Margie was poking around the Boards, and ran across some threads from PAX (around 9/4 or 9/5), which made us guh-WHUBBLE?
The first and biggest is that, in I19 (Fall 2010):
The Fitness Pool becomes inherent (like Sprint, Rest), available at levels 1 or 2.- You can add up to 5 more slots.
- Existing characters can respec … but (per Castle) “will only get the Inherent Fitness powers if they do not have any of them in their build. Conversely, if you don’t you get them as Inherents and never get the option to select them as pool powers.” Which I think means that existing characters get a little bit screwed in terms of power slots, but … c’est la vie.
Wow.
So for new characters, Swift, Hurdle, Health, and FITNESS will be inherent, from (nearly) ground zero?
On the one hand, that’s like INCREDIBLY AWESOME because we’ll all be faster, jumpier, healthier, and endurancier! Because … woot!
On the other hand, I have to think that we’re going to see some balancing as to what these powers actually do.
It makes these powers go from nearly-always-necessary to … “Well, when do I want to slot them, vs. other things?” Sort of like the Veteran early-travel-power scenario. It certainly opens up a wider variety of builds.
Consensus in the threads is that it won’t actually make things easier, but make things faster (no pausing between melees to build up the blue bar, or unwanted End Red slotting early days).
We’ll see. But … damn.
Other things tweeted (and I’m sure there’s been subsequent news, so feel free to clue me in in my utter cluelessness.
- Issue 19 will be called “Alpha Strike”
- Released in Fall 2010
- Alpha Incarnate slot which will be story driven and ties to the game lore
- ‘Alpha Strike’ task force for Alpha enabled characters – Apex is the contact
- Primal earth characters can enter Praetoria
- More tip missions
- Incarnate content will be included in every issue
- Issue 20 closed beta starts in a week (with signed NDA) [Hmmm … early and with a signed NDA? wonder what that’s about?]
- Mission maps will get a minor update
- Changing character without logging out has not been implemented and has no timeline
- ‘Will Paragon and Rogue Isles get yellow targets?’ ‘Probably not but maybe’
- No new news on hero/villain coalitions or base access for tourists
- No new news on personal bases, but they are talking about it
- Old zones may see an update to make them look nicer
- There will be ‘casual paths and new features’
- They have been looking into animated facial features and fingers but it won’t be any time soon
- Alternate animations might be coming in a bit
- Praetorian Epic ATs may be coming
- They are working on updating old costumes and new costume sets but Sexy Jay is apparently overwhelmed
- Tip missions will be getting a bit of a tone update
- They have looked at taking down the Paragon war walls but won’t happen anytime soon
- ‘Will hero get more arachnos missions in Paragon?’ ‘Yes we can do that’
- ‘Will we get and automatic team finder? Maybe?’ (I’m not sure who said what here)
- Cross server teaming exists on a priority list no more details
- ‘Are power pools going to be expanded?’ ‘It’s been discussed but no timeline’
- Power pool customization is on the radar but not a priority
- Ouroborus mission to explore what happened to Dark Astoria? Very possible to do; may happen
- So, 75% (approx) of the player base have made Praetorians. That’s pretty good. It means GR has sold well.
It also appears that shifting Villains to Heroes has been much more popular than shifting Heroes to Villains. I’m unsure if that’s a content-preference thing, or an inherent morality thing.
So this was all in the PAX notes, but except for a couple of very early Castle comments, there hasn’t been much more from the Devs, just lots of discussing / kvetching from the boards.
If nothing else, the changes in I19 (especially the Fitness ones) will render a lot more Players Guides obsolete.