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November 30, 2006

COPS

Who's Who in the new cop contacts.

Posted by Dave at 10:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Resources & Rules

Feed Me!

While Jaeger (my RSS reader) is able to get feeds from the Dev Post list without a specific RSS thang (by detecting link changes), for those who need actual honest-to-Statesman RSS, you can check out here.

Posted by Dave at 10:50 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Resources & Rules

New! I8.1 (in the Testing Room)

Patch notes -- both some Gamma Test fixes and some things they were talking about coming "real soon."

 

OMBINED NOTES

Powers

• Fire Imps: Summoned Fire Imps level will now be 1 below that of their caster. For instance, if you are level 39 and cast Fire Imps, each Fire Imp will be level 38.

• Stalker and Scrapper versions of Impale have had their range reduced to 40 feet. This change is being made to bring the power more in line with Blast power sets' short range, high damage attacks. [Boo from Araware!]

• Tanker and Brute Fiery Aura: Healing Flames: Recharge reduced to 40 seconds, healing scale increased to 2.5. [Huzzah for Hildy!]

• Reduced the duration of the rooted portion of the Burn animation and normalized the duration for Male, Female, and Huge models (the Female and Huge models were ~1.25 seconds longer before you could move or attack than the Male). [Huzzah for Hildy!]

• Burn graphical effects were changed slightly.

• Radiation Blast Aim was boosting the damage of Negative Energy powers twice, while not giving any benefit to Toxic damage attacks at all, due to a duplicated entry. Both issues are now fixed.

• Added secondary effects to Enervating Field and Radiation Infection to help identify the anchor. [Yay for Peep!]

• Minor tweaks to Radiation Control power graphical effects for performance related issues.

• Jump Kick will now only play a knockback/up animation when the target is actually affected by knockback/up.

• Nemesis Staff (Veteran Reward and Temp Power) will now have the correct delay for the sound and visual FX when it is drawn and fired. [Yay!]

• Broadsword, Claws and Katana powers which debuff Defense have had a visual effect added to the debuff. [Yay!]

• Temporary Powers with Flight will no longer permanently suppress Flight Speed if you have a toggle debuff on a target.

• Tweaked all versions of Photon Seekers so they should be more responsive.

• Corrected an issue that made extra enhancement slots in Sprint and Rest disappear after a respec. [Who the hell drops enh slots in rest or Sprint?]


Tasks

• Restored bonus awards to PvP missions. However, the bonus reward can only be given to a player once every 30 minutes. Otherwise, the player will receive a standard mission reward.


Bases

• Slightly reduced footprint for arcane teleporter base items: teleporters can now be placed side by side to maximum capacity of each teleporter room

• Corrected an issue with the Arcane Force Field. It should now grant Defense to those within its area of effect.


PvP

• All members of a team now share the timer for how long after defeating an enemy before they can gain reputation for defeating that same enemy again.


Chat

• Fixed bug that disconnected players from global chat when entering a new map, until an enemy was defeated on that map. [Yay!]


Veteran Rewards

• Added text to the Long help descriptions of the Veteran Reward powers explaining that damage enhancing powers will not apply to them. [Yay!]

• Changed Short Help text for Veteran Reward Powers so they better match the Long Help descriptions.

• Turned off floater text for base details when claimed.

• Claiming Prestige Sprints should now remove the option to claim them. If you already have these sprints claimed, you may claim it one last time to get rid of it off your Veteran badge list.

• The Ghosts in Croatoa are now properly affected by the Ghost Slaying Axe Veteran Reward Power and are affected by the bonus damage versus undead. [Yay!]

• Modified the Veteran Reward powers Nemesis Staff and Blackwand. The temp powers gained through missions are unchanged.
- The Nemesis staff no longer has a Disorient function; however it will deal bonus damage in the hands of any character of the Technology, Science or Natural origins. [Yay for meaningful origins!]
- Blackwand's bonus damage is now usable by Magic, Mutant and Natural origin characters. Additionally, Blackwand has had a minor To Hit debuff added.


Game

• Emotes for /eat food and /eat donut should work a bit more consistently.

• Sit emotes should work more consistently. They should always reposition you at ground height and be interruptible by flight.

• Wings will now animate while falling. For example: running off of something and falling or turning flight off while in air and falling.

• Wings will now animate while jumping.

• Enhancements once again con based on combat level rather than security level.


Badges

• Fixed typo in Bad Luck badge.


