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August 31, 2006
More (Official) I8 news
Safeguard Missions (Heroes only)
Vandals are creating mayhem and destroying Paragon City while high profile villains are attempting major bank heists! Emergency broadcasts from the new Police Band scanners (see below) call Heroes to action, resulting in a frantic new twist on Mayhem Missions. Heroes must stop the mayhem (in massively destructive versions of Paragon City zones) and prevent the heists from occurring.
I still hope these are less annoying than the "protect the glowy" missions. Taking down villains (who are willing to fight you) before they can do something would be fun, but balance is going to be critical here.
Police Band (Heroes only)
Offering similar functionality to the Newspaper Missions in City of Villains®, new Police contacts throughout various Hero zones grant Heroes Police Band access, opening a plethora of new missions and rewards.
Good stuff. Will help people get "fresh" material.
One of the items that was tied to this, conceptually, was the idea of folks levelling past content. I'd think this would have to be tied to the (previously mentioned) skip-a-mission technology. Also, this was tied to people exhausting story content too quickly -- so maybe this means that Shared Mission Credit will come to CoH. Huzzah!
Pocket D Arenas (Heroes and Villains)
For the first time, Heroes and Villains can officially battle each other using Arena kiosks set within the neutral ground of the Pocket D nightclub.
As Abe Lincoln said, "Those who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like."
Hmmmm ... Abe Lincoln as a tall, thin, bearded, top-hatted Axe tank. Hmmmm ...
Faultline Reborn (Heroes only)
Faultline transforms from a hazard zone to a city zone! Paragon City's Measure X has passed, reconstruction of Faultline has begun, and the effort has revealed some major surprises.
Excellent. We should get our teleport beacons set up for this now.
Which reminds me -- what's the explanation again why I can enter a base from any zone with a Base Portal in it, but can only exit out into the same zone? Weird.
Veteran Rewards Program (Heroes and Villains)
Launching together with Issue 8, the Veteran Rewards Program retroactively* rewards City of Heroes and City of Villains players for their past active playing time. Specifically, for each increment of three months played, players will unlock special costumes, powers, badges, and more! The program is retroactive by player account and rewards will be applicable to all characters within each respective account.
*This means time that players have already played counts towards their rewards!
Very, very cool (and in keeping with the "Keep the Installed Base Happy" rule they're now following). And I hear trenchcoats are Item #1 ...
Posted by Dave at 12:57 PM
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Filed under: Resources & Rules
Ding! Crackle! Cough!
Caught Torchielle up with Hildegard last night (with a bit of help from T'lauro, thanks) at 39. Finished sixing out Blazing Bolt and Flame breath with some added damage. Because who doesn't like more damage from their blaster?
The two of us also finished up (thanks to a mission full of Seventh Generation Paragon Protectors) the necessary pre-requisites for the Crey Pistol! Woot! Look, Ma! We're controllers!
Even more so, since I finally decided I'm going to go with the Flame Mastery EPP at 41, starting with Char as an Immobilize. That, I think, will come in handy, as long as it doesn't get in the way of my blowing things up.
Posted by Dave at 7:20 AM
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Filed under: Character Design
August 30, 2006
Battle Cries
Fun thread on the boards about battle cries and "color" tell-binds. My favorite:
Whenever I make a bot, my battlecry is always "Error 404: Battlecry not found."
Brilliant.
I actually haven't use Battlecries for some time (I remap that F-key to the "Typing ..." bind, which I also regularly forget to use), as saying the same thing over and over again is (except in the above case) boring.
I do, though, love to create cascading tell-binds (pressing "T" says something witty and then loads another keybind file that resets "T" to say something else witty next time). I started that with some of my "team" toons -- Ho Ho, Fazenda -- but have it now on most of my regular toons (except, ironically, Psi-clone). The most right is Mr. Ravenous, with 29 different ones; I try to limit myself to doing it no more than once a mish (usually against the big boss), so that the humor stays fresh.
My only regret is that it's so annoying to manually generate the files for them.
My personal favorite is one of Ho Ho's lines:
"I call this the Venus Butterfly Axe!"
Cracks me up, every time.
Posted by Dave at 3:38 PM
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Filed under: Character Design
, Humor
August 29, 2006
More I8 news
Interview with Matthew Miller. Items of note:
Well, first off, we did a major overhaul to the City of Heroes zone Faultline. It includes new contacts and missions, as well as a better street-hunting experience. We also have brought the randomly generated missions that we had in City of Villains (which villain characters got from the newspapers and brokers) to hero characters. The City of Heroes version is called "police band missions," and these can lead players into safeguard missions where they must protect Paragon City from vandals and stop major crimes in progress.
