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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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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The last few weeks have been busy, but I’ve managed to snag some play time to work on getting to 50 with Aurvandil. He’s currently sitting about halfway to 49 and with the current group, shows no signs of slowing down. With luck, I might be able to hit 50 by Sunday night. As mentioned earlier, Brutes are popular in the SG and our groups have become known as Brute squads. On a normal day, we have 2-4 Brutes on the team, ranging as high as 6 on occasions. Our Corruptors like the idea of a Brute squad; though I’m sure we tax them for buffing and healing. Myself and three of the other Brutes are all Electric/Electric, one is Fire/Fire, and the last is Dark/Fire. We all tend to play aggressively as Brutes, though some are way more aggressive than others. The /Fire Brutes are way more aggressive and tend to wipe at least once or more during a mission. Both have [and frequently use] Rise of the Phoenix to recover, which is a nice power to have, though dying to use it is somewhat counter-intuitive.

Of the Electric Brutes, three of us are in the 45+ range and the other is approaching 25. There’s been some debate about builds, the use [or need] for Stamina, and which IO sets to use. My build is using a combination of regular IO, set IO, and SO in a rather hodge-podge mix. After a retooling this weekend, I was able to remove a few of the IO which were in the 20’s range & put in high 30’s / low 40’s IO. Defense toggles are all at or close to cap, while attacks are looking much better in terms of damage, accuracy, and recharge. That being said, I’m seriously looking at a Non-Stamina build, relying on the various Primary and Secondary powers to refill Endurance during combat. This would also allow me to ditch Acrobatics and pick up Grounded. The drawback of Grounded is that if you aren’t “on the ground”, it doesn’t work and the definition of “on the ground” doesn’t include stairs, inclines, and water. And if you are in a cave map, good luck finding the “ground”. Picking up Grounded will let me drop a toggle and help with Endurance usage during combat. Slotting Grounded with a Knockback IO will eliminate the downside, thus providing a “net” gain in the Endurance usage department. I also have a couple of Efficacy Adaptors in Power Sink and looking to add an Endurance Modifier IO to Lightning Field.

The Rikti invasion is back in force this last weekend, so there’s been some distraction on getting the Accolade rather than leveling. Variety is good and the invasion event ends soon, then back to leveling. With the Invasion comes Vanguard Merits, a type of salvage that lets up “buy” Vanguard costume pieces and other options for characters. My AR Blaster just picked up the Vanguard Rail Rifle, which is a nice option even if the gun is purple and silver. Merits came up in a discussion on one of the chat channels, mostly in reference to how many you need to buy the options. The gentlemen in question only had 10 merits and freaked out on the option costs. Lowest option is 50 merits going up to 500 merits for an additional 10 slot salvage bag. It is probably one of the few instances where you really need to grind to get the reward, which is okay to a certain extent. Right now, I’m planning a Mothership raid with the SG to gather merits for my Mastermind and his need for the 10 slot salvage bag. A couple of raids and I should have enough to buy it.

And in breaking news, NCSoft has given notice on the contents of Issue 12. They had mentioned it was going to be “light” due to the transition and getting the new crew up to speed. Issue 13 was to be a catch-up, or so they said. If this is NCSoft’s idea of a “light” issue, Issue 13 is just going to blow my socks off. Link to the news is below.

http://www.cityofheroes.com/game_update12.html

Background

For those people unfamiliar with the City of Heroes universe, Task Forces (called Strike Forces for villains) are special sequences of missions, sort of like mega-issues of a comic book, which require dedicated teams of up to eight heroes (or villains) to confront challenging tasks and experience pivotal moments within the lore of our fictional universe. Of course these also yield great XP and great rewards.

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Starting Dec. 14 and ending Jan. 2, NCsoft and Cryptic Studios are conducting their popular Winter Event for City of Heroes and City of Villains. Heroes and villains can join up to earn fun rewards and take on new challenges as they try to save Baby New Year.

Holiday Gifts

The first element of the Winter Event, starting today, gives players a host of holiday gifts when they log in. The winter event log-in gifts include:

* A badge
* Fuzzy earmuffs costume piece
* “Holiday Spirit” temporary power where players get 24 hours of debt protection
* “Holiday Cheer” temporary power where players can give a mystery gift to another player

Father Time Mission

During the Winter Event, players can go to a snowy zone accessible through the Pocket D nightclub. In this snow zone, players can “ski” down a course on the side of the mountain and obtain the “Father Time Mission” from Father Time who is enjoying the ski chalet at the top of the zone’s mountain.

The Father Time Mission allows hero players and villain players join forces to rescue “Baby New Year” from the clutches of a variety of evil winter monsters. Players who complete the Father Time Mission will receive their choice of four rewards. Players can replay the mission multiple times to obtain all of the rewards.

Naughty or Nice?

As the Winter Event rolls on, holiday presents will appear all over Paragon City and the Rogue Isles. Players open the presents and either obtain a gift or get ambushed by Snow Beasts.

Hello from the Rogue Islands, villains and do-gooders alike (and all of the grey areas in between, naturally). This is my first blog, so bear with me if I make any newbish blogger mistakes.

Today is the formal release date for the City of Villains, but if you're like me (and many others), you probably played in the later stages of beta at least, and in the preorder head-start. And if you haven't, no problem. I just wanted to mention where I was coming from. Because of that, and because I am also a returning customer from CoH, some of the newness did manage to wear off by the time this official release day has rolled around.
That being said, I'm still having fun, seeing some new things, and having a blast with my main CoV character, a large brute of a fellow who goes by the handle of "The Ronin Oni."

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