City of Heroes/Villains

So, I know there's at least a few other City of Heroes/Villains players wandering about troping (*waves to D Kellis, whom he recognizes from the Co* boards*).

This, in itself, probably doesn't warrant a topic. However, a recent development in the City of * gameworld warrants mention and will, I believe, intrigue the tropers- Issue 14, the Mission Architect, just entered open beta.

We've got easily accessible User-Created Content in an MMO, folks. This could get interesting.

Isn't there a traditional Chinese curse that involves "interesting"? I suspect that in retrospect, the introduction of user-created content will be the point at which City of Heroes/Villains jumped the shark.

Supposedly there is a cycle of Chinese curses that are, in order of profanity:

1. May You Live In Interesting Times
2. May You Come Into Attention Of Those In Authority
3. May You Find What You Are Looking For.

There is no evidence that these actually come from China.

And there's also a very popular "Chinese" fortune: "That wasn't chicken."

As a Chinese, I honestly have not heard of anything resembling "May you live in interesting times" in that language. (This doesn't necessarily mean anything, or we wouldn't have dictionaries.)

I'm looking forward to user-generated content. I can't make my own until I see what the system can do, and before that I need to finish installing the Test server client.

(Also, I'm ashamed to admit that while I also recognize you (the OP) from the forums, it's mostly because of the "oh, the David Bowie lizard guy" thing.)

edited 18th Mar '09 11:48:02 AM by dkellis

According to The Other Wiki, it seems to have been coined by a British ambassador to China.

I dunno, Eddie- I remain cautiously optimistic about this- my first impressions are that the mission creator interface is surprisingly intuitive, reasonably powerful, and quite flexible. The City of Heroes community itself is moderately mature, and there's a lot of very creative people playing. Sure, there's going to be loads and loads of crap, but there's going to be some real gems, too.

And designing your own badguys is far more fun than it has any right to be. So far my custom enemy group has killed me instantly every time I've gotten anywhere near it .

And as to the anime David Bowie Lizard thing, eh, fame's fame. I'll take what I can get

Don't mind me, then. I'm just being cynical, and I don't even play MM Os. MU Ds in college were bad enough.

I've only had a chance to poke around some of the options, but reading the comments I've seen, I'm probably going to have to spend a lot of time trying to balance my custom enemies. They're supposed to be challenging, but soloable; I think I'll have to settle for merely soloable.

Sometimes I feel like I'm trying to make a reputation of myself as the guy who keeps posting "Unpleasable Fanbase" in every thread. It's not that the forum was any better in Ye Olde Days (not much change, in fact), but back then I didn't have TV Tropes to link to.

-*chuckle*

You're nicer than me, D Kellis. I've created a mission whose sole purpose is kicking peoples' heads in as hard as possible (with nothing but regular enemies- no A Vs or E Bs).

The strange part is that people seem to like it >.>

edited 22nd Mar '09 2:00:45 AM by TeChameleon

I may need to ask in Writer's Block for my own story arc ideas.

The problem is in making it accessible, meaning no obscure injokes or memes. Sadly, it's looking like at least a rough familiarity with anime tropes may be needed.

Try and catch me online one of these days, D Kellis- I'm usually on in the evening-ish for a bit (MST), global is @Experiment DBWP on Test. I'd be happy to see if I could offer any advice.

Also, don't worry too much about anime in-jokes- one of my favourite arcs thus far was a parody of Power Rangers

I cancelled my subscription for COH in order to go play Warhammer Online, but I'm thinking of picking it up again once Architect goes live.

It's considerable fun, it really is (... was it you that had the Star Control II Arilou avatar on the boards? Think I've seen you around)- definitely worth a look, if nothing else.

And if you felt that Co* was lacking challenge before, well, that's easily remedied. You can make a mission that's wall-to-wall A Vs, if the spirit moves you

Nah, I didn't have the avatar, I DID have the name though (Arilou) I was the guy with a chicken and the goodkind quote.

Hehe, and it wasn't challenge really, it was just that I wanted something different for a while (And WAR is rather fun) Also, I want more of the story damnit! Although I guess I'll have to settle for writing my own :p

An interesting (to me, at least) consequence of the Mission Architect is that many players seem to want to make Epic Confrontations.

Except the MA doesn't really support anything for Epic Enemies that aren't basically big sacks of HP that hit hard.

So we have things like "solo story arc, contains many Elite Bosses and an Archvillain or two", which strikes me as a bit contradictory, especially when it turns out that the Archvillain is set to Extreme/Extreme.

Heh, probably true.

I haven't tried out MA yet, but I was planning on doing a relatively low-key arc involving the Scrapyarders...

Mission Architect is like the City Of Heroes in-universe version of Deep-Immersion Gaming.

How applicable would that statement be?

My Guild Wars C Ds came with trial codes for other NCSoft games, and now I've decided to try City Of Heroes.

