Steady's Gaming Blog

There has been some news about City of Heroes, Going Rogue in the past few weeks. Of course they have let us know how much it is going to cost. It will cost $29.99 for the normal expansion and $39.99 for the collector’s addition. They released details about the next free expansion, Issue 17: Dark Mirrors and Going Rogue. The big news is the new ultra mode, a graphics update. Which honestly does not do much for me; I am not one of those graphics people that think my computer world has to look like the real world. Positron has posted a video card shopping guide on the COH forums, so check it out to see if you will be able to run ultra mode. In a nutshell, I do not play games for the graphics, but some people do, so this will be nice. Also looks like the normal expansion stuff, new powers sets, costumes, and of course new badges. What would a City of Heroes expansion be without a few new badges?

War Witch has been making the rounds with people like Top Ten Hammer, and Becketts Massive Online Gamer. I am not seeing a lot of information here. Yes, there will be two more power sets, and a new zone, you can switch sides, all well and good, but not something I am sure I want to pay for. We just went through this with Champions, unless I am getting a level cap raise, or some killer end game content, why would I pay good more for a few new zones, and powers. Yes I can switch sides, but is that worth $29.99, what am I going to do once I switch, run stuff I have already ran? City of Heroes has always been one of my favorite games, and I hope they are going to give me more then I am seeing here, because if they don’t, I am not sure if I will be Going Rogue. I don’t want to be one of those grumpy gaming bloggers, but the MMO world is getting crowded, and I have to send my kids to college soon, so I am being a bit pickier about where I spend my gaming dollars.

Finally it is time for one of the best weekends of the year. Double XP weekend starts Thrusday, March 4th until Sunday, March 7th. Also if you have an inactive account, you can play free of charge all weekend. So if you are looking for someone to run with, check out the Combat Engineers, on the Freedom, Virtue and Justice servers, or the Dark Combat Engineers on the Freedom Server, if you are playing villains.

Will the fun at City of Heroes continues. First the announcement of a new expansion, City of Heroes going Rouge, has the forumnites going crazy with speculation. I am not sure how any game developer ever survives the launch, and expansion of any game. No matter what they do, someone is not going to be happy. I only read a few pages of the comments, because that is really all I can stomach. Will you update the poor graphics engine (huh, looks good to me) verses, will I be able to play on my low end machine. Will we have to pay for the expansion or will it be free. My personal favorite is that the expansion will include power customization, because in the trailer, the fire ball that Desdemona uses changes for red to blue. Hmm, maybe because she is moving from the red side (villains), to the blue side (heroes)….The biggest beef is that the FAQ’s tell you nothing, and they don’t really. I wonder why, as soon as they put something out about the expansion, and it does not happen. One of these forum trolls will post something like, you said the expansion was going to include this, and it did not, you lied to us, bah, I am going to play Champions.

Anyway, the expansion looks cool. Basically looks like a new zone, Pratoria, ruled by an evil Statesman clone, Tyrant, where you can go rogue if you want too. Good can become bad, and bad can become good. Looks like an awesome idea. I knew they were working on something big (see post below). Very few details have been released, which is fine by me. I do hope it includes an increase to the level cap of 50. The link below is the press release and the trailer. The trailer is pretty cool. I look forward to buying and playing this expansion.
City of Heroes, going Rogue

The other thing making noise, is yet another post by Positron on the subject of Mission Architect farmers, and what will happen to them. Again, another no win situation for the games developers. Personally I think they are doing the right thing. Again they are getting slammed by some for not being more specific about who, or what they are doing to the farmers. Again, the minute they become more specific, some forum troll will latch onto it, and cause a problem. I think it is very simple, don’t join a farm, or design a mission that is a farm. Pretty simple really, start up a team, find a good arc, and have a good time. Do that, and you have nothing to worry about, problem solved. I did find one annoying thing about this; apparently they are not removing these harmful arcs. If you choose one in the AE, it just does not allow you to run the mission, nothing happens. I thought something was wrong my game the other day, as I choose about three of these illegal missions in a row. They looked normal to me, so I wish they would just remove them. I am guessing it has something to do with the author of the mission losing a slot, because they cannot follow the rules. Anyway, see below for the latest round, of silliness on this subject. Pretty sure this is the last I have to say on it as well, and it is time to let this subject die, and move on.

City of Heroes forum