Not to throw off the recent theme of Irish world domination, but how are people liking the CoX Invention system? Is it affecting the builds you make and/or the progression of your alts?
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March 18, 2008
May 24, 2006
This posted on the official boards yesterday, but I noticed it only now. Until 5 pm CST, Friday 5/26, NCSoft has a new contest in effect!
What We Want
An engaging screenshot of your character …Fighting with the Tsoo.
It can be an action shot. It can be an atmospheric shot. It can be a funny or interesting shot. It cannot be a boring shot.
They'll accept screenshots from either CoH or CoV; but as always, only one submission per player. Now go do bad things to Tsoo and take pictures of it!
May 23, 2006
City of Villains has got me thinkin' lately. Listen up.
I love CoV to death (as you may have noticed, seeing as I have a website about it), and it's got a richness in setting and storyline at least the equal of City of Heroes. It's designed to be viable as a standalone game, not just an expansion, and it succeeds, rocking hard to boot.
But — in my mind, at least — everything that goes down on the Rogue Isles is always subordinate to the happenings in Paragon City. Because the heroes are, you know, the heroes of our universe. And whatever the villains do, it's secondary, almost by definition. CoH and CoV are equivalent products from any technical standpoint, yet to me CoH has always seemed like the main game, with CoV its evil hunchback albino little brother.
Why do I have this bias? Partly, I guess, it's because CoH came out first. But mostly it's because that's how the source material — comic books themselves — frame the good vs. evil conflict. With few exceptions (see below), comics are about the good guys. The heroes are the protagonists. They get the dialogue and the drama. They come first. The books are usually named after them. As for the villains … well, they're around to give the heroes something to do. You rarely see them doing anything else. Spider-Man can have all sorts of personal issues, like sick old Aunt May, which are portrayed in detail because, hey, it's his book. Electro might have a sick old aunt, too, but if he does, it doesn't affect anything and we're not told about it. In comics, as in a lot of popular culture, the villains exist for the heroes. Ya with me?
City of Villains provides something that doesn't have much precedent anywhere else. We're telling the story of a group of superbeings, but they're evil stories. When the protagonists succeed in their goals, the world is worse off. Their victories are a total downer for pretty much everyone but themselves.
What if there were an Infamy Unlimited monthly comic? Would you read it? Or would it just depress you?
I've tried to search around for examples of villains who have been the stars of their own monthly books, and not surprisingly, the field is sparse. Kobra, which DC ran for a while in the late '70s, is all I could find. (I'm leaving out Suicide Squad and other "antihero" titles, which are not really what I'm talking about here.)
I never read Kobra, but I can't help but imagine each story must have this sort of effect on the reader: either Kobra is thwarted in his Evil Plot of the Month, and you feel like you totally wasted your thirty 1976 cents; or else he succeeds in his Evil Plot of the Month, and kills a bunch of puppies or whatever, and you're left all bummed out and maybe in need of a shower. It doesn't surprise me that this has not been an experiment that's been tried often.
On the other hand, maybe the trick is simply using the right villain. Because would I read a monthly Joker comic? Hell yeah. Joker rules.
The floor is yours, true believers. Evil comics: an artistically and commercially viable form of expression? Discuss.
April 26, 2006
Here's another idea to be kicked around and possibly put on the CoV suggestion board: what if villains (and heroes) could make themselves the computer-controlled final boss in a mission, to be played by the other side?
To do this a character would need to reach a certain level or perhaps obtain a badge ("Master Villain" sounds good on the CoV side). They would then be able to bring up an interface that would let them loosely design a mission for the other game (e.g. CoH for a Master Villain), spending salvage to do so. When they're done, their character's powers, enhancements and appearance is saved for use when the mission is run. The player would not be present during the mission, but their character would be, controlled by the game like any other foe.
Essentially, this option would change PvP into PvE. These custom missions would create history and conflict between heroes and villains, without requiring players who hate PvP to engage in it.
The player would choose each of the following for their mission, which would appear when choosing newspaper missions:
- The basic goal of the mission (e.g. kidnapping, rescue, defeat a foe).