Tailor

• Big Afro added to male and huge

• Assassin & Angelic patterns added to male & huge

• Samurai belts are now available for huge

• Skull face option now scales properly with huge

• Huge now has the option for putting chest details over trenchcoats

• Female now has the option of No Sleeves with trenchcoats.

• Fixed issue with many chest details clipping through huge characters.

• Martial Arts belts should be available when wearing a Jacket

• Epsilon, Zeta and Eta no longer repeat in the chest detail listing.


CITY OF HEROES

Powers

• Blaster Improvements:
- These changes are all aimed towards addressing sets based on feedback from players. These changes also affect Defender and Corruptor versions of these powers where applicable.
- Blaster Fire Manipulation: Ring of Fire: Increased overall damage. Damage ticks are now faster, as well. Recharge was increased to 6 seconds.
- Blaster Fire Manipulation: Fire Sword: Bonus damage increased.
- Blaster Fire Manipulation: Combustion: Bonus damage increased.
- Blaster Fire Manipulation: Fire Sword Circle: Bonus damage increased.
- Blaster Fire Blast Powerset: Bonus damage increased by 50% for all appropriate powers. [Huzzah for Torchy!]
- Blaster Fire Blast: Blaze: Increased Range to 40' [Huzzah for Torchy!]
- Assault Rifle Ignite: Increased Range to 40'
- Energy Blast Power Burst: Increased Range to 40'
- Radiation Attack Cosmic Burst: Increased Range to 40'
- Sonic Attack Shout: Increased Range to 40'
- Blaster Devices Taser: Increased Range to 20'

• Blaster Archery Fistful of Arrows: corrected an issue which could prevent the power from damaging foes.

• Blaster Archery Blazing Arrow: corrected an issue that could limit the DoT portion of the power from doing more than one tick of damage.

• Blaster Assault Rifle Flamethrower: Range increased slightly and recharge time changed so it now matches the range and recharge of the Corruptor version of this power.

• Blaster Electrical Blast Aim should now display the proper look, and match the other powers in the power set.

• Gauntlet and Aura Inherent Taunt Changes: [Damned if I can tell if these are Good or Bad -- looks like a mixed bag for Hildy and Velvet]
- All of these powers may now affect Archvillains and Giant Monsters once again. However, they must pass a 'To Hit' check at -20% for the taunt to effect these targets, even for powers such as Invincibility which are normally 'Always Hit'
- Invincibility was looking at the wrong table for it’s inherent taunt ability. It now looks at the correct table, which will bring its taunt functionality more in line with other Taunt Auras. Additionally, the Magnitude of the Taunt was increased so that it matches the other Taunt Aura powers.

• Controller Containment bonus is now identical when used on critters or players. When a damaging power is used on a character under the effects of a detrimental status effect, the damage caused will be twice the base damage. (Exception: Spectral wounds damage bonus remains lower, due to the nature of the power.)

• Controller Ancilliary Powers:
- The damage of these powers was made artificially high originally, to make them desirable. In general, the damage was set to be roughly equivalanet to that of a Blaster. When Containment was added later, this was not taken into account. As such, these powers all do roughly twice the desired damage under Containment conditions. This series of changes is aimed at bringing these powers closer to balance. [Poop. The damage from these powers always seemed low. This makes them even lamer. Lvl 40 powers should be kick-ass.]
- Earth Mastery Hurl Boulder: Base damage reduced from scale 3 to scale 1.64
- Fire Mastery: Fire Blast: Base damage reduced from scale 2 to scale 1.1
- Fire Mastery: Fire Ball: Base damage reduced from scale 1.6 to scale 1.05
- Ice Mastery: Ice Blast: Smashing damage reduced from scale 0.8 to scale 0.2, Cold damage reduced from scale 1.2 to 0.8
- Ice Mastery: Ice Storm: Removed unresistible PvP damage and added Containment.
- Primal Forces: Power Blast: Smashing damage reduced from scale 0.8 to scale 0.2, Energy damage reduced from scale 1.2 to 0.8
- Psionic Mastery: Psionic Blast: Base damage reduced from 2 to 1.
- Psionic Mastery: Psionic Tornado: Base damage reduced from 0.35 to 0.175. [Lame power now even lamer.]

• Defender Electrical Blast Charged Bolt has had the amount of endurance drained in PvP increased. There was a decimal shift error which had this aspect of the power underperforming.

