Clintonian

[ QUOTE ]
4. Having seen how informed Clintonian is, I fell like a bit of a loser, unless he's been playing since beta, then it's okay, because he'll have been playing longer than me, otherwise, I feel lame for not looking for all of this myself.

[/ QUOTE ]
I've been in since CoH beta, plus I was born a news junkie. The original 'CoV Primer' was born from me putting together a crib sheet for a game in development that I was interested in that didn't have one before. CoV fever has caught on, and now the 'CoV Primer' is but one of many and focused mostly on the basics of what you should know, rather than all you could know. I have the sneaking suspicion that newer CoV-enthusaists will soon outpace my sustained energy level, hence this being the 'Last CoV Primer'. Plus, it's getting to be too much for one thread.

Cheers!

Thanks, I'm aware of the change. Much of that particular quoted section indicates design ideas that have evolved over the past year. I don't think Zeb Cook had even been hired yet at that point to be Senior Designer for CoV.

I probably should have been more explicit that that entire blurb from the May 2004 teaser was there for historical context. The hazards of writing copy for free without an editor. Unfortunately, posts can only be edited for 6 hours after they've hit the forum server. Future generations will just have gloss over that quote.

Speaking of CoV ATs, ShadowPraxis browsed the latest issue of Computer Gaming World which just hit the stands with the CoV sneak peek article. Oh what a difference a day makes, eh?

[ QUOTE ]
<ul type="square">[*]We have confirmation on the [color= yellow]Mastermind [/color]powersets. The primary summons minions of different types (ninja, robots, henchmen, etc based on which pool was taken - nice because it allows different themed villains to have lackeys more appropriate to their flavor instead of just generic ones). The secondary consists of buffs/enhancements/weapons upgrades for said minions.[*][color= yellow]Brutes [/color]are a bit more than just reverse scrappers. There was something mentioned about the most powerful enemies being drawn towards them and that they would mainly lock down AVs, bosses and the like. Sounds less like the normal herding duties a Tank has. They also said Brutes have a Rage ability that slowly increases their damage output the longer they're in combat - the longer they fight, the more dangerous they get.[*][color= yellow]Destroyers[/color] are confirmed to be something of a hybrid between blasters and defenders - not much new news there, just more confirmation of speculation.[/list]
[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
[color= yellow]Mastermind[/color] – (Lord Recluse)
The most secretive new AT - think minion pet summoner.

[/ QUOTE ]
OK, OK. I got a PM after the editing timeout on this. Lord Recluse has been referred to by the dev team as a flavor of Incarnate (a yet-to-be implemented Epic Archetype). Lord Recluse portrayal in the two CoV vids may be indicative of something similar to the Mastermind AT, much like Statesman as an Incarnate is something similar to the Tank AT in the vids.

The intent of the linkages in that subsection was to offer preliminary personifications of the new ATs but the bit about Masterminds should have been made more clear. There's a bit of blended info in that subsection and it slipped my mind in the final edit pass. Mea Culpa.

There's nothing online to indicate your full sign-up date. Your PlayNC Account page only shows your next billing date. Many people sign up for the forum when they start their subscription, but some don't. Best thing to do is check credit card statements or count up used game cards. I've never seen a post from someone whose gotten the info from emailing support, but it's something one might try.

Thanks. It's really a team effort, which is why so many are credited and linked to.

Please PM or post any typos I missed or nitpicks by 11pm today, so I can incorporate edits. Enjoy!

PART 3 of 3

What’s left? Oh, there are esoteric bits and pieces.

CoV Archetypes
Building on Dispatch's summary, here they are (the AT descriptions are conjecture in part at the time of this post):

[color= yellow]Brute[/color] – (Captain Mako in the E3 CoV video)
Melee/Defense
Damage and defense between that of tankers and scrappers

[color= yellow]Stalker[/color] – (Scirocco)
Defense/Melee
No specific word on damage, but they have stealth attacks with damage bonuses

[color= yellow]Destroyer[/color] – (Black Scorpion?)
Blast/Buff or Debuff(?)
An offensive defender equivalent?

[color= yellow]Dominator[/color] – (Ghost Widow)
Mez-Hold/Blast?
Presumably the controller equivalent.

[color= yellow]Mastermind[/color] – (Lord Recluse)
The most secretive new AT - think minion pet summoner.

Will player-Villains be able to work with existing villain factions?

Players will be able to interact more closely with certain villain groups, perhaps becoming operatives for them. For TWO of them in particular…
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]


Shane Lacy Hensley: Yes! But your choices are very limited in the first game. We're concentrating on two factions right now, and may add more if it proves as fun and popular as we hope in updates.

[/ QUOTE ]
Hmmm, concentrating on two factions eh? Anyone have guesses as to which they'll be? (Spongecake)

[/ QUOTE ]
One faction is an existing group, the other will be new. (Lord_Recluse)

[/ QUOTE ]
'Arachnos' has been mentioned as the new one, the other looks to be the Council, but they could pull a fast one...

