The City is Back!

Only if you've been under a rock for all this time, the City of Heroes and Villains is back! In rogue form...

If you want to read the back story on how it all happened, take a gander a MassivelyOP: 

https://massivelyop.com/2019/04/18/whats-going-on-with-city-of-heroes-now-this-game-is-a-unicorn/

I think it pretty much all started with a video of some disgruntled dude showing footage of a secret server and then everyone losing their shit about how some people/groups kept it secret for so long while outwardly making a show of other efforts publicly. 

I can see both sides of the story, but honestly? The game is back and I really don't care about the drama. I just really hope NCSoft isn't a big asshole about it and that it doesn't go away any time soon. Either way, the codebase is out in the wild now, so they will have to make a lot of efforts to shut down and keep shutting down private servers and they won't be able to get them all. 

Anyways, if you are looking for instructions on how to get on, here you go: 

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/index.php/topic,950.0.html

I haven't really been able to play much when it launched because it was going right into my busy season at work (60-70 hour work weeks) so I didn't have time for anything. Not to mention, I am learning to program and may be considering a coding bootcamp in a few months so am preparing for it (or at the very least, trying really hard to teach myself and change careers so I don't have to pay all that money for a bootcamp). 

This past weekend, I was finally able to play for more than an hour! 

When the game was live, I stopped playing right around the time the game went free-to-play and only poked around in the servers occasionally after that, but didn't stay very long. Lots have changed and it was a bit rough trying to remember the UI or how to do stuff, but some of the muscle memory actually came back. Oh boy!

And yes, I did reference the If the City Came Back post I wrote a couple of years ago. Obviously, some of my sentiments have changed. 

So far, the only complete full remake is Zetsumei (Nin/Poison MM) with her costume, powers and everything. She is just such a great solo character and concept that I couldn't picture her as anything else. I also made a new Annzilla (new power combo Bio/Fire, seems to fit better conceptually), Paradoxic (new powers of DA/Psi Tank, Psi is really great so far), Ann (Elec/SD Brute, is basically Zazza, just really love playing this set), Zazza (to Rad/SD Brute), Infernadoll (Fire/DM Corruptor, basically is Vixona). 

So far, my highest level is Annzilla and Zazza at 18. I think I am probably going to stick with Annzilla for team play since I am really enjoying the Bio primary and then solo level up Ann and Zetsumei.

I know I want to throw a Kin in the mix in there, but not sure if I want to remake Sixty entirely or pick a new power set for her, though I do really love playing her and her character concept. 

I am eventually going to restart the Tanker Project up again, but will probably re-conceptualize some of the characters because for the most part, I don't want to play the same old thing again. 

And before I am out, here's the updated Hero Designer, updated by Pine: 

https://www.cityofforums.net/threads/pines-hero-designer.6/

Updates on the "City of" IP Buyout

I received an email asking if I had any updates about the ongoing talks on the IP buyout.

Nope. No special information here. I know as much as everyone else does. 

I do want to admit that I check the Titan Network forum threads like every single freaking day, several times a day. So if you're looking for updates, it's best to check there too:

• And the Mask Comes Off  
• New Efforts

I am sure when someone hears about something concrete, or if there is news posted up on Titan, that everyone will know and it will spread like wildfire.

Also relevant is this article on MMOGames.com, where they had interviewed Nate Downes right after the big reveal.

Other Speculation

Yes, there is speculation on the whole Nexon doing a hostile take over of NCSoft that may slow down the progress, but meh. Who the heck knows? These business dealings often do not make sense to me. Why wouldn't they bother selling the IP in the first place? Money is important, right? So it boggles my mind. Everything is just speculation.

So right now, no news is good news, right? Just wait patiently folks.

I did recently re-watch the City of Heroes Post-Mortem with Matt "Positron" Miller on YouTube... and he did mention that if it did succeed, and the buyer looked at the source code, that he can't imagine how they'd figure out the code, how the original team was able to make it to work. So yeah, that's a bit worrisome. If it does go through, I hope that they can get some of the original developers back to sort out the mess. I hope the investors have a lot of money!

P.S. I occasionally buy lottery tickets.. and if I won like 100 million bucks, I would spend so much money to get COH back! Fun/funny to think about..

