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City of Heroes returns to the Cathedral in Issue 18
We know that Going Rogue is going live for City of Heroes players in August, and that means a new major patch for the game. We know that the update will be Issue 18, followed by the much-discussed Issue 19 that finishes the Incarnate System and expands the endgame. What we haven't known until now is exactly what Issue 18 will contain other than expansion content -- and while it's unlikely that many of the game's players would be skipping out on the expansion, there's always the chance. The development team has broken that silence, however, revealing some of the additions to the game with the new update, including the long-awaited return of the Cathedral of Pain. Yes, Issue 18 will see the return of the Cathedral of Pain trial after a nearly four-year hiatus. Players can expect the trial to have been heavily rewritten while maintaining the same basic framework, the location itself being one of the core sanctums for Rularuu the Ravager. Beyond that is the addition of the Tips system, additions to Mission Architect, and the ability to trade inspirations between heroes and villains. Take a look at the official site for more previews of the next free update to City of Heroes, and take a look at the gallery for some more shots of Praetoria and the revamped Cathedral. %Gallery-97111%
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: A chicken in every pot, an answer for every question
It's the first Wednesday of the month, and like always that means we're going into the questions-and-answers for City of Heroes players. Before we delve into this week's column, I'd like to take a moment to thank everyone for the amount of discussion that took place about our last article extolling the virtues of the Loyalists. It brought a smile to my face to see all of the back and forth about the topic, something I haven't written the last word about. But that's next week's column, and right now it's time to see what other questions the community desperately needs answered. Superfan asked: "Why is the game so repetitive and lacking imagination?" On one level, I can't answer this question because I don't agree with the basic premise. I don't find the game terribly repetitive, and it's lacking in imagination in the same manner that Transformers: War for Cybertron is lacking in robots. But I've acknowledged before that there is a certain rinse-and-repeat feel to City of Heroes, even beyond the equally repetitive feeling in any given MMO. There's something about the game's layout that just gives players that feeling, and I'm not immune to it.
New Going Rogue video documentary hits the City of Heroes Facebook page
Having celebrated its sixth anniversary back in April, City of Heroes is a bit of an old dog in the MMO world. But it's proving quite adept at learning new tricks, with Going Rogue bringing out a big new trick in the form of its morality system. Allowing players not only to play heroes or villains but several intermediate forms in between, the ability to change allegiance is one of the expansion's biggest selling points -- as well as being the focus of the second video documentary, available on the game's Facebook page. While the video doesn't reveal every piece of system information on changing from hero to villain or vice versa, it does talk more about the choices that go into such a shift. We've been hearing for some time that players will be making choices within the missions of Going Rogue, and it's explained here as well. It also discusses in brief how Praetoria is a framework removed from the hero-villain dichotomy of Paragon City and the Rogue Isles, allowing players to make choices and shape morality from the ground up. City of Heroes players are encouraged to take a look at the documentary and leave their comments on the page, as the developers are due to check in there throughout the day.
More details on Going Rogue from the latest City of Heroes Q&A session
Although it took a bit of back-and-forth to get moving, the most recent batch of questions for the City of Heroes team has been answered, and with it comes several new pieces of information on the fast-approaching Going Rogue expansion. Some of the answers, naturally, are reasonably well-known facts, such as the fact that allegiances may be switched back and forth as often as a player wishes. But this is also the first time we've heard of a specific timetable, with the team estimating that casual players will be able to make the switch in about a week's worth of playtime. Among the other new pieces of information are details on the content of both Kinetic Melee and Electric Control, with the former sporting a stacking buff via several powers and the latter set to feature a Sleep power that players might actually want. Even amidst the answers that players might already know, there are bits and pieces of gold, enough so that fans looking forward to the August 17th release date for Going Rogue would be well-served by reading through the whole set. It's looking to be a very interesting time to play City of Heroes, whatever side you choose to play on.