2 ideas that Lord Recluse liked, but not necessarily being put into the game:

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Just a comment that KO'd villains should not wake up in hospitals the way heroes do. Instead, they should wake up in jail.

On the plus side, Jail should have trainers for villains and stores (everything is for sale in jails), and villains should have many many ways to escape from jail, ranging from the legal (lawyers) to the not legal breakout (physical force, stealth, teleport, etc).

[/ QUOTE ]
That would be a kool, idea. But we can take it alittle further. Just like in the beginning of CoH you have a little training session. Have the same type of training session except it is geared to escape from jail or released or paroled. That would help with the mind set and game play.

[/ QUOTE ]
I really like this idea for a tutorial. Start off in jail, you hear about the CoV island thing (forget the name), do some easy missions to break out... very immersing.

[/ QUOTE ]
I kinda like this. Not saying it's going to happen, but it's a good idea. (Lord_Recluse 10/05/04)

[/ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Hall of Enemies. In your SG base, the defeated foes' "statue" or a grey stone version of the defeated enemy's character model, lines a hallway in your base. When you raid an enemy who beat your base, you have to see your statue in his museum room. The old school JLA, Batman, Superman, Legion, and Avengers had rooms like this in their HQs.

[/ QUOTE ]
Very nice. I'll add it to my list of fun ideas. (Lord_Recluse 12/17/04)

[/ QUOTE ]

On a suggestion of Increase Size powers or bigger models for villains:
[ QUOTE ]
(Lord_Recluse 10/08/04):Yeah, but if you are big as Babbage, how do you fit through those mission doors?
(Not something happening anytime soon.)

[/ QUOTE ]

Can/Will Heroes Become Villains, and Vice-Versa?

Tentatively yes, but as part of an update of CoV after its release. There have been several off-hand comments from dev's about whether Heroes going bad/Villains going straight.

from the Shane Helmsley interview in December '04:

[ QUOTE ]
[color= yellow]SeanMike: Can heroes become villains? Can villains redeem themselves and become heroes?[/color]


Shane Lacy Hensley: That's still on the table, but I think it's a good bet to say we will allow it at some point through a relatively difficult mission. It's more likely to be an update than a core part of CoV though.


[color= yellow]SeanMike: Will any NPC heroes become villains?[/color]


Shane Lacy Hensley: Heh heh heh.

[/ QUOTE ]
Questions on COH-COV transfer

[ QUOTE ]
We haven't yet looked into all the why's and whatnot's of hero-villain transfer, but I'm willing to say that if you transfer a character you do lose out on the lower level content of your new home. That transfer is all about the life of one character -- the hero who turns bad (and vice-versa). He doesn't go back and relive his life as a villain -- he is the fallen hero.

The point of the transfer would not be to let one character experience everything in two worlds (hero and villain) but fulfill the story of a single character. {Lord_Recluse 01/12/05}

[/ QUOTE ]

CoV’s Release Date:
End-of-Year Holiday season 2005. Pre-order boxes should be out in October-ish. CoV is planned to be released in US and the EU at roughly the same time.

How do I qualify for invitation into CoV's beta testing?
Beta begins in July/August '05

from the company press release, 10/28/04:
[ QUOTE ]
... The plan will reward long time players of City of Heroes™ with beta testing slots for City of Villains, slated for release next year.
...
The program will give priority to those who have been subscribed to City of Heroes the longest. A percentage of slots will be reserved for City of Heroes’ veterans, players who have subscribed to City of Heroes for at least 12 months. Those players will automatically earn a slot as a Villains beta tester. Players with at least six months of time in City of Heroes will receive the next level of priority consideration for the beta testing program. Higher character level is not necessarily an advantage in the selection process.

“We are announcing the plans today due to the overwhelming amount of requests we’ve received from our subscribers,” said Jack Emmert, lead designer for City of Heroes. “It makes sense for us to offer this incentive to our most dedicated players. Who else would be more capable of assisting us in the beta test than the folks most familiar with the way City of Heroes works?”

[/ QUOTE ]
To address concerns that beta slots would be given to players who waited until the month before beta, then bought a 12-month CoH subscription (We forum people are a crafty, paranoid lot, arent we?), CuppaJo clarified how "loyal subscribers" would be determined (10/28/04):
[ QUOTE ]
Ok - let's see if I can clear this up.

Two players -

One has been playing since launch with game cards, month to month. Beta starts and it has been 1 year since CoH launch. (just an example - not saying when the beta is)

He would have 12 "credits" towards beta.



Another player has also been playing since launch but bought 12 months with a credit card.
Then she renews for {a second} year as CoV beta comes out.

She would have 12 "credits". No "forward" credits.

Game card or Credit card - doesn't matter.



