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Engadget Distro Issue 12 -- Now with more exclusive content!
You asked and we answered. Engadget Distro Issue 12 is here, and it's full of original content. We've got not one, not two, but three never-before-published features for you this week. Michael Gorman takes you on a tour of NASA's next-gen spacecraft, Brad Molen goes behind the scenes at AT&T to reveal what it takes to make a smartphone, and analyst Ross Rubin makes his Distro debut to pose the question: What's next for the nano? This week we'll also bring you our Nokia Lumia 800 and Motorola Droid RAZR reviews and follow HotHardware's Dave Altavilla in his ascent to geekdom. And last, but certainly not least, Box Brown gives you a healthy helping of iPad 3 rumors in the Distro comic. So, pick up that iPad or hit the PDF link below and get ready for a nice long read. Distro Issue 12 PDF Distro on the iTunes App Store Like Distro on Facebook Follow Distro on Twitter
Crunch numbers like the bones of villains in City of Heroes
Back in Issue 12, City of Heroes added the ability to see the exact statistics of your heroes to the game -- a feature that had been shrouded in mystery since the game's inception. Until that fateful patch, no one knew exactly how the statistics system in CoH worked or how things were calculated out. But, with that feature now a standard part of the game, it has become a very invaluable tool.But perhaps you're not up to speed on that. Perhaps you've never taken a look at all of those new digits and fancy words on the screen. Well, if you're looking for a basic starter on how to take advantage of this system, the comic blog Limited Edition has just posted their look into the stats. It's a brief walkthrough of some of the basic features -- good for anyone who hasn't gotten their feet wet with the stats as of yet.
An end to easy XP as the Family get whacked
They had it coming. City of Heroes Issue 12: Midnight Hour, now in Open Beta, comes with a nerf or two as well as all the good stuff. Over on the Test server, some changes have been made to high-level Family mobs. The changes are now on their second iteration. In the first round, high-level Family minions were altered in status, increasing their relative power without increasing the XP rewards, so that more work had to be done for the same overall result. In response to a request for clarification ('lol devs pwnt the family mish?') the Dev Castle responded 'Indeed.'In the latest round, minions are back to being minions again, but the XP reward has been nerfed down. The reason given, which will surprise nobody at all, is 'their reward scale has been lowered to be commensurate with the risk involved in the encounter'.So why target the Family?
CoX Issue 12 starts work on improving PvP
City of Heroes Issue 12: Midnight Hour, now in Open Beta, brings with it a vast assortment of Quality of Life fixes and tweaks. One small but highly significant fix slipped through the net and missed appearing in the first round of patch notes: the buildup of Brute Fury in PvP and against Archvillain and Giant Monster class enemies has finally been persuaded to work the way it should have. Brutes gain an additional 5 points of Fury when attacking these targets, which more than doubles their Fury building rate. The short version: a Brute can now kill you far faster than you'd expect, and can contribute more to drawn-out fights against the game's toughest enemies.The Brute community has anticipated this change for a long time now. Without the fix, their viability in PvP was not much to write home about. Now, Castle the Powers Guy has made a lot of Brutes very happy. Kaiserin tells the story best, with a one-shot painted comic strip.
CoX Podcast with Joe Morrissey, aka Hero 1
The flood of new information coming out of NCSoft NorCal continues unabated. Fresh from sharing his Developer Diary with us, lead City of Heroes writer Joe Morrissey (no relation to the lugubrious singer, before you ask) has joined Chooch and Viv for a long in-depth interview. Notably, Joe takes time to answer many of the questions the players have asked on the forums.Despite being relatively new to the CoX staff, Joe has made his mark with some superb new story content, including the hot new arcs and Task Force in Issue 12: Midnight Hour, currently in Open Beta. In the interview, he talks about how he landed the job in the first place, the challenge of joining a cut-down team where everyone was working at full tilt, his own hopes for future content and what we can expect from the coming issues.Joe also reveals how he came to choose Hero 1, a character from the CoX universe who is so British he sports the Union Jack on both his cape and his helmet, as his signature character.Listen in here at the CoH Podcast webpage. 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!
CoX Issue 12: Inside the Midnighter Club
City of Heroes Issue 12: Midnight Hour is now in Open Beta. We've brought you a tour of Cimerora, and now venture into the Midnighter Club, home of the Midnight Squad.The zone itself is unusual for CoX. Although access to it has to be unlocked, with separate arcs on the hero and villain side giving access, it currently contains no mission content of its own. There is a time-travelling crystal giving access to Cimerora and a store selling level 35 to 50 Enhancements of all kinds. That aside, the Midnighter Club is useful as a shortcut between heroside universities and a sumptuously atmospheric roleplaying area. The club also contains a Mystery, a form of treasure hunt that players can follow by clicking on objects.%Gallery-22236% 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!
CoX Issue 12: Midnight Hour enters Open Beta!