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: For the greater good
It didn't take much convincing for people to start assuming that the Praetorians in Going Rogue were fundamentally the bad guys. For all the talk that's been given about how players can choose either path, about how there isn't always good and evil... the players are smarter than that. Being on the side of the jackbooted oppressors is just plain wrong, there are no two ways about it. No matter how heavy-handed the City of Heroes team might be about it, players knew better than to take the bait. The problem with this line of thinking is that it's wrong on one fundamental level. It's not that there's a lack of evil running through Praetoria, it's that people are seeing it on the wrong side. Loyalists aren't the shoo-ins for villains that the community seems to think they are -- they're heroes, making the world a better place. There might be the occasional misstep, but when you get right down to it, no faction on Praetoria is as well-suited to the ethos of heroism than those loyal to Emperor Cole.
Praetoria unveiled in depth for City of Heroes
If you play City of Heroes, you're probably not counting the days until the release of Going Rogue just yet, as it's a little too far in the future. (Fifty-one days if you count today, incidentally.) But August will be here before we know it, and today the official site takes a look at a portion of the expansion which is at once easy to forget and yet ubiquitous: the world of Praetoria itself, the utopia created through absolute power. As we've known for quite some time, it's similar and yet slightly different when compared to the setting of Paragon City -- both familiar and threatening. Emperor Cole's near-total salvation of humanity resulted in a sweeping change of the world as a whole, as discussed in Tyrant's biography quite some time ago. Praetoria is a world without borders or nationalities, wherein everyone is a citizen of the empire rather than the panoply of countries in the real world. The tantalizing hints of the world's architecture are readily visible in our gallery, which showcases both the concept art and the in-game layouts of the major new setting for the expansion. Take a look at our gallery, and head to the official site for more information on the twisted mirror of City of Heroes. %Gallery-96271%
Rescheduled developer question-and-answer contest for City of Heroes
You may recall that a couple of days ago we announced a rather tantalizing deal for City of Heroes players, involving both a chance to win a free gaming mouse and the opportunity to ask the developers your questions. Unfortunately, due to technical limitations, the session was postponed, as the team found the formspring service didn't quite have the capacity for what they were doing. We're happy to say that after a very short turnaround time, the session has been re-arranged and put back on the schedule. Answers will still be forthcoming on the 30th of June, but participants will need to directly email the team their questions and all pertinent contest details, rather than using a third-party site. The official rules and regulations have been slightly changed as well, but what hasn't changed is that it's an excellent opportunity for City of Heroes players to get in touch with the developers and potentially get rewarded for it. If you're a fan of Paragon Studios, take a look at the rules and then figure out your best possible question.
City of Heroes announces Going Rogue release date and hands-on at SDCC
While dates have been thrown left and right for the upcoming expansion, City of Heroes players will be happy to know that the much-awaited expansion, Going Rogue, will officially release on August 17th, 2010. That leaves a little under two months until all of the promised features, including two more powersets, a new starting experience, the ability to switch sides, and the start of the new Incarnate system. Although it's a bit later than the previously-rumored date of July, players can still look forward to the fact that it's not so very far in the future. Can't wait that long? If you're going to the inimitable San Diego Comic Con this year, you're in luck, as the City of Heroes team will be granting lucky players a hands-on experience for the expansion. Not only that, but they'll be hosting a panel and the equally inimitable David Nakayama will be sketching select heroes and villains. Keep your eyes peeled for more news regarding Going Rogue as we approach release, and take a look at the official itinerary for the Paragon Studios team at SDCC.
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.
Exclusive: The moral genesis of City of Heroes: Going Rogue
While the Praetorian areas designed for Going Rogue are new, the actual concept of Praetoria has been in City of Heroes for quite some time. Of course, as it existed in the game prior to the upcoming expansion, it was simply the Mirror Universe ported over to the game world: all the good guys were now bad guys. (Presumably the inverse was also true, but we never found out one way or the other.) Yet Praetoria, as it's being billed now, is a region of contrasts, where good and evil aren't so easily conveyed. So how did we get from one to the other? How did the simple moral inversion become a question of totalitarian safety versus dangerous anarchy? The best answers come straight from the source, and they're right here. In an exclusive developer diary by John "Protean" Hegner, designer and mission lead for Going Rogue, we get a peek at the process that went into fleshing out the limited view we had of the alternate Earth. Entitled "Shaving the goatee off the Praetorians," it's excellent reading for any City of Heroes fan, so take a look on past the break.
