

[@mikew7168]

If they invested in this game I feel like it would soar high.

[@frequencyoftruth2303]

No its not underrated its nothing compared to city of heroes which everyone plays for free the company behind is crap and never created any diversity in this game with a multiclass system they are the ones that ruined pve by buffing the tons of exp from repetitive bank missions.

[@FatalFist]

I remember being on the forums for the Alpha going, "The worst they can do is City of Heroes." Man was I wrong and let down.

[@themorganrobertson]

No, its not underrated, its flawed pretty much from concept. It had fun ideas, but in general it was simply bad.

[@BigBen1980]

I'm a life subber for this and still hop onto it now and again. The deep customization and community run events are probably the strongest parts of it imo.

[@indecisivelyonfire4920]

Got a Lifetime Sub for this while it was in beta, played it for a long time... And yeah, you hit the nail on the head about nearly everything. It honestly was super fun back when there were a lot of people, people actually grouped up and did normal content as well as lairs. Kind'a miss it.

[@Wizard_Level_1]

For some historical context, I played this game when it first released. I had preordered it actually. It was much different. Powersets, and how you built your powers was very different, much more free form. Instead of choosing 'ice' and being locked into it you choose your starting power set and could either enhance that as you leveled or dip rather freely into other power sets. Level up progression was smoother and happened rather quickly. Most of the entire game was 'end game', and you were meant to max level very quickly on early missions after which the entire game opened up. You were expected to have multiple characters since leveling up was so quick. It was a lot of fun. The business model on release was a purchase of the game that then required a subscription. They released free content from time to time that all subscribers had access to, and they released much larger expansion packs that were paid. At some point the business model changed to 'free to play'. They chopped up cosmetics, which used to be fully accessible to everyone since everyone was a subscriber, and they now sell cosmetics in packs. They chopped up the progression and spread it out further, so it takes a lot longer to level up now. They changed how powers and power sets worked. The story was 'reworked', where before there was a main storyline to guide you through content, that became absent lending to the directionless feeling the game now has. They lost the vast majority of their player base when they did all this, and while a lot of folks checked the game out after it went F2P, it never held on to them. It's been on life support ever since. A shame. This game was a blast when it released.

[@MarieAvora]

You're putting it in a way that makes it seem like it lost players due to going free to play But like every MMO that came out in the 2000s and wasn't called "World of Warcraft", it came out with a subscription model and then after about a year or so of that was left with only a tiny playerbase that was far from capable of sustaining upkeep and continued development, so then, like every one of these MMOs, ended up copying LOTRO and going F2P to try and desperately save it by opening the game up to a new audience and giving the game the potential to be sustained for much longer by a small group of whales and a trickle of new players This was the fate of every would-be WoW competitor. These games absolutely could not survive under subscription models, there was no room for multiple sub-based MMOs simultaneously

[@ferd617]

Or, to rephrase what Mantas said, your comment gives the impression that you feel going free-to-play was a bad decision, and it would've been better for them to continue with the same subscription model they launched with. But the very fact that they went f2p indicates that the original business model **had already** become unsustainable, so the choice was between going f2p vs. just pulling the plug completely. The fact that the game is still live AT ALL in 2023 means that f2p was the correct decision. It would've loooong since been shut down as unprofitable, had they kept it subscription-based.

[@Bllurr1]

Interestingly enough, this game absolutely thrived in the roleplay community for a good while. Having a character creation system that basically allowed you to create any kind of thematic concept you wanted to, from robots to mutants to aliens to demons to, yes, furries, granted an incredible amount of creative freedom. If you were able to find a good group, you could get hours of fun out of just roleplay experiences. I think I had some of my best RP experiences in CO, bar none. The trouble being, at least for me, that the actual GAME around that creative RP freedom was lackluster, and quickly wore out its welcome. I would quite easily say that I stuck around in the game for years longer than the gameplay would've earned just for the RP, and would practically force myself to grind through the various plots and areas for the hundredth time. (Gods, I came to hate Westside.) Eventually, even the RP wasn't enough to overcome the tedium, and I drifted away. It's sad, really. If CO had gotten as much love and continued support as STO, I think it would've remained much more interesting for much longer. But Cryptic wanted that Paramount money, I guess, and took all the resources and devs to be put toward that, leaving CO to languish.

[@boxtank5288]

YES, exactly what I was thinking. Like the only reason I have as many hours on that game as I do is because of the Roleplay Scene. The Character Customization is good and then you get to the game itself and it's...fucking awful when compared to the RP opportunities.

[@haljordan1473]

I remember beta testing this. The "simulation" at the beginning was just the tutorial, and once you beat it you were cut loose on the world. The biggest difference between it's original form and now is that they tried to build it so you could pick any power sets and mix and match, no archtypes. From memory, that's still in the game but locked behind pay to play. Should also be noted that this is the game most of the COH devs went to build after handing over COH to NCsoft and Paragon Studios. So they were competing with their own product. Also I think COH was originally built to be a Champions system, but that fell through leading to them building their own hero pantheon. Also for this game, it started life as a Marvel MMO but the license fell through so they got the Champions license instead.

[@Corbomite_Meatballs]

It was also the "gateway" game for the company at the time to launch STO...buying a lifetime sub here got you access to the STO beta test, and for a time they were promoted together. Now, I'm shocked this game is still up and running, to be honest.

[@CommieCat]

CoX was so much better than Champions ever was. Way better community and mechanics/powers.

[@Sabamonster]

COH/COV is still my first and only true MMORPG love. Sure, I played WoW back in the day (At launch and through WoTLK) but nothing grabbed me like COH/COV. Had a steady group of friends that I played with, shared a super group and legitimately felt like fuckin supervillains. I really wish they'd make a modern version of that game that was even half as good.

[@MysteriousSignal]

@@Sabamonster don't know if you know, but CoH is still around! The game shut down of course, but City of Heroes Homecoming is free and has a huge playerbase still. The game's even better/ more conveinent than it was back in the day.