Spiritual Successors

For those who are not in the know, there are several projects under way 

• The Phoenix Project for the City of Titans - unfortunately, I didn't contribute when the campaign was going on. I was in between jobs at the time and it was a little tough to spare some extra cash. I wish they would run another kickstarter campaign. I think I have about $500 bucks to give right now! 
• Atlas Revival Project - This is a team of people building the various CoH neighborhoods in the Unreal 4 Engine. Looks great (pics on Facebook). Looks like they may work with the City of Titan folks since they're both using the same engine. Hope it works out. 
• Valiance Online - I checked out the game in the pre-alpha state.. it's still obviously in development, but what we see now is looking fantastic! It does really have a CoH feel about it. The team is doing a really great job. The other bit of good news is that the game has been greenlit on Steam. 
• Heroes and Villains - I haven't really seen much in terms of new developments. 
• Titan Icon - Basically if you really want to play around with the character creator again and jump around in an empty city for old times sake. 

Let me know if there are other projects in the work if I miss any. 

Other Games in the Meantime

My super duper, awesome, wonderful boyfriend bought me/upgraded my computer for XMas. He's a serious gamer so he took pity on me and helped me out on that aspect of my life. So my gaming life is pretty fantastic. I wish I had this computer around back when CoH was alive. It would have been glorious.

So in the meantime, what games am I playing to get my mind off of CoH?

I'm playing Final Fantasy 14, The Secret World, Champions Online, The Sims 3 (not 4, bleh), Heroes of Might & Magic 3, 5, and 6, and Fantasy Life (one of the most fun game I have played in a very long time!).

Of course, this is if I even have the time to play games. Aside from the usual day job and daily life things, I'm also in the middle of working on a graduate degree so much of spare time is spent on that. In between semesters, however, I do get a little fun in!

Anyways, here's to hoping for some good news soon!

Major Nostalgia

It started when I received an email from Brinkster about how they will be discontinuing their free hosting service and provided instructions on how to save the data. I had forgotten that I even had an account there.

I fired up the old site.. and low and behold, it was an old CoH site with instructions on how to use GuildPortal that I had made for my SG at the time. There was also my little RPish site, the one that served as the fake storefront for my "Comic Shop." I do have a few dummy domains lying about, and will have to see about uploading all the content there.. or somewhere reliable for fun and prosperity. You can imagine who wary I am of having another entity to save these things for me.

After all that, I became curious about CoH. Obviously, I knew that the game had closed its doors and that several projects were in the works to be a successor of sorts.

So I checked with old reliable, the Titan Network... and found this bit of news... And the Mask Comes Off and the companion post New Efforts!

Dang. That is great news.

Yeah, yeah, it's not like it's definitely going to happen, but this is the first real glimmer of hope.

Honestly, I think if the most recent effort doesn't work out, I also feel like it another group will try. It will get to the point where NCshit will have to give in eventually, even if it's ten years out. I think the CoH community is that persistent. What we ultimately get again might not be the original, but it will be something.

So with that little glimmer of hope, I started looking at this website, my old builds, screenshots... and everything. And damn, the memories came back in full force.

I really, really, really hope that the latest efforts will work. If it does, I will be back. I'll re-roll most all of my toons (probably not Ms Ann.. because well, BA is fine, but I need more damage =X).

In the meantime, please indulge me a little as I go through my nostalgia. I will be posting things soon. I figure why not? This is a great place to keep everything. Since Google owns Blogspot, hopefully, the likelihood of it shutting down isn't too great. I just want a place to hold my memories.

Breaking Lately

Yeah, I'm on another COH break due to work. I've been breaking for about 2 weeks now. The holiday season is the busiest time of year for me, so I have to focus on making some moola so I can pay the bills and such. Either way, I'm kind of bored with the game (so the withdrawal symptoms wasn't so bad this time around) and I'm just waiting until i19 to launch (ETA is Nov 16, 2010) to play it again.

Here are some updates so far:

• Anwyn is lvl 47. She is 100% slotted out with her cheap build and pretty much has the reaming IOs waiting in her tray for when she gets to 50. She will probably stay at lvl 47 until I feel like teaming and running regular missions again (and I'm not sure when that'd be). She has the Maria Jenkins arc ready to go, so it should be easy as heck to get her to 50 after facing off a few AVs. 
• Ambrozia: she is lvl 35 right now and was the side project until I got bored. Like I said, I don't really like teaming all that much anymore, and its even worse as a Controller. I hate not being the tanker/brute/meatshield, because then I can't really set the pace of the missions. I'm not quite sure when I'm going to pick up playing this toon regularly anymore. 
• i19: so we're all getting inherent fitness. I'm kind of not looking forward to respeccing everyone, but I kind of am. Heck, I might even take another look at all the retired characters and try to fill them out with the missing IOs, since I have much more inf this time around. I am excited about the new TFs and the incarnate system, but I'm not sure how I'm going to find the time to play it properly. 

