Category: City of Heroes

NCSoft to CoH Fanbase: Please stop writing us letters!

NCSoft issued an official press release today to all those City of Heroes fans who’ve been trying to save the game.

Short version: “Happy Hunger Games, and may the odds be ever in your favor!”

Long version:

City of Heroes® Players and Fans,

We wanted to let you know that your voices have been heard and your concerns have been taken into serious consideration. We appreciate the overwhelmingly constructive and positive messages in the emails, notes, and packages you’ve sent in support of the game. It has not been an easy decision for us to close Paragon Studios® and prepare to shut down City of Heroes. We’ve exhausted all options including the selling of the studio and the rights to the City of Heroes intellectual property, but in the end, efforts to do so were not successful. City of Heroes has a special place in all of our hearts, and we want to ensure its reputation and the memories we share for the game end on a high note.

Once again, we will be holding events throughout the process of preparing for the game’s end, and we encourage players and fans of the franchise to join forces and enjoy their time in a game that we’ve enjoyed supporting for more than eight years.

The NCSOFT® Team

Um … yeah. Right. I call shenanigans.

I’d really love to know what NCSoft considers “exhausting all options”. What actual offers of selling Paragon Studio (which has been officially disbanded already) or the CoH IP have been entertained? What actual interest does NCSoft have in selling the property, rather than taking a write-off on their taxes? Whom did they consider, and what offers did they entertain?  What (ballpark, even) would they consider a reasonable offer?

In short, I don’t believe a word of it.  It’s a PR release designed to placate people and convince them to stop sending sad, angry, or demanding letters, to stop getting articles printed in the media, or getting celebrities who enjoy CoH to speak out.  It’s a “Run along, kid, show’s over” message.

I didn’t expect other result, to be honest. But I would have liked some basic honestly and integrity in the message. E.g., “We have decided to consolidate our operations in Korea, rather than have American and European studios. This is a strategic business decision. City of Heroes has been profitable, but maintaining it is a distraction from other games we hope will be much bigger.  That said, we have no interest in passing along the game to anyone else, given that it has been profitable and would only benefit the purchaser. This is not meant to be a slap in the face to loyal players of the game, but the cold, hard, business facts behind this decision.” It wouldn’t earn them any friends, but it might earn them some modicum of respect for being open about it. It would move decisions about being a future NCSoft customer away from emotion and over to simple business decisions.

But instead they blow smoke up our ass.

Well, guess what? Yeah, I’d been still toying with some of the recent and on-the-boards NCSoft games.  But, y’know what? Screw it. I have plenty of other places to put my money and spend my time than on a company that makes a calculated financial decision to destroy a popular and profitable game that I dearly love.

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.

Guess I’m still in that “Depression” stage

Or maybe the bottom line is that advancement in CoH was more about the achievement  and reaching the goal than the journey. Because I confess I am utterly uninterested in hopping onto CoH and doing any gameplay.  Which I feel like a kick in the gut whenever an opportunity that would have previously been, “Hey, I’ve got some time, maybe I’ll do a bit of CoH” or “Hey, Honey, want to do some Game?” comes up.

I have gone in to take some character screencaps, and I want to do a server-by-server “In Memorium” set of posts.  But right now — I can’t bring myself to go in and play with any of these people who will be evaporating in 2+ months.

City of Heroes and the Five Stages of Grief

As formulated by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross relating to how people react to terminal illness or to any other personally catastrophic news.  I saw all of these in the CoH community since the word came down yesterday that the game was being shuttered — including all of these comments or variants thereof (well, not much of #5 yet).

  1. Denial — “NOOOOOOO!” “I don’t believe it!” “I feel numb.” “This makes no sense.” “It’s a fake to increase interest in the game.” “Someone else will buy the game and keep it running.”
  2. Anger — “It’s not fair!” “NCSoft is screwing us!” “I’ve put all this time and effort in and now they just take it away? Unacceptable!” “Why are they doing this? I demand an explanation!”
  3. Bargaining — “Isn’t there anything we can do?” “Petition NCSoft to keep the game running!” “Petition NCSoft to make the game open source so someone else can keep it running!” “Petition Sony to buy the game!” “Can’t they just let the servers run without any extra change or growth in the game?”
  4. Depression — “I’m never going to play a game again.” “”Nothing will ever be as good as CoH was.” The game will be over soon, so what’s the point of playing it with any of my characters?” “I’ll never be able to think of how I met my spouse in the game without being sad now.”
  5. Acceptance — “It’s going to be okay.” “There are other games out there — what is everyone else moving to?” “It’s had a good run and I’ve enjoyed it. Time to move on.”

On why NCSoft is killing off City of Heroes

It’s the money, stupid.  The game is doing okay, but in context, it’s not in NCSoft’s interest to keep it up and running.

Based on their Investor Relations report (PDF) of August 2012:

  1. NCSoft considers CoH an MMOG, which has a life cycle of 5-10 years.  Introduced in 2004, that makes CoH 8 years old, close to end-of-life. (p. 4)
  2. CoH revenues are a tiny fraction of NCSoft’s income, vs. Aion and Lineage 1 and 2 — about 2% of sales. (p. 7 and 13)
  3. North America and Europe sales are a tiny fraction of NCSoft’s revenue (p. 13)
  4. CoH saw a tiny increase in sales over the last year, but as  The Escapist notes, that with the change-over to the blended business model “City of Heroes Freedom,” which was meant to significantly increase revenues — which didn’t happen. (p. 13)
  5. NCSoft profit and net income is way down. (p. 20)
  6. Company focus is on two big launches this year, Blade and Soul and Guild Wars 2. (p. 16-18)

Bottom line (so to speak), City of Heroes and, more importantly, Paragon Studios, was a distraction for a company in financial trouble and focused on upcoming releases. The revenue stream was small and going nowhere.  From a purely business standpoint, it makes all the sense in the world for them to pull the plug.

