We managed to get hold of the extremely busy Bill Roper this week for a chat about the upcoming Champions Online expansion, Revelation. You can see our coverage so far but, for now, here’s what Champions’ design director had to say about the game’s new content: Vibora Bay will be for level 37-40 characters, so it’s great to see end game players get more to play through. Besides Therakiel’s Temple, what else will there be for players in the new area?
Over 80 missions between the Crisis and Vibora Bay zones that (along with Therakiel’s Temple) comprise between 15 – 20 hours of new game play.
Six new Tier 4 meta-powers
Five new enemy groups – Sovereign Sons, Trey Kings, New Shadows, Dogz, and Nephilim.
Over 30 new perks, including new ways to achieve older, difficult to achieve perks.
Numerous new costume pieces and an entirely new complete Apocalypse costume sets.
Dozens of new high-end items, a new PvP Luchador costume set, and more!
Revelation was originally due to be a paid content pack but will now be free. Why did you change this, and can players expect other future updates of this size to be free as well? If not, how much can players expect to pay for future content?
Our desire has always been to give this to our players. We know that they’ve been asking for alternate ways to level their heroes, and have expressed the desire for more end-game and group content. By providing this mega adventure pack, we hope it shows our dedication to both Champions Online and our players. We’re genuinely excited that after months of work, we’re going to be able to get this into their hands. It’s been great to work on and we hope that our heroes have as much playing it as we have making it.
As soon as we launch Revelation, we are creating a variety of missions in different areas of the existent game. This is to give some immediate alternatives to lower-level heroes, and smooth out the levelling curve even more. We’ll then follow this up with our new Adventure Packs that are more long and focused storylines. The Adventure Packs are designed as regular, free content updates to the game to be released every couple of months or so. They are smaller in size than Revelation, but will be more frequent and cover a much wider range of levels so that almost any hero can play them immediately. When we’re closer to the release of the first pack, we’ll make sure to let the community and press know when to expect it.
Will the new costume pieces from Revelations be available in the C-Store?
The vast majority of new costume pieces are a part of the Revelation expansion and are free to our players that earn them through perks and missions. The entire Apocalypse costume set will be unlocked just for getting into Vibora Bay. We will be introducing two new costume sets into the C-Store that aren’t directly associated with Revelation. These are the ones that our community told us they wanted in our forums, so expect to see the Symbiote / Plant and Crystalline Armor sets around the time that Revelations launches there.
Will players be able to access the bank, auction house and trainers in Vibora Bay?
Of course! Although it has a distinct Southern charm and mystical roots, it also has all the amenities of a high-tech place like Millennium City. The buildings in Vibora Bay do have a very different architectural style, so it will be great for players to explore and get used to their new surroundings.
Does Revelation contain anything new for PvPers, aside from new skills?
We have ideas for hooks for new PvP areas within Revelation, but we haven’t activated them yet. We wanted to really focus on dialing in the tons of new PvE elements before we pushed any PvP content. We don’t have a timeline for these new ideas, but keep an eye out on our forums and website for more information as time goes on.
Can players expect any Nemesis action in Vibora Bay?
We haven’t added new Nemesis missions within Vibora Bay, but again we have ideas for where the hooks will go.
Who is Robert Caliburn, and why does Therakiel think he’s the turning point of the battle?
Caliburn, also known as the Magnum Mage, has the potential to be the next Archmage – the only one powerful enough to stand against Therakiel. A man possessed of this power could be an invaluable ally or a devastating enemy. The half-angel / half-demon Therakiel needs to know what side of the coin Caliburn rests on so he can turn him or destroy him.
You mentioned in your recent State of the Game Report that you’d like to be creating adventure packs for heroes of any level in the near future. How is that coming along?
We’re going to start working on the first of these as soon as we launch Revelation. We’ll definitely keep everyone informed as to how they’re progressing when we get rolling on them.
Published: Mar 15, 2010 01:20 pm