As of yesterday, all City of Heroes players can access the twelfth expansion, Midnight Hour, on the Test Server. For an issue that was originally touted as a fairly small one, it's extremely impressive. The main features are, of course, the Villain Epic Archetypes, Powerset Proliferation and the new Cimerora and Midnighters Club content, but the Quality of Life changes have left many players open-mouthed. These are literally what the players have been asking for. Several of them appear to have come directly from the Suggestions and Ideas forum. The patch notes are now available to read.We're especially impressed by the 'Inspiration upon levelling up' concept, which will even bring you back to life if you should happen to level up while defeated, and by the Zone Event Alerts channel. From now on, if Lusca surfaces in Independence Port or the Arachnos Flyer leaves its roost in Grandville, players who have added these channels will know about it. Every zone event is covered, with one exception; the reclusive lake monster, Sally.Read on for a few more off-the-cuff impressions.
CoX Issue 12: Journey to Cimerora
City of Heroes Issue 12: Midnight Hour has finally reached Open Beta, and in the first of our articles covering the new issue content, we're delighted to bring you a scenic tour of the Cimerora zone.The Midnight Squad, researchers into the arcane, have acquired a time-travel crystal. Those who have gained access to the Midnighters Club, their secret stronghold connected to both Paragon and the Rogue Isles, can reach it; but access to Cimerora is limited to characters of levels 35-50.A co-operative zone where Heroes and Villains work together (each for their own ends) Cimerora is small but beautiful, containing one introductory arc, a contact who gives out repeating missions, and one extraordinary Task Force that testers have called the best in the game so far. %Gallery-22221% 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!
City of Heroes' lead designer contemplates the Midnight Hour, Issue 12
Senior Designer Joe Morrissey, otherwise known as "Hero 1", has a lot of enthusiasm for the upcoming Issue 12 patch for City of Heroes. Not because of technology, though there are some great additions on the way. Not because of the new epic archetypes, though those are completely awesome. No, Joe is really excited because the City of Heroes story is going places it's never gone before. The designer/writer for NCsoft's superhero title sent us over a great developer diary to explain some of those places.Following up on the Rikti invasion highlighted by Issue 10, the magical group known as the Midnight Squad is stepping out the shadows. The aliens, always a pain for good-hearted earthfolk, struck the magical community hard and fast. The aliens may have advanced tech but, as Morrissey points out, they tipped their hand a bit. Now the powerful time-traveling boffins of the Squad are recruiting, and your character is very much on their list.To cap things, off, the designer runs down a few of the plot arcs we can expect in the next issue, as well as touching more on the fascinating plot thread feature coming to contacts. Read on below the cut for the entire discussion.%Gallery-18214%
Massively video exclusive: Villain epic archetypes
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/City_of_Villains_Epic_Archetypes_Video'; Anyone playing the City of... franchise must know that the game's latest free content update, Issue 12 is on the horizon, including epic archetypes for villains. And though here at Massively we can't make issue 12 arrive any faster, we do have the scoop, straight from NCsoft, on the the new Blood Widow and Wolf Spider archetypes. For the level 50 villains in the audience who can't wait to get started playing the new archetypes (or the heroes wanting to know what they'll be up against), keep reading for a preview of the new archetype abilities. All we can say is it makes us want to start leveling a villain. In fact, while you watch this video, we'll be in-game grinding our way towards infamy.%Gallery-18214%
CoX: Throw Moar Slots!
CoX players have been crying out for extra character slots for some time. Now, with Issue 12 bringing both Powerset Proliferation and the new Villain Epic ATs, many of us had feared we'd have to delete some characters to make room for all the new ones we're aching to make. Positron has come to our rescue by confirming plans to add additional character slots with Issue 12. Here's how the optional additional character slots will work.
First Glimpse of the Villain Epics
Issue 12 Beta for CoX is currently in Friends and Family stage and closed to anyone else, but bugs do happen, and one forum poster has accidentally accessed the Villain Epic Archetypes. He's generously taken plenty of screenshots and thus given us the first real taste of how the VEATs will work. NCSoft haven't objected to his sharing the information with us, but have reminded us that VEATs are still being worked on. So, please remember that this isn't final.
April Fools' in CoX
Holy highway robbery!NCsoft NorCal "announced" today that they're dropping a new feature into their superly duperly costumed heroes and villains game. Visual Sounds are cool words that pop up on the screen (both in games and famous caped crusading TV shows) based on the old school comic book technique known as onomatopoeia. It's the use of a word to replace a sound. The upcoming Issue 12, which has been renamed "Issue 12: Pow, Biff, Boom, Bam!" will include this all new system. Brian Clayton, Executive Producer and head of the NCsoft NorCal office, said all their research shows that many gamers are building their own computers now, and sometimes they forget to buy speakers or headphones. This is their small way of helping those forgetful types. Matt "Positron" Miller, the Lead Designer on the CoX titles, is a big advocate of the theater of the mind and likened this to reading a book where you give the characters their own voices. Literally.While players will be able to disable Visual Sounds... they shouldn't. Why? In order to make room for the visual sound files all actual in-game sounds are being removed from the players' hard drives. DOH!