• Defender Lightning Bolt has had the -recovery portion of the power reduced. It is now consistent with the rest of the powers within the powerset.

• Slightly increased the PvE Endurance Drain for Defender Electrical Blast Short Circuit to bring it in line with other versions of this power. It now drains 35% endurance if unresisted, compared to 33% previously.

• Slightly increased the PvE Endurance Drain for Defender Electrical Blast Thunderous Blast to bring it in line with other versions of this power. It now drains 55% endurance if unresisted, compared to 50% previously.

• Defender Lingering Radiation powers -Regen was operating at 1/5th the scale of the equivalent Corruptor or Controller version. The base scale now matches across all three Archetypes. [Yay for Peep!]

• Revamped the Effects for Trick Arrow/Glue Arrow. Should cause fewer frame rate errors, appear more visible, and accurately reflect the radius of the glue patch.


Powers – PvP specific:

• Blaster Energy Blast Power Push now has a portion of it's damage unresisted in PvP. Additionally, the Knockback portion of the power now follows standard suppression rules in PvP.


Emotes

• Most of the emotes that were not working properly for Kheldian Dwarf form were either modified, replaced, or disabled. Most of these changes were made to resolve issues with the Dwarf sinking into the groundplane or registration issues (i.e., shoving a hot dog into their noggin). The effect emotes include:
- Sit (and all of the new sitting poses)
- Ledgesit
- Lotus/Yoga
- Kneel
- Eat Donut/Eat Food/Drink
- Read Newspaper/Listen to Police Band
- Grief
- Batsmash


Tasks

• Fixed bug that sometimes assigned players to a mission location with no door in Atlas Park.

• Defeated Vahzilok in Faultline once again are counted properly for the Numina Task Force.


Critters

• Removed Undead status from the Infected villain group. They are diseased...not zombies!


City Zones

• Croatoa: Fixed Red Cap spawns in the zone and in missions so that Red Caps below level 35 appear again.


CITY OF VILLAINS

Powers

• Brutes attack powers will now generate Fury faster against high ranking enemies (including players in PvP)

• Traps: Poison Gas Trap should play the vomit animation on targets occasionally.

• Corruptor Bitter Freeze Ray's Scourge attributes were set up incorrectly. As a result, it did not handle Scourge in PvE properly, resulting in lower damage output. This is now fixed.

• Corruptor Dreadful Wail's Scourge was missing the Delay variable which made the Scourge damage appear before the animations were complete. This is now fixed.

• Changed the Long Help description on Lightning Rod so it no longer states you must target the ground for this power to work

• Mastermind Thug Henchmen: Some improvements made to the change in costumes when fully upgraded.


Badges

• Villains were not supposed to be able to earn the "Villain Disruptor" badge. Villains who earned this badge will have it revoked, and they will be unable to earn it any more.

Posted by Dave at 7:15 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Resources & Rules

Well, it won't overpower the game, that's for sure

One of the Vet rewards I picked up was the choice between the Undead Slaying Axe and the Sands of Mu.

Now, I could already tell you from Lynn (who was lucky enough to get stuck with the SoM while temp powers were "stuck" on) that SoM isn't a game-breaker. It can't be buffed (at least not enhanced), so it misses a lot more often than Shadow Maul -- and that whiff-whiff-whiff effect can be maddening. That said, I found it a worthwhile addition to the attack chain.

(In fact, when I signed in briefly yesterday with Lynn to run a mission, I went ahead and took it for her -- and realized I had an hour and a half left of my actual temp one, which means she now has two instances of SoM. To add to the amusment, her mission was the Nemmy Staff one, so she now has that, too.)

I decided, for character purpose, to go with the Axe for Unchained Path. I was disappointed to discover, after the fact, that I don't get any Containment bonus with it -- but it's still a decent Lethal attack. Similarly prone to missing.

One place where these extra weapons will be nice is with new characters. On a whim, I built Clark Bronze, a Doc Savage knock-off (he looks pretty good with his ragged martial arts robe a must). Fun to find out that, yeah, SoM is available for Level 1 characters, which instantly adds to the attack chain for them. Nice.

At any rate, they are nice little add-ons, but are completely optional -- they don't turn the game upside down, but they give a little something to the character. Which is exactly what the Vet Rewards are supposed to be about.

And, by the bye, (Wings + Kheldian = Fun Angelic Powers). That's what Kheldiel says, at least.