But it still sucks big-time for the players.

The End of City of Heroes

Well … dammit.

This morning we announced that Paragon Studios will be taking to the skies of City of Heroes for the last time.

In a realignment of company focus and publishing support, NCsoft has made the decision to close Paragon Studios. Effective immediately, all development on City of Heroes will cease and we will begin preparations to sunset the world’s first, and best, Super Hero MMORPG before the end of the year. As part of this, all recurring subscription billing and Paragon Market purchasing will be discontinued effective immediately. We will have more information regarding a detailed timeline for the cessation of services and what you can expect in game in the coming weeks.

That … just … SUCKS.

It’d hard to express in words how much City of Heroes has meant to me.  It was the first MMORPG I ever played.  I met folks there. I ran a supergroup of friends and acquiaintances.  I gave a sub to my wife for Valentines Day, and the two of us have logged weeks worth of  time over the years.

I came in at I3, when things were in a nascent stage.  I remember mad dashes through the Hollows … go-hunt-killing Skulls in Kings Row … endless jogs through Steel Canyon to the missions before hitting that magic Level 14 when you could get a travel power …

The expansion of content, of character types and powers, of Quality of Life features kept it all fresh and new, yet still familiar.

We had a stable of characters on different servers, spanning everything from toons in their teens (level-wise) to retired Level 50s, and in an array of powers and synergies that playing the same missions back to back (e.g., the Signature Story Arcs) never felt like a dull grind, but a series of wargames with differing conditions.

I wrote a novel. Well, half a novel.  That I still plan to get back to.

We tried different games — DC Universe Online, Champions Online, Star Trek Online, and (and Margie and Kay still play this, too), Lord oft the Rings Online.  But we always came back to CoH.

It made us feel super. Especially together.

And now … after, what, 8, 9 years? … it’s going away.

The team here at Paragon deserves special praise for all that we have accomplished over the last 5+ years. These developers are some of the most creative and talented people in the gaming industry. By now, we’ve all been given this news internally, but to anyone who may be reading this message after the fact; know that your hard work and dedication has not gone unappreciated or unnoticed. To any potential studios looking to grow your team; hire these people. You won’t regret it.

The Dev community on CoH, including their accessibility through the forums, was always one of the cool aspects of CoH.

To our Community,

Thank you. Thank you for your years of support. You’ve been with us every step of the way, sharing in our challenges, encouraging us to make City of Heroes better, more than everyone else thought it could be. We couldn’t have come this far without you. I implore you all, focus on the good things of CoH and Paragon Studios. Don’t dwell on the “how” or the “why”, but rather join us in celebrating the legacy of an amazing partnership between the players and the development team.

Thank you, and I’ll see you in the skies, one last time.

I don’t blame the Paragon Studios folks. The direction for this is clearly about NCSoft. I’ll be curious as to what news comes out about what’s driving this decision.

Regardless, it’s sad. Depressing. Grief-making. Like finding out the restaurant you liked so much, where you go every few weeks, where you know the staff’s names, where you proposed to your wife … is not only closing, but being torn down for a WalMart.

Ugh.

COH Signature Story Arcs

Okay, I admit it — I have a bit of Obsessive-Compulsive Behavior viz City of Heroes. Such that, as the various Signature Story Arcs have come out, I’ve been insistent on our running through them with all of our alts who qualify.

Which, given that they tend to ramp up in level, has limited the scope.  We have 13 “high-level” alt pairs that we run — defined, loosely, as level 25 or higher.  Some are Legacy Consortium Heroes on Champion, and a few high-levelers on a some other servers. Several were part of the Great Praetorian Boom. Still other were the Final Level Pact Rush.

But 25 or so only gets you (on the Pandora’s Box SSA) so far.  I think the first installment is level 30, and the second was 35. The third (just out) is 40+, which restricts us to six duos to run (we’ve now done four), though we hae twom ore that are in the 38-39 range and could be advanced with a bit of focus.

What’s actually cool about the SSAs is that they play quite differently depending on who’s going in on them. We have an array of variations in our duos (scrapper-or-brute/troller of various flavors, blaster-or-corruptor/tank ditto, scrapper duos, mastermind duos) as well as variations on their difficulty settings.  Given that we can usually plow through one of the SSA installments in an hour (after the first hero and villain run-throughs, where we actually read the dialog), that’s not too bad a way to kill an evening.

The current installment (2.3) is actually pretty darned good.  Malta is always a challenging mix of firepower and debuffs, but the final installment does a nice job triggering some status quo changes that are due out with I24.

I look forward to the third SSA. And, as well, to our herd of level 5-20 duos we have growing up on Exalted qualifying for these adventures …

I24 Overview and Musings

Why it seems like only yesterday when I was talking about the upgrade from I3 to I4 (PvP! Body part sliders!). And here we are, a scant seven (!) years later, talking about I24:

Issue 24: Resurgence is the next major free City of Heroes Freedom™ content update. Issue 24 provides new story arcs for a variety of character levels, ongoing power and Enhancement upgrades, and continuing premier content for our VIP players. Now that the Praetorian War is over, former adversaries work shoulder to shoulder to rebuild in the aftermath. As refugees from Galaxy City and Praetoria flood the streets of Paragon City, fresh conflicts bubble to the surface and new enemies emerge, setting the stage for a coming storm.

If I said I haven’t been involved in the Praetoria War, does that make me a bad hero?

