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October 30, 2006

Halloween costumes

Fun times. We got started with the Hostess Heroes a bit late -- Margie and I did Trick-or-Treating. Doyce got on first, and we figured we'd do the Respec Trial -- until we discovered it took 4. Then we got someone to start it with us ... and did fine, until the mission that was full of +3 to +5s.

Sooooo ... instead we played a bit with Divinity Chu, whonking on Council. Then Cheesy Poof joined, and we did a bit more.

Costume-wise, Margie had come up with something fun and hi-tech (with a Halloween black cat on her shoulder). Doyce had Bear Claws in a great Manticore outfit. Cheesy Poof did up Back Alley Brawler. Divinity was ... Divinity. :-) And Ho Ho? She had the Infernal look (once I discovered what my (cough) costume problem was).

Posted by Dave at 9:30 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Character Design , Gameplay

Costumary

Hmm. Evidently I didn't quite take seriously the memo that all several of the Hostess Heroes were going to do themselves up as Freedom Phalanx sorts.

Evidently everyone else did.

Evidently Ho Ho was supposed to be made up as Infernal.

Hmmmm.

Posted by Dave at 1:48 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Character Design

Heroism

Got on last night, post-Catan, and did some Hildy/Torchy stuff. Fair number of Storm Knights around, which was nice.

Most stuck to PI and plowed through some nasty adventures. Worst was probably "Rikti portals in the Baphomet dimension" portal mission -- largely because those Air Thorn Casters are such annoying bastards (we quickly went from targeting the Big Orange Behemoth Overlords to taking down the Little Yellow ATCs, which helped things quite a bit).

Baphomet itself went down pretty quickly -- despite our setting, it was only an Elite Boss. It helped that we had already cleared the map, nuked the portals, and won the mission, so we could have zoned at any time if it got nasty.

Tonight ... Hostess Heroes! Huzzah! Ho Ho picked out a brand new tube top, just to celebrate.

Posted by Dave at 6:59 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Gameplay

Mammarian Physics

While there's room to criticize CoX for the default over-endowedness of its female characters, there's nothing like this. Which is all the more amusing when you realize it was inspired by this -- which is really pretty disturbing ... (and quite probably NSFW).

(Actually, while the, um, bounce factor in the video is, ah, impressively rendered -- jeez, maybe they should spend a few dollars working on the cropping on the hair? I mean, especially when it vanishes into/out of those other prominent features to which attention is being directed? Yeesh.)

Posted by Dave at 6:29 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Character Design , Media

October 27, 2006

Positron Speaks!

Transcripty sort of thing from an interview with Matt Miller (Positron) -- or, at least, a few key items (to me) from that.

Think fast paced combat makes game unique, prided themselves on making game where you didn't fight one thing at once all the time. Happy that could make 3 minions challenge 1 hero.

Wanted to make travel as easy as possible...

Favorite villain group: "...huh. Probably...oh man. Blanking out. ... I can't even think of one right now."

Least favorite villain group would be Malta "for the same reason everybody else hates them--the sappers. Everyone can blame me for the Sappers."

Felt that since End was a non-issue after L35, he wanted End to become an issue again.

Least favorite and most favorite, since do offer different playstyle in combat, you actually have to think about them when you're fighting them.

Another reworked zone on the schedule, not at liberty to say what it is yet, but it's going to be a cooperative hero/villain zone.

Forum poll a few months back asking where players wanted next new setting; we have the results, and we have on the schedule a new zone that basically is the result of that poll, which we're not at liberty to say what that is yet, but we are definitely laying hints toward it.

"Do you see CoH going beyond L50?" Not anytime soon, if we raise it again, we just get asked when it's going to be raised again after that. Wants to add endgame content, stuff that makes you a "better" level 50. Invention system is what's going to be doing for that. Lots of enh that will make you "better level 50s". More variety, more diverse sets of enhancements so characters are different.

No plans for new signature character contests, would love to have player-created contest prizes to make it in. Player-created badges, for instance. Still working on logistics of that. Would like to see that be prize for upcoming contest.

Villain Kheldians? Not in Issue 8. Haven't decided what issue they'll be in yet, still trying to figure out how much work it will be to make them work on villain side. Just had discussion about it on Thurs again to figure out what it will take.

Ballista acts like Bubble energy tank. Any plans on getting something like that for Tanks or Brutes? We have plans on moving a lot of power sets around, getting them to classes that don't have them, probably in mid-2007.

5th Column coming back? Do have plans for 5thC returning, want to make sure their re-emergence is a spectacular one, don't want to have them just "show up."

Posted by Dave at 12:15 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Resources & Rules

Flight animations on hold

The devs are pulling back the new flight animations from I8 until they get a few things cleaned up.