Posted by Dave at 8:45 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Character Design

Look for a mission door with a large obsidian door knocker

I was tickled to get a police band mission last night to rescue a woman named "Betty Jo Bialovski" (though the newspaper called her "Nancy") from the CoT, who had presumably kidnapped her because she possessed the cursed gemstone, the "Third Eye of Danger."

Mal (as I knew he would be) was greatly amused.

Fine stuff.


Posted by Dave at 6:55 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Resources & Rules

November 29, 2006

Sartorial observation

Um, when I was thinking trenchcoats, I was thinking Sam Spade. Or John Constantine. I really wasn't thinking Neo.

"Butt Capes." An apt term.


Posted by Dave at 5:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Character Design

Pondering Ice/Kin

So I chose Ice/Kin for Unchained Path after reading a very persuasive guide as to how it was a really keen Controller combo -- synergizing to turn the opponents into slow-motion old men while you and your team are whizzy, quick-charging juggernauts.

Main problem I have, as I lay out plans for her in CoH Character Builder, is that there are too many great powers in both Pools that I want to take -- not to mention the various Auxiliary Pools (and EPPs) that would be of value>

I'm not going to post my plans here, because that would just be silly until I get a better feel for the character. But my main concern was over the idea of what travel power to take. All the Kinetics guides, of course, tell you that you don't need a travel power for Kin -- Siphon Speed gives you Super Speed abilities and Inertial Reduction gives you Super Jump. If you want something, they all say, go with Super Speed so that you can couple it with Stealth.

But ... I like Fly ...

In the end, what decided me to go with the Travel Powerless approach was Margie noting three things:

  1. IR does give you SJ-like abilities (albeit at level 28).
  2. Safeguard Missions should (if like the CoV counterpart) will provide some temp travel powers, for those awkward moments when Siphon Speed wears off and there's nothing but +3 Purples around.
  3. I can always Respec if things aren't working well.

Right. Let's see how it goes.


Posted by Dave at 3:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Character Design

New Toons

Been a while since I did an in-game screen cap -- but also been a while since we built new characters, as were awaiting I8.

Presenting Idzuna (the white fox oni) and Unchained Path (the pilgrim on the road to entropy). Idzuna's a Katana/Dark scrapper, UP's an Ice/Kin controller. Together, they Fight Crime!

And, at least up through Level 6, they Kick Butt, too. Love the Scrapper/Controller combo ... though by no means will we be abandoning Hildy/Torchy!

But allow me to say that I8 was worth the wait just to get shared mission credit in Outbreak. Glee!


Posted by Dave at 5:47 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Character Design , Gameplay

November 28, 2006

Official I8 Patch Notes

From the official list:

 

11.28.06

Issue 8: To Protect and Serve

Headlines

Veteran Rewards: Now players will receive rewards for the time spent playing the game. New costume pieces, badges, powers, pets and more! Something new every 3 months!

Police Band and Safeguard Missions: Calling all Heroes! Bank Robberies, Sewer Bombings, Jail Breakouts and more villainous attacks are in progress! Monitor the police scanner and come to the rescue to thwart these diabolical schemes!

Fautlline: Rebuilding of ruined sections of Paragon City has been a long time goal for the city. The old Overbrook area, known today as Faultline, has made significant restoration progress. However, crime and crisis plague the area, requiring the vigilance of the cities’ Heroes.

COMBINED NOTES

Veteran Rewards

New powers are available across Paragon City and the Rogue Isles: Veteran Rewards! Now, as your account accrues time, in 3 month intervals, your characters will gain access to all new badges, abilities, costume pieces and more! For complete details please visit the Official City of Heroes or City of Villains web site:

http://www.cityofheroes.com/community/veteranrewards.html

Additionally, you can now visit PlayNC.com’s Account Management Page https://secure.plaync.com/cgi-bin/plaync_manage.pl to view details of your account and a listing of which Veteran Rewards are available to it!

Updater

Pocket D Changes


Powers


Tailor

Titles

Bases

Tasks

Titles

List of new or 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


Changes specific to 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.

Features of the “new” Faultline:


Police Band Missions
Paragon Police Department 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.

In addition to normal missions, the PPD will give out Safeguard Missions. You get Safeguard missions after performing three to five Police Band missions.



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.



Giant Monster Spawns Increased

Tasks

City Zones

Powers


Game


Changes specific to CITY OF VILLAINS

City Zones

Powers

Dominators


Tasks


Posted by Dave at 6:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Resources & Rules

I8 notes ...