Next, we have the "veteran rewards" program, which gives perks and thank-you gifts to players for their characters based on how long they've been playing the game. There is a new set of rewards every three months. Finally, we added arena kiosks to the Pocket D area, so heroes and villains can more easily challenge one another in the arenas.
All sounds good, aside from the (ho-hum) arena kiosks. Though, frankly, I "defend" missions sound a lot less fun than "kick the snot out of everything" mayhem missions. And you could make them heroic ("Raid this Arachnos base! Destroy as much of their invasion fleet as you can!"). Evidently that doesn't sway the Devs:
Safeguard missions are not mayhem missions, and we never tried to make them that. Heroes don't go around destroying property, but rather, their job is to protect it and to stop crime. Villains are proactive, and Heroes are reactive. In the end, they both have something similar to do (accomplish an objective while on a very tight clock), but the games play differently, which we like.
As for Faultline:
For one, the construction in the zone has uncovered a lot of the old hero bases from before the Rikti War. These bases were home to the supergroups of old, and it's where they housed dangerous technology. After the Rikti war, these bases were simply forgotten about, but Lord Recluse has sent Arachnos troops into Paragon City to scavenge these bases for hidden treasures. The rebuilding of Faultline has kind of kicked over the anthill...there have been Arachnos forces in Paragon City for a while now, but only now can the Heroes do something about them.
Coolness.
Posted by Dave at 10:53 PM
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Filed under: Resources & Rules
August 28, 2006
What's in a name?
Global Rename tokens are now on Test ... to come to Live by and by.
So, if you now regret your global handle -- here's your chance to change it (again). They don't stack, though, so if you never used your original rename (your initial handle is, as I recall, your first character name), you won't get anything extra.
This was driven by a glitch that messed up some people's global handles a while back.
Posted by Dave at 9:23 PM
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Filed under: Resources & Rules
Weekend update
Not a whole heck of a lot to update. Snuck in mostly Hildy and Torchy here and there around other things, and for most of Sunday afternoon. Spent time clearing old story arcs, and Hildy dinged to 39, huzzah!
Posted by Dave at 6:17 AM
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Filed under: Gameplay
August 26, 2006
Dev Chat
Statesman speaks:
- Power customizations are still on the table, but low in priority, due to the difficulty/coding that would need to be done. Since most customizations people talk about are color-based, I assume the issue is that the colors are extensively hardcoded, that the server drain to render colors in a variable setting needs to be looked at, and that there's concern that people will demand more than just color variations ("I want a different gun!" "I want a different explosion!").
- Statesman wants MM clown pets, even though Positron doesn't. Fight!
- An issue, but not the deciding issue, in hero/villain transfer is that ... well, you'd have skipped all that earlier content at your destination. Huh?
Posted by Dave at 3:13 PM
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Filed under: Resources & Rules
August 25, 2006
Spam, spam, spam, spam ...
I've added a new anti-comment-spam tool here at the Blog of Heroes, MT TinyTuring. This plug-in for Movable Type does a text-based question/answer that would be non-trivial for a spam-bot to figure out, but is exceedingly simple for a human. It's sort of a text-based CAPTCHA, without the graphics/accessibility issue of that technology.
The other thing it means is that it's not necessary to have a TypeKey identity to post comments here. It's fine if you do (it makes authenticating you as a white hat for other anti-spam tests easier), but it's not required.
I actually implemented this in order to help out BD, whose blog I'm proud to host here, but I "tested" it out on this blog first, and decided to leave it in place. Since TypeKey didn't work well on BD's blog (because of the different domain and the vagaries of how M$ implemented cross-domain cookie stuff in IE), this will help block a lot of potential spam over there. Here, probably not so much, but it does let people comment without doing TypeKey registration, which some might prefer.
Posted by Dave at 11:38 PM
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Filed under: This Blog
Construction zone
Working on something to make life (I hope) easier here.
Posted by Dave at 9:18 PM
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Filed under: This Blog
It's quiet ... too quiet ...
This has been a very slow week for CoX and me -- well, busy for me, but not so much on the CoX.
Perhaps a bit more over the weekend.
Posted by Dave at 6:50 AM
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Filed under: Gameplay
August 21, 2006
The Twinky and the Pumpkins
Light night on Monday Munchies. With Twinkie Kid unable to do Mondays in the future, most likely, Margie and I hopped on as Peep and Ho Ho so that we could show the Twinkie Kid off in style. It was a late start, so a few people had come and gone by the time we got rolling.