Based on everyone's feedback about the changes to travel animations (in particular the alternate flight poses and strafing/banking) we've decided to push back introducing flight poses for now. We really like them, as did many of you, and we were hoping to get them into the game in conjunction with wings. Unfortunately, we just ran out of time to get everything working the way we really want it to work. So rather than getting it in now as is, making some of you happy and some of you unhappy, we’re going to push this feature back a bit so we’ll have the time to fully implement what we really want to do. Here's a rough overview of the things we want to fix before re-introducing these:

1) Flight poses should be selectable. That's our biggest thing to get working before implementing these on live. It's very obvious from feedback that you guys have very strong feelings about which poses you like/dislike for your characters. Once the animations are selectable (and not randomly or sequentially chosen) we'll be able to do much nicer transitions from stationary to forward flight.

Interestingly, when this first came up, Positron indicated that making them selectable would be a lot more difficult. I really wouldn't have minded, to be honest -- I can imagine some builds would want to be "standard," but most flying heroes use a variety of poses.

2) Hover should not use the alternate flight animations. We have a hover forward animation that has never played (it's the upright position like the current strafe and backward animation that many of you have suggested). There's a code issue that's preventing hover from getting the right triggers to play its animation. Instead it uses the flight animations, which in turn causes it to use the alternate flight animations. We agree that it looks silly in most cases. We assure you it wasn't done intentionally.

3) We need to fix the camera/orientation bug that's caused by the alternate strafe mode. This currently effects the Kheldian Dwarf and Nova forms on live. Oddly enough, I have a level 50 Peacebringer on live and never noticed it before you guys pointed it out. Now it’s glaringly obvious. Good catch.

4) Along those lines, we want to make a lot of little tweaks to the behavior of the alternate strafing mode. It solves a lot of the animation blending issues with strafing while running, jumping, or flying...but it's not quite where we’d like for it to be. It's a lot of little minor things such as adjusting turn speeds, using the strafing animations under the right conditions, adding a bit of roll/banking to the transitions between flying and strafing, etc.

Not quite sure what's being referenced here, but it sounds like the testing process worked as intended.

Posted by Dave at 11:39 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Resources & Rules

October 25, 2006

Server Transfers for I8!

Aren't happening! Per Cricket:

There has been some confusion on this. To set the record straight: server transfers are not a part of Issue 8.

I don't have an ETA but it is safe to say that we still have some ways to go.

Posted by Dave at 3:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Resources & Rules

Veteran Rewards - Set 3

Now announced:

• 27 Months: Dedicated - Anime-style tech armor. Free Costume Token per toon.
• 30 Months: Committed - Signature Group Chest Emblem (Freedom Phalanx, Vindicators, Vanguard, Arachnos, PPD, Cage Consortium, CoT, Council). Free Costume Token per toon. Cool trophies (from signature heroes/villains) for bases.
• 33 Months: Unswerving - Permanent Nemmy Staff or Permanent Blackwand. Free respec for each toon in the account.
• 36 Months: Addicted - Power (Choice): Demon Pet, Clockwork Pet, Red Cap Pet, Rikti Monkey Pet, Robot Pet [no combat effect, just fun]. Base item: Arachnos Flyer (Villains), Longbow Chaser (Heroes) [Again, no combat effect, but cool.]

For the record, Saturday I will have hit the 22 month mark (check yours out via the Account menu at the site). That will get me the Steadfast Reward (great title for Torchy, who is just about that old).

Posted by Dave at 2:47 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Resources & Rules

October 23, 2006

I8 Test Release Notes

From the Test Server (with a few comments):

NOTE: Veteran Reward will be announced for test at a later date.

Now Testing in the Training Room - 10/23/06 2pm CST

Known Issues on the Test Server

• Clicking on a worktable with salvage can cause a client crash. This is a client crash only and does not affect other users.


COMBINED NOTES

Powers

• Added a control to Moment of Glory to insure that the -Regen portion goes away at the end of the duration of the power. This fixes a bug that was introduced with the recent change to correct the Icon blinking.

• Added -Fly to the Oni's Ring of Fire Power.

• Added -Fly to Gravity Control Gravity Distortion power.

• Jump Kick from the Leaping pool set now does Knock Up instead of Knockback. The chance of Knock Up occurring has increased to 20% (from 15%.) Not sure that makes sense, given the (annoying) graphic, but what the heck.

• Removed hesitation from the Mental Blast animation. There was a pause that prevented the character from acting, even after the power had finished animating.

• Fixed missing animation for Ice Sword when used with Fly.

• Fixed bug with Build Up that caused some weapon powersets (War Mace, Battle Ax, Broadsword) to redraw weapons. I can think of a few BS users who will welcome that.

