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One Shots: The smoke clears
The thunderous rumble of footsteps fade; an echo in the hills. The battles this land has seen have been numerous and hard-won, as the bones in the foreground lay as a silent testimony to friends and enemies who did not escape the fray. Today's dark and foreboding Warhammer Online screenshot comes to us from Massively regular contributor, ScytheNoire, showing the strong walls of a keep, standing silently in a blighted, ravaged landscape. If this land could talk, the battle tales it would tell!Are you fond of battle? Why not show us your favorite battle scenes - or ravaged landscapes? One Shots relies on reader contributions, so we need to hear from you! Just send a screenshot (or a bunch) to oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name and a quick description of the scene we're seeing. We'll post it out here for everyone to check out and give you the credit for showing it off. %Gallery-9798%
Meet the ultimate City of Heroes Issue 13 guide, Infoman
Walking down the street, you're suddenly stopped by a man wearing a fedora and trench coat. "Hey you, yeah you!" he spits out in hushed tones. "Uh, what's up?" you respond cautiously."Yo, the name's Infoman," he looks about nervously, like someone may be watching him, "check out the merchandise" opening his jacket to reveal countless links for articles all about the recent City of Heroes' Issue 13 update. Everything from the Positron interview at Joystiq to in-depth fan-made videos of all the new systems added into the game."It's all free, take whatever ya like." says the calm street walker, who now seems like a pretty nice guy. "I'll take that Floyd 'Castle' Grubb interview about the new powersets." you say. He nods, hands it over and says, "I gots more if'n you want it, kid. Be down at the docks." and struts off down the street whistling a tune.
New to Paragon City: Sunstorm and Synapse
Two new 'rednames' have been introduced to the super-powered community by City of Heroes/Villains Senior Designer Floyd "Castle" Grubb at NCsoft. The new bright stars are Jonathan "Sunstorm" Courney, and Phil "Synapse" Zeleski. Both have been around for a little while now, but this is their formal debut. Both Sunstorm and Synapse have been working on Powers. Sunstorm particularly is tackling bases (which many players may find to be an area long-overdue for attention), and you can find an Issue 13 Base Q&A from Sunstorm on the forums. Synapse for his part has already made (ahem) heroic efforts to clarify misunderstandings in the Merit Rewards system, even prior to his formal introduction. That's two devs thrown bodily to the masses. Make them welcome, as only you know how.
Floyd 'Castle' Grubb gives a Q&A on the new CoX power sets
Castle, famous in City of Heroes for being the guy who designs and fixes the powers, has prepared a Q&A on the new powersets coming with CoX Issue 13: Power and Responsibility, now deep into Closed Beta: Shield Defense and Pain Domination. Though controversy over proposed PvP changes is dominating the CoX boards at the moment, the new powersets seem to have met with universal acclaim.In the Q&A, Castle explains the thinking behind Pain Domination and the restrictions on the design, the player base's role in the creation of Shields, and his own take on which hero and villain powers are the coolest ones in the game right now. Check out the Q&A after the cut.
City of Heroes PvP changes explained at length
Floyd 'Castle' Grubb clearly does not know the meaning of fear. He's now unveiled a detailed breakdown of the foreshadowed changes to powers in City of Heroes PvP, and they're so radical it will probably be like playing a different game. Are these changes for the better? Once Issue 13: Power and Responsibility goes to Open Beta, we'll be sure to join in with the testing, because we can't wait to find out.We already knew about the changes to mez protection (removed in PvP) but the changes go far, far beyond that. For example, simply being the target of an attack is enough to suppress your travel power for two seconds, though suppression won't be as severe as it currently is in PvE.Buffs are subject to a 'diminishing returns' system, meaning no more stacking buffs for huge increases to ToHit or damage. Even healing is changed, with each successive heal giving you 25% resistance to healing for 15 seconds, so that 4 heals in close succession would make you immune to healing for the duration. Healspamming will no longer be a viable tactic.
A Castle, a Jester, and a parcel of CoX power changes
Credibility is a precious resource; DJ Jester of w00tstudios.net is one of those people on the MMO circuit who has bags of it stashed under his mattress. His podcasts have always been right on the pulse, and he's had many worthy personages in the past as guests, from April 'CuppaJo' Burba to Matt 'Positron' Miller.Now, Floyd 'Castle' Grubb, aka Castle the Powers Guy from City of Heroes, joins Jester and friends at the mike for a 41 minute megasesh in which the coming changes to powers in CoX are expertly dissected, laid out and examined for your delight and edification.
