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City of Heroes unveils a trailer for the next super booster
The sixth Super Booster for City of Heroes is coming, and it's going to be a very different experience from the previous boosters. The first five numbered boosters were very direct in their theme, with each one focusing on a different origin type. This time around, the pack is focusing on all five origins, with new capes and auras to show off just where your character comes from. It's dubbed the Origins Pack, and a trailer has just been released to show off all of the unique new effects players can enjoy. Embedded after the cut, the video features a quick walkthrough of the five new capes and 10 new auras added with the new pack, with the auras featuring intensely unique effects that suit each different origin. Each aura and cape has additional uses, as well -- it's hard to imagine that a Radiation-themed villain wouldn't want the Toxic Fumes or Atomic aura, just as an example. The pack is tentatively set to release on November 3rd, but until then, players can enjoy the trailer and start thinking about their next costume changes in City of Heroes.
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: This edition is so stupid
Guys, I have to warn you straight up... this edition is really stupid. It's just plain stupid. I'm not saying that it's bad, and I'm not saying it's not worth reading -- I'm just saying that it's really surprisingly dumb. You're all fond of City of Heroes, and I am too, but considering how dumb this week's edition is, maybe you should do something else for however long you would normally read one of my columns. I guess there are some pretty good things on YouTube these days. Oh, wait, sorry, it looks like I was reading my notes wrong. It's not that this edition is stupid, it's that the community threads we're spotlighting today are all about things that are stupid. Because there are things here and there within City of Heroes that are just a little dumb, when you get right down to it. Also, it gave me a thematic hook for this column, so that's good too. Click on past the cut for this week's highlights!
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: Party hardly
I think by this point I have a well-established reputation as being a fairly positive guy on the subject of City of Heroes. It wasn't a conscious decision or anything -- it's just that I've been pretty happy with the game's development and content, and I do tend to be a bit of a developer supporter. I don't expect the game to be something other than what it is, and I enjoy what it is. Not to mention the obvious fact that the game has given me a lot of enjoyment over the years. So I usually come down as being part of the sunshine and light crowd. But that's not by design -- it's just how things have shaken down. I hand out praise and criticism as the situation warrants. And this week I'm going to talk about something that most definitely deserves criticism. I'm talking, of course, about the Party Pack, the newest mini-addition to the game and one that's already produced more than a little fan rage. But it's deserved, and even if I can see why Paragon Studios went the route that it did, I find it a little hard to just dismiss it with the usual "if you don't like it, don't buy it" routine.
Party down with the new City of Heroes Party Pack
It's time to get down and party in City of Heroes. No, not just partying up to clear some of the remarkably difficult content available in Praetoria, although that's also a fine idea. The team at Paragon Studios has just announced the Party Pack, a collection of several emotes designed to enhance your game experience. No new costume parts, no new powers -- just a solid collection of fun emotes to break out in any situation. Sound ridiculous? Maybe a little, but who can deny the enjoyment of breaking out some new dance moves in the middle of a party, or even kicking a soccer ball in Atlas Park? It's not for everyone, but the breadth of emotes available should be sure to impress several players, and it's only $7.99 for the pack. Take a look at the gallery, and there's a trailer past the cut showing the new emotes in action -- a fun addition for any dedicated City of Heroes player. [Update: This is just for the announcement of the Party Pack,. It will go live on September 14th.] %Gallery-100736%
Win a mutant super booster, courtesy of NCsoft and Massively.com!
Are you all ready to Hulk out for some free stuff? Well, actually, I guess you're not ready to Hulk out, as Hulk is more of a science type of hero... You'd be more like Wolverine, or Gambit, but those names aren't as catchy to say in a sentence such as the first one. But, hey, let's go with it. Are you ready to Gambit out for some free stuff? Thanks to NCsoft, we've scored 20 mutant super booster packs, and we totally want to give them away to you, the fine heroes and villains of Massively! If you haven't heard the news on what these packs contain, then you should [insert travel power here] yourself on over to our most recent City of Heroes announcement. But if you have heard the news and you're ready to boil over, then keep reading this post for all of the juicy details! (You see what I did there.)
City of Heroes launches the Mutant Super Booster
With all the characters growing organic spines and shooting bio-electricity at foes, the new City of Heroes Mutant Super Booster seems like an addition that the game has long been awaiting. While yesterday saw a giveaway for several codes by the Paragon Studios team, today is the official launch where everyone can enjoy the new costumes, emotes, and bonus power. The first is the most eye-catching of the setup, naturally, and we've included a gallery of both the in-game art and concept art for the new Bioluminescent and Organic Armor costume sets. New costume change emotes are also par for the course, with this booster adding a triad that includes the supremely freaky Rapid Boil emote. (The Facebook video does it justice in both accuracy and freakiness.) Last but not least is the new innate power Secondary Mutation, which allows you to unleash the latent power of your DNA for a random effect, usually involving self-buffs of varying duration. City of Heroes players will find plenty to enjoy with the newest booster, so check out the gallery and start boiling yourself a new costume. %Gallery-96158%
City of Heroes hosting Razer-sponsored question-and-answer service [Updated]
[Update: We were just informed by NCsoft that this contest will unfortunately need to be postponed, due to some technical issues. Please ignore the dates posted here. We will let you know as soon as we hear something new.] There's nothing quite as nice as getting rewarded for doing something you would have been inclined to do anyway. City of Heroes is offering players and fans a chance to do precisely that via an upcoming question-and-answer session. Not only do you get a chance to ask the developers whatever you want, but there's a chance for you to win a free Razer Naga mouse, which is designed specifically around MMO gaming. What could be better? Mirroring the earlier formspring session from April, the City of Heroes team is opening up submissions for questions between June 21st and June 28th. The answers are coming on the 30th, with three lucky players winning a Naga mouse. The full rules and regulations can be found on the official site, which includes language explaining that questions will only be answered regarding Going Rogue, the upcoming Super Booster, and the recent video documentary. Take a look at the official rules, and think of what you can ask the team about the upcoming content.