Off to Croatoa, forging through content there ... and then ...
"Oh no! Not the Pumpkins and the Door mission!"
Well, what the heck. The worst that could happen was that we failed.
And ... we didn't. We owned their big orange heads.
Stuck by the portal, mostly. When the baddies came, Ho Ho would taunt, Peep would do her choking cloud area hold and other aggro-drawing bits, and Twink would freeze some of them in place. Then it was clean up before the next group came along, with Twink doing the direct damage, Peep the DoT, debuffing, and healing, and Ho Ho drawing fire and lopping heads.
Occasionally Twink would jump out and draw a few back to us. That got us in a little trouble a few times, but it made things go a bit faster.
And when the end came -- it was completely unexpected. A pretty fast mission, all told. Only 12 got through (and a bunch of those in one clot).
Huh-freakin-zah!
Couple more missions, including one of those annoying save-the-mooses-from-the-witches messes. In the process, we both dinged up to 28 (Whirling Axe, baby!), and had revisited to us how dead broke we both are.
A fine evening, and hopefully an enjoyable au revoir to the Twinkie Kid.
Posted by Dave at 11:34 PM
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Filed under: Gameplay
Some Faces Behind the Names
RL Gatherings of Paragon Personages. Always interesting to see the (real) faces.
More at Mia's blog (that post and previous).
Posted by Dave at 2:01 PM
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Filed under: True Life
August 16, 2006
Patch notes
From today's patch. I've highlighted a few items I'm pleased about.
COMBINED NOTES
Powers
- Extended Duration of Empowerment Station Buffs to 60 minutes.
- Increased the 'lifetime' of the attackable portion of Trick Arrow Oil Slick. This should fix the failure to ignite issue.
- Swift, Quickness and Lightning Reflexes now grant a bonus to Flight Speed, in addition to their existing Resistance to Flight Speed debuffs.
- Teleporting is no longer allowed in Pocket-D.
- Reduced Endurance Cost for Power Pool Flight.
Rewards
-
Prestige rewards (while playing in Supergroup mode) increased approximately 25%.
Bases
- You can no longer place more than one Combo Energy/Control generator in a base if you have more than one Oversight Center.
New rooms available:
- The Oversight Center (Found in the Control Rooms tab). This is a 3x3 room that costs 50,000 Prestige. It can hold 1 Control item, 1 Storage item, and 1 Workshop item (as well as unlimited decorative items, but no Aux items).
- Med Bay: This is a 2x2 Medical room that costs 50,000 Prestige. It has the restriction of only allowing 1 Medical item in it (no Anchors, no Aux items).
- Teleport Bay: This is a 1x2 Teleport room that costs 50,000 Prestige. It has the restriction of no Dimensional Anchors and only allowing 1 Teleporter and 1 Teleport Aux Item (so your Teleporter is restricted to going to only one zone).
- Workshop: A new 1x2 Workshop is available costing 50,000 Prestige. It, too, can not have any Dimensional Anchors in it, and it is limited to 1 Worktable and 1 Storage object, as well as 1 Empowerment Station.
- New Base Item: Combo Energy/Control generator. This is a new Control item, a small, 25,000 prestige, generator that outputs Control and Energy to a level that is "just enough" to get the minimal functionality of the base online (that being a single Teleporter, Reclaimator, and Worktable). It comes in both Arcane and Tech versions, and you can fit 1 per Oversight Room and 1 per Plot (multiple Oversight rooms do not give you multiple Combo Items).
- Unsecure Base Plots are now limited to 1 Item of Power. Secure Base Plots are unchanged (there is no artificial limit to the amount of Items of Power a Secure plot can contain).
Chat
- Fixed rare crash related to certain global chat channels.
Game
- Fixed the AI for inanimate objects (such as the Mole Machines) which were moving under certain conditions.
- Fixed rare bug that could cause character data (powers, badges, costume) to be corrupted.
Tailor
- Fixed bug that sometimes made characters invisible in the Tailor window.
Badges
- All boss-level Rularru Overseers (Eyeballs) now count towards the Visionary badge.
CITY OF HEROES
Badges
- All Portal-generated Banished Pantheon Spirits now count for the Banished badge.
