City-of-Villains posts

City of Heroes: Going Rogue takes a look underground

by Eliot Lefebvre Mar 20th 2010 at 12:00PM

Filed under: Super-hero, City of Heroes, City of Villains, Expansions, Lore, News items

There are four months to go before the release of the second City of Heroes expansion, but the development team has been doing a lot of work to keep Going Rogue on everyone's mind. The announcement of Issue 17 certainly did quite a bit in that direction, as did the early release of Dual Pistols for prepurchasing customers. Now we've been given the first major update to the site since the biography of Tyrant, and it's a meaty one. Information and screenshots have been posted for both Calvin Scott, the leader of the Resistance, and the tunnel-dwelling nightmares known as Ghouls.

Calvin Scott's biography may be of interest to many players because it gives us something that the community had wondered about -- a heroic Mastermind, leading the Resistance troops against Praetoria's fascist regime. Ghouls, on the other hand, are at once more straightforward and more unsettling, crazed undead that lurk beneath Praetoria and threaten to devour anyone who strays into their territory. The black-and-white world of City of Heroes is getting many more shades of gray in the upcoming expansion, and both of these lore tidbits hint at just how blurred the lines will get come July.

Tags: backstory, city-of-heroes, city-of-heroes-going-rogue, city-of-villains, coh, cov, cox, enemies, ghouls, going-rogue, lore, paragon, paragon-coh, paragon-studioes, praetorian, preorders, resistance, storyline

A Mild-Mannered Reporter: Pay the man

by Eliot Lefebvre Mar 17th 2010 at 11:00AM

Filed under: Super-hero, City of Heroes, City of Villains, Business models, Opinion, A Mild-Mannered Reporter

Back on the first column I ever wrote about City of Heroes, many moons ago, someone made a comment that's stuck in my head. It wasn't negative, just something that stuck in my mind. They mentioned how the game had been portrayed in a somewhat poor light on the site as a whole, and used as an example that it had been used as the title image for this article about microtransactions and other payment goodies.

Go ahead and take a look at the author of that piece, and you might understand why the comment stuck in my mind.

I don't think that City of Heroes does a bad job with their microtransactions. I actually love their setup and like to point to it alongside Dungeons & Dragons Online as a prime example of how to do an item shop correctly. And I'm fairly sure I'm not the only person who feels that way, although there's doubtlessly the other side of the story that thinks they do an awful job. So strap yourselves in, because today we're going to be diving headfirst into the cash shop and my enthusiastic praise for same.

Tags: city-of-heroes, city-of-villains, coh, costume-pieces, cov, cox, featured, microtransactions, options, paragon, paragon-coh, paragon-studioes, purchase, soda-rule, super-booster

A Mild-Mannered Reporter: Tripping the XP fantastic

by Eliot Lefebvre Mar 10th 2010 at 12:30PM

Filed under: Super-hero, City of Heroes, City of Villains, Events, in-game, Game mechanics, Opinion, A Mild-Mannered Reporter

City of Heroes has the best pseudo-seasonal event anywhere: the double XP weekend. Forget holidays that you're usually sick to death of in which you can get some arbitrary gimmick powers, it's cold hard character boosting that really gets everyone excited. And if those of us that play the game weren't swimming with enough alts, we also had our chance to scream up with dual pistols. In summary, it was poised to be the best Christmas ever, except for the minor detail of not being Christmas.

Going into the weekend on Friday. I had three major priorities. I wanted to level one of my two "mains" which had been suffering from some neglect, I wanted to bring a villain to 20 or as close as I could manage, and I wanted someone with paired handguns. A tall order, even for a doubled-up weekend, but I live for challenges. Or I'm a glutton for punishment, one or the other. Read on past the break for the path of events and some observations about the leveling game, and perhaps even a bit of enlightenment.