Power and Enhancement Upgrades

Blaster Upgrades:  Blasters receive a substantial increase to their damage and toughness. All Blaster secondary power sets now include a new element: Sustain. The Sustain attribute grants increased regeneration and recovery to upgrade to the following Blaster secondary powers; Touch of Fear, Blazing Aura, Chilling Embrace, Cloaking Device, Lightning Clasp, and Conserve Power. Blasters who already have these powers do not need to respec in order to benefit from Sustain. The attack range of some powerful Blaster attacks has also been doubled, while all Snipe powers can now be instantly fired under certain conditions.

My blasters will certainly enjoy this — instantsnipe (if you have a high enough to-hit bonus going) will be really keen on teams, where the build-up time for snipe powers is often difficult to make happen.

Having the short-range blasts become standard-range is pretty awesome, too. Sounds like it will be time for some respecs for Torchielle and Miss Crackle, among others.

Power Pool Customization: Players who have unlocked tailor access can now change the colors of their Ancillary, Patron, and Power pools, allowing customization of powers such as Super Speed, Hasten, and Soul Tentacles.

THANK YOU, JESUS!  Or whoever decided to prioritize this.  Assuming that I can actually choose “Minimal FX” for things like Hasten and Superspeed.

Power Pool Upgrades:  The Concealment, Fighting, Leadership, Medicine, and Presence pools have received an additional power each. They are trainable at level 14 if you own two other powers in that pool. Each power pool also has a new fifth power that can now persuade opponents to disregard a character, transform into an unrelenting berserker, or dramatically improve a team’s Endurance recovery.

Power Pools haven’t been touched since practically Day 1.  The changes that have been discussed (more details elsewhere) will also trigger some serious respecs, for all characters, I suspect.

Improved Enhancement Set Bonuses: Invention Origin Enhancement set bonuses, such as XP debt reduction and specific mesmerization/mental control resistances, have been replaced with more useful set bonuses. These new set bonuses provide more powerful resistance against a broader variety of damage.

That’s … probably good.  Though no doubt it will throw the markets into a tizzy for a month or three as people buy the new hot thing and decline to buy the old, not-quite-as-relatively-good thing.

New Invention Origin Sets: Four new Invention Origin Enhancement sets debut with Issue 24. Annihilation (targeted AoE), Unbreakable Guard (damage resistance), Reactive Defenses (defense), and Preventive Medicine (healing). These new sets all offer different and specific bonuses, such as decreasing an opponent’s resistance, increasing a character’s maximum hit points, improve resistances, and even granting an absorption shield.

More IO sets are definitely a good thing (see also, “markets in a tizzy”).

New VIP Bonuses

Martial Assault and Martial Combat (Free for VIPs): Dominators and Blasters can now combine ranged powers with melee martial arts attacks. Martial Assault combines ancient weapons with deadly physical attacks. It is available for all Dominators. Martial Combat focuses on using the energy within to perform remarkable feats. It is available for all Blasters.

As previously noted, blapper-tastic!

Actually, it should work well for a variety of purposes, as some blasters and doms just don’t need “powered” secondaries for their character concepts.  (I have several that have Energy as their secondary, simply for the “go away!” first level punch — which Martial Combat now has as well as other useful things.)

More Lore Incarnate Abilities (Free for VIPs): Level 50 Incarnates can now craft new Lore abilities that let them summon powerful members of the Banished Pantheon, Knives of Vengeance, Talons of Vengeance, or the Tsoo as allies in combat.

Still find the Level 50 Incarnate stuff confusing as hell (yes, what we need is another power / crafting system).  So no interest here, aside from thinking the above concept sounds cool.

New Incarnate Story Arc (Free for VIPs): The majority of Praetoria except for one last bit of civilization outside of the city has been destroyed. This tiny corner of civilization crumbles from constant attacks by the Devouring Earth, and its days are numbered unless someone with the power of an Incarnate fights against the forces of Hamidon! Characters who are ready for this great challenge can contact the Vanguard scientist Number Six in the Rikti War Zone.

Wait, what?

Oh, man, did I sleep through the world being destroyed again?

Have to wonder, what does this actually mean for Praetoria (as in “can I still run characters through Praetoria like before, or is that whole zone now gone?”).  I’ll have to ask the CoH G+ team on Friday …

New Tier 9 Tech Knight Costume Set (Exclusive to VIPs): Tier 9 VIP players in the Paragon Rewards program can unlock the new Tech Knight Costume Set. The Tech Knight costume set fuses cosmic energy and high-tech power, allowing players to create truly fantastic warriors for good or evil.

New costumes = always good.

New Stories and Adventures for All Levels

Kings Row in Crisis (Levels 7-20): With Galaxy City destroyed, the displaced and homeless flood into neighboring Kings Row to find shelter, work, and protection. The beleaguered Paragon Police Department already has its hands full, and the fallout is that the city’s gangs are thriving and enlarging their turf. Back Alley Brawler and the Regulators have put out a call for a new team of Heroes to stop the villainous gang members and to protect the refugees.

Good to see a new reason to go back to Kings Row.  Now if only the Hollows weren’t a ghost town …

The Giant Monster, Paladin, is also taking advantage of this chaos to try to destroy Kings Row. Paladin and his minions now rampage throughout High Park, seeking to claim it. The heroic Shining Stars stand up against Paladin’s mechanical might, but they need help from the Heroes to finish Paladin off.

Oooh … nice to see the Shining Stars mixing it up, plus some sort of way of duking it out with Paladin that doesn’t requiring finding a critical mass of heroes in KR?  Nice.

Brickstown’s New Alliances (Levels 30-50): The remnants of the Praetorian Army now work with the Vanguard in Brickstown. Forging an alliance of Praetorians and Heroes from Primal Earth, the Vanguard seeks to fight the emerging threats from both Praetoria and Primal Earth. All interested Heroes should contact Provost Marchand in Brickstown.

