Category: Champions Online

Because I could use some distracting right now

I came to the conclusion this morning that I have the MMO itch again. I just don’t know how to scratch it. Short of going back in time and fixing it so that my beloved City of Heroes doesn’t get canceled (and that never ends well), I’m stuck looking at the old or trying to figure out the new.

(And, yes, my long-time correspondents are probably sick to death of this post, since I’ve repeated it periodically the last four years. Sorry, folk.)

On the “old” side, I’ve tried LotRO enough times to know that (a) it’s an amazing recreation of Middle Earth and (b) its gameplay just drives me nuts.

I’ve also tried WoW in the past, and it never quite gelled for me. Obviously it’s the benchmark for all things MMO, but in the long run we just sort of ran out of gas on it. It might be worth giving it another try.

We tried out WildStar, but for some reason it, too, didn’t the cut.

Star Trek Online? Nicely steeped in Star Trek lore, but more of a ship simulator in the ST universe than a role-playing game. Also not really suited (that I found) to duoing with someone.

DC Universe Online ended up feeling to button-mashing for me. And, again, it really didn’t seem to lend it self to partnered play (almost anytying but).

Is Champions Online still out there? Also a bit button mashy, not very duo-abled, and I found it tonally offputting. Also, the auction house was irksome.

What I am looking for from an MMO? Fortunately, I have some posts whining about that dating back (yeesh) a number of years. In sum (and roughly in order of priority).

1. Duo-friendly. A big part of my gaming life is playing with Margie. A game that makes it difficult for us (and usually just us) to play side-by-side, due to different start points, or poor leveling / sidekicking setups, or advancement requiring guilds / raids, or whatever, is going to be a frustration to us.

A game that actually rewards or scales properly to team-ups is a big advantage.

2. I need to feel heroic. Jogging everywhere in the world? Doing boring grind missions? Imperiled by battling three opponents? That’s not feeling heroic. (Note: this doesn’t necessarily mean “super-hero” or “comic book hero”.) I’m not looking to slay dragons on Day 1. I am looking to feel like I’m triumphing more often than not, and in a meaningful fashion. (This was an area where LotRO failed me.)

3. A variety of content / replayability. I don’t want to feel railroaded through just one course of action. I want parallel ways of gaining experience and exploring the world and so forth.

4. Well-written content. I don’t mind humor, but overall I want to take the story seriously. (One of my problems with Champions Online.)

5. A good resource / loot / crafting mechanic. Yeah, I know. I want to be able to play and advance without spending hours in a crafting room or haunting auction houses. Alternately, if I feel like doing that, having reasonably enjoyable / profitable mechanics for it are to be desired.

6. Soloable. Though we game together a lot, sometimes we like running solo, just to try something new, or because the other person isn’t around or doesn’t feel like gaming. (This tends to be tied a lot to #4.)

7. A reasonable, non-pervasive payment structure. I don’t mind paying money for a subscription (I know, how drolly 00s of me), but I’d like a chance to get my feet wet before I buy. On the other hand, I do not want to end up in a freemium game where it’s in my face all the time that only by spending my own cash on a regular basis am I going to get anywhere. I’ll pay for something special, but if I have to be regularly spending to play and advance, I’d rather have a monthly sub and not worry about it.

8. Alt-friendly. For whatever reason, Margie and I are both alt-aholics. Paper dolls are our friends. We like to try out different character types and combinations. We’d like to play something (in conjunction with requirement #3) that doesn’t require us to delete characters in order to roll up new ones.

9. Optional but available social options. Sometimes you feel like a PUG. Sometimes you don’t. A decent gaming community where there are options to group up when one is so inclined (e.g., when soloing) would be keen.

10. Instanced missions are keen. Because a bunch of PCs standing around waiting for the bad guys to respawn is kind of lame. And frustrating.

I also want a pony and a rocket ship and a Winnebago and peace on earth, goodwill toward men.

With the understanding that I’ll never find everything I want, and the CoH servers aren’t going to magically restart next weekend — anyone have some suggestions?

#gaming #boh

View on Google+

So, besides mourning CoH, what else game-wise have I done lately?

The extended memorial service for City of Heroes, posted earlier today, aside, what’s new for me and online gaming?

Um … honestly, not a heck of a lot.

First off, it’s been a busy month or two. Margie’s been away on business. I’ve been away on business. Holidays and social butterflying and all that sort of thing. And the next month isn’t looking any better.

Secondly, yeah, I’ve been in mourning. Mercifully, Margie talked me into playing CoH one last time before it went away. But since then … really haven’t felt the yen.

And thirdly … well, I haven’t found … the thing. The game to take its place.  I’ve done some World of Warcraft solo and duoed, and likely will some more. But while it’s a decently pleasant passtime, I’m just not feeling the characters as such (something I became very aware of as I was crafting my endless memorials). There’s more variety (if of a less-rich nature) than of Lord of the Rings Online, but, honestly, I don’t feel invested in the characters in either game. With everyone wearing whatever they pick up, and the power/skill selection being fairly categorized, the players are (absent a strong social environment, which we’re not and not likely to get into) pretty much cookie cutter in nature.

(And that, I’m realizing, was one of the geniuses of CoH — that your fundamental appearance could be so different and unique, and the encouragement to have an origin story and a cool super-name to go with it, and that even your power selections could be tailored and tweaked and recombined and enhanced and respecced and recolored to make you completely individual. The focus was more on the characters than on the setting, though the setting was still pretty full of content.)

I’ve given Champions Online another go, and while some of those CoH advantages might seem to pertain, it feels both too mechanics-driven and too arduously neutral / balanced, to the point where every blast power is kind of like ever other blast power, and so forth.  And the setting starts to come into play again as feeling uneven and alternately goofy and grim. Plus, the whole game feels like a carnival in so many ways.

I haven’t retried DC Universe Online, or Star Trek Online, but I don’t recall much (or see much in current press) to make me feel they will fit any better.

Maybe we need to try D&D Online again / some more, since that has such character differentiation. There was something vaguely disjointed about what experience we had there, but we didn’t really drive things to any great conclusion.

I keep hearing encouraging words about Star Wars: The Old Republic — and highly discouraging words about it, too. But maybe that’s a possibility.

People keep suggesting to me Guild Wars 2, but aside from my fiery passion to not give another red cent to NCSoft, I hear a lot of trouble in that particular paradise, too.

So … what next?  I haven’t the foggiest. And, honestly, given the “firstly” above, I don’t expect to make any great progress until January. At least. At the earliest.

And that’s okay, right? Because it’s not like I don’t have eleventy-dozen other things going on. And while Playing Game with Margie is a lot of fun and doing-stuff-togethery, it’s not the be-all and end-all of our relationship.

I’ll — we’ll — find something that we enjoy together. And (assuming it’s a game), we’ll give it a try. And we’ll have fun. Or not, in which case we’ll move on.

Ob-la-di, ob-la-da, life goes on, brah,
La la, how the life goes on.

Dollars and ZENts in Champions Online

ZEN does not make me relaxed and contemplative, I'm afraid.

“ZEN” is the pseudocurrency that Perfect World is using across all of their games.  Which is very nice, but some of the “microtransactions” it enables are not so micro.

1 ZEN = 1 cent (USD)

$50.00 = 5,000 + 300
$30.00 = 3,000
$20.00 = 2,000
$10.00 = 1,000
$5.00 = 500

So you only get a discount break in $50 increments (where you get $53 worth of ZEN).

But what does that give you?

So we were looking at our different options here, if we want to continue playing CO.

A F2P account gets you a soul-cramping 2 character slots.  Worse, they are restricted slots — you are limited to a one of 10 canned archetypes / power paths, scattered amongst the five roles (ranged, tank, melee, hybrid, support). Another 2 dozen or so are locked.  Each of those is about 1125 ZEN, say $11.  So if you want a blaster, you can get a fire, bow, or rifle blaster, but not an electricity or TK or etc. blaster without ponying up the bucks.

As well, those power sets need slots to go into, beyond that initial 2.  You can buy slots 2 at a time, for $14 ($7 each).

But if you want a Freeform slot — letting you mix and match power paths and primary/secondaries — that costs a whopping $50 (on sale this weekend for a low $25).

It’s hard to put this cleanly into CoH terms.  Paragon Market Points were 1.25 cents each.

  • Each player had a dozen character slots on each of a dozen servers.  144 character slots, right there.  Additional slots (for a given server) were $4 each (in packs of 5). But each of those slots could be almost anything.
  • While not all archetypes were F2P, most were (everything except Mastermind, Controller, Kheldians and Arachnos). Those were available for $15. Further, within all the archetypes, nearly all powers were available — so if you were a Blaster you could be any of the dozen different types of blasters, Primary and Secondary.
  • Additional new power sets were $10 (800 pts), about equivalent of the archetype power sets in CO — but that $10 in Nature Affinity, for example, could be used for a Defender, Controller, Corruptor, or Mastermind.
  • The combos of Primary and Secondary (plus Pool powers) provided much more freedom than the fixed archetypes in CO.  While not quite as freeform as the Freeform slots on CO (which lets you make pretty much any sort of combo you want), they are still much more flexible setup than most.

Bottom line, CoH was a much better bang-for-buck than CO in this category.

Beyond that, we have “real” account full of 8 characters, levels 9-19, all of whom are considered “freeform” by CO (back in the day there was no penalty, and lots of discussions of the best secondary powers to take with primary sets, with the few canned archetypes of the period considered substandard).  There doesn’t seem to be a way to access those characters as a F2P character (you can only buy new freeform slots, at $50/pop, not activate old ones), unless we re-up our subscription at $15/mo.  And, honestly, not feeling the impulse to do that yet.