No, we are not trying to get you to "buy" your way into beta. We are just rewarding those players who have been with us the longest.

[/ QUOTE ]
{editing note: added bold emphasis and replaced 'another' with 'a second' for clarity. This was a BIG semantic debate at the time that we needn't have again.}

Short answer: As of now, tentatively, there will be two rounds or 'waves'of beta invites. A 1st round will be limited to subscribers who have 12 'paid &amp; played' months under their belt. Later, a 2nd - and likely larger - round of invites will be sent to players with 6 'paid &amp; played' months accumulated. Also, other beta invites will likely be offered though promotions through third-parties and to seasoned testers of the company's choice. If Cryptic/NCSoft follows the beta model for CoH's release, there might be a few weeks of beta access made available to pre-orderers. However, no CoV pre-order beta access has been announced. So don't get your hopes up if it doesn't happen.

And finally…
[ QUOTE ]
(Lord_Recluse 10/06/04) There MUST be mullets!

[/ QUOTE ]
Watch out, Zeb. We'll hold you to that!

Well, that was fun, wasn’t it? I’d like to thank all the eagle-eyed players who narrowly beat CuppaJo to the punch in pointing out new articles/interviews, and those industrious people with their good note-taking during convention panels and the E3 Expo who share the pearls with us swine. Big Thanks to Spongecake, Voidchild, Dynamic, SDragon, WitchChild, Circuit_Shorter, Doc_Obvious, Caios, Mantid and the guy who first coined the term Expanshalone! ‘Sucktastic’ is great, but Expanshalone! is sublime.

You may now return to your regularly scheduled cautionary warnings of CoH’s doom…

PART 2 of 3

CoV and PvP and PvE – What do we know?
Let’s review something stated in the coh.warcy.com (great site!) article:
[ QUOTE ]
City of Villains also introduces optional PvP elements to the game. Jack firmly believes that players should never be forced to do anything in the game that they don’t want to do. He feels the method by which PvP is incorporated in [City of Villains] is a “fun, fair choice.”

[/ QUOTE ]
That said, Shane Hensley is lead writer for CoV, and he had the following to say in an interview he gave at
www.gamersinfo.net Voidchild first spotted it on 12/14/04 – Spongecake pulled the best quotes on PvP:
[ QUOTE ]
[color= yellow]What's the "short take" on how PvP will be working (as far as you can tell us, at least)? [/color]

Shane Lacy Hensley: There are lots of different kinds. There are arena duels, PVP missions, and free PVP zones. The most exciting to me are the PVP missions and base raids. (Remember that all of this is consensual -- you'll *never* be forced into PVP if it's not for you.) PVP missions are just like regular missions, but give the other "side" the possibility of entering and intervening. We're still nailing down the way it works *exactly* but that's the gist of it.




[color= yellow]Will any level be able to PvP? Will level disparity be as large a factor in combat as it is in PvE? [/color]

Shane Lacy Hensley: You won't start PVP until level 15 at the moment.

[/ QUOTE ]

Building on that, I asked Lord_Recluse for a clarification since there are different modes for PvP. Currently, the level 15 PvP restriction is just for PvP missions and the 4 PvP zones. CoV's Arena will be open to all levels. As for Base Raids...?

[ QUOTE ]
Base raids is an open question, since right now anyone can be invited to join an SG. We may set the limit so a group doesn't get hosed for having low-level members. {Lord_Recluse 6/02/05}

[/ QUOTE ]
Fair enough.

From the 'CoV and CoH' thread, started on 5/23/05:
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]


Will there be PvE content in the PvP zones?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
No.

Both of those are confirmed, I'm just to tired to remeber who did.

[/ QUOTE ]
Hunh. Well, that's not exactly true. There IS PvE content (mobs, missions), but it's entirely optional. If a player wants to do a mission in a PvP zone, he can; but that mission doesn't gate any future PvE content.

In other words, if a player WANTS to go to a PvP zone and do a mission, he can, but if he doesn't, he won't need to. {Statesman 5/23/05}

[/ QUOTE ]
You will want to, though. David 'Zeb' Cook (Lord_Recluse) gave this tease to what's going on in those 4 PvP zones:

[ QUOTE ]
[color= yellow]Destroid: What kind of different gameplay elements will CoV feature that may bring back old players who left due to repetitive missions, no endgame content, and so on? [/color]
DC: We’re doing a lot with several kinds of gameplay. We are introducing PvP into the general zones [in CoV zones -UD], there will be 4 PvP zones with interesting unique gameplay in each zone that matches the character of that zone. There is a bounty hunting game in one zone that we are fine tuning. In the Warburg zone, if you complete a special task you’ll get the codes to call down a missile strike on your foes. There is even one zone where you go into the future and you are actually fighting for control of the future itself. We are also adding a lot to missions such as different objectives. You’ll have escort missions, kidnapping missions, plant-the-bomb missions. We are adding more visual variety to the maps by adding more unique pieces.
[color= yellow]Destroid: Planting a Bomb? Will heroes be able to go in and defuse a bomb set by villain teams? [/color]
DC: Right now the things we are doing is having optional missions set in PvP zones where some of the hazard involved is actually getting to the mission. The ability for one group to disrupt another is something we are looking at for the future.