Well, not right now, it's midnight. Tomorrow, I'll try it.

Anyways, is there anything I should know?

edited 3rd Jun '09 12:04:27 AM by Matrix

Freedom is the farming server, Virtue is the roleplaying server, Pinnacle is for drunks, and I'm not really sure about the rest.

Although they look like support classes, well built Defenders or Controllers can be destructive forces of nature.

Healing is nice, but City of Heroes/Villains is built on buffs and debuffs.

Pretty much invariably, you will enter what can only be considered endurance hell at around levels 8-10. Because the trial doesn't allow you to get to level 20, you won't see it get better. Believe me, though, it gets A LOT better.

It may or may not be a Nemesis plot. Nobody really knows anymore.

If you stick your nose onto Guardian Server around 6PM your time, I can give you the guided tour, Matrix (although I'd advise running the tutorial, even if you don't normally). Just type in /gfriend @Wall of Knight and you'll be able to see me online whichever character I'm on (assuming I accept, of course, heh...)

Lesse... (warning, infodump incoming)

• The City Of Heroes page on TV Tropes gives a reasonable overview of each of the Archetypes, so that should be enough to get you decided which you want to start as...
• Co H runs on Superhero tropes, rather than fantasy ones, so you'll be doing things that aren't typical of MM Os (flying, speeding around at 90 mph, leaping tall buildings in a single bound, taking on dozens of guys at the same time, flinging baddies in all directions
• Dying Is A Slap On The Wrist- for the first 10 levels, all that death means is that you'll respawn at the hospital and have to get back to wherever you were (assuming you don't have any means to resurrect yourself on the spot). After level 10, all that dying means is popping out at the hospital and you level at 1/2 speed for a (very) short time. I'm not sure if it's deliberate, but they seem to have simulated the whole superhero-revolving-door-on-the-afterlife thing quite well
• There's no gear. Not really. You get a variety of enhancements that you can slot into your powers to improve various aspects of them (how fast the power recharges, how accurate it is, how long the effects last, how much damage it does, whatever). Better enhancements unlock at level 12 ("Dual Origin" enhancements, or D Os- one of the aspects has to match your chosen origin), and then again at level 22 ("Single Origin", or S Os- enhancements- have to match your chosen origin exactly). There's also crafted enhancements ("Invention Origin", or I Os- don't have to match your origin, and they don't wear out like the others do- the store-bought ones have to be within three levels of your current level, so if you're level 17, you can only use level 14-20 enhancements- but until about level 35, they're somewhat weaker than S Os)
• Certain costume options are unlocked by 'Veteran Rewards' (every three months, you get a special badge-achievement thingy, which will give you a nifty, but non-essential widget), buying costume packs (about ten bucks- nice costume pieces, and usually an interesting, but non-essential, long-recharge power), so if you see low-levelled folks running around with capes or wings, that's where they got them. Normally, you unlock capes at level 20 by running a special mission, and auras (yup, you can do the whole glowing-eye thing, or whatever, if you want) at level 30, and can craft certain wing pieces, although they're purely cosmetic- you still have to take the flight power to be able to fly.
• Heals are non-essential; in Co H, buffs and debuffs are king. When a support class can dial your defense up to nearly tank levels on a squishy, or make the enemies weak as kittens, or make it so they continually whiff pathetically, or crank your self-regeneration through the roof, you probably aren't going to be needing the green stuff all that badly.
• Inspirations (the Co H equivalent to potions, really) can be combined; if you have three of the same sort and size, you can combine them into one of another kind that you need.
• Powers make the (super)man/woman. Even amongst the same Archetype (or just "AT"), a Claws/Regeneration scrapper is going to play wildly differently from a Martial Arts/Super Reflexes Scrapper, and neither will play anything like a Dark Melee/Dark Armour Scrapper.

... I'll... stop now >.>

Anyways, hopefully that's enough to give you an idea.

Oooh, RP. I hope the RP there is better than on World Of Warcraft. Though, I'll probably just go on a regular play server first to see if I actually like the game itself.

I've only done a very little bit of R Ping, but City Of Heroes seems to attract a fairly creative crowd.

And the forums are... uhm... less prone to fits of baby-eating rage than some of the other MMORPG forums that I've seen. You can actually get useful advice off of them, amazingly enough.

Ah, so gameplay is more focussed on actual skill (Like in Guild Wars) instead of how uber your items are (like in World Of Warcraft)?

Also, what's the level cap?

Yeah, it's kind of surprising how pleasant the Co X forums are... Then again, Co X in general has one of the best communities you'll find in an MMO.

Edit: The level cap is 50. There isn't much end game content, but there's so much content in the game that you can't possibly do it all in one playthrough. Or two, really. Maybe even three or four. And then you have to try Villain-side.

edited 3rd Jun '09 12:51:48 AM by Miijhal