- The headline of the mission in the newspaper ("Lazlo the Evil Clown Strikes Again!").
- A description of the mission ("Lazlo the Evil Clown has been robbing banks all over Paragon City. Now you hear he's holed up somewhere nearby. Stop him before he launders the money and leaves town.")
- One of the locations from random newspaper missions (e.g. office building, sewer). If it's a multi-level location like an office building or Arachnos base, they would choose how many levels.
- What foes should be in the mission, such as Longbow, Scrapyarders, and so forth. They would also set a frequency for foes, from 50% to 150% of the usual foes for an equivalent random mission.
- If there are any glowies, how many, and if there are ambushes after finding them.
- A greeting to be used when your opponents find your character. This could be generic ("Welcome heroes!") or could use the $target variable ("I always said you were good for a laugh, $target. Too bad the joke's on you!")
- A death cry, if any, upon being defeated ("Dying is easy. Comedy is hard.")
The foes, glowies and ambushes chosen would give a final cost in salvage, which would vary by type. Choosing Longbow would cost Longbow salvage, for example. The amount of foes chosen would affect the cost as well.
Once all the options had been specified, the interface would deduct the required salvage from the player and save the character's current powers, enhancements, and appearance. It would also submit the mission to a NCSoft support person for approval. Approval here would mean nothing more than checking the text for obscenity or anything else that would violate the NCSoft EULA.
Once approved, the mission would be added to the list of random newspaper missions available to players of the other game – CoH in the case of Lazlo's example mission above. The mission would appear when randomly drawn until someone chose it.
The mission itself would mostly be like any other newspaper mission, with the location, foes etc. that the player has chosen. The biggest difference is the final boss.
When encountered, the usual boss for the mission would be replaced with the player's own character, promoted to Boss level (or Elite Boss depending on number of opponents and reputations). If the level of the opponents is below the character, the character would be exemplared down to match. If they're higher, the character would not be raised in level, but would instead gain more bodyguards to compensate.
The question of AI would depend on how it is handled for existing foes. If AI is calculated simply based on powers, then the existing system should be able to handle AI for the character. If, however, NCSoft has figured out an attack strategy for each foe, then the player will have to choose two more things when designing the mission:
- Which toggle powers should be turned on.
- Priority for attacks, buffs, debuffs etc.
The priorities chosen would determine the order in which powers are used. When encountered, Masterminds would always have the applicable number of pets summoned and buffed.
When the mission is successfully completed, the designing player receives infamy and prestige determined by how much damage the opponents took and how many times they were defeated. They also receive an in-system email listing the following:
- Which opponents went on the mission.
- Which opponents were defeated by foes and how many times.
- Which opponents your character defeated, if any, and how many times.
- Which opponent ultimately defeated your character.
In this way the two CoX games can be more closely linked, and more conflict added between heroes and villains, without depending solely on PvP.
April 19, 2006
Last time, we covered gaining a secret ID and a corresponding secret ID contact who gives you missions. But what do those missions consist of?
Secret ID missions are stealth missions, akin to the Thief series. The missions will require you to sneak past guards and the like without arousing suspicion. Combats will be rarer and involve fewer foes than in normal missions. In these secret ID missions, your secret ID contact follows you around, and unlike a captive, they'll keep pace with you if you sprint. They're immune to damage, like most captives.
No problem, right? Except there's a complication: you have to be careful about using your powers around your contact, or else they'll figure out your true identity.
Now, they'll never actually figure it out. Secret ID contacts are dumb. However, they can get suspicious.
The way this works is secret ID contacts have a circle around them, showing their zone of suspicion. The 90 degrees in front of them is highlighted, like in the freebie Adult Swim game Jailbirdman. The contact will always try to turn so you're in that wedge.
When you're in that wedge, however, using any powers besides the basics (Brawl, Sprint, Rest) arouses suspicion in your contact. This is shown by a green question mark above the contact's head.
Repeated use of powers while standing in the wedge increases the suspicion: the question mark turns yellow, then red. Then a second question mark appears, and then a third. After that, the question marks turn into exclamation points, and that's when it gets bad.