Universities

• Paragon City University and Aeon University are now on semester break. The campus buildings will be closed until the next semester starts. Heh. I.e., all those folk who found a way to sneak in and see the insides of the buildings need to wait now for I9 and the invention stuff.

Tasks

• Set all PvP zone mission rewards down to the normal mission completion levels. This is getting a fair amount of bitching on the boards, but evidently a few folks had figured out an exploit. *shrug*

Titles

• Fixed bug that prevented players from being able to reset their second title to "none".

Game

• Banking animation for flight/strafe combinations have been changed. This change also improves combinations of running, jumping, and strafing. Cool.

• New Flight animations were tweaked a bit. Old flight animation appears again. Other players now see the same flight animation that you do. Very cool. flight animations rock.

• Female players will now choose a random food item when using the eat emote (instead of always eating a donut.) Because only PPD eats donuts all the time.

• Some emotes, such as eat, weren't being properly interrupted by flight. They should be now.

List of new/updated emotes

Emote Invent
Emote Dance1
Emote Dance2
Emote Dance3
Emote Dance4
Emote Dance5
Emote Dance6
Emote EatDonut
Emote Donut
Emote EatFood
Emote Eat
Emote Food
Emote ListenPoliceBand (Heroes only)
Emote SitChair1
Emote SitChair2
Emote SitChair3
Emote SitBench1
Emote SitBench2
Emote SitBench3
Emote SitBench4
Emote SitExecutiveChair
Emote SitStool
Emote SitTable1
Emote SitTable2
Emote Teabag

Tailor

• Thin stripes 1 & 2 added. Thin anything is usually good.

• Excess patterns revamped.

• Assassin pattern added to gloves and boots.

Pocket D

• Fixed bug with the Arena terminals that allowed players to become PvP flagged while inside Pocket D.

CITY OF HEROES

Powers

• Changed the display name of the Mayhem Mission reward Jump Pack to Zero-G Pack to avoid confusion between it and the new Good vs Evil edition Jump Pack.

Tasks

Safeguard Mission adjustments:

• Bank robber spawns (the lobby robbers and robbery boss) will attack players when they are spotted, instead of running straight for the exit. If the robbers do not see any players, they will run for the exit as usual. Oh, huzzah. Margie was complaining about this earlier.

• Side mission rewards fixed and give the proper rewards.

• Safeguard Mission objects should be less fragile now. Level based combat modifiers have been removed.

• Fixed Moneybag power in Safeguard Missions. Escaping thieves should now have the Moneybag displayed even after moving through a door way.

• The final mission of Agent G's story arc has been modified. If players can defeat all 3 AVs without letting them defeat each other first, the players will receive 4 SOs for their efforts. Players MUST receive Kill Credit on the Archvillains, and have sufficient inventory space to receive the rewards.

Game

• Emotes for Eating, sitting, and selected dances are now available for the Kheldian Dwarf forms.

CITY OF VILLAINS

Powers

• Corrected the Level Range on the Freakshow Elite Boss Metal Shift. He should no longer show up green to players at higher levels of the mission.

Tasks

• Heroes in the Lord Recluse Strike Force have been slightly reduced in level. Vindicators are now level 51 and the Freedom Phalanx are level 53.

City Zones

• Corrected Scorpion Shield text on the Patron Powers plaques in Grandville.

Game

• The PPD has confiscated all of the Police Ban Scanners that had fallen into Villain hands.

Posted by Dave at 7:45 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Resources & Rules

Play time, old and new

Post-retreat, we eschewed any work around the house and instead hopped onto CoH. Spent a couple of hours with Torchy and Hildy, and T'Lauro came on as well, which made things entertaining as always.

After T'Lauro left, we started playing around with another set of prototype alts that we're considering for duoing. I rolled up another Ice/Kin controller, and determined again that it's a combo I want to play. Margie's trying out different scrapper types (the scrapper/controller combo seeming to be a key piece of fun for us). She may re-roll Kazima (BS/Invuln), or do another BS toon. I'm rooting for Kazima because she's a fun character, but I also want Margie to get to a chance to play something other than a BS, which is what Kazima and Blue Point both are. Katana, maybe?

Did talk her into rolling up a Claws/Inv scrapper, and we ran around a bit. That combo seemed to work well, too.

No plan on abandoning H/T, just looking for a bit of variety. Not sure if we'll do anything with them until after I8 comes live.

Posted by Dave at 7:18 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Character Design , Gameplay

October 20, 2006

Will the last one posting please turn off the lights ...?

Since the AoC boards are supposed to "die" some time around the 24th, I took the opportunity to finish saving what material I wanted onto my hard drove -- mostly "File / Save Page As" stuff in Firefox for (a) character profiles, (b) TF write-ups and similar bits, and (c) some of the more interesting blocks of chat and discussion.