Tags: anecdotes, city-of-heroes, city-of-villains, coh, cov, cox, double-experience, double-xp-weekend, dual-pistols, featured, low-levels, paragon, paragon-city, paragon-coh, paragon-studioes, rogue-isles

The Daily Grind: What struck you as unnecessarily annoying?

by Eliot Lefebvre Mar 9th 2010 at 8:00AM

Filed under: Culture, Events, in-game, Game mechanics, Opinion, The Daily Grind

If you took part in the recent City of Heroes double XP weekend, as a long-standing customer or a returning visitor, you most likely had a chance to take part in one of the game's Safeguard/Mayhem missions. Heroes are tasked with preventing a bank robbery, while villains are instead given the job of robbing said bank. Unfortunately for villains, their robbery is faced with several enemy groups that spawn without warning and will follow you all over if you happen to miss them. Worse yet, death puts you in prison, forcing you to fight your way out and possibly condemning you to another swift death.

There are a lot of little things that can add up in a game, little choices in design that wind up making the whole play experience more tedious and unpleasant than seems reasonable. As a result, the whole experience can wind up going straight down the tubes. What part of a game proved to be annoying when it really didn't need to be? Was it a quest with more travel or fighting than seemed necessary, an area with some particularly obnoxious geographical feature, or just something that was a whole lot of effort for very little reward?

Tags: annoying, city-of-heroes, city-of-villains, coh, cov, cox, design-problems, in-game-events, irritation, missions, tdg, the-daily-grind, unnecessary

The Daily Grind: Taking part in the doubled experience for City of Heroes?

by Eliot Lefebvre Mar 7th 2010 at 8:00AM

Filed under: Events, in-game, Expansions, Opinion, The Daily Grind

If you've ever played City of Heroes before, you most likely got the e-mail enticing you to take part in the game's ongoing doubled experience weekend, during which all inactive accounts get a brief chance to return to active duty. And with the game's second expansion on the way, there are plenty of people taking just that opportunity to spring back into the game. Veteran players, by the same token, have something to be enthusiastic about -- with the preorders for said expansion being open, they can get their hands on the highly-anticipated Dual Pistols powerset and speed past the low-level areas in record time.

The short version is that if you still have an interest in City of Heroes, now is a prime time to be giving it some of your gaming hours. So what about you? Are you a lapsed subscriber lured back in by the promise of a trial to see what's changed and improved? Or are you a longtime player interested in seeing the new powers in action? And as a special bonus question, are there other games you would like to see run a similar double-rate and reactivation weekend?

Tags: city-of-heroes, city-of-heroes-going-rogue, city-of-villains, coh, cov, cox, double-exp-weekend, double-experience, dual-pistols, going-rogue, paragon, paragon-coh, paragon-studioes, preorders, reactivation-weekend, tdg, the-daily-grind

The Daily Grind: Are you attached to your characters?

by Eliot Lefebvre Mar 4th 2010 at 8:00AM

Filed under: Culture, Opinion, Player Housing, The Daily Grind, Roleplaying

They're not real and we all know it. All your character is in an MMO, really, is just a little mobile indicator for what you're wearing and what you're doing. There's no need to spare them a second thought. Of course, there are games like Champions Online and City of Heroes which give you dizzying amounts of control over what they look like. Or Lord of the Rings Online and Final Fantasy XI that let you decorate your house. Or Star Trek Online letting you detail both what sort of ship you ride around in and who your co-workers are...

All right, most of us put a little more thought into our characters than just mobile gear indicators. Roleplayers tend to get even more so, but even if you're avidly not into the RP scene, you can't help but form some connections. So how attached are you to yours? Do you spend a long time staring at the character creator? Do you play the same character transplanted into new settings? Or do you mostly just click through based on whatever looks cool and take what you get, even if it winds up being hideous?

