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City of Heroes: Issue 9 Update Article
PC MMO Article by Kieron Gillen
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We haven't talked about City of Heroes for a while now. Even with an MMO in development stasis, that leaves whole stories untold. If you don't change the game, the players and their interactions alter. But when we're talking about a living game, which is expanding the content and providing new skills for players to experiment with, there's a whole story being left untold.
So, just shy of a year since our last visit, with their latest update ("Issue") now live, this seems as good a time as any to dust off the spandex and reintroduce the fist of justice to the malevolent mobs of Paragon City.
There are changes. I notice the first one immediately, coo at it for a few seconds, then call up an AIM window to tell John Walker about it.
He takes a break from getting a bit teary over the end of Dreamfall and working out how he is going to maintain his position as World's Worst Healer to enthusiastically beg confirmation from me. Twice. And one of them was in capitals.
I tell him that, yes, it is true.
You can't be that smart if you go out without your skull on.
"OMG!" he yelps in text form.
"YES" I confirm.
"OMG!" he repeats breathlessly.
(It's worth noting that Eurogamer writers can type breathlessly. We're so unfit, it genuinely does tire us out.)
What probably says more about the parts of our mentalities to which City of Heroes appeals, though, is the stuff that didn't provoke yelping.
For example, girlish squeals didn't incarnate thanks to the biggest update in Issue 9 of City of Heroes, and probably the most significant addition since the introduction of Player Versus Combat in Issue 4 (in fact, for players who've never wandered into the City of Heroes/Villains confrontations, arguably this more significant). It's the salvage system.
A traditional weak-spot of City of Heroes is the lack of a fully developed equipment system, instead having "enhancements" which are applied to individual powers to give percentage bonuses. Oh, and you can get other temporary powers, which count as their own slots. It's not exactly a coherent system, and the game only got away with it because superheroes aren't exactly the sort of people who go worrying about getting better equipment. Green Lantern doesn't go dumping his power ring every ten minutes, after all.
Sell your stuff here. Or something.
However, the new system is based around something suitably superheroey. That is, Inventions. Opponents can drop scrap and recipes. Get the bits of scrap listed on the recipe (exactly the sort of esoteric experimental gubbins that you imagine scatters superheroic battlegrounds post-battle) and you can combine them into whatever the recipe states. This can be enhancements, temporary powers or new bits of costume (and you know how costume-conscious the average metahuman is). Rarer recipes allow increasingly fancy results, including enhancements that boost multiple aspects of powers and bits of costume which are very fancy indeed. Finally, City of Heroes has something akin to crafting. While it's causing economic chaos as everyone trades for desirable items, it's probably overdue. [Hang on. "Superheroey"? -Ed]
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Comments: 1-23 of 23 in total
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You can get it from http://uk.cityofheroes.com/buynow/
I was most unimpressed that all you were squeeking about was salvage - that's been there for a while now and isn't as exciting as you seem to think. |
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It looks like you can buy the game online from http://www.plaync.com but I can't tell if they give you a download code or mail the box to you.
Wherever you buy from, the Good vs Evil pack comes recommended. As for the update itself, it's really given the game a shot in the arm. The only downside I see is that the market is still to settle down - many costume recipes are still selling for silly money. It's nice if you're lucky, as getting certain drops can bankroll a character for most of their time to 50, but if you want something and can't get the drop you're looking for it can be annoying. I'm looking forward to the goldrush calming down. Fortunately, since using the market is not *vital* to progression, that's not stopping anyone from levelling. |
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I'd like to add in my defence that I'd just been reading I Can Has Cheezburger? for about three hours, and had no other form of speech available to me.
http://icanhascheezburger.com/ |
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I thoroughly enjoyed my EG 2 week trial, having not played for over a year, and I was able to level an old character from 26 to 36. But it's still grind grind grind, kill kill kill, and at the end of it, 2 weeks was enough...
I came to the conclusion that whilst I love the concept of MMOs, particularly the social aspect, the monthly fees make you feel like you need to justify the regular outlay by sinking loads of time into them, which is ultimately incompatible with a healthy lifestyle. |
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optimusprym8
06/06/07 @ 10:09
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I think you get 30 days for free once installed and registered IIRC when you buy the box
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hmm, I really liked that there was none of this "random phat lewt" stuff in CoX, besides the enhancements (or what are these "potions" called again?)
obviously, it adds "depth" to a game that's otherwise rather one-dimensional (1D is a good thing is all you want is to create and play a - or different - superheroes, although the slow levelling kinda kills that aspiration IMO) so this would prolly be a good thing, a breath of fresh air but it also adds that random element to the game I totally loathe in MMOs. Some folks get lucky and get all the nice and sought-after stuff, other people can try for their life and not get the drop they want, let alone the stuff that would sell well not to mention this adds incentive for people to buy ingame currency... |
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If I remember correctly the big value, highly sought after drops only occur once your character is above a certain level...or was it the enemies over a certain level? Anyway, I guess it was introduced to prevent people having blinding luck at level 4 and then just sitting on a pile of influence as someone mentioned.
Also: the levelling wasn't really that slow on COH...at least not in my two week trial. Just needed to get into a team of the same level and do a recently given mission. Doing that I went from lev 13-15 in under an hour and a half...then found out all my enchancments were obsolete and ran out of influence trying to buy/create new ones. Bah.
Edited 1 times,
most recently on 06/06/07 @ 16:59
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WJF: While there are plenty of high-priced drops in the higher levels, the playerbase has actually calculated (based on numbers from the devs) that the best chance to get the really valuable items (costume piece recipes, especially wings) is from enemies in the 10-14 range. (second place is the 40-50 range)
And the new Inventions should sort out the problem with your enhancements turning red, as they never expire. As for the exp grind, it can get bad from level 35-40. (the original highest level in the game) The exp curve actually smooths out after that so once you get over that hurdle you're sorted. |
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I had a go at the recent 3rd anniversary demo and reactivated my old characters for a fortnight.
Honestly, the game seemed pretty dead, and the interface for creating and managing salvage, recipes and inventions was pretty godawful. If they add something a bit more like a traditional inventory (the salvage screen isn't good enough) and a more useful, readable, manageable interface to the whole thing, yeah it'd be cool. Also no complaints at all about the inventions themselves, because they're brilliant, if a tad overpowered. Still a great game, I guess, but I'm going to wait a few more weeks to see if they do anything with the interface before I consider sinking any more time/money into it. |
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Alien Love Gardener
07/06/07 @ 03:56
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"I'd like to add in my defence that I'd just been reading I Can Has Cheezburger? for about three hours, and had no other form of speech available to me."
Ah, the trying life of a freelance games journalist. :D |
Comments: 1-23 of 23 in total
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