Winners of "Declare your Loyalty" contest announced for City of Heroes
Sometimes you notice them and sometimes you don't, but the background touches in City of Heroes are always there. They're little reminders that you're moving through a city full of people. The Rogue Isles has its share of shady billboards and decorations (including no-questions-asked investigators and a minion recruitment service), while Paragon City has law firms and socially-conscious advertisements about the Rikti. And Praetoria has propaganda for Emperor Cole... and against him. That's the crux of the now-concluded contest to declare your loyalty in artistic form for Going Rogue, and the winners of said contest have been announced. There are three winners in each category, for both Loyalist propaganda and Resistance subversion. Two of the pieces of Resistance graffiti and one of the Loyalist billboards have also been adopted by the developers -- they will be featured in Going Rogue, albeit in a slightly-altered form. The gallery of winners showcases both the original submissions and the slight alterations made for the appearance in-game. City of Heroes players who haven't yet picked a side -- or those who are just interested in seeing some nicely-done propaganda pieces -- should head on over to take a look.
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: Questions versus answers, no holds barred!
We interrupt your regularly-scheduled guide to playing a spider for a number of questions and answers, and possibly several comic book sound effects! (Okay, it's not exactly "interrupting" anything when I said that it would be here this week, but humor me.) As usual, the community has taken the opportunity to ask me a number of City of Heroes questions, and I have used my magical time-looker-forward tube to find the vast majority of the answers. So with that having been said, let's get into the down and dirty, shall we? Superfan asked: "Massively suspects the game has only 40,000 active subscibers right now?" No, the quick math done by one Massively writer suggested it as a possible figure, based on some generous margins and assuming everyone's subscription is on a one-month-recurring basis as opposed to the plethora of other subscription pricing plans available. The goal was to create a vague idea of how many subscribers on an active basis the game might have at the moment, since we no longer get actual subscription numbers for the game.
Exclusive City of Heroes developer diary on the design of Dual Pistols animation
Even if you hate the ranged powers in City of Heroes with the heat of the sun, it's impossible to deny how stylish the animations for Dual Pistols look. The amount of movement in every single power makes the set feel organic and action-oriented, regardless of any other mechanical elements. But what went into making one of the marquee power sets for Going Rogue look so fluid and interesting? Nelson Tam, an animation artist for Paragon Studios, was the mastermind behind the gun-fu on display for heroes and villains alike. In our exclusive developer diary, "How John Woo Inspired my Gun Fu," he explains how the animations came to life, from the earliest point of conception to the finished product that players can enjoy. City of Heroes players have clamored for the set nearly since the launch of the game, but as the diary explains, it wasn't necessarily quite so easy to get it to look right in the game. Click on past the cut!
City of Heroes launches first video diary for Going Rogue
The time of Going Rogue draws very close for City of Heroes players, and we've still only scratched the surface of what there is to know. It's always a tense time when you're getting close to a new expansion, especially one that's rewriting some of the most fundamental rules about the game. While the first in a series of new video developer diaries from Paragon Studios won't necessarily make the time before release pass any faster, it will help give us a clearer picture of what's coming around the bend. For players who have never played the game before, the diary helps give an overview of where the game is and where it can go from here -- including the realm of the Super Lumberjack. (We can only assume that making one allows you to also be super okay.) Veterans can enjoy a solid look at Praetoria, as well as what can only be described as glowing costume pieces. Once the veteran players finish squealing in delight, they can take a look on past the break for the first City of Heroes video diary for Going Rogue, which is targeted for release in July.
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: Spiders on the wall (VEAT levels 1-20)
I've been talking about it more often than not these days whenever I mention City of Heroes, but in case it wasn't transparently obvious: I like spiders. Not actual spiders, mind you -- those generally merit a kill-on-sight order from me -- but the epic archetypes that villains get? Boy, I can't get enough of those. They're like sliced awesome, complete with sweet armor for the soldier side of things and buttcapes for the widow ladies. (And creepily form-fitting armor for the male widows... y'know, let's just pretend that we didn't go down that road.) What's struck me as odd, however, is that there's relatively little written up about partaking in the sheer joy of being a faceless cog in Arachnos who decided to strike out and hit the big time. With more players than ever able to access the archetypes, and more players still when Going Rogue goes live, now seems as good a time as any to take a hard look at our eight-legged friends and jackbooted oppressors. Today, we're going to go over the basics of starting a new Soldier or Widow, including powersets and the early missions.
