Alexa

Thanks for the kind wishes all!

Dear Villains and Heroes,

I wanted to let you know that I am moving along to another project and my last day with CoV/CoH will be tomorrow, March 3rd.

I have so enjoyed working on this project for the past 10 months. Awry, The EMpaler, Arctic Sun and CuppaJo have been the greatest group of companions and office mates. I’m going to miss sharing the daily insanity with all of them. (Arctic Sun will be transitioning off as well, and you can read his farewell post here.)

This is a wonderful community, and it has been my pleasure to be a part of it. I have heard many people refer to this as one of the best MMO communities around, and I certainly agree. Thanks for your thoughtful posts, supportive PMs, and for very often making me double over with laughter.

I will see you around the Rogue Isles!

Yours in villainy,
Alexa

P.S. I swear I have put all of those “Where’s my beta invite?” PMs completely behind me.

Just closing the loop on this... the problem with the auth server was fixed and you should be able to log in as normal.

Hi folks,

We are experiencing some issues with the auth server right now. There is no ETA, but we are investigating the issue and will post more information as it becomes available.

[ QUOTE ]
Yesterday I was running the missions in Bloody bay and three times I ran into a disturbing problem...

When zoning in from COV I ended up someplace other then the villan base.

One time I ended up in the forest to the east of the base and twice I zoned in directly to the city, once with a hero no more then 20 feet from me!

Luckily I go in with shields up and managed to run, choose a mission and enter the mission door before he could touch me.

Is this a known bug?

/e bow

[/ QUOTE ]

This is a known bug. According to QA, it's related to having the shivan shard temp power (there might be other things that cause it, too, but this is what they've been able to reproduce).

[ QUOTE ]
If I lived near Austin I'd totally go and pretend I was someone else. Like Anti-Catwhoorg or LiquidX or something, (maybe that Puffyshirt guy I hear mentioned every once in a while).

How would anyone else know the difference? I'm tempted to go just to sew confusion and mayhem! Bwaahahahaaha!

[/ QUOTE ]


Funny, I was thinking I'd go and pretend to be Craban or Friggin_Taser.

Obviously, I'm going to need therapy after this.

With the release of Issue 7, Heroes and Villains alike will move forward toward their ultimate destiny. In “Destiny Manifest” players can experience two new high-level zones and hundreds of new missions, including 40-50 content for Villains. The release will also feature mayhem missions, new costume items, new power sets, new patron powers, and more!

Click here to read a preview of the amazing new features coming in the next Issue.

[ QUOTE ]
The devs are hiding from the conspiracy nuts. Just to mess with their minds. Those zany devs...

[/ QUOTE ]

You've unraveled our nefarious plot. I, personally, have been using the extra time to work on my villainous laugh.

Hi everyone,

We reported in the 11/08 patch notes that the Temple of the Waters Strike Force (given by Operative Renault) was fixed to grant a badge upon completion. It has come to our attention that, once again, the Strike Force appears *not* to be awarding the badge properly.

We are looking into the issue but wanted to caution you not to take on the Strike Force right now if you are interested in earning the actual badge, since we are not able to award the badges retroactively. You will still earn xp from the Strike Force, however. We apologize for any inconvenience and will let you know when it is again working as intended.

Hi all,

We are aware that some CoV Strike Forces are not currently awarding badges and that some CoV story arcs are not awarding souvenirs. These issues will be fixed in upcoming patches.

Customer Service has received a large number of inquiries about whether it is possible to award CoV badges and souvenirs retroactively. In the case of the badges, unfortunately, the answer is no. Customer Service is *not* able to grant you these badges for any reason. Petitions about getting the badges will only result in a polite reply that it is not possible to do so. This means that those who have successfully completed a Strike Force prior to a patch (but didn't receive a badge) will have to complete the Strike Force again to obtain the badge.

The souvenirs for CoV story arcs are a separate matter, however. After the fix is rolled out to the live servers, our intention is to award CoV souvenirs retroactively. This will likely happen in stages as the data for the various souvenirs becomes available. We’ll post more information as we receive it. The awarding of these souvenirs won't be handled on an individual basis by the GMs, but rather via a script that will hit everyone who qualifies all at once.

Greetings Heroes and Villains,

We have opened the “Cathedral of Pain” for testing on the Training Room. Many of you have asked when this would be available, so here’s your chance to try it out! We hope you will transfer your characters over and give this a go (for details about how to transfer your characters to the Training Room, please click here).

Not only will you be helping us uncover potential problems, but it is also an excellent opportunity for supergroups to practice this very challenging trial. The “Cathedral of Pain” is neither for the inexperienced nor the faint of heart, and once it hits the live servers, it will only be available at limited times.

Here are the details:

The “Cathedral of Pain” trial will be available on the Training Room starting Thursday, November 17th. Our hope is to leave it up through Thanksgiving weekend (although availability is subject to change depending upon performance and technical issues). We want to give you time not only to acquire Items of Power, but also to stage base raids against each other in order to defend/steal the items. Good times!

