On the morning of Wednesday, May 28th we pushed out a new patch to City of Heroes and City of Villains. While this was mostly a follow up patch to the launch of Issue 12: Midnight Hour, it did include a few new features, including a new Hover animation along with other animation revisions and improvements and revision to some basic Stalker attributes.
Just in time to try out all the new features included in Issue 12: Midnight Hour, it’s a free Reactivation Weekend! From Thursday, May 22nd starting at 11 AM Pacific (1 PM Eastern) and continuing through Sunday, May 25th at 8:59 PM Pacific (11:59 PM Eastern) all inactive accounts in good standing have free access to City of Heroes and/or City of Villains!
If you haven’t played in a while, be sure to read through the press release for the launch of Issue 12: Midnight Hour: “NCsoft Covers New Ground in City of Heroes” and visit the Official Message Forums for a wealth of information about Issue 12.
We’ll see you in game and have a great “City of” weekend!
NCsoft is proud to present Guide to Issue 12: The Midnight Hour, a comic book created by two of the game community's own: Chase Arcanum and Cinder Flame! Explore the highlights and features of Issue 12 in this humorous look at the latest free expansion.
Click here to go to the City of Heroes Comic Book web page.
or
Click here to directly download the comic in PDF format.
If you don't have the Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the comic, click here to get it.
Also, join us on the Official Message Forums to to discuss the Issue 12 Comic Book.
Issue 12: Midnight Hour, the highly anticipated 12th free expansion for City of Heroes and City of Villains is now available to all current subscribers. Log in, patch up and play the exciting new release!
For more information please visit:
Official Press Release, “NCsoft Covers New Ground in City of Heroes”
In this in depth look at the creation of the new zone "Cimerora," Ken Morse takes us behind the scenes and through the seven steps that brought Cimerora from concept to virtual reality.
MMORPG.com brings us an exclusive first look at an official video telling the story of the Midnight Squad. The Midnight Squad is featured heavily in the next free expansion coming to City of Heroes and City of Villains - Issue 12: Midnight Hour.
The next free expansion coming to City of Heroes and City of Villains, Issue 12: Midnight Hour, has entered Open Beta Testing. This means any and all subscribers to the game can log into the Training Room and try out the many additions and improvements included in Issue 12 for themselves! If you haven’t been to the Training Room before, click here for instructions on how to configure your computer to do so.
To read the many changes in the current version, join us on the Official Message Forums to view the patch notes..
DJ Jules from Split Infinity Radio sat down and talked shop with Senior Lead Designer Positron and Powers Designer Castle. They talked about Powerset Proliferation, went over other features of Issue 12: Midnight Hour and answered listener questions.
Visit the SI Radio Website to download and listen to the interview.
To discuss this interview with your fellow players, join us on the Official Message Forums.
Listen in as CoH Podcast interviews City of Heroes Development Team Lead Writer, Joe “Hero 1” Morrissey. The discussion ranges from follow up questions to Joe’s recent Development Diary, to content writing, Issue 11, Issue 12 and more!
If you missed it on MMORPG.com, here's your opportunity to read the full Developer Diary by Lead City of Heroes Writer, Joe Morrissey. Joe talks about what he does on the Development Team and his involvement in creating game content. Also, get the inside scoop on the thoughts behind Issue 12's "Midnight Hour" storyline!
City of Heroes Development Team Lead Writer, Joe "Hero 1" Morrissey, will be featured in a coming installment of the fan created CoH Podcast! If you haven't visited CoH Podcast before, be sure to visit their website and see what they have been up to. They deliver a regular podcast with information and tips about City of Heroes for the casual gamer.
To help the conversation roll along in the podcast, we have set up an official discussion thread on the forums to pose your questions to Joe. Then, on Monday, May 5th we'll collect those questions for the recording session of the podcast.
Click here to pose your questions to Joe!
If you aren't familiar with whom Joe is or what he does on the City of Heroes Development Team, click here to read Joe's Issue 12 Development Diary on MMORPG.com.
MMORPG.com presents an exclusive first look at City of Heroes Lead Writer Joe Morrissey's developer journal telling us about the Midnight Squad, a group of heroes that has appeared in past lore, but makes their first appearance in Issue 12. Here's a brief clip:
“So, why the Midnight Hour?”The Midnight Squad takes the main focus of this issue. They’ve got some of the coolest history, yet hardly any of it has been opened up to the players. I choose the Midnight Squad because they were seriously crippled by the invasion and therefore were extremely motivated to take action against the Rikti. We did a lot with the Rikti story for Issue 10, but it was only through the single lens of the Vanguard. Now we see a second perspective, through the eyes of those hardest hit from the invasion, the Midnighters.