The "Oh, by the way, we're closing" forum has actually been deleted, probably because it was gathering swarms of spam. At least one other board did get opened back up, I saw, in case there are any last words. Oddly enough, the title of the forum has changed to "The Tale of Two Cities" (which sounds like a nice way of framing the CoH/CoV worlds, though I suspect that was not intentional -- perhaps it's a "best of times/worst of times" reference).

At any rate, that's done enough to put a fork in it.

Now, I need to get off my ass and start dong some CoJ stuff on the new forum ... after this weekend.

Posted by Dave at 2:36 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Consortium of Justice

October 19, 2006

Trick or ... oh, never mind ...

So, the Halloween Event (complete with Paragon Times article, no less), and ...

Ho hum.

We ran a couple of Hildy/Torchy mission -- struggling with Malta, rolling over Crey -- and finally got over to PI, the only zone that we could Trick-or-Treat in.

Um ...

So, very little gain for the time involved. Really. Click on a door every couple of minutes and get a big Insipration (a fraction of the time) or a trio of whites (or a white and a yellow). Stand around. Rinse. Repeat. And it can't be mission doors -- it has to be non-mission doors. And it has to be in a particular zone. And if your team mate does it, you don't get a treat. Etc.

Very low value-per-minute there.

After about 40-odd minutes in which Torchy got squat in the way of salvage (i.e., Halloween costume parts), Margie mentioned that she'd harvested a bunch earlier in the day. So we went back to the base, divvied up the goodies, hopped over to Croatoa, chatted with Annah, and ...

Okay, fifth costume slot. Cool. Ish. Will be more cool when we get free costume tokens with I8. Meantime ...

Okay, I know they don't want people harvesting and PLing via the Halloween Event. But as it stands, the XP-per-minute is way below (even counting travel time) a normal mission. So why, aside from the dubious fifth costume slot, invest anything in it.

Oh, well. Plenty of fun chatter on the CC last night, which was nice.

Posted by Dave at 6:34 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack | Edit
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October 18, 2006

It doesn't pay to pressure the Devs

Posted by Dave at 7:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Humor

I8 ... kinda-sorta

Quoth Cricket:

Starting at approximately 5PM today (Wednesday 10/18) the Training Room will be brought down to implement the Issue 8 pre-download system.

We need to make sure that the pre-download feature works properly before it ever goes live. In order to do this we have to bring back the last build – the one that was on test before Issue 8 ever arrived.

For those of you who have played on Issue 8 already: your characters will still be there (today and tomorrow.) However, the character you are currently playing has developed some, and some of that content may not display properly while you are back under Issue 7. The good news: Issue 8 should be back on test tomorrow (10/19). The specific time has not yet been announced.

Why are we doing this? The pre-download system was not ready to go on test before Issue 8 was ready. At the same time, it was very important for us to get the maximum amount of Issue 8 testing on Training Room. If we had waited for the pre-download before launching Issue 8 on test this ultimately would have caused delays on Issue 8’s arrival on the live servers.

When Issue 7 is brought back to test: when you log out the pre-download patch for Issue 8 will begin. You can leave this running. And when we bring Issue 8 back up on test, you’ll be ready to go!

Glee!

Posted by Dave at 6:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Resources & Rules

Tank Busters

So this particular thread caught my eye on the LJ COH site, claiming that it was confirmed that Tanks no longer had inherent taunt/Gauntlet/punchvoke powers against AVs and GMs, nor did taunt auras (e.g., Invincibility) seem to have any effect..

Hmmmm.

So that points to this board thread, which has a number of people making that claim, backed up by someone claiming that an anonymous dev told him that "Gauntlet power effects (including taunt auras) have no effect on ArchVillains, Giant Monsters, Mitos, and Hamidon. This is by design." Supposedly (based on this secret source) this went in at I7 because the Devs didn't like how tanks could lock down AVs/GMs with their Gauntlet stuff, and so they should have to use Taunt on AVs.

This "revelation" was then followed by wailing and gnashing of teeth and "DOOOOOOOM" and "NERF!" and "They want to turn all Tanks into Taunt-bots!" To which the only red name, Castle, says, "No comments on the gauntlet issue at the moment -- but I am reading the threads and taking notes."

And that, in turn, not being a flat denial, is turned around to be proof that it's all true.

I have no idea, to be honest, though I do have a passing interesting in the issue (currently duoing with a tank as I am, and running into scenarios that may end up with AVs in them if we forget to ratchet down). My inclination is to wait and see what sort of follow-up the Devs have, though, rather than going for the sackcloth and ashes routine like so many of the board folk seem wont to do. That said, if true, I'd have like to have seen it in the patch notes -- but I'm also "old school" re tanks and think they should have Taunt.

