midnight-hour
Latest
CoX Issue 12 comic book available
Proving once again that some of the best MMO material out there is made by the fans, Chase Arcanum and Cinder Flame have released a comic book that showcases CoX Issue 12: Midnight Hour in all its various aspects. Assembled using a huge guest cast and a lot of hard work with screenshots, the Midnight Hour comic takes a wickedly humorous look at the newest issue to hit CoX, with special emphasis on the Midnight Squad and the Villain Epic Archetypes. Regular readers will have encountered Chase Arcanum's acerbic humor before, when he covered the infamous wedding of Manticore and Sister Psyche in comic-book format. This latest edition, which can be accessed from the CoH main page or downloaded directly in PDF format, looks to be the most ambitious collaboration so far. Face down the forces of evil! Give good a quick jab to the jaw! Massively has all the CoX Issue 12 news you can handle. Make sure to check it out!
Samuraiko reveals CoX Issue 12 video
Acclaimed City of Heroes fan video maker Michelle, otherwise known as Samuraiko, has released her second Issue 12: Midnight Hour video, timed to coincide with the issue's launch to the live servers yesterday. Unlike the first (completely speculative) piece, this one contains plenty of footage from the actual issue, including material from Cimerora, the Midnighter Club and the Imperious Task Force.Warning: there are some very brief potential spoilers in this video. Blink and you'll miss them, but don't say you weren' t warned!Samuraiko's highly regarded in the CoX community as one of the best fan video makers out there, with standards comparable to those set by the official CoX videos. She's produced her own trailers and promotional films for CoX since Issue 11, including a documentary of Manticore and Sister Psyche's chaotic wedding. In her latest offering she also does a little voice acting, giving the reaction that most of us give when we step on to Cimerora' s shores for the first time.'Midnight's Secrets' is available in high quality format on the Samuraiko Productions web site. The YouTube version follows after the break.
City of Heroes lead developer Matt Miller interviewed
Our friends over at rpg.boomtown.net have posted a lengthy interview with Matt 'Positron' Miller, lead developer for City of Heroes and City of Villains. This comes just in time for the live launch of Issue 12: Midnight Hour.Matt gives us the rundown of Midnight Hour, hinting at future storylines and assuring players that there's a very long game being played here. The seeds of future adventures are being planted right now. There's even a hint that the task force recipe drop award system, currently causing some dissatisfaction, is to be revamped. Quite right, too - who wants to undergo a whole Task Force just to get a measly Trap of the Hunter recipe instead of an endurance and health-boosting Numina's Convalescence?
CoX Issue 12: Midnight Hour goes live!
Today at 6.00 AM CDT, earlier than many players were expecting, the live servers for City of Heroes went down to be patched with the latest Issue: number 12, Midnight Hour. According to lead developer Matt Miller, the testing process has been 'surprisingly smooth' and the live rollout is bang on schedule. Full patch notes are now available including some significant changes to trial accounts, which should stymie RMT considerably.CoX players can now enjoy all the new features, including long awaited Villain Epic Archetypes, the new Midnighter Club content, the beautiful Ancient Mediterranean zone of Cimerora, the vast number of new power combinations available through Powerset Proliferation, and of course the numerous Quality of Life improvements. These last have been so well received that some players have likened the experience to playing a whole new game.
Villain Epics mere lackeys? Not likely
When the City of Villains Devs first mentioned that the new Villain Epic Archetypes were going to be Soldiers of Arachnos, some players were apprehensive. They didn't see how a mere rank-and-file member of a villainous organization was going to be any fun to play. Arachnos is a stratified, militaristic outfit, and people make villains in order to break the rules, right? So what's the fun in being a uniformed lackey?As it turns out, the Devs have tackled this head-on in the Epic Villain AT story arc. The key point is that all player villains in CoV so far have been special, because they're Destined Ones, potentially fated to overcome all other villains in a war for ultimate supremacy.
CoX Issue 12 starts work on improving PvP
City of Heroes Issue 12: Midnight Hour, now in Open Beta, brings with it a vast assortment of Quality of Life fixes and tweaks. One small but highly significant fix slipped through the net and missed appearing in the first round of patch notes: the buildup of Brute Fury in PvP and against Archvillain and Giant Monster class enemies has finally been persuaded to work the way it should have. Brutes gain an additional 5 points of Fury when attacking these targets, which more than doubles their Fury building rate. The short version: a Brute can now kill you far faster than you'd expect, and can contribute more to drawn-out fights against the game's toughest enemies.The Brute community has anticipated this change for a long time now. Without the fix, their viability in PvP was not much to write home about. Now, Castle the Powers Guy has made a lot of Brutes very happy. Kaiserin tells the story best, with a one-shot painted comic strip.
