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City of Heroes shows off the Water Blasting set under development
Are you ready to get wetter than you've ever been? If not, how about letting your enemies get drenched? The Water Blasting set coming to City of Heroes will allow you to do just that, and it's a set that players have been waiting on for what seems like half of forever. And if you're wondering what the set can actually do, it's probably a fine time to take a look at the newest issue of the Intrepid Informer, showing off the set's powers and the new mechanics involved. The core of Water Blasting is a stacking buff known as Tidal Power. Certain powers build Tidal Power, certain others consume it, and some build the buff if you're at less than maximum capacity but consume it otherwise. The powers involve several knockdowns as well as a heal, a short-range defensive burst, and an assured AoE knockdown when played correctly. Take a look at the full rundown and start planning on your upcoming squirt gun character (Super Soaker being the obvious choice)!
City of Heroes takes to the shadows with new Darkness Control info
It's time for yet another issue of The Intrepid Informer, and this time the spotlight is on one of City of Heroes' upcoming new power set, Darkness Control. Darkness Control does exactly what it says on the tin, granting players dominion over the powers of darkness in order to subjugate and control their enemies. With a number of roots, debuffs, and even a couple of pets, the Darkness Control powerset is sure to please Controllers and Dominators of all varieties. But wait, that's not all. In addition to the Darkness Control power set, Paragon Studios is introducing two new secondary power sets: Darkness Affinity for Controllers and Dark Assault for Dominators. All of these new power sets will be free to VIP players, though premium players will have to purchase the Darkness Control set on the Paragon Market. Oh, and before we forget, be sure to drop into City of Heroes March 16th to 19th for a double XP weekend. For the full details on the new power set as well as some handy tips and tricks from the designers, just click on past the link below to the City of Heroes official site.
City of Heroes performs 'Death of a Statesman'
He's been the face on the package, the man on the cover, the big guy above all other big guys. But today, he is no more. Statesman, the most iconic hero in the City of Heroes lore, is going to meet his end, and it's time for everyone to say goodbye. Episode 5 of the signature story arc is live today, and while the titular question "Who Will Die?" has been answered, it's time to see what happens when Statesman does meet his end. There's more to do than just go play through the arc, however. A new issue of the Intrepid Informer is available in which Matt Miller discusses why the team decided that now is the right time to kill off the game's biggest hero. And if you need a little more help catching up with the story so far, the final vidoc on the arc is embedded just past the cut, giving players a recap of what the Freedom Phalanx is, what is represents, and what this death means for Paragon City.
City of Heroes Intrepid Informer grapples with the Titan Weapons powerset
City of Heroes' Intrepid Informer is on the scene again, and this time it's highlighting a new powerset: Titan Weapons. The powerset is exactly what its name suggests. It focuses on wielding massive tools of destruction and cutting a swath through enemies with brutal swipes. Titan Weapons users will use a new mechanic known as momentum. As you might imagine, momentum starts out building slowly, but once a player has some momentum built, he can unleash a flurry of AoE attacks to finish off his foes. For a complete run-down of the powers available to Titan Weapons characters and the details on what each one does, head on over to the official site.
City of Heroes' newest Intrepid Informer discusses Incarnate additions
City of Heroes was once known as a game without much of an endgame, but the Incarnate system, which launched about a year ago, changed all that. In today's Intrepid Informer, Jeff "Arbiter Hawk" Hamilton discusses the upgrades to the Incarnate system that are rolling out as part of Issue 21's special Media Blitz update. The original Incarnate ability slots will each see new power options, including a self-targeted cone for Judgement, a mass-teleport skill for Destiny, multi-proc'ing debuffs for Interface, and a variety of control, support, and tanking boosts for Alpha. According to Jeff: The biggest challenge in making new abilities in the existing Incarnate slots is that they have to be desirable in order to be worth creating, but they can't completely supplant the existing abilities. If they were numerically superior to the original powers in the slot, we'd just be shoehorning players into taking the new powers, when our true objective is to increase the number of choices a player can make in building their character. The Incarnate system is available only to VIP players with level 50 characters. The official City of Heroes website has the full Intrepid Informer with all the details on the upcoming additions.
City of Heroes lays out the design for Street Justice
You could argue that City of Heroes has been about street justice since launch, since there is no branch of the US legal system that involves beating people up in the streets with electrical powers. But the Street Justice powerset is the latest addition to the game in the Paragon Market, and as with the previous powersets, a new issue of the Intrepid Informer has been released so that players can understand how the set works, what the designers were thinking, and how to get the most benefit out of it. Written by Phil "Synapse" Zeleski, the diary outlines both the similarities and differences between this set and Dual Blades. While both are combo-oriented sets, Street Justice allows you to build a combo on the fly; by way of contrast, Dual Blades generates a variety of powerful secondary effects with its combos. If the set sounds like the sort of thing that's right up your alley, you may want to pop until the game, drop a couple of dollars, and start breaking some kneecaps. For justice.
City of Heroes tackles the hard questions about rocket boards
As long as people have been around, we've realized that transportation was possible by our own two feet, but it would be vastly improved if we were standing on a moving board. This has led directly to the creation of boards to move across the sea, the land, and large snow-covered mountains. Sadly, the rocket board designed to let us fly through the air has remained firmly in the realm of fiction... but for City of Heroes, this hypothetical board of the future is right there to ensure that you can look totally cool while taking to the sky. So how did rocket boards come about, and why did they take so long to get in the game? The latest installment of the Intrepid Informer features Colin Brown discussing what it took to put the idea into practice. As he puts it, the major issue from the art side was a simple technical limitation, since it required a theoretical new set of animations for seven years worth of powers. But the hurdles were overcome, and now players can move through the air in the way humans move through things best -- standing on a board.
City of Heroes explores the process of making missions
It's been a little while since the last installment of City of Heroes' developer dispatch newsletter, the Intrepid Informer, due in no small part to the upcoming hybrid business model domination the news sphere. But the second part of the series on designing missions for the games has just recently been posted, giving players a look behind the scenes at the process that goes into crafting compelling arcs for players to enjoy time and again. Penned by Matt Miller, the installment explains some of the thought processes that go on during mission development. For example, as Miller explains, the main reason that level bands restrict available enemy groups is simply plausibility -- if you're still seeing Hellions at level 50, it implies that the Rikti are essentially equivalent to punks in red jackets. Miller also talks about the importance of finding little quirks to help the mission feel unique and memorable, an important element in a game that allows you to flash back to older missions at almost any time. It's sure to be an interesting read for longtime fans interested in seeing how the team goes about taking a broad concept and turns it into a playable arc.
Designing the missions for City of Heroes
With more than seven years of content, there's a lot that goes on behind the scenes of City of Heroes when new content is being developed. The regular developer dispatch newsletter, The Intrepid Informer, has just kicked off the first in what promises to be a series of writeups about the process of creating new task forces, missions, and other content. In the first entry, John "Protean" Hegner details the role of the Lead Mission Designer in the process. As Hegner explains, the game's storylines and overarching foci are all planned out, with certain elements coming into prominence or moving to the background depending on the focus of a given issue. The early part of development centers around figuring out which parts of the game's ongoing story will be explored and how much space the designers have been given to do so. If you're a City of Heroes veteran, the full dispatch is well worth a read for a look at how missions get made at Paragon Studios.