[color= yellow]Destroid: The Hamidon has become a pretty formulated encounter. Will CoV have any sort of Epic encounter for players? [/color]
DC: CoV will have a high level PvP zone which is an epic struggle between good and evil. It will be between other players, not AI you can formulate against. We’re always looking for other stuff as well.

[/ QUOTE ]
From a CoV interview with Jack Emmert (Statesman) dated 4/07/05:

[ QUOTE ]
[color= yellow]IGNPC: In City of Heroes, there were bunches of bad guys standing around in the city just waiting for a fight. Will the same be the case in City of Villains? Will there be groups of heroes around? Or cops? Will players have missions that will have them running away from heroes to escape capture?[/color]
Jack Emmert (Statesman):There are still criminals on the street in the Rogue Isles -- in fact, that's all there are! Villains, of course, can fight all they like amongst each other, but villains will also be facing Paragon City's police dept., the Freedom Corps and even the Freedom Phalanx.

[/ QUOTE ]
On PvP rewards:
[ QUOTE ]
[color= yellow] Will there be any PVP-only badges or rewards, especially ones that improve your character in anyway (such as the accolades that give bonuses to endurance, etc.)? [/color]
Shane Lacy Hensley: Yes, but the rewards will mostly be tailored to PVP. We don't want people to feel they have to participate in PVP or their hero/villain is at a disadvantage in the PVE game.

[/ QUOTE ]

Bases – Heroic Headquarters and Villainous Lairs
David 'Zeb' Cook (Lord_Recluse) talks bases 5/26/05:

[ QUOTE ]
[color= yellow]Destroid: Will the design of the bases vary enough to offer different challenges from base to base? [/color]
DC: Yes. Every base can be unique. Players will be able to lay out the room. There are defenses and devices that can be placed and used. You can make a sewer base, or a high tech base, even individual rooms can be unique; all sorts of looks.

[color= yellow]Destroid: Supergroup base raids still in? [/color]
DC: Oh yes. Once you get a base built you can, at your option, become involved in base raids. If you want a base that no one raids, that is entirely possible. If you choose to, you can take part in base raids. Other people will need to send you a notification that they intend to raid at a certain time. We want base raids to be an event, and that requires people to be there. If your group doesn’t show, then it isn’t much of an event; we have to make Supergroups somewhat responsible for themselves.

[/ QUOTE ]

How does one decide to make one's base raidable? It seems that earning 'Trophies' or 'Items of Power' from new Hero or Villain supergroup Task Force Trials will flag your base as being raidable. Of course, stealing one from another supergroup's base will flag you as well. Reports from E3 indicated that having an 'Item of Power'/'Trophy' would force a supergroup to set a short raiding time window for their base. Multiple 'Items of Power'/'Trophies' would cause that raid window to lengthen.

Something else to chew on for base raids:
[ QUOTE ]
[color= yellow]With the items of power in SG bases, won't Phase Shift make it a bit too easy, once the force fields are destroyed?[/color]
Who said you could carry an Item of Power with Phase Shift on?

Who said there weren't base defenses to counter Phase Shift? {Statesman 5/23/05}

[/ QUOTE ]
A few other factoids about bases that came prior and during E3:<ul type="square">[*]Bases are instanced zones accessible via Portal Corp transport points around the cities.[*]Bases are designed by one designated supergroup officer: the Architect[*]Bases are rented space – details like “How much?” and “How often?” will be worked out in CoV beta.[*]Base styles: most mission tilesets and props from CoH were available for the E3 demo, plus customized lighting.[*]Base features: Hospital, Great Hall, Rooms/Corridoors, Vault, Transportation (for vehicles in the future), and Library &amp; Lab (for Skills in the future) – with all the decorative and usable objects applicable for each, including various modes of base defense (turrets, pain/sleep crystals. Etc.)[/list]The devs are still being cagey about when or if supergroups will be able to pool Influence, Inspirations, and Enhancements. Perhaps because of the Hammidon Enhancement issue still up in tha air? We'll have to wait and see.

Pics and dvcam footage of the base designer program in action at E3 can be found scattered in forums threads.

PART 1 of 3

This is second update of “A CoV Primer – How’s this Gonna Work?”, and the last one before beta testing begins. We get new players in the forums and - understandably - old questions get asked again. This is intended just to get late-comers to the discussion more up to speed with current discussions. This 'CoV Primer' will not cover every minute factoid, nor is the purpose of this thread to wag a self-important finger at people who post juicy unsubstantiated gossip. We love the gossip, but your SG buddy’s word comes second to actual dev quotes and interview extracts. Expect some serious Search-Fu thrown your way if you can’t provide a link. That said, some sections are relying heavily on player reports from the recent E3 Expo, where City of Villains was a prominent fixture. Game On!