Tags: champions-online, character, character-creation, city-of-heroes, city-of-villains, co, coh, cov, cox, ff11, ffxi, final-fantasy-11, final-fantasy-xi, lord-of-the-rings-online, lotro, opinion, roleplaying, star-trek-online, sto, tdg, the-daily-grind

A Mild-Mannered Reporter: Riddle me this, riddle me that

by Eliot Lefebvre Mar 3rd 2010 at 3:00PM

Filed under: Super-hero, City of Heroes, City of Villains, Classes, Game mechanics, Opinion, A Mild-Mannered Reporter

We've all heard the repeated statement that there are no stupid questions. This is pretty obviously incorrect, and can be proven as such by asking what color has the most pizza, or how much a clearly-priced item costs, or how you mine for fish. But when it comes to being unsure about things in City of Heroes, that old chestnut rings true. Certainly you can ask questions that have obvious answers in retrospect, but there's enough to learn and know about the game that it's never a bad idea to ask a question.

We'll kick off with a question asked by Sharko:
"Are we ever going to see new Epic Archetypes in the game?"

The developers have been fairly close-lipped on this point, and for somewhat good reason. Making a new archetype requires a concept that doesn't fit within any of the existing power frameworks, has enough to do that it can sustain itself for the same range of play as the other archetypes, and usually requires some complex balancing against the other archetypes to avoid being more powerful or less. With the breadth of options available to current City of Heroes characters, there's not always a lot of new space to squeeze in something else.

Tags: city-of-heroes, city-of-heroes-going-rogue, city-of-villains, coh, cov, cox, epic-archetype, expansion, featured, going-rogue, paragon, paragon-coh, paragon-studioes, sequels, travel, travel-powers

The Daily Grind: Should newbie rewards match veteran rewards?

by Eliot Lefebvre Mar 3rd 2010 at 8:00AM

Filed under: Business models, Game mechanics, Opinion, The Daily Grind

Star Trek Online fans got a little testy when it looked like new players would get the game for less with twice the free time. And you can't exactly blame them -- after all, it's hard enough being an early adopter for a new MMO, and you expect to suffer through a few bugs with the knowledge that you're in on the ground floor. MMOcrunch went so far as to call it a pre-order penalty, arguing that for every reward that new players get, veteran players should get something in exchange.

It's a nice philosophy, and one that games like City of Heroes have adopted in earnest with a reward program for veterans, plus new bundle packs of the game for new players. On the other hand, World of Warcraft offers nothing much to veteran players while the cover price of the game keeps going down, and that hasn't particularly impacted its sales. What do you think? Should there be an even distribution of rewards for the newcomers and the old standbys? Or is it more important to entice new players, and the old players should enjoy the extra time they've spent in the game thus far?

Tags: city-of-heroes, city-of-villains, coh, cov, cox, newbie-rewards, price-drops, star-trek-online, sto, tdg, the-daily-grind, veteran-rewards, veterans, world-of-warcraft, wow

City of Heroes: Going Rogue open for pre-orders

by Eliot Lefebvre Mar 2nd 2010 at 7:00PM

Filed under: Super-hero, City of Heroes, City of Villains, Expansions, News items

This weekend, every City of Heroes player will get an opportunity to double up on their experience, Influence, Infamy, and possibly their playtime. (Actually, depending on how many alts you have to level you may very well be tripling or quadrupling it, but that's not the rate of increase for anything else.) So why not get the chance to start leveling one of the new powersets in the process? Pre-orders for City of Heroes: Going Rogue have opened up on the official site, allowing you to digitally purchase an advance copy of the expansion and get early access to Dual Pistols and Demon Summoning.

Unfortunately, if you wanted to level up a demon-summoning mastermind, you'll have to wait just a little bit, as that powerset will go live with Issue 17. And the expansion itself still isn't set to release until July, when a whole new slew of options will open up. But if you're a longtime City of Heroes player or a recent convert, there's a whole lot of things out there to shoot and one little assault rifle likely isn't going to do the job. Go ahead and get your pre-order in, and take a look at the improved website for the expansion while you're at it.