You see, when your contact is this suspicious, you can't risk using your powers at all around them. Your powers cannot be activated when in the wedge (Toggled powers turn off). Having this happen while, say, a gang of Trolls is bashing your head in could really wreck your day.
So how to get around this? Well, a contact's suspicion level will drop over time. If you can pace yourself, you may be able to get away with using your powers in brief spurts. The second tool at your disposal is a temporary power you get in secret ID missions: Distract.
Distract lets you send your contact away for brief periods of time, letting you use your powers without arousing suspicion. Distract is targeted like Teleport; a circle appears which can be put along the floor or a nearby wall. When clicked your contact will run over to the spot, look around for a few seconds, and then come back. If you target a glowie in a mission, your contact will stay there twice as long, and will then activate the glowie for you, saving you the trouble.
Finally, in team secret ID missions, you only have to worry about raising suspicion in your own contact; you can use your powers as much as you want around other secret ID contacts. Secret ID contacts are dumb.
March 31, 2006
To celebrate the second anniversary of City of Heroes, NCSoft is giving away a different prize each day during the month of April. Just log in to either CoH or CoV, no matter how briefly, and you'll be eligible for that day's prize. Prizes range from very cool GeForce 6800 video cards to very lame CoV capes, which presumably come with a free beating.
March 29, 2006
A few more tipoffs you're on a bad pick up group:
- The leader keeps inviting people until there's eight members, even if the villains vary 6-8 levels from each other.
- The mission you're on is for a guy 2-3 levels above everyone else. All foes are purple.
- Half the members are sidekicked and so far below the team average that when their boss is out of range they die in seconds.
- When the team starts getting overwhelmed, instead of pulling back and recovering, they just stand there and die.
- The team is unbalanced – all Masterminds, say, or Corruptors and Dominators but no Brutes.
- People take forever to gather at mission entrances.
- The Stalker thinks Hide makes him completely invisible to all foes under all circumstances, and keeps wandering too close and drawing aggro before the team is gathered.
- Bonus: the leader puts out a desperate plea for help with a mission. Upon accepting the invite, there is no mission chosen, and the other teammates are wandering around patrolling in order to level.
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
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.
January 10, 2006
There are some things which I never do. I don’t tug on Ghost Widow’s cape. I don’t spit into the wind generated by Sea Witch when she activates her weather powers. I don’t pull the mask off that ol’ Lord Recluse, and I don’t mess around with the “looking for team” switch. God knows I get enough random blind team invites already without leaving myself open to more. I’d be just as likely to e-mail the Viagra dealers to ask for more spam.
Even so, I’m not a machine. There are times when I’m bored between story arcs, or feeling unusually social, and a blind invite will show up and I’ll accept it. I judge invites by the character name (because what else is there to go on?), and if it’s a cool-sounding name, I might guess that the player is also cool and accept. We non-l33ters gots to stick together, you know.
(NOTE: The names of the characters below have been changed, not to protect the innocent, but because I don’t remember what they actually were.)
So last week I’m on Victory soloing my hero, Blockhead. I’m in the Hollows, which is Blind Invite Central for a number of reasons, and I’m swatting them away like the buzzy little gnats they are. Including one from a “LordDeathKillar” — you can call me a snob, but guys like that maybe deserve to go it alone.
A couple minutes after turning him down, I get an invite from a “Lightning Gal”. Well, okay, I think, my shriveled heart tenderizing a bit. Here’s someone who maybe has a real character concept. Possibly a sensible player, looking for another sensible player in this morass of dummies. What the heck. So I accept.
But of course, I find myself on a team with the usual mix of pick-up group idiots. And one of them is LordDeathKillar. Oops! The first thing spoken on the team is profanity directed at me.
“$#@&?*,” says LordDeathKillar. “u turn me down, but youll team if lg asks?” As an afterthought, “what am i not sexy enuff for u or something block” None of the other six teammates bother to say anything, let alone welcome me to the team.
All the altrusim drains right out of me. The last thing I feel like doing is justifying my selection process to LordDeathKillar. And I don’t waste time with groups that greet me with cussin’. I quit the team without a word, 30 seconds in.
Now my rule is: turn down all blind invites, period. Period.
