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Star Trek Online's Delta Rising arrives October 14th
Cryptic has just announced that Star Trek Online's Delta Rising expansion will be released on October 14th, 2014. As previously discussed, it will not only raise the level cap but jump into Voyager story space with new territory and famous figures from the franchise. Developers have also released a new dev blog detailing equipment in the expansion. One of the simple rules of existence is that when Delta Rising goes live, a lot of your old equipment in Star Trek Online is going to be a lot less relevant. There's no way around it. A jump in the level cap that leads to Mark XIV equipment naturally makes Mark XI stuff less potent by comparison. But rather than forcing you to earn a whole new set of loot, the expansion's upgrade system for gear should allow you to take an old favorite and bring it up to par. Players can buy, trade, or craft upgrade kits, which add a certain number of tech points to an item being upgraded. Once enough tech points are acquired, a small dilithium fee is paid and the item can be upgraded to the next rank, possibly increasing in quality along the way. For more details on how to accelerate the procedure, check out the full blog entry; it looks as if you won't have to say farewell to all of your old equipment after all.
The Mog Log: Weakness is strength
If you think about characters in the online Final Fantasy games compared to the console-based equivalents, you have to come to a kind of demoralizing conclusion: Your character online is pretty weak. In Final Fantasy XI, you can cap out your Black Mage and you'll still never learn Ultima. In Final Fantasy X, by the time you have your Black Mage using Ultima, you've still got most of the endgame ahead of you. Final Fantasy XIV might move the power scale upward, but at this point your character hasn't even actually mastered being a Paladin, much less summoning anything. Final Fantasy VII, by contrast, gave us three different versions of Bahamut to summon just to keep him relevant, and he was still nowhere near the best. And you know what? It makes the games much more fun to have these barriers in place. Players have been clamoring for high-end summons in Final Fantasy XI since forever ago, and the fact that it's not even on the visible horizon for Final Fantasy XIV is disheartening to some. But there's something to be said for a play environment where these touchstones of power remain out of reach, certainly for now and possibly forever.
Champions Online previews the new Archetype system
When Champions Online first announced that it was joining the ranks of other games offering a no-subscription option, it included a mention that free members would be locked into archetypes. Archetypes were described in broad strokes as a chance for players to develop along the lines of famous heroes from comics, with a locked progression path but the same basic power level. While the development team hasn't yet expounded on what the precise archetypes will be, it has put together a short description about the differences players can expect between the normal free-form heroes and the coming archetype heroes. As it turns out, archetypes will end up with slightly fewer overall powers than freeform heroes but with the same general power level. The preview explains the split as being one of versatility -- freeform heroes will be able to take many roles, but archetype heroes will perform one role well and that's it. If you're one of the players looking forward to trying Champions Online as free-to-play, or if you're just interested in the new build system, take a look at the full rundown and keep your eyes peeled for the coming details on the archetypes themselves.
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: We are gathered here today
As suggested in the title, we are gathered here today for a purpose: To celebrate the community of City of Heroes and all of the discussions that they've been taking part in over the past several weeks. (What, you thought it was for Terry? You clearly haven't been following along.) After several weeks with almost non-stop activity, the past couple have been fairly silent, with only a few tidbits off of the official Facebook page to discuss in any depth. But that hasn't stopped anyone before, and it's not likely to stop anyone now. After all, we've got chatter about when you've played far too much City of Heroes, the day that Mystic Fortune killed someone, and Santa as a crossdresser. No, really. So as long as you don't mind a somewhat more irreverent week of community discussions, click on past the break. (If you do mind it, well, we had a very serious illustration back around here. That's almost as good.)