Trying Champions Online again (Part 2)

Comments:

  1. For all that the NCSoft launcher used to hang up on my machine while not in use, it did do a fabulous job of updating content while I was away. It seems really primative to have the CO launcher start off by saying, “Nope, can’t play now, gotta download N mb of updates first, sorry.”
  2. Ran through the tutorial again, and, yeah, a lot of the side missions have been removed for some reason (to keep people from leveling up too fast?).  And it still seems like there’s a lot of info that isn’t covered well.
  3. The character creator has a tendency to let you pick things you can’t, and then not warn you before you try and save your character.  Hilarity and “character creation failed” messages ensue, dropping you back to square 1.
  4. While I like the UI assistance for finding where your next mission is, I find the ability to end up with many, many missions to be distracting (especially since they seem to age so quickly).
  5. I like that you are not necessarily stuck on rails down a mission. On the other hand, it sometimes seems like there are too many directions to go — random new contacts pop up (while you still have a full tablet of missions), and often your missions send you to contacts (or back to contacts) offering you a few more missions.  Option paralysis …
  6. I’m already finding the uneven application of (sometimes dubious) humor to be irksome.  Not that CoH was unrelentingly grim or serious (e.g., the names of the detective pairs in each of the zones), but its humor was a raised eyebrow or perhaps a wink while taking the drama seriously. CO does all but a fourth-wall breaking mugging for the camera.  E.g., the cut scene meeting of all the criminal gangs in the West Side with the mystical Oriental villain being unable to pronounce “Millennium” …
    7. Force of Will - a character I'm not playing because I'm stuck in F2P.
  7. Travel powers are immediately available — but the fact you get slowed to a crawl if you draw any aggro makes anything except flight (and sometimes not even that) a royal pain in the ass.  Which is a shame, because Superspeed is much more practical in Millennium City than in Paragon (or the Rogue Isles) … and the Acrobatics travel power is awesome, visually.  (Margie is really disliking Superjump.)
  8. Action is faster than in CoH, which is probably a good thing.
  9. The userid/login security stuff is … not as friendly as it could be. Between Cryptic vs Perfect World IDs, and verifying computers, and all that (and, yes, I understand the whys and wherefores), Margie’s had a heck of a time getting in to even play. Which is not encouraging.
  10. I like build-up powers, and spew-out powers. It’s a nice mechanic. I am seriously unfond of having to “block”.  Really.
  11. There seem to be a dozen different leveling mechanisms — powers pop in, attributes to powers can be added, new little extra powerlet stuff can be incremented.  It all feels very nickel-and-dime … incrementing a few percentage points here and there with no real sense of major achievement when you level,  just nudges and tweaks to what you have.  And maybe part is the F2P (which doesn’t let me choose non-railroaded classes), but that would make things even worse.
  12. On the other hand, it’s nice to be able to level without being at a trainer.
  13. Sure seems like the population is a lot heavier. Which on the one hand is encouraging. And on the other hand makes going to hero-populated areas (Renaissance Center, the Power House) irksome.
  14. Inventory slots.  Multiple and different types of inventory slots.  Yes, CoH had slots of various sorts … but if I was on a mission and was picking up stuff, or even being given temporary powers … it didn’t impact anything else I was doing.  I’ve never liked inventory / encumbrance limits, in any system, and CO seems to have them a-plenty.
  15. I do still like the graphics, though fading over range seems much more obvious than it was in CoH.

I’m finding CO moderately entertaining, but not gripping.  Part of that may be because we’re struggling with the constraints of the F2P system. Perhaps it’s the rampant (voluntary) P2P in the streets (heroes? really?). I dunno.

I’m enjoying what I’m doing, but am I enjoying it as much as I’d like to? Or as I (cough) did with CoH?  No … not really.  And does that make me want to renew my subscription (and access all those other characters I had rolled)?  Not … sure yet.

Trying Champions Online again

Looking for our City of Heroes replacement (mutter mutter mutter), Margie and I loaded up Champions Online.  Rather, I loaded it back up; Margie still had it on her machine from our last go-around.

Very initial thoughts:

  1. We are former subscribers. Trying it F2P, we eventually found it a lot easier to simply create new accounts. That’s because our accounts are “full” of our previous characters — which are unplayable as F2P players because they use freeform archetypes.  CO doesn’t make this very clear up front or during the whole process.
  2. It was also kind of messy distinguishing between our old Cryptic Online accounts and the new Perfect World accounts, esp. since sometimes you can use either, other times you have to use the PW account, and in both cases they really don’t want you to have the same display name for the forums and onscreen as your account name, and both are limited to just characters and numbers, no spaces or dashes or underscores.
  3. The new character tutorial has been trimmed down a bit in terms of what adventures are available during the Qularr invasion. That got us out of it faster, but also lost some of the more fun bits.
  4. There’s also still that sense of mad rush with attackers attacking even as little tutorial bits pop up to help you through what you’re desperately trying to mash keys to avert.  Blocking wasn’t really discussed, and the whole need for energy buildups, etc., either flashed by without my spotting any info about it.
  5. There are some nice on-screen button prompts for things you can do in proximity (Talk to X, Open Door Y).
  6. There’s additional narration / dialog to frame the whole invasion and all, which is nice. On the other hand, we lose the big salute/parade at the end, which is sad.

We didn’t get much beyond that in our first play with two newly-rolled characters (fire blaster and strength tank). We’ll continue trying, though. I’m anticpating how the level-up process has evolved, if at all, as well as how level-balanced things work out in the non-instanced field of play.

So, what about those other super-hero MMOs?

The super-hero genre is one that I enjoy a lot. It allows a lot of individual variation  in very dramatic fashion for the various toons. The thought did occur to me that, in moving from City of Heroes, I might think about shifting over to Champions Online or DC Universe Online again.

Then I checked my old posts on the blog:

Transitions (Mar 2010)

I just came the the realization that I have next to zero interest in ever playing Champions Online again. Which ticks me off to no end since (as I’ve said a dozen times) there are so many things about the game I like. I just find the overall experience an awful, not-terribly-fun grind.

Because occasionally I feel like I should post something other than tweets (Feb 2011)

Never signed up for DCUO after doing the beta stuff — bright and shiny but annoying non-instanced missions and overly combat-oriented.

Mr. Kiss-Kiss Bang-Bang (Dec 2011)

  • Champions Online: She was bright and shiny and promised so much but gave back so little.  We had some fun times, but ultimately she was never someone I could settle down with.
  • DC Universe Online:  Another try at rekindling an old relationship, but it was just too much of the same old grind.  I keep thinking I might give her a call some day, have some coffee, no strings attached, but I can never quite work up the interest.

    • Margie had an extensive post on CO experience here. And I had one here.

    So … for anyone who’s been playing those, has any of that criticism actually changed? Are these actual games we should consider picking up again?

    Mr. Kiss-Kiss Bang-Bang

    Via Doyce, from the Daily Grind a way to frame to your relationships with MMOs the way you frame your … “real” relationships:

    I’m sure you’ve heard of the classic “marry/kiss/kill” ranking game (or some not-so-PG version thereof) designed to rank your interest in a trio of human beings. So how about turning that upon MMOs today?

    Which games would you marry, would you kiss, and would you kill? By which, I mean:

    1. Marry: You’re in it for the long haul with this title, admiring the devs’ past and present efforts, and are confident that the future will hold great things. You plus this game equals “happily ever after.”
    2. Kiss: You’re interested — or currently involved — with a brief fling with this game, but you’re pretty sure that it’s not going to last. This is a title best left to brief flirtations versus long-term relationships.
    3. Kill: You are done with this MMO — or never wanted to get involved with it in the first place. You abhor the studio’s practices and products, and wouldn’t mind seeing the game thrown into the sun. Metaphorically, of course.

    Actually, kind of an objectionable way of framing it, but let’s see if I can tweak it a bit:

    Marry:

    • City of Heroes:  A first love, and still a best love.  She’s comfortable, pleasant, mature, fun to be with, a great sense of humor, still has plenty to explore … and she eve now manages some new surprises and unexpected presents now and again. My friends know her, which is nice.  There have been times we separated, though I always come back.  Lot of people think she’s over the hill, but I’m quite happy with her.

    Kiss:

    • Lord of the Rings Online:  Old, kind of crazy girlfriend I remember fondly and still occasionally socialize with. Things just never seemed to be going quite the way I was hoping, though, but I’m very glad she’s found other relationships.  Still occasionally think about another brief fling, since she’s free now, but it hasn’t happened yet.
    • Wizards 101:  I’m happy enough chatting with her while the kids are capering on the playground equipment. We were never close, but she always seemed good with children.

    Kill Don’t Return Phone Calls From:

    • World of Warcraft: We went on a first date, and I carefully thereafter blocked her on my phone. Never did see what people saw in her.
    • Champions Online: She was bright and shiny and promised so much but gave back so little.  We had some fun times, but ultimately she was never someone I could settle down with.
    • DC Universe Online:  Another try at rekindling an old relationship, but it was just too much of the same old grind.  I keep thinking I might give her a call some day, have some coffee, no strings attached, but I can never quite work up the interest.
    • Star Trek Online:  Met her at the con, seemed to share may of the same geeky interests as me, but eventually it seemed like that was all she was about.  The repeated conversations grew boring. I still play some of the music she lent me, sometimes.

    (Maybe I need to stay away from girls named “Online” … it ever seems to end well.)

    Ogle from Across the Room:

    • Star Wars: The Old Republic:  She’s hot, she’s new to the scene, she’s hot, she’s got everyone talking.  But she looks like someone who could take over my whole life, and I’m just not ready for that now.
    • EvE:  She’s mysterious, intriguing, and into some wild and different stuff.  I know folks who go on and on about how cool she is. Rumor has it she’s a tiger in the sack, but a very demanding mistress. Staying way away from her.

