Thirteen1: Free Video Games Magazine

It’s been a while since we last checked in with the guys over at Champions Online, and it looks like a lot of interesting things have happened while we were busy elsewhere.

If you ask us, it’s a perfect excuse to have a catch up chat with the game’s new Executive Producer – Shannon Posniewski.

How are things going with the game, now that the dust of launch has well and truly settled?

Launch went well, though you might remember us having a rocky time in February when we made a big game update. Now things are running great. A huge content update, “Revelation”, launched a few weeks ago and went very smoothly. We are now in a pretty good rhythm, fixing bugs, adding features, and creating content.

You’re now at the helm of Champions Online. How has the changeover, from Bill Roper to yourself, affected the project?

The biggest change is due to where we are in the lifecycle of Champions. We’ve launched and made a big content update. Now we’re focusing on systems that our players feel need to be improved. For example, it was hard to team up and keep teamed up, so we’re updating a variety of things on that front. I’m also trying to get into a steady cadence of updates for Champs. Every month-to-six-weeks, we plan on having an update. Every other update will be quality of life and system updates. The other updates will be Adventure Packs.

Adventure Packs are great big story arcs, with multiple missions, locations and bosses. Any hero level 11 and above can go on the adventure. Adventure Packs will scale to the team’s level and size, so everybody can have fun with it. Players can replay the adventures as well.

We’re a lot more involved with our players than we were before. We’re going to them and asking them what they’d like to see in Champs and how we can improve the game.

You recently announced that the console version of Champions was no longer on the agenda. As someone who was looking forward to finally having a serious console MMO, could you give us a little insight on why this choice was made?

We are also disappointed that the console version of Champions didn’t work out. It would have required a significant development effort to finish the work we had begun; there’s a big step between functioning and being good on the console. We didn’t want to ship it unless it was good. The business side just didn’t work out.

Revelation is set in a new permanent city zone called Vibora Bay. It has an unusually high degree of supernatural activity: strange occurrences, esoteric magic, strange creatures, and much more. Many psychics have said that Vibora Bay is the place where the Apocalypse will happen– and they were right. When your hero first enters the city, he starts at ground zero of the Apocalypse. Nearly all the heroes have been killed in the battle. With some help, you go back in time to try to avert the disaster.