While not quite as whiz-bang as some expansions, I19 for CoX looks like it will have some fine features:
From the official overview page (abridged):
The Alpha Slot
Issue 19 unveils the long-awaited Alpha Slot*, the first part of the new Incarnate* system that gives high-level characters access to new powers and challenges.
[All the asterisked items require Going Rogue. Which is kind of interesting, though I understand it from the perspective of the Praetorian activity they have tied into it. Still, saying that you need GR in order to enhance your Level 50 will probably draw some fire.]
Unlocking the Alpha Slot is no easy task. Players must first learn what it means to exceed the definition of Hero or Villain to become an Incarnate. Mender Ramiel in Ouroboros guides players on this journey.
[From what I’ve read on the boards, there will be opportunities for soloists and small-groups (vs TF-sized groups) to do this.]
Two New Task Forces
Challenges already await new Incarnates. The Praetorians have begun their invasion of Primal Earth. Protecting Paragon City™ and the Rogue Isles™ from such overwhelming forces requires the greatest Heroes and Villains (as well as Rogues and Vigilantes) to work together. Two familiar faces will help in stopping the invasion: Apex and Tin Mage.
[It’s using the Praetorian invasion (great idea) that drives the GR requirement.]
New Auras
Issue 19 includes two free auras for all City of Heroes players. These auras are customizable.
Fireflies – Your character can be surrounded by glowing, tintable fireflies.
Snow – Celebrate winter and be showered by snow.
[Auras are always nice.]
Praetoria Zone Events*
Live events in Praetoria in which your Resistance or Loyalist character can participate:
[Okay, it took me a minute to realize that these are like the Events on the Hero and Villain side — Rikti invasions and Zombies and Ghost Ship and so forth. Good — Praetoria needed these.]
The Protest (Nova Praetoria): The angry citizens of Praetoria are staging a protest in Nova Praetoria. Will you join them or shut them down?
Syndicate Takedown (Imperial City): The PPD has found a cell of the Syndicate in the Agilecorp building. The two forces are at a standoff at the base of the building. If you hurry you can capture one of the Syndicate’s leaders.
The Great Escape (Neutropolis): One of the Failed Experiments has remained lucid and sane, and appears to have the ability to influence other Ghouls. Informants say he is eager to aid the Resistance in its war against the regime. Will you aid him in his escape? Or will you hunt him down now that he has escaped?
[And now for the announcement everyone’s been waiting for …]
Fitness Pool Powers are Inherent
Fitness Pool powers are now inherent powers granted to all new and existing characters starting from Level 2. All characters will be granted Swift, Hurdle, Health, and Stamina. These powers can be slotted and will accept the appropriate Enhancements.
Existing characters with these powers selected via Pool Powers will be able to gain the powers they have not previously taken via the normal leveling process. They will not gain access to any of the Inherent fitness powers until they Respec.
Upon using a Respec, the Fitness pool will not be selectable by the character and all 4 powers will be granted as Inherent Powers at level 2. This prevents issues with lost enhancements or slot allocation errors.
[I am guessing, of course, that everyone will get a Freespec with I19, just for this reason.
By the way, every Guide and Power Tracking Tool just shattered into a zillion pieces.
By the way, this is now TEH AWESOME. Unless they scale back dramatically what the powers do without slotting (or maybe for level) to make up for the fact that everyone now is regenning Health and Endurance faster, running faster, and jumping further.]
Alternate Power Animations
Now players can customize the animation for some characters’ powers. Shoot a Psychic Blast or even launch a Fire Breath from your character’s hands. Hurl an attack from one or both hands. Select the animations and customize how a character fires off its powers at any Tailor.
[Another “minor” change, but still very cool. Except for my dragon character, the whole “fire breath” thing always seemed stupid.]
The following powers have alternate animation choices:
Primary Sets: Dark Blast, Electric Blast, Energy Blast, Fire Blast, Radiation Blast, Ice Blast, Psychic Blast, Sonic Attack, Mind Control.
