Vote for the Character Contest Finalists

Lots of voting going on right about now, and City of Heroes is no different. Vote for your favorite character in the character contest. Winner gets an awesome rig.

I have some characters that are real contenders for something like this, but I'm not especially competitive and I really didn't like the idea of submitting a character I'm really fond of only to have the judges and CoX public at large reject it. Hmmm. Maybe I am competitive after all. I never do costume contests in game either.

I voted Swiftwing. Great costume, and she's Martial Arts (probably SR but I'm not sure). She'd make a good sidekick for Daemodand. ;)

American Shaman is vaguely unsettling. There's something a bit creepy about draping a native American in the symbols of their conqueror that just seems wrong.

The Mac of MMOs Meets...The Mac!

City of Heroes is known in the player base as "the Mac of MMOs" due to its elegant design reminding people of the quality of Apple products (OMG I sound like an Apple ad lol).

Well, the Mac of MMOs is coming to the Mac of computers! For those keeping score at home, the Mac of computers is the Mac. ;)

If you like reading press releases, here's another for you to read.

This is fantastic news! I welcome our new Apple overlords.

And uh, I use a PC. :p

P.S. A Valkyrie costume set is included with the Mac edition of the game, and will be available for purchase in early 2009 for those not using Macs. I really don't like the trend of locking up costume pieces like this, but I don't begrudge new Mac players some perks.

New City of Heroes Articles

TenTonHammer.com discusses making the new Cimerora missions with Senior Game Designer Bruce Harlick.

GameZone.com has an Issue 13 Q&A with Matt Miller.

Funny thing about Day Jobs, I remember some time ago the idea of rested XP was suggested on the forums and the devs said at that time that they categorically did not want to reward people for not playing the game. I wish I could find that post, but it's probably long since eaten by the forum monster. Imagine my surprise when Day Jobs included both mission complete XP bonuses and On Patrol XP (ie, rested XP). A pleasant surprise, though!

When asked about his favorite Archetype, Matt mentions his Dominator first. I always did like Positron. ;) Doms are probably my overall favorite too, they just need a bit of work to make them more playable in the 40+ game. Having your primary arbitrarily shut down just isn't fun.

Issue 13 Starts Pre-Downloading!

The updater for the live version of City of Heroes is now pre-downloading the preliminary Issue 13 patch after you end a play session. Closed beta is still ongoing so it seems a bit early. Will open beta be truncated or skipped? This Issue has taken plenty of time to complete, but probably not. NC likes polish in their products, and CoX is one of the most polished MMOs around.

Still, Issue 13 is nigh. Pretty exciting! My prediction: it goes to live December 2nd.

NC Advertises (for once), People Buy the Game

From Lighthouse on the official forums:

We're seeing a significant upswing in trial usage and corresponding conversion from trial to full accounts, from the web advertisement campaign that is underway.

Viva la N00bs!

Miracle of miracles, eh? You advertise a product, and people buy that product. Well no duh NC! Hint: Advertise more! Or at all!

Zombie XP Isn't Undead...It's Dead

So Zombies in the Zombie Apocalypse are worth only 25% of what a normal mob of the same con is worth. That is really cruddy. A white con Zombie is worth the same as a green con minion. And they're harder to kill than a green con minion, too. That's awful.

So some say that the fact you kill them on Zombie teams really fast generates nice XP. I say take that team and go beat up on some green cons...the XP is the same. In fact, it's better since the green cons die quicker. Sorry, but even on a team, the Zombies are giving pitiful XP. That same team can go do a mission and generate far more XP and get a mission complete bonus to boot.

I've also heard that "It can't always be about XP. The event is fun so the XP doesn't matter!" Rewards are good. Fun is better. Fun plus rewards is best! Just because it's fun doesn't mean it shouldn't give XP.

A third argument I've heard is that the event gives no debt, therefore gives no XP. You know what? Leave debt on and give us normal XP. There's no reason not to and the Zombies will seem even more dangerous. And what is debt these days anyway? A pale shadow of its former self. It barely exists.

I love the red sky (it looks better on redside due to no war walls), I love the music that plays when an Apocalypse starts, I love the way the Zombies look and sound. I love that they can give you a tough fight. But they give you no XP, aside from token XP. There's no good reason why they shouldn't.

CoX Website Revamped

Today the official site is undergoing big changes with a redesign. Dare I even dream City Vault is among the newness? No. I dare not, because it won't. I still find myself hoping it will though lol. Hope springs eternal. ;)

Today's DING!s

The Crimson Chameleon, level 24 MA/NIN Stalker

She's back from a month hiatus, and just as fun as ever. The Staminaless build is working out quite nicely at this point. I respecced out of Thunder Kick and into Crippling Axe Kick. I checked the numbers and they have the same Damage Per Activation, but CAK has better burst damage and better (and more reliable) secondary effects. As a result, she's killing things much more quickly and saving a bit more Endurance because of that.

Easily my next 50 Stalker, she's a lot of fun.

The Star-Spangled Basher, level 29 SS/WP Brute

I want to get him up to 30 and try him out in PvP a bit. I'm loving Super Strength as usual. It's just such a solid set. I'm thinking of respeccing to rearrange Hand Clap and Swift though. Swift is the only power from Fitness I'm taking. Why take one and not the others? In for a penny, in for a pound? Because even though I'm taking Swift, I'm skipping the others to save two powers. And a power saved is a power earned. ;)

Hollerin' Harry, level 14 Sonic/Sonic Corruptor

I beat an Elite Boss Facemaker with good ol' Harry! I'm really liking the solo build Sonic sets. Thank goodness Issue 13 will allow me to have a teaming build, too.

Occaisional Random MMO: Galaxies and TOR

The Escapist has published an article stating that Galaxies is not shutting down with the launch of Star Wars: The Old Republic. The question is, of course, can Sony keep Galaxies running if most of the remaining players leave for TOR? If The Matrix Online is any indication, the answer is "yes". Apparently, an MMO doesn't need very many players at all to be profitable enough to keep around. The Sony Station Pass is probably the prime motivator of that, since additional MMOs, no matter how sparsely populated, is value added for Pass holders.

So Galaxies will persist, but the real question is will you be able to find anyone to play with even on the now-most-populous servers? The game is a virtual ghost town compared to when I played it back in pre-NGE. And it's very concerning that these devs seem to think the NGE was a good thing:

"We also realized what players expect from an online Star Wars game - they expect to be that iconic Star Wars hero as soon as possible. They don't want to play for hundreds of hours just to become a Jedi."

*SIGH!* At least they say they've learned listening to the customer is a good thing to do. NCNC and Cryptic could have told them that.

Read the whole, worrisome thing over at The Escapist.

Today's DING!s

Mega Maggie, level 14 Stone/Inv Brute

She's lots of fun, but I'm crying for Stamina at this point.