I have a lifetime Gold subscription to Champions Online, which I bought...I forget, roughly when DCUO came out. Yeah, I hated DCUO so badly I decided to give money to the competition.
More broadly, though - like many of you, I knew if I was going to play CO, I wanted it to be with Freeform and not Archetype. Aside from being able to replicate particular concepts, I genuinely enjoy the game's combat and build system. Cryptic also keeps it up to date, with power tweaks, addition of new powers, and so on. They still do this, so it's good ongoing support that I approve of.
The second reason I went lifetime Gold was the RP community. There's a good one. CORP is the OOC global channel, and Champions RP is the in-character channel, treated as an official radio frequency used by superheroes. The folks from CORP and other RPers are pretty awesome. A lot are former Virtue and Union players. That community is still in place, and going strong. CORP and Champions RP are typically private channels, an unfortunately necessary move to prevent griefing in more recent days. CORP is now temporarily open for anyone to join without needing a mod invite, as a welcome to people shifting over from City of Heroes. Champions RP still needs you to contact a CORP channel mod. http://championsonlineroleplayers.shivtr.com/ I recommend CORP. They're good people.
However, the final reason I went lifetime Gold was...well, at the time, CO was releasing Adventure Packs and then later Comic Series stories - a cut above the existing writing in the game's normal quests, and drawing more heavily on Champions RPG sourcebook lore. But the last major story release was in December last year, and we're not likely to see anything new until next year at the earliest. 2012 has only really seen the Alert system - bite-sized short missions, not complex storytelling. This is a major turn-off for me.
TL;DR - Freeform is worth going Gold for, and I'll design builds for you if you need help. The RP community in Champions is excellent, on par with Virtue. But the ongoing and future release of good story arc content? Prospects aren't good right now.
-- Acyl
More broadly, though - like many of you, I knew if I was going to play CO, I wanted it to be with Freeform and not Archetype. Aside from being able to replicate particular concepts, I genuinely enjoy the game's combat and build system. Cryptic also keeps it up to date, with power tweaks, addition of new powers, and so on. They still do this, so it's good ongoing support that I approve of.
The second reason I went lifetime Gold was the RP community. There's a good one. CORP is the OOC global channel, and Champions RP is the in-character channel, treated as an official radio frequency used by superheroes. The folks from CORP and other RPers are pretty awesome. A lot are former Virtue and Union players. That community is still in place, and going strong. CORP and Champions RP are typically private channels, an unfortunately necessary move to prevent griefing in more recent days. CORP is now temporarily open for anyone to join without needing a mod invite, as a welcome to people shifting over from City of Heroes. Champions RP still needs you to contact a CORP channel mod. http://championsonlineroleplayers.shivtr.com/ I recommend CORP. They're good people.
However, the final reason I went lifetime Gold was...well, at the time, CO was releasing Adventure Packs and then later Comic Series stories - a cut above the existing writing in the game's normal quests, and drawing more heavily on Champions RPG sourcebook lore. But the last major story release was in December last year, and we're not likely to see anything new until next year at the earliest. 2012 has only really seen the Alert system - bite-sized short missions, not complex storytelling. This is a major turn-off for me.
TL;DR - Freeform is worth going Gold for, and I'll design builds for you if you need help. The RP community in Champions is excellent, on par with Virtue. But the ongoing and future release of good story arc content? Prospects aren't good right now.
-- Acyl