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CoX updates now on Test
Starting today, CoX patch 16.20080122.0 is live on the Test server. Both sides will see some important changes. Aside from a Combat Attribute window and Attribute monitor, a number of playability enhancements have been made. Debt is lowered across the board, Tasks can be dropped more often, Powers were tweaked, a large number of changes were made to Inventions, Server Transfers were clarified, a few Graphical Effects were adjusted, Base Storage is now more understandable, and the 45 Month Veteran Reward grants a free Respec. For City of Heroes players, changes were made to the Scrapper, Blaster, Defender and Tanker ATs, while City of Villains players will find changes to the Masterminds and Stalkers, instead. For both, graphical and sound effects have been adjusted for wristband summoning and strafing transitions.If you've been dealing with the known issue of spammers sending you influence and power leveling offers in-game, you needn't worry about them any longer. One of the changes in this patch is that characters below 10th level cannot send in-game email. For most players, this means their first two or three days of game play will see them blocked from sending (but not from receiving, reading, or deleting) mail, but it should also keep the spammers from flooding our inboxes. Speaking of known issues, if you run CoX in Vista, Vista-compatible cursors are now part of the build. As Lighthouse mentioned previously, though, changes on Test may be altered or reverted before going live. Now go forth, ye spandex-clad legions, and test that update.
Cinemassively: The Revenge of Dr. Mechanico
We like this machinima not only because it's made by one of our favorite machinima studios, Stone Falcon Productions, but also because it's set in City of Heroes, which seems to have a rather limited machinima community. Though The Revenge of Dr. Mechanico, like most of Stone Falcon's pieces, is a comedy, it's also the story of an epic battle between good and evil. (Over -- what else? -- a girl!)
CoX's Double XP weekend announced
You've been waiting, hungering for it, and now it's here. NCsoft announced today that the next CoX Double XP weekend will start immediately after the weekly maintenance on Friday, 8 February, and will end on Sunday, 10 February. For those of you who've never experienced a Double XP weekend, it's not just the XP that gets doubled, it's everything. During the course of the weekend, you'll wind up with twice as much XP, prestige, and influence/infamy. Don't worry, though: debt penalties aren't doubled, only the sweet taste of success. So plan on pressing your capes and brushing the dust off your winged sandals, the Rogue Isles and Paragon City are in for some serious server hits in February. As always, if you have any questions, don't hesitate to bring them up in the official forums.
When gold farmers attack!
There you are zipping around Paragon City looking for a criminal skull or two to bust when suddenly a "hero" (or villain if you're playing CoV) named "jlaksjdflakd" clad in pink spandex and green skin suddenly pops into your peripheral. No, it's not a small childlike noob entering the city for the first time. It's something far, far worse. It's... the attack of the bottom feeding, scum sucking gold farmer!!We've all had similar experiences. No MMO is immune to these ne'er-do-wells. But the CoX universe has remained relatively unscathed. Until now. Thankfully, gamers don't have to take this laying down... and neither do the developers. In fact, they're fighting back. W00t Studios head honcho Jester just began a recurring feature called The Fight Against Spam. The series will highlight the valiant efforts of various game developers as they fight the good fight against the nefarious Real Money Traders (RMT).This first entry highlights what NCsoft has done to hinder spammers in CoX. Several months ago they implemented the "/ignore_spammer" command which lets players ignore (and automatically report to the GM's) a would be trouble maker. Once several reports against the same account are logged, they're banned. The tide of battle seems to have swung in their favor, but the supergroup at NCsoft isn't resting on their laurels. As of yesterday the in-game mail system has been drastically restricted. Now players under level 12 no longer have mail privileges, forcing these malevolent miscreants to their knees by making them do some leveling work of their own. Granted, it may only slow them down... but it's a giant step in the right direction.
City of Heroes server improvement details
The City of Heroes team announced in their 2008 "State of the Game" post that there we some server upgrades coming soon in preparation of double experience weekend and Valentine's Day events. Considering that the end of January is nearly a week away, you may be wondering just exactly when all these upgrades are going to happen. The answer is soon, very soon. Beginning today (on January 22nd) the server upgrades start. Keep in mind that with each server getting an overhaul it's no normal weekly maintenance. You can expect server downtime to be spread out over different servers for the next two days as well. Champion, Guardian, Justice, Protector and Virtue (also, the training server) are all going down for the first round of upgrades today. Then, tomorrow all servers not upgraded today go down as well. Thankfully, there's a handy forum post concerning all downtimes this week. Expect some more upgrade downtime next week as well, according to the NCsoft Norcal developer post.
One Shots: To stop a ticking bomb...
