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Issue 13 brings free weekend for players
Curious about the changes that Issue 13 has brought in, but not sure if you want to reactivate your City of Heroes or City of Villains account? Well, if so, you're in luck! The good folks at NCNC are eager to show off all the new goodies that were added with Issue 13, and have thrown open the doors to Paragon City, inviting back all former Heroes and Villains who have accounts in good standing.All returning players will be treated to a "freespec" - or free respec, as well as a free tailoring session, enabling players to take advantage of the cool new costume options. Beyond that, there's new Cimerora and Midnight Squad story arcs to check out; new powersets; the option to have two builds enabling players to have a "solo" and "party" build - or a PvE and PvP build they can switch between; the Leveling Pact option if you're rolling a new character with a friend; and a bunch more to read over. Of course, there's also the addition of Day Jobs to enjoy, but that works when you're logged out. We're sure you won't want to miss a minute of your free time checking out all the great new content City of Heroes has to offer!
Joystiq asks Positron about keeping City of Heroes competitive
Yesterday brought us the launch of City of Heroes Issue 13: Power and Responsibility. This is arguably the third major launch in the last month. So the question on Jason Dobson's mind is how is CoH keeping pace with the the largest games on the market? And Positron (a.k.a. Matt Miller, Senior Designer at NCSoft) answers. He sounds proud of the separatist nature CoH seems to enjoy in comparison to what he dubs the monotonous "sword and sorcery" games. Even now, four years in, they have one of the most complex and thoroughly enjoyable character creators around, a loyal player base, and plans for future releases. There's even a Mac version of the game in beta right now, with future boxed releases in the works for 2009.Coming soon-ish will be the magic Super-Booster pack and Issue 14: Architect. You may recall that Architect was originally going to be Issue 13, but it was pushed back in September to allow more time for development. Last we heard Issue 14 will be released in Q1 2009 and it seems Issue 15 will be released shortly thereafter, in time for the fifth anniversary of the game (April 2009). Or was that a reference to the Fifth Column we spotted...?
City of Heroes Issue 13 goes live!
Months in the making, delayed when the Mission Architect was pushed to next year, finally finally, City of Heroes Issue 13 is live! Yesterday saw the servers go down for one of the largest content pushes ever by the NCsoft development team. The patch notes are up on the official site, and they're simply monsterous. We've been through this list before, but it's worth going over again: new story arcs for the Midnight Squad, new story arcs for Cimerora, the all-new Merits reward system (which was featured in an exclusive interview here on the site), Day Jobs, new powersets, multiple builds, a huge PvP revamp ... it's exhausting just to mention, let alone consider playing. For a 'thousand foot view' of Issue 13 and its philosophy, be sure to check out our extensive interview with Brian Clayton and Matt Miller all about the "Power and Responsibility" super-patch to this venerable superhero MMO. During that chat we also talked about the future of purchaseable content packs in the game, something we think we're likely to see new talk of soon. Be sure to check out the links above, read up on the full official patch notes, and dig in to our coverage of City of Heroes Issue 13. Excelsior!
CoH Merit Reward system explained pt. 2
It seems like your choice to move to this meta-currency system is an increasingly common design choice in MMOs. Do you see this as a trend in the industry, or did you have ulterior motives for going in this direction aside from satisfying your players? Phil: Really our goal was to more accurately reward players for their time. Give players what they want, give them more choices. Do they want the random roll? Do they want to save up for something specific? This turned out as our best option, a universal currency system, and that's how that came about. Matt: Which is not to say we dislike the side effect this has on gold farmers. You can buy as much influence as you want, but it's not going to get you any more merits. Your time in playing the game is what we're trying to reward.
