Lighthouse_NA

To elaborate on the roll back of the Hero auction; here is the scoop.

Hero Auctions were unfortunately restored from a back up dating from 10 PM Central on May 8th. This means that items you may have put up on the Consignment Market after that time may not be there now. Please keep in mind that this is Hero side only and does not affect Villains.

We are working on a way to address the issue by restoring lost items. Engineering is still evaluating and testing this method of correction. At this time, Customer Support is not in a position to address this on an individual basis. Should the current plan of correction not work out (again, it's still being tested) we have other ideas for compensation in mind and I'll elaborate on that as needed.

Please keep in mind that this in no way affects any items or influence that were on your character(s). Only items that were stored or up for auction may be affected. Our sincere thanks for your patience and understanding. Also, please know that we are already implementing new safeguards and procedures to correct the issue that led to this incident.

As of 2:50 PM Pacific on May 9th, both Hero and Villain Auction Servers are back up.

There was a small roll back associated in bringing the Hero Consignment Market back online. There was no roll back of the Villain Auctions.

I will have more details of the roll back specifics and post them here shortly.

To follow up on this issue and answer a common question, if you visit the Consignment Market NPCs in game while the Auction Server is offline (like it currently is) the user interface will still come up for you.

However, none of your bids or items that are up for sale will appear. This is only the case because the Auction Server that contains that information is offline and not available for your game client to talk to it. Once the Auction Server comes back online your bids and items up for sale will reappear.

Thank you again for your patience and understanding while we work to resolve the issue that necessitates the Consignments be offline.

We are currently aware of an issue with the Consignment Markets following today's game update. To address this issue it will be necessary to take the Consignment Markets offline. As we have more information and an ETA for the return of the Markets, we will post them here.

Thank you for your understanding and patience while we work to correct this issue.

On May 9th we updated the game. Read the full Patch Notes here.

Hi everyone,

I wanted to follow up on this issue and shed a bit more clarity. After looking into things with the Force of Justice accolade, here is a bit of history behind it:

The Force of Justice accolade was removed because there was no accolade power to go with it. If we made a power, it would then imbalance the accolade powers between CoH and CoV, which was a situation we didn't want.

It is likely that when CoV gets another Accolade power, we can then consider activating the Force of Justice accolade (or another one that might be more appropriate at the time) to then balance things out between the two games.

Apparently there was some confusion on our part with documentation of the Accolade. That confusion led to subsequent miss-communication with players. Hopefully this will clear up any issues with the Force of Justice Accolade. For those concerned with this, thanks in advance for your understanding.

Recently, we've seen several complaints come in through our Customer Support Team that people are not able to obtain the "Force of Justice" Accolade.

Here's the thing - there is no "Force of Justice" Accolade.

The only place players may come across that is through decoding the game files to find reference to it, but it doesn't even have requirements. It's a leftover item that was never implemented. You won't find any reference to it through normal game play.

So, my call to the community is this: please remove any reference to the Force of Justice Accolade on your fan sites, personal web sites or any badge listings.

If you have questions or concerns about this, please send me a private message via the forums or write me at Lighthouse@ncsoft.com

Thank you.

Get involved with Super Powered Action and Adventure now! We are pleased to announce that MMORPG.com is now offering a 14 day trial of both City of Heroes and City of Villains.

Create your own Hero!
Become an infamous Villain!

With the launch of the latest free expansion, Issue 9: Breakthrough, now is an exciting time to be playing. Tell your friends to take advantage of this offer today!

For complete details and instructions, visit the free trial on MMORPG.com now!

This morning, Friday May 4th, we updated the Live servers with a hotfix to help address this issue. This hotfix is not a permanent correction and there may be some subset of users who still experience issues when first accessing the Consignment Markets. However, disconnects that result from this should be lessened.

We are still working to put a more permanent solution in place.

We wanted to make people aware that we have a correction for an issue with how game clients access the Consignment Market via Wentworth's and the Black Market that can cause the client to lag out or disconnect. If you wish to check out this fix, you can log on to the Training Room (patch notes here)

This issue is caused from machines who do not have abundant resources to process the initial load of Consignment Market information. When playing, we recommend that you free up as much available resources as possible through closing other applications (such as quicktime, instant messaging clients, streaming music, bit torrent or other background processes).

We are working to bring the correction to this issue to the live production servers as quickly as possible. For those that are affected by this problem, our thanks your understanding and patience.

Our operations team reports a correction for the problems leading to connectivity issues on the above servers. At this time, all service should be returned to normal. Or well, as normal as it gets around here!

Thank you in advance for your patience while the problem was resolved.

We are currently experiencing connectivity issues with the following West Coast servers that could result in intermittent player disconnects or even the need to restart an affected server from this list:

Training Room
Justice
Virtue
Guardian
Protector
Champion

We are working to resolve this issue as quickly as possible. Thank you in advance for your understanding and patience.

