Not sure what the precise date issue was, but I got my 5 Year / 60 Month “City Traveller” badge this evening.
Which is kind of a cool QoL feature, basically letting you take at Lvl 6 a main Travel Power without the pre-req pool power. E.g., you can now take Fly without taking Hover or Aerial Assault. I suspect this will be most helpful for Fly and TP; most Super-Speed folks use Hasten as well (as do most supers, regardless of travel power), and Combat Jump is a reasonable power on its own, even if you’re angling for Super-Jump.
… I succumbed to intense social pressure (coughDoycecough) and tried out for myself that newfangled “City of Heroes” game. I didn’t actually blog about it for a bit because I was sort of, um, keeping it secret from Margie (I knew I could quit any time).
The rest, as they say, is history. And while my own gameplay over the past few months has been near-nothing, Margie continues to solo her way through endless hours of fun with CoX and CO.
And as soon as Kitten goes to bed and they both get off the Wii (where they are playing Scooby-Doo), she and I are going to play some City of Heroes.
And who knows … maybe I’ll actually start playing again. Heck, maybe I’ll start posting to this blog again! Stranger things have happened!
City of Heroes® is proud to announce that starting today character transfers between servers (within North American OR European server lists) will become free to all players and remain that way through the end of January 2010.
Now you will have more freedom to fully enjoy the game and each other…but don’t go haphazardly jumping servers without knowing the Character Transfer limit and all the other facts. Visit our Knowledge Base to learn all the specifics so that you can make educated transfer decisions. Amongst other things to bear in mind:
Transfers are not available between North American and European servers.
You will be able to complete up to 6 transfers a week (7-day period) per account.
Not all possessions will transfer over with your character so be sure to read the corresponding Knowledge Base article before you decide to transfer a character.
Super-group affiliation, Prestige and access to your Supergroup base items will be lost.
You may lose your character’s name when transferring from a server.
Then all you have to do is transfer away and enjoy the holiday server ride!
So I wonder what’s going on here? Are paid transfers simply not being done? Is this a prelude to server consolidation?
Some clarifications from the KB article:
Between December 15th, 2009 and January 31st, 2010, you will be able to complete up to 6 transfers a week per account. For example:
You can transfer 1 of your characters to five different servers then back to his/her original server in the span of a week.
You can choose to transfer 6 unique characters to a different server, or
You can transfer 3 characters to a different server and back, etc.
[…]
With Character Transfers, when someone does use it, do they receive a warning that their name is already taken prior to the move?
No, there is no warning. However, there is now a Name Check feature included in the game. By using this feature, found at the character select screen when logging into a specific server, you can check if a name is available on the server you are currently logged on to prior to purchasing a rename token. Be sure you are logged into the correct server when you are checking names.
Please keep in mind that while a name check may come through as showing a name available, there is still no guarantee that someone might not choose that name just before you use your rename to obtain it. Therefore, there are no guarantees that any name will be available.
If you do go through with a Character Transfer and there is a name conflict on the destination server, the character’s name will be appended to have a numeral at the end and be issued a free rename token. When you next log that character in, you will be able to use the rename feature to obtain a new name. […]
Do all your possessions move with you when you do a character transfer?
Yes, including your auctions on the Consignment Market. Here is a list of things that do not move:
Your non-global Friends list of players will no longer be valid.
You will be removed from any Supergroup that character was in, and will lose access to any SG storage.
You will also lose all Prestige accumulated within your Supergroup since you will be effectively leaving it (even if you are going to be re-creating the same Supergroup on your new destination server).
Taskforces or Strikeforces that may be in progress will be abandoned.
Kiosk stats will be preserved, but rating positions will likely change.
We cannot guarantee that your character’s name will be available on the destination server you move to. Should there be a name conflict, your character will be issued a free character rename to change the name.
Still … can’t stop wondering what the metameaning behind all this is … The (non-conspiratorial) speculation is that it’s giving folks a chance to clear the decks for the “Going Rogue” expansion. But it still has that server-consolidation feel that some folks are so terrified about.
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 …
After (1) illness, (2) job brouhaha, (3) NaNoWriMo, and (4) a week-long business trip …
… I’m actually back in the game (so to speak). Just in time, of course, for (5) Christmas shopping, (6) Christmas carding, and (7) Christmas vacationing. So we’ll see.
Meantime, I haven’t gotten onto CoX or CO yet … but if I were at liberty to describe what I’m doing … which, in theory, I’m not … since hypothetically anything I might say about things I can’t say anything about might violate an NDA that, of course, I can’t confirm that I’ve agreed to, even though it’s regarding something where no man has ever gamed before.
Ahem.
It’s all Margie’s fault. But I had a lot of fun for the 15 minutes I was on until the hypothetical event limit was reached. We’ll see. (And since I saw a lot of folks logging in and out, we’ll see you, too.)
Not sure what the precise date issue was, but I got my 5 Year / 60 Month “City Traveller” badge this evening.
… I succumbed to intense social pressure (coughDoycecough) and tried out for myself that newfangled “City of Heroes” game. I didn’t actually blog about it for a bit because I was sort of, um, keeping it secret from Margie (I knew I could quit any time).
“