The City of Heroes devs explain the new Merit Reward system
City of Heroes Issue 13 is enormous. Even with the Mission Architect pushed out to early next year, the next big patch coming to City of Heroes has enough content to satisfy a small army of players. We've talked previously about the upcoming PvP changes, the Day Job system, and we had the chance for extensive conversations with the developers back when the Issue was first announced. That said, there's still a lot of ground to cover. That's why we were thrilled when designer Phil Zeleski and the infamous Matt 'Positron' Miller reached out to us to clarify what's coming down the pipe with game rewards. We chatted with the gents extensively about the new and improved meta-currency coming to City of Heroes. It's going to make Task Forces and Story Arcs far more rewarding for the average player, and the background behind their design is fascinating. Join us below the cut for discussions about how they chose what rewards to give out, trends along these lines in the indstry, and much more.%Gallery-36910%
City of Heroes Issue 13: Power and Responsibility enters Open Beta
A couple of days ago, the latest free expansion for City of Heroes was opened up to public testing. Although the main feature that was originally planned, the Mission Architect, has been put back to issue 14, it's still quite a sizeable package. The main features of the new expansion are a Day Jobs option allowing players to earn benefits and accolades from logging out in specific locations, the Shields and Pain Domination powersets, new missions in the Cimerora zone, and a wealth of changes to PvP and to the Epic and Patron power pools.It's those latter elements that have drawn the most comment from CoX players. The Epic and Patron changes sought to balance out heroes and villains by replacing unpopular powers with new ones; this, however, brought a backlash from players who either didn't like the new powers they were given, wanted to keep the old ones, or both. In response to the player feedback, this has now been changed: the new powers will simply be added in as additional options instead of replacing the old ones wholesale, the first time in the game's history (so far as we are aware) that powersets have been expanded rather than altered. And there was much rejoicing.
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.
Video showcases new CoX powersets for Issue 13
The two new powersets in City of Heroes Issue 13: Power and Responsibility are Pain Domination and Shield Defense. Pain Domination finally gives Villains a dose of the healing and buffing power that Heroes had with the Empathy set, but with a potent offensive edge. Shield Defense is coming to both sides, giving several melee classes the option to wield a highly customizable shield in battle. It's emerged that shields will be able to bear cape patterns underneath their emblems, allowing for heraldic style designs.Over at mmorpg.com, a video has appeared showing the two new powersets in action. It's not very long, but it delivers the goods. We're pleased to see that Pain Domination looks every bit as gore-hued and dramatic as we'd have wished, and the Shields animations are slick. Check the video out at mmorpg.com
The other side of the cape: designing Day Jobs in CoX
The new Day Jobs feature coming with City of Heroes Issue 13: Power and Responsibility has caught the imagination of many of the roleplaying crew, but some other players are unsure what to make of it. Designer Phil Zeleski has provided some insight into how the feature works and what sorts of rewards players can get from using it.Put simply, the CoX Day Job system allows players to log out from a specific location (like a hospital or vault) and when they return to play, after an extended log out period, they will gain a temporary power or some other benefit. With the exception of badges and accolades, the benefits either last for a limited time or have a limited number of uses before they are used up. However, you can replenish the benefit by logging out in the same area. Most rewards need 10 days of logged out time to hit the maximum benefit.
City of Heroes Issue 13 enters Closed Beta
City of Heroes Issue 13: Power and Responsibility has now been patched to the Test Server, where a small but dedicated group of people will be testing the hell out of it for a while before the gate is unlocked and Open Beta begins. Leaking stuff from a Closed Beta is of course a major no-no, and we would not condone this from anyone. There is, however, a limited amount of access that anyone can get, simply by going through character creation. Although it's not possible to enter the game fully unless you're in the Closed Beta, costume pieces and new powersets can be examined in their current state. These are in testing, so it would be unwise to fixate on anything for now.So far we've had a look at the Shields powerset, which is extremely cool and contains many surprises, and Pain Domination, which picks up the buffity-healy hero set Empathy, runs with it, and smashes its face into the wall repeatedly while laughing like some ice-girdled steel-toothed agony maiden from Hell's own surgical wing.
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.
Massively talks with NCsoft about CoH changes, Austin studio shakeup
Massively and NCsoft have had the chance to touch base several times in the last week or so, and we wanted to be sure to put it all together in one place. If you're a fan of NCsoft's games, or just a fan of the genre, you undoubtedly have heard about the trials and tribulations player and developer have been experiencing of late. We've got all the details you want about the NCsoft Austin shakeup, the future of Tabula Rasa, the City of Heroes Issue 13 changeup and the microtransaction initiative the NC NorCal team is ramping up. Check out this roundup of NCsoft posts for everything you need on one of the bigs MMO publishers around. City of Heroes Mission Architect moving to next year!So what is replacing Architect? How about an all new level syncing system that will ensure you can always keep up with your buddies? The "Day Jobs" system, with brand-new civilian costumes and a brand-new game mechanic? Rebalancing of powers for PvP? A new merit reward system? David Reid sets the record straight on NC WestDavid Reid, appointed President of Publishing, was kind enough to give up considerable time yesterday for an interview. We discussed Guild Wars and Tabula Rasa, but the main focus was on the NC West announcement. Brian Clayton and Matt Miller on Power and Responsibility in City of HeroesRight now the news is breaking about a major change to the City of Heroes issue release schedule. The Mission Architect feature is being moved to Issue 14. Issue 13, now titled Power and Responsibility, will include a whole lot more cool content and reach the player base that much sooner. NCsoft 'very encouraged' by Guild Wars 2Massively recently got to talk to David Reid, the newly appointed President of Publishing for NC West, about several key NCsoft matters. We took the opportunity to ask David about ArenaNet and Guild Wars, and in particular, what was happening with Guild Wars 2.