Bases
- Teleport Beacons (Tech and Arcane) added to City of Heroes. All Paragon City zones are now accessible through the Base Teleporter. To get a zone's beacon for your base, simply hit all of that zone's "explore" badge locations while in Supergroup mode (it doesn't matter if you personally have that exploration badge already or not). The zones added are: Croatoa, Eden, Terra Volta, Kings Row, Founders Falls, Peregrine Island, Galaxy City, Brickstown, Rikti Crash Site, Independence Port, Talos Island, Steel Canyon, Skyway City, and Atlas Park .
Tasks
- Altered Dr. Vahzilok mission to complete when the Dr. is defeated.
City Zones
-
The Hive: Fixed bug in the Hamidon encounter that caused some players to drop off the damage done list and therefore get no reward when the Hamidon was defeated.
CITY OF VILLAINS
Powers
- Scirroco's Patron powers should now allow proper enhancement slotting.
Badges
- All Legacy of Chain minions now count toward the Ember Legacy of Flame gladiator.
- All Legacy of Chain lieutenants now count toward the Lucent Legacy of Light gladiator.
- Gladiator: Crab Spider Longfang now awarded for completing a Patron Arc.
- Coralax Gladiator badge should now be obtainable.
-
Lowered requirements for Pirate badge.
City Zones
- Grandville:Fixed Arachnos Flier so that it will respawn properly (should appear much more frequently).
-
St. Martial: Fixed inaccessible/missing mission door.
Tasks
- Fixed bug in King's Row Mayhem Mission where rescued Villains would not follow players.
- Fixed several Arachnos mission maps where defeated players would resurrect at the location they were defeated when they tried to go to the Hospital.
- The Freedom Phalanx members in the Recluse Strike Force will no longer Drop enhancements. This should help alleviate the issue of players' trays being full when the Synthetic Hamidon Enhancement is awarded.
Posted by Dave at 2:17 PM
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Filed under: Resources & Rules
Global Handle Renaming
Quoth CuppaJo:
It's not all bad news however, a Global Handle Rename will be granted to all players this morning shortly after all servers come up to help compensate for recent global chat issues.
I don't have any particular desire to redo my "Three-Star Dave" handle (long as it is), but it's nice to know that I could if I wanted to.
And some ... mixed ... UPDATES:
Global Chat should be fixed as of this morning.
You will also get a global handle change with this morning's maintenance AFTER all the servers are up. To use this change just use the command /changehandle <user name> - WARNING: You only get one chance to change this name - check your spelling!!! GMs will NOT grant you another one if you make a mistake.
and
The global chat server will remain down while an issue is being investigated.
We are also receiving reports that some have lost rename token - we're looking into this.
Posted by Dave at 10:48 AM
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Filed under: Resources & Rules
August 15, 2006
Lollypops Lost
*sigh*
The other weekend transition was Hildy and Torchy both losing their Nemmy staves. I do like the new way of timing these things (in-game time vs. calendar time), and it meant we'd been using them for couple of weeks. It was a nice add-on to my attack chain -- a nice whomp of damage with little wind-up.
Ah, well. Sic transit gloria Nemmy.
Posted by Dave at 11:41 AM
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Filed under: Gameplay
Costuming
More on the Fifth Costume Slot, which appears to be tied into this year's Halloween event. Fun.
Regarding costumes and my main toons these days:
Torchielle: She's cut her hair recently, but her main costume is pretty stable (scaled hide boots and gloves, and, of course, the cape being relatively recent, plus a faint smoky aura about her hands). If I were doing more RP with her, I'd have some interesting developments, but that's not happening any time soon. She actually only uses two of her three slots already. I'm not altogether happy with her "civvies" -- the women's shirt choices are pretty cruddy. We'll see.
Ho Ho: I've been jonesing to do something with her outfit, but haven't decided what. Her main costume still fits the iconic role, and I never liked her Golden Age variation. Need to think about this.
Lynn Calodo: I keep coming back to the Goth Girl in a Black T-Shirt look for her. Her cool-spiffy outfit just isn't doing it for me. Don't need more slots, need more inspiration. Well, and more playtime, too.
Eliza Dee: Too low to be getting more costume slots. I did redo her outfit a bit when I picked her back up for soloing again some weeks back -- trading the sneakers (which I'd mistaken for being small boots) for folded boots. When she finally gets costume slots available -- not sure what I'm going to do with her.
Psi-clone: Recently upgraded his adventurers outfit to have one of the spiffy buttoned jackets and (overly-glossy) leather pants. He does use all four of his slots (to the extent he goes out these days), and I don't know what I'd do with a fifth.
So, ultimately, a fifth slot isn't all that exciting.