Hmmm. Okay, makes sense. Bricks is sort of a dumping ground at the moment, so giving it a new feel is worthwhile.  Wonder how that will work in conjunction with the Zig?

To add to that, the Praetorians are not the only issue to worry about in Brickstown. Prisoners have broken out of the Zig maximum security prison! In the new Prison Break zone event, Heroes have their hands full with stopping fugitive super-powered criminals from wreaking havoc throughout Brickstown.

Ha! Asked and answered.  This makes great sense, and sounds like it should be fun.

St. Martial’s Secrets (Levels 30-50): Arachnos has set up a portal to Praetoria with the intent to loot that devastated world. However, Villains have determined that they can slip into the war-ravaged land themselves to loot Praetoria before Arachnos does! What Villains discover in Praetoria surprises even them and may turn out to be something that helps their ongoing schemes in the Rogue Isles!

Adding to the mayhem in St. Martial’s is Family Raid, a new zone event. Longbow has discovered that the Family, a criminal organization, is holding illegal weapons throughout its casinos in St. Martial. Longbow is staging attacks to recover those weapons, but Villains with foresight can stop the attack and even steal the weapons for their own use!

Don’t have many active redside characters, but these sound like fun additional material.

All in all, a worthwhile Issue, I’d say.  Game on!

What’s the Matter with Penelope Yin?

The Paragon Studios team does a “Freedom Friday” weekly quasi-chat on Google Plus, answering questions that people pose, etc.  Today, after getting my actual game question answer, I made the following observation:

Just some feedback on the current splash screen, btw: it’s awful.  Not only am I less than thrilled with young Penelope Yin going from t-shirted and jeans-wearing teen to not-quite-dominatrix-geared hero, but you have her up there in one of those stereotypical super-heroine twisted-spine positions so that the viewer can conveniently see both her butt and her boobs.

Bad show. I expect better from Paragon.

Here’s the image (reversed, as it’s the current background for the cityofheroes.com site):

So some background. Penelope Yin first shows up in the game as the heroes are hitting level 15 or so, in Faultline.  She’s a t-shirt-and-jeans teenager trying to deal with some problems in that zone. She also can psychically control Clockwork.

Over time it’s developed that Penelope is one of the most powerful psychics in the world, and with recent events she’s joined the Freedom Phalanx as a full-blown hero.

She’s also managed to pick up an awful costume. It’s not quite dominatrix-wear.  Not quite.  But between the thigh-high red high-heeled boots, the not-really-bare stockinged legs under a red bikini bottom, and the gartered crop-top bare-belly look above the waist … it’s just a silly costume, almost as though she were trying to find a parody of a Sexy Super-Heroine Outfit to show off in.

And then there’s the picture above.

On the splash screen (which I couldn’t find an image of), she’s  leaping forward to go toe to toe with some villain (on the web page, he’s off facing the other direction to match her).  But look at it.  First off, her legs are impossibly long. But secondly, she’s in that all-too-stereotypically awful Contorted Female Super-Hero Display Pose.  The one where, through a twist of the spine, she manages to be pointing both her butt and her boobs toward you.

And this was a teenaged girl not very long ago, and now is one of Paragon’s pre-eminent heroes.  A role model, in-game and potentially for other teens (or tweens) in real life.

And this is now the splash screen that pops up for the next N months (until the next issue) every time you go into the game or change servers.

As Margie phrased it, “Probably not appropriate and an ugly costume.”

As Isaac Sher, a commenter on the same thread, put it:

Again, let’s set aside how her costume looks — her face does not say “I’m about to fight a dangerous foe”, it says to me “Tee Hee, I’m posing for a swimsuit issue photo shoot!  YAY!”  It’s really out of place.   Also, her body is, as others have said, twist so that she’s thrusting both her posterior and her breasts towards the camera, and it just looks grotesque and unnatural — and just seems like she’s there to Look Sexy For Male Players rather than Be An Awesome Hero For Justice.

Yeah, I actually engendered a reaction — a couple of commenters and some +1s on my remarks.

Now, I certainly don’t mind a bit of cheesecake (mmmmmm, cheesecake), though in general my heroines tend to be a bit more covered up.  But there’s two things going on here that bug me, and they’re somewhat intertwined:

Penelope in her more teen-aged, less thigh-high-boots days.
Penelope's new outfit, as rendered in the game.

First off, it’s just an ugly costume. And silly.  I mean, thigh-highs, and the bikini/stockings, and the armor bits on her arms and shoulders and face … and then a bare midriff (with straps holding up her pants?).   Nice costume pieces, but the whole is much less than the parts.  And it — especially as painted (and posed) above, just comes off as a tawdry sexualization.

Which even then wouldn’t be horrific (just a scosh distasteful in some fashion), except I still think of Penelope as a teenager.  I have no idea whether she is or not (she’s a “teenager” and a “girl” in the Faultline thread, and it’s ostensibly now 4-5 years later — though you can still find her there, I believe), and certainly she has gone through a lot of big experiences since then.  But I still associate her with being younger than I should be leching after (or being hinted that I should be leching after).

And even if it’s just “I knew her when she was young and innocent,” it still just jars seeing her in that splash screen every time I fire up the game, angling her butt and boobs at the viewer.

And what did Paragon have to say?

Thanks for the feedback! We’ll convey your thoughts on the art back to the dev team. We’re extremely happy and lucky to have a team of talented artists working on City of Heroes Freedom, and we’re grateful for all the hard work they put in to make City of Heroes an even greater game than ever before.

Um …

To which I replied:

The art team’s certainly talented, and that’s part of what makes the game a deserved success.  I just think in this case (and esp. for something as pervasive as the splash screen) there was some bad judgment (aesthetic and otherwise) involved.

Which, apparently, was ’nuff said, since the conversation faded out after that.