Useful links:
US City of Villains site FAQ (with Flash)
UK City of Villains site FAQ (similar info - no Flash)
SDragon's &gt;Lots of CoV info here&lt; thread with tons of various people's E3 reports
Caios's E3 Report
WitchChild's Semi-Official COV FAQ
Plus the posting histories lately of SDragon, WitchChild, Circuit_Shorter, Doc_Obvious, Caios, Mantid and others are littered with good nuggets of CoV info.

Before we dig into the juicy bits gathered here, how about an introduction to Lord_Recluse, the Lead Designer for CoV:

[ QUOTE ]
Ah, after months of plotting in the background it is time to properly emerge from the shadows...

I'm David "Zeb" Cook, lead designer on CoV and happy to be here (in a villainous sort of way). Right now we're forging ahead on CoV. There's a lot of work to do so I'll be reading this forum and posting when I have time.

However, having read "How to Be a Smarter Villain in 30 Days", I'm not going to gloat and reveal our evil plans just yet. If you ask me to "Tell us all about the bad guys" or "How are you going to fix the llama problem?", don't expect details. Some of that will come in time -- and I think I'll save a few things as surprises.

For now, I want you to know I check this forum almost every day and I am listening to you ideas, suggestions, concerns, and debates. In the months to come, more details will emerge but right now I get to tantalize and tease you!

So what will help right now? You ideas, especially constructive ones. Just posting "PvP will suck because..." isn't nearly as useful as "I've got a suggestion for how to make PvP fun..." I've seen some good suggestions on these boards which have helped me think through some of the challenges.

And so as not to just complain myself I'm going to start posting some questions to the forum -- things that hopefully get you thinking about those good ideas.

Mwa-ha-ha! (Okay, I had to do that once.)

--Zeb

[/ QUOTE ]
And he has put questions to the playerbase in the CoV section, and it was good… er, evil.

Standalone sequel, expansion, Expanshalone! – huh? Just Tell Me What It Costs and I'll Figure It Out...
One can quibble about whether CoV is really a “standalone sequel” or a merely an expansion – I prefer to split the difference and call it an Expanshalone! Here's the barebone factoids: <ul type="square">[*]CoV introduces a seperate cluster of cityzones (7 PvE, 4 PvP), seperate from CoH's setting, Paragon City[*] Unique character customizations, unique mission structures, and a combo of new &amp; variant character Archetypes and powersets[*] Introduces base-building feature and Villain vs. Villain base raiding[*]Option to build on CoH gameplay using limited interoperability with CoH's player-Heroes via the PvP zones, PvP missions, and Hero vs. Villain base raiding if a subscriber owns and subscribes to both games (see below)[/list]It has not been formally determined or announced by NCSoft/Cryptic whether the purchase of City of Villains unlocks the base-building feature or the Hero vs. Villain PvP zones for current CoH subscribers like the DVD edition serial number unlocked the Sprint variant and new cape style, or whether the a slight raise in the monthly fee will be required. Before you hyperventilate, read further:

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
On the issue of a hypothetical fee increase to keep both standalone games active concurrently:

- Gaffer mentioned no more than $3-5/month back in November of '04.

- bruce mentioned "somewhere between 'zero' and 'not much'" in May '05.

- Gaffer , Lord_Recluse , and Statesman have stated clearly and definitively that the company WILL NOT be doubling the fee.

How many times is that shrill air horn of a comment of 'I'm not paying $30 a month' gonna go off, lol? Of course you're not - IT WAS NEVER AN OPTION.


[/ QUOTE ]
You're exactly right! {Statesman 5/24/05}

[/ QUOTE ]
Furthermore, the company's internal discussion of raising the monthly by a buck or two is to fund the development of Issues for each game as regularly as they have for just CoH. The hypothetical minor raising of the fee to play CoH+CoV has little to do with additional server/bandwidth costs, and little to do with PvP, so people who think that PvP is ruining everything should avoid that blame card.

For those of you playing the home version of this gameshow, here's the math for current CoH subscribers! <ul type="square">[*]pay $40-$50 for CoV - less if you wait 6 months[*]the regular content updates may DOUBLE[*]CoH+CoV subscribers pay $0-$5 extra/month for up to DOUBLE the added content[*]cue complaints from casual players that they can't keep with all the new stuff.[/list]Now then, if Cryptic goes with blended content updates that are not any larger than the ones we have now at the pace we have now, the problem isn't that they need more money - they need to trim some payroll. If the updates expand as my tea leaves indicate, an added $0-$5/month is worth the money and the problem becomes, "How will I find time to burn through doubled content updates?"