Now, once they get trenchcoats available ...
Did have another amusing costume thing recently. Playing with the idea of another controller/scrapper combo with Margie, and decided I'd do an ice/kin controller. We were also chuckling over a D&D advert in a comic book I was reading about how "At least you'll know for sure that the hot elf chick is played by a dude." So I decided I needed to have a character named Hot Elf Chick.
(Which seems oxymoronic with an ice controller, but I digress.)
So I came up with what I though was a fun costume, very sharp-looking, and, yes, pretty damned hot to my eyes.
Margie, sight unseen, predicted, "So, of course, Hot Elf Chick has a full costume from the neck down, no skin showing."
Um ... well, yeah. Margie knows me too well. So I created another version with an Eden top and a Bikini bottom and bare feet. But I didn't think she was any sexier.
Posted by Dave at 10:51 AM
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Filed under: Character Design
, Resources & Rules
Tanking
Did the Hostess Heroes last night -- a small group, consisting of Ho Ho, Princess Peep, Ring Ding, and Brownie Points (Divinity Chu was on briefly as Margie and I arrived).
I continue to be both frustrated and pleased by Ho Ho as a tank.
On the pleasing side, it's nice to basically pull aggro off your friends, before they even attract it, and hold it while they carve and blast the bad guys to chutney. When all goes well, Ho Ho sort of calls the tune as to what we're doing; everyone follows the tank, right? If things go pear-shaped or if the scrappers (cough) go running off on their own and get in trouble, I can usually pull matters back out of the fire.
I think we had one death last night (Peep got a bit too much into the middle of things at the beginning of a melee and went down in a flash). Granted, we did a lot of stale missions, but we also did a number of new ones, with plenty of opportunity for folks to die. They didn't, and I take at least partial credit for that.
On the the other hand, I'm frustrated by Ho Ho's inability to be something other than a meat shield. Yes, she can knock folks over with her axe. Yes, she can, given geological periods of time to work in, take down opponents. But by and large, her defining ability is being able to ... well ... draw and hold aggro without dying quickly.
You see my dilemma.
Honestly speaking? If I were doing the HH again, I wouldn't roll her up as a tank. At least not Invuln (which I've way overdone), but probably not at all. And, also honestly speaking, I'm not going to change. The team needs a tank, I'm not going to PL someone up to 27 any time soon, etc.
Which is not to say by any means that I'm not going to be doing the Monday Munchies thang, nor that I won't be having fun with Ho Ho. It will just be fun leavened with a bit of frustration. Which, I suppose, is not all that different than it would be whatever the AT I chose. :-)
Posted by Dave at 10:24 AM
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Filed under: Character Design
, Gameplay
August 14, 2006
Burning adventure
Most of our activity over the weekend was with Hildy/Torchy, Nothing earth-shattering -- mid-30s slogging through Crey and Rikti and DE for the most part. Many encounters with Paragon protectors of different flavors and colors (note to selves: a +3 PP needs to be approached -- or perhaps avoided -- with special care or a pocket full of greens or various rez chits).
Spent a couple of partial evenings teamed up with T'Lauro, too, which added a bit of variety to the proceedings -- healing and spot blasting/tanking more than made up for the inclusion of various Quantums on adventures, and the player always being a pleasure to have along.
I don't know if it's coincidence or something that just "happens" around this time, but an inordinate number of missions we had over the weekend were timed. No particular problems fulfilling them, but it was a bit annoying to have to go to a particular adventure on a given schedule, or to have to leave a contact uncontacted because the next mish is a timed and one alread has a timer ticking.
By the end of the weekend, we'd both dinged 37. Trying to decide with Torchy whether to go with Fire or Electricity as her Epic Power Pool -- either work for her story. Also toying whether to bump some power in order to take Recall Friend, since she now has Invis -- which doesn't explicitly work with her backstory, but which could be made to do so.
Posted by Dave at 6:27 AM
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Filed under: Character Design
, Gameplay
August 10, 2006
Issue 8 - to Protect and Serve
I haven't plowed through it yet, and I hope there's a transcript of it somewhere, but this thread includes a bunch of comments from Positron about Issue 8 as recorded on a WOOT Radio interview. Among the "GLEE!" moments:
- Travel power customization costume bits -- including jet packs and wings (!) that flap when you fly (!!).
- Nictus and "Evil Peacebringers" coming to CoV.
- Faultline will (finally) get rebuilt.
- The pay boxed "expansion set" has been scrapped -- the stuff will be rolled into the free updates.