So there.

Posted by Dave at 1:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Character Design , Resources & Rules

Boo!

Per Cricket, the Halloween Event should start today after server maintenance is over (about 9 a.m. MDT). The event runs until 10 p.m. on Wednesday, 1 Nov.

Feeling slightly torn -- we're on a roll with H&T, and the whole Halloween Event doesn't sound all that interesting. We'll probably do a bit of beating folks up for a while until it palls or we get the 5th costume slot or whatever, then get back to serious business.

Posted by Dave at 7:36 AM | Comments (9) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Resources & Rules

October 17, 2006

The answer to Life, the Universe, and What Level We're At

Posted by Dave at 6:08 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Character Design , Resources & Rules

October 16, 2006

Emotes in I8

Via COH LJ:

dance1
dance2
dance3
dance4
dance5
dance6
(These are the old dances, but you can now select them)

donut

eat
food
(same emote, different names)

invent

listenpoliceband
(villains can use this emote, too)

sitbench1
sitbench2
sitchair1
sitchair2
sitchair3
sitexecutivechair
sitstool
sittable1
sittable2
(Lots of new ways to sit)

teabag

Nice to see some new sitting emotes. Down in the comments, it appears that there's a difference in the sit emotes between males and females, which is interesting.

Posted by Dave at 2:39 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Resources & Rules

In our 40s

Hildy and Torchy continue to churn through 41, navigating PI with relative aplomb (though on the one AV mish we've had to date -- Psychic Clockwork King -- we dropped the difficulty to get him to an Elite Boss ... and he still, um, cleaned our clocks the first time we attacked him).

We're dying in more or less even numbers. Torchy might be dropping a bit more than Hildy -- Hildy's on the front line, but Torchy's awfully squishy, and if we get taken from multiple sides, I usually kiss pavement pretty quickly. It's hard to say, though, as Hildy has Rise of the Phoenix, so even when she goes down, she gets back up again shortly (usually, though not always, before the remaining mobs carve me into chutney, and usually, though not always, successfully enough to finish taking them down).

I did end up making a mad sprint through other-dimensional Oranbega last night, various Malta troops and a Herc-class Titan on my tail (yes, looking back down a long tunnel and seeing that wonderful spiral of rockets heading your way is a wonderful last sight to carry off with you).

Malta are probably the worst opponents we're facing now. Nemmies are annoyingly long-ranged in their attacks, but rarely a huge threat. Rikti are just more grunts to churn through. But Malta are pretty problematic, especially the Sappers, which can take either of us to Useless pretty quickly -- either of which is usually lethal for me, since as soon as Hildy's armor drops, even for a moment, everyone's attention gets turned to the Big Flaming Damage Dealer across the room.

Fortunately, at 41, we both ended up with a Hold -- which is does decently to take down the Sapper if we're lucky, and which (if we do it together) can hold a boss-level (which is a nice way to deal with Paragon Protectors before they go all invulnerable on us). The alternative, which is also effective, is for me to snipe the damned Sapper, which (if I buff up) will usually one-shot him without drawing aggro from the whole room.

I do like the Malta group, for a variety of reasons (not least of which is the hi-larious mission dialog from Indigo and Crimson), but they're probably dealing us 80% of our deaths right now, and continue to refine our tactics (and add Accuracies to our holds) seems an imperative.

Posted by Dave at 9:37 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
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October 14, 2006

Famous faces of the Paragon Police Department

Some folks have spent a fair amount of time gathering up screen caps of the new police contacts around Paragon (I8 Test).

I spotted Det. Croquette last night while Margie was playing. Nice pink shirt ...

Posted by Dave at 12:34 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Resources & Rules

October 13, 2006

Inventive

There are evidently some prototype bits of the Invention system showing up in the I8 test. See the thread here, pictures here and here, and the sad news that this will here.

Some gorgeous university interiors, there, aside from the keenosity of building your own Enhancements ...

Posted by Dave at 12:30 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Resources & Rules

October 12, 2006

I8 in Test

And ... the patch notes [With commentary]

Issue 8: To Protect and Serve

Pocket D Changes

• Arena Kiosks: These Kiosks will allow Heroes and Villains to fight against each other more easily if they want to settle personal issues. [Ho-hum]

• In front of the bars are two arena officials, an "Arena Information Operator", who will provide information on how to use the kiosks; and a "Games Information Operator", who will provide detailed information on each of the game types of the arena.

• Rikti Monkey Fight Club: Due to a combination of the Family cutting in to the RMFC profits in Sharkhead, and an offer from DJ Zero to expand their enterprise, Joe Young and Cornelius have moved their "entertainment concern" on up to the Pocket D. They have set up a new "Lounge" on the hero side of the club. “It’s a lot classier than the old place”, says Joe Young.