    Man, gaming relationships are complicated …

    CoX: Signs that Cole is a Tyrant

    For all that I’ve waxed  lyrical about the Going Rogue expansion, two things stand out as serious errors by the Cole Regime.

    First off … doors on the subway? Really? The ferries and train stations of Primal Earth get by just fine without an additional click to go between zones.

    (On the other hand, kudos to the Emperor for designing a city that is actually usable by Super-Speed.)

    Secondly, power suppression sucks. It especially sucks at the Trading House. It especially sucks when you have a football field or two to slowly lope across at the Trading House to get to the traders and you can’t even Sprint.  (C’mon — a suppression field that recognizes Sprint, Hover and Swift would be just fine and serve the purpose of keeping the TH aura-free while not driving folks mad.)

    (I  note with my current MasterMind that my pets get a “Stay” override at the Trading House door when I get there.  They follow me inside, but stay at the entrance. Which is fine.  I note that they do not lose the Stay when they exit with me, so they just hang out there until I come back. Which is weird.)

    This is especially annoying because the Resistance setup has it made — trading house + bank + vendors + contacts + level-up all in one area … and it’s just down the freaking street from the crafting tables.  And no suppression!  Compare that to the Loyalists, where the trading house has the suppression field, the bank’s across the street, the nearest vendor’s a good 30 seconds of travel power away, the crafting tables are twice that and in the opposite direction ….

    C’mon, Cole … throw us a bone.

    (The Resistance setup demonstrates that it is possible to have  all these things a trivial distance away — even more convenient than Steel Canyon or Talos with a Base — without somehow unbalancing the game.  Slogging about building up money in trading, or even making use of trading, is a PitA for Loyalists,  and a joy for the Resistance.)

    CoX: I18 / Going Rogue – First Impressions

    In no particular order.

    1. Praetoria is shiny. All sorts of lovely mirrored surfaces, reflective windows, etc. Almost like it was designed that way.
    2. The ambiguous moral underpinnings of Emperor Cole’s realm are interesting.  I look forward to running through both side to see if the “freedom fighters” of the Resistance are as great a mix of admirable and dubious as the “law & order” types of the Loyalists.  As it is, the greater interest of making initial decisions would lead me to point any newcomer to play in Going Rogue vs. a standard Atlas/Mercy Hero/Villain startup.
    3. Eleventy million kudos for Paragon Studios realizing that people have differently-sized monitors, therefore the splash screens need to not get all expanded out of proportion.
    4. Good news: the markets are now merged,  so that the odd disparities of what goes for how much between Redside and Blueside will no longer exist.  Bad news: all selling history is wiped out, so nobody knows how much to sell anything for. Yet.
    5. All the servers conned yellow — except Freedom (red) and Virtue (red, then gray). Wow.
    6. We went ahead and genned a couple of new toon for Praetoria: Ms. Crackle (the Praetorian version of Miss Crackle, and in this case an Electric/Storm Controller), and Positive Force (Kin/Electric Brute).  We had a good time, albeit with a few faceplants … but I’m seriously thinking an Empathy+Brute duo would be unstoppable.
    7. A few dozen more kudos for allowing different levels of sophistication going into the initial missions, allowing you to be walked through stuff or thrust more directly into it as a Vet.

    Two thumbs up.

    CoX: I18! Going Rogue! Woot!

    Market merge has happened! Patches are downloading! I18/GR stuff available tomorrow, except for pre-orders who get it tonight.  Woot!

    (And all the servers are yellow and red …)

    And the details — well, an abridged version — of the patch notes [with comments] …

    …


    COMBINED

    Merging Hero and Villain Economies

    • Influence, Infamy and Information are being combined into a unified currency called ‘INF’. All characters will be able to trade ‘inf.’, salvage, recipes and enhancements between each other. [Yay. Anything that flattens the whole economy is a Good Thing.]
    • Wentworth’s Consignment House and the Black Market now share inventories. Capitalism at its best.
      • All outstanding Buy and Sell orders will be cancelled as part of the market merge. All items and bids will be refunded and stored in the auction inventory. Listing fees for unsold items will be refunded. [The bizarre differences between the two were already annoying. Glad to see that tweaked.]

    Auction House

    • You can now tab forward and back (shift-tab) through stored items. The price text gets reset when you move to a new item.
    • You can tab forward and back through the search field, min level, max level, bid price and bid quantity fields. Their text auto-selects so you can type to replace it. Similarly the bid price and quantity auto-select when you click on them (the others already did). [Again, everything that makes the market easier to use is a Good Thing.]
    …
    Chat
    • … Players can now right-click another player, and if that other player is in a group, the player can select to send a “Tell” to the team leader [That’s kinda cool. If I still did PUGs/teams, I’d definitely find that a nice feature.]

    Pop Help

    • Pop help adds exclamation point icons to the side of your screen as you play, providing useful help and information.
    • Left clicking on the icons will display a window with the information.
      • The icon will disappear after the information has been displayed.
    • You may have more than 5 pop help items available at any one time, but only 5 will display on the side of your screen at any one time. [I’ll have to play with this, but it sounds like a good idea.]

    Team Search Improvements

    • [Again, these all look pretty cool, for those who do this sort of thing.] This color scheme came about along with other behind-the-scenes work to make searching more useful in Going Rogue. It used to be that heroes could see heroes and villains could see villains and that was that. With Vigilantes going to Rogue Isles and so on, we needed a more sophisticated approach. Now the people you see are people you could team with, and who are in the same part of the game world as you (eg. people in the Rogue Isles can’t see people in Paragon City and vice versa, regardless of their alignment).
    • The new color scheme works like this:
      • Jade green: Same team as you
      • Red: They have ‘not looking for group’ set
      • Yellow: They can’t be invited to team with you because they’re on a mission map or in an arena match
      • Orange: They’re the opposite faction to you and not on a mixed team, so you have to go to their map to team with them
      • Violet: They’re the leader of a team with less than 8 people on it
      • Pale blue: They’re not on a team and you can invite them
      • Green/grey: They’re on a team but not the leader, so you can’t invite them and they can’t invite you

    Costume Sets

    • The following costume sets are available as part of the Going Rogue expansion:
      • Sports
      • Overguard
      • Syndicate
      • Clockwork
      • Resistance
      • Praetorian Police
    • These additional sets are available through purchase of the City of Heroes Going Rogue(TM) Complete Collection.
      • Alpha
      • Omega

    Combat Auras

    • All in-game Auras can now be set to only activate while in combat. [Yes! So! Good!]

