Returning to the City of Heroes

So in case anyone was wondering (Narrator: “Nobody was wondering”), yes, I have been playing a lot of City of Heroes on the rogue Homecoming server.

Wow.

There’s that old phrase that you can’t go home again, but diving back into CoX has been just gobsmacking fun that feels completely natural. Are the graphics a bit out of date? Sure. But the gameplay is as good as ever, the rich backdrop and fun social aspects are all there, and it’s been a huge treat (and, of course, time suck).

The backstory

After NCSoft shut down CoX in 2012, apparently some clever folk calling themselves SCoRE (Secret Cabal of Reverse Engineers) backward-engineered a bunch of stuff and got the game running, on a private server accessed by a handful of players. The secret came out this past spring by one of the players finally squeeed too loudly about it and it became openly known — and SCoRE then distributed their code to anyone who wanted it, ensuring it couldn’t be stamped out.

Probably the most widely known of theses servers are running under a common label of “Homecoming,” and that’s where Margie and I are playing (on the Everlasting shard, for those interested). The Homecoming crew has been in negotiations with NCSoft to allow them to continue and not get a cease-and-desist; so far NCSoft has been holding back, almost certainly because they realize that the djinn is out of the bottle and stomping on the “out” servers won’t keep others from loading up the same code in private. In return, the Homecoming folk have been quietly reimposing some of the IP restrictions NCSoft had to keep themselves out of trouble with other companies (so sorry, Wolverclaws dude).

All of this means’ things are precarious. The servers could be shut down a legal order at any instant, zapping all the characters rolled up and played. The servers themselves could be taken down if the money isn’t there to maintain them (though the public donations to cover costs tend to close within a day each month after folks have contributed).

We found out about this in August or so (waves at Lorne), and first I and then Margie hopped on, and it’s become a regular feature of entertainment during the week and weekends.

The development and servers themselves seem reasonably sturdy — occasional glitches but no more (or less) than the old days. There are five Homecoming servers, including one for European time zone. We’re usually on Everlasting (the RP shard, though that’s not why we chose it), and some of the most popular zones (Atlas, PI) occasionally get 2 instances at peak (which, given that zones are now capped at 50 people, says something); a glance right now at the server status shows 200-500 people on each, mostly hero/blue-side. Devs and petitions seem to respond quickly, and the forum has healthy participation.

What’s New?

There are some differences from back in the “Live” NCSoft days, mostly stemming from not being a for-profit endeavor. Here are the main ones:

Micropayment stuff is essentially free

All those special gifts, tools, VIP awards, purchase-this-expansion temp powers, etc? They are now all available from a vendor in the starting zones, many of them free, others available for Influence. Costume pieces that were expansion-specific, etc., are also all available to everyone, with costume revamp tokens readily available.

Thus, everyone can start with the Nemesis Staff or Blackwand. Everyone can get a sprint aura, and minor super-sprint power. Everyone can get a jump pack. And, once you’re off and running, you can spend influence for temp flying power (starting at 5000 inf/30 minutes), or a Summon the Team, or a Mission Teleporter.

The result is that the lower levels have some serious non-grindy aids for everyone, and you don’t really have to settle on a travel power until much later (though this, too, is not an issue, see below).

Margie and I started playing on “Live” (the old NCSoft days) on Issue 3, so we had all the VIP and expansion goodies. That gave us a big Quality of Life leg up on other players. That’s all equalized now, and it’s a Good Thing.

Experience Is Easy

Everyone hates the grind. Alt-oholics hate it even more, along with having to churn through the same content over and over again.

This problem is solved in two mechanisms.

The Play2Win contact in Atlas (and Mercy) can sell you, for free, “No Influence, just XP” boosts, up to 8 one-hour boosts at a time, in 25%, 50%, and 100% varieties. Assuming you have other tactics to churn up influence in the early game (or higher alts to gift it), it’s easy-peasey to crank up to 100%, so that you get no influence, but double the XP rate. Most people play that way all the way to 50.

Throw in two low-level trials: Death from Below (DFB) for 1-20ish, and Drowning in Blood (DIB) for 15-25. You can almost always find a DFB running, and it’s easy to start one, and they run about 15-20 minutes, and at 100% XP increase, you’ll level 3-4 times per run.

