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Champions Online to get expansion

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.