For more on this kind of contorted female posing thing, check out More super-hero posing goodness and Contorting a dead, sexy horse, two entries on my main blog from a few months back.

Level Pacts and the Future

Participated in a Freedom Friday with Paragon on Google Plus today, and finally remembered to ask my favorite question.

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Me: So … when will Level Pacts return? My wife and I do a lot of duoing in the game, and LPs made this a lot more fun (we could solo while the other was away, one of us could opportunistically hunt, etc., without worrying about getting out of sync with leveling).

We still have a number of toons from when LP was put in, and they function just fine. It’s just the ones before (and since) that it’s a problem with.

I understand there are some difficulties with it being abused, but surely there are some ways it could be restored on a restricted fashion. Though I’d also like to see it available at any level — I’d be willing to have my lvl 20 drop to lvl 18 to get pacted with someone at that level.
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City of Heroes Freedom: +Dave Hill : We’d really like to get level pacts working, but they’ll take some time to work out right, and we don’t have an ETA for it at the moment. Hopefully soon! I can understand your desire to have them back. We know they were really popular.

Me: +City of Heroes Freedom – Thanks, I’m glad to know they’re still on the map. Is the problem a technical one, or dealing with unintended (and abusable) consequences? I assume it’s the latter (since the existing LPs were allowed to continue), but it’s hard to believe the latter couldn’t be handled through some limits, cool-offs, etc. I’d rather have a reasonably limited way of doing it than not have it at all.

Je Saist: +Dave Hill: they were disabled, if memory serves, in order to prevent abuse of the pact-system by F2P players. There were also comments that Level Pacts were being envisioned as a VIP benefit only, and I also believe comments were made that the underlying leveling engine itself would need some work in order to isolate level-pacts to VIP’s only.

City of Heroes Freedom: +Dave Hill & +Je Saist : This is roughly correct, though I’m personally fuzzy on the details. I believe there were technical issues involved with level pacts when there were multiple tiers of players, and we need time to work these out so that a robust system can be created.

Me: Fair enough. I’m surprised it’s difficult to ID VIP (or F2P) players, but I’ve done enough development work in legacy systems to be not too surprised.

As I said, I’d settle for a less robust, basic system in the interim than one that’s as polished and powerful as we’d all like to see. But I also appreciate you guys wanting to do it once and do it right. As long as it’s on the docket, I’ll try to be patient. After all, its an excellent game even without it. 🙂

* * *

I certainly don’t know about CoX internals, but if there are “technical issues with level pacts when there were multiple tiers of players,” then simply don’t have those for the moment (if I understood completely what that means, of course) until it gets fixed.

CoH Issue 23 Overview Goodness

Word is out on City of Heroes Issue 23 and the changes it brings.

The Praetorian War comes to a dramatic conclusion in Issue 23: Where Shadows Lie! The Heroes and Villains of Paragon City, still reeling from the deaths of the legendary Statesman and Sister Psyche, must rise to stop the ruthless Emperor Cole of Praetoria before his mad plans can shatter the dimensions.

Night Ward Environment
Why is there ... a red ... police box ...?

New Zone: Night Ward

  • A Realm of Magic: Dark forces hide in Night Ward, threatening to destroy the world. Night Ward is a Level 30-35 co-op zone where characters encounter strange magical allies and foes. This Praetorian zone is connected to First Ward, and is a realm trapped between the land of the living and the world of the dead.

I have to confess, I’ve not completed the First Ward zone stuff yet.  I’m enjoying it with our “Cow & Chicken” team, but not wildly so.

  • New Mystical and Undead Enemies: Encounter the creatures of Night Ward: the Animus Arcana, sentient spells that crave power; Drudges, who seek to guide souls (living and dead) to the realm of the dead; and the Black Knights, who run the eternal prison that is the Night Ward. The powerful Arch-Villain Shadowhunter also prowls this realm with his deadly army of beasts.

Ooooh … I know what power set he took!

Blockbuster Conclusion to the Praetorian War

  • The Magisterium Incarnate Trial: The dimensional war against Emperor Cole comes to a climax in the new Magisterium Incarnate Trial. You’ve defeated all of Emperor’s Cole’s lieutenants and strongholds, and will now use knowledge gained in taking down Diabolique in an epic showdown against the Well’s Champion to determine the fate of two worlds!

So … how will this change how Praetoria (and the Praetoria story arcs) all behave?  It’s one thing to pull Statesman out of Paragon … it’s quite another to pull Tyrant out of Praetoria.

Quality of Life Upgrades

  • Improved Free Player Chat and Grouping: Now all players (VIP, premium, and free) can join a new serverwide Looking for Group chat channel that allows them to communicate freely with each other. Free and premium players can also now join Super Groups, regardless of their status in the Paragon Rewards program.

Yes. It’s about time.  Plus, they need to take the step off adding that channel to everyone’s coms.  Really.  Get the invite/LFT/LFM chat off of Broadcast and Help.

  • Easy Portal Travel: The new Interdimensional Tunnel System makes getting from one world to another quick and easy. Get to outlying areas like Praetoria and the Shadow Shard easily with a quick dimension jump through conveniently located portals.

Once again, the devs realize that nobody likes traveling anywhere for longer than they need to.

“I remember the old days, when you’d arrive in Steel Canyon and jog downtown to level up … uphill both ways! … past level 50 mobs! … and like it!”

Kids these days.

New VIP Content and Benefits

  • Signature Story Arc Series 2: “Pandora’s Box”: Both Heroes and Villains are being supercharged with new uncontrollable powers. Heroes team up with the remnants of the Freedom Phalanx to discover the secret menace behind the chaos, while Villains lay the groundwork for a new organization to rival the power of Arachnos.

The first SSA was pretty good. I look forward to more.

