[COH] Going Rogue - Issue 15 details

[Lyrical]

Man, I love capitalism. All it takes is the fear of losing your customers to other products looming on the horizon (i.e.: ChO was supposed to launch this month, and DCUO), and all of the sudden you get innovation (the mission architect) and new content (like side-switching). This dev team used to put stuff out at a snail's pace, but they've had to get religion lately.

Originally Posted by NCSoft

Paragon Studios™ is proud to officially announce the next City of Heroes® expansion, City of Heroes Going Rogue™! This will be the first major expansion for the City of Heroes franchise since the launch of City of Villains® in 2005.

Praetoria, a utopian mirror to our own world, hides a dark secret. Exploring this mysterious alternate earth, the heroes and villains of this world feel an uneasiness of doubt creep over them. Loyalties are questioned. Choices are made. Lines are drawn. As they search for the truth behind Emperor Cole and his Praetorian guard, brutal foes and fierce allies emerge, turning this once blissful paradise into a battle ground.

City of Heroes Going Rogue officially opens the "mirror universe" of Praetoria and an all-new alignment system that explores the shades of gray that lie between Heroes and Villains. For the first time, Hero characters can become Villains and vice versa, enabling Heroes to cross over to the Rogue Isles™ and Villains to experience Paragon City™.

For more information, read the official press release and check out our new Going Rogue website to view the announcement trailer and register for the latest news and updates for City of Heroes Going Rogue.

[Genjiro]

Haha, so true.....they didnt do shit since CoV launched that amounted to anything until these other games were announced. Time to level up a brute and swap to the cheaper heroside AH prices! Woooo! I've got to give that to them though at least, that this game for years now has been at the forefront of innovative changes to the MMO space or whatever the fuck you want to call it. How many people have asked for this in WoW and other games forever now? Sidekick and lackey system, unique guild bases/guildhalls, fun travel, and so forth and so on....its nice to see something set apart from the same old missionary position bullshit the rest of these companies push out. Though I will say the Wotlk phasing system could be used to do cool shit in CoX too.

[Cantatus]

For the first time, Hero characters can become Villains and vice versa, enabling Heroes to cross over to the Rogue Isles™ and Villains to experience Paragon City™.

Being able to switch better be a free feature. That was something that was advertised as being part of City of Villains years ago and repeatedly promised as "coming soon" every time it was asked about. It would be really crappy for it to be something that you have to pay for now, although it'd ensure them lots of sales.

I am really happy to see an expansion coming out though. I'm eager to see what other features will be included. I know there was a questionnaire a while back that people were posting about. It had some really interesting questions on it, including stuff about end-game content. I'm crossing my fingers that some of that sort of stuff will be included.

Edit: Ah, here's a good link about said survey.

[McCheese]

I'm curious what else they'll add to justify this being a full-blown expansion. It will have to be more than side switching and Praetorian earth.

CoV added not only a new "world", but tons of new powersets, archetypes, costume pieces, and mission tilesets/enemies. Granted that was a stand-alone expansion, but even still, I'd expect at least a good number of all those things to be included in this one.

I hope they make the side-switching more than a simple series of missions, ala EQ2. I'd really like a sliding scale that gradually goes good or bad based upon your actions as you level; a kind of dark/light side of the force sort of thing. Maybe we'll see the regular world become more destructible like in mayhem missions, with damage leading you towards villain and protection leading you towards hero.

[Cantatus]

Official site is up. So far, only a trailer is on it.

[Lyrical]

Originally Posted by Cantatus

Official site is up. So far, only a trailer is on it.

I love the dig at Statesman. Amazing that he's turn to the other side and gone evil, at the same time that ChO was supposed to launch (and he's switched sides to go to the competition) LOL.

[Genjiro]

Eh, that wasn't Statesman who was evil, its the alternate universe archvillain Praetorian version of Statesman that you have to fight in all the old school arcs from PI (named Tyrant). All the main storyline heros have an evil Praetorian counterpart for that matter.

[Cantatus]

Here's the official press release. Not a ton in it that wasn't in the e-mail that was sent out, although it does seem to indicate that dual pistols and demon summoning will be added powersets.

