The gates were opened and the hordes descended upon the Test Server last night. It’s been a couple of years since I’ve seen more than a single instance of Mercy Island, but the population forced two more instances to keep up with the load. Upon logging in, there was a swarm of freshly minted Spiders and Widows running amok, looking for teams, spamming broadcast, and generally having a good time. So, here’s how the three hours I spent on test unfolded.

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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

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NCSoft has just posted a video outlining the new Villain Epic Archetypes. And I really must say I'm looking forward to this even more. Technically you are a Soldier of Arachnos, being a Wolf Spider or Blood Widow to start. In a fit of integration, Lord Recluse is letting men be Widows and women be Wolf Spiders. Pretty progressive thinking. One thing that one of the devs noted, was that Crab Spiders will always have a backpack with arms. Appears that this a permanent feature of the AT & will a bit smaller when not attached to the a regular suit of Arachnos armor. Not much more to add right now. Lots of hurry up and wait for Issue 12. But here's a video for you to watch...

Video Link here: http://www.cityofheroes.com/gallery/movies.html

The Hollows are getting a revamp. Music to ears of many players that would rather do street sweeps in Perez than venture into the Hollows. First put out in Issue Two along with the Shadow Shard, it has offered some of the most frustrating game play. All players are directed to the Hollows. Every. Single. One. Once you hit level 5, your contact sends you off to talk to David Wincott. On the upside, you don’t have to take his missions, but you must talk to him. That bit is probably not going to change. But now you don’t have to run away screaming when he offers you the first street hunt and you realize that the smallest spawn Outcasts and Trolls is around 6-7 and may include a boss or two.

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I was going to talk about the Hollows revamp, but the new powersets have been announced and are much more interesting. Without further ado, here we go...

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Here’s Part II of the Issue 12 Preview.

The Midnight Squad are part of the CoX backstory, being one of the first groups to confront the Circle of Thorns. They were more of the Mystery Men types of Heroes rather than the 4-color ones of today. Still recovering from the First Rikti Invasion, they are now acting as patrons / contacts for other Heroes. This is going to be Hero only content for lower level characters, but with the help of Ouroboros, more experienced Heroes can go back and do the missions. I’m always a sucker for new content and rarely has there an issue that doesn’t give something new, making me a happy player. Since it appears to be involved with Time Travel, I’m curious how it ties back to the Ouroboros and the little secrets you found doing those Strike Force/Task Force missions.

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A bit of backstory for those that don’t know. City of Heroes was the brainchild of Jack Emmert who founded Cryptic. NCSoft is the publisher of CoX and business partner in the venture. Back in November Cryptic sold the CoX franchise to NCSoft to pursue other projects. Those projects are a blog for another time. NCSoft acquired the CoX development team in the deal and immediately began to ramp up the team and work. NCSoft said that they would continue to the free content patches and hinted that Issue 12 would be “light” and Issue 13 would make it up. On March 12th the preview of Issue 12 was released and it’s anything but light.

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