  • New Mecha Armor Tier 9 Costume Set: The Mecha Armor costume set turns you into the sleek giant robot or high-tech warrior you’ve always dreamed of. Select from a new sword, rifle, backpack, and wings offered in this latest free costume set available only to VIP players as part of the Paragon Rewards program.
  • New Chain Mail and Leather Armor Costume Set: All VIP players have access to the Chain Mail and Leather Armor costume set. Look the part of a crusading knight, yeoman archer, or a rowdy barbarian in this versatile set.

More costume pieces = good stuff.

  • New Incarnate Powers: Level 50 VIP players can now unlock the Hybrid Incarnate Tree, which grants them new powers based on the core Archetypes in City of Heroes®. You can choose a style that shores up a weakness, or one that further strengthens existing abilities. The Assault Tree increases your damage, the Control Tree raises your ability to lock down foes, the Melee Tree increases your defense and status protection, and the Support Tree grants bonuses to you and your teammates.

I … guess that’s good.  We’ve done a little bit of Incarnate play with Psy-clone and Amorpha, and, damn, I really have no great desire to learn a whole new advancement/purchase mechanic.

CoH: A fine Double-XP weekend. Plus, Death from Below!

Margie and I didn’t spend quite as much time on CoH over the weekend as we’d hoped, but we still took good advantage of the exercise — pushing a couple of our 30s duos into the higher 30s.

We also discovered the joys of “Death from Below,” the introductory trial / Sewer Mission that they’ve added in since Freedom came up.  For about an hour of time (including standing around and waiting for the team to gel), you can easily add several levels of experience to your intro characters, plus get a nice Hydra boost to your accuracy, damage, regeneration, or defense for a couple of weeks of game time.

(It’s not clear how much of the level jump was also due to the double-XP weekends. Okay, well, thinking about it, I’d guess about half of it. 😛 )

It does have a feel very much like the old Sewer Raids (which you can still do if you are so inclined), but somewhat safer and more organized.  It’s also a good intro to various low level mobs.

The DfB missions can be run by any level, though you get exemplared down to level 2 to start with.  They are also re-runnable, so we were able to fairly easily advance a couple of our beginner toons into the low/mid-teens with relative ease.  (Though CoH has added some nice low level material, it’s also nice to be able to advance relatively quickly to Steel Canyon … and, honestly, a “can’t we start off around level 15?” has been a long-time lament from many in the player base).

There are also trainers stationed along the way of the trial, to let you level up as you go if you’re so inclined. Ironically, not all of your leveling will immediately take, since your exemplared level is dependent on the team leader’s leveling, not your own. Thus you can take a new power, have it showed up as grayed out, then have it appear later in the trial. Also, there’s a certain time pressure (aka “everyone’s running pell-mell ahead”), so standing around pondering power choices for too long is a bit impolite.  Do it a couple of times, but save most of it for Ms. Liberty at the end.  Slot in haste, respec at leisure.

One slightly irksome note: While the DfB missions are supposedly doable via the “LFG” functionality they’ve added in (click on the LFG button, join the queue, get automatically added into a mission once 4-8 other folks have joined in), few people seem to be using it, meaning that we were dependent on folks pulling together DfB team, or pulling one together ourself, semi-manually.

How to pull together your own DfB run (since the instructions are not readily apparent):

  1. Join the queue, noting that you want to reserve it for your own group.
  2. Broadcast/invite people to your team. This may take 30 seconds or 15 minutes depending on competition, time of day, etc.  People can be anywhere, so a lot of folks use the Help message queue for this.
  3. When you get 4-8 players, go back to the queue, click on it again, and once everyone on the team accepts, you’ll be teleported in.

It’s not for everyone, but, as I said, it’s a nice, non-tedious way to get past the first several-to-dozen levels in a short period of time … especially during double-XP weekend.

CoH: And I Want to Paint It Black

You would never have guessed that I22 came out yesterday, with the new Darkness Controller/Dominator power set.

I mean, there I was, standing in front of Ms. Liberty, and around me were:

  • Dark Mistress
  • Battle Shade
  • Sorceress of Shadows
  • Dark Spirit
  • Dark Wanderer

Of course, I was there with my new (well, re-rolled) toon, the Grey Haunt, so I have no basis for complaint.  But at least I color shifted the power a bit …

CoH: Who Will Die? (Part 6 of 7)

The latest installment in the signature arc, “Who Will Die?” came out this week, and last night Margie and I ran a couple of our 50s (blue) through it.

(The arc is designated for level 40+.  Paragon decided to have the earlier episodes available in the 20s, and then ramp up to the 30s and now 40s.  Which makes it a bit tough to run a low level toon through the whole contiguous story, to be honest.)

The illustration for this ep has a skull-faced Manticore drawing back his bow, and, yes, Manticore does something that will shock, shock, shock you.  Or maybe not, since Manticore is the go-to guy for bad decision-making in the Freedom Phalanx.  (What is it about archers, anyway?)

But here’s the thing — it’s a cool adventure, full of drama and all that, but … it just didn’t click. No spoilers here, but while I could see that there was a connection with the previous eps, I didn’t go, “Ah, of course, there’s the problem.”  The episode and it’s climactic problem just felt sort of pulled out of a hat.

The adventure, at least, is pretty good, with minimal cut-scene constipation as the previous couple of eps had.  It’s centered in Peregrine Island, and was doable by both our duos in about 35-40 minutes.  Travel powers are optional, unless you have problems with the mobs in PI.  The mission sites are all within a reasonably close jog (esp. if you start at the mission-giver).

The individual missions are pretty decent and of good length.  Mobs include Carnies, Malta, Nemmies, Circle of Thorns, and Rularuu troops.  There’s also a pretty decent ally that comes along with you and is only mildly annoying in her over-aggression against the baddies. The final boss in the final mission was not all that big a deal.