CoX Podcast with Joe Morrissey, aka Hero 1
The flood of new information coming out of NCSoft NorCal continues unabated. Fresh from sharing his Developer Diary with us, lead City of Heroes writer Joe Morrissey (no relation to the lugubrious singer, before you ask) has joined Chooch and Viv for a long in-depth interview. Notably, Joe takes time to answer many of the questions the players have asked on the forums.Despite being relatively new to the CoX staff, Joe has made his mark with some superb new story content, including the hot new arcs and Task Force in Issue 12: Midnight Hour, currently in Open Beta. In the interview, he talks about how he landed the job in the first place, the challenge of joining a cut-down team where everyone was working at full tilt, his own hopes for future content and what we can expect from the coming issues.Joe also reveals how he came to choose Hero 1, a character from the CoX universe who is so British he sports the Union Jack on both his cape and his helmet, as his signature character.Listen in here at the CoH Podcast webpage. Face down the forces of evil! Give good a quick jab to the jaw! Massively has all the CoX Issue 12 news you can handle. Make sure to check it out!
CoX Issue 12: Inside the Midnighter Club
City of Heroes Issue 12: Midnight Hour is now in Open Beta. We've brought you a tour of Cimerora, and now venture into the Midnighter Club, home of the Midnight Squad.The zone itself is unusual for CoX. Although access to it has to be unlocked, with separate arcs on the hero and villain side giving access, it currently contains no mission content of its own. There is a time-travelling crystal giving access to Cimerora and a store selling level 35 to 50 Enhancements of all kinds. That aside, the Midnighter Club is useful as a shortcut between heroside universities and a sumptuously atmospheric roleplaying area. The club also contains a Mystery, a form of treasure hunt that players can follow by clicking on objects.%Gallery-22236% Face down the forces of evil! Give good a quick jab to the jaw! Massively has all the CoX Issue 12 news you can handle. Make sure to check it out!
City of Heroes' lead designer contemplates the Midnight Hour, Issue 12
Senior Designer Joe Morrissey, otherwise known as "Hero 1", has a lot of enthusiasm for the upcoming Issue 12 patch for City of Heroes. Not because of technology, though there are some great additions on the way. Not because of the new epic archetypes, though those are completely awesome. No, Joe is really excited because the City of Heroes story is going places it's never gone before. The designer/writer for NCsoft's superhero title sent us over a great developer diary to explain some of those places.Following up on the Rikti invasion highlighted by Issue 10, the magical group known as the Midnight Squad is stepping out the shadows. The aliens, always a pain for good-hearted earthfolk, struck the magical community hard and fast. The aliens may have advanced tech but, as Morrissey points out, they tipped their hand a bit. Now the powerful time-traveling boffins of the Squad are recruiting, and your character is very much on their list.To cap things, off, the designer runs down a few of the plot arcs we can expect in the next issue, as well as touching more on the fascinating plot thread feature coming to contacts. Read on below the cut for the entire discussion.%Gallery-18214%
Massively video exclusive: Villain epic archetypes
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/City_of_Villains_Epic_Archetypes_Video'; Anyone playing the City of... franchise must know that the game's latest free content update, Issue 12 is on the horizon, including epic archetypes for villains. And though here at Massively we can't make issue 12 arrive any faster, we do have the scoop, straight from NCsoft, on the the new Blood Widow and Wolf Spider archetypes. For the level 50 villains in the audience who can't wait to get started playing the new archetypes (or the heroes wanting to know what they'll be up against), keep reading for a preview of the new archetype abilities. All we can say is it makes us want to start leveling a villain. In fact, while you watch this video, we'll be in-game grinding our way towards infamy.%Gallery-18214%
New character creator for CoX Issue 12
As more news comes in about NCsoft's latest free expansion to the CoX universe -- Issue 12: "Midnight Hour" -- we're getting more and more excited. The latest tidbit to come down the pipeline is that the Character Creator will gain expanded functionality tied to the Real Numbers system, allowing players to see not only the numbers behind their chosen powers at creation, but how those numbers will scale up as the character progresses in level. As well, it's going to feature costume set drop-downs instead of forcing players to choose from individual lists of Hats, Gloves, Boots, and Upper/Lower Body selections. For full details on how these changes will affect character creation, check out Lighthouse's Feature Update on the official forums, and feel free to register any questions or concerns.
The "real" story behind CoX's powerset proliferation
Dr. Brainstorm is at it again.If you're a tight wearing do-gooder or vile evildoer within the City of... universe then you can't miss this exclusive broadcast (from an undisclosed location of course) made by Dr. Brainstorm. During yet another crazy experiment (this time involving Rikti technology, Hypothetical Frameworks and invisible, mystical networks) the good Doctor has made a startling find regarding one of the most anticipated features of the upcoming free expansion Issue 12: Midnight Hour - Powerset Proliferation.With the help of his newly built Resonance Manipulator, Brainstorm can now alter the energy strands connecting every Hero and Villain to their powers. New characters (both sides) will be able to access additional primary and secondary powersets they didn't have access to before.[Via GameZone]
