Overview for I21 “Convergence” is up. Key take-aways:
- First Ward is a new zone, Praetorian (open to F2Pers to visit, but no missions), a city area that was supposedly abandoned to Devouring Earth, but now used by Emperor Cole for testing things that go boom. It’s also full of Hamidon magic and a new Giant Monster.
- Incarnate Trial in Praetoria, fighting Devouring Earth under the city. (Does that mean we have some sort of content for Praetoria between 20 and 50? Is that what First Ward is for?)
- Time Manipulation is a new Defender Primary and Controller/Corrupter/Mastermind Secondary. No details. “Channel potent temporal energies to alter the very forces of time to help your allies or devastate your foes.”
- Some new Costume sets.
And, the biggest change, I suspect:
New Starting Experience
Galaxy City is under attack, and you are thrown immediately into the middle the fray! A new co-op tutorial orients you in the world of City of Heroes, testing you with the moral choices that will determine your future as a Hero or a Villain. In this new starting experience, you can play using any of the Archetypes from the start with no alignment restriction. You will then take part in ongoing training missions in Atlas Park and Mercy Island that will let you further your growth, learn more about the game world and the game’s features, and test you to master your skills as a Hero or Villain.
So it sounds like that replaces (?) Outbreak and Breakout (awwwww …) (optionally?) (If not, then how does that fit into the whole CoV Chosen One mythos?).
Also interesting in that it gets rid of villain-only and hero-only archetypes, it seems. No need to start your heroic Mastermind in Praetoria any more.
So, plenty of reason, it seems, to build some new alts once I21 hits — assuming you’re VIP and can have more than two slots …
Statements from the U-Stream indicate that there are other new power sets on the way, too.
New starting area might make Galaxy less of a ghost town.
Still ambivalent on the FTP stuff, but might keep me in CoX after SW:TOR starts up . . .
More Power Sets Good. Though I’m trying to figure out how, thematically, Time Control will be different from Kin or Cold …
As for Galaxy — ironically, back in the day, I used to go to Galaxy by preference, as it was less crowded and “costume party” swamped. Would be good to see it more populated again.
I think Time Manipulation is going to be a lot more about recharge reduction (possibly some unresistable or stackable in a way not currently possible) and debuffs. Basically combining the best parts of Dark and Cold, with some Kin thrown in for fun. I’m thinking no heal, but we’ll see.
Well, already thinking of new duos to run through the new tutorial, including doing some Time Manip planning. Our visit to Paso Robles made me think of rerolling Lynne Calodo (though maybe as DM/SR rather than DM/Invuln — I was on an Invuln kick back then, but I think DM and SR would have some good synergies) with Margie as a Time Manip Defender or Controller.
Plus Margie’s been bugging me to get the Steampunk pack, which might lead me to reroll Old Saucy Jack — yet another (inconceivable!) scrapper.
I notice that there are a lot to new thing on the Hero/blue side. How come the Villian/red side get not get new adventures too? I like playing on the villian side and because there is nothing new — it has become a ghost town …. please improve this side too …. new adventures please —
I’ve been pleased to see the signature story arcs including both blue and red tales (and nicely interwoven). And the incarnate bits work on both sides (and that seems to be where most of the attention has been). And didn’t this last release mostly focus on yellow-side stuff?
That said, I’ve never enjoyed red-side as much as blue. Which is a shame, because we have some good characters over there.