Exclusive: Champions Online challenges players to take on the Forum Malvanum

Champions Online players have just braved a full-scale invasion in the appropriately named Lemurian Invasion event. So now the superheroes of Millennium City get to take a long weekend and possibly head to the beach, right? Hardly. A new challenge approaches in the form of the upcoming Forum Malvanum event, throwing heroes into a pitched arena battle run by a mysterious alien race. But it's not quite what you might think.

The aliens behind these gladiatorial games have been running challenges across the galaxy for quite some time, and they've now invited Earth's champions to participate. Should the heroes emerge victorious, they'll reap the rewards of galaxy-spanning wealth and power. Not that you can expect the games of an intergalactic race obsessed with bloodsports to be particularly fair...

Leaving aside the perpetual nightmare that is a superhero's life, this even promises to offer several additions for players. Aside from the almost mandatory new lockbox, the event will contain new content including an arena showdown and a mission focused around a high-speed race. We also had a chance to sit down and ask producer Tom Edwards a few more questions about the upcoming event. Read on!
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Massively: Is the Champions Online team aiming to keep up a steady pattern of events at this point, with each new event following on the heels of its predecessor?

Tom Edwards: Exactly that. We've got a sequence of story arcs that will be running for most of the year, possibly up to the end of the year, that'll follow the Lemurian Invasion model of constant releases. We'll usually have a short cooldown period between these arcs, but it won't be a long wait until the next event starts.

Is the addition of a race meant as the foundation of a set of racing-based content or just a one-off?

This is planned as just a one-off. The race fits in perfectly with the Forum Malvanum concept, so this story arc is a good home for it, but we're committed to bringing these events back on a rolling basis, so players will still be able to get their racing fix in the future.

A lot of players have been asking for new endgame content; can those players look forward to anything in particular during the event?

The content for this story arc is planned to be for just about any level. The Forum Malvanum story arc is about fun and four-color heroics, so we're trying to make it as inclusive as possible.

Any idea how long players will have to take part in this particular event?

We haven't set the final duration, but our usual cycle is a six-week story arc, from the first release to the final mission's release, and the final mission will probably stay around for three weeks after release.

Thanks for your time, Tom!

When readers want the scoop on a launch or a patch (or even a brewing fiasco), Massively goes right to the source to interview the developers themselves. Be they John Smedley or Chris Roberts or anyone in between, we ask the devs the hard questions. Of course, whether they tell us the truth or not is up to them!