In celebration of the launch of Issue 9: Breakthrough, we have reactivated the accounts of our former players in good standing through late Sunday night (May 6th, 8:59PM PST / 11:59PM EST). Spread the word to your supergroup or guild mates and online friends who might not be playing CoH that now is the time to come back and check out the great new Issue 9, for FREE!

Welcome back to these Heroes and Villains and we hope that everyone has a great "City of" weekend!

Nice work, Suckerpunch! I always enjoy plotting my characters via your web planner at www.cohplanner.com!

We are thrilled to announce the release of Issue 9: Breakthrough for City of Heroes and City of Villains!

Breakthrough is the ninth free expansion to City of Heroes since its release in April 2004. Issue 9 adds a whole new layer of game play to City of Heroes and City of Villains with the introduction of the highly-anticipated Invention System. Heroes and villains can collect "loot" in the form of Salvage and Recipes, and use it to craft new Enhancements, costume pieces, or temporary powers!

I9 also brings you Consignment Houses (Wentworth’s Consignment House for heroes and the Black Market for villains). These Consignment Markets feature cross server functionality, connecting all of the US and EU servers into one vast marketplace! This ensures players always have a thriving marketplace to buy and sell on.

Issue 9 also features a new Hamidon Encounter for both sides, and the high-level Statesman’s Task Force for heroes.

Here are some links to help you get involved with Issue 9: Breakthrough!

Statesman's Task Force

Matt Miller Introduces Inventions

Redesigning the Hamidon

The making of Issue 9 Wings

Talk with other players in the new Inventions Laboratory forum.


Check out Issue 9: Breakthrough today, and soar to new heights in Paragon City and the Rogue Isles!

[ QUOTE ]
So this really cool window pops up while I'm in the middle of a big fight. And it says:
City of Heroes is Three Years Old!

Free Respec!
To commemorate the 3 year anniversary of City of Heroes, we will be granting all characters a free respec on Tuesday, May 1st. For more details please visit the announcement forum of the City of Heroes message board.
-----
Hey that's great and all but... 1) I already knew this was coming. As does anyone else that reads the forums. 2) Your [censored] giant [censored] window popping up right in the middle of a big hairy battle I was in almost got me killed.

Thanks!

[/ QUOTE ]

Any time we update the Message of the Day (MOTD) file on the server, it pops up like that. It's rather poppy. Oh, and it was all my fault too

Please use this thread to discuss the following announcement:


Three years. For some on the Development Team, the amount of change over that time has evolved the game to bear only a slight resemblance to its original form. In just the past 12 months we’ve published three major updates: Issues 7, 8, and now 9 (coming very soon). Seven and Eight added a ton to the game in terms of content for players to chew through, and now Issue 9: Breakthrough adds a completely new spin on things with the Invention System.

Now, new players get to see the fruits of years of hard work right away. They experience a game that has always had Inventions, Consignment Markets, the Rogue Isles, Supergroup Bases, Mayhem/Safeguard missions, Striga, Croatoa, Arenas, Badges, and everything added to the game since launch. We are certainly not done yet and look forward to the rich promise the future holds!

But let’s not forget the present. Issue 9: Breakthrough is probably the biggest “change” made to the game yet! We think it’s a dramatic change for the better. Adding in the Invention system was a daunting task. It needed to be a system that integrated smoothly into a three year old game and appealed to our current class of players. Based on your feedback, it sure feels like a success on both counts. The Invention system makes characters stronger, more diverse, and adds a whole new level of excitement to the game. We’ve had many players urging us to put out Issue 9 onto the live servers, bugs and all, because the game they were playing on the Training Room was more fun and engaging than the current live version of the game. Higher compliments could not be made.

What’s old is new again, and that’s exactly what the team wanted the Invention System to do. Defeating your foes never felt as satisfying as when you get a great Recipe off them, something you need for your character or something that you can sell for big Influence on the Consignment Market.

Statesman’s Task Force is also a great addition, as it allows a lot of things that players had asked for, like Heroes getting a Mayhem-style mission. In addition, it nicely wraps up some storylines from City of Villains, like learning the true purpose of the big web-array in Grandville. That and who doesn’t like getting to throw down with the elite of Arachnos? Great fun!

When we turn our eyes to the future we see some pretty awesome stuff coming together. New costumes, new temp powers and new inventions. A villain group returns with a dramatic change that will shake the very foundation of Paragon City and the Rogue Isles. An old friend returns as an enemy. Enemies will become friends. Issue 10 and beyond is really shaping up nicely!

But most of all we want to thank you, the community, the players and our customers. Without you there would be no City of Heroes or City of Villains. Your comments, support and testing have made Issue 9 one of the best yet! Everyone here at the Development Team wants very much to deliver more of what you all want out of the “City of” games in the next year, and beyond.