Haven't even downloaded yet, but a few notes showing up on the boards:

  1. There will be a freespec (apart from the Vet Rewards ones) with I8. No details as to justification. Hard to complain, but I hate to see the whiners win ... though I'm sure they'll be busy bitching that (a) it won't be this week, and (b) it won't stack with other freespecs from previous issues.
  2. Global Chat is "borked" again -- vanishes when you zone (maybe) or enter a mission or a base, returns after a period of time (or after the first kill).
  3. I9-11 are scheduled for 2007 ... subject to change, of course.

More to follow ...


Posted by Dave at 1:52 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Resources & Rules

I am informed by a reliable source ...

... that I8 is up and patches are downloading.

Posted by Dave at 11:31 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Resources & Rules

November 27, 2006

Glee!

Quoth Cricket:

On 11/28/06 our regular server maintenance window will be extended to prepare for the launch of Issue 8: To Protect and Serve. Normally our downtime is reserved from 8AM CST to 10AM CST. Although we will restore the servers as soon as possible please note that this maintenance could take an additional two hours to complete. More information will be posted as it becomes available.


Posted by Dave at 9:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Resources & Rules

Ding-dong

Hit 46 with Torchy and Hildy last night. Still dying when things go pear-shaped (read: when the bad guys spend too much time focused on me), but ... well, next level I take Rise of the Phoenix and start dishing it back ...

Posted by Dave at 9:24 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Character Design

November 23, 2006

Yes, and they're not giving away ponies, either

Quoth Lighthouse (emphasis mine):

It is true that there are no free character respecs with Issue 8. However, Veteran players who have played over 9 months will receive one free one per character that way, and Veteran players with 21 months (1 year, 9 months) will receive a second free one per character.

Everyone will be receiving a free respec in an update that will follow Issue 8. Castle talked about some of the changes included in this coming update on the blaster forums a bit here where he talked about some buffs to some blaster stuff. Because there will be these, and other, power changes, it will warrant a free respec for everyone.

So, we understand that everyone likes free respecs, but please understand that we only give them out when there are changes to powers that might lead people to want to change their builds because of those changes.

This isn't stopping people from complaining that they aren't getting freespecs every other Friday, or that the ones that are coming with VR will (gasp!) require you to actually go someplace to get it, and they aren't giving away any plastic rocket ships or ponies, either! DOOOM!


Posted by Dave at 8:58 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Resources & Rules

November 21, 2006

It's coming ...

Quoth Lighthouse (emphasis mine):

We want to thank everyone for their continued testing efforts on the Training Room server.

Issue 8 is in it's final stages of testing. We've recently made a couple tweaks which we feel has properly prepared Issue 8 for a post-Thanksgiving Launch. We really appreciate everyone’s patience with the testing process as we work to ensure a smooth release.

Which immediately drew the standard collection of "Thanks!" and (of course) "OMG No I8 4 TGvg Weekend DOOOM sad cry They Should've Told Us 2 Weeks Ago DOOOOOM Devs Lied Players Cried!"


Posted by Dave at 1:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Resources & Rules

November 16, 2006

Boom and Quiet

Torchy and Hildy dinged 45 a couple of days ago -- and are already well on their way to 46. Having fun, though we ran into an Elite Paragon Protector the other day who was also a Fire blaster -- and demonstrated to Torchy that booms hurt on the receiving end.

Our playtime (and blogtime) over the next week-plus will be a bit constrained, I expect -- family coming to visit, a small mini-vacation, holidays, etc., all combining to reduce our time at the keyboards. Which, of course, will probably mean we miss the I8 roll-out (or only get a little time with it in the short term). Ah, well.


Posted by Dave at 8:27 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Gameplay

November 14, 2006

Torchielle and Hildy to get some Dev Love?

Quoth Castle on the subject of (gasp) Blaster improvements:

In an upcoming patch, here are a few things you'll see:
Increased Maximum ranges for attacks like Blaze.
Some improvements for */Fire (No, no powers were switched out. No Fiery Embrace, I'm afraid. )
Some improvements for Fire/*
A very minor improvement for Gadgets...I mean, Devices! (Yeah, it was a dumb mistake -- typing in haste and all of that.)