Overall, a good mission arc, even if the Big Event at the end felt like it was coming out of left field (and with no sense that you could have done anything about it).

CoH: Hangout

I had a chance to hop on one of the Google Hangouts that Paragon does periodically.  I was pretty much the only one on with Zwillinger, which meant we got to chat on a bunch of items.  Specifically:

  1. Though the retro space gear given in the user selection poll is all on male models, there will be versions for all three body types.  There are also specific female costume bits that have already bee selected.
  2. More signature arcs are on the way, dealing with “different sorts of stories” than before, and also with the repercussions of Statesman’s death.
  3. The premature “spoiling” of Statemen’s death was driven at least in part by the need for formal publicity set up with various gaming sites and mags, and because of concerns of spoiling  by others.  Zwillinger did note that it was a concern Paragon had heard of from a number of sources.

In discussing stuff, I came to realize that I’d been playing since Issue 3 (!), which makes some seven years now.  Crikey!

It’s a shame there weren’t more people in on the Hangout.  It’s a fun way to discuss things with the Paragon folks.

Number one question I forgot to ask: When are leveling pacts coming back? Margie and I were just starting some new toons last evening, and I hated that we were dinging at separate times (esp. since it now brings up the level sidekick dialog).

Has it only been 7 years?

Friday was my 7-year anniversary with City of Heroes — 28 January 2006.  I don’t have a “first post” here on Blog of Heroes because …  well … I was a bit reluctant to let on about it publicly.

Margie started playing in February (I gave her a subscription for Valentines Day).

On the one hand, that seems like a huuuuuge chunk of time — seven years, OMG!  On the other hand, so much has happened in my life during that tenure on the game, and so much has changed, it seems like it’s been much, much longer.

I started in Issue 3, by the by.  And when I think back to the game at that time — no crafting, no “no use slotting more than three of anything into a power” (ah, the days of Perma-Haste), the introduction of so many zones and other game mechanics …

I’ve drifted to and from the game over the years.  And pretty much nobody I know who played it — with the exception of Margie, of course — still does.  But it remains fun, new content keeps being added, and new alts and powers keep things pretty darned fresh.

Don’t know if I’ll be playing it in another seven years, but don’t feel any particular itch at the moment to stray.

(As a personal trip down memory lane, this listing of alts I had in late February is fun — two of them (Psi-clone and Torchielle) eventually dinged 50; one (Velvet) stalled in the low 30s; the rest got deleted at one point or another …)

CoH: Signature Story Arc Spoiler Alert (no spoilers)

A wag of my finger to Paragon’s official Twitterer (and their Google Plus person, to a somewhat lesser extent).  Today was the opening day for the fifth installment of the “WHO WILL DIE?” signature story arc in City of Heroes … and there’s @CityOfHeroes twittering away about how you should click the link to see the storytelling decisions behind [REDACTED]’s death, or go over to Massively for their reaction to the Death of [REDACTED]. Ditto, pretty much, for the +CityOfHeroes Google Plus chatterer.

WTF, fellas?

I mean … really?  Spoilers of that sort, of a story so profound and reaching that it was considered a signature story arc and advertised constantly and promises to have dire consequences?

Sure, I’ll play the story multiple times, but I would have liked to have been surprised at least once.

Bad show. Really bad show.

(If you want to read some similar, “WTF, spoilers?!” reactions, with spoilers, check the forums.)

CoH – Issue 22 Preview

I’ve been playing a lot more CoH the past few months — pounding through the Signature Story Arc for starters, and, in the last week or so, circling around to some alts we pieced together on Exalted when CoH Freedom came online.

The new Issue 22 stuff looks very, very cool …

Issue 22: Death Incarnate Overview

Starting with a cool new name — Death Incarnate …

A reenvisoned Dark Astoria beckons its bony claw! Issue 22: Death Incarnate,introduces new powers and costumes, exclusive VIP content, and expanded endgame features, and reintroduces Dark Astoria, a zone corrupted by evil magical forces.

Features

Dark Astoria Reincarnated

Mysterious forces have twisted parts of Dark Astoria into a bizarre, nightmarish land! The undead are now stronger here than ever and new menaces brood within the area.

I’ve always had mixed feelings about DA.  I’ve thought the perpetual fog was kind of cool (it was even more fun during the “Fog Bug” days, when you could see the whole city), and the undead/supernatural nature of it was pretty spiffy.

That said, it was waaaaaaay to hell and back, so, honestly, if it was a choice between going to DA and just doing something in Talos — well, it was mostly a no-brainer (for a one-off, the Mission Teleporter and then Wentworthing back to Talos was the easy way to handle things).  So it’s good to see that it’s becoming more central, and getting some even more enjoyable content.

Zone Level Increase: Dark Astoria transforms into a Level 50 Incarnate co-op zone, with missions that can unlock Incarnate abilities for both Heroes and Villains. Dark Astoria is also now accessible from both Peregrine Island and Grandville.

Improved accessibility is a great bonus.  I’m wondering how they’ll handle this geographically.

Turning it into a Level 50 zone is also cool.  We’ve done next to nothing with the Incarnate content, and that’s coming up pretty high on our list of things to do (now that we’ve gone back to those 50s in the last few months and gotten them all respecced and IOed up).

Repeatable Missions: Dark Astoria repeatable missions feature rewards befitting an Incarnate, including Incarnate Experience and Thread Components.

  • Ephram Sha of the Midnight Squad has tasks befitting Incarnate-level Heroes in Dark Astoria. Help him push back the forces of Mot!
  • The Circle of Thorns has an interest in the dark magics swirling around Dark Astoria. It has sent Maharaj, a powerful Soul Mage, to help Incarnate Villains sow chaos in the ranks of their foes.

