Per CuppaJo this afternoon (with my comments):
New Zones
As they become available to the players of City of Villains, the following PvP Zones will also open up for player of City of Heroes: Bloody Bay (This is a PvP Zone for Villains and Heroes with a minimum level to entry set at 15.), Siren’s Call (This is a PvP Zone for Villains and Heroes with a minimum level to entry set at 20.), Warburg (This is a Free-For-All Battle Zone for Villains and Heroes with a minimum level to entry set at 30).
Ho-hum. Not so much into PvP. Maybe. Probably. Okay, in a “real” setting, vs. the Arena, and as Heroes vs Villains … maybe. At least worth trying. It will be intersting to see if CoH/CoV PvP is more popular than the Arenas are.
Arena – New Gladiator Battles! Collect all new Gladiator Badges to create a host of new pets you can battle in any of the Paragon City Arenas!
Ho-hum-squared. Not really sure what this means, but Arena = Boring.
Names: The number of characters allowed in the name will be increased to 20!
To match CoV. Still too short, but better than nothing (or the previous 15).
Super Groups: There will be all new SG Badges and an upgrade to the SG permissions system.
Um … okay. The SG permissions are to match CoV, again (or, rather, are inherited from the CoV upgrade), and provides finer granularity of permissions. That said, ho-hum. Though I’m curious about the SG badges. Are those for time served in SG? Or for members of an SG that hits certainly milestones (membership, lifespan, whatever).
Tech Changes: City of Heroes will now support 3D Sound, have added Visual FX Upgrades and Dual CPU Performance Enhancement.
Ho-hum.
Costume Creator: Drop down menus are just a part of the UI upgrades for the costume creator.
I think this refers to the menu enhancements from the CoV costume creator, which is quite nice.
Pets: We’ve added an all new Pet Window for managing your pets.
Similar, one assumes, to the Mastermind pet windows. Hmmm. Wonder if we’ll get the same functionality (attack! defend! follow!). Oh. Reading on, evidently on the CoV side it’s been estalblished by the Devs that won’t happen (since MMs are supposed to be inherently different than Controllers or Dominators).
Trade Window Upgrades: Trading with your teammates will be quicker and easier with the new UI in place.
That will be nice. As it stands, it’s annoying. Hopefully trading Infl. will be faster.
Beyond that, there are tons of little tweaks and visual changes all around – so come check them out soon on the test server.
Unlikely, but I look forward to hearing about them.
That doesn’t include ED, which is still confirmed will be in I6.
Overall, the biggest “bang” in I6 is the presence of CoV. I6 should be considered an incremental release (I5.5, perhaps), bringing CoH into sync with CoV. IMO.
(via Kin)
The SG badges are basically badges that the entire SG help earn, with progress only added while you’re in SG costume mode. The rewards for them are, at least in CoV, unlocking new facility types and new types of items that can be placed in an SG base.
These badges appear to be like normal Achivement badges ( damage taken, healing done, etc. ) but count progress from everyone in the SG in SG costume. I am hoping that some data-mining will take place and that we’ll get credit for past progress done by people in SG costume, but that remains to be seen I guess (I hope).
A few of the CoV ones:
Analyzer Base Defense
Your group has taken 20,000,000 points of damage, the Analyzer will help you find your enemies weaknesses.
Improved Igniter
Your group has earned over 100,000,000 influence. The improved igniter is just what you big spenders need.
Benedict DR-3 Turret Plans
The fame of your group is reflected in the Prestige you have earned. The Elite Dampening Ray is your reward
Supercomputer ( Collective Mentoring badge )
Unknown Text
Mega Monitor Plans
Your group has collected 5 badges. You are now ready to build a Mega Monitor
Robo-Surgery Plans
Your group’s work at healing has unlocked the Robo-Surgery
Incidentally, there’s a post on the CoV boards on ‘how to build an RP base for around 2 million prestige’ — with, for prestige is relatively cheap, I guess.
A place to hang out, a basic teleporter, and a private med-bay, with room to add in things like zone-teleporters later. Cobalt’s got a decent post on the Forum about how the bases sort of work… Sim2 on crack.
I saw Cobalt’s post (think I even linked to it from here). Very interesting.
These badges appear to be like normal Achivement badges ( damage taken, healing done, etc. ) but count progress from everyone in the SG in SG costume. I am hoping that some data-mining will take place and that we’ll get credit for past progress done by people in SG costume, but that remains to be seen I guess (I hope).
Last I’d read from the Devs, there was *not* going to be any data mining, because SG mode being turned on was not being tracked (or adequately tracked) such that it could be reasonably mined. My understanding is that will all start from scratch when I6 goes into play.
My main concern about bases and the like is that they represent something where the idea of “you don’t have to team, you can solo” begins to fall apart. Certainly you can create an SG of one, but it’s going to be tough to get those keen toys that cost 100MM influence …
Still, it will be nice to play with that stuff, once available.
By the way, I found the t-shirt costume entry (used it for Al the other day). That’s relatively newish, as are the dress slacks (which PC bought yesterday for his two dressy iterations. Most expensive slacks evah.)
Info on gladiator matches here.
The above list is for those who just have CoH. For those with both CoH and CoV:
If you have CoV and CoH then I6 has in addition – Base entry, Base Building, Base Raids, The Cathedral of Pain Trial.
Okay, all the nerfs in the world are worth it to get this one quality of life item: not having to confirm when you delete an enhancement. OMG. The Devs rock.