Apparently you have not read the news... Spring Design is claiming in a lawsuit that B&N stole the idea from the Nook from them. Please forgive me if you are being sarcastic and this was a reference to said lawsuit.

From the requirements:

"Has to have one head, two legs and two arms -- or in other words humanoid."

As long as it is humanoid in body frame it qualifies. To be honest, in all my tinkering with the character creator I am not sure it is possible to make a non-humonoid, as you will always have: one head, two arms and two legs. Even adding in Animal, Robotic, Supernatural, or Alien body pieces are still going to leave you with that same basic body frame. Some examples of what I mean:

http://www.champions-online.com/rate_my_champion/462164
http://uploads.champions-online.com/co_screen_080409_01.jpg (Demon is a PC)
http://uploads.champions-online.com/CO_Screen_041009_16.jpg (Dragon is a PC)

@ Skypp

First off, many MT items will be earnable in-game, including may costume pieces with Mission Arcs, Perks and PvP awards. And these are on top of the already insane amount of costume options available at the start of the game, which makes CoX look like most Fantasy MMO options.

Second, your lifetime sub pays for itself in 13-14 months and essentially the rest of your play is free. I played CoX for 3 years paying out a total of $540 when you add up my total monthly fees. Even if I find alot of items in the store I like I doubt I would ever spend the amount I paid for CoX just to play.

Third, I am amazed at how many people are screaming about a sub MMO having MT, when practically every other MMO has the same thing except they bundle it and have you pay for it in an expansion. I would rather pick and choose which new costume pieces I get and leave the rest.

@CCon99

Your confusing Mission Instances with Zone Instances. Mission Instances are designed for solo, group or raid play and the limit is in place so the challenges can be designed and scaled appropriately. It is no different than any setup in other MMOs. You can plan guild events like any other game ,as everyone on your "Team" will be able to enter the instance, while excluding everyone else. World or Zone Instances on the other hand are not even close to that limit based on my beta play.

I have read through several pages of comments here and there seems to be a a fairly consistent argument from those against CO's version of micro-transactions. It seems most people that are mad at this setup are complaining about a few basic things:

"Why should I have to pay more for content on top of my subscription?"

"Why are my costume options limited to how much money I want to spend?"

"Cryptic is price-gouging me. Monthly subscription and now MT to get everything that is available for the game."

Now if these were true statements, I would be behind these folks 100% with my support. But the simple fact of the matter is this: Cryptic has stated if it can be purchased with Cryptic Bucks, it can be earned in game.

You want that cool laser gun in the store for your Tech-Based characters, but you don't want to spend the money for it? Go complete the Mission or Perk that earns it for you. Eyeing those cloven feet for your Supernatural character, but don't have the time to work for it in-game because you are a family man/woman and play very casually? Go buy it. All Cryptic has done is offer more options to their player base with this setup. Are they gonna earn extra money from MT? Of course. Does it have to come from you if you don't want it to? No. Are you going to miss out on content if you never step into the store? No.

Bottom line is you don't lose out on anything with this model.

"However, no open beta yet, an offer to be in open beta for the price of pre-ordering the game, no game demo presence at San Diego comicon..."

There is no open beta yet, because the game was set to be out mid-July and when the game got pushed back to the start of September they decided to add in a bunch of stuff that was going to be put off til the first big Issue update or whatever they are gonna call them. They don't want to put out something that may not reflect the retail release. BTW the push back release date is due to the heavy negotiations with MS on the X-Box version.

"no subscription price announcement yet, a hybrid pricing model drama..."

There is no article interviews about this, but I can make an educated guess that it has to do with the fact the X-Box pricing has not been nailed down and Cryptic wants to release all the pricing info together so it makes sense and people can make an informed decision on which format to get the game. As for the hybrid model that is not entirely correct. It is a standard sub-based model, the micro-transactions are purely cosmetic, see my post above.

"Is it me or Cryptic seem to be not very confident in their game to show it even now, I am not sure why, but this entire closed lipped policy stinks of fail."

I doubt any lack of confidence, simply from how excited us beta testers (like myself), staff and devs are about this game. In all honesty, I have never had as much fun in an MMO as I have had with this game. For reference, I have played EQ1, CoX, AoC, Eve, Anarchy Online and WoW. I still play EQ2.

Does no one check for articles about the Micro-Transactions before they post. The Cryptic bucks are usable for any games Cryptic puts out (Champions, Star Trek, etc.) and can be used to apply to a monthly subscription, purchase real retail items (hats, shirt, etc.)

For in-game purchases, they are for cosmetic additions:
> Costume pieces
> Character animations
> Vanity pets
> Equipable items

Cryptic Studios has said most of these can be earned in-game through normal casual play. There will be no advantage to MT spending customers.

Possibly because he was a driving force in Blizzard (specifically with Diablo and Starcraft) before he went out on his own. He does fine being part of a team, just not running it. He was too ambitious in what he wanted to do with London and spread himself out too much. That's not possible in this situation as Cryptic is making decisions on what can and cannot be done for the start of this MMO based on their previous work with CoH/CoV.

Your analogy is very short-sighted... its like saying I don't know why someone would think this Asst Coach of X pro championship team can win another game after losing their last one.

Not sure if anyone has broken down how much it costs per FPS on each card, but I did and here are the results I came up with:

Top 3 (30+ FPS)
GeForce 9600 GT at $4.85 per frame
GeForce 8800 GT at $5.59 per frame
GeForce 8800 GTS 512 at $6.71 per frame

Top 3 (40+ FPS)
Radeon HD 3850 CF at $6.60 per frame
GeForce 9800 GTX at $7.56 per frame
Radeon HD 3870 x2 at $7.96 per frame

Top 3 (50+ FPS)
GeForce 9600 GT SLI at $5.93 per frame
Radeon HD 3870 CF at $6.60 per frame
GeForce 8800 GT SLI at $6.91 per frame

These are all calculated with the individual cards listed in the test. If you took the single cards and doubled them up your gonna see quite a bit of difference in the results.

Big money, big money... no whammies!!