Developer keynote at the CoX Meet n' Greet

The culminating event of the City of Heroes/City of Villains Meet n' Greet Friday night was a keynote presentation by the developers where they gave attendees a sneak peak into future content. We were hoping for a huge announcement of sorts, but instead received a couple small announcements.

Initially the Executive Producer for CoX, Brian Clayton, began by giving players their first look at the City Vault. These are the customizable web pages that will soon be available for every player and supergroup. There is a huge amount of information on these pages, and some in the audience seemed unhappy that all their enhancements and abilities would be viewable by their PvP opponents. Players were invited to come up to the stage and have their characters plugged into the database to see what their pages will look like.

The next announcements made came in the form of new content. It was announced that two new costume sets will be available in the near future -- on the Training Room server next week and on the live servers before 2008 -- the first of which, the Carnival Set, players on the Issue 11 test server got a chance to see briefly for about five minutes due to a development snafoo. The second set was designed over Thanksgiving break by "Sexy" Jay Doherty, and dubbed the Enforcer set. It's a complete set of futuristic armor that I know will look great on my brute. In addition to the new costume sets players can expect two new pattern sets to be released soon, but the developers let us know we would find out more about those in the near future.

When the Q&A session began, the really interesting information came out. We were looking to get information to answer Joshua's question about future combo-related power sets, unfortunately they began the session by letting the attendees know that they are not allowed to discuss anything in regards to Power Sets. I am holding on to the question though since it's a good one, and will ask it when I get the chance. Here's an overview of what I gathered from the Q&A session. Keep in mind that the room was fairly noisy, so I wasn't able to catch every question asked:

Question: Will we ever see shields added to the weapon sets?
Answer: (Unofficially) Yes, they are coming, but not in the near future.

Question: Are the developers looking to improve how bases work in the game?
Answer: We are looking at how bases are used in the game, and are dedicated to making them fun and functional.

Question: Are we going to see player apartments added to CoX?
Answer: Now that we've been acquired by NCsoft this is a possibility. It wasn't possible before.

Question: Will a Dual Pistols power set be added to the game for blasters?
Answer: It's not really in the cards at this time, but it's certainly a possibility.

Question: Players are concerned about the high level required for Accolades. Will the level 50s and below see some love?
Answer: We are going to be lowering the level required for Accolades.

Question: The villains in the audience would like to know if we will ever see Epic Archetypes?
Answer: Definitely. The Epic Archetypes will be available for villains. They are coming.

It looks like big changes are in store for CoX in the coming months. New content is out on the horizon, and the development team is actively seeking input from the players on what weapons they want added to the game. The future is bright for Paragon City, so sayeth the developers, and I am inclined to agree.