Mother Mayhem and the Seers: New Going Rogue faction or greatest band name ever?
Thought crime: once the sole domain of Big Brother in Nineteen Eighty-Four, it's now cropped up in City of Heroes. Praetoria City, featured in City of Heroes' latest expansion Going Rogue, curbs the local crime with a bit of mind reading and proactive rehabilitation. This initiative is led by Mother Mayhem, the leader of a new faction called the Seers. Mayhem is a powerful psychic who contains the consciousness of two people (truly, a good deal for any superhero) and uses her talents to help bring other psychics under control. These Seers, as she calls them, are a bit like the precogs of Minority Report, able to predict crime before it happens and stop it. Continuing with the blurred-line-between-good-and-evil theme of Going Rogue, players may choose to see Mayhem as a positive force who prevents bad things from happening, or a totalitarian enforcer who violates personal privacy. Is Praetoria better or worse off with Mayhem and her Seers cleaning up crime? That remains to be seen, but in the meantime, you can get a deeper glimpse into this character and faction over on the Going Rogue website.
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: Gonna be the future soon
This week's listening, if you by some chance didn't catch it, will be from the inimitable Mr. Jonathan Coulton. Not because the song is all that thematically appropriate (I did not leave a note on War Witch's desk, for starters), but because it's Jonathan Coulton. And it offsets the tone of this article, which is going to be... well... kind of negative. Not negative in the sense that City of Heroes is dying, because it's not. The game is full of life, flush with energy and diverse ideas. Rumors of its death have been greatly exaggerated for well on a year or so now, and I personally couldn't be happier about the state of affairs. For every problem it has, it has five or six great points, and every time I'm cresting a hill on my enjoyment there's another hill of sliced, buttered awesome in front of me. But City of Heroes is going to need to start taking steps to ensure its long-term sustainability. It needs to start realizing that their good fortune is not going to last. And so today will be a bit negative, as the long-forgotten second part of the anniversary column... where we look to the future, and see what needs to happen.
A video retrospective of City of Heroes
We're still not done celebrating six straight years of City of Heroes, and likely won't be entirely done until July. Even that's largely because we'll have something else to celebrate... but we're getting ahead of ourselves. While we here at Massively took our own look back through the changes in the game over the years, the Samuraiko Productions team has put together something well worth spotlighting: a visual walk through the changes, additions, and updates the game has had over the years. The six-minute walk through history starts out at the very first build, complete with now-archaic UI elements and some questionable fashion choices, and heads straight on through to the upcoming Going Rogue and Issue 19. While there are occasional anachronisms, the video itself gleefully plays with those slight discrepancies, focusing instead on the broadening and expansion of the game. There are also little in-jokes and cameos here and there throughout the film. Whether you're an old fan, a new player, or just want to see a tour through history, take a look past the cut for this excellent trip down memory lane for City of Heroes. [Thanks to Samuraiko for the tip!]
City of Heroes launches "Declare Your Loyalty" contest
Any City of Heroes fan will likely recognize and have an answer for the question "Loyalist or Resistance?" It's all part of the ongoing campaign for the game's upcoming expansion, Going Rogue, and ties to the main storyline -- whether you're a Loyalist of Tyrant's totalitarian utopia, or a no-holds-barred Resistance member willing to topple Tyrant at any cost. Paragon Studios is taking the campaign one step further to celebrate both the impending release and the six-year anniversary: they're letting players make a permanent mark on the world of Praetoria based upon their allegiance. There are two halves to the contest, based upon one's affiliation. If you're a Loyalist, you are tasked with designing a suitable propaganda poster for Emperor Cole, extolling his virtues and those of his society. On the other hand, Resistance members will design graffiti to spread the message of freedom and encouraging others to rise up. There's a lot of fun to be had with the contest, and the prizes are pretty substantial -- even without the fact that the best entries may very well wind up in Praetoria when Going Rogue launches. Take a look at the full rules, and start declaring your City of Heroes affiliation -- the contest runs until May 14th.