[@vandalg282]

That was the main issue for me, coming from WoW, and CoH, Champions Online, was a fresh face, and while it had the most accurate and expansive character creator I had seen, it lacked everywhere else. The lack of archetypes aka the holy trinity of tank, healer, dps...really just made everyone pick cool travel powers and an OP particle beam....which in turn made grouping almost non existent. If you're the tank, healer and massive dps, what good is everyone else? Even more so, it never made it feel like you needed a team, which is literally what every MMO is about. Till this day, nothing is beating CoH, glad they have the private servers, because now its everything we wanted, with the old school look/feel.

[@emarskineel]

You are genuinely the funniest KZbinr I’ve ever watched. Your wit and timing are impeccable.

[@brindle21]

Chin armour, the flippers🤣. You never disappoint. Hilarious whilst being a well researched and informative review. The effort you put into your work is outstanding. Thank you again Mitch, just love your channel

[@fredericbrasseur7399]

Got a life sub on this game, had a lot of fun with the character creator and the story aswell. Made a little Otter in jumpsuit with a flamethrower and named him Pyrotter! :D

[@AuspexAO]

Yeah, I was coming over from City of Heroes and dropped a lifetime sub on this game too, ha ha. This and Star Trek were the only games I ever thought I'd be playing for years...

[@thezenithrage1006]

Life sub? Like a sorta slave you feed potatoes to in dayz?

[@DSK2007]

@@AuspexAO also coming from city of heroes and dropped a life. Played for a year while in school. It was ok.

[@somelonelyshmuck4274]

@@thezenithrage1006 Nah, Im pretty sure he means he's got a life time supply of Subway.

[@Gsinner]

lol nice, I had a cartoon black cat with white gloves, a vest, slacks a fedora and a bow tie, wielding a purple light saber. Good times...

[@LordProteus]

Online games that are struggling with population issues should really begin downsizing and introducing single-player variants of group content. A "story mode" perhaps, for Players who are playing to experience the story and characters.

[@kimrasmussen7188]

nerfing the bosses would do a lot. its so annoying to run through the entire instance, and get oneshotted by the boss.

[@soundrogue4472]

I have an idea; focus on the online part second since so many of them suck at it/ don't have the resources to build an MMO.

[@laughingalex7563]

@@kimrasmussen7188 its sad though that’ll never happen thanks to the toxic forum cartel that holds CO hostage, and Kaiserin who is a member of it. I even warned the games population couldnt support things like raids and forced teaming. They wouldnt listen and made me a pariah.

[@marhawkman303]

LOL! most of the game's story doesn't require teams. There's only a handful of missions that need a team at all, most are actually scaled for Solo

[@thechosen3332]

As someone who played this at launch, i am SHOCKED this is still a thing. How in the frick did this last this long while COH ended after a couple of years?!!

[@stephencooper3583]

COH lasted from 2004 to 2012, so it had a pretty good run. I was pissed when NCSoft shut it down though. Like many, I tried Champions Online and DC Universe, but I could never get into them. They had updated graphics, but they both felt like cheap imitations of COH.

[@CheebsCheeby]

I had so much fun with this when it first came out and people were role-playing.

[@Shinja_Sleepwalker]

This game will always have a very special place in my heart. Its pretty much the only MMO I've ever played. But I also found it during a time where I had no clue what I wanted to do with my life- my early 20s. And finding this game did NOT help because I spent TONS of time playing it 😂 I will always have fond memories of experiencing things of the first time in this game. The first time Grond attacks out of the blue in the desert, and just sitting there wondering "wtf was that!?". I remember that at night, all the role players would be at the night club in Millennium city. And it was basically just sitting there reading the chat and watching EVERYONE trying to exercise main character energy at the same time. Made for some hilarious pissing matches. I will never forget these little late night excursions I'd go on. For example, they once released the Multifaria expansion- for anyone unfamiliar, its basically a new storyline you can play that deals with an alternate timeline/screwed up version of millennium city. At the end there is a huge boss that towers over you and takes forever to beat with a team. One of the not so pleasing experience in the game is having a hard time finding people to team up, as the guy in the video mentions. But when you do, you're dealing with all these autistic and basement dweller style gamers who throw a hissy fit and quit whenever you lose ONCE. So I ended up in multifaria by MYSELF right before the major boss fight. I actually polished him off BY MYSELF. Good lord I was chipping away at him for like an hour and a half. But the further I got into the fight, the more pissed I was getting and more committed to not losing. I won. It took me about an hour and a half, but I won and went to bed at 3am that night. Will never forget the atmosphere and exciting vibe during the first blood moon. For anyone unfamiliar, they released a halloween expansion (that later one came to happen every time there was a full moon in real life), where a zombie attack would take over Millennium city. And a major villain fight in the main city. That was always fun to do with friends. And finally, the last and most funny thing to do for me was to infiltrate major clans or super teams. Most super hero teams didn't put security in their community team vaults where they kept small fortunes of in game currency and rare costume parts/weapons/rare and anniversary items and costume pieces etc. Once I earned my way into super groups, I would fly right over to the bank and go into the community vault and pick them clean of all their money and items. Then I would drop a message into the super teams chat that read "You have just been audited by the IRS". 😂😂😂 My brother and I had our OWN group/vault and we were honestly sitting on the fucking fortunate of the lost city of Atlantis. There was no costume part or amount of money that we didn't own. Why would we just keep a bunch of rare items? Well, after taking one for ourselves, we sold the spare ones in the marketplace for slightly cheaper to anyone willing to pay (in game currency). Or we'd just gift them to friends and stuff. I did what I did. Only god can judge me now 🤭 But all kidding aside, this game almost feels like a special place that I physically went to in real life. But I know those feelings are associated with the sweet relief of the escapism this game provided me. It actually would give me the sense of escapism in my real life, because I would also daydream during the day that I was actually my character in his civilian life. And then when I booted up the game at night, that was when I "donned the costume" and did my dirt at night. That level of escapism can be a double edge sword, so I'm glad that for me it was more of a passing phase. I wasn't super into the game for more than 2-3 years. And periodically I'd come back for stretches of a month or two. But it always felt like I came back home. Thank you for posting this review of CO in its current form. Shame to see its a little banged up these days. I always thought this game was infinitely better than DCUO that came out maybe 2 years after CO.