Okay, so Last Ice Dragon will like the Devices boost. The rest -- boo-yah! Blaze's range is the biggest danger Torchy has; even with an SO Range Increase in it, she still has to run up and practically kiss the mobs to use it. And if it's "attacks like Blaze" -- maybe Fiery Breath will get a boost, too! Woot!


Posted by Dave at 1:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Resources & Rules

November 13, 2006

Dev stuff and Test stuff

Huge slew of messages over the weekend. A few notes:

  1. No freespec with I8 ... except, of course, the Vet Rewards will give you some. Except some folks think it's too much of a bother to have to go to Galaxy to cash one in. Interestingly, the Vet respecs don't override other saved respecs (a change from earlier Test)
  2. The devs are evil because tails are only half-length when you're wearing a trenchcoat and that just, y'know, ruins it. Really.
  3. Faultline Reborn! (Green Line access coming in I9. Or, rather, Green Line access to Skyway, right next to the entrance.)

And, for those who (cough) missed it: the latest patch notes on Test (which tie into some of the above):

 

COMBINED NOTES

Powers
• Changed more power effects to decrease reported frame rate loss.
Affected powers: Storm Summoning/Steamy Mist, Radiation Blast/Irradiate, Umbral Blast/Dark Extraction, Dark Armor/Oppressive Gloom, Superspeed, Trick Arrow/Flash Arrows

Veteran Rewards
• Updated the description of Base Item Claim badges to indicate that these rewards can be claimed more than once.
• Using a Veteran respec no longer removes all other saved respecs.
• You can now add Enhancement Slots to the Veteran Prestige sprints when you respec

Tailor
• Oriental Warrior armor pieces renamed to Onomichi Warrior
• Characters can have tails and wear trenchcoats at the same time
• Changed Veteran Arachnos chest to be different from the one awarded to players earlier
• Several new costume pieces added

Bases
• Tech teleporters in bases work again
• Players should no longer be getting needlessly kicked from bases.

Game
• Improved game stability

CITY OF HEROES
Tailor
• Players with only Hero access can use the Elf Ear, Imp Ear, Fairy ear, Demon Ear, and Vampire Ear costume selections.

CITY OF VILLAINS
• none


Posted by Dave at 6:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Resources & Rules

November 9, 2006

Is that a veteran reward in your hand, or are you just happy to see me?

The 33-Month Veteran Reward gives you a choice between a permanent Nemmy Staff and Blackwand.

What's the dif?

Someone on the boards wrote:

The Blackwand will deal extra damage for users of Magic Origins. Assuming both these items are on par with Sands of Mu, the Blackwand in the hands of a Magic user might be dealing some tremendous damage.

Granted, this power won't probably be very good in the late game, but it would definitely rock in the early game.

To which Castle replied:

Since this is going to come up a lot, here's my thoughts on the trade off:

If you are Magic Origin, it's a tough choice. Blackwand will do more damage than the Nemesis Staff, and it's Negative Energy damage, rather than Smashing. On the other hand, the Nemesis Staff has a pretty good Disorient and Knockback, so offers better control.

If you are not magic origin, Blackwand does exactly the same damage as the Nemesis Staff, but has no secodary effect. Additionally, the Nemesis Staff has a 25% greater range, but costs more endurance per use.

And, of course, Blackwand is a Great Weap-- oh, wait, already told that joke.

Now, evidently there's all sorts of other debate about Sands of Mu and the Undead Axe, but I haven't seen any red name comments.


Posted by Dave at 1:39 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Resources & Rules

November 8, 2006

Well-strung quartet

Hail and well met to both T'lauro and Shock.Therapy, who went along with Hildy and Torchy on the first half of the final push of the first Praetorian arc (Wildcat and Shadowhunter). There's a reason we don't duo AVs (dropping to Heroic to make them EBs), but with those two in support, we pulled it off with only a few deaths.

Which put us, when all was said and done, about 2/3 of the way to 45.

A very fun evening. Thanks, guys!

Note to selves: Remember what's recently been noted about AVs, i.e., Gauntlet doesn't actually taunt them. I.e., the tank had damn well better use Taunt to keep them off the associated high-damaging squishies ...


Posted by Dave at 10:30 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Gameplay

More Wings!

BD posts a link to a YouTube video of various wing styles -- including Angel, Demon, Bat, Insect, Fairy, Burned, Cherub, and Dragon.

Yow!

