Champions Online to get expansion

By Oli Welsh Published 28 January, 2010

New level 37-40 zone is a paid add-on.

In its latest state of the game post, Cryptic has revealed that it's working on an expansion for Champions Online, as well as detailing the contents of a "kitchen sink" patch that has just been applied to the superhero MMO.

The unnamed expansion will add a new city, Vibora Bay, which will be a new adventuring zone for levels 37 to 40 - i.e. just below the Champions Online level cap, where the game's content has always been rather thin.

The patch, meanwhile, includes a wide brace of power and item balancing, is intended to fix the lag issues in the Lemuria zone, and has various additions and changes to the Nemesis, crafting and loot systems.

Neither the expansion news nor the patch has gone down very well with the Champions community, as Massively reports. Cryptic confirmed that Vibora Bay would cost, although it would "not be something on the scale of a full boxed game. It is a new zone, and will be priced accordingly. " Some players, however, feel that filling in content gaps below the level cap is what their subscription is for.

Cryptic has also been forced to admit to performance problems since the launch of the patch, with increased lag across the whole game, login issues and other problems.

High pressure times for the Californian developer, which is also launching Star Trek Online next week, and opening up live servers to early access Star Trek players tomorrow.

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About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

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Comments (11) Latest comment 2 years ago

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  • DFawkes #1 2 years ago

    Good to hear there's an expansion on the way for it, I'm playing this quite a bit just now. I don't mind paying if it's got the content to back it up.

  • Kremlik Verified Co-Founder, Crash To Desktop #2 2 years ago

    @DF normall i would agree but as stated it's not a very popular way to go, it's showing that Cryptic have spread themselfs too think and need to recoop fast but if said expantion doesn't give a VERY large chunk of content not many ppl will buy it esspecially if the game is already thin on top and telling players they have to pay for more content that many MMOs offer for free.

    it'll make players feel all the 'lacking' of content they WILL have to pay for on some level and with the 'store' already in place it'll drive more players off the game as it'll certainlly NOT be value for money and it'll feel like it's making EQ/EQ2's and Guildwars level of paid content look reasonable

  • Seoh #3 2 years ago

    I totally agree here, they are effectively charging twice for content with an addon pack that fill in the notable gaps.

    I assume a lot of players had faith that cryptic would eventually fix content gaps but not charge twice for it.

    This is also pretty bad news for STO which also has notable content gaps at high level. I was hoping both games would have a CoH/CoV and EVE approach with large chunks of new content added as part of the sub fee.

  • DDevil #4 2 years ago

    I stopped playing in December, but I've got to agree charging for content that has been lacking at the level cap is cheeky as hell. I always said I'd be back once they had an end-game but if they want to charge for it... Well get stuffed Cryptic.

  • DFawkes #5 2 years ago

    I can't comment on STO since it literally didn't have all the Endgame stuff in beta, but I could appreciate people feeling ripped off in CO.

    If they want to charge for it, it better be fairly significant. Much like the retail expansions of WoW that introducted new races, crafting skills and areas. As it reads now, I'm assuming it's just the new area - I sure as heck hope the other features like being able to replay missions aren't part of the add-on or that would certainly be very cheeky.

    Edited by 1 at 28/01/10 @ 17:17

  • spimmy #6 2 years ago

    this is makeing me consider canceling my sto pre order plus the content gaps i ran into at commander level 5 +

  • dudefella #7 2 years ago

    ...what? There isn't enough content in the game, so they're charging EXTRA on top of sub fees for simply filling in the blanks? For shame. I was actually planning on coming back to CO once the content issue was fixed, but this destroyed any chance of that. This is insulting to subscribers and people who bought it at launch.

  • makeamazing #8 2 years ago

    I paid and played for a couple of months, but CO was just a shadow of City of Heroes.... I dont know if its me, or if i just dont have the time or effort to put into MMOs these days. Perhaps Star Trek or the new star wars one will reignite my old love for MMOs. Though a friend of mine did say Star Trek was good but utimately still too early of a release (buggy and needs work)... so I guess the continue shuffle from one MMO to another will continue.

  • Shikasama #9 2 years ago

    So glad I got to play this in it's beta form.

    I was so excited for the game, then after a couple of months of beta it was obvious that a) Cryptic didn't know what they were doing and b) the whole game was an attempt to rescue the investment in the Marvel engine they had been building.

    Thank god Marvel pulled out and avoided association with this bunch of amatuers.

  • Kremlik Verified Co-Founder, Crash To Desktop #10 2 years ago

    @Shik - The most dissapointing is Cryptic are NOT amatuers, CoX was a good title and still is.. however it's only really improved since 'Cryptic' left the project, like many beleave I think most of the good talent stayed behind and Crytpic is in name only.

    The only other old dev to dissapoint this much was Mythic (now Bioeamythicware) but at least they havn't charged for their content fixes, in fact each update WAR's getting bigger and cheaper (it's now £8 to buy past the free first 10 levels), which is the reverse of CO
    Edited by 1 at 29/01/10 @ 10:54

  • Rubarack #11 2 years ago

    This is content that any other developer would have included at launch, let alone as a free update. Paid for expansion? Cryptic seem to have either gone completely mad or are desperate for cash after shooting themselves in the foot with all their horrendous decisions.