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.
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.
A new era for PvP 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. It was clear to us that some major PvP changes were afoot, so we picked up the topic and ran with it.Massively: So the 'multi build' feature sounds incredible for PvP, and it sounds like you're going to be doing some PvP rebalancing, which I know can get into fiddly details, but can you talk generally about what sort of rebalancing you guys are doing for PvP combat? Matt Miller: We're basically trying to balance it out and make it a lot more fun, not make it so one-sided where certain archetypes and certain powersets completely dominate the PvP game.
Brian Clayton and Matt Miller on Power and Responsibility in City of Heroes
Right now the news is breaking about a major change to the City of Heroes issue release schedule. The Mission Architect feature is being moved to Issue 14, because overwhelming player response convinced the developers not to release the feature until it contained a key element the players wanted: the ability to include customized allies and opponents. Issue 13, now titled Power and Responsibility, will include a whole lot more cool content and reach the player base that much sooner. City of Heroes executive producer Brian Clayton and lead designer Matt Miller were extremely generous with their time yesterday and gave us a lengthy interview, in which they covered a whole host of details about the improvements coming in Issue 13, the changes to the studio, and the future of the City of Heroes franchise.Matt Miller: So the title for Issue 13, Power and Responsibility, that has a lot of meanings. We picked it very specifically to make sure that not only were we conveying the fact that we're adding more powersets and giving players more power in what they're able to choose for rewards and things like that, but then the responsibility nature takes on the day jobs, that offline character advancement system, the responsibilities your character has when you're not playing.
Brian Clayton and Matt Miller: Page 3
Alternate BuildsMassively:There's a ton of new features that you guys are putting in here to go along with the leveling pact and to make up for Architect being moved over a little bit. Can you talk about multi-builds a little bit? Is there going to be a minimum level after which the feature's going to become available? Matt Miller: Yeah, I believe it's level 10. We're going to be experimenting with it in Closed Beta and seeing where's a good point to introduce this concept. Because it is a fairly complex concept and we don't want the new players to have to deal with it right away, at level 1! It's around 10 or 15, when you pretty much know how your character's playing, and an alternate build would probably be of actual benefit to you. Basically, what it is is you get to create a new character, the same level and archetype and powersets as your other character, and you can switch between them. You get a respec that doesn't actually change your main set of powers, but you level up that character, you pick where the slots go, you pick what powers you want, you slot those with Enhancements, and that's your alternate build. Massively: So basically you create the character, and he has the archetype and he has the power selections that he has when you make the character, but then you can switch what powers you have selected over the course of your career at a specific NPC, right? Matt Miller: Yep! Base ChangesMassively: You mention that base items will be seeing a change. We're wondering if any of that is going to come through with Issue 13. There were rumors that Issue 13 would be seeing a lot of base changes, and we're wondering if any of those are going to make it through, with this change to Issue 14. Matt Miller: One of the first things coming for base changes is going to be in Issue 13, and that is a repricing for a lot of things that supergroups can purchase for their bases. We're lowering a lot of the Prestige costs on not only rooms and base plot sizes, but for items as well, to make them more affordable. We have a lot of datamining now. We know exactly what plot sizes and rooms supergroups can afford. And so we're going through and we're making sure that more supergroups can afford those cooler rooms and those cooler base items, and things like that. "...we're getting rid of the Base Salvage out of the game, because a lot of the players were getting confused with the Invention Salvage, since they both get the same kind of message." And in addition, one of the things we're doing is we're getting rid of the Base Salvage out of the game, because a lot of the players were getting confused with the Invention Salvage, since they both get the same kind of message. Players get excited when they get Invention Salvage, and then they get disappointed when they find out it was only Base Salvage, especially if they don't have a supergroup or their supergroup doesn't really need the Base Salvage any more. So what we're going to do is we're going to get rid of the Base Salvage, and just make everything that's currently craftable in the bases from salvage, craftable through that Invention Salvage as well. Massively: So is that going to make turrets and other raid items for bases easier to get? Matt