[@emessar]

I really liked the game when it first came out. But yeah, even then trying to find groups to do stuff with was tough.

[@cfbmoo1]

You could literally build any type of character in there. I had a TOS Star Trek red shirt that was missed by the alien shooting at him but sucked in to a worm hole, night elf druid with different forms using the costume changer including a giant tree form that could stomp around with the right growth item, troll shadow priestess, orc rogue, etc. Amazing customizing for characters, shame it's left to sit but that's the fate of free 2 plays when their time has gone. I honestly wish I could have brought the customization in to Star Trek online when I played that which has a fraction of the ability to customize compared to Champions cause of all the restrictions they have in place in STO.

[@SeroX51]

Sadly, that is what Champions Online has always been, a very good costume creator and not much else past level 20. Even 15 or so years ago when people were playing, it was trying to get a group to do anything was grating outside Costume Contests and Showing off.

[@Pharto_Stinkus]

This is just blatantly false. Co had a thriving and active community for the first 4-6 years.

[@najarati]

I started with the open beta of CO back in 2009 and have a lifetime subscription, and your summation of the game is pretty accurate: excellent character customization, which is my favorite aspect of the game, and plenty of potential with the combat and builds, but few activities to do in the end. It's a shame, because I love my characters in this game, but many of them are equipped with "end game" gear and I can only do alerts and cosmics so many times. The game is run on what seems like a skeleton crew at this point, and the limited resources make for very few additions or improvements to the game outside of costume sets for the most part. All that said, I'm happy to see CO get some attention.

[@sfreemanoh]

I believe I have a lifetime subscription too, but I got so bored with it a couple months after release that I never tried it again. It had a lot of potential from what I remember, but something about it just didn't grab me.

[@joshuac2991]

another lifetime subber here as well.. havent played it in a long long time

[@desertmaker]

Another lifer that plays once in 6 month now 8)

[@winchestersons6258]

Same. I check it every so often

[@Erk309]

Another Lifer here, I'm usually playing this game on any downtime I have, the power set customization paired with the godly costume editor makes for the best of times for me. I spend literal HOURS on any costume I make because of the sheer boat-load of available pieces to work with per body section. 😁

[@doymination9972]

when i first started this mmo i tried to make a rambo looking character but somehow made skeletor with guns

[@rentless666]

I played this a long time ago. Making characters was very, very fun. I had designed dozens of cool characters and the editor allowed me to save them on my PC. Sadly, they are lost in time, but I still remember some of them. Pinwheel, who was more or less Joker/Hawkeye. Sunbug, who was a large alien with cybernetic limbs. Mongrat, who was just a superhero with a cool bomber jacket. And probably my favorite one, Dr. Frostbite, who was an evil dentist doctor Freeze with a silly costume and an ice gun.

[@rangikumatsumoto3143]

I remember, that I created essentially scorpion from mortal kombat, but with cape and katana.

[@madcap830]

I had a blast with character creations. My most absurd was a rave kid. An electric user I named Lightshow, who powered his abilities with sound via a headset blaring electronic music into his ears(similar to Dazzler, but ONLY electronic music would work), I changed the colors of all his abilities to neon colors all over the spectrum.

[@drebear2638]

From experience, this game was 60%-80% played for RP. Almost no one was playing the actual game.

[@someguy6152]

0:39 A note on that, it's some of the starting free to play classes, as you can unlock new archetypes through events. Most of the end game comes from said events, which often get pretty much the whole server fighting a huge world boss. The other is the big three world bosses, another is simply complitionist objectives, finishing all the zones, quests and scenarios, which often reward you with the main thing most people do in the game, which is costume customization, it's probably the most diverse visual character customization system in any game. Another thing is farming questionite to trade for the premium currency, which can be used for one of the most useful features, the "Freeform" archetype, which basically means you can unlock any ability from any archetype up to a limit, it let's you have alot of freedom to build a character any way you want. All premium stuff can either be traded for with questionite or on the marketplace for gold. There's also a lifetime subscription option for the game, which gives you premium currency every month, unlocks all archetypes, gives 3 "Freeform" character slots and a few other things. The game is surprisingly still being updated, mostly with event cosmetics and chase items like the relatively new alternative skills system, it's a more powerful version of skills that drop from the big bosses and events. Less recently but still pretty recently they updated one of the end game raids/lairs, but only some premade groups do those as you've experienced in your video. But the biggest and main draw of the game is the visual customization, the devs consistently do costume contests on different themes, with different prizes, the most recent one as of writing this was probably the biggest because it was a contest for a new archetypes that the winner will decide and work with the devs to implement into the game.

[@eurosonly]

Glad to see this and city of heroes still being online today considering the land scape struggle of mmorpgs dying off in the last few years.

[@GM-lr1kw]

I used to play years ago as a subscriber which, at least back then, allowed free-form so you could chose powers from type. First thing I always did was get regeneration up to max. Basically became immortal and could solo pretty much everything. My main was a darkness and fire toon with few other skills for flavor.