The official US City of Villains site's FAQ states, “Pricing will be announced when pre-order boxes are available at retail stores later this year.” That'll happen October-ish in the US. Cue teeth-gnashing much to the delight of dentists everywhere... Can we get to the good stuff now?

OK, CoV Is in a Different City. What's the Deal, Where Is It, and How Do I Get There?

An early design blurb for E3 dated 5/17/04 - pertinent quote:

[ QUOTE ]
City of Villains, slated for a 2005 release, brings a brand new style of play to the table and some exciting twists to the current CoH formula. As is obvious from the title, players now get to experience how the other half lives. Player villains don’t start out with fully functional power sets as their heroic counterparts, but instead must work their way up from being a common thug in order to prove their worth as a criminal and be recruited by a member of an NPC villain organization. An example of one such organization that players can be a part of is S.P.I.D.E.R. (Second Phase Infiltration to Destroy Empires’ Resistance).


All villains start out on [The Rogue Isles], a remote island similar to Bermuda. Once the player villain proves his worth and becomes part of a NPC villain group, the villain group “empowers” the thug with superhuman powers. The player then is able to choose an archetype/origin. The available powersets for villains are planned to be similar to those available to heroes currently. City of Villains also introduces optional PvP elements to the game. Jack firmly believes that players should never be forced to do anything in the game that they don’t want to do. He feels the method by which PvP is incorporated in the expansion is a “fun, fair choice.” .

[/ QUOTE ]
Adding this tidbit that Dynamic pulled 11/24/04 from the EU CoH site:
[ QUOTE ]
[color= yellow]Can you tell us a little bit about City of Villains? [/color]
At the moment, we’re still in the design documentation phase. I can tell you that we hired Dave ‘Zeb’ Cook, author of Advanced Dungeons &amp; Dragons, 2nd Edition, and creator of the famous Planescape campaign setting, to be the City of Villains senior designer.

Our design goal is simple: allow players to be the bad guy. We’re focusing more on the megalomania inherent in super villains, rather than simple anarchy. So a lot of gameplay will be focused on joining organizations, forming super groups and gaining power. More importantly, we want the missions to reflect the pro-active nature of villains. Heroes, for the most part, are reactive. They only spring into motion once the villain has tried something. Villains, on the other hand, instigate the adventures. It’s their schemes that initiate the plot. That’s why I hired a RPG expert like Zeb; I want people to feel like they are villains.

Besides the ability to play a bad guy, City of Villains also introduces bases. Super Groups can pool their resources to create customized headquarters. As part of this functionality, villains and heroes can invade each others’ bases in the struggle to obtain Items of Power....

[/ QUOTE ]
The highlighted part is verrrry interesting...

From an IGN interview with Jack Emmert (Statesman) dated 4/07/05:
[ QUOTE ]
[color= yellow]IGNPC: Where will City of Villains take place? Will it follow the same city structure as City of Heroes? Do you have a background story planned as you did for the heroes of Paragon City? [/color]
Jack Emmert: The City of Villains is the infamous Rogue Isles, controlled by the villain group Arachnos. The Rogue Isles were once a French colony, but they were quickly converted into a haven for pirates. Despite the Rogue Isles' reputation, nations found it convenient to have "law free" zone in the Atlantic, so the Isles acquired UN status. As you can see we've got a backstory as deep and rich as that of Paragon City.

[/ QUOTE ]
From the brilliant EU summary of our own CoV and CoH thread:
[ QUOTE ]
[color= yellow]How will the new zones be linked? Will we get an airport that can fly us back and forth from the islands? [/color]
Zones are linked through ferries, helicopters and plain ole' swimming! {Statesman 5/23/05}

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
Yes, you must use a fresh dead horse... or is that a freshly dead horse? Damned if I can remember which horse this was.

[/ QUOTE ]
I apologize if I come off as a forum fascist, but surely there is a way to succintly condense this sprawled-out thread into a Pilcrow-esque new OP that advances the central topic better?

[ QUOTE ]
I boggle that this thread still exists.

I'm not upset by it, mind you.

[/ QUOTE ]
It exists because players asked that threads with dev posts be maintained for possible reference quote use.

It does not exist to beat a dead horse. Start a fresh thread, please.

[ QUOTE ]
My personal bane was Rommie.

[/ QUOTE ]
I may be mistaken, but I think she switched her forum handle to Antonia.

F, I'm a forum geek.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

This is probably one of the cleanest, gosh-durn nicest forums I've ever come across.


[/ QUOTE ]

That just seems kinda sad to me. These are by far the rudest, most flame-filled boards I've been to.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow.

Just wow.

I prefer to think that this is paradise compared to, oh, say -- the Apocalypse.

Quite frankly, I have no idea where you hang out on the 'net, but this place is more easygoing than the [censored] Trading Spaces boards.