An advance peek offered for the next City of Heroes Super Booster
The fifth Super Booster for City of Heroes has been the point of some debate. Players have known for a long time that it was going to be a mutant-themed pack, but that doesn't imply a great deal beyond having something vaguely organic going on. Luckily for players, the Facebook fan page for the game has been posting preview images to help players get a sense of what's going into the pack. And the best part isn't just that it has a set release date of June 24th -- it's that players might get to pick it up for free a day early. On June 23rd, the City of Heroes team will be giving away two codes per hour via their social networking outlets -- Facebook, Twitter, and the official forums. Where the codes will appear in the five-hour timeframe is a mystery until it happens, encouraging players to stay alert and keep their eyes on all of the above. For US players, the codes will be given away between 1 PM and 5 PM PST, while EU players will see the codes being announced between 5 PM and 10 PM British time. Keep your eyes peeled for your chance to get the newest booster a day early!
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: We're all in this together
Community can be a funny thing. We pick the community we're in -- in this case, City of Heroes -- but we don't pick any of the other members. Sometimes they're all really stand-out folks, and sometimes... well, sometimes your choices are between Flower Power, Slug-fest, and Hammer Time. Lucky for us, the community that's formed itself around our favorite superhero MMO is pretty darn good at its worst and outright awesome most of the time. (And a proper shout-out to our community for the game right here, while I'm at it.) To be fair, we're a bit on the lean side at the moment. After all, we're not getting another update for a couple of months and we almost all know it. Issue 17 is pretty awesome, but we also know that Going Rogue is just around the corner, and so most of us are focused a bit more on the future. But we've still got a lot to talk about in our day-to-day adventures. That both helps everyone to feel that much more welcome, and it helps facilitate this week's look at some of the noteworthy community threads that have been cropping up lately.
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: Pay the man
Back on the first column I ever wrote about City of Heroes, many moons ago, someone made a comment that's stuck in my head. It wasn't negative, just something that stuck in my mind. They mentioned how the game had been portrayed in a somewhat poor light on the site as a whole, and used as an example that it had been used as the title image for this article about microtransactions and other payment goodies. Go ahead and take a look at the author of that piece, and you might understand why the comment stuck in my mind. I don't think that City of Heroes does a bad job with their microtransactions. I actually love their setup and like to point to it alongside Dungeons & Dragons Online as a prime example of how to do an item shop correctly. And I'm fairly sure I'm not the only person who feels that way, although there's doubtlessly the other side of the story that thinks they do an awful job. So strap yourselves in, because today we're going to be diving headfirst into the cash shop and my enthusiastic praise for same.
Super Boosters and beyond in City of Heroes
Massively recently had the chance to talk with City of Heroes executive producer Brian Clayton and Lead Designer Matt Miller about a multitude of CoX topics. One of the points we covered was the downloadable optional content, such as the recent Cyborg Pack.Massively: The recent changes in the studio, the additional bandwidth you were talking about: would you connect those to the changes you've made in pricing, with the additional purchaseable content? Or is that more a direct result of NC NorCal coming into its own? Brian Clayton: It's a little bit of both, to be perfectly honest. We certainly have huge plans, plans that go over the next five to ten years, for the City of Heroes franchise. So we certainly need to ramp up for that. But we also feel that by providing the Super Booster packs and things like that, it's a win-win in that it helps grow the studio internally to provide more things for our community, but it also helps us to justify those costs and build for the future. I think that's certainly a part of it, but there are larger initiatives again that we can't fully go into detail about, for the future of the franchise.
CoX goes bionic with Super Booster I: Cyborg Pack
Today's the release day for the City of Heroes Super Booster I: Cyborg Pack. Well, official release day: some players got a sneak preview yesterday when the pack was accidentally made available a day early. This isn't NCsoft's first foray into CoX microtransactions. We've already had the Wedding Pack and the Good versus Evil Add-on Pack for those who wanted a few optional extras. The Cyborg Pack looks like it puts both of those in the shade.The pack gives a new costume set with multiple pieces, and some emotes including the robot dance. There's a new sort of aura, too, which only activates when the character is in combat mode: for example, a holographic HUD that descends over the face when the character enters combat.