• It’s loud in Pocket D! Local chat in Pocket D will only be heard by players within 50ft of each other now. [Heh.]

Powers

• Many objects in the game which were meant to be immune to Teleportation have been made so. This affects several powers in the Traps Secondary and Gadgets secondary for players.

• Various ‘Build Up’ and ‘Aim’ powers now have a new look. [Interesting.]

• Alternate flying poses. Fly and Hover (and temporary powers that duplicate their effects) have new poses. Your character will transition into an alternate pose after flying forward for a few seconds. Also implemented a banking animation for flying forward while strafing left or right. [Sweet.]

• Increased the base flight speed of Hover by 10%. [A trivial change, IMO, but what the hell.]

• Added a slight delay to the usage of Team Teleport. This should alleviate the issue of Teammates randomly being left behind after a Teleport.

• Soul Storm is now escapable. There is still a bit of delay after you escape before you can move or attack again, but it’s much less of an ‘I win’ power.

• Rikti ambushers will once again show teleportation FX.

• The Helmet enhancement (Mutation/Magic Range) was giving twice the bonus of other Range DOs. It has been reduced to match.

• Rebalanced some of the high end Longbow critters to make them less frustrating.

• Fixed some animation issues with the Jump Jet Pack power granted from the Good vs. Evil Edition.

Titles

• Players may now change their title at levels 15, 25, 35, and 45. These title changes do not stack (if you do not use the one you get at level 25 when you reach level 35, you only have the level 35 change, and lose the level 25 one). At 50, players may change their title without restriction. Talk to any trainer to change your title in this manner. [This makes so much sense. Now ... when can we change names?]

Tailor

• New costume pieces are available at the Tailor and at Character Generation:

• Male/Huge/Female
(Head – Detail 1)
Galactic Glasses
Government Glasses
Blast Goggles up

(Head – Ears) [Oh ... my ...]
Floppy
Bunny
Cat
Rat
Teddy
Wildcat

• Female
(Upper Body - Chest - Tops with Skin)
Angelic
Assassin
Excess
Savage
Tanker

(Lower body - Legs - Bottoms with Skin)
Angelic
Assassin
Excess
Savage

CITY OF HEROES

Faultline Redux

Faultline officials recently provided funding for reconstruction and work was underway in the first neighborhood, when major disaster struck. Due to strange seismic activity on the moon, tidal anomalies caused the Overbrook Dam to rupture flooding the zone. Additional crews have been called in to assess the Dam and shore up the rest of the zone, however, they are continually thwarted by the recent arrival of new villain groups to the area and one group, in particular, that no one expected: Arachnos. It appears Arachnos has been poking around supergroup base wreckage in Faultline for some time, searching for technology that will further Lord Recluse’s nefarious plans. Paragon Officials have called in small detachments of the Paragon Police Department and Freedom Corps, but are also asking heroes to come forward and protect the new city. [Nice. And I just toured the area for the first time tonight, so my timing is perfect. I do wonder if the plaques and stuff down-below will be raised up.]

Features of the “new” Faultline:

• Transition from Trial Zone to a City Zone (with Overbrook Dam as a Hazard area)

• Level range has been adjusted to 15 – 25 [I believe was 11-20 or something.]

• Missions have been added (see Jim Temblor in New Overbrook at the Memorial statue in the park as your initial contact)

• New Villain groups added: Arachnos, Freakshow, The Lost, Sky Raiders…and something lurking in the water.

• More plaques and badges

• Entrance to Pocket D [Thus saving you the looooooong trip across Skyway.]

• Stores, Trainer (Mirror Spirit), and a hospital have been added to Faultline

Police Band Missions

• PPD Contacts have been added to all City Zones except for Atlas Park and Galaxy City. They will be added to a Hero’s contact list as soon as they enter a zone. These contacts will direct characters to missions aiding the PPD in fighting crime in Paragon City.

• Once you talk to a PPD Contact, your contact list will have a "Police Band Tuner" added to the top of the list. Clicking this will bring up an assortment of crimes-in-progress.

• You will fight level-appropriate Villain Groups in random maps and random mission objectives. Once you have outlevelled a zone, however, you will no longer be able to get Police Band missions in that zone.

• In addition to normal missions, the PPD will give out Safeguard Missions. You get Safeguard missions after performing three to five Police Band missions. [Nice. The equivalent of Newspaper mishes.]

Safeguard Missions

• Safeguard missions allow the Hero player to enter a large outdoor mission map and defend the city from invading villains. The goal is to defeat the Villain behind the attack, preventing a bank robbery, but there are lots of other things going on, too. Safeguard missions are set up for single players and teams.