    GOING ROGUE

    Alignment System

    • The Going Rogue Alignment System is a new feature that allows you to change your faction from Hero to Villain and from Villain to Hero. The Going Rogue Alignment System allows you to experience all sides of the game content with a single character. It introduces two additional alignments, Vigilantes and Rogues. These new factions represent the moral gray line between Hero and Villain, and will benefit from unique rewards.
    • Upon reaching Level 20, defeated enemies that are Level 20 or higher will now have the chance to “drop” a Contact Tip. These Contact Tips are similar to existing contacts except they have a dialog tree attached to the front of it. You can investigate Tips by clicking the “Investigate” button. This opens a description of the Tip and then leads into a dialog tree where you can choose how you want to act upon this information. All Tips will have two flavors to them, either Vigilante and Heroes for characters based in Paragon City or Rogue and Villains for characters based in the Rogue Isles. Depending on the choice you make with the information you’re given, you will receive a specific alignment mission of that flavor. Once the mission is complete, you’re another notch closer towards reaching that alignment and the Tip is cleared out of the contact window.
      • A Tip will be written as if it was information picked up off of a defeated enemy. For Example: “You found a small torn piece of paper that appears to have some interesting information on it.”
    • You can work on multiple different alignment missions at any given time. After completing 10 Tip missions towards a chosen alignment, a Morality mission is unlocked. This mission is also tied to the “Contact Tip Drop” system. Once you’ve done enough Alignment Tip Missions to qualify for a Morality mission, the Morality mission drop will be an alignment drop of that type. The Morality missions make the actual hard switch from one alignment to the next.
    • Characters that change their alignment from Hero to Vigilante or Villain to Rogue may choose to switch back to their original alignment (i.e. Vigilante to Hero / Rogue to Villain), however once a character makes the final switch to the polar opposite alignment, characters must move forward to redeem their Villain to become a Hero, or fall from grace as a Hero to a Villain.
      • For example, a Hero can become a Vigilante, and return back to a Hero. If the Vigilante falls from grace to become a Villain, that Villain character must go on the path of redemption to a Rogue alignment before becoming a Hero again.
    • Players can defeat enemies and collect Tips that they can act upon, making adjustments to the character’s alignment.
      • Change sides from Hero to Vigilante to Villain or Villain to Rogue to Hero.
    • After 10 Alignment Points are earned in an Alignment Pool, a Morality mission drop becomes possible.
    • Vigilantes and Rogues that visit the other cities will con “friendly” to native Heroes and Villains in all PvE areas.
    • Tourists: Vigilantes can travel to the Rogue Isles, and Villains turning Rogues can travel to Paragon City. While there, the Vigilante or Rogue is considered a moral ‘Tourist’.
    • Vigilantes and Rogues must become ‘Tourists’ to earn the alignment points needed to complete their switch to Villains or Heroes.
    • Players can earn a limited amount of fame for their alignment-related deeds. To earn more fame, the public has to first lose interest in your old deeds. The public will hold interest in no more than five deeds, and their interest will last for 20 hours after the deed occurred.
    • The player also has the option to reinforce their standing as their current alignment. Continuing to complete Tips tied to the player’s current alignment will give them the chance to complete the Moral mission once again, thereby reinforcing their existing moral beliefs. This cycle of reinforcement can be completed as many times as the player likes.
      • This can earn them Hero Award Merits or Villain Award Merits.
      • Heroes will earn Hero Award Merits for reinforcing their alignment, redeemable at the vendor found within Fort Trident.
      • Villains will earn Villain Award Merits for reinforcing their alignment, redeemable at the vendor found within The Crucible.
    • Players can earn alignment powers after they have spent a certain amount of time as a Vigilante or Rogue.
    • Players who make the switch from Villain all the way to Hero or Hero all the way to Villain will no longer be able to lead their previous alignment’s Super Group.
    • In PvP zones or Arena matches, Vigilantes are considered “Heroes” and Rogues are considered “Villains”.
    • Stores, Tailors, and Respec contacts will interact with tourists.
      • Some exceptions to this are Store NPCs in Brickstown, Founders Falls, and Peregrine Island.
      • These NPCs require a mission completion to unlock their stores but NPCs do not grant missions to tourists.
      • Tourists in Paragon City can travel to the Midnighter Club, Rikti War Zone or back to Rogue Isles to purchase Single Origin Enhancements.
    • Tourists may run radio or newspaper missions. They can complete Safeguard or Mayhem missions and gain new contacts, but they cannot interact with those new contacts until they complete the switch to Hero in Paragon City or Villain in Rogue Isles.
    • Alignment Merits:
      • Hero and Villain reinforcing Morality Missions will now award 50 Reward Merits on the first reinforcement and 1 Hero or Villain Merit on the second and subsequent reinforcements.
      • The Conversion cost for Hero and Villain Merits is 50 Reward Merits and 20 Million Inf.
    • Tips do not transfer from Villain side to Hero side and vice versa.
      • They will go into Escrow when a character moves from the Rogue Isles to Paragon City and back.
    • Players cannot read Tips in Hazard, Trial, or PVP zones.
    • Tips will not drop while in missions from Architect Entertainment.
    • Tips will continue to drop in Co-Op zones, but cannot be investigated unless the player is within a standard Hero/Villain area.
    • When in Task Force mode (Task Forces, Strike Forces, Flashback missions), Tips will drop for players, but they will not show up in the Tips tab until they leave Task Force mode.
    • The Pocket D Teleporter will prompt you to verify your wish to teleport if you would switch from Hero to Villain content in doing so.
    • Team members assisting on a Morality Mission who are not eligible for an alignment switch or reinforcement will receive an alignment point towards the alignment of the Morality Mission instead, as long as they have an available alignment slot.
    • Tourists may use either Consignment House (Paragon City) or Black Market (Rogue Isles) Transporters, providing they are in the appropriate city at the time.
    • All alignment switch opportunities present a choice table which includes additional warnings of consequences for alignment switching.
    • You should not immediately receive the same Alignment tip after just recently completing or discarding it.
    • Characters may join and remain in leveling pacts regardless of alignment.
    • When a Supergroup leader tries to switch sides, a popup appears telling them the consequences of the alignment shift, which is that they will be removed from their leader rank if they switch their alignment to the opposing side.
      • If they do switch alignment all the way to polar opposite of the SG, leadership will pass to the next highest ranking/senior member of the SG.
    • Vigilantes and Rogues should now see progress meters for side-restricted Day Job badges. However, side-restricted Day Jobs do require a full switch to Hero or Villain to actually earn the badge and/or accolade. Vigilantes cannot become full fledged Arachnos Agents, etc. though they can start making headway.
    • Alignment Guides: When a player receives their first tips, a new contact will show up on the Tips menu who can be contacted via cell phone. They do not give missions, but will explain Tips, Morality Missions, and how to change alignments.
      • These guides can be reached in person from inside Pocket D
        [I look forward to playing with all of this fun alignment stuff.]

    Zones

    • Fort Trident and The Crucible
      • Players who maintain either a Hero or Villain alignment through reinforcement will now find they are welcome to enter Fort Trident (Hero) or The Crucible (Villain). Located in Atlas Park and Cap au Diable, these zones allow the Hero or Villain to relax, meet well known signature characters, teleport to their Task Force/Strike Forces, and also purchase purple recipes and PVP recipes from special vendors with earned Hero or Villain Merits. [New features in low-level zones. Nice.]
        …

    Super Groups

    • Players remain in their Super Group if they change alignments to the opposing side.
      • Hero and Vigilante are considered blue-side, and Villain and Rogue are considered red-side for this purpose, no matter where they happen to be.
    • Players that are in a Super Group of the opposing side are considered to have “gone dark”.
      • Dark members aren’t allowed to access their Super Group base.
      • Dark members aren’t given most Super Group permissions.
        • Dark members are allowed to pay base rent and to talk in Coalition chat.
    • If the Super Group leader goes dark, the leader will then be demoted from their rank.
      • A different non-dark member will be automatically promoted to the leadership position.
      • The Super Group leader will be notified with a pop-up if they attempt to complete a Morality mission that would change their alignment such that they would go dark. The leader must confirm that they are fine with going dark and getting demoted before being allowed to switch to the new alignment.
      • If they do switch alignment all the way to polar opposite of the SG, leadership will pass to the next highest ranking/senior member of the SG.

    POWERS

    Ancillary/Patron Powers

    • Ancillary Power Pools are now available to all characters that reach Level 41, regardless of Hero or Villain status. [Yay. Not something I’ve run into too many times, but still good.]
    • Once a Patron Pool has been unlocked as a Villain, it remains unlocked even if you later switch sides.
    • Patron and Ancillary equivalencies are as follows:
      • Scrappers get Stalker Patron Powers, and vice versa.
      • Tankers get Brute Patron Powers, and vice versa
      • Blasters get Mastermind Patron Powers, and vice versa
      • Defenders get Corruptor Patron Powers, and vice versa
      • Controllers get Dominator Patron Powers, and vice versa
    • Specific power instances were altered to eliminate duplication of powers.

    New Power Sets

    The following four Power Sets are available as part of the Going Rogue Expansion.  [Huzzah for new power sets!]

    Kinetic Melee

    • Kinetic Melee is a melee attack set based upon siphoning your opponent’s energy and using it to power your own attacks. Each individual attack adds a damage debuff to the target (strength and duration dependent upon the tier of the power used) and Tankers inflict even stronger debuffs than the other ATs. Additionally, if Power Siphon is active, the caster gains a damage buff. [Definitely plan on trying this one. Margie indicated it played a bit underpowered, but I suspect that will be corrected.]
    • The following Kinetic Melee powers are intended for Scrappers, Tankers and Brutes:
      • Quick Strike
      • Body Blow
      • Smashing Blow
      • Taunt
      • Repulsing Torrent
      • Power Siphon
      • Burst
      • Focused Burst
      • Concentrated Strike
    • The following Kinetic Melee powers are intended for Stalkers:
      • Quick Strike
      • Body Blow
      • Smashing Blow
      • Assassins Strike
      • Build Up
      • Placate
      • Burst
      • Focused Burst
      • Concentrated Strike

    Electric Control

    • Electric Control is a power set that can be used by Dominators and Controllers. [Another one I want to try.]
    • Electric control offers a mastery of using electricity to negate enemy attacks and keep them off balance. Many effects will arc from one nearby enemy to another, creating dazzling chains of electrical energy. It offers a wide variety of short duration soft controls in the form of stuns, confuses, and knockback.
    • Arcing controls tend to be short duration, but can hit multiple foes and recharge quickly.
    • All arcing controls will be able to use enhancements, allowing players to enhance the Damage, Stun, Immobilize or other effects of the power.
    • The Electric Control Power Set is comprised of the following powers:
      • Electric Fence
      • Tesla Cage
      • Chain Fences
      • Jolting Chain
      • Conductive Aura
      • Static Field
      • Paralyzing Blast
      • Synaptic Overload
      • Generate Gremlins

    Dual Pistols

    • This set is a primary power choice for Blasters and Corruptors and a secondary choice for Defenders. Dual Pistols is also the power set of choice for the Going Rogue signature character Maelstrom. [Margie’s done a lot of play with this. It is an extremely cool-looking power.]
    • What differentiates Dual Pistols from the Assault Rifle power set is the ability to modify every attack’s secondary damage and the effect that has on your target. 70% of damage dealt by most attacks is lethal, the other 30% is modifiable from pure damage to cold, toxic, or fire. This versatility comes at the cost of slightly weaker secondary effects when compared to other power sets. In short, Dual Pistols is a set that can adapt to most situations by bringing a wide variety of debuffs and damage types.
    • The Dual Pistols Power Set is comprised of the following powers:
      • Pistols
      • Dual Wield
      • Empty Clips
      • Swap Ammo
      • Bullet Rain
      • Suppressive Fire
      • Executioner’s Shot
      • Piercing Rounds
      • Hail of Bullets

    Demon Summoning

    • Demon Summoning is a primary power choice for the Mastermind archetype and is also the power set used by the Going Rogue signature character Desdemona. [I’ve played with this early on as a pre-subscriber. It’s a lot of fun; not substantially different from other MM powers thus far (in terms of what the minions do), but still good color-texty.]
    • This power set allows the player to summon elemental demons that can manipulate flame, cold and hellfire. However, what truly sets this power set apart from other Mastermind primary power sets are the summoner’s Hellfire Whip attacks that deal both fire and toxic damage and reduce the target’s damage resistance.
    • The Demon Summoning Power Set is comprised of the following powers:
      • Corruption
      • Summon Demonlings
      • Lash
      • Enchant Demon
      • Crack Whip
      • Summon Demons
      • Hell of Earth
      • Summon Demon Prince
      • Abyssal Empowerment

    Fiery Embrace Change

    • Fiery Embrace power now adds bonus fire damage for all Melee Power Set attacks instead of being a normal damage Buff. All Melee Power Set attacks made for 20 seconds after activating Fiery Embrace will do bonus damage based on that attack’s damage. This bonus damage IS affected by enhancements and outside buff/debuff effects. At low levels, this means Fiery Embrace will have lower impact than the old implementation, while at high levels or on teams with lots of +Damage effects, you will see increased damage output.
    • Critical damage is not affected by the new Fiery Embrace
    • Spines Toxic Damage Over Time effect is not affected by the new Fiery Embrace
    • In PvP, Fiery Embrace uses the previous Damage Buff version.
    • Fixed Thunder Strike Fiery Embrace bonus – it was not properly applying the split radius effect.