Miller: Oh yeah. Absolutely. The Ongoing StoryMassively: So there are some really great ongoing story arcs in the game, including the Rikti War and the Coming Storm, and there hasn't been a ton of information previously about whether there's going to be anything like that in Issue 13. Is there going to be a strong story component in Issue 13, or is that getting moved off to Issue 14 along with the Mission Architect? Matt Miller: The real big storyline stuff is coming in Issue 15! Massively: Any hints at all about what that would be touching on? Matt Miller: It's hopefully going to tie up a lot of loose ends that we've had hanging out there for a while now, while at the same time creating a lot more. Brian Clayton: Like any good superhero story. Matt Miller: Like any good superhero story, or episode of LOST. Side switching in the future?Massively: So one last question for Brian: we know there was a marketing survey that went out to players not too long ago, and there were a number of different questions, but one that we think players really attached to was the idea of players being able to switch sides. We wanted to know if this is something that's been taken up and noticed by the folks at NC Norcal, and whether or not you think that's something from your perspective that you guys might be able to address some time down the line? Brian Clayton: We're going to be doing more and more in-depth focus groups and research, and things like that, going forward, so eventually I think this is going to become more noise for the community than it is groundbreaking news! But what I can say is that having players go from hero to villain, and villain to hero, would nicely tie together what we've already done to date with City of Heroes and City of Villains. We certainly like the concept and the idea, but we're just not ready to talk about the details yet.Massively would like to extend our sincere thanks to Brian Clayton and Matt Miller for giving up so much of their time to answer our questions! Read what Brian and Matt had to say on PvP changes, and on the Super Booster packs.
Brian Clayton and Matt Miller: Page 2
The Leveling PactMassively: Brian, you talked about how day jobs are part of NC Norcal's idea of involving players in the game even when they're not necessarily playing, and it seems like the Leveling Pact is obviously a tie-in to that. Can you talk a little bit about that, from a philosophical perspective? Brian Clayton: I'll talk about it from a philosophical perspective and then let Matt follow up with the nuts and bolts of it. The one thing that we continue to strive for with City of Heroes is to pick areas where the MMO genre could use some innovation. We certainly have the best character creation system, and I would argue that sidekicking was very innovative, at the time when that was released. Even the further iterations, like our base creation system, were still very innovative. So we looked at another area of innovation with the Mission Architect system, and now the Leveling Pact. These are things that had been begging to be done in the MMO space for so long. Again, while sidekicking and exemplaring accommodate a number of player types, we feel that the leveling pact now accomodates another type of player. These things not only benefit City of Heroes, they push the genre forward. Matt Miller: It's definitely one of those features that came to us based on a lot of feedback we had from our players, and especially our friends who are playing the game. They came to us and said 'You know, I like playing the game, and I like the sidekicking system, but I'm getting to a point where my friends are so far outleveling me that they don't want to exemplar down and do my stuff because they've already done it before. Is there any way that we can stay more in synch?' "So we had this idea for the Leveling Pact: essentially splitting each character's XP gain directly in half and just distributing it across two characters whether they're offline or online." So we had this idea for the Leveling Pact: essentially splitting each character's XP gain directly in half and just distributing it across two characters whether they're offline or online. And we said: 'You know what? There's a system here. This is a workable system. This is really innovative, and this is taking a new step in sidekicking, making sure that you and your friend are always able to play the game together, and will always be the same level.' Massively: So basically the main character's XP gain is halved, and the other part is given to the buddy? Matt Miller: Yeah, basically both characters when they earn XP, they go through all the calculations for earning XP – how much they're supposed to get, based on their team size, what they defeated – every calculation possible in the game, and at the very end it's divided in two and each person in the pact gets their share. Massively: So the obvious question there, and Brian, this might be more to you, is from a business standpoint, this seems like it might be a dangerous ground to walk for powerleveling services. Because there's some obvious ways that this could be taken advantage of by those kinds of guys. Is that a concern for the company?Brian Clayton: Sure. I mean, it's absolutely a concern. It's a concern that we deal with today, without the system. Really, what we're trying to do is build