Wow that was fast…

As readers of my blog will know, I tried the Open Beta Test of Champions Online back in August. My view of it was not very favorable, and my gut instinct after that weekend was to beg off.  However, a good friend of mine was really into it, and for some reason I found, after Open Beta (OB) ended and the pre-launch period began, that I was missing it.  I’m not even sure what aspect of it I missed, to be honest. But I turned it over in my mind for the time between OB and Launch (on Sept 1) and decided that I’d go ahead and get it (as I explain in the comments of that first post).

I played the game for about two months, and I have to say for the first 10 levels or so, the first maybe 10 days, it was fun.  Then as I got into the higher levels, all the flaws I had noticed in OB started to reassert themselves — or rather, they’d been there all along but the shiny newness of the game and in particular the fun of gaming with a friend of 30 years again, obscured those faults.  I won’t get into the flaws here, as I’ve already discussed those in my earlier post.

Again, if you’ve read my blog, you know that I am a roleplayer, and that I usually try to find a roleplay-oriented guild (or in CO/COH parlance, “Supergroup”) to join, as I find that enhances the experience. And so right away, I went looking for RP organizations in CO. I found a site called “Champions Online Roleplayers”, or CORP, and they had a listing of supergroups.  I looked around for one that matched both my style and my character’s, and I found one. It seemed fairly active, and had a simple enough application process, so I applied to them.  I had an interview/RP session in a day or so, and was duly accepted into the team.  They were good people, and I had fun with them for a few weeks, until the game wore on me to the point that I started logging in only for the RP sessions. And while those are good, I’ve been down this road before, and I know enough that once I stop playing the game for its own system, it’s time to go.  I canceled my account yesterday, and thus ends my adventure into the Champions Online arena. I doubt if I’ll be back, but you never know.

Now, that’s not what the title (“That was fast”) is about.  The interesting thing about this guild, and the thing that was “fast”, is the vast difference in speed between joining and leaving it.  Although the application/approval process only took a couple of days, it took them something like a week and a half to get my board permissions set up. I had to ask repeatedly, and finally after the third or fourth time it was rectified. In the mean time, for the first 10 or so days I was on the guild, I could not read any of the private areas of the guild forum, despite the fact that I was entitled (conceptually, if not in “forum code bits”).  So, it took them a really long time (relatively speaking) to get the board permissions changed for “off” to “on.”

What I find interesting, and more than a little ironic, is how much faster they were at revoking my permissions when I informed them of my departure. I want to be clear that I left under no acrimony whatsover. I never said or posted anything negative there about the game (and I don’t think they know that this blog is in any way connected with my login on their forum, as the names are not related, and I’ve never mientioned it).  I have never said anything negative about the game on their in-game chat channels. So even though I was thinking highly critical thoughts about Cryptic Studios and Champions Online, they could not have known about those, and I had not done anything to upset anyone in the slightest (so far as I know).  I participated in their RP and my relationship with them was 100% friendly. I point this out because they had no reason to suspect, as one might suspect with an acrimonious split, that I might post anything vile or do anything damaging to their forums.  And yet, literally within a few hours of posting my very simple resignation — a resignation in which, even on the point of departure, I did not criticize the game, citing only a “lack of time” as the reason for leaving — my posting status had been changed to “retired.”  I realized this mainly because the number of visible forums upon logging in changed from morning to afternoon. At that point, I thought, “Wow, that was fast!”

I want to make it clear, that I have no problem with them revoking my membership status. They should have done so, and I don’t mind that it was done at once.  It shows they are on the ball. But I thought it was slightly humorous that they were so efficient at revoking membership, while they were so slow at awarding it.  It seems to me they’d be better off doing the reverse.  When a new player comes in, you want that player active and involved ASAP. At once. You don’t want the player to have to wait days, or more than a week, to be able to read guild posts or make posts himself.  Although I liked the group there was a general lack of efficiency in the admin corps, and I wonder if this doesn’t show why — they’ve got their priorities a bit skewed, perhaps.

At any rate, both my membership status change, and more generally my membership in both guild and game, were pretty fast. And now I’m looking for something else to fill the time with (game-wise). For now I am trying to work on a Sims 3 Legacy. I’ve never taken one past the 3rd generation. We’ll see how it goes.