Click here to read the full article.
To discuss this article on the Official Message Forums, join us here.
Split Infinity Radio, one of the recent MMOFury.com fansite award winners, will be hosting Senior Lead Designer Positron and Powers Designer Castle live on air Tuesday, May 6th at 5 PM Pacifc / 8 PM Eastern.
April 28th, 2008 marks the fourth year since the launch of City of Heroes. To celebrate this achievement, the NCsoft NorCal team has created a City of Heroes / City of Villains calendar for fans of the game. This downloadable calendar features each of the 12 “Issues” that have been launched since the games release, one for each month of the year.
The calendar also includes an Anniversary message from Matt “Positron” Miller, along with important dates for the next year, including:
- May 6th, 2008: Issue 12: Midnight Hour enters Open Beta Testing
- July 18, 2008: Double XP Weekend Begins
- October 20, 2008: Halloween Event Begins
- December 15, 2008: Winter Event Begins
- January 23, 2009: Double XP Weekend Begins
To view these dates, plus many more from the lore and history of City of Heroes, visit the 4 Year Anniversary Calendar web page.
Four years.
I will say that again in case you misread it.
Four years.
I am pleased beyond all belief that this game continues to prosper four years into its life. Our community is stronger than ever, the game as a whole is stronger than it ever has been, and the future for the game, as well as the franchise is extremely bright.
When I look back upon the game that we shipped in 2004, I can’t help but look at all the things that were missing from it. Things we added immediately, and things we added recently. Badges were not in the initial launch. Heck, level 41 to 50 were not shipped with City of Heroes! As the game has progressed, I think we have added more free features with our updates than any other MMO on the planet. Multiple zones, missions, features and systems have been added to the base game over the past four years, making the game better and better with every update.
Every time I visit the Tailor in the game, I say to myself “Heh, I couldn’t even change my costume when City of Heroes launched.” Every time I Exemplar down to play content with my lower level friends, I note that this too was not a feature in the game four years ago. Now I actively seek out Inventions and Recipes both in missions and on the Black Market. The Invention System worked out very well for both City of Heroes and City of Villains, and was not part of the plan when we were finishing up CoH in the first quarter of 2004. Just over this last six months we’ve also added our Ouroboros Flashback System, Weapon Customization, and more quality of life features than the game had ever seen (until Issue 12).
That’s not to say we haven’t been without our missteps. We’ve implemented a couple things imperfectly (Epic Archetypes and Enhancement Diversification come to mind), which caused a lot of headaches for us down the road. I can’t promise that we will never make mistakes, but I will say we will do our best to ensure that we don’t repeat them.
I can’t tell you how excited I am for our game’s future, and although we have some major announcements yet to be made, one of the things I can talk about is a feature that we are planning. Similar in concept to our character creator, it allows you, the players, to create missions and story arcs for your characters and others to participate in. You’ll be able to pick the map, villain group, and objectives, as well as write the dialog and any clues needed for the missions. When you are satisfied with it, you can upload it and have other players across all servers play it and rate it. Fame will come to the players whose stories rate the best overall. It is features like these that we never dreamed of including when we first shipped, but are excited to be able to offer players very soon.
In the end I just want to send out a thanks to all of the players of City of Heroes and City of Villains. Everyone, from the veterans who have been with this game since it launched (and even earlier for some beta testers!) to the users who just subscribed last week, have made this the most fun game to work on in my seventeen years in the industry. I look forward to reviewing our accomplishments this time next year when we celebrate our 5th anniversary!
- Lead Designer, Matt Miller (Positron)
To highlight the four years of City of Heroes gaming, we bring you some fun facts about the game.
Since City of Heroes launched:
- More than 32 million characters created – that’s 4 times the population of New York City!
- Players have spent a combined 292 centuries playing City of Heroes and City of Villains
- More than 100 million items have been traded through the consignment (auction) houses since they were launched in 2007
Additional items of interest include:
Most Popular Origins
Mutant (25%)
Magic (24%)
Natural (21%)
Most Popular Archetypes
Hero: Blaster
Villain: Mastermind
Most Popular Travel Powers
Fly (34%)
Super Jump (30%)
Most Traded Item (via Consignment House)
Base Salvage: Alien Tech Salvage
Most Wealthy Archetypes
Heroes: Scrappers
Villains: Brutes