That is to say, with an hour, two tops, you’ll have your shiny starter character up to lvl 15, which is where things start to get fun anyway. Run a (harder) DIB or two, or a couple of Positron TFs before that if you’re old school, and they’ll hit 20 easy. At which point more enjoyable content and still more TFs and Trials are available (including nightly-at-least Rikti Mothership Raids, which I’ll get a 2-6 level boost out of for a 90 minute investment in button mashing).

This is arguably a mixed blessing — I have seen people kvetch that characters are leveling up too fast, good content is being missed, kids are on their lawns, I had to walk to school up-hill both ways in a blizzard, etc.

I can see the argument around content, and as someone who slooooowly ran dozens of characters from the ground up, it definitely sometimes feels like cheating (even if less aesthetically objectionable than AE fire farming).

But it’s undeniably fun, too, and there’s Incarnate stuff to do once you hit 50 or, if you’re like me, a dozen other alts to continue to play, all of which are easily gotten to a “am I really enjoying this build?” quickly enough to feel free to experiment.

All the content is still there. Nobody’s forced to skip anything. Nobody’s compelled to run anything, either. And, to be honest, the rate of reward feels just about right for me.

An Embarrassment of Power Slots

Another pair of game changers are powers you don’t have to take.

In one of the later issues, the restrictions on travel powers was lifted. Until then, you couldn’t get a major travel power until 14, and as a prereq you had to take a minor power from its pool beforehand. Thus you had a lot of folk with Hover and Combat Jump, etc.

That restriction got removed toward the end of the pay run, and in the current Homecoming game you can take a major travel power at 4, with no pre-req. (Ironically, the P2W items and low-level experience boost mean you can skip getting a travel power to much later, though I find it convenient enough for TFs to take a travel power by the time I finish a DFB cycles set.)

Another time/power saver is that the Fitness pool — Health, Stamina, Swift, Hurdle — all come standard on the character. You have to still buy additional slots (including the ED-driven total of 3 on Stamina), but you don’t have to take those powers as part of a level-up. That’s really significant because most people ended up taking one or more of those in the old days, and had to take them instead of an interesting alternative.

So that’s five power slots freed up for … moar powers!

The only disadvantage to this is that, for some of my alts, I’ve found myself scratching my head as to what the hell to take next. Even with the other and expanding pool powers, epic pools, etc., I’ve found it easy to build out a character to where I want and find other powers superfluous. (If only there were a way to trade in power levels for slot levels!)

But that’s a good problem to have, I think.

Change Is A Constant

For those who remember the Good Old Days, remember running actual mission chains to change costumes? Or the Terra Volta respec trial to change powers?

You still can, but you really don’t need to.

Everyone starts off with 10 costume slots, all of them populated with your original costume. You still have to pay influence to make costume changes, but it’s dead simple to do that. There are missions to get tailor tokens (which don’t have to be used at the tailor) to do the costume changes for free, and more are rewarded with levels, so, combined with all the costume parts from all the expansions available to everyone, it’s easier than ever to play paper dolls. And fun.

Power respecs are similarly fun. You can still do the trial, but you also get them free a couple of times while you are leveling, and I believe you can buy them with influence. Which is all fine — there’s no game-play reason not to be able to say, “Damn, I took a crap power” and fix it.

All Your Base Is Belong To Us

Supergroup bases were a huge thing in the original CoX, but also a pain — everything cost SG influence, there was a monthly rent, and the utility was pretty limited outside the SG.

The current Homecoming setup has free bases — no cost for decorating or items or power, no rent. Which is nice — it’s less effort without losing anything needful. Again, I’ve heard some folk complaining that it makes it too easy for a 1- or 2-person SG to be created with its own base (essentially a personal base), which in turn reduces the socializing that SGs can do.

There’s some merit in that argument, but the reality is that people who want that sort of socializing and/or RP opportunity can still seek it out (and there’s a lot of RP out there), but those who don’t … now don’t have to.

There’s also a convenient /altinvite command to invite a named alt of yours into your SG. That saves some time, let me tell you.

At present, there’s also a command to enter the base through a passcode, allowing a base teleport button to be created as a macro. (When you exit out you exit in the same place where you entered.) This also means you can share your base easily with others, which can be convenient for transportation on TFs, or allows people to hold events in their SG base for other (I see a lot of both). There’s word that this functionality was not intended for public use, but I hope the devs don’t reel it back.