~ Lighthouse on behalf of the City of Heroes / Villains Development Team
April 28th, 2007

Three years. For some on the Development Team, the amount of change over that time has evolved the game to bear only a slight resemblance to its original form. In just the past 12 months we’ve published three major updates: Issues 7, 8, and now 9 (coming very soon). Seven and Eight added a ton to the game in terms of content for players to chew through, and now Issue 9: Breakthrough adds a completely new spin on things with the Invention System.

Now, new players get to see the fruits of years of hard work right away. They experience a game that has always had Inventions, Consignment Markets, the Rogue Isles, Supergroup Bases, Mayhem/Safeguard missions, Striga, Croatoa, Arenas, Badges, and everything added to the game since launch. We are certainly not done yet and look forward to the rich promise the future holds!

But let’s not forget the present. Issue 9: Breakthrough is probably the biggest “change” made to the game yet! We think it’s a dramatic change for the better. Adding in the Invention system was a daunting task. It needed to be a system that integrated smoothly into a three year old game and appealed to our current class of players. Based on your feedback, it sure feels like a success on both counts. The Invention system makes characters stronger, more diverse, and adds a whole new level of excitement to the game. We’ve had many players urging us to put out Issue 9 onto the live servers, bugs and all, because the game they were playing on the Training Room was more fun and engaging than the current live version of the game. Higher compliments could not be made.

What’s old is new again, and that’s exactly what the team wanted the Invention System to do. Defeating your foes never felt as satisfying as when you get a great Recipe off them, something you need for your character or something that you can sell for big Influence on the Consignment Market.

Statesman’s Task Force is also a great addition, as it allows a lot of things that players had asked for, like Heroes getting a Mayhem-style mission. In addition, it nicely wraps up some storylines from City of Villains, like learning the true purpose of the big web-array in Grandville. That and who doesn’t like getting to throw down with the elite of Arachnos? Great fun!

When we turn our eyes to the future we see some pretty awesome stuff coming together. New costumes, new temp powers and new inventions. A villain group returns with a dramatic change that will shake the very foundation of Paragon City and the Rogue Isles. An old friend returns as an enemy. Enemies will become friends. Issue 10 and beyond is really shaping up nicely!

But most of all we want to thank you, the community, the players and our customers. Without you there would be no City of Heroes or City of Villains. Your comments, support and testing have made Issue 9 one of the best yet! Everyone here at the Development Team wants very much to deliver more of what you all want out of the “City of” games in the next year, and beyond.

~ Lighthouse on behalf of the City of Heroes / Villains Development Team
April 28th, 2007




To discuss this announcement please join us on the General Discussion Forum.

There will be a free character respec given out as part of the 3rd year Anniversary of the launch of City of Heroes. This free respec will be applied to all characters on May 1st, 2007.

The top tier current retailer list for the Generic NCsoft Game Time Cards are:

GameStop

EB Games – US and Canada

Best Buy – US and Canada

FutureShop - Canada

Fry’s Electronics

Amazon

Micro Center

Please remember that the new game time cards are only just now perking through the marketplace, so retailers may not yet have them on shelves.

[ QUOTE ]

Comment on the thread in general:
Watch the language and the personal attack folks.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks!

Hear more about the Comic Book Creator Contest live on NowLive 's Hollywood Babble-on with Marty Keagan. Alex "Lighthouse" von Minden from NCsoft and Kevin Donovan from Planetwide Games will be live at 1:30pm Pacific (4:30pm Eastern) Tuesday, April 24, 2007 with Marty Keegan and crew. Tune-in to the broadcast and text message comments live online during the airing!

For more details visit Hollywood Babble-On.

To listen in Click here.

Stop digging up the old bones!

Thread locked.

To address some common questions about this coming free respec:


Q:Will having a prior Freespec (from a previous issue) affect it?

A: Yes, it will. You cannot have 2 "Freespecs" on any given character. This Free respec will function just like all previous free respecs have. If you already have a respec, you will need to "burn" your existing one to obtain the new one.


Q: Barring vetspecs, does this mean we could have five banked respecs (Anniversary spec, Freespec, 3 trial respecs?):

A: No, this is a freespec.


Q: Given the big change IOs may make in players powers, many think a freespec will be given at some point with I9.

A:There is no free respec associated with Issue 9.

We wanted to let players know that, as part of our celebration of the 3rd year anniversary of City of Heroes, we will be applying a free respec to all characters. So, if you have been wanting to change your powers around a little bit, switch up your power slotting or make other changes, this will be a good time to do it!

To get the most out of your character respecs, be sure to visit the Player Guide section on Respecification.

The actual timing of when the respec is May 1st, 2007