- The Fifth Column is returning ... next year.
- Invention system is coming ... next year.
- Power customizations ... probably not coming. Bummer.
- Rent will be based on plot size.
- Veteran (account longevity) reward badges coming each 3 months.
- SG sizes changing to 75 accounts, not toons.
- Two new accolades coming, waiting on powers to be built.
- Some villain powersets will come to CoH.
- Server transfer and "switching sides" very much still on the table, already partially built, but no schedule.
- Flashback ("Back when I was 20th level and hadn't yet done this content ...") on the table.
- A permanent Nemmy staff as a veteran reward?
- Hero side mayhem missions -- with jet pack rewards pre-14.
- War Walls coming down?!
- A Statesman TF, going up against Recluse et al.
- New content/contacts post-50 in I8.
- More Double XP weekends.
Yowzers.
UPDATE: Here's a summary. Looooots more detail. Glee!
UPDATE:
16. Rewards system: 1st veteran reward 3 months Trenchcoats on all characters. They are a back option, IE like a cape. There are veteran rewards planned for up to 3 years of subscription. (April)
17. Wings: an unlockable costume piece. Wings will move in flight. (very impressed with look of wings).
18. Jetpacks eventually coming down the road. (Flight options). Castle has made a zillion and will kill posi if he is asked to make one more.
Posted by Dave at 6:41 PM
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Filed under: Resources & Rules
"Always save room for Jello"
Mr. R and Charity got onto CoV a little late last night, but things were fairly quiet anyway. We focused on trying to clear out the rest of our Cap Au Diable missions, and nearly succeeded (dinging to 21 in the process, huzzah).
Ran a couple of new mission maps for me -- the PTS station redress of the Council maps (very, very nice, and it makes me wonder why we don't see it during the Tarikoss SF) and the Giant Pit map during the Free Willy's Informant, Ace Whatsisname.
Pretty good fun -- the missions were a scosh old, so it was a lot of blue and white, which we basically took at a run. Mr. R determined that the Shivans were basically Jello Salads on the Hoof -- a bit fattening if one overindulges, but vigorous exercise can counter the calorie intake.
Posted by Dave at 6:12 AM
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Filed under: Gameplay
August 9, 2006
Flight Glee!
• Swift, Quickness and Lightning Reflexes now grant a bonus to Flight Speed, in addition to their existing Resistance to Flight Speed debuffs.
• Reduced Endurance Cost for Power Pool Flight
Hap-pee!
Oh, and ...
• Teleport Beacons (Tech and Arcane) added to City of Heroes. All Paragon City zones are now accessible through the Base Teleporter. To get a zone's beacon for your base, simply hit all of that zone's "explore" badge locations while in Supergroup mode (it doesn't matter if you personally have that exploration badge already or not). The zones added are: Croatoa, Eden, Terra Volta, Kings Row, Founders Falls, Peregrine Island, Galaxy City, Brickstown, Rikti Crash Site, Independence Port, Talos Island, Steel Canyon, Skyway City, and Atlas Park .
Yay. Time to revisit Where Next from the CoJ 'porters.
Posted by Dave at 6:45 PM
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Filed under: Resources & Rules
Yeah, but who's hunting whom?
A bit after signing on last night, Hildy and Torchy accepted the call into a Kessa mission along with Zazi and T'Lauro. It was the "find the workers and the goo" Rikti mission, and it was all conning around 38. Which was fine, except that H/T are at 35, and there was only one SK slot.
Margie took that, and played the Woefully Underpowered Tanker, still surprisingly survivable. Most of the stuff was conning orange-red-purple to me, even SKed up by Zazi. Things went along smoothly for a bit with Kessa and Torchy alternating booms, but we discovered that if anything went wrong (e.g., two close mobs getting pulled in, or multiple portals opening, or other nastiness), it was a road straight to pavement chewing.
Eventually we realized we were going a bit slowly, and started to hunt for the victims. That still led to problems, as not everyone was stealthy, the Rikti have some high perceptions, and so every now and then someone would all of a sudden go orange-red-yellow-orange-black as they got a bit too close to the wrong group. Even with an added tank (Tankerbabe), we were still struggling and going down too easily.
As time was finally beginning to get low, Kessa called in various Alliance types to lend a hand, though they seemed to spend more time in RP and street fighting than, y'know, actually searching for the last victim?
With five minutes or so to go, Kessa called for everyone to ground on the rooftops (so to speak), while she unRSKed back up to 50 and did a run through of the city, trying to find the last guy (and possibly dragging serious aggro with her, which presumably is why everyone was to ground. We watched her sprint around the map, and with about 20 seconds left -- "Found him."