[/ QUOTE ]
OMG!! Bring Paige back you pig [censored]! Your show will fail now! And piss off to Mod_Ivy who keeps swiffering my posts!

[ QUOTE ]
While we're on the subject of "Where are they now?" type questions, anyone know what happened to Spongecake and/or Icarus_Factor?

[/ QUOTE ]
Not sure about either of them, but I know Superchum popped up lately just to ride out the last bit of his subscription period. He's having fun over at WoW for now. Ah well, he was a good poster.

I don't know if Icarus_Factor left the game, but the shrillness of the responses to I3 changes seemed to drive him from the forum. He really was a AAA critic drowned out by the horde of B- and C-level complainers.

[ QUOTE ]
Who was the guy with his own MMO* who never failed to mention it in ever DOOM post he ever made because his own game was better than CoH in every particular?

I loved that guy.

*Text based hidden cost model

[/ QUOTE ]
Cambios. Sweet, sweet Cambios. He had a hard time assuming higher ground when his own admin power fantasies kept seeping into his posts.

Adieu, mon ami.

May the DDT can next to your workstation always be full.

Sign me up for this. Sounds like a great QoL addition.

[ QUOTE ]
Well that still didnt quite answer my question.

[/ QUOTE ]
Sorry. I assumed that you'd understand that the changes establish a 300' xp zone around each character. Anything that happens within that zone is just as before.

In your ill controller + fire tank example, as long as you both are within 300' of each mob as they die, you will both receive team xp the same as before.

[ QUOTE ]
This doesnt effect how XP is gained in missions?

doesnt that basicly make this whole thing a fairly worthless change? if you want to PL someone, now you just have to do it inside a mission.. which.. incidently.. is how most PLing is done these days anyway.

[/ QUOTE ]
This change is centered around rewards from absolute zero risk. Inside missions, it is often marginally higher risk than parking one's character inside the train station.

[ QUOTE ]
For exemple , after i got badly beaten by a very same MA/Regen scrapper than myself 4 times in a row in a 1 on 1 match , i started to ask myself where did i failed in my build . Why was I always getting defeated ? We were fighting using mostly the same powers but the enemy was regenerating faster than me , hitting harder and taking less damages than me . So , it was obvious that my problem here was my enh slotting .

[/ QUOTE ]
...Or if you are 45+ it's the HOs in the Arena problem.

[ QUOTE ]
Someone also wrote that if numbers and stats are your stuff that i may be playing the wrong game . Ill answer to that by just saying that there are lot of players who have been playing for months trying to maximize the potential of their toons and i feel there is a place for them in CoH ( especially for people who will be very involved into the competition in the Arena ) .

[/ QUOTE ]
Perhaps the company will rethink its policy on numbers. Until then the dearth of them in the game manual and Statesman's repeated statements that he is disinclined to release all the numbers stand as a conscious design choice, not a careless omission that'll get fixed right away.

Your question is too broad. The are instances under the XP Change that you would and wouldn't get your full share of team xp for a group of enemies. From another summary that was asked for:

[ QUOTE ]
the XP Range change in summary:
(going off memory, but there is an 'XP Range' thread with several dev posts to get the full story)

Inside of missions:
Same as before. It was initially going to be tweaked, but not anymore.

Outside of missions:
<ul type="square">[*]If you hit a mob, and the mob dies outside your 300' (100 yards) radius, you DO still get your share of xp.[*]If you do not hit a mob, and a teammate kills it outside of your 300' radius, you DO NOT get any xp.[*]In either case, xp will portioned as team xp is already, but if you are not in the 300' radius and did not land a blow on that mob your xp from that kill will just evaporate.[/list]This change is to designed to curtail outdoor powerlevelling where a hero can easily earn reward with zero risk, or teaming - but not really. Curbing zero-risk xp gain in missions is more difficult to target so the proposed tweak in missions was dropped.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
t any rate, when Posi, Geko or any of the devs make a response on the boards, they are very clear in their meanings. Statesman? Not so much.

[/ QUOTE ]
To certain extent, I agree. I wonder if he's spread too thin at Cryptic, leading him to lean often on cheerleading rather than straight talk.

[ QUOTE ]
And I don't mean that Devs are directly rude, but that they sometimes take what appears to be a condescending approach of You don't see the big picture, so you do not realize that what you are doing is not actually fun.

[/ QUOTE ]
I don't really see that. I'm not saying that there isn't a possibility that they are condescending, just that I don't see it.

I do see that they have made certain changes where activities that they don't feel deserves reward had their reward diminished or removed. If one truly enjoyed the activity, then then the added reward of xp and Influence would be unnecessary. If you're speaking of tweaked powers, I will say that the vast majority in past Issues ultimately made sense and did a decent job of balancing the companies need to extend playing hours of their customers and making their customers happy with the service (because Cryptic/NCSoft ain't doing CoH just out of the goodness of their hearts).

