The old launcher eventually did work for me. I left it going when I went to work and it was done by the time I got home. But I got pulled into EVE and didn’t get a chance to play. I’m not really all that excited about doing the parts of the game I’ve done before and having it all wiped away again, so not sure I’ll be playing the beta. Maybe I will make some heroes and save their costumes….

Yes, you are wrong about this. Both preordering or having a Fileplanet subscription gets you a guaranteed beta spot. If you are neither and still want in, you can still apply at Fileplanet, because they hand out their remaining beta keys if they weren’t all picked up by the subscribers.

If you are stuck in the patcher, you probably still got the original, not working version of the client. Best solution is a complete uninstall of that one, downloading the new and improved (improved as in now actually working) version of the client, and installing that one.

And while you are at it, you might want to connect a gamepad to your PC, preferably an XBox controller for PC. That makes it a lot easier to realize what Champions Online really is: A console MMORPG. If you expect a classic PC MMORPG, you might end up disappointed.

As to “beta events”, they are a total joke these days. I’ve been in several this year and most were nothing but preview events. Aion, which is already released in Asia, but they did work on fixing the English translation section and will apparently take player feedback in mind (please fix or remove Gameguard!). Free Realms, which pretty much ignored the players (as they continue to do) as bugs I reported in beta are still in the game, even after repeated reporting of them since release. And so on. Just call them “preview events”, how can they be “beta” when the games have already gone gold and are being boxed and shipped during the “beta”?

Love the comics you do from the various MMO games (Monopoly too) and the daily blog updates are great. Thanks for taking the time to do them!