    Electric Melee

    • Corrected combat spam for Lightning Rod

    Shield Charge Changes

    • Made several changes to correct balance problems introduced a few months back: [I’ve never played a shield guy. Need to try that some time.]
    • Brute Version: Damage broken into 2 stages — stage one has a 5′ radius and does scale 1.8 Stage 2 has a 20′ radius and does scale 1.275
    • Tanker Version: Damage broken into 2 stages — stage one has a 5′ radius and does scale 2.04 Stage 2 has a 20′ radius and does scale 1.445
    • Scrapper Version: Damage broken into 2 stages — stage one has a 5′ radius and does scale 2.7 Stage 2 has a 20′ radius and does scale 1.9125

    Fiery Aura

    • Burn – changed power substantially:
      • Added initial hit damage
      • Removed Fear effect
      • Decreased tick rate by 4 (now ticks every 0.8 seconds, instead of 0.2 seconds)
    • Consume: Added Recovery boost per target hit and flat Endurance Drain Resistance value.

    Martial Arts
    [Wow. Way to zap all the guides …]

    • Cobra Strike:
      • Decreased Recharge Time from 20 seconds to 10 seconds
      • Increased Endurance Cost from 10.14 to 10.19
      • Increased damage scale from 0.25 to 1.96
      • Reduced Stun chance from 100% to 75%
    • Stalkers Eagle Claw: Increased Recharge time from 12 seconds to 16 seconds, increased damage from 2.28 to 2.92, increased End Cost from 11.86 to 15.18
    • Scrappers Eagle Claw: Eagles Claw now increases the Critical Chance of Martial Arts attacks by 33% for 2 seconds after it has been activated.
    • Crippling Axe Kick – increased recharge to 11 seconds, and increased damage and endurance cost appropriately. Added 10 second scale 1 Defense Debuff.

    Brutes

    • Fiery Aura/Fiery Embrace – The Brute version of this power had a 30 second duration on the Fire Damage buff. This was inconsistent with the Tanker and Scrapper versions and has been reduced to 20 seconds. Note with the changes above, this only applies in PVP.
    • Dark Armor/Aura of Fear – The Brute version of this power has a magnitude was set to 3. This was inconsistent with the Tanker and Scrapper versions and has been reduced to 2.
    • Decreased Brute Damage Cap from 850% to 775%.
    • Modified the Brute Fury Formula so that there is a more gradual degradation of Fury Build Up while attacking/being attacked instead of a sharp fall off at 80%. The fall off begins at 30%.
    • Reduced Fury Decay Rate from 2 points per second to 0.75 points per second.
    • The overall result of these two changes to Fury Generation is that it will be easier to maintain low levels of Fury, while gaining very high levels of Fury will be more difficult.
    • Fixed a bug which prevented bonus Fury generation when attacking other players or very difficult targets such as Archvillains. The bonus is a flat 5 points per qualifying target hit by the attack, up to 70% Fury. Note that unlike standard Fury generation, this bonus only applies if the attack hits the target.

    Controllers

    • Fixed an issue with Controller Kinetics Siphon Power which caused it to spam the Combat Log. It now matches other versions of the power and will only report the initial hit.

    Defenders

    • Added continuing FX to Defender version of Hail of Bullets while using Toxic ammunition to match other versions of the power

    Dominators

    • Corrected an issue which prevented Dominators with the Primal Forces APP from taking the final 3 powers.
    • Changed display name of Fiery Embrace for Dominators to Embrace of Fire

    Scrappers

    • Scrappers will no longer “Drift” more than other AT’s when coming to a stop while Flying or Hovering. [Yay!]

    Stalkers

    • Stalkers will no longer “Drift” more than other AT’s when coming to a stop while Flying or Hovering.
      Stalker Offensive Toggle powers will now affect no targets while the Stalker is Hidden. As soon as the Stalker becomes unhidden, the toggle will begin to affect targets as normal. This means these toggles can be run while in Hide and they will not break the Hide state, because they will not hit anything until Hide is broken by some other event. [A good thing for Stalkers. Not an AT I’ve ever gotten into.]

      • Includes Dark Armor/Cloak of Fear, Dark Armor/Oppressive Gloom, and Energy Aura/Repulse.
    • Broadsword/Head Splitter now correctly accepts Melee AoE IO Sets instead of Melee Damage IO Sets.

    Tankers

    • Added Bruising effect to Tanker Secondary Tier 1 powers. Bruising is a 20% resistible damage resistance debuff which lasts for 10 seconds. Note: only one application of this effect on a given target is possible at a time.
    • Increased Tanker Maximum Health multiplier from 2 to 2.2. At level 50, this means a Tanker’s maximum health when buffed increases from 3213 to 3534. [Yay!]

    General

    • Archery/Trick Arrow (All) – Cast Time and Animation Changes
      • Explosive Arrow cast time reduced from 1.83s to 1.00s
      • Stunning Shot cast time reduced from 1.83s to 1.00s
      • Flash Arrow cast time reduced from 1.83s to 1.00s
      • Ice Arrow cast time reduced from 1.83s to 1.67s
    • Archery/Trick Arrow (All) – Improved the lighting reliability of Oil Slick Arrow.
    • Traps (All) – Corrected an error with the animations for Triage Beacon, Poison Trap and Acid Mortar. The result of this is the reported animation time has been increased from 2.17 seconds to 2.77 seconds. The *actual* animation time has been reduced from 2.83 seconds to 2.77 seconds.
    • Power Pools/Fitness/Health – Fixed a bug that made this power selectable at level 12 instead of level 14.
    • Purchasable Raptor Packs are no longer usable on ‘Master of’ attempts
    • To reduce the travel times involved in larger zones, we’ve made a couple QOL changes to some movement powers:
      • Increased base Flight Speeds by 50% [Yay!]
      • Sprint now improves Runspeed by an additional unenhancable portion equal to its previous value (0.5 scale enhancable + 0.5 scale unenhanceable buff) [Yay!]
    • Changed Cast Time for Enforced Morale and Clear Mind to 1.00 seconds to match the new animation
      …

    Mission Architect

    Introducing: the Designated Helper

    • We are removing the reduction to rewards based on the number of allied NPCs in a mission, since that had undesirable side effects and limited legitimate story telling options. [I understand and appreciate what they’re doing here, but it seems like still more endless tweaking to a system that will always have balance issues.]
    • Instead, a team can only get assistance in the form of buffs and debuffs (and Autopowers) from a single ally in the a mission. That ally becomes “The Designated Helper”.
    • There can only be one Designated Helper in a map.
    • If there are multiple candidates for Helper, the FIRST eligible ally the team encounters that uses its powers will become the Designated Helper.
    • In order for an entity to be a candidate for Designated Helper, the following rules need to be true:
      • The candidate must Follow the player:
        • Added via choosing an Advanced Mission Goal of:
          • Add an Ally
          • Add An Escort
          • NOTE: If the Author chooses “Release a Captive,” the Captive will not follow players and is not a candidate for Designated Helper.
        • The candidate must have the “Follow “ behavior set in the goal Settings
          • Ally: “Ally Behavior” is “Follow”
          • Escort: “Arrival Behavior” is “Follow”
      • The candidate must have its combat abilities set to either:
        • Aggressive
        • Fight Defensive
      • The ally becomes the Designated Helper once it USES its powers, and Defensive allies only use powers defensively, so if the team meets an Aggressive ally before the Defensive ally uses its powers, the Defensive entity will NOT become the Designated Helper.
      • It is possible for the team to end up with a Designated Helper with no buff/debuff powers if the first candidate the player meets does not have Buff/Debuff powers but is set to Aggressive or Fight Defensive.
      • NOTE: Allies with combat abilities set to “Non Combat” or “Pacifist” will not be the Designated Helper
      • No other allies in the map will use their buff/debuff abilities. They also won’t use any Autopowers, summon any pets or use location-based attacks (like Rain of Fire) or chaining attacks (like Chain Induction).
        • Including any friendly bosses, patrols, ambushes, etc.
        • Including any Designated Helper candidates after the first
    • If the author adds more than one buffing ally to the map, and sets those allies to follow the team, after the first ally they will not use their buffing powers. They will still follow the team so goals can be completed and will use offensive powers to attack enemies, but only one ally will use their non-offensive abilities. If the non-DH allies do not have offensive capabilities, they will not do anything other than follow, much like a non-combat escort/ally.