Secondary Sets or Powers: Psionic Assault, Sonic Resonance, Icy Assault, Fiery Assault, Mental Manipulation, Energy Assault, Electricity Manipulation, Integration.
[If only we could get alternate forms for the various blades. Never have liked the Fire blade powers.]
Primal Earth Characters Can Enter Praetoria
Non-Praetorians can journey to Praetoria* through Pocket D.
[Interesting. I wonder how the locals react. And I guess this means that Praetorians can return. Also, aside from touring, why would anyone go there — will there be missions that non-Praetorians can hook into, even if they are not immediately Resistance or Loyalist? And how do they get out again (and is that route available to Praetorians)?]
More Tip and Morality Missions
All City of Heroes characters can play and enjoy more Tip missions, while City of Heroes Going Rogue™ characters can choose from more missions* that impact a character’s alignment.
Other Enhancements
New Badges: We’ve added new Exploration badges for hazard zones.
Merged Monorails and Ferries: The Transit Authorities in Paragon City and the Rogue Isles have made major improvements to the monorail and ferry system by merging their respective routes. All monorails can now travel to every monorail station on the Green and Yellow Line, while all ferries can now travel to every ferry station in the Rogue Isles.
[That’s … I think that’s very cool. Certainly, once, I would have thought it fabulous. As it is now, though, it sort of makes any sort of street activity even less necessary than it once was, especially coupled with all the teleporting powers (Pocket D, Base Teleport, Action House teleport, the O, etc.).]
[Overall, a nice set of QoLs for I19, unless you’re dying for Level 50 TFs. Not a lot for non-GR owners. Not a huge amount of there there, but I’ll take it with a smile.]
Five years and the level cap hasn’t been raised? Wow!
Nope.
Honestly, this hasn’t bothered me as much as it has some. By the time I ding 50, I’m usually ready to roll up a new character, or go back to another one (chronic altitis). They’ve done a bit of stuff to provide activities for Lvl 50s, but we really haven’t pulled ours out to date to try it.
Not sure how much play we’ll give the new Alpha Slot material, but we’ll probably give it a try at some point.
I think that is one of the biggest differences between CoX and WOW/LOTRO. By expanding the content at all levels, not just the top, they encourage players to roll up new characters. This is supported by tons of character slots and hundreds of power combinations. It means that you can find experienced player at every level of the game. When new players join the game, they don’t have to grind to the level cap to get the new content that everyone is playing.
The other big difference is the reliance on door missions. In the new Praetroia content, I think there are only 3-4 hunt missions. (Maybe one per cardinal point path.)They introduced a nice change with the door missions in Praetoria. Buildings have names and most mission go to named buildings. When two people have mission X they are set in the same building, truck, or sewer entrance. You don’t have to check who has the closer mission.
For me, door missions are more enjoyable than hunt or open instance missions. I had a hunt 50 Carnie mission last night and I hated it. It just feel like farming or even LOTRO crop farming. Harvest Carnies in the 5 main spawn point and then wait for them to respawn and start over. But hunt 50 X is still better than get 10 Y that takes 50 X to collect.
Wow, long ramble. I will need to get Dave to post a thread on play style and what drives a person to stay with a game or move on.
I agree that the wide array of character possibilities (and appearances) promotes multiple alts, and the ever-growing array of ways of leveling up characters means that it’s far less of a grind to repeat levels.
I love the fact that “The XYZ Building” where you are sent to actually says “XYZ” in front of it. At most, the only difference between my and Margie’s mission may be which of the two front doors we enter through.
Hmm, I replied to this, but must not have hit ‘post.’ So, take that as evidence of the validity of my POV.
Raising the level cap in CoH would only make the (small minority) people who complain about the cap at 50 start complaining about 60, 70+ two weeks later.
As Margie points out, the folks at PS have taken a broader approach and added content at all levels. With the addition of the Incarnate system they’re further adding to highest level play, but they have already added a LOT of highest level content: RWZ, Lady Grey TF, Citadel of Pain, A/E missions, Cimerora, Tip missions, Radio mishes, PI arcs, Ouroborous and many other things for max level characters to do. With the addition of Going Rogue, they also gave characters the opportunity to DOUBLE the content available to them.
