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Behind the Mask: A long, slow, rumbling
One of the things I absolutely hate about comics is waiting. When I read Detective Comics regularly, I used to patiently wait while re-reading my old issues, wondering what was going to happen to Batman next. Eventually, I got into manga a little bit and was totally spoiled by the graphic novel format. Now I only read comics (or novel series) if I can get an entire plot arc in one shot. I hate waiting. Heck, I prefer to watch an entire TV season on Netflix instead of waiting for each episode to get released. Unsurprisingly, I played through the first three issues of Aftershock, Champions Online's new comic series, before I decided I was irritated with waiting every week for the latest issue. I was sort of put off by bugs in the first issue of the series, and I decided that waiting for the final release would give the devs time to polish out the bugs. New content is new content after all, and when it's released weekly, it doesn't get a lot of time on PTS before it gets pushed to live. Issue #6, The King is Dead, was released a few weeks ago, and the devs have put the finishing touches on Aftershock. How does it match up with the rest of CO's content?
Behind the Mask: Lighting the Lantern
This week, we're covering Champions Online's Serpent Lantern mini-expansion, currently available on the Public Test Server. Hot on the heels of the Super Power Pack, the Serpent Lantern added in a new story arc dealing with the international crime syndicate VIPER. As an additional perk, VIPER agents received a massive facelift and are now more interesting and challenging opponents. PvE in general had a few exciting changes. Teaming with friends got a moderate experience buff, and players can now set their mission difficulty to afford even tougher challenges while in instanced maps. Also updated in the new patch are the game's energy-generation mechanics, which have been heavily changed. Energy-per-second from attacks has been standardized, and energy gain from blocking was significantly altered. There's a lot of things to go over this time. Hit the jump and we'll get started.
Cryptic reveals Serpent Lantern Adventure pack
Cryptic Studios has announced a new Adventure Pack for their Champions Online superhero MMORPG. The Serpent Lantern pack will focus on VIPER, the worldwide criminal organization made famous in the Champions pen and paper RPG and now populating the NPC ranks of Cryptic's game. The update is tentatively scheduled for late May or early June. In Champions lore, the forces of VIPER were a thorn in the side of mere mortals and law enforcement types, but were something of a laughing stock when matched against super humans and super heroes. Cryptic looks to change all that with the update, and the announcement features a lengthy listing of changes intermingled with some story-based explanations. "VIPER forces throughout the game will change. We hope they'll be more interesting and fun to play, and not be quite the pushovers they are right now. You'll see these guys on PTS after the April Update goes Live. Let us know what you think," says Cryptic's Balserath in a post on the official forums.