[@KaisersGB]

This game looks absolutely bonkers 🤣 so much freedom to make you character look as you wish. Glad to hear encounters actually were a challenge It's nice to see a game do that. The toons you make for videos like this are legendary 😆 I think that green screen room should be standard in all MMOs! It made me happy to see you took full advantage of that 😁 Another epic video my friend seeing these vids in my feed are truly the best part of my day as you never fail to give me a chuckle and show me some of the more interesting games I have never gotten to play! 🍻

[@thatHARVguy]

About a year ago Cryptic Studios added the green screen background to their other game, Star Trek Online. They're having difficulty with adding gender-swapping to STO. Spaghetti code, amirite?

[@KaisersGB]

@@thatHARVguy sounds about right 😆 imagine the crazy things you can do with that

[@kimrasmussen7188]

the challlenge is why the game is so dead. i will pay for fun, not a job.

[@JosephJamesScott]

When I started playing this game that simulation wasn't a simulation and when you completed the tutorial you got the key to the city. Over all I think you assessment was fair, there aren't a lot of people in the game depending on the times you're on, and getting people together to run cosmics, lairs, and endgame content can be a real pain. The only time I see good numbers over the course of a day is during the events. Oh, and the Burst Alerts, unless it's radiation rumble, you're probably not going to see anyone queueing for it. Personally I don't think the gameplay is enough to keep someone interested in this game, however, for me, the thing that drew me to this game in the first place was the tailors and the RP, and that's still quite fun for me. I've been playing this game for over a decade now and I wouldn't recommend based on game play. It is a rather impressive amount of free content though and it's good for at least 20 hours of free game play. If you find any interest or value beyond that is probably going to be based on a case by case basis.

[@elocfreidon]

The most enjoyable content in the game is really what came after the adventure packs. Comics which are now referred to as just Series with rare reward drops and even guaranteed cosmetic rewards. Though there is no direct list in game of what order they are in or how to even find them on your own. Other than that, there are festivals with daily content and an actual population farming seasonal world bosses with group instances to queue in for. Otherwise getting the generic rotating group content to actually start doesn't happen. If you aren't a build crafting junkie, you are not going to enjoy the game to the fullest.

[@DrakeBarrow]

Didn't play much in Champions Online after the early days, when custom power combos were still available in the free-to-play segments, but I do remember that they did teleportation as a travel power in a really fun way.

[@freddiejohnson6137]

I played champions online when it first became free to play after my brother recommended it from playing it when it first came out. I enjoyed it for a while then just kind of gave up when Star Trek Online went free a year after.

[@calvinsFuntimeBounceHouse]

i used to play this forever ago.. it was fun to fly around.. i remember going off to the jungle zone and the snow zone and then i got stuck not knowing where i was supposed to go next, and there never were any dungeon groups to complete stuff.. :) this and pirates of the caribbean online were fun in 2008

[@Demitriea]

OMG I FOUND IT. This is like a opening back to my child hood it feels so weird and amazing ! Did anyone else play this or DC were I floated around or spore ???? I’m trying to remember all the old superhero games I use to play

[@beetleb.1418]

"Norbert Chin-Pants".... Welp. I'm dead. Thanks 😆 This game looks like it would be fun if it had more ... MORE. More fights, grouping, stories, etc. It's like the barebones of a fun time. Just leaves you wanting more. Hilarious AND informative, as always

[@auner163]

I fell in love with the game when somehow, I don't remember how, i accepted a quest which gets you into the future. You stay there until you finish the whole storyline. Every hero that helps you in the present day is evil in the future. There are huge robots you have to dodge and hide from them because you can't defeat them. There are some awesome quests and bosses that you don't expect. Even now i wake up in the middle of the night remembering that storyline and it makes me wanna join again

[@cyrexarcfire8584]

I don't remember much despite how many hours I sank into that game, but I do remember having a lot of fun with the friends I played it with.

[@danacoleman4007]

Sounds like you won, then!

[@jkeuwk]

I still say Champions has the best character creator before or since. Shame it's such a small game and there are so few people in it. I really hope they release a single-player version when and if they shut it down, though; just making characters and running around with them for a few minutes is half the joy of the game.

[@SouthernGuy5423]

I played Champions Online at launch and for a while afterwards. When it had a population, it was a lot of fun... but their decisions to limit the character creator once they went free-to-play was a poor one. The game's biggest strength's was its ability to make a character that looked however you wanted it to look, and to make it be able to DO whatever you wanted it to do! As a free to play character, you're incredibly limited as to what kind of character you can make... compared to what you get as a paid player, where you can combine all of the abilities, more or less how you want, to make a character with whatever powers makes sense for the character you want to play! Mitch didn't even mention the really sweet and awesome base creator in the game!

[@SouthernGuy5423]

You're right - it was bought by NCSoft, and was open for several years after Champions Online came out. Still, it certainly wasn't shut down to make room for CO - the people who made CO had worked on CoH, but they were their own company, I believe.

[@IhateU43]