Repeatable Missions Good. That they can be done solo (from what I understand elsewhere) is even better.

Content for All Levels

Dilemma Diabolique Incarnate Trial: Diabolique, the evil sorceress, plots to become an avatar of death by seizing the powers of the banished god, Mot. With them, she can bring the living world to its knees! She seeks nothing less than to dominate all life and hold the fate of the many dimensions in her grasping hands. Heroes and Villains must unite to protect our dimension from this terrible fate.

Co-op Hero/Villain stuff is fun (though less essential now that powers are basically available interchangeably).

Drowning in Blood New Low-Level Trial: The Shivans that decimated Galaxy City are now attacking Bloody Bay! Using the Team Up Teleporter, groups of up to eight players can fight off this alien invasion. Heroes and Villains each have a separate trial. Drowning in Blood is a PvE encounter available for all characters of level 15 and higher.

Another good thing: lower level trials.  And Level 15 love is useful.  What’s unclear in the above is how this trial works in conjunction with the PvP zone — the trial is PvE, but it’s in Bloody Bay …

New Mission Arcs: Steel Canyon and Cap au Diable feature new mission arcs. Heroes can encounter the latest conflict between the 5th Column and the Council. Villains face off against the Longbow and the Luddites.

New low-level mission stuff also good.  I’ve been finding myself skipping over most Steel and Cap Au missions of late, with the zone-independent stuff available.

New Adamastor Zone Event: Adamastor has broken free of Dark Astoria! Prevent this Giant Monster from going on a rampage in Talos Island and Sharkhead Isle by finding the Ritual of Summoning and using it to summon and defeat the creature.

Ooooh … a Giant Monster for Talos.  Excellent!

New Darkness Power Sets and Olympian Guard Costumes

Darkness Control (Free for VIPs): Command the shadows to terrorize your foes, devastating them with spectral minions. The Darkness Control power set is a primary power set for Controllers and Dominators. This new power set is free for VIPs. You will also be able to buy it in the Paragon Market™.

Darkness Affinity and Dark Assault (Free for VIPs): Two more power sets are now available to Controllers and Dominators. Controllers can access Darkness Affinity as a secondary power set, and Dominators can access Dark Assault as a secondary power set. Darkness Affinity and Dark Assault are free for VIP’s. You will also be able to buy them in the Paragon Market™.

Glad they are free.  Though it sound like (sigh) time for yet another set of alts …

So, is this Fear-based? Would make sense — it’s a secondary power for a lot of sets, but I’ve always thought it was very cool.  In fact, I might hold off on a Mind Controller concept I just rolled up to try this out.

Hmmmm … might be time to start building some of those inexpensive Fear IOs and then selling them once demand spikes.

Olympian Guard Costume Set (Free for VIPs): The technology-themed Olympian Guard costume set is free for VIPs. You will also be able to buy it in the Paragon Market™.

More Costumes always good.

(Are you getting  theme here?  Good stuff!)

Quality of Life Upgrades

Expansion of the Team Up Teleporter: In addition to granting access to the new Bloody Bay Trial, the Team Up Teleporter can now be used inside missions and to organize groups for existing task forces and strike forces. Characters on solo or group missions can queue up for trials from within those missions. You can also use the Team Up Teleporter to queue up for a task force or strike force.

Ah. That answers the question about the PvE Bloody Bay trial above.

I have to confess, I’ve not used this particular feature.  Some Friday afternoon or evening while Margie is out, I’ll have to use it to run some of my solo toons around with others.

New Teleporter Pad: The new Hacked Telepad and Magicked Telepads are available for bases. These new telepads cost more Prestige to build, but allow Super Group members to teleport to six zones per telepad instead of two.

Well, I guess that’s helpful. But, honestly, I think I’ve used the Telepads in any of our bases, oh, maybe twice in the last year.  There are so many other ways to get to locations quickly, between all-points trains/ferries, Wentworthing, the “O” …

Changes to Powers

Controllers

Gravity Control: Increased the damage of Singularity’s Lift by 63%.

Controllers/Dominators

Gravity Control: Added a bonus mechanic to player character versions of Lift and Propel. These powers now deal a small amount of additional damage (called “Impact!”) to targets that you have recently held with your Gravity Distortion power. In addition, Propel’s cast time has been reduced and its projectile speed has been increased.

Oooooh. One of my new low-levels (Unified Fieldsman, Gravitic/Chronotic Adventurer!) is a Grav Controller, so I look forward to these improvements.

Stalkers

Stalker Buffed Max HP modifier has been increased from 1 to 1.3. This results in Stalker’s potential Buffed Max HP increasing from 1,606 to 2,088 at level 50. This allows powers like Dull Pain and Frostworks, as well as +Max HP set bonuses, to have a greater potential effect.

Assassin Strike (All Versions): This power now functions differently while you are not Hidden. When attacking a foe when Hidden, it behaves normally, dealing tremendous damage with a chance to demoralize nearby foes, but it can be interrupted. However, when you use the power while you are not Hidden, it deals Superior damage and is uninterruptible. While you are not Hidden, Assassin Strike has a base 0% chance to crit.

Assassin’s Focus: All damaging powers found in the Stalker’s primary power set, other than Assassin Strike, have a chance to grant you a stack of the Assassin’s Focus buff. This buff increases Assassin’s Strike’s chance to critically hit (for +100% damage) while not Hidden by 33.3%. Assassin’s Focus stacks up to three times. Using Assassin’s Strike when you are not Hidden removes all stacks of Assassin’s Focus.

Aside from when CoV first came out, I have never run a Stalker.  They seemed very much a one-trick pony, and really only usable on a team.  This sounds like it changes things some.

Overall, an excellent update.  Now … when do we get it?