• When you enter the instance, the bank is immediately being robbed. Don’t delay in getting to the bank, or the crooks could get away with the cash, failing the mission.

• A 15 minute timer starts once the bank heist has been stopped and the mission is completed. At this point you can use the given time to secure the map, and explore and fight for additional badges and rewards. This allows the players to end the mission quickly, or hunt for additional XP and rewards if they choose.

• There are several goals and multiple side missions that can be unlocked and played once the bank robbery has been thwarted. Completing any section of goals or each side mission rewards the players with a special bonus (such as extra XP, temp powers, or unique salvage) and will add some time back to the counter. The more they complete the longer they have to try and complete more goals, so the better they do the higher their rewards. [These sound really nice.]

[So ... with the addition of Newspaper and Mayhem missions ... when do we get shared mission credit?!]

Giant Monster Spawns Increased

• The following Giant Monster Spawns have had their frequency increased; [Ho-hum]
o Kraken - Perez Park
o Babbage - Boomtown
o Jack in Irons (non-scripted, individual) - Croatoa
o Eochai (non-scripted, individual) - Croatoa
o Adamastor - Dark Astoria [Margie insists she sees this guy all the time.]
o Jurassik - Crey's Folly

Powers

• Controllers Fossilize power will now properly have ‘critical hold’ effects versus critters. This is a bug fix -- this aspect of the power already existed, but was set to always fail.

• Fixed the Short Help text on Stone Cages to properly reflect the powers usage.

Game

• Trains will now stay at station longer, there will be shorter times between trains and the doors of the trains will be clickable while the train is in the station. [Hu-freakin-zzah! Best fix in the whole frelling issue!!!]


CITY OF VILLAINS

Powers
• Many Darkness powers have a new look attached.

• Removed Double Stacked ‘Super Jump’ from Ninja Mastermind Pets.

• Added slightly increased running speed to all Mastermind pets.

• Updated the power description on Thermal Radiation.

• Arachnos Night Widow Bosses have had their Defense values slightly reduced.

• The Arachnos Arch Villain Nocturne has been rebalanced.

• Dominators will now build Domination faster depending on the size of the Team they are grouped with. Each member of the team (aside from the Dominator himself) increases the speed of Domination gain by approximately 16%. Note that this bonus does NOT apply to the existing bonus Assault powers gain in PvP. The maximum bonus to Domination will happen in a full 8 person group.

• Base Domination gain increased by 50% (to 3 points per attack up from 2 points per attack.)

Posted by Dave at 10:51 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Resources & Rules

Another War Witch interview

Here. Or, rather, Over There, since it was in Europe ...

Lots of Faultline stuff.

And "newspaper mishes" ...

Is there anything on the design side being developed or in issue 8 which you feel would attract more subscribers?

Lets see, Issue 8 we have the police band missions, which are kind of like the hero version of the newspaper missions the broker missions and obviously fault line. We have the safeguard missions which are I don’t want to say hero equivalent of mayhem missions which were all about destruction and evil whereas the safe guard missions are all about oh stop the villains from destroying paragon city property or stop them from robbing a bank. So it’s a very kind of a OOO tense way to keep the villains from getting away with what they want to get away with, to stop them from knocking over the bank or whatever. I think those will be interesting too those should be fun and of course they span the level ranges so right from the beginning you can play them and I think that will be pretty cool.

Posted by Dave at 5:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
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October 11, 2006

Fire and Ice

Posted by Dave at 6:16 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Gameplay

October 10, 2006

Faultline news

Bits and pieces from an interview with War Witch, who oversaw the design of the "upgraded" Faultline zone.

The new Faultline was War Witch's baby (yay! go WW!)

The dam area has been opened up. No surprises there...

The dam's been built up and made into a kind of a hazard area. The rest of the zone is city sized spawns. A bunch of new villain groups have been added into it - the Circle of Thorns have said 'bye bye!' and moved on! Vazhilok are still there. Level range is bumped up to 15.

It's been levelled a bit for the superspeeders' sake.

Storyline: seismic anomalies on the moon are causing problems with the tides, and Faultline ends up flooding! The water level of Faultline has been raised. Construction crews have come in and started shoring it up - there are construction elevators all over the place, so you can get from the lower areas to the higher. Catwalks too.

The zone now has missions, a hospital, a trainer and stores, and even a ('unique'!) entrance to Pocket D. There are more plaques and badges - and a special badge that War Witch snuck in, and good luck to you if you try to find it!

Arachnos has been sifting through the old Supergroup bases, looking for technology. They've been there for a while (nobody knew they were down there) and have made themselves quite comfortable.

The PPD are in Faultline, complete with DOUGHNUT SHOP and GIGANTIC DOUGHNUT. And there are some new animations (can't have doughnuts without a doughnut eating animation).