[ QUOTE ]
This ignores that some people spend almost as much time playing the game as a Dev spends working on it.

[/ QUOTE ]
I'll ignore it too, I guess, because while it is flattering to the devs, accruing hours in CoH isn't a reliable indicator of much.

[ QUOTE ]
It ignores that many players often are more current and aware of power changes(as a whole) than the Dev team sometimes appears to be.

[/ QUOTE ]
Being more up to date than Statesman on a specific mission or power at any given moment is not that hard. He's the creative head of the game, not one of the guys crunching code. He can triple-check his facts on the current Live or Test build while he's overseeing several more alpha versions of upcoming builds and CoV, and post less to the community. He can do as he's doing now and pretty much getting it right usually, and post as much as he does now. Which is it? There are only so many hours in the day.

As far as finding bugs, you know the drill: things happen. CoH is a lot more complicated and a more fluid code construct than a Mario Bros. console game.

[ QUOTE ]
And it ignores the (I think) obvious problem of actually telling someone else that you know better than they do whether or not they are having fun.

[/ QUOTE ]
I've read a few posts over the last year where Statesman used an ill-considered turn of phrase centered on "fun". I didn't think highly of it, but I didn't take it personally. Ultimately, every game has rules or restrictions that bounce the player back inside the lines of what a particular game's idea of rewarding behavior is. MMOs are fluid constructs. It can be frustrating when the lines shift in a way one doesn't like. It can also be very fulfilling to present one's case to a game's developer and have the lines shift in a way one desires. In addition, sometimes the lines must be changed in a way that frustrates the devs and players because it seems to be needed to keep the publishing company happy. It's unfortunate, but CoH isn't a federal entitlement program.

[ QUOTE ]
Folks spend hours and hours testing changes, give extensive feedback, and find widespread support of their findings, and then the changes go through to live as is. (Only to have the Devs find on Live the same issues that were reported by players on Test.)

[/ QUOTE ]
I must be incredibly intuitive in knowing that while the devs intend to release patches and updates as bug-free as possible, that there is a lot of commercial pressure to push a patch or update forward if the bugs in aren't show-stoppers yet resist quick fixes. Until MMOs become easier to make and enhance, it is just going to be the nature of the beast.

Notice that I4 on live had some crashing problems with some people and fixes were out lickety-split, but the glitch in Icon is on the to-do list. That is a good example of where marketplace forces developers to put their priorities for entertainment software. It's not pretty, it could be better, but it is what it is.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
There's a flaw in your reasoning. 3 year olds don't post on the forums. Adults, however, do. And it's not an unfair request for people to *act* like adults instead of throwing temper tantrums like 3 year olds.

[/ QUOTE ]
Some people are more docile than others. On the other hand, some people grow up and become revolutionaries, protestors, and radicals. Those people were taught (rightly) to question authority. And those people will speak loudly and tersely when it's justified. And the docile ones will think the loud ones are being immature.

And the authority under question can respond to protest in a number of ways. How Cryptic responds to the community, even when the community is rioting, is up to them. But don't cause the riot and then act all offended that you got one.

[/ QUOTE ]
LiquidX was perhaps being too obtuse in his response to your earlier post. Let me build on his comment.

You are arguing that its ok to act like a 3 year-old in the forum, ya goof. I'm not being 'docile' or advocating complete docility, just a fricking adult argument. Sometimes when someone disagrees with you and labels infantile name-calling and antics as immature, it's just because it's immature and not because they're trying to demonize your opinion.You point at a lot of other people and blame them for everything that you don't like. Adults acknowledge that only in very rare cases is one party responsible for a conflict escalating. The devs doing something you don't like or understand doesn't give license to act like a 3 year-old. It certainly doesn't give license to throw tantrums without drawing the ire of people you would likely label 'fanboys'.

Time after time, I've come across critical posts that I've had some shred of sympathy for, but acknowledgement of sympathy and agreement is nearly drowned out by my tendency as an adult to point out and discourage rude, churlish, childish, ill-informed, or short-sightedly subversive talking points. (Though, if if someone is deft enough to be subversive - even for silly goals - I usually give a respectful nod to their rhetorical skill.)

I've never been swayed by a tantrum, but I have modified or reversed an opinion based on a reasoned argument. You're pretty much saying, "If you don't infantile tantrums from grown adults, don't do anything that players dislike." How about we - your fellow players and the devs don't negotiate with verbal terrorists and just you and you tantrum-apologists just grow the [censored] up, eh? Your tantrums aren't that good at fomenting change, and they ultimately diminish the amount of meaningful dialogue about the game between the players and the devs.

Just as 3 year-olds disrupt discourse between adults for the sake of a binky. Awesome line of reasoning you've got there. Way to win hearts and minds.

When did this become an 'Ask Statesman' thread?