Everyone raced over, attacking as they arrived, but it was, alas, even with a boom (possibly unSKed), too late, and the mission failed.
Bleah
A couple of notes:
- I don't boom that often when duoing, since it leaves Hildy alone to clean up any survivors. It was interesting using it more as a tactic. It was also interesting that it remains far less effective than I'd hoped, even buffed (though the relative level probably played a role here).
- Invis. is a mixed blessing of a power (and, again, one that I haven't gotten much use of since I took it at 35). On the one hand, it helped with scouting out the city (I spotted at least three of the workers and the drum). On the other hand, it's still not proof against Rikti Drones, it sucks Endurance like a Hummer sucks gasoline, and it can seriously frell your attack plans if you forget that you have it (vs. Stealth) on. "Why can't I boom?"
End of the day, Hildy leveled to 36 (during a double-boom attack), and I'm about a quarter pip from it and (despite two deaths) no debt. So all in all, not bad, and a good chance to play with others.
Posted by Dave at 6:39 AM
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Filed under: Character Design
, Gameplay
August 8, 2006
Munchie Musings
Perhaps I am overarchitecting this, but it occurs to me that the Monday Munchies are missing some sort of communication mechanism. Some of us are kinda-sorta connected via blog and e-mail and IM, but there's a fair amount of "sign in and see what's going on." That's not bad in and of itself, but it actually limits our flexibility and capacity to plan and manage expectations.
Would there be some value in establishing some sort of simple communication forum for the group, to pass on suggestions (or schedules) for things like:
- TF plans.
- Hostess Heroes vs. Devil's Food
- Newbie nights
- Scheduling something outside of Mondays
Again, I'm thinking something really simple, along the lines of:
- An e-mail list.
- A Google calendar
- A forum
One of the above (or something similarly straightforward). Nothing huge and elaborate, but a way to "spread the word" about something. So ...
- Is this actually a problem that needs solving?
- Is one of these the right solution?
Posted by Dave at 6:09 AM
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Filed under: Consortium of Justice
August 4, 2006
Vidiotmaps
Huh. Never saw this posted anywhere before, but I've been trying (unsuccessfully, natch) to get to the Vidiotmaps site for weeks. It is the home of the greatest map resources, map patch stuff, badge tracking, etc. anywhere for CoX.
Or, was.
So, going over to Badge-Hunter.com, I find the Vidiotmaps page with plenty of stuff that's been done in there since this news blurb:
Sunday, July 02, 2006 - One of the companies involved with hosting vidiotmaps.com has gone out of business. This will be the temporary location of vidiotmaps until everything gets worked out. Please be advised that this quasi-mirror does not have full functionality and is a work in progress.At first glance, most if not all of the Vidiotmaps stuff seems to be there (including Mayhem Mission maps), plus all sorts of other goodies. Yay. (The LJ article also has a link to the ParagonMaps map resource, which looks interesting.)
Posted by Dave at 7:54 AM
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Filed under: Resources & Rules
August 3, 2006
Bits and pieces
Tuesday night, played one Hildy/Torchy mish before my tendonitis started causing me problems.
Last night, had a nummy dinner out with BD and Jackie and Margie, then came back and finally finished a Lynn mish I'd had interrupted three or four times. Oranbega - bleah.
Tonight -- I'd been hoping to do more, but Katherine's VBS thang is having their "big show" tonight, so likely not much. We'll see.
Posted by Dave at 6:19 AM
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Filed under: Gameplay
August 1, 2006
Patches and Glitches
New patch out today.
Global Chat was completely offline for some time (supposed to be back on by now, but haven't seen confirmation).The server status page includes Global Chat status.
And logging out or getting sent to the Grandville Hospital is locking toons in Limbo. The Devs recommend staying out of Grandville for the nonce.
As to the patch itself ...
General
- Improved network performance across the board.
- Fix for pets to get through doors more easily if they get in each other's way.
- Long distance Supergroup invites no longer crash the map.
Power
- Hyper Phase Temporary Power now has the 30 second shut down.
- Gambler's Cut for Stalkers and Scrappers now properly calculates Critical Strikes.
- The 5% Defense reduction in Scrapper and Brute versions of Unyielding has been reduced to a 3.75% Defense reduction. This value matches then unenhanced Defense gained from the Tough Hide passive power in the same power set. The Tanker version remains unchanged, as the values already match properly. [What's a few percent between friends?]