    General

    • Players can now fight Doppelganger versions of themselves. This can be found in the Boss Enemy Group “Doppelganger”. Players can mix and match to create different types of doppelgangers. The following choices are available: [Doppelgangers FTW! Yay! Every GM loves Doppelgangers!]
      • Shadow
      • Demon
      • Reverse
      • Random Powers
      • Ghost
      • Inverse
      • Angel
      • Black and White
    • Custom Critters – fixed several small errors in the amount of XP weight certain powers were awarding in the custom XP calculations.
    • Alignment Tips will not drop in missions from Architect Entertainment.
      …

    Combat Mode Auras

    • Players now have the ability to set all Auras to “Combat Mode”.  [Brilliant!]
      • Combat Mode Only versions of all auras have been added to the Tailor and Facemaker. These auras will only turn on when your character engages in combat. They are selectable from Aura -> Effect menu. (Note: The option for persistent Auras (always on) is still available.)
        …

    PRAETORIAWelcome to Praetoria, the dark mirror version of Primal Earth. Its reflection is one of a utopia where there is little to no crime and to look down upon the city from on high, you would believe it to be a peaceful, happy place. Marcus Cole, the Emperor of Praetorian Earth is looked upon as a savior, but others know there’s more to the story that isn’t written in the history books. Most citizens of Praetorian Earth respect him or even love him. Some who know the truth fear him, and fewer still dare to stand against the lies. No matter what he is called in the halls of power or history books, no one can stop the hushed whispers in the streets and back alleys of his empire where he is called by another name…Tyrant. [New zones FTW!]

    ZONES

    Nova Praetoria

    • Level Range 1 to 10
    • Access to Nova Praetoria:
      • Players arrive in Nova Praetoria following the tutorial. They will also start here when the tutorial is bypassed.
    • Significant Buildings:
      • Cole Transport Authority (CTA)
        • Players travel between zones at the CTA subway system.
      • Imperial Bank of Praetoria
        • Players are able to store salvage at the Imperial Bank
      • Loyalist Lounge
        • This is the lounge for those most dear to Emperor Cole and his senators. Only the most trusted of his citizenry may venture here.
    • Significant Contacts
      • Trainer
        • Praetor Duncan – Located in the Magisterium courtyard.
      • Vendors
        • Vendor 56-925 and Merit Vendors are located in the Magesterium.
        • Vendors may also be found in the north and south ends of the island.
    • Mission Contacts
      • Praetor White – Located in the Magesterium, this is the first contact for all members of the Powers Division (Resistance and Loyalist)
      • Provost Marchand and Calvin Scott are your handlers as members of the Loyalists or Resistance.
      • At level 5, Calvin Scott will lead you to Robert Flores; or Santiago, who directs you to meet Ricochet in the Underground. At this point you may choose the path of a Warden or Crusader.
      • At level 5, Provost Marchand will offer you a choice between the Deputy Assistant of Information and Chief Interrogator Washington. This will start you down the paths of Power or Responsibility.

    Underground – Nova Praetoria

    • Significant Locations
      • Resistance Hub
    • Significant Contacts – All located in the Resistance Hub.
      • Trainer
        • Vanessa DeVore
      • Mission Contacts
        • Ricochet
        • Jack Hammer
      • Splice

    Imperial City

    • Level Range 9 to 15
    • Access to Imperial City:
      • Players can reach this zone via the CTA subway system, the Underground, or by simply travelling towards the city seen in the distance from Nova Praetoria.
      • In Pocket D, Praetorians can return to Imperial City’s Studio 55 where they can continue their party in their own dimension.
    • Significant Buildings:
      • Cole Transport Authority (CTA)
        • Players travel between zones at the CTA subway system.
      • Cultural Direction and Education Center (CDEC)
        • The CDEC is where all of Emperor Cole’s “propaganda” is created and distributed and where Praetorian citizens gather for higher learning and cultural wisdom. The CDEC is also where they are able to access invention tables to create all things for the glory of Cole.
      • Imperial Bank of Praetoria
        • Players are able to store salvage at the Imperial Bank
      • Studio 55
        • Studio 55 is the place to see and be seen.
      • Trading House
        • The Trading House allows players to buy and sell in Praetoria..
    • Significant Contacts:
      • Trainer
        • Nightstar – Located in front of the CTA Building (near People’s Park)
      • Respec Trainer
        • John Snow – Located in Studio 55
      • Tailor
        • Rita Mayfair – Located outside of the Tailor shop in Aureas
      • Inventions
        • Relations Expert Verna Arcola – Invention Tutorial starting contact at Level 10.

    Vista Zoning Tech

    • Your character can reach Imperial City by flying, running, teleporting, jumping, swimming or walking to it from any point along the border of the two zones.  [Yes! No islands and/or war walls!]

      • Expected behavior: Your character should appear at a similar location on the “opposite” side of the zone border. (For example, if your character crosses a bridge to Imperial City, the character should not appear in the water on the other side.).

    Underground – Imperial City

    • Significant Locations
      • Resistance Hub
    • Significant Contacts (Resistance Hub)
      • Storage Assistant – you can store your salvage
      • Marcus / Cerys – Resistance who have secretly tapped into the Trading House pipeline.
      • Tailor – Tailor 4-5264

    Neutropolis

    • Level Range 16 to 20
    • Access to Neutropolis:
      • Players can reach this zone via the CTA subway system or by simply travelling towards the city seen in the distance to the west of Imperial City.
    • Significant Buildings:
      • Cole Transport Authority (CTA)
        • Players travel between zones at the CTA subway system.
      • Neuron Technologies Unlimited
        • The headquarters of Neuron is quite something to behold. He has money and lots of it and it has not gone to waste here. His building is the second tallest in Praetoria, the shiniest, and is the center of technological innovation in Praetoria.
      • Keyes Reactor
        • The source of the city’s power, this island is devoted solely to supporting the reactor and everyone who works there.
        • The most notable feature of the anti-matter reactor are the cooling towers. Nearly ten stories in height, these high-tech marvels bear the singular design aesthetic common to all of Anti-Matter’s structures. At the base of the towers are the industrial installations essential to the reactor’s functioning: platforms sandwiched atop each other, threaded with pipes and conduits, while catwalks connect to other ancillary structures.
      • Imperial Bank of Praetoria
        • Players are able to store salvage at the Imperial Bank
    • Significant Contacts can be found beneath Neuron’s Tower
      • Trainer
        • Battle Maiden
      • Vendors:
        • Vendors 36-287
        • Merit Vendors

    New Villain Groups

    • Ghouls
    • Praetorian Police Department
    • Praetorian Clockwork
    • Resistance
    • Seers
    • Syndicate
    • Destroyers

    Critter Leashing

    • All spawns in Nova Praetoria, Imperial City and Neutropolis will now ‘leash’ to their spawn locations after 210ft, when engaged in combat.   [Interesting. I look forward to seeing how this actually works.]

      • Enemies which leash to their location will cease attacking players, will return to full health and endurance, and will become untargetable and unselectable while returning to the vicinity of their spawn location.
      • Leashed spawns cannot be re-engaged until they have reached their spawn area, at which point they will become targetable and selectable again.
      • Leashing is used in these three zones only and in no other zones.

    Invention

    • The Backup Radio Invention Temporary Power summons a Resistance Veteran for Resistance Members and a Praetorian PD Sergeant for Loyalists.
    [Lots of new stuff … and new fun stuff.]

    Where’s my Ding! There was supposed to be an Earth-Shattering Ding!

    Stiltwalker
    Stiltwalker

    Hmmm.  Is the CO interface to Twitter not working?  Margie’s been doing a bunch of Champions Online the past week (mostly to ding Stilt-Walker up to 40), and not only did she do that yesterday, but she’s also been doing all the Shiny Vibora Bay Revelations stuff and, I have no doubt, been racking up Accolades left, right, and center.

    But … no Twitter love to BoH about it.  Sad …

    Anyhoo, congrats to Margie for hitting level-cap 40! Woot!  We need to get a (better) picture of Stilt-Walker posted up here while we still have active accounts …

    UPDATED: To add picture of Stilt-Walker from her profile.  Which really doesn’t do her justice.

    Transitions

    I just came the the realization that I have next to zero interest in ever playing Champions Online again. Which ticks me off to no end since (as I’ve said a dozen times) there are so many things about the game I like. I just find the overall experience an awful, not-terribly-fun grind.

    On the other hand, we put in our pre-orders for City of Heroes‘ “Going Rogue” expansion, which in theory means we immediately get Dual Pistols to play with. Woot!

    (Interestingly enough, as I was watching the DP trailer, it occurred to me that the power just looks a bit goofy, given that in CoX animation, the bad guys aren’t being immediately knocked back / down / dead in in all directions due to the shooting. I’m not sure why that feels more wrong for pistols than for, say, fireballs, but it does.

    So I still need to get onto CoX and do my server transfers before they (finally) stop extending the free server transfer service.

    On the gripping hand, I’m still busy playing Star Trek Online whenever time permits, so no time for supers.

    Ask Cryptic, decryptified

    Cryptic has reinstated the “Ask Cryptic” as part of the firestorm of “Communicate, dammit!” messages Jack Emmert got when he published an open forum note asking how Cryptic could do better. This week’s installment:

    Halorin: Where does Champions Online fit into Cryptic’s plans a year from now? Two years? Three? And what resources are Cryptic willing to invest in the game see those plans to fruition?

    Jackalope: We’ve just started working on the next step of widening the Champions Universe and we’ve nailed down our ongoing content plans. In short, you can expect to see new adventures every other month (roughly). The content will be far more story based and focused on the background of the game. Meanwhile, we’ve got some other things afoot (and some of you might be able to deduce what that is) and we’ll talk about it more soon.

    A dedication to new content, background-focused, is probably just what the game needs right now.  The questions on everyone’s mind, is (a) what levels, (b) will it be pay-for-play, and (c) will it be persistent content or one-off (or even repeating) event stuff.

