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And we heard more about the PvP system going into Champions Online at this year’s New York Comic-Con from Executive Producer Bill Roper. In this video, Bill talks about “The Arena” where players can go in and join an “underground movement” where players will receive specific items and abilities for facing off against each other. He also briefly mentions rankings and the whole concept becoming a “sports setting.”

It’s this last comment that truly has me excited about the PvP in Champions Online. I hope – and I strongly emphasize the world *hope* - that Cryptic doesn’t take the lazy way out and simply design the Champions “Arena” to function like another famous “Arena” setting in another well-populated MMO. To truly make the PvP pop in CO, the developers are going to need to offer players a variety of formats to compete in such as 1v1, 2v2, 4v4, and 6v6, along with some other formats that play up to the strengths of the Champions Online combat system. Each of these formats should have its own “titles” to hand out to the top ten monthly combatants along with prizes and other rewards for individuals that put some major time into their Arena system.

Speaking of top ten combatants, leaderboards should be included in the official release of these PvP arenas. Every twenty-four hours, players should be able to go online and check out where their current ranking is compared to the overall server, the entire game, and their friends list. Rankings should include other things besides just matches won and lost. Damage inflicted and taken should certainly be on the list, as well as “die hard” type lists that show players that have the best death-to-kill ratio.

In general, the Cryptic developers simply need to make sure that if they’re truly going to do PvP, they need to do it right. PvP combatants want to know exactly how the stack up in a competition against their friends and rivals. Guilds should be able to emerge around the concept of “being the best PvP team” on a particular server. Even without super villains, heroes should be able to compete – and despise – one another if their rankings are disrupted by an opposing team. After all, players in Champions Online truly want to be champions, after all.

And you certainly have a chance to be a champion in Cryptic's game. If you haven't already, go head over to their website and sign up for the beta test. That way at least you can voice your opinions on PvP to the developers.

What ideas do you have to make Champions an excellent PvP game? How can they make their arena system really stand out compared to PvP in other games? Let us know on the forums, then make sure you come back next week for another issue of In the Trenches.