There's a a YouTube video of various wing styles here about the video. Very hush-hush. No words on when (I9?) or in what fashion the added styles will be created (part of the Invention system?). Cool stuff, though.

One thing that the pics in the previous post don't show is how nice the animation on these things are. It varies depending on one's motion (still, up, down, landing, forward, back, etc.). Really nice.

(Ah ... reference here from Positron: "Wings are actually part of a system that is due in Issue 9, but we decided to “tease” them in Issue 8 by giving out Feather and Demon-style wings as part of the Veteran Reward system.")


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November 7, 2006

Wings!

So Margie hopped onto the Training Room this afternoon.


 

First off, Kazima, with the Angel Wings she should have always had. Fabulous in actual flight and movement. These are just damned spiffy! I so want to see Margie run this character again.


 

Secondly, another test character, this one with Demon Wings and various pieces of Oriental Armor (another Vet reward, with various sorts and which show up in various odd places in the costume designer). I have some serious thoughts about the bat wings, but they're not nearly as cool as the angel ones.

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Veteranaria

Veteran Rewards are up on Test.

And ...

Adding the supporting systems to PlayNC.com and Veteran Rewards to the Training Room is the last major step toward finalizing Issue 8 to move to the Live servers. Barring any major issues that come up from play testing, we plan to bring Issue 8 to the live servers with enough lead time so that we will be in a good position to make any adjustments to it prior to the US Thanksgiving holiday (Nov. 23rd). After all, more than a few of us are looking forward to playing Issue 8: To Protect and Serve over the holiday!


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November 6, 2006

Four-four, good buddy

Dinged 44 with both Hildy and Torchy over the weekend, wrapping up a couple of arcs (Indigo's Malta, Countess Crey) and making substantial progress through Tina's first Praetorian arc.

Had one odd mish where we rescued a Traditionalist (or some such) named Rikti, who thanked us, then promptly died (having been gravely wounded by a Warhulk exploding next to him). The mission seemed to be confused at that point, suggesting we once again needed to rescue the Rikti, even though he was dead and faded out.

So we got to make good use of the "cancel this mission and give us credit" button. Yay!

For 44, Hildy took another Big Attack. Torchy took Fire Shield (so that now she can make annoying whooshing sounds wherever she goes, just like Hildy).


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November 3, 2006

Statesman Speaks

Interview here with Jack Emmert on MMO design. A couple of interesting article quotes:

What might surprise new entrants of the game development industry is that these failures and successes rely in some part on trial and error. “Research, to be honest— we don’t use it in the commercial industry. I wouldn’t even know where to look for it,” says Emmert. But he does know that “ownership is key. Make players own stuff. That way, they’re not going to own you.”

Another way to improve the chances of creating a successful massively multiplayer titles is to use groups. “Grouping is absolutely vital in an MMP,” Emmert says. “If people are playing online and they meet friends, then they are going to play. I have no other evidence of this other than the exit surveys in City of Heroes. “We want to keep people playing. What are the mechanisms MMPs have used to keep people playing?” Some of these mechanisms, from Emmert’s point of view, are not only grouping, but also classifying player types, such as fighter, mage, thief, and cleric. The designers then need to find a purpose for those player types, which gives them reason to rely on other player types for other purposes.

“You cannot play Everquest alone,” says Emmert of one example. “You have to find other people online. The [enemies] are so tough that no one person can do it. And in fact, you have to get just the right players” to move forward. And while some may questions the true strength of player grouping in games, enough MMOs have succeeded due to the very nature of their grouping that the trend cannot be ignored.

Lots of other good stuff on grouping, too.

Emmert realized, in developing City of Heroes that there is a deeply rooted fear in most people of, essentially, grouping with strangers. He asks by example do you know your neighbors well enough to have them over to dinner? Do you know and trust your neighbors well enough to let them take care of your children. These rhetorical questions beg yet another question about irrational fears, namely, if the odds are absurdly low that we should be wary of our neighbors, why do many people still not know or trust them?

“We need to develop mechanisms that circumvent this fear that we have. In City of Heroes, we used a few classic mechanisms,” the primary one being “sidekicks,” Emmert says. Using sidekicks, partners in the game play alongside each other and advance to new levels together, so friends playing together can stay together. Emmert notes how the use of sidekicks helped Cryptic Studios maintain a 90 percent conversion rate when their players’ free trials expired. This design choice, he says, was intentional, and is one that serious game makers can learn from.