[ Thanks to Skystreak and Celestial Lord for the tip! ]

Tags: city-of-heroes, city-of-heroes-going-rogue, city-of-heroes-issue-17, city-of-villains, coh, cov, cox, demon-summoning, dual-pistols, going-rogue, issue-17, paragon, paragon-coh, paragon-studioes, pre-order

City of Heroes extends free transfers yet again

by Eliot Lefebvre Mar 1st 2010 at 10:00AM

Filed under: Super-hero, City of Heroes, City of Villains, Events, in-game, News items

City of Heroes players have been heavily anticipating the upcoming double experience weekend for understandable reasons -- there's no finer chance to get a character leveled, or take a character who hasn't been played in a while and bring them up to new heights. As the developers have been wont to do of late, they decided to sweeten the deal a fair bit -- specifically, they've decided to add in a healthy dose of moving your character wherever the heck you want.

That's right -- after the last extension, the team decided to further lengthen the period allowed for free server transfers. February 28th was originally slated to be the final day, but with the weekend so close, they've pushed it ahead another week, ending either on Sunday or Monday. (The official announcement says "Sunday, March 8th." This is doubtlessly a typo, as the calendar forbids such an interaction from taking place.)

An extended transfer period means that everyone you play should be well-positioned for the double experience weekend, as well as the upcoming changes to the game. So get your smackdown on in City of Heroes wherever you want, and ramp up for the big changes just over the horizon.

[ Thanks to Skystreak for the tip! ]

Tags: city-of-heroes, city-of-villains, coh, coh-issue-17, cov, cox, double-experience-weekend, double-xp-weekend, free-server-transfers, issue-17, paragon, paragon-coh, paragon-studioes, server-transfers

A Mild-Mannered Reporter: All the community news that's fit to print

by Eliot Lefebvre Feb 24th 2010 at 1:00PM

Filed under: Culture, Forums, Game mechanics, Lore, Opinion, A Mild-Mannered Reporter

In a city marked by constant alien invasions, assaults from an island controlled by a sadistic villain, rampant street crime, and various technological and magical disasters, there's always something to talk about. There's usually more than a few things for players to talk about on top of that, which certainly helps keep our interest in City of Heroes even when we're not right in the thick of things.

After all, whatever else you might say about the game and its flaws -- it's fun. It gives you a fun ride of being a superhero or supervillain. If you can't enjoy a conversation about that, really, you're just plain getting jaded.

Naturally, having discussions about nothing more than "it's fun" would get a little old, but that's certainly not all of the discussions about the game. Just about half. Today, we're taking a look at some of the other half, spotlighting some of the most interesting, though-provoking, or just plain funny discussions and threads coming out of the City of Heroes community.

Tags: city-of-heroes, city-of-heroes-going-rogue, city-of-villains, coh, coh-issue-17, community-spotlight, comparisons, cov, cox, featured, going-rogue, grammar, issue-17, number-crunching, numbers, paragon, paragon-coh, paragon-studioes, patches, sequel, sequels, spelling

New Issue 17 details for City of Heroes

by Eliot Lefebvre Feb 24th 2010 at 9:30AM

Filed under: Super-hero, City of Heroes, City of Villains, Patches, News items

If you play City of Heroes, you're looking forward to the upcoming Issue 17. We've heard some of what can be expected from the big pre-expansion drop, but much of it was cloaked in vague terms -- improvements that didn't have any hard data attached to them, like the promise of new missions and UI revisions. But the official site has put up a page on the coming features for the update, and it helps clarify some things we didn't know about, as well as offering some excellent news besides. And it promises the end of Positron's dreaded unending task force! (It'll still be there, but it will be split into two parts and improved all around.)