What exactly is the “Cathedral of Pain”?

Rularuu has obtained a number of powerful relics from the infinite worlds into which he peers. These relics rest at the center of his great palace in the Shadow Shard, the Cathedral of Pain.

Every so often, Rularuu’s legions invade Earth and scour it for these relics, or Items of Power. While this is a dangerous time for earth, it also grants heroes and villains an opportunity to travel to the Shadow Shard and take Rularuu’s items for themselves. With these relics, Rularuu will eventually be able to pierce the veil and transfer his full consciousness into our reality, and ravage it utterly. Great heroes must stop this process. Super villains will want to gain the items for their own personal goals.

Note: Items of Power bestow benefits to your entire supergroup for as long as you are able to keep them in your possession.

What will you need in order to attempt the “Cathedral of Pain” trial?

In order to take on this enormous challenge, you will need to belong to a supergroup. The supergroup must also have a base with the following items:

* 8 rooms
* 6 dimensional anchors
* Mission Computer or Oracle
* Raid Teleporter
* A base/mount for the Item of Power

Supergroup affiliations don’t carry over to Training Room when we transfer our characters. How do you expect us to afford such a swanky base?

You will be granted 36 million prestige automatically when you create your supergroup. Additionally, you will have access to all the recipes, but you will still need to get salvage to build the mission computer.

Once we’ve built our base, how do we get to the Cathedral of Pain?

You will be alerted to the trial via the mission computer in your base. After you’ve accepted the mission, you will be teleported, via the Raid Teleporter, to a nearby staging area to carry out the raid.

How many people can participate?

The trial accommodates up to 24 players. This allows a supergroup to easily form three teams of 8. (In other words, you’re going to want to bring a lot of people.)

Anything else we should know?

The “Cathedral of Pain” acts as a Task Force and temporarily “grays out” any other missions, trials, and Task Forces. All players are sidekicked/lackeyed to 50. Players who are defeated in any part of the trial are transported back to their base hospital.

Good luck and don’t forget to leave feedback in the Training Room forum!

Attention Heroes and Villains! It’s time to kick those creative juices into high gear for another City of Heroes-related contest, and the first contest featuring City of Villains! This time around, we’re looking for those of you who can display mad web design skills by creating the coolest fan sites devoted to City of Heroes and/or City of Villains.

Click here for all the details (and a list of the cool prizes you can win).

Who:

Sean “Manticore” Fish, Story Director/IP Manager for CoV and CoH and

Shane “Captain Mako” Hensley, Lead Writer for CoV

Why:

Have you ever wondered who created the complex worlds of Paragon and the Rogue Isles? Did you read all about it in “The Web of Arachnos” and still have questions? Curious about the enemy groups that confront you at every turn? Can’t wait to see what happens next in the unfolding saga between Statesman and Recluse? This is your chance to ask two of the writers for the City of Heroes/City of Villains universe!

When:

Tuesday, November 15th from 5-6 PM Central (3-4 Pacific, 4-5 Mountain, 6-7 Eastern)

How:

Just tune into #StraticsHoC on Stratics IRC. For those with Java installed, Stratics’ IRC HoC Java Chat applet will allow you to automatically join #StraticsHoC by entering a nickname and clicking on the Chat! button. Otherwise, you can connect to the servers by using either mIRC, pirch, Ircle, one of your favorite Linux chat clients, or one of the Java applets listed on the Stratics site and entering one of the following servers:

Stratics.frws.com 6668 (USA Colorado)
irc.glowfish.de 6668 (EU Germany)
Stratics.afraidyet.net 6668 (USA Atlanta)
irc.stratics.com 6668 (re-routing to one of the above servers)

Hi, this has been discontinued for the time being. We'll let you know if/when we plan to put it back on the web site. In the meantime, if you'd like to contribute something, you might consider submitting some fan fiction or fan art. Go here for details.

Hey folks!

As many of you have reported, there are some issues with costumes right now. Some pieces are different and/or missing, and the Tailor will try to charge you for a costume change when you haven't actually made any changes.

We wanted to let you know that the dev team is aware of these issues and currently working on a fix. We don't know exactly when the fix will be pushed to the live servers. In the meantime, if you go to the Tailor and see that he/she wants to charge you before you have even made any changes, you have the option of cancelling out before being charged.

The good news is that after the fix is in place, we will be granting a free costume change to everyone. (Again, I have no ETA on this right now.)

Cheers,
Alexa

Hello everyone,

After speaking with the GMs, I have an update for you regarding support issues.

Right now, the wait time for petition responses can be upwards of 24 hours. Obviously, this isn't ideal, but the team is working as hard as possible to get through the large volume of petitions. As the dev team works to resolve the issues that are reported to them, the wait times will continue to improve and return to pre-launch levels.

In the meantime, what can you do to help the GMs serve you better?