Ok, a bit of explaining from an endgame CO player All the endgame content the game has to offer needs a team, from a team of 2 to a team 5 to a team of 20. What you would start with when you reach max level is the three cosmics, 1 in Canada and 2 in Monster Island, those are your primary way of getting Silver and Gold Champion Recognitions which you use to buy the best gear sets. These are your big open missions where half the server gathers when the bosses are off cooldown and they typically require between 15 and 20 people (possible with less, but most often you'll get more). Each boss has their own mechanics you have to learn to not actively be a hindrance and they also have some minimum requirements you wanna meet when it comes to your build and stats. You also have Eidolon of Destruction, who's in the endgame area shown in the vid, the puple place. He is much more tricky, because before you can fight him, you have to unlock him with 3 open missions, 2 of which need to be completed basically simultaniously, and the when you get to the fight itself, you get thrown every hard mechanic the game has to offer. While you can mostly just "participation trophy" the other 3, Eido needs a full team of at least 20 fully geared, well-built, proficient players or else you fail and you gotta wait another 4 hours (hence cricket noises in Qliphothic War Zone, no one wants to commit to an hour long mission where you gotta cooperate with 20 other people and still have a chance to lose at the last minute). The next tier after is the few endgame lairs to be completed by a team of 5, most of those require decent gear/build to even stand a chance. The outliar is Therakiel's Temple which gets unlocked after you finish the main story of Vibora Bay, it's the single most difficult piece of content in CO, rivaled only by Eidolon's circus show. TT has the best drops and the least wiggle room for players. You NEED a certain team configuration, you NEED your team to have certain abilities, you NEED every player to know what they're doing on a second-to-second basis or you have a slim-to-none chance of ever completing it. Currently, the number of active players who can consistanly beat TT is in the double digits, it is excrutiatinly hard to find a team to get your daily reward. On top of that, some of the endgame players don't have the most patient or friendly disposition, which makes it that much harder to even get into it and learn the mechanics. The best way to start learning is doing some research in a CO discord or TheEndGame channel or just looking for experienced players who have the time and patience to help you out (there's a bunch of us). "Raising inquiries" in zone chat usually works too, if there's enough people online. Lastly, you have your daily quests, which mostly involve doing alerts and usually just net you Questionite (special shop and premium currency exchange) and some Silver Recogs. There are some others, like smaller open missions, which you can mostly do alone, but there are a few exception, namely the dailies in the Qliphothic War Zone. Those have better rewards and can still be solo'd but are quicker and easier with a friend. Aside from those, you have the Onslaught Villan system (turn into a raid boss and fight people) which you use to get the currency for the other endgame gear vendor, but the missions themselves are extremely boring and repetative if you don't care for the whole "turn into a villan" thing. These would be the pieces of content you would see max level players do the most when cosmics are on cooldown or there's not many people on. All in all, you have a bunch of ways to play and enjoy CO but the reality of there not being enough people to enjoy it with is the saddest thing about the game. Hopefully we can get a few more tryhards in here with some craving for jolly cooperation!

[@Shiirow]

2:37 sounds like the sister of the AI asking "where did you learn to fly?"

[@Telorath]

Gotta drop my own two cents here as a huge fan of Champions Online back in the day. My friends and I played the open beta just before launch, and we all had an absolute blast with it. A few days before launch they had a huge balance pass that nobody asked for and nobody liked that made it very difficult to solo most of your quests; you had to really build to the meta or pick your fights. It was pretty much universally agreed the game was WAY less fun after that patch, but that's the version of the game that went live. In late fall/early winter if I remember correctly Champions got its first major content update, adding a new questing zone for the lategame that was far and away the best designed zone in the game. After that we got.. The nemesis lair(Which you didn't even mention so I'm assuming you never saw it. A whole party of people would team up and you'd fight each player's nemesis back to back before finally fighting the mastermind who had gotten them to team up. Was actually a cool dungeon). And then... that was about it. Eventually we got alerts and adventure packages and all that but there was never any real effort put in to assessing where the game could be improved and trying to work on that. Pretty much every decision made after the big Vibora Bay update and nemesis lairs were "How do we put in the least amount of effort to keep players playing and paying?" and it shows. For every complaint a player might have, the answer was to reduce and simplify. All the group content sucks and nobody wants to do it? Alerts; Cheap and dirty gameplay for groups that's easy enough that any random group of people has a high chance of beating it so we can create a party finder for it! Crafting sucks? Replace it with the simplest alternative you can think of! They also changed the NPE several times(But hilariously have never redone the actual tutorial zone) and the end result is that it all feels half-baked. In the original game you would get out of the tutorial, and then go to a "crisis" version of either the desert or canada zones, work your way through a series of quests to solve the crisis, and THEN go to Millenium City before returning to the post-crisis version of those zones. I've poked my head in on CO like five times over the years and the NPE experience was different every time but honestly? Never actually improved. The only thing better about the new experience than the old experience is that in the old NPE you were stuck in zones only new players could go to until level ~13 or so if I recall correctly, which would be a HORRIBLE experience for a new player since they'd never see any of the existing playerbase. Lastly, I'd like to point to another game that limped along for years on life support: Planetside 2. In '12 or '13 it set the world record for "most number of players in a single online video game battle". It broke its own record in 2020, reaching a NEW peak player count briefly after years because new management under Wrel just kept trying to bring the game back from the dead. Unlike CO, they didn't give up on the idea that their game still had life in it, and it makes me sad CO basically layed down and waited to die as soon as the bottom line stopped having a sunny outlook.

[@Erk309]

The best times to be had here are with friends, seriously, make some friends and hang out together through adventure packs, alerts and once you're all kitted up, lairs & open missions. I'm sad I don't remember seeing you walking around, I was in this video! :D

[@illidan155]

Hope u grow big, wish you best of luck. You deserve it, you've got some nice videos :)

[@grimdarhk]

Ah man, i played this day one. It was a good time, and its still one of the only mmos ive reached max level on without boosting lol

[@goddessesstartrekonlinefle3061]

Good review; COL is fun for short bursts. If you want more people about usually the winter events draw a reasonable crowd, but most people playing already have their in groups of other players (which makes it harder for a new player for find a group). I think the main city map is impressive for what it offers in terms of scope. There are amazing cosutumes and power ups in game, and you didn't touch on the whole vehicle system here. Theres some great special events which come and go.

[@strategystuff5080]

Really love this channel showcasing all these mmos

[@ArbiterHems]

The go to content for endgame used to be fighting 'Cosmics', essentially open map bosses that take 20+ people to bring down. The main problem is that the endgame has (at least during my time) a handful of trolls who used to cause problems every time they turned up, which just made people leave the game unfortunately.

[@DillonMeyer]

I really hope some day we get a third Superhero/Villain MMO from these guys. Though Cryptic may no longer be a studio on its own, a majority of the development staff are still together.

[@murderbunnies]

Holy shit, it's been at least 8 years since i played this, and almost double that since it came out and literally almost nothing has changed. It's Second Life with a combat sim integrated.