I guess that's it for now. See you all in i19.

Issue 19 Alpha Strike Task Force Preview

It looks pretty freaking cool!

Server Problems Since 10/5/2010

I've been having some bad problems since the 10/5/2010 patch. I'm not sure what they did aside from the patch notes, but I've been laggy and rubberbanding waaaaaay more than usual. Its near unplayable at times.

This leads me to say.. I need to upgrade my computer. It hasn't been touched since 4 years ago when I built it.

Right now its running with the AMD Athlon 64 Processor 3200+ at 2.01 GHz, 2 GB of RAM, and the NVidia GeForce 7900 GS.

I hate looking up the hardware because I get so tempted to buy a whole bunch of stuff I can't afford right now. I'm probably going to spend $100 on getting better RAM and probably put the old RAM into my other comp (so it would be able to play Sims 2). If you have any other suggestions on a single cost effective upgrade, do tell.

At the very least, since my gaming computer is also my work computer, that I can write this off as a business expense.

In other (game related) news.. they finally posted up the Issue 19 Overview. It looks pretty neat so far. Hopefully it will be out by the end of this year. Also... Reactivation Weekend starts tomorrow and ends on Sunday. I'll only get 1.5 days to play since I have one of my best friend's wedding this weekend. I'm only excited about it because my brother's account will be reactivated, and now that I have a bunch of characters that can run at +2x8 settings, I will be spending most of my time in AE getting myself powerleveled. The way I'm going to do it is get my characters in a level pact with my brother's character, log on to my main farmer and level up my brother's character. That way, I make inf/recipes/salvage on my farmer, my brother gets his character leveled up, and so will I.... its a win-win-win!

Going Rogue: Imperial City Video

Yup, I'm still procrastinating. This time, I got a nice new video from COH in my feeds.

Going Rogue Launching on August 17, 2010!

Finally, we got the launch date for Going Rogue, which will going live on August 17th.

Here's the official article:

NCsoft and Paragon Studios are proud to announce that players will have the opportunity to walk the line between good and evil (or cross it), on August 17th, 2010 with the release of City of Heroes Going Rogue™. City of Heroes Going Rogue is the second paid expansion in the City of Heroes® franchise. For the first time in any super-powered MMORPG, the moral choices players make will affect their characters' game play experiences. Heroes can fall from grace to become Villains, while Villains can redeem themselves to become Heroes. In addition, players can now access the alternate universe of Praetoria where they can enjoy new missions, zones, costume sets, fight new villain groups, and play with new power sets including Demon Summoning, Dual Pistols, Electric Control and Kinetic Melee.

"I was proud when we launched City of Heroes® back in 2004 and even prouder when we unveiled the City of Villains® expansion in 2005, but Going Rogue is by far the best work that this team has ever done. Paragon Studios has distinguished itself as a premier studio committed to excellence with every issue and we've raised the bar on this expansion. I'm so honored to be a part of this team and I believe that our players will be absolutely amazed when they see what we've done." - Melissa Bianco, Lead Designer of City of Heroes

City of Heroes Going Rogue will be available as an expansion-only, or as part of the City of Heroes Going Rogue Complete Collection, which includes both City of Heroes® and City of Villains®. Both versions of City of Heroes Going Rogue will be available from the NCsoft store.

Source

New Powerset Preview: Kinetics Melee

I was at PAX East 2010 and was able to attend the "Re-Inventing A Super-Heroic MMO" Panel where the COH devs discussed Going Rogue and other upcoming issues.

The devs announced 2 new powersets that will be launched with Going Rogue: Kinetics Melee and Electrical Control.

They previewed the Kinetics Melee animation where I was able to record below:



Keep in mind that they said that the animation was "very crude" so the timing of the animation will likely be tweaked. 

Unfortunately, they did not have the preview for the Electric Control set ready.

