There were a few big things that caught my attention this weekend.

Champions part 4

There have been some significant changes in Champion Online over the course of the last four days. First it appears that they fixed the teleport Travel Power bug, which makes it usable. Yay. Second there have been many quest bugs addressed, along with some passes on balance, and corrections to UI issues.

Those were all fairly welcome, but there have been two changes, which in some ways baffle me. They adjusted the experience point curve lowering quest reward rates and increases xp needed to level. The result is much slower leveling, which I guess they needed to do a little bit but this was a bit harsh. Apparently this was just a test and they “plan” to make further adjustments, I sure hope they do. Leveling was a bit too fast, but now its WAY to slow.

I also discovered they drastically increased the cost to undo character choices, which I believe is a HUGE mistake; particularly in the first 15 or so levels. The old cost structure allow you to almost always be able to go back and revise your level several selections. One of my favorite parts of the game was the customization and ability to adjust those choices. As of last night, that aspect of the game is gone and if not adjusted back in some way I know it will limit my ability to enjoy the game as much as I had before.

What I would suggest is:

• Allow undoing back to the first choice.
• Return to the cheaper “undo” costs for the last 10 selection the character made.
• Use the new costs for any undos after 10.
• Provide a RMTs which provide complete respec for either zero or 50% discounts of in game cost.

Before the XP and respec costs had gone into place, I was having a great time in the game and really looking forward to some super heroic action.  Now not so much. The beta closes today and I really believe the game needed at least another week in open beta, if not two.

Star Wars the Old Republic

Last week brought with it some gameplay footage from the Old Republic. Being marketing video cynic that I am, I don’t want to read to much into this footage yet the Star Wars and Knights of the Old Republic fanboy in me screams for joy.   My balance reaction; it does in fact look a lot like how I imagined a KotR MMO would look. That is enough for me to want to play it, and to simply enjoy the footage for what it is and not read to much more into it.

World of Warcraft

I took most of the last week off from the game, logging in each day simply to work on a couple of daily quests. It was a good break, one I need a bit more of I think.

Of course then there was the all the big WoW news that came out of blizzcon. I am not about to list everything off, there are plenty of other sites out there doing that.  What I will say is, whoa! Go Blizzard.

There is a bunch of “new” stuff in the actual expansion, but the changing of the world I feel is the most significant, and they said it will be available for everyone. That is a huge free* content patch for everyone. Reshaping and remaking much of the old world and providing a good chunk of that content outside of an expansion purchase, is a fantastic idea.

Of course if you buy the expansion you get all the other stuff, and it adds up to almost a whole new game. Heck, if Blizzard was any other company they would probably pull all the old vanilla, BC, and wrath boxes off store shelves and simply sell a single title which includes everything for $50.  Of course they are Blizzard, and can probably continue to get away with selling individual expansions.

Let me get back on track. They have not mentioned a release date, but I would not expect to see this xpack until Fall 2010 which gives me at least a year to see the old world one more time. Dlangar has mentioned to me, and has now posted, about taking and documenting one last casual tour of the old world; I think this is a great idea. I am not sure I want to take the time right now to level up from scratch again before getting to play a new race. Instead I am toying around with doing something like a memory book. One in which I take some pictures of old world places I have big memories of and writing up a bit of history with each image. No promises, but I think it would be fun.

So overall:
Patch 3.3 – sounds good
Cataclysm event – Great idea
Cataclysm expansion – Sounds as though there is enough new stuff to be worth the money.