The "real" story behind CoX's powerset proliferation
Dr. Brainstorm is at it again.If you're a tight wearing do-gooder or vile evildoer within the City of... universe then you can't miss this exclusive broadcast (from an undisclosed location of course) made by Dr. Brainstorm. During yet another crazy experiment (this time involving Rikti technology, Hypothetical Frameworks and invisible, mystical networks) the good Doctor has made a startling find regarding one of the most anticipated features of the upcoming free expansion Issue 12: Midnight Hour - Powerset Proliferation.With the help of his newly built Resonance Manipulator, Brainstorm can now alter the energy strands connecting every Hero and Villain to their powers. New characters (both sides) will be able to access additional primary and secondary powersets they didn't have access to before.[Via GameZone]
Superhero MMOs get an overall thumbs up
Ever since the announcement of Champions Online, there's been a good amount of discussion on nearly every facet of the upcoming superhero massively multiplayer online game. Everything from the initial information given about the game, to the bits and pieces that have dribbled out since. There's also been some of discussion concerning the differences of Champions Online and City of Heroes -- two games which are most likely going to end up seeing further comparison and eventual rivalry.Well, you can add yet another discussion on the two games to the ever-growing list and although it may be a particularly long one -- it's quite good. The basic conclusion of this lengthy talk on the two games? City of Heroes is in great shape and Champions Online is looking exceedingly promising. Are there some bothersome kinks in the upcoming Issue 12 update such as lame duck epic villain archetypes and questionable costume unlock prerequisite? Sure, although that's not to say that Champions Online isn't still very early on and while looking very promising -- isn't actually out yet. Things could look entirely different in just one year from now -- we only hope that the difference has all continued to be mostly positive.
City of Heroes Issue 12 announced!
The folks at NCsoft, as their first major act stewarding City of Heroes/City of Villains, have dropped news of a HUGE new patch to the game. Issue 12: Midnight Hour will introduce a swath of brand new content to the game, along with an enormous array of new features: A brand new faction called the Midnight Squad, a group of mystics and scholars. Missions from levels 10-20 to support the new organization. Time Travel missions, from level 35-50, tying into the earlier Midnight Squad content. As you may have guessed from the above image, you'll be tangling with the best that the Roman Empire has to offer. New Roman-themed costumes will be unlocked as a result of your time-traveling escapades! Villains will have the chance to create epic archetype characters after they make it to max level, much like the heroes have the archetypes the Warshade and the Peacebringer. The villain epics will be called Wolf Spiders and Blood Widows. Both heroes and villains will be getting more powers added to their archetypes! It doesn't sound like these will be all-new powers, but that archetypes will have some new options from already existing powersets. Tons of additional goodies like a revamp to the Hollows zone, a "Level Up Bonus" and displayable stats! Additional information is available in CoX Lead Designer Matt Miller's letter to the community. There he outlines some things that have been going on behind the scenes since the NCsoft acquisition, as well as his hopes for the outcome of Issue 12. This is fantastic stuff, and to me seems like a thrown gauntlet now that Marvel is out of the picture. With DC still quite a ways away, City of Heroes is going to be the only superhero game on the block for some time. Are great updates like this enough to get you back into the game?%Gallery-18214%
City of Heroes state of the game '08
The team behind City of Heroes have put up their 2008 state of the game announcement. It consists of all sorts of gooey fun bits, so listen on in for all of the scoop.The City Vault is on its way to the official website and for those of you not in the know it will showcase every Hero and Villain throughout Paragon City and the Rogue Isles. It's essentially a search tool that lets you find your friends (or enemies) and view them. This includes images, different costumes, powers, badges, their friends, stats by zone and who knows what else. Thankfully players will be able to manage what information can be seen, so don't worry about privacy.Another double XP weekend is on its way sometime in February. Thankfully, before this happens there will be a server upgrade that should lessen the lag over the weekend. Anyone who's played through a double XP weekend knows lag can be a huge issue. Also, we can expect another Valentine's Day event in February as well. Apparently there are a few new twists coming and a special surprise. Your guess is as good as ours on this one.Beyond events and all the commotion that comes with them, there are some pretty cool things the team mentions. They say Issue 12 is on its way, but give no details as to what we'll get from it. The Fanzine is looking for more submissions, so if you're a writer or an artist go check it out. The last two thing that really have us excited are announcements regarding actual stats and smoothing out the XP curve. A new functionality will be added that will allow players to see the "real" numbers behind all characters and powers. The smoothing of the XP curve is largely about tweaking the amount of experience characters gain from enemies in an effort to smooth out the levels where many character seem to be getting stuck. Overall, it sounds like a lot of good things are on their way for the City of Heroes community, we'll keep our ears out for any more information on upcoming changes.