Add into all this the significant Exemplar system that means any character can play at any level means that there’s never a lack of content.
Dave, I’d say thet you’re being a little harsh on PS for wrapping so much of the new content into owning GR. Frankly, if you play CoH and don’t own GR you’re shooting yourself in the foot as far as content (I predict that within a year you’ll be able to play almost all 50 levels inside Praetoria alone), and complaints about ‘new new content’ by folks who haven’t gotten GR is disingenuous. The fact that this is only the 2nd major paid expansion to the game in 18 issues is remarkable. PS’ dedication to ‘free’ new content is almost unrivaled in the industry.
I think that CoX looks so much like a standard MMO that when it varies from the formula perfected by WoW that it baffles some of the outside observes.
The fact that Raids (Hami, CoP) are amongst the least used content shows that the mindset of the longterm CoX player is very different from the rest of the MMO world that tends to grind to the highest level and then do raids, raids, raids.
Again margie said it well, it’s a difference in game play.
I agree with pretty much all your points, Arty (except, of course, my being so harsh 🙂 ). I think it’s a delicate balance to offer something enticing without making a prerequisite for significant additions to play.
So, yes, CoV was a paid addition — but, honestly, was there anything in CoH (aside from some costume pieces) that required CoV to continue playing? It was good additional content, but didn’t affect anyone marching from 1-50 on the Blue side.
On the other hand, if I read this correctly, Praetoria is being so woven into the game structure and resources that someone who only wants to stick with CoH+CoV will be significantly restricted.
That is likely, though, a fairly small number, based on what I’ve read of GR’s success.
I have only done a few TF type things in the 6+ years I have played this game now (Soloing Posi’s TF a couple times not withstanding, and that guy was horribly slotted at the time, still is, cause he got 50 and i stopped playing him like all the rest) I hate the way they have them set up, I hate having to find other people to get it started, being forced to group makes me just as mad as being forced to solo in the new arcs in the new Praetoria. That and them just going totally ambush crazy since it came out and such, to me, makes most of the things i do like about it, disappearing contacts, oooo shiny, early phones, missions doors that make more sense (no ‘stop this bank from being robed’, get there it’s a cave door, but inside is a bank), etc. balance out making Preat a big “meh” in my book, but that’s beside the point. Point is, the new Tf’s I couldn’t care less about, except for the fact that the way I understand it, kinda sounded like the Alpha slot was tied into that somehow, and that makes me very unhappy.
actually i think the ‘ambush crazy’ thing might be the reason for the inherent fitness pool.
the rest of this issue though, i can’t wait for, other than the more than 100 or so respecs….. Ok, maybe I can wait… ;p
Dave:
From what I’ve seen so far of the direction of Going Rogue in the CoX games is not so much that it will stop you from being able to play Blueside or Redside only, but that it only adds a new flavor to the game. All of the same content and story arcs are there for your enjoyment and there’s AE if you get tired of running Dev created content. (I’m an RPer and make story arcs, so no farming gripes please.)
When CoV came out, there was quite a bit you couldn’t get unless you owned both games. Access to the CoH costume pieces in CoV was limited and, at the time, new costume pieces provided by CoV were only provided to Villains. Additionally, you could not enter or participate in any of the PVP zones (which was an extremely big deal at the time) or Pocket D without the expansion and that was the year they started the New Years and Valentines events in the D.
Look, if I work hard to make an expansion for a game I want to urge people to buy it. So yeah, for a while now, new content will be heavily dependent on Going Rogue. The only thing non-GR players will miss is the end game/sunset content maybe. But it’s not that expensive to upgrade.
I’m really pleased with everything they’ve done. PS should keep up the good work.
I agree that what they’ve come up with is very nice. I do worry about some of the pay-for-play options, but you’re probably correct that those will even out over time.