[@jeimarvell2288]

I played this game back in the day as well and when I did there was a lot of role play opportunities with other players. I might redownload it and see if any of my old friends still play

[@rileedavis397]

My experience with this game goes back to it's closed beta / friends & Family Alpha tests, about a year before it launched. In the lead-up year, I saw truly explosive amount of content and growth from having a single zone to explore with placeholder UI and placeholder initial powers with no defined power set themes, to Zone after zone after zone introductions, the creation of mini pre-zones in storylines, so a player could feel the effects of their actions on the game's story, each zone filled with unfortunately generic MMO 'go there, talk to x, get mission, go elsewhere, defeat x of x, run back' style content, a handful of instances that were usually reserved for the culmination of plot lines, and a final restructuring of the powers into grouped themes. When the game launched is was actually pretty successful, and had enough potential that I and many others expected it to be the next big super hero game. But a series of unfortunate events that nobody could have prepared for, along with bad calls in response to those events, led to the games population taking an early dive that it never did fully recover from, then going free to play just a year and a half later with a paid option, and locking the freeform building (The absolute best part of character creation) behind this very steep paywall. While new content has been slowly added on year by year since, slowing down more and more in the last five years, other than a tiny bubble of renewed interest after a PvP "super villain" mode was added, it has steadily been leaking players ever since. What none of us knew at the time way back when is that Cryptic made the decision early on to cut planned development after the game went free to play (Level cap is still forty, it was originally planned to go to 50 like City of Heroes before it, among many other cuts), because Cryptic had secretly (and then not-so-secretly) attained the coveted license to Star Trek and had moved 80% of the studio and creative forces available to making STO the finest game they could manage, and then Neverwinter the year after Star Trek Launched. Basically, Studio heads rightly figured that Champions was basically dead-in-the-water and the financial future of Cryptic was now tied to the success of these new licensed MMOs that had the potential to be huge, which both were, and one of them remains so. Champions Online was essentially abandoned after it's Free to play expansion, more or less. Sad, because I loved it for over a decade, and I still miss the glory days when a whole community believed we were seeing the start of something amazing, that had so much potential. Oh yeah, one more thing. Plug in a modern x-box controller and try it that way. Bind Blocking to a single trigger held instead of two of them. It changes the game in many very positive ways when you try it like a console game, feels much more actiony just from this one simple change. I've been using my controllers with it since before it even launched. Works great.

[@usedfuzzbox]

Had big hopes for this at launch, as City of Heroes was my first MMO, but sadly this just didn't click at all with me. But TY for the update, its cool to see just how much has been added to the game.

[@Jo-nv8yb]

City of Heroes going down was a tragedy. Very very good MMO which deserves a reboot with modern graphics. Can't believe the property hasn't been snapped up tbh.

[@azuraquinlilax1245]

It’s a good thing city of heroes is still around strong

[@Jo-nv8yb]

@@azuraquinlilax1245 really? where? private servers?

[@azuraquinlilax1245]

@@Jo-nv8yb private server yes . Believe it’s the homecoming private server. I play it now and then

[@docgiggles130]

@@Jo-nv8yb Someone managed to get the server code when CoH was shutdown and ran a hidden server for years. A streamer managed to get onto that server and the world found out the game was still alive. The server code was then released to anyone that wanted to start their own server. Now players run things, add new content, classes, and many other things to their own servers. Homecoming has the largest population of all the servers. Rebirth and Thunderspy are a couple others with each having their own feel and content.

[@a.k47-74]

Throwing Moldemort into Josh's tea was the best laugh I never knew I needed. 😂

[@jsullivan649]

Those subtle will smith call backs... sweet jesus my childhood. I applaud this.

[@absolutelyfookinnobody2843]

If you pay for a gold character slot, you can choose your powers and customize the shit at of them. One of my favorite things was getting all of the permanent summons and have a misfit army lol

[@wastingsanity]

This was one of the first games that revealed the Founder Packs. I went in on a life sub. The game was riddled with bugs at launch. I really liked the game even with the bugs as I played the RPG and owned the books, so I probably submitted around 100 bug reports. 10% of the bugs were fixed within a month and then they announced Star Trek Online. That is when I knew Champions Online will never get the love it should've had, most of the companies resources went toward STO. This made Champions Online players feel like the game was just a cash grab. For about a month my banner picture on the forums was Optimus prime getting a rectal exam from Robot Chicken where his eyes bulge and the text read "Take it like a Champ." I was an active poster and they finally decided I shouldn't have that as my forum banner. lol

[@JChalant]

2:00 I play with the UI off, the animated NPCs really give life to the world!

[@Ayay01]

tried this when it came out ..dont think i made it out of the tutorial before i went back to City of Heroes , I am so happy they manage open Heroes again ..i missed that hard these passed years

[@denesistvanosvath5831]

You happened to be on at the wrong times I guess. Endgame things to do: 1. Regular Events: Seasonal or otherwise, events are the big deal. Come back around the week preceding April 1st latest. Every month there is something going on if you're willing to keep checking back. 2. Cosmic Bosses, gear farming: The endgame quest zone is empty because it's group content and people who solo it, do it fast. People who don't have a strong build, prefer not to. There's 3 cosmic bosses you can beat down. You can do a total of 3 for good rewards. 3. Eidolon. 4. Teleios, Rhino, Therakiel's - dungeons which require some gearing to do first but are fun to do. Therakiel's Temple is challenging to learn.

[@RootSuitMan]

This game was so much fun. I beat the story on the PS4 years ago.

[@campioneri]

Way more games need that greenscreen room.

[@Robotrik1]

Cryptic have never gotten over loosing City of Heroes / Villains , so they're keeping the lights on for their Champions (semi-clone) far after that game has lost it's shine & relevance . It's weird . It's seemingly personal . And it's an example of how little it takes to keep a game running way past it's prime (just remember how many other MMO's and online games have shut down with the variation on the excuse of "too expensive to run" from various other studios) .