- Added Toxic Resist to Sonic Dispersion power for Corruptors, Controllers and Defenders. The help text has always stated that Toxic damage was resisted by this power, so we added it.
City Zones
- Players should no longer get stuck in the Pocket D Elevators. [Never happened to me, but, then, I haven't used PocketD to go into PocketD for, oh, months.]
Missions
-
Moved certain spawns in CoT Maps to higher ground for hostage purposes.
Tasks
- Several doors which were giving XP but were not supposed to have had the xp reward removed.
Bases
- Items placed in Storage Containers are saved immediately.
- Base storage will now allow combined enhancements to be stored/removed.
Tailor
- Fixed the Gloves for Huge Robotic 3.
- Huge Upper Body Jacket selection now has matching sleeves. [Maybe Mr. R. needs to get something a bit more casual ...]
Chat
- Added additional logging and error checking code to global chat. [Which may be why it's not working? :-P ]
World
- Fixed a problem with pets getting stuck in elevators.
City of Heroes
Powers
- Tanker War Mace: The order in which the powers Clobber and Jawbreaker are received have been swapped. This means that Jawbreaker will now be available at level 4, which should help War Mace's ability to deal damage at lower levels. Lower level characters that have already selected Clobber will still have it and can continue to use it and slot it normally.
- Power Boost epic power now works properly with Kinetics, Transfusion.
- Peacebringers in Light Form can no longer appear invisible to players who suppress extra player effects.
- Defender Epic PowerBuild Up now enhances Transfusion's heal.
City of Villains
Badges
- Born In Battle Accolade no longer needs the Nigh Indestructible badge. It requires the Unbreakable badge instead.
- Added the Defeat Recluse badge to patron arcs that were missing it.
Missions
- Nemesis Mole Machines no longer give experience.
- The first mission of Citadel's Task Force now gives a reward as expected.
- Added a Patron Respec to the first Patron Story Arcs.
- Modified the Lorenz Ansaldo mission to make the generators smaller.
- Completion of the Temple of the Waters Strike Force now awards the badge correctly.
Powers
- Domination is now usable when the caster is under the effects of Hold, Stun or Sleep.
- Changed first tier Mastermind Upgrade power descriptions to "Recharge: Fast." [Yay! The going-in-the-door delay while summoining henchfolk is really irksome, and serves little purpose.]
- The Domination effect for Dominators now grants them some protection from most status effects for the duration of the effect.
- Corrected short help text of Corruptor Cold Domination Ice Shields and Glacial Shields to reflect Melee, Ranged and AoE defense bonuses.
-
Stalker Placate Powers endurance costs are now more consistent.
Mastermind Henchmen Medics/Protector Bots now heal/repair as expected. [Yay!]
City Zones
- Stopped Kalinda from floating above ground in Mercy Island.
- Improved the paths of Pier 2 and Pier 7 Scrapyarder spawns in Sharkhead Isle.
- Fixed elevated Arachnos Flier paths which were causing clipping in Grandville.
- Fixed a bug where Arachnoid Web Frames were not visible in Grandville.
-
Brute Electric Armor Power Surge now has the correct feedback at end of the effect.
Tasks
- Villains who have already received their Patron Power Sets will be granted a Patron Respec upon logging in. This respec stacks with the Thorn Tree respecs as well as the free respecs given out when major power changes happen. This respec allows your character to do the Patron content at any point in their career, even level 50, and be able to add the Patron Powers to the character. These respecs can be redeemed from Arbiter Lupin.
World
- Fixed a missing Mission Door in Grandville.
- Fixed a mysterious floating beam in Mercy Island.
Critters
- Players no longer get experience when Coral minions expire on their own.
Posted by Dave at 1:28 PM
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Filed under: Resources & Rules
Crisis of Characters
So I haven't been playing CoX much over ... oh ... the last week, at least.
I don't know if this is a break, a cooling off of interest, a seismic shift in my evening focus, or what. I just haven't had the fire in the belly for it.
Which has nothing to do with the folks I play with, mind you. And it's not because I'm hopping into some other cool game. I've just been doing ... different things. A couple of external functions. Reading. Working online. Watching DVDs.
What I haven't done is rushed home with every fiber of my being screaming to hop onto CoX and keep pushing all my beloved characters.
No idea what this means, really. And no idea if, having written this, I'll be back onto my nightly schedule as of tonight.
Just wanted to mention it, since I have the space here to do so.
Posted by Dave at 7:52 AM
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Filed under: True Life