Please be as specific as possible in your petitions. The GMs can often fix your issue while you are offline.

For example, if your problem is with a mission, it helps tremendously if you provide:

- the name of the contact
- an explanation of the exact nature of the problem
- which slot (top, middle, bottom) the mission occupies in your interface

If you are having problems completing an escort mission, be sure to try turning off any stealth, hide, and super speed powers. (This might not help in your particular case, but it is a common problem.)

If your character is stuck, please give as much detail as possible (not just "my char is stuck"):

- Is the character stuck in a map?
- By "stuck in a mission", do you actually mean that the character can't complete the mission (e.g. the escorts aren't following), or can you not physically exit the mission area?
- Are you unable to login or access a specific character?

Don't forget that you will receive an auto response to your petition. You can reply to this and provide more detail if you didn't have enough space originally. By updating your ticket, you will not lose your place in the queue. This is much, much better than starting a duplicate petition! Be sure to check your email for updates or requests for more information from the support team!

Again, the GMs ask that you please do *not* submit more than one petition on the same issue. This slows things down for everyone involved.

Thank you again for your patience and cooperation during this very busy time.

Hi everyone,

Due to the release of City of Villains and Issue 6, we are seeing higher than normal traffic in customer support. As a result, wait times for your issues will be a little longer than normal.

If you have already submitted a petition about your issue, please do *not* submit another one just because you haven't heard anything yet. All this does is cause further delays and repetition of efforts. The team is working through the issues just as quickly as they can and will handle your petition as soon as they reach your place in the queue.

Thanks for your patience during this very busy time.

Are you in the San Francisco Bay Area? If so, you’ll want to stop by Fry’s in Sunnyvale for a special Halloween launch day signing event! Tonight from 6pm-8pm Pacific, several members of the Cryptic Studios development team will be on hand to sign copies of the game. The first 25 people in line by 6pm will receive a free prize! We hope to see you there!

Fry’s
1077 E. Arques Ave
Sunnyvale, CA 94085
(408) 617-1300

Hello Villains,

We have seen and received many questions about various retailers and when they are releasing or mailing your full retail copy of CoV. Unfortunately, we have very limited control over when the retailers make copies of the game available. So, we are unable to give you a status about any orders you have placed with them. If you are experiencing delays, please contact the store/retailer directly.

If you desire, please be aware that you can purchase your CoV retail copy at the PlayNC online store, or you can purchase a retail serial code via your PlayNC account management page.

The pre-order headstart will end during the regular morning maintenance period on Tuesday, November 1. If you are unable to enter your code, your CoV characters will NOT be deleted and you will still be able to access CoH if you have an active account.

We are really sorry to learn that people are having difficulty getting their retail copies. We are anxious for all of you to join us in the Rogue Isles for mayhem and villainy!

-Alexa

Hi folks --

This just in from the devs...

If you were in the CoV beta and run CoH today and it starts downloading a gigabyte of data, follow these instructions:

1. Go to C:\Program Files\CoHTest\

2. Copy everything in this directory to C:\Program Files\City of Heroes\

3. Delete all the Checksum files:

a. C:\Program Files\City of Heroes\CohTest.checksum

b: C:\Program Files\City of Heroes\Coh.checksum

4. Run the Updater once again.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
As we were fighting the player controlling Manticore in the end of beta event, he started letting loose some smack talk. Pretty funny. Asked who wanted the "enema arrow" and then plugged his Web of Arachnos book.


[/ QUOTE ]

Glad you enjoyed it. After all, what is a good super-powered battle without witty banter.
If you think I've got a smart mouth, you should spend some time with Sister Psyche.

~M

[/ QUOTE ]

My favorite Sister Psyche comments were "Don't hate me because I'm beautiful, hate me because I'm kicking your butt" -and- "The teleport to the hospital is ready for departure, I'm Sister Psyche and I'll be your cruise director".

LOL

Greetings!

For a while now, many of you have been asking when those who pre-ordered City of Villains would be admitted to the beta test. Well, we're happy to announce that the day has finally arrived!

We are starting to issue the invitations now and this process will likely take a few hours to complete. If you registered your pre-order code prior to 6pm Central yesterday (10/16), you should receive an invitation today.

Moving forward, we will continue to issue pre-order beta invitations on an ongoing basis. So, if you register a pre-order code, you can expect to receive your beta invitation within 2 business days.

If you pre-ordered City of Villains and are in the beta test already by another means (e.g. long-time subscriber, contest winner, etc.), it's possible that you will receive an additional invitation. If this happens, please feel free to pass the extra invitation along to a friend.

We look forward to seeing you in the Rogue Isles!

Yours in villainy,
Alexa

Hello all --

We have met internal milestones and are pleased to announce today that the City of Villains Non-Disclosure Agreement has officially been lifted. This means that you are free to talk about the game with others (in person, in chats, on message boards, etc) and also to share screenshots. These activities are now allowed.

Keep in