Floyd 'Castle' Grubb delivers the goods on CoX power changes
As the wait intensifies for City of Heroes Issue 13: Power and Responsibility to go into closed Beta, powers guy Floyd 'Castle' Grubb has provided a breakdown of some of the main PvE powers changes. None of the Villain Patron Powers or Hero Ancillary Powers are mentioned yet: the powers changed are meat-and-potatoes stuff, which will affect low-level characters as they work their way up.The most striking change is half way down. Non-hostile player toggles, such as the Kheldians' shapeshifting powers, will no longer drop when a player is held, slept or stunned. This is such a big deal that it demands a visual analogy. Imagine being a floating, tentacled weapons platform capable of delivering a payload of purple death to whole crowds of bad guys. Now, imagine suddenly plummeting out of the sky, transformed to a little slumbering human, complete with 'zzz' emerging from your head. That is what being mezzed does to a Warshade in squid form. We're not sure yet whether this change is PvE only or also applies to PvP: frankly, the PvP consequences of toggles no longer dropping when a player is mezzed are too radical to contemplate in just one article.
Villain Patron Powers to get overhaul in CoX Issue 13
When the announcement broke that the Mission Architect feature for City of Heroes was being moved to Issue 14, some additional features were listed for Issue 13, including revamps to some of the powers. We got to quiz Matt Miller and Brian Clayton extensively about the PvP related changes coming to CoX, but some other overhauls have come to light since. From what powers specialist Floyd 'Castle' Grubb has told players on the forums, the Villain Patron Powers and the Hero Ancillary Power Pools are going to get a serious rework.Both these power pool types affect only characters at level 40 and above. Players have been protesting the lack of equivalence between them ever since the City of Villains Patron Powers went live in Issue 7: Destiny Manifest. The obvious place where the disparity between the two counts is in PvP. The heroes get uber powers like Focused Accuracy; the villains don't. The heroes get Power Boost as an ancillary power; the villains don't. But now, although he can't talk specifics yet, Castle has promised 'widespread' changes to the PPs and APPs.
Podcast Interview with Positron and Castle
With City of Heroes Issue 12 finally in Open Beta, people can talk about it, and there is a lot of talking going on.On May 7th, the folks at Split Infinity Radio managed to corner CoX Devs Floyd Grubb and Matt Miller, otherwise known as Castle the Powers Guy and Positron the Lead Developer, and sit them down for a good long interview. Players attending via IRC also submitted questions.Much like the earlier interview with Joe Morrissey on CoH Podcast, there's a lot of meaty information. Although DJ Jules can sound giggly and nervous at times, she's a sweetie and a long-term supporter of CoX, and SI Radio is the winner of a MMOFury fansite award. So we're going to let her off.The interview is now available for download here. 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!
One Shots: A return to Evendim
It seems like no matter how many times we showcase this lovely land, we get more. People just love Evendim! Of course, we think it looks fabulous too, so we understand the love LotRO players seem to feel for this zone. Today's return to Evendim comes to us courtesy of Itanius, who sadly didn't give us his class or server name. He did, however, give us a screenshot worthy of being a pretty sweet desktop wallpaper! (You may want to edit out the frame-rate marking, depending on your screen setup.)If you just love to hang out in a place we've already covered, that's cool -- just send us your own personal spin on it! Don't forget to add in your character name, class and server if you'd like and a small blurb about what we're seeing in the image. Then just mail it to us at oneshots@ massively.com. See? Easy. %Gallery-9798%
Explore Richard Garriott's secret dungeons
Ever wanted to own a medieval-esque castle with secret passages and a dungeon? Produce one of the most significant gaming franchises in history and that dream could become a reality.The HGTV show Secret Spaces was guided by gaming industry eccentric Richard Garriott, aka Lord/General British, through Garriott's Austin home. Garriott became extravagantly wealthy through his Ultima series of computer games, and has spent some of his money building a house/castle hybrid called "Britannia Manor." The manor is full of secret passageways, hidden rooms, and strange artifacts.We have the YouTube video here for you. Unfortunately, they didn't show where he keeps his Sputnik satellite.[Via Joystiq]