[@Hammahlovesyou]

Was worried it wasn't being re-uploaded 🥳

[@Soulie81]

If you want a better experience, try one of the City of Heroes private servers. I play on the Homecoming server.

[@80sgamer55]

I still play this when World of Warcraft goes down for maintenance and every time, I log into Champions Online I see the same people standing in the same spots showing off their characters.

[@NoblePhantasm23]

I played this for a few years which was long enough to know how "mental" some of the player base were. It wasn't all bad though. I made some close friends all over the world and that is the only thing I miss now that I no longer play.

[@b.y.o.p.9035]

This is actually my first time seeing this game live. Not too bad, honestly. Looks extremely fun. Shout out to all those who got to enjoy it. Excellent (and as usual hilarious) commentary. 🙂

[@ZeroTheHunter]

It got me good when the soldier started A posing in group lmao

[@dracoinsanity]

I've played Champions Online off-and-on for years, and I definitely agree with most of the sentiments in this video. The character creator options are literally second to no other MMO out there to date in terms of sheer volume of options. Quite literally almost ANY kind of character you can imagine, you can create in that game (sometimes perhaps with specific costume bits needing to be unlocked first though). The potential power builds are also equally interesting to play around and experiment with, and most of my time playing the game over the years has purely been to test out new and interesting skill combos and synergies. The travel powers are also very diverse and unique, which can add to the fun. You can fly like Superman, leap massive heights and distances like the Hulk, run at super speed like the Flash, and even swing around the maps like Spider-Man. In terms of pure freedom to make whatever kind of 'hero' you want, this game trumps them all. However... Unfortunately, the lack of active players and lack of actual end-game content are it's biggest weakness at this point. There are seasonal events that happen throughout the year which usually bring some returning players back to unlock new costume bits and mess around with, but other than that there isn't really much to do at end game for the typical player. A small handful of "Cosmic" level open-world bosses to kill on a 3 hour cooldown, the repeatable Alerts and story missions, and daily quests to grind for in-game currency are pretty well all it has to offer. As much as I absolutely love the game in terms of it's character creation potential and just for how fun it can be to play when you DO have things to do, the wasted potential of this game as a whole is a constant sad point for me. It could have been way more impressive and offered players who are bored of their current MMOs a lot more unique of an MMO experience had Cryptic actually stuck with it and gave it some love, but it's current state of limbo makes it something that generally only the true veteran diehards will keep alive on life support, and I wish it wasn't so. :( All in all I personally do like the game and wish it got more love, but even I can only bring myself to play it for a few weeks at a time every now and then since it isn't something I can really justify pouring all of my free game time into.

[@roninboify]

Who remember City of Heroes. I loved that game.

[@None17555]

A big downside to CO not mentioned here is that even with all the packs/expansions, there is VERY little content in CO compared to its competitors. There's something like 30x as much to see in City of Heroes. You could reach max level in CoH something like 15 times without seeing the same content twice (if you wanted). You cannot even do it twice in CO.

[@Lyannaha]

I still remember me playing a bow healer i group content it was a absolute blast

[@stiofarnog]

Way back when I was playing this, my entire investment was killed when a Mod got on my case for using the general chat 'too much'. I'd only exchanged pleasant words with a guy, like, 5 times after finally having my first actual PVP experience, and I was enjoying myself, and then that asshole mod got on my case for talking too much, and even treated me like a 5 year old. I even replied to his PM with 'okay, fine' and he snapped back to never message him again. I uninstalled the game and never went back. If you're wondering why the chats and playerbase are both dead, that's probably why.

[@RaptorJesus.]

i freaking LOVED champions back in its hayday, if anyone remembers a big white zombie bear (called ZOMBEAR) that grew massive in combat, that was me :D me and my friend also managed to kill Defender (the main hero) using an item which was bugged and did AoE damage NPCs.

[@Raymond13557]

i gotta play this game now, i'mma make a hero character called "Janitor man!" he uses a enchanted broom given to him by the cleaning monks of Tibet, his nemesis is "David, the inconsiderate person!"

[@tehf00n]

LOL the facial vertex animation was glorious :D

[@aarons.8161]

I'd say, one of the big selling points about this game, at least for me, was its vast amounts of customization. Especially with how they claimed you could even customize and mix powers from different trees. Like you could be a gun wielding mage, have a mastery over Fire and Ice, or even a psionic brute. Sadly, custom "Free-Form" power sets are only available to paying members, along with other features, and newer powers. Either through a subscription, or paying about $20-$40 for a single free-form slot. Not saying the pre-made power sets are bad, just seems overly restrictive and linear. Almost reminding me of Neverwinter vs D&D 4e tabletop. That said, I for one really liked the game they made before Champions Online, and like many, was really sad that they shut it down in favor of this game. Luckily some die hard fans managed to get the source code and set up private/public servers. That game is City of Heroes, and it of course comes with the expansions City of Villain's, and I guess what little work the devs originally did with City of Rogues. I'm not sure if you play or review any private server MMOs, but would like to see one for City of Heroes, maybe even a comparison video between that and Champions.

[@SouthernGuy5423]

They definitely didn;t shut City of Heroes/Villains down in order to make this game. Champions Online didn't even start to be created until a few years after CoH/CoV shut down due to not making enough money to stay online. Amusingly, the project that became Champions Online started out as an officially licensed Marvel Super Hero MMO before Marvel pulled the rug out from under them. They grabbed the IP from Champions because, other than the Marvel and DC comic universes, it was the only other IP that could legally use the term, 'Super Hero'.