Reader Julien offers up this screenshot directly from the Rogue Isles in City of Villains (or at least we think that's where it's from -- our screenshot archiving ferrets at One Shots don't have time to play a lot of games). During the Rikti Invasion of Issue 10, where Rikti attacks could be seen in a variety of ways -- such as this bomb in the middle of the street. Julien explains this particular shot by saying, "Because everyone knows that you stop a ticking bomb by hitting it with fire monkeys."Snapped any good screenshots recently? Send them to us so we can feature your screenshot and story for tomorrow's One Shots! It's easy to participate -- just send your screenshots and stories to oneshots@massively.com. %Gallery-9798%
CoX: player-written guide updates
CoX Community Coordinator Ex_Libris would like to remind y'all that the Player Guide Section in the official forums is in need of updating, and they'd like to have all updates completed by the end of the month. That being said, if you've built a guide, please make sure that it's both up-to-date and listed in the Guide of Guides section.Aside from assisting your fellow spandex-clad heroes and spangle-bedecked villains, building a guide is a great way to make sure that you're rock-solid on everything that you need to know about your specific archetype. And please remember, if you need to delete an old or incorrect version of your guide, send a message to Zombie_Man, and he'll take care of it for you.
One Shots: Lord Recluse's tower
Julien offers this shot of City of Villains' Grandville, looking up on Lord Recluse's tower. (And hovering further above, we see the Arachnos Flyer, preparing to deploy troops to the lower levels of Grandville.) With Lord Recluse's statue in the foreground, this single screenshot seems to represent the atmosphere of the game as a wholeSnapped any good screenshots recently? Send them to us so we can feature your screenshot and story for tomorrow's One Shots! It's easy to participate -- just send your screenshots and stories to oneshots@massively.com. %Gallery-9798%
PvP for great Justice
Like to fight? Want to ring in the new year with the bells in your opponent's head? Well then, head on over to Justice, 'cause you'll be in the right place. The Merry Prankster, the Saturday Night Fights, the PvP Event Committee, and KPOW Justice Radio are all teaming together to host an almost three month long PvP/PvE festival. And just so you know they're serious, there's serious swag on the line, too: 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place teams will all win physical trophies, alts with the best costumes will receive rare salvage or recipes, and the hightest-level alt at the end of the event will win a special prize.
MarsCon landing for CoX
The Stars of Paragon are hosting a booth at MarsCon 18 from 18-20 January 2008. If you're going to be in the vicinity of Williamsburg, Virginia, it may well behoove you to check it out. They're currently planning panel discussions -- based on interest and participation, of course -- and an LCD projector to show City of Villains and City of Heroes goodness to the other participants who have, sadly, not embraced NCsoft's gaming glory.Whether you're attending in order to sip Superadine and Rage punch handed out by glamorous super heroines, or get some assistance in building a character for teaming or soloing, feel free to drop by. It is, after all, a combination of educational forum and meet & greet, so you never know who you might see there. Incidentally, if you're an experienced player, please let Mike Halo know if you're available to assist with character builds and walkthroughs. Kudos to the Stars of Paragon for setting this up, and here's hoping to see some of you at MarsCon.
One of CoX's P.E.R.C.s
Whether you're feeling valorous or villainous on Virtue, you're in good hands. In fact, whichever server is your home du jour, you'll find plenty of P.E.R.C.s in asking for assistance. The Player Event Resource Committee is here to help you plan, support, and run events, whether they're server-specific or game-wide.Need some help setting up a raid in City of Villains? They're here to help. Want to build a cross-server smackdown of evil in City of Heroes? They can assist with that, as well. They've brought together players from each server, and they're focused on enhancing the CoX experience by making sure your events run smoothly. So far, it sounds as though they're doing a bang-up job of making sure they're meeting the goals stated in their charter.
Be a hero: put on The Cape
If you like good music, good conversation, and a good lineup of DJs, then it's a good idea to put on The Cape. And please, don't forget the commercials: listening to Lord Recluse talk about the Rogue Islands Pet Shelter is enough to make even a hero weep with laughter.The Cape radio is one of Virtue's best-known and most enjoyed web-based radio stations, and you can access it via Winamp, iTunes, or the WIndows Media Player at http://www.thecaperadio.com:8000. Whether you enjoy thwarting villainy in Paragon City, or embracing it in the Rogue Isles, you'll have a soundtrack to match your deeds with The Cape fluttering behind you.