I'm not really liking the name of this expansion, namely because the villains play in the "Rogue Isles". To me, "Going Rogue" makes it sound like we're all talking a trip there or something.

Originally Posted by Genjiro

Eh, that wasn't Statesman who was evil, its the alternate universe archvillain Praetorian version of Statesman that you have to fight in all the old school arcs from PI (named Tyrant). All the main storyline heros have an evil Praetorian counterpart for that matter.

I'm sort of hoping we see one of the official characters change alignment. I was always disappointed when City of Villains came out and they just decided to create a ton of new characters rather than having anyone defect.

I suppose one of the good things about this expansion is that they're basing it around characters that were already in the game, although I'm not entirely sure I'm wild about the whole "mirror universe" idea. I think I would've rather have seen an expansion that revolved around Rularuu or Nemesis or even one where you go to Rikti Homeworld, but I guess we'll see.

[Kodylan]

Originally Posted by Lyrical

Man, I love capitalism. All it takes is the fear of losing your customers to other products looming on the horizon (i.e.: ChO was supposed to launch this month, and DCUO), and all of the sudden you get innovation (the mission architect) and new content (like side-switching). This dev team used to put stuff out at a snail's pace, but they've had to get religion lately.

I'm pretty sure competition has nothing to do with their rate of content production now, and more to do with the fact that NCsoft is running the show rather than Cryptic with NCsoft support.

Cryptic wanted to do away with the game entirely so they could focus on Marvel, thus they didn't care enough to support it with content updates in a timely fashion.

[Lyrical]

Originally Posted by Kodylan

I'm pretty sure competition has nothing to do with their rate of content production now, and more to do with the fact that NCsoft is running the show rather than Cryptic with NCsoft support.

lol wut?

[Kodylan]

Originally Posted by Lyrical

lol wut?

I'm sorry that I can't say more, so keep up with the retarded "lol wut" responses. It really shows how much you actually think about and analyze things before you post.

[Lyrical]

Originally Posted by Kodylan

I'm sorry that I can't say more, so keep up with the retarded "lol wut" responses. It really shows how much you actually think about and analyze things before you post.

It was the only response I could give to such a nonsensical post. But given the blind fanboyism you've shown to COH in your posts, we shouldn't continue the conversation - its a derail. The devs have given us new content in COH at a glacial pace, and then all of the sudden, we've got two blockbuster issues timed to takeaway from the release of ChO's original release date (in the same month).

Quit drinking the Kool Aid.

[Kodylan]

Originally Posted by Lyrical

It was the only response I could give to such a nonsensical post. But given the blind fanboyism you've shown to COH in your posts, we shouldn't continue the conversation - its a derail. The devs have given us new content in COH at a glacial pace, and then all of the sudden, we've got two blockbuster issues timed to takeaway from the release of ChO's original release date (in the same month).

Quit drinking the Kool Aid.

Err, I haven't even played the game since uh... shit when did it release? I quit two weeks in. I'm simply saying NCsoft being in control of development is why you're seeing faster content cycles; they're quicker at it than Cryptic was.

I have my own reasons for thinking this isn't about competition, because the competition they have is fairly sub-par (sans DCUO, which isn't coming out yet).

[Cantatus]

Originally Posted by Kodylan

I'm pretty sure competition has nothing to do with their rate of content production now, and more to do with the fact that NCsoft is running the show rather than Cryptic with NCsoft support.

I'd tend to agree. When Cryptic was in charge, they started working on 3 different MMOs, taking a lot of people from the CoH team to do so. It got to the point where I think they ended up with 8 or so people working on the game by the time NCSoft took it over. Now, I think they recently said they have like 40 people working on the game.

Although, I wouldn't go so far as to say it has nothing to do with competition. NCSoft has been in the MMO business for sometime. I think they would be extremely foolish not to try to push out some bigger content. Even if they announce power customization for CoH, and it doesn't release until after Champions, they've really stolen some of the thunder as that was one of Champions' big selling features.

[Neuad]

WHat is there to do past max level in this game? The most fun I had was flying around aimlessly for hours. . .