[@aarons.8161]

@@SouthernGuy5423 As I recall, CoH/CoV, was still active when Champions launched. CoH/CoV went F2P sometime before Champions Launched. It was closed down a few months to about a year after Champions Launched cause they could not afford to keep both games running, especially with one being purchase with subscription (thus making them money to keep it going), while the other was F2P (making no money). This left CoR somewhat under developed, not to mention the Architect system was abandoned with it (NW later made their own version of that system) and was sadly never brought back in the unofficial versions. Champions later went F2P after it was sold to or republished by Perfect World Entertainment, who then implemented there own Cash Shop system in it. CoH/CoV never had a Cash Shop, though you did have to buy the base game and CoR expansion separately, if I recall. The devs were thus left with the decision to make it a subscription game again (basically life support with a much smaller player base as most joined after it went F2P) or just shut it down completely. Champions almost shut down too due to being subscription based, but was bailed out by PWE who made it F2P and slapped a Cash Shop in it. CoH/CoV could have possibly been saved in a similar way, but at the time, I don't think they could get any big publishers to take it up like they did with Champions.

[@paulgrant666]

most of the end game is now doing cosmic world bosses. with the odd lair or event boss.

[@Weefather]

I love the game. But it has become a bit stagnant over the past several years. There really hasn't been any upgrades to the game. There are only a few zones outside of the one city. Any if you've leveled more than one character everything feels like rinse and repeat. That being said the character creation system is a blast. The customization of your powers and appearance is wonderful. I sometimes just log in to make new looks. And don't forget it's FREE!

[@igorchtidtah8050]

I was a huge fan of City of Heroes (I'm aware there's a private server before anyone says anything). I remember beta testinging this game and thinking it kinda sucked. I actually played it a bit after CoH shut down just to see if it was any better and.... well, I literally did all the content there was to do in the game in a week. I even did all the lairs somehow! Getting a group together for them was like pulling teeth, but eventually I did it. The community is...... special. Relatively friendly but they seem to absolutely despise the idea of there being any challenging content in the game. I discovered in general the community doesn't want to do Lairs because they don't give good enough rewards, but they don't want Lairs to give good rewards because then they'd be "forced" to do group content. Like I said, they're a friendly bunch, but... perplexing. Cryptic seems content to keep the game in maintenance mode with little to no real content updates in years beyond the Alerts. But I guess it's enough to keep the game running, so good for them. Editing to add: This was in 2012. I think there's been literally one piece of new content added since then. Before that, I think the last real content update was in, like, 2010.

[@theclaybeartravels3596]

Fun fact, this actually was supposed to be a Marvels universe game. Supposedly Marvel dropped them, and they had to reskin everything to make it original.

[@MrPoogly]

The issue I had with this game is just about no player acts like a hero, its just long timers with min/maxed pay to win builds and a few hundred bucks worth of cosmetics

[@monsutaman1]

CO is flawed, but it still holds the title as the best character creator in all of gaming.

[@mikeadams78]

It wasn't based on the tabletop game. Creators City of heroes developers actually were hired by marvel comics to make an online game halfway through they pulled the plug. The creators decided to take the code and make their own standalone game away from City of departed from the city of heroes.

[@PB-tr5ze]

I worked for Perfect World a while ago as a customer service agent. I was assigned to Champions online and Star Trek online. Rule number one, ignore any complaints or issues from Club Capri. Turned out it became the ERPG players (erotic roll play) hangout. While not technically allowed, it was easier to let them have this one spot, rather than having them running around ruining everyone else's experience. I had my own account, so I decided to check out the spot... I very quickly figured out who the ERPG players were, mostly from character designs... I did actually had a few issues, there, it was also where the trolls went to harass other players. Rule two, no licensed comic book characters. I had to reset the costume of any characters that were made to look like licensed characters. There was one player who stood outside the character creation area and reported every single violation possible. I literally started every day with at least 10 reports from this guy. Since every report includes a screen shot, it was clear this guy stood in the same spoot for hours just reporting prayers. Sadly the game had been in "maintenance mode" for years. Meaning the company keeps it alive for its few players, but has no plans to update or expand the game.

[@gabriellana4366]

A sad thing. I played a lot of champions on its first years and it was one amazing game. As usual, greed and poor judgement killed one of the nicest Hero games I have ever played.

[@richmcgee434]

I wonder, would fans of the TTRPG version (which dates back to the early 1980s and is on 6th edition last I checked) maybe find this a decent alternative to getting a group together in person or playing on a VTT? It's obviously more restricted than playing with a proper GM and the mechanics are different (but close enough to feel like a funhouse mirror take on the tabletop) but at the same time no one would *need* to GM and you'd probably have enough bodies to actually do most of the content here without needing outsiders. Would 4-6 players be enough for lair missions and endgame content, or is this one of the games that needs a small army for running raids? Champions (the TTRPG) still has a legacy fan base that's up for nostalgic play, and even low-end modern computers should be able to run this easily at this point so no barrier there.

[@BedbugGaming]

I had a ton of fun with this back when it released.

[@ericfisher1360]

One can only make so many Max level guys. I have a lifetime sub (along with STO) and would never have stopped playing, but they have not added any new zones in a long long time.

[@Arrow333]

Well, whenever I get a super hero itch this game is still on top of the list of games to jump in. But the small player base really makes it hard to get some of the stuff done except for the more popular stuff. And some... usually really weird roleplaying.

[@ailius1520]

The funny part is there actually is a living community when it comes to the open world "cosmic" raid bosses that spawn every four hours. But that's about it. Even then it's more waiting than playing and highly frustrating. It's like - the things they are trying to do would work if there was a population, but without that population those things won't work.

[@marcomcdowell8861]

I had a demon character named Ash Hole. I got reported so many times that whoever took the reports sent me a message laughing at the name. People couldn't read I guess.

[@jooei2810]

The green screen room is a nice touch.

[@darrinstokke3839]

I was pumped for Champions Online when it first released. It had a great community and some of the game mechanics were different. It also had no loot box system. Then a major dev left the team and it got sold to perfect world. Its all downhill from there.

[@Elsinlock]

I remember playing this as a kid.