I was able to meet the COH devs at a later meet n greet. Had a blast!

Makes me want to play COH right now!

Issue 15: Anniversary - Is Live

In case you haven't heard, Issue 15: Anniversary is now live in the City of Heroes and City of Villains.

I am unfortunately still on vacation from the MMO and the new issue does have enough stuff to make me want to resubscribe to check it out. There is however word of the double XP weekend coming up on the weekend of July 31st. Who knows, I might be resubbed by then.

Issue 15

In case you've been under a rock (as far as the City of Heroes and City of Villains), they'll be coming out with the new expansion, Issue 15: Anniversary soon. In fact, its already out on the test servers.

I'm really not sure why its even an issue as it is a glorified booster pack full or new emotes and skins that they'll be giving us for free. I understand that the devs wanted to release something for the 5 year mark of the game, but honestly, there's no need to call it an "issue."

True, there's a single new task force or strike force, for each respective side, but that's still not quite enough to make it an issue. Check out the Dev diary on Issue 15 you want to read up on this particular strike/task force. They did mention that they are making it challenging. And honestly, I really hope its true. Not that I'll be around after the issue hits.

Meh.

Issue 13: Power and Responsibility - Open Beta

This just in: I13 open beta is now live! (in the UK)

Is it out for the US yet?

Edit: Yes, beta for US is live.

CoH & CoV is getting some Mac Love

In their latest press release, NCSoft announced that they will finally be bringing the City of Heroes and City of Villains franchise to the Mac.

This is great news although I am a bit annoyed at myself for spending a bunch of money to get the Leopard OS and then some more money to get Windows XP just so I can play CoH/V on my Mac. But then again, I am really impatient...

Anyways, maybe in they will come out in the PS3 or Xbox 360 or some other console game. That would be neat cause then I can finally play CoX in bed!

I signed up to beta test it... you can too here: http://www.cityofheroes.com/macbeta/

CoH & CoV Launches a New Combined Site Design!

Its about time that NC Soft redesigns the look and feel of the CoH and Cov website. It was getting particularly stale and outdated in the fast moving pace of the world wide web! The new look has a more web 2.0 feel to it. They removed a lot of the clutter and its much cleaner and easier to navigate.


Also of note is that they finally combined the City of Heroes and the City of Villains template into one solid design.

The forums still have the same Hero or Villain look and feel to it, but I suspect that it will change once they switch over to vBulletin.

They have also updated the login-updater to reflect the changes made to the site.

I really like the new look and it does overall balance the Hero and Villain feel of it pretty well. I do wonder what Content Management System they are using!

Enjoy the new site everyone!

Issue 13: Power and Responsibility

For anyone playing City of Heroes or City of Villains, I know the new major update to the game, Issue 13: Power and Responsibility is old news. But as you may or may not know, I just came back to the game, so this is certainly news to me.

The main features as taken from the official announcement includes:

• Shield and Pain Domination powersets
• Merit Reward system
• Day Jobs (that include a suite of new costume pieces)
• Additional Cimerora and Midnight Squad mission arcs
• Leveling Pact
• Multi-Builds
• PvE & PvP Powers re-balancing
• Villain Patron Power Respec
• Supergroup Base Repricing

While all the new additions seem pretty darn good, after reading up on the details of what it all means from the ParagonWiki article, I think I am the most excited about the Day Jobs. Only because its very little effort that ends up improving the overall quality of life for the game.

I am also excited to check out the new powersets, particularly the Shields power.

I am Tanker at heart and it has always been a goal of mine to have a level 50 Tanker for each primary power set. The Tanker primary powers consist of Invulnerability, Fiery Aura, Stone Armor, Ice Armor, Dark Armor, Willpower, and now, Shields. Unfortunately, I've only ever leveled up a Fiery Aura and an Invulnerability Tankers to 50. Even worse yet, I deleted my Fiery Aura Tanker a little after the first update (Issue 2), so I have a long ways to go (1 down, 6 more to go!). This just gives me more to do!

The fact that they are getting rid of the whole base salvage system and restructuring the pricing is also another goodie. Although I had left my old supergroup, this change is great because it makes it possible for me to create and maintain a small base of my own.

I am also interested to see how the Leveling Pact will work in the live servers. There is a lot of potential there!

As for the rest, as I've mentioned, they seem like really good add-ons. I just can't wait til Issue 13 goes live!