February 22, 2006
Courtesy of Kill Ten Rats comes this completely awesome post explaining in great detail how Masterminds can use key binding to quickly and precisely command their pets.
It doesn’t stop there, though. On the second page another poster shows how to set up other key binds so that you can toggle back and forth from speaking with commands to not speaking, as well as setting up a rotating series of text files so that your alt’s chatter stays fresh and interesting. Well worth the time to read.
February 12, 2006
Tapping into Arachnos security files, the Grinning Ghoul obtained this recent picture showing cooperation between members of the Guardsmen hero group and IU agent Lazlo the Evil Clown. In front: otherworldly thaumaturge Ms. Mysteria. In back, Lazlo accompanying known heroes AmericanClassic and the White Gull. All three heroes are known Guardsmen and occasional allies of the Leapin’ Lizard.
Infamy Unlimited has no objection to any activities that in some way weaken Arachnos, but members are warned against fraternizing too closely with Paragon City heroes. These missions are a fine cover for learning more about the enemy, but be on guard not to reveal too much information about your own abilities — and weaknesses. And, needless to say, any attempt at defection to Paragon City law enforcement will be punished, swiftly and thoroughly.
The Grinning Ghoul is watching you.
February 10, 2006
I had an idea the other day how to implement secret identities for CoH (the concept doesn’t really work for villains). Now, I haven’t played the hero side of this game, so if I’m missing something big, let me know.
The basic idea is that a hero would be able to establish a secret identity, probably at some level or after achieving a certain badge, perhaps.
Setting up a secret ID would involve picking a secret ID name. The names would all be checked for uniqueness and trademark infringement, just like your hero name. Clark Kent or Peter Parker would be out, but Clark Parker would be fine – for the first guy to pick it. Players would still use their hero name as their handle.
The hero would pick one of several locations where their secret ID works: the hospital, whatever Daily Planet-Daily Bugle newspaper Paragon has, an office building, a police station, a firefighter station, and the local fast food emporium, Clown Dog. The last one may be too goofy, but it’s there so we can get stupid uniforms in the costume mix.
You see, the next step is to make your secret ID costume. Everyone would have some normal clothes to choose from, but your choice of workplace would give you some different options as well, such as briefcases, those cool hats reporters used to wear, or goofy stuff from Clown Dog.
You keep the same body, just with different clothes. You can make a completely different outfit if you want, or if that’s too much bother, you can just take your hero duds and add a set of Groucho Marx glasses or a necktie (like The Tick). Your secret ID contact will never figure out it’s you. Secret ID contacts are dumb.
To make use of your secret identity, you have to change costumes. This can be done at any phone booth (like the ones in Bloody Bay). Workplaces would have phone booths conveniently located outside.
You get your secret ID contact by going to your workplace. These would be reachable from a building in every zone, representing a branch office or station. Once inside, you’d be able to go from floor to floor and run around. Workplaces have numerous secret ID contacts in them; instead of just one contact in a location, every bystander you see at your workplace is a potential contact. However, they are grouped into different levels, similar to how in CoV you go from Kalinda to Mongoose to Mikey or Drea.
In this case, though, everyone, say, in the newspaper workplace who looks like a copy boy is the first level contact. When you walk in, you’re assigned one of them as your contact. Finishing the missions they give you bumps you up to one of the secretaries, and so forth. Each of the contacts of the same level would have the same body and clothes but different colored outfits, and different names. If you entered a workplace and your contact was unavailable (for reasons to be explained later), you’re automatically given another one of the same level.
So what good are secret identities and what do you do with them? All will be explained in the next installment.
February 9, 2006
“Always keep your friends close, but your enemies keep closer.”
-J. Wallace Day
With the opening of Pocket D, we can now learn more of what those caped goody-goodies are up to. I hear that there’s quite a number of these buffoons traipsing around as “The Guardians”. We might be able to glean some useful info on future raids and robberies on Paragon City if we team up with these guys. I hear the ones called “Deliria” and “-Knightshade” are quite close to insanity as it is. We can bend their weak minds to reveal to us anything we desire!
February 9, 2006
Cryptic Studios has e-mailed out 14-day City of Villains trial invites. Straight from the encrypted message:
Do you love City of Heroes® and City of Villains™? Spread the love with a free 14 day trial for City of Villains™. Give the trial to a friend or, if you haven’t yet, give City of Villains™a spin yourself and see if it really is love at first sight. Simply forward this email with the 14 day trial serial code found below to someone who will activate it before February 22, 2006.
But wait, there’s more! If the recipient of your free trial purchases and activates City of Villains™ any time before March 12, 2006, 8:59pm PST/11:59pm EST, both you and your friend will get two unique in-game costume items to honor this new commitment. The Victory Laurel and Hellenic Sandals (all players can win the Patrician Toga during the Valentine event) will be added to your costume options!
Please keep in mind that the serial code can only be used once by a single individual – so we recommend not sending it to multiple people simultaneously hoping that one of them will take advantage of this offer. Choose the lucky person wisely!
Sow the seeds of evil!
February 8, 2006
Dr. McNinja. Enjoy. Oh, and hold your cursor over the individual pages for alt text commentary.
It should be easy to make comparably goofy but workable alts for CoV. Here’s my try: General Clown – build a clown-looking Mastermind with the Soldiers power and stick a military helmet on him. Your turn.
February 6, 2006
For those who did not know, Dave “Zeb” Cook is no longer with Cryptic Studios. Apparently, he left rather abruptly. Here is the only acknowledgement from Cryptic as of this time:
“Originally Posted by Alexa: We regret that the Ask Lord Recluse portion of our “Ask A Dev” series will not have a set of final answers from Zeb Cook. Zeb is no longer at Cryptic Studios and we wish him the best in his future endeavors. The CoH/CoV community thanks Zeb for all of his hard work and support.”
There are a few discussion threads that I’ve found have some additional thoughts and insight:
The Cesspit Link points out a few other thoughts: “No reasons given yet for why he left, which only leads to lots of speculation (did he jump or was he pushed?). It’s been noted in the original thread that he hadn’t posted in about six weeks – enough time to give official notice before quitting.
As he was the lead designer of CoV, of which the second half (Issue 7 will finish off Villains, adding 40-50 content, Epic powers, a new zone, etc) is not complete yet, speculation ranges from “contract simply ended” to “he pissed someone off and got the bewt” to “he got a better offer from DDO”.
I believe he also designed the not-out-yet new zone (Grandeville) completely, so the timing is rather odd.”
I’m certain we’ll here more on this in the future.
February 4, 2006
The upcoming update for CoH/CoV (“Issue 7″) is described here. It’s worth a read; and there’s plenty of cool sounding stuff: more zones, more powers, and new pets for Masterminds (Thugs!). However, the part I’m excited about is this:
Take villainy to the streets of Paragon City with tense new timed missions among destructible environments, which also unlock multiple random events. Players harass citizens, rob stores, destroy property, plant bombs and battle the police in these exciting open-ended timed missions. Causing extra mayhem results in bonus rewards!
How sweet is that? I can already kill mutated snake men in CoV; now finally I can trash a car too.
February 4, 2006
Kill Ten Rats is a group blog where a number of MMORPG players share their ongoing game experiences. One of the players, Zubon, regularly posts interesting observations of CoV and CoH. They’ve even tackled the issue of blind invites. Well worth a look.