One Shots: The Rikti Invasion
Reader Julien sends in this shot from the Rikti Invasion event introduced to City of Heroes (and Villains!) in Issue 11. We're looking at one of the Rikti dropships closeup, as it sails the skies prepared to fire, Julien tells us, at any arrogant heroes or villains getting too close. Oh, good times, good times!Snapped any good screenshots recently? Send them to us so we can feature your screenshot and story for tomorrow's One Shots! It's easy to participate -- just send your screenshots and stories to oneshots@massively.com. %Gallery-9798%
The 'proud nails' of City of Heroes design
Zubon, of the award-winning Kill Ten Rats cooperative blog, has a great design discussion up on on the site concerning the 'proud nails' of City of Heroes' elder game. The term 'proud nail' is one that Zubon and I both enjoy from the design discussions on the official Wizards of the Coast website. Wizards makes the tabletop RPG Dungeons and Dragons, and many of the observations they make there are easily transposable to Massively Multiplayer games.Proud nails are 'design snags', problems that screw up the smooth movement of design mechanics. On the D&D site, examples include 'ten foot square' horses, crazily random lists of special abilities for monsters, and the strange way that bow ranges are calculated. Zubon's 'proud nail' list for City of Heroes focuses on the insanity of pitting high-level heroes primarily against a single villain group called the Carnival of Shadows. The Carnival has some serious issues, primarily stemming from their annoying attack moves and the famously weak amount of content at CoH's highest levels.I think 'proud nail' is a really useful term ... can anyone else point out a proud nail from any other games that immediately spring to mind?
Cinemassively: Time to Start
I'm constantly amazed at the creativity of people that play games where it's not easy to make Machinima. They don't have custom animations, model viewers, chromakeying, or just about anything else. City of Heroes and City of Villains are two of those games.Samuraiko Productions has created an energetic, fist-pumping music video, set to Blue Man Group's "Time to Start." Our very own CoX lead, Jonathan Northwood, wrote about her talent just last month! Set in Pocket D, one of the most recognizable areas in the game, both heroes and villains were able to to contribute to the video. If you liked it, she also has a high quality version available.[Thanks, Jonathan!]
Massively's Holiday Gallery - CoX
As we've previously mentioned, many MMOs are currently running their winter events, and we here at Massively have started to compile a gallery of screen shots from various titles: Saint Nicholas may not be sharing today, but -- as you can see from the snowball fight above -- we're going to share everything from the missions to the mischief. We hope you enjoy the images. For our first offering, here's the CoX winter event. As Eli noted, it went live on 17 December; and, while we've told you about the badges you could win on the slopes, as well as the new salvage and old missions, we thought you might enjoy actually seeing what winter in Paragon City and the Rogue Isles looks like. After all, a picture is worth 1,000 words, right? From snow beasts to Baby New Year, we've tried to capture it all in the Holiday Gallery. %Gallery-12217%
Cinemassively: Night Prayers
Massively's very own CoX lead, Jonathan Northwood, has a great eye for Machinima! Night Prayers is about good versus evil, from what I can tell, as it lacks a description. If I'm reading into it correctly, a man prays to go to the dark side, as the tale unfolds using only film and the occasional written word.Vertical Studio has found a way to make the City of Heroes and City of Villains platforms cinematic, and judging by other videos from the games, it's not easy. They are a small team whose goal is to make quality Machinima, using original music and elaborate shots. They even took home the Grand Prize award at the first French Machinima Festival in November 2006 for their first film, Dies Irae![Thanks, Jonathan!]
CoX Costume Contest winners announced
NCsoft has announced the winners of the annual CoX Halloween costume contest, and the results are up on the official forums. We'd like to congratulate CutestLilHero for winning the Best Overall, and kudos to both Reginold Longbarrel and Komic Kitten for Best Villain and Best Hero, respectively. The Community Pick winner was Dark-Hammer.A gallery of the official winners -- as well as images of the Community Pick contestants -- is available, so check out the creativity your fellow players show in matching life to art. Each year, this contest lets you know who wears the Spandex in the City of Heroes/Villains universe. And, as always, if you have any questions or concerns, a discussion section has been opened on the official forums.
CoX up for Reader's Choice nomination
Like City of Heroes? Love City of Villains? Want to show your support for them? Then cast your votes in MMORPG.com's 2007 Reader's Choice Awards. NCsoft's CoX line was nominated for Most Improved Game of the Year, Best Genre Other than Fantasy, and Best Game of the Year. You can also vote for it in the Favorite Pay to Play, Best Graphics, and Favorite Game Company categories.If you'd like to discuss the nominations, or share the "squee-riffic" feeling with your friends and the developers, head on over to the official forums and let them know your opinion. Don't forget, though, that you only have until December 30th to vote. So enjoy the game, folks, and lets keep those votes coming.
Under The Hood: Running Out Of Time
It's very debatable, but the biggest investment into any MMO is time. It's one thing to just pay to play the game, as there are several per-month services you can pay for, such as cable television, or car insurance, or sometimes simple things like a book club. But no normal service, however, require both the time and monetary investment like an MMO does. They are designed from the ground up to be full of grinding, time-wasting, and slow experience gain. But why is that?