opportunities for our players to play the games in the way they want to. We'll continue to enforce our policies, and do everything we can to mitigate powerleveling services and things like that. But more importantly, this is a feature that our customers have been asking for, and it's a feature that we want to provide them with. Arguably, you could say we're making it easier for some of these powerleveling services, but at the same time we're probably improving the grouping experience for a substantial amount of our customers. Matt Miller: There's actually less incentive now to use a powerleveling service, because now instead of paying someone to powerlevel my guy, I can actually have my friend play... and I'm not giving up my play time to some other service. I actually get to play whenever I want to on my character. And my friend gets to play whenever he wants to on his character, and we're both leveling at the same rate.New Story ArcsMassively: So for both of you: Issue 13 had already announced that you were going to do more Cimerora mission arcs, and now we hear there will be more Midnight Squad arcs too. Can you talk about where those are coming from as far as the overall story is concerned, and what you guys are hoping to get across for players on the mission content front? Matt Miller: Sure. On the overall story, we always had more story to tell in Issue 12, with both the Midnight Squad and with Cimerora. We just didn't have time to get it all in. When we hired on – we just hired on a couple of new mission writers, and we wanted to make sure that their training didn't go to waste. We wanted to make sure that they understood the systems they were going to be dealing with. And so we had a bunch of these leftover stories from Issue 12, and said 'Okay, let's get these in. Let's train you, and at the same time, get content in the game.' It's a win for us in training, and it's a win for the players in that they get some content. So that's basically what we did, and the story arcs are really fun. They give you more of the background to Cimerora, and more of the characters of the area, and more of the characters in the Midnight Squad, and more of the background on who they are. So it's a lot of cool stuff for the people who are really into the storylines. Continue to Part 3
City of Heroes Mission Architect moving to next year!
They didn't know it when they woke up this morning, but City of Heroes fans are about to have a really great day. That headline might make you think that there are going to be some disappointed folks today. Not so. Not at all. You see, while the Mission Architect is moving out to Issue 14 in early winter of 2009, that's just leaving a ton of room in this year's Issue 13 (now called "Power and Responsibility") for an epic amount of awesome stuff. Even the reason for the delay is great: the City of Heroes developers have listened to the players. They realized their system just didn't have everything it needed to be truly special, and they're giving it the extra time to get it right.So what is replacing Architect? How about an all new level syncing system that will ensure you can always keep up with your buddies? The "Day Jobs" system, with brand-new civilian costumes and a brand-new game mechanic? Rebalancing of powers for PvP? A new merit reward system? How about a new element where you can have multiple power specs kitting out for one character, and can be switched between almost at will? All this and more are in Issue 13, and you can read all the sordid details below the cut in the official release.But wait! There's more! Stick around to read our in-depth interview with City of Heroes executive producer Brian Clayton and lead designer Matt Miller! They describe all the new game tweaks, and the future of NCsoft Norcal in our discussion. Plus! Check out specific details on the deep changes to CoX PvP, and the bright future for microtransaction content in the game! All right here at Massively.com
Hero Con attendees to be granted future CoX closed beta access
Closed betas, a relatively recent addition to City of Heroes issues, are a pretty mysterious business. For a start, nobody knows exactly what the selection procedure is. You can even be picked for closed beta for one Issue and not included next time around. As there's often at least a few weeks between closed and open betas, the closed beta testers get a serious head start on checking out the new awesome. As well as doing some serious focused testing, of course.However, now closed CoX beta access is being offered as an added perk of attending HeroCon. Whether this will include Issue 13: Architect is not certain: 'Given the timing of Hero Con this may include Issue 13 closed beta, but will also include access to the future closed beta of Issue 14!' This is on top of the permanent Carnival of Shadows Harlequin costume power.For those who can make it to the event, it's a spectacular perk, especially since the benefit appears (so far as we can tell) to be ongoing. Those who can't will have to fall back upon the old-fashioned method of getting into a closed beta: crossing your fingers and hoping really hard. We can predict with total confidence that some players will be unhappy about this; after all, we have just had an epic thread about the relative fairness of giving away permanent costume powers with con attendance.