Because there’s no rent or power consumption, our base is fully stocked with crafting tables and shelves, but, more importantly, teleporters to anywhere.  Which leads to …

I’m a Travellin’ Man

As I mentioned, back when we first started playing CoH, it was Issue 3. Travel powers weren’t available until a long, grinding level 14. It was back when the Hollows and Perez Park were de rigueur for up and coming heroes to fight through. It was back when sprinting through town was a common thing to do — and a common cause of face-planting in more hazardous city zone. It was a time when knowing where the connections between zones through the War Walls was essential.

Oh, yeah, there was also the tram system. Which was actually two tram systems, for (as I recall) upper and lower level zones, with the double trams in Skyway and Steel (and maybe IP) bridging the difference. Which meant getting from Talos to Atlas was, frankly, a pain in the ass.

Now? Well, the travel power and tram system issues are fixed. People have base transporters (which deposit you in locations in zones of varying convenience), to the extent that some folk just post their base entry codes publicly to let folk come in. There’s also cross-zone passage through the Midnighter Club, through Pocket D, through Ourobous, through the Wentworth travel power, through the TUNNEL system …

The fact is, except in rare circumstances, there is almost always a way from Point A to Point B, often several, and it’s more a matter of optimizing paths or even remembering them than struggling to get there. Which, frankly, does occasionally wrankle when I think of those long, long jogs and how Kids These Days^TM don’t have to suffer like we did … but, much more often, just feels like the right way for things to be.

Most of this was in place before the 2012 shutdown, but some was brand-new and some was more focused on VIP players

New Content, New Powers

On the Homecoming servers we’re already getting new content (a couple of mission arcs) and some powers that were in development when NCSoft pulled the plug. We’ve also gotten the Sentinel archetype (I don’t believe that came out during the original “Live” game), which is a true and enjoyable blapper AT (probably my favorite at the moment). We even have a new zone (Kallisti Wharf, a mixed hero/villain for the 40s level). The game is presently in Issue 26, after having shut down in Issue 24.

One interesting development here is that, as the back-engineered code that Homecoming is using is actually part of a broader community, there are other CoX servers not under the Homecoming banner that have been forking off different development priorities. Which is actually kind of cool, in terms of seeing what works and what’s popular.

Net-Net?

Frankly, it all feels good and comfortable. No subscription fee (just donations that I hardly ever get a chance to make because they get what they need to keep the servers running so quickly), no micro-transactions, lots of Quality of Life settings, and so lots of opportunities to play and have fun.

So what have we been doing?

I do a fair amount of solo play, but Margie and I duo regularly (it still remains one of the best games out there for duoing, even without the Level Pact stuff working yet / again / ever). We’ve reestablished the Consortium of Justice on the Everlasting server (I’m @3StarDave, if you’re interested in reaching out), and have some of our old duos back in action — Torchielle and Hildegard dinged 50 a few months back, our highest, but Mighty Psiclone and Amorphau (neither of our original names were available) are out there in their 30s, and we have a few others, too.

For myself, I’ve both rebooted some characters I had before (Al McGordo, Ms Crackle, Saucy Jack), but also a lot of new ones. Blood Charade (a Dual Pistols/Ninjitsu Sentinel) was my first to hit 50, but my Loki-alike[1], Prince Shenanigans (Illusion/Time Controller, badge “Sibling Rivalry”) just hit 50 last night, and Milady Zebra (Martial Arts/Regen Scrapper) is at 46.  I have (you will be shocked) another 2-3 dozen alts, at all levels and most ATs[2], so no matter my mood or what TF/radio team mish/etc. is being solicited in the LFG channel, I always have someone suitable.

I’ve been playing steadily since August, and I’m still getting a kick out of seeing things I haven’t seen for while, and discovering new things I’ve never tried.

By having our own SG for the two of us (well, three, since James has a character), it means we don’t socialize quite as much, but we also avoid the drama llamas that we all recall with a shudder. And for my solo characters, there’s a rich RP community on Everlasting, and frequent PUGs for missions and TFs, enough for me to play and socialize to the degree I want.

Will the game continue to improve? Will it get shut down? Will I get tired of it someday?

Maybe. In the meantime, I’m really enjoying it. Here’s hoping for another long run for City of Heroes.

Do you want to know more? The Homecoming Forums

[1] An homage, not a real IP ripoff. No TMed IP is actually used. Honest.
[2] I have yet to make a Stalker, nor have I played with any of the Squiddies or Arachnos types (EATs/VEATs) this time out. Yet.