    Darth-Log: How confident are you that Champions Online can succeed considering its current lackluster performance and in lieu of upcoming competition? What have you learned, what are your short term considerations and long term goals?

    Chronomancer: We remain dedicated to the Champions Universe, and we have plans to continue to grow it. While our numbers of players is less than we would like, it is also more than several other MMOs that continue to service their communities.

    The question is, how much service can you provide if the money model isn’t there?

    The upcoming expansion is an excellent example of our plan to make the game bigger and better while also addressing the desires of our players.

    And make more money.

    We learned a great many lessons from Champions, and I think you can see some of that knowledge expressed in how we ran our beta testing and approached content creation in Star Trek Online.

    STO has been a much more pleasant (not flawless, but improved) experience.  Though the nature of the different and its pervasiveness makes it hard to believe that’s all due to lessons learned from the CO beta/roll-out.

    Game development is continued learning, iteration, and alteration to fit the needs of an ever-changing market. A game that was a huge hit five or ten years ago probably wouldn’t do anywhere near as well today. The interests and demands of gamers have changed. So we have to learn from our mistakes as well as our successes and move forward.

    (Mumbles, waves hands, what’s so special about CoX anyway, nothing to see here, move along.)

    In that regard, we’re going to be focusing more on creating content to provide multiple paths of advancement within Champions Online. The plan is to create more of what you want in smaller bites so we can do them on shorter timelines.

    Creating more parallel material is definitely a Good Thing.  Doing it in small bits is also a good idea.  Think of each of the “zones” in the desert — rather than recreate a whole desert, you could easy crank out one or two more zones of that sort in the course of a couple of months (if you had good writing).

    We also want to provide more ways and reasons for players to group, which is what much of the Flashback and Difficulty Slider work has been focused on.

    The difficulty aspect suffers not from a “slider” but from uneven mob strengths and missions.  Making it easier for people to group or PUG would be useful — and since the server scales groups, even if the population is down it shouldn’t be difficult to do.

    In the long term, we’re working on creating new stories, game play mechanics, and locales for the Champions universe. We’re increasing our presence in the community and being more open and communicative with you so you know what we’re thinking and working on. And perhaps most importantly, we’re continuing to look for ways that we can make Champions a better game.

    All of which is (a) unquestionably a good thing, and (b) very unspecific.

    FongSolo: What is Cryptic doing, or even planning behind the scenes to rebuild good faith in the company and this product that many of us paid the lifetime subs for?

    Arkayne: Aside from a ton of things that we just can’t talk about right now, but will be very soon, we’re actively making a couple of changes around here: We’re stepping up the communication. We’re going to do more Ask Cryptics, more Dev Chats, we’re going to be in-game, playing with you more, Our GMs are going to start letting you know the status on the current bugs, and the entire development team is going to start being more active on the forums. On top of that, we also moved Stormshade back to Champions. We know you don’t know him well yet, but believe us when we say, he gets really loud when you guys aren’t happy. Oh, and that “soon” we’re talking about up there, that’s not a “soon(tm)” that’s a soon, as in as soon as humanly possible soon.

    Communication is definitely an area where Cryptic has fallen down.  It will be interesting to see how this new resolve works (and how long it will last).

    Derangement: Are there any plans to eventually include more non-seasonal content as part of a free update, or will you be focusing the revenues from monthly subscriptions on bug fixes and otherwise upgrading the game’s core, while relying on microtransactions for added content?

    Stormshade: We have plans to add more free content to the game very soon, not seasonal stuff, and we’ll be talking about that shortly. (Sorry gang, you’re not getting a Valentine’s Day Event, but we do still love you.)

    Frankly, I’d rather see fewer events and more persistent content, so this is a good thing.

    Heathenish: I’d like to know what the relationship between STO code and CO code is. Because this past patch seems like you guys just dropped the “improved” STO engine right back into CO. Seems like a crazy thing to do, but for instance the direction-reversing and crazy camera bugs seem to have come straight from STO beta. Also, are both games sharing the same server? It doesn’t seem fair to have login problems because some other game is flooded.

    Poz: Champs and STO share Cryptic’s global services: the chat and mail server, the account server, and proxy servers. The games themselves do not share any servers. As you noted, the account server is what we’ve had some problems with due to Star Trek. Unfortunately, we couldn’t safely change how our system works and split the two games apart there. Many of the load issues are fixed already, and we have programmers whose highest priority is keeping the account server working smoothly.

    It makes sense as a model, and is probably the right thing to do — if it’s done well.

    IchbinVol: Will there be any reason to have a theme based character in the future? Perhaps a synergy bonus for having a certain set of skills?

    BigOtter: That’s actually one of the goals of our Tier 4 powers being introduced in our upcoming expansion – to provide high-end thematic meta-powers for each of the power groups.

    Hmmmm.  An interesting idea.  I love CO’s mix-and-match concept, but super-heroes are all about theme.  If I were starting a supers game from scratch, I’d see how I could divorce powers from FX.  I.e., there’s no reason most of the various powers (maybe splitting melee vs ranged) wouldn’t work if you could do them each with any number of visual cues.

    Btw, I find it fascinating that we’re getting so many different Dev names showing up in this.  That’s probably a good thing.

    DawningDestiny: When is the melee rebalancing coming? You’ve talked a lot about it, but I’ve seen nothing that wasn’t a nerfy baseball bat to the face when it comes to melee. It’s by far the most underwhelming, underpowered set in the game. So yeah, what’s your timetable for that fix?

    Akinos: Our melee review is currently underway. It is a massive review that involves 5 full framework reviews as well as an overall look at melee as a whole. It’s too early to give an ETA but rest assured is it being worked on.

    Good to hear. It seems to me that there are problems both with melee overall in CO and with some power sets beyond that.  I’d rather they take time to do it arguably right, than rush out ill-considered bumps and nerfs.  At least … take some time.

    Overall:  a lot of generic filler (“We love you! We will continue to love you in new and exciting and surprising ways! Please love us!”) with some promising nuggets of possible truth.  The right message, at a minimum.

    Not a good Friday evening over in Cryptic-land..


    From CO:

    Currently, the Champions Online Server is down. We are aware of this issue and are currently working to bring the server back online as soon as possible. Please keep an eye on this page for updates, and notification when Champions Online is available again. Thank you, The Champions Online Team

    From STO:

    Currently, the Star Trek Online server is down. We are aware of this issue and are currently working to bring the server back online as soon as possible. Please keep an eye on this page for updates, and notification when Star Trek Online is available again. Thank you, The Star Trek Online Team

    Man, someone’s weekend just went in the crapper.

    CO: Margie on Champions Online

    (Margie originally wrote this as a comment down in this thread, but it was a big enough effort to warrant its own post.)

    As the recent tweet dump confirms, my main solo Stilt Walker hit 35 over the weekend. I would like to get her to 40 before I say goodbye. I am a completionist that way. I hope it’s not a grind.

    One of the funny differences between CO and CoX that I recently noticed. With CoX, a ding means more, especially if it is a power level. With CO, after about 20, I might have 2-3 level-up sitting there waiting for me to hit the powerhouse. I think there are 3 reasons for that.

    First, it takes a long time to decide what power or attribute to take. The matrix powers are a blessing and a curse. There are too many choices and it’s too hard to figure out what X really does, much less if X is better than Y. At the end of a session, I can easily spend hours leveling, selling, and crafting. And I don’t take any of those too seriously.

    Second slots, after you have slotted your block and slotted passives, you are left with mostly attacks or junk. I want a well rounded character. Slotting a character for Aggressive, Defensive and Balanced builds doesn’t work for me. I don’t want to spend the extra power pick and I know that I am unlikely to switch between builds effectively. Don’t even get me started on having different enhancements in each build.

    Finally it’s hard to feel good about your selection. You are always worried that you made a bad choice. With respecs being as rare as hen’s teeth or a paid commodity, it is easy to second-guess yourself and also feel that each level choice is a major commitment.

    All of the above make CO less friendly to the casual gamer.

    I’ve also grown to appreciate CoX enhancement slots. When I slot an enhancement I know exactly what it’s doing and how it is improving that power and my overall character. I hate trying to decide what widget is best for each of my 6 slots. If I take X it will improve Y but drop Z. Is cool thing A really worth dropping stats B and C. I think that CoX has struck an interesting balance with the crafting system. You can slot just your drops or just SOs and have a useful character. Or you can dig into the details and find the sets that tweak your toon just the way you want it.

    And finally, I always have and always will hate having one bag for all my crap. Mission stuff should not take up space. I dislike having to wade through crafting, mission and devices to find my new enhancements.

    It is the housekeeping that frustrates me. Having to break off your cluster of missions deep in the zone to find someone to sell your crap to. (I know you can just drop it, but that’s wasteful.) Having a crafting system that doesn’t give you anything much of value other than consumables. You can find better stuff cheaper in the auction house. That is, if you are willing to spend the time and brain drain to use the auction house – YUCK. That is after you go across 3 zones to get to the auction house (I’m talking to you, Lemuria).

    Why can’t you sell stuff to more NPCs?

    Why do you have to physically touch a contact to end a mission or get a new one?

    Why do some areas have more missions than you can have at one time?

    Why does it take so long for the last mcguffin to drop from the mob you have been farming for an hour?

    I will be curious to see how STO handles some of this. How much of these issues are a management decision to make it take longer to get to level 40 and how much was a team or system decision?

    CO: Ending my CO-dependency?

    I’ve been thinking — really thinking — about Champions Online.  And whether I’m going to play it any more.

    Having been back with gameplay the past few days, I’ve done some CO solo … some CO in a duo with Margie … and some CoX in a duo with Margie.