Tags: alts, animations, city-of-heroes, city-of-villains, coh, coh-issue-17, content, cov, cox, enhancements, graphics, infamy, influence, mail, mission-architect, missions, paragon, paragon-coh, paragon-studioes, task-force

City of Heroes opens beta testing for Dual Pistols

by Eliot Lefebvre Feb 18th 2010 at 8:00PM

Filed under: Betas, Super-hero, City of Heroes, City of Villains, Expansions, Patches, News items

You have two hands, so why not use two guns? That seems to be the operant philosophy behind dual-wielding handguns, often going to absurd lengths with ridiculously high-caliber guns. (Go ahead and try using two Desert Eagles at once.) But whether you want to be Roland or Maelstrom, you can start experiencing the joy of going to town with paired handguns.

Testing for the Dual Pistols powerset in City of Heroes has now begun on the test servers, which will likely spend the rest of the testing period covered in shell casings. One of the highlights of the upcoming expansion, Going Rogue, it was recently announced that Dual Pistols would unlock early for players who pre-ordered, which means this test is a straight ramp-up to the coming release. There's also a forum devoted solely to feedback for the new powerset, as excellent an execution as ever there was.

Naturally, this news is going to be quite exciting to some, as it both means a preview and test of what's to come, not to mention it means Going Rogue seems better poised to hit its target date. So what are you waiting for? Get your City of Heroes test client set up and start shooting!

Tags: city-of-heroes, city-of-villains, coh, cov, cox, dual-pistols, maelstrom, new-powersets, open-beta, paragon, paragon-coh, paragon-studioes, patches, the-dark-tower, updates

A Mild-Mannered Reporter: I'll play your game, you rogue

by Eliot Lefebvre Feb 17th 2010 at 12:00PM

Filed under: Super-hero, City of Heroes, City of Villains, Culture, Game mechanics, Opinion, A Mild-Mannered Reporter

One of the disadvantages to working ahead is the fact that sometimes, time catches up with you. Case in point: the latest bout of Going Rogue information. By the time I found out about everything, had digested it, and was ready to write up a whole article about it... well, it was 10:40 PM on Tuesday night, and I wasn't going to have enough time to write it before the column went live.

Not to mention that there wasn't an illustration ready. (Drawing those things takes the talented A. Fienemann time, after all.)

So we're going to talk about it just a wee bit later. But that's not such a huge deal, because there's quite a bit to digest in the most recent batches of news. Enough that we have quite a bit to look forward to and speculate on, even if we don't necessarily find all of it quite as interesting, and a whole lot of ramifications for the game's future to think about.

Tags: city-of-heroes, city-of-heroes-going-rogue, city-of-heroes-issue-17, city-of-villains, coh, coh-issue-17, cov, cox, epic-archetype, featured, going-rogue, paragon, paragon-coh, paragon-studioes, ui-enhancements, ultra-mode

A Mild-Mannered Reporter: The endgame oddity

by Eliot Lefebvre Feb 10th 2010 at 1:00PM

Filed under: Super-hero, City of Heroes, Game mechanics, Endgame, Opinion, A Mild-Mannered Reporter

As long as I'm exhorting our new lead designer and hoping she brings a swift death to the warehouse map, it seems only fitting to take a look at the promised new "endgame system" that Matt "Positron" Miller is supposedly developing. I say this in quotes because, really, that's all we've been told. It is a system and it will involve the endgame, and presumably some sort of rewards in exchange for effort. For all we know it's going to be an interactive kitten-petting simulator.

Regardless, I think that Miller is exactly the right person for the job. (I'm sure Paragon Studios has been waiting for my approval.) We've seen some spectacular system launches during his tenure, but the content problem extends through to the endgame, and is an issue that City of Heroes needs to deal with. And the oddity is that the game simultaneously has the most populated endgame possible, with huge amounts of things to do... yet not nearly as many interesting things to do when you hit max level as other games.

It's a bit of design strangeness, one that serves the game well up until the last level and will take some clever work to overcome. How can the endgame be so sparse when it's so rich?

Tags: city-of-heroes, city-of-villains, coh, cov, cox, design, endgame, featured, game-design, matt-positron-miller, new-systems, paragon, paragon-coh, paragon-studioes, warehouse-map