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A Mild-Mannered Reporter: Countless marvelous powers
There were a lot of reasons I decided to stop collecting Transformers a couple of years back, but chief among those reasons was the fact that it was increasingly a hunt for novelty over permanence. A new wave of toys was released, and fans were expected to buy the lot of them, admire the novelty, and then almost immediately move on to the next wave. The idea of new releases playing into past toys was increasingly left out in the cold, meaning that you could essentially just keep grabbing a new set of toys every two or three months rather than enjoying the ones you had. Of course, Transformers are meant to be toys for children, so the marketing strategy is pretty defensible. But I'm beginning to wonder whether City of Heroes isn't adopting a similar attitude with the steady onslaught of new powersets. Since Freedom hit, we've seen an absolute explosion of new sets with new mechanics and new ways to play... but we've also seen a real dearth of anything tying players to a given powerset. It's novelty on a steady basis, but we might not have appreciated the slow pace of new sets before.
The Daily Grind: How often do you want new abilities?
We're all very familiar with the term "ding." We're also familiar with the immediate follow-up to a ding -- namely, figuring out what new stuff you get following a new level. Of course, that varies a lot depending on the game. Guild Wars will give players new abilities all the time, whether or not you hit a new level, but Star Trek Online only offers up a new set of abilities every 10 levels or so (equipment notwithstanding). Granted, if a game gives you abilities infrequently, each one tends to be more vital to your overall play experience. Having a wider spread of abilities means more choices, but it also means that each individual skill doesn't matter as much. So which do you prefer? Would you like to be swimming in new abilities and new tricks at every new level? Or would you prefer a slow roll, with new skills coming infrequently but being special when they do come? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
SDCC 2011: New City of Heroes: Freedom screenshots, trailer
Following hot on the heels of our preview of the new powersets coming to City of Heroes, NCSoft and Paragon Studios have let loose a flood of new assets for the upcoming additions to the game. The images cover the new powersets, the updated tutorial, the new Paragon Reward system, and all the other nifty new features that will finally see the light of day with City of Heroes' Issue 21. We've also got a new trailer for you to allow you to see all of the new content in action, and we have to say it looks like City of Heroes fans have a great deal to look forward to. So if you're a City of Heroes player anxiously anticipating Issue 21, jump on past the cut for the new trailer. Hopefully it will keep your appetite sated for just a while longer. %Gallery-9156%
City of Heroes launches the Mutant Super Booster
With all the characters growing organic spines and shooting bio-electricity at foes, the new City of Heroes Mutant Super Booster seems like an addition that the game has long been awaiting. While yesterday saw a giveaway for several codes by the Paragon Studios team, today is the official launch where everyone can enjoy the new costumes, emotes, and bonus power. The first is the most eye-catching of the setup, naturally, and we've included a gallery of both the in-game art and concept art for the new Bioluminescent and Organic Armor costume sets. New costume change emotes are also par for the course, with this booster adding a triad that includes the supremely freaky Rapid Boil emote. (The Facebook video does it justice in both accuracy and freakiness.) Last but not least is the new innate power Secondary Mutation, which allows you to unleash the latent power of your DNA for a random effect, usually involving self-buffs of varying duration. City of Heroes players will find plenty to enjoy with the newest booster, so check out the gallery and start boiling yourself a new costume. %Gallery-96158%