Hints dropped that something is going on with villain players in Pocket D, but nothing specific!

Interesting. And interesting about Pocket D, which makes having to have a base portal to Faultline less urgent.

Another person's parallel summary (this was all from an audio interview):

It's now a City Zone instead of Hazard Zone (entered via and underpass instead of Secure Gate)

Added new villain groups. CoT are gone, Vahz are still there. Smaller villain spawns, higher levels ~lvl 15.

The Dam area has been opened, and will be a bit harder than the rest of the zone (presumably the red part of the map) a "hazard kind of area" per War Witch.

Tried to make things more level by raising the water level (due to seismic activity) with catwalks and construction, making foot-travel easier. Cut a section of the zone out to make things fit together. (?)

There will be contacts and missions, stores, "unique" entrance to Pocket D. New plaques and badges.

Arachnos is there now, tunnelling for old deserted SG bases (apparently have been there for a while). PPD is there (and a donut shop with a giant donut on top)

Posted by Dave at 6:28 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Resources & Rules

October 9, 2006

Actually ... played!

Got on again two or three times over the weekend for some quick Torchy/Hildy action. Managed, last evening, to die three times. Rrg.

Part of that's rustiness, but part of it is simply the T/H dynamic. Psi-clone and Amorpha were an awesome team, but part of their strength in their Controller/Scrapper dynamic, was their flexibility. Both could solo. Both could duke it out with the bad guys -- A. definitely better, but PC, too, for a while, especially with a bit of prep and with the pets out.

Torchy/Hildy, not so much. A lot of what we do depends on Hildy maintaining control over the mobs, so that Torchy can blast 'em but good. If Hildy's bite me aura drops, or she drops altogether (even with her Phoenix rez), Torchy is very, very, very squishy. She has a few mitigations there, and the Epic Powers will help, too, but at the moment, she is not a melee type of girl.

So we're at 40, and what sorts of folks are we running across but Knives of Artemis (meaning Torchy is as likely to be spotted and targeted as Hildy, and Hildy's mobility to run up and grab aggro is compromised) and Malta (meaning Sappers can take down Hildy's bite-me, or very bad people with very big guns can decide to shoot Torchy, or those damned web grenades can ground her).

Hence, three deaths in two hours.

Some revised tactics are in order.

Posted by Dave at 6:34 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Character Design

October 8, 2006

Title Case

Woot! As of I8, Titles on characters ("The Valiant Victorious Torchielle") will be much more malleable.

You can change your title at any of the following levels:

15, 25, 35, and 45

At 50 you can change your title at any time.

You need to visit a trainer still to change your title and they "don't stack" (in other words, if you don't use your level 35 change, you don't have two changes when you hit level 45).

There is no Influence or Infamy cost associated with this.

Joined with the previously mentioned expanded title list, this is fine news, and makes great sense (though I would have accepted a bit of Influence/Infamy as a reasonable cost for this, if you think about it).

Now ... when will they let heroes/villains start to self-service change their names?

Posted by Dave at 8:35 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
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October 6, 2006

More veteran rewards

Next levels announced:

15 Months: Zealous: Angelic and demonic wings. Woot! Plus a costume token for each character. The angel wings look great -- the demon ones, kinda dorky. Still, nice.

18 Months: Unwavering: Samurai armor! Coolness! Various pieces. Spiffy! And a costume token for each character.

21 Months: Steadfast: Shoulder cape! Costume token! Respec!

24 Months: Devoted: Emergency base teleporter (long recharge time, interruptible) -- head back to base any time you want. Plus CoH comic book covers available as posters in your base. And ... more titles available (for the Level 15 characters).

Nice stuff.

Posted by Dave at 4:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
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October 3, 2006

The Flying Thang

Though there are new flight post/animation with I8. they're randomized each time you take off. Well, actually each time you start moving (if you stop in mid-air and start again, it randomizes). Not ideal, but it makes it doable in I8 (vs. I9).

Speaking of I9, quoth Posi:

Hey guys, a quick clarification:

The Invention System and the "Legends" System are "one in the same"...

Basically the Legends system, as it was designed, was not implemented, but out of it grew what will be known as the Invention System. The Invention System does what we wanted the Legends System to do, and a whole lot more, and lays the ground work for limitless expandability that the Legend System just didn't have.

Sounds ... interesting.

Posted by Dave at 12:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
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October 2, 2006

Astonishing news!

I actually played CoH tonight!

No, really, it's amazing to me that it's amazing to me that I actually played CoH. Probably the first time in at least a week. Did some fun missions with Hildy and Torchy (about half-way to 41), all that kinda good stuff. But ... yeah.

Fun. But I remember when it was noteworthy when I night passed that I didn't play CoH.

Posted by Dave at 11:04 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Gameplay