Category: City of Heroes/Villains

[City of Heroes] Just a quick link for you: City of Heroes emotes.

I think it’s pretty cool. Personally, I still miss *teapot* from Asheron’s Call.

Zubon gestures, “I’m a little teapot!”

: Zubon

[City of Heroes] Issue 7 is taking a little longer than expected. The ninth teaser for it is out (Hero version). Past issues have had two teasers before things went on patch, while this one has had more than two months of teasers. So the heroes are perhaps a bit restless. I do not think the PR team was expecting to need that many teasers, as they have gone as far as showing off new walls and listing every power in the new power pools and the patrol pools (oh, and getting a patron was its own update), which would be a bit more exciting if most of the powers were not recycled, sometimes with new graphics.

I am still looking forward to Mayhem Missions in Issue 7. As I said a couple of months ago, those are what I was looking for in CoV. Just six months after release, they are on the horizon. There is a trailer video out, which uses the Mayhem Missions to show off the new costume bits, powers, and NPC hero groups, as well as the detonation of pedestrians and objects.

Continue reading No Seriously, Does City of Heroes Have Issues?

[City of Villains] I mentioned recently that our SG made a few Brutes to rampage through low-level content. Since most of our members are playing less until Issue 7, I have been playing the Brute a bit, soloing and in pickup groups.

It has been a blast. And now, some comments on playing a Brute.

Continue reading Nasty, Brutish, and Short

[City of Heroes] In Paragon City, we do not kill our foes. We arrest them. With assault rifles, trip mines, and fiery blasts. Yep.

: Zubon

[City of Heroes] I really like making level 6 characters. It is a great way to spend an evening. If you have not played City of Heroes, get a few friends and a few trial codes and give it a shot.

Get a team of three or four people together on Teamspeak or Ventrilo. You can get to level 5 or 6 in a couple of hours. Fire up Heroes or Villains, and each of you design whatever character you like. Almost all of them work well together. My SG has had fun making the same sort of character to try out, so one night we had three Fire/Fire Brutes and a Dark/Dark Brute rambling around.

Do your first contact worth of missions. Play, run, crash, whatever. You will get to level 5 or 6. In that time, there is no death penalty. You start out with two powers and will get to pick three more that night. You will level 5 times in a single evening and go through a small story or two in the missions. You will not need to worry about when folks will be on, what levels everyone is, or anything else that creates problems in forming teams: you are all the same level, and you need not see those characters after that night. You get to try something new. No grinding, no worries, just a bit of very fast play with lots of instant gratification.

And if you find that you really like one of them, congrats, you have someone new to take to higher levels. Try it out a few times, and you and all your friends will have some level 6 characters on that server. Now you can all decide what to play and try some of the other content together.

: Zubon

[City of Heroes] Just for the record, if the level cap for City of Heroes/Villains ever rises from 50, I am quitting and never coming back. WoW is about to raise its cap, and the idea sees occasional play with respect to CoX.

Two reasons: first, I will feel obliged to level my 50s to 60. My original level 50 is my “do everything” character, so I will naturally send her through everything I can and get all the badges available. Even if I enjoy it, it would be fairly grindy to do that with multiple characters. Why do I need to do that? Besides the natural feeling of wanting to “beat the game,” enough of my friends would feel that desire such that I would either grind towards the new level cap or need new friends for a good while.

Second, I have done a lot of Hamidon raids. Enhancements are only effective for a few levels after you get them, which means every one would be worthless by level 60. I like not worrying about loot in City of Heroes; the once-a-week Hamidon raid fulfills all my needs in that respect. If I am going to throw all that away, I might as well toss the rest of the game with it. Those of you raiding to get equipment to be able to do the next raid to…? That is not a game I am playing.

More things to do at 50? Fine and good. More levels past it? I’m out.

: Zubon

[City of Villains] Following the success of the world’s first widely accepted comic based MMO; City of Heroes, the brains at NCsoft began design on a companion product to allow roles of a more malicious nature. The surprise regarding this obvious progression of the universe is concerning the independent nature of the product. City of Villains is designed and marketed as an autonomous entity, free of all dependences to its predecessor.

While the above statement is true it is also an expected assumption of players in both games to assume it is a shared world, through parallel style, game play, design, account fees, and all around structure. It would not be too much to say it is simply a modified template positioned atop a singular foundation.

Continue reading Segregation

[City of Villains] The launch of City of Villains was Issue 6, with little on the heroes side (except the overlap PvP content). Issue 7 is coming, again mostly villains stuff. Luckily, most of my supergroup has City of Villains, so everyone has been on. Until recently.

We are now at that point when everyone is bored and will be logging on a couple hours a week until the new patch is on test. At first it is a few people. There are fewer people to group with from the SG, so a few more wander off. Next, you are soloing or in pick-up groups for a month, so maybe you join them in the logged-off state. Hmm, I can check out a new game for a while…

Of course, for me, that has meant more time badge-whoring on my old main and playing Kingdom of Loathing. Guys, come back! We miss you! Issue 7 is coming, really!

: Zubon

[City of Villains] All Masterminds: please follow THIS LINK. Do what it says and use it consistently. Practice a bit solo so that you are comfortable with the controls when we group together.

What am I linking to? This lets you control all your pets from the numperpad. Want them all in passive mode, only attacking the one target you tell them to then going back to passive? That’s three keystrokes. Getting them out of the doorway so the rest of the team can get through? One stroke and a click. Spread out to avoid AoE attacks? You can send each of your three types of pets in a different direction.

If you have buffs and are not using the number keys, you are making things too hard on yourself.

Continue reading Binds for Masterminds (and buffers/healers)

[City of Heroes] I am the only married member of our supergroup online. As far as I know, the guys laughing on Teamspeak as they enjoy PvP have no significant others at all. I do not know which is the cause and which is the effect. At any rate, we do not have enough people together for the Tuesday Night Strike Force. Oh well.

Romance at my house: we are going to eat dessert and watch Serenity, with the comment track going this time! Ah, love!

: Zubon