“The other thing we did was create super groups,” says Emmert, “large amounts of people willing to cooperate,” otherwise known as guilds in other MMO games. “Super groups are purely a social mechanism that allow people to have a chat chain and that’s about it.”

But the grouping can't be forced. And a lot of the individual stuff is even more important.

Emmert highlights other facets of the game that players appreciate, such as costume creation and player creation. He also notes that groups often used their costumes to show group identity rather than individuality, illustrating that some of the best team-building, again, originates from the players themselves.

But not all the game design put in place in City of Heroes and City of Villains worked out for the best. For example, “Players don’t ever want to be in a situation when they’re forced to group,” Emmert says. Another example is a facet created by the game designers, that, according to Emmert, were “probably the best designed game element ever.

“We spent more time developing [bases] than any other feature in City of Heroes or City of Villains,” he says. Although bases are built by a team, Emmert and his team viewed them as being “incredibly, incredibly individual” because each piece of the base is designed and added by individuals.

“What happened was players hated it. It’s the most underused facet of the game. It received almost no coverage in the press. And there’s nothing like it in any other MMP.” Emmert’s hypothesis is that “people don’t like contributing money to a group to express individuality. ... At its heart, these MMPs are individual game experiences in front of a computer terminal.”

That led to a bunch of discussion on the boards, prompting States to actually comment on it.

Let's take a look at costume creation. It's been embraced beyond belief by players...we have in game costume contests and events organized by you the players...Some say it's the best part of the game. The single most requested item in CoH is to make the costume creator standalone...

Intestingly, costumes have no gameplay value. They don't boost damage. They don't boost resistance. They don't boost defense. They're only for show.

Now, let's take a look at bases. Take away the teleporters, take away anything game related.

As just a resource for expressing something unique, base creation is on par tech wise with costume creation. Admittedly, there's not quite the same amount of textures, colors, etc., but there's still a lot of versatility. And the layout possibilities are endless.

But what's clear from this thread - and from many, many posts - is that bases are "too expensive". To me, that's interesting (as it is to the Serious Games crowd). Costume changes come with a minimal cost that no one really complains about, but we complain about the costs of bases. Evidently, the costs exceed the perceived value of creating one's own HQ (btw, I confess that many other games have the notion of personal property, but aside from Second Life, I don't think they offer as much customizability as our bases).

Let's turn to the idea of an architect. We foresaw that some people would feel alienated if they weren't the architect. That's why some things (Personal Items) can be "crafted" by individuals and placed in the base. But even if there's an architect: many super groups have a member who designed a single costume which all then use. In other words, they're more than willing to accept someone else's opinion in the group identity for their avatar appearance. Again, the primary difference is cost (I think).

That's what the point of the talk was. I completely agree with many of the suggestions raised in the Base Construction forum, as well as one's mentioned here, would improve Bases to some degree or another. Posi and I go through them at length; really, it's just a question of time & resources. Some things would take astronomically long to do - or perhaps there's something else even more requested or popular.

Interesting stuff. Honestly, the whole base thing has never been nearly as interesting to me as I suspect the devs intended -- if base entry simply changed into a "where do you want to teleport to?" I would have very few regrets.

But costumes? Yeah, they rock.


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November 1, 2006

Anniversary Time

It's the first anniversary of CoV (who'da thunk?). Some interesting notes from the new community rep, Lighthouse:

I know there has been some confusion regarding the 1 year anniversary badge for City of Villains. This badge will be given out to everyone logging into the game from November 2nd, when the Trick or Treating Halloween event ends, through the end of November. I understand there was a brief time this morning (Nov. 1) when the badge was turned on, but given that handing out the badge can't be on with the Trick or Treating on, and we wanted to give the full time we had posted for Trick or Treaters to get their last minute turn-ins and badges through the end of November 1st, we had to turn the badge off. To reiterate, everyone logging in from the end of Trick or Treating through the end of November will be receiving the City of Villains Anniversary badge.

Also, to clarify further, both Heroes and Villains will receive the 1 year anniversary CoV badge when they log in under the above mentioned time period.

Interresting that heroes are getting it, too.

And someone caught something interesting in the above:

Wait. What? I thought the contacts for turning these in were supposed to remain up after the event? Are Anna and Granny going to disappear tonight as well?

It is my understanding that the contacts will be going away when the event is turned off. However, they will be back full time when issue 8 goes to the live servers.

So in case you haven't turned in that salvage yet ...

 

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