Monday was the 4th anniversary of City of Heroes. Interesting to see how things have come along during that time. Much has changed in the game and as Issue 12 looms ahead, things appear to be getting better. Positron made an announcement for the 4th Anniversary and mentioned something very interesting: Player Generated Content. Players would be able to generate missions, select the map, villain group, objective, etc then get it “published” for general play and rating. Saga of Ryzom did something similar by giving players the tools to create content. They were then reviewed and hosted for a small fee. A novel approach to the MMO genre, sadly Ryzom is on its last gasp and appears destined to be shutdown. Below is the link to Positron’s statement.

http://www.coh.com/news/archives/2008/04/a_message_from.html

Follow up:

So, let’s take a look back at the past 4 years in terms of issues and the content that was delivered, along with a bit of commentary…

Issue 01 – Through the Looking Glass: Raised level cap to 50, Added in Peregrine Island & the Rikti Crash Zone, New groups - Carnival of Shadows, Malta, The Praetorians. The Sewer Trial was added into the mix. This was also about the time of the Purple Pill which ramped up the differences between levels, specifically it made mobs 3 levels over you much tougher to take down.

Issue 02 – A Shadow of the Past: New zones - Hollows & Shadow Shard, New groups - Rularuu & Igneous. New Trials - Terra Volta [Respec], Eden, and Cavern of Transcendence. Capes were added in, as were visual effects for characters. So much potential, so much pain. I have heard that the Task Forces in the Shadow Shard are endurance marathons. Would like to try them at least once. Oh, and Badges... lots & lots of Badges.

Issue 03 – Council of War. Introduced Kheldians [Epic Archtypes] and removal of a great villain group. One of my in-game friends commented that the Council was like Cobra but in Space, and not as cool or interesting. The 5th Column was a great group, they were Nazis, and everyone loves to kick Nazi booty. Ah good times. Striga was added at this point along with two Task Force missions. Zone events started at this point with the Giant Octopus in Independence Port along with the Ghost Ship in Talos and Independence Port. Finally the Clockwork King started building his own versions of Paladins. Ancillary Power Pools allows a bit more customization.

Issue 04 - Colosseum. A confession here, I was working on this away from the computer and couldn't remember the name of Issue. Now that I see it, I remember. PvP. To scratch that itch, I head off to WoW. New costume features, so the issues wasn't a complete write off.

More in a bit...