    Duoing with Margie is fun whatever the game.  But I really had a lot more fun playing CoX.

    There are things I like, really like, about CO.

    1. The graphics.  The look.  I know this is hardly a unanimous opinion, but I really like them. They fit the genre.  The characters also, for the most part, move well.  And I think the stance stuff is a great further differentiator (Beast stance ftw!).
    2. I like that many powers have multiple actions associated with them, esp. in the martial arts / swords categories.
    3. Acrobatics is a great-looking “travel” power.  Especially in Beast Stance.  And Teleport is handled well.  And I like all the flight/TK variants.
    4. I like the idea behind a classless system.  It promises flexibility to play the way you want, and create the character you want.   You can make your concept character with minimum interference from the game.
    5. The physical scope of the game is also neat.  No War-Walled neighborhoods.  Tundra, jungle, desert, urbanscape, etc.
    6. I like the power-building mechanism, and, yeah, I think blocking is a cool thing. The concept behind the way powers in combat are handled is a serious step above the attack-chain-ridden CoX.
    7. The shardless setup is also cool — no name contention, easy to join up with friends, no “deserted” servers.

    So, lots to like.  But it’s mostly lots to like in the concept, the idea, the presentation.  The actual execution continues to cause me fits.

    1. The execution of the classless system sucks. Powers and power sets are grossly unbalanced.  If you decide to go for a simple class … well, you’re crippling your character from the get-go.  Melee and ranged characters have differ severe disadvantages.  Figuring out what a power actually does is like pulling teeth — copious notes online with poor explanations.  And the complete flexibility of the system means it’s impossible to find a decent guide (assuming you can find anything on the boards).  As a result, I always feel like whatever choice I make at each step is probably a horrible mistake that’s going to cripple my character.
    2. Which I feel like.  Honestly, I feel weak in any of my toons, solo or duo.  Objectively, that may not be true, but I feel like too many battles (esp. solo) are life-or-death, and that the balance point can be tipped way too easily. I don’t want the game to be trivially easy by any means, but when I play a super-hero I would kind of like to feel … heroic.  Is it build? Is it balance? Is it improper expectations?  I have no way of knowing.
    3. Acrobatics is the coolest-looking thing on 2-4 feet, unless you have to actually climb up anything.  Sniper on the rooftops?  Sorry, Kitsune — try the fire escape.  Add the instant slow-down as soon as you get aggroed by someone (inevitable as you lope at ground level through the city), and travel is a real drag.
    4. Trainers and stores (assuming one must have them) are annoyingly centralized, meaning you have to travel to them. (See above, though it’s an annoyance regardless of the travel power.)
    5. I’d have explored a lot more of the system if I weren’t limited to 8 toons, total.  Sure, I can buy more, but … no.
    6. It’s not the limited content I mind so much, as that the content doesn’t do a great job (after the intros in both zones) of guiding you to it.  What should I do next?  Everything? Or a few things?  Hit every contact you find, and it all starts to blur, story-wise.  Just take a few at a time, and you discover that you have to re-clear zones because of mission overlaps.
    7. The landscape maps may be War Wall-less, but the layout is as silly sometimes as a D&D dungeon module.  Take the desert.  You have a big research fortress next to a wasteland of radioactive mutants next to a haunted ghost town next to a camp of bad guys next to a bunch of lakes full of radioactive mutants next to an amusement park next to a missile silo next to a prison next to … There are no War Walls, but it’s still pretty goofy when the entire setting changes just because you went through a pass over over a ridge.
    8. And goofiness is not restricted to geographical proximity.  There’s a lot of damned silly writing.  A bit of silly writing — well, that’s just witty.  Too much, and it makes sure that it’s difficult to take the game itself seriously.  Which I’d kind of like to.

    So … lots of cool stuff that I desperately want to love.  But some massive key frustrations that keep me from doing so.

    Frustrating.

    The question is, am I going to keep playing? Especially if I’m still playing CoX and start playing STO?

    Decisions, decisions …

    CO: Kitchen sink patch and coming stuff

    Whew. You turn your back on the game for a few months, and everything goes all crazy!

    After having been away (Real Life Sucks) from CO and CoX for a while, I have a few things to say, separately, about coming back. But, in the meantime, some thoughts on the CO news.

    I won’t go into a lot of details on the Kitchen Sink patch (except to note the patches to deal with the patch that immediately followed). I think it’s cool that they’re trying to incorporate as many concerns and problems as they can.

    That all said … looking at the “coming attractions” ….

    “New Costume Sets in the C-Store” – Oh, boy. As in, so seriously not interested. I’m actually pretty happy with the costumes I have on the toons I have, and since I have no more slots available (mutter), there’s no big driver for me to change costumes. (Which, honestly speaking, I don’t do in CoX that much any more, either; I now have a Vet Award that gives me 50% off all Tailor Sessions, and most of my toons have free Tailor Tokens in the double digits.)

    “I See a Blood Moon a Risin’” – Well, if we can have Rikti Invasions at random intervals, I guess we can have Werewolf Invasions every lunar month. Meh.

    “This One Goes to Eleven” – Okay, this one looks good.

    We’ll be introducing difficulty levels that players can set both for individual heroes and for their team. With 1 lower and 2 higher levels of difficulty to select from, players can create a challenge that fits their play style and ability.

    Excellent. Soloists will be able to dial back difficulty levels. That will make life a lot easier.

    “Flashing Back” – I don’t have any characters so far along that I feel the need to flash back with them.  It does make me worry that so many people do that this feature is considered worthwhile.

    “Vibora Bay Watch” – Hmmmm. Okay, on the plus side, more content.  On the minus side, is the game so unbalanced that we need to focus on Lvl 37-40 content already?

    Evidently there are indications in some references to this expansion pack that it’s going to be a paid content item, which has some portion of the CO community up in arms.  It’s certainly a different model than CoX (which has had one paid upgrade pack, with another coming soon, both of which were not just new zones), but we knew CO was designed differently from the start.  It will be interesting to see this play out.  I certainly don’t feel any compelling need to acquire it any time soon.

    Especially for level 37-40.  Yeesh.  Give me a 12-20 zone, or a 20-30 zone, and I think you’d hit a lot more customers.  Self included.

    Flashing Back

    CO: Passive Aggressive

    Forcfe of Will
    Force of Will

    Hrm.

    So I’ve been doing more looking at various builds, whilst playing CO solo (what little duo play we’ve been doing has been on a hypothetically mysterious and intermittent game that I can’t talk about).  My current solo character is Force of Will, a TK blades character.

    I’m reading through guides, and reviewing build suggestions, and making notes, and figuring out what I want to take at different levels.  And I finally got to another power level with her, and glanced at those notes, and …

    … and WTF?

    All the guides are all, “Hey, gotta have that Passive Defensive early and often,” followed by bitter debates about which is best (which is, as far as I can gather from the tenor of the debates, Anything But Lightning Reflexes).  Well, that’s all well and fine, but the TK Blades guides are also all full of debates about which is better, Ego Form or Shadow Form — most people prefer the latter, but there’s a vocal and vehement minority that argues the former.  And, hey, there was Ego Form, ready for selection.  I should give that a try …

    … um …

    It’s a slotted Offensive Passive … and I can have only one slotted Passive thing at a time.  Which I choose depends on … which build I’ve selected.

    So, to have both the oh-so-critical Defensive Passive, and the oh-so-critical Offensive Passive, I have to be also toggling between builds.

    Let me say, that’s probably one of my least favorite bits of CO thus far.  Okay, I like the variety of approaches you can have, both within a framework and from outside (vs. the comparatively much more channeled CoX power choices).  But I find the Build mechanic to be one more decision point than I want to have to make.  And so I’ve been basically ignoring it — only to discover now that, um, I actually need to make use of it if I’m going to achieve golden heroism?

    Now, I’m sure that people do get soloing and making that choice.  And I’ll get along without it.  I just find it … annoying.  Part is my own ignorance, part is the lack of decent player education. Yeah, if I was using a character builder program, I’d have probably figured this out, but …

    Harrumph.

    CO: The Penny (or Cryptic Point) Drops

    The Cryptic Store finally shows what sorts of things you’re going to be able to buy, with new items going on sale Midnight tonight Tuesday (i.e., now).

    • Costumes appear to be going for 240 points a pop (and there are some nice ones there, if you just Have to Have them).
    • Emblem packs are 80 points each.
    • Action Figures are 80 each.

    Those are the old news. Now for the new:

    • Character slots: 1200 for a set of 4 (beyond the initial 8).
    • Costume slots: 400 for two additional (you get up to three plus one SG slot by lvl 40).
    • Full respec: 1000 per hero for one respec/retcon.
    • Rename: 800 for a single hero.

    All are the above are for Cryptic Points. In addition to any you may have picked up elsewhere (I have 400), they can be bought for cash for USD $6.25 per 500 (under My Account). So those four character slots will set you back $15, if I’m doing my math (though it may be more, since you can only buy them in 500 CP increments).

    Welcome to the world of microtransactions.

    Are the prices reasonable? Hmmm. I suppose they’re not outrageous. It’s enough to make me think twice about doing them, though, which makes it problematic. Is it worth a month playtime (equivalent) to respec my hero? I dunno.

    This is what Superspeed should be like

    Footage from an under-development (and since-canceled) Flash computer game.

     

    High-speed jaunts down the highway! Improbably high leaps! Super-sonic fists! This is what SS should be like. Sadly, CoX only gives you running. And CO doesn’t even give you that if you get aggroed.

    *Sigh*

    Okay, and I confess on my few SS characters (CoX and CO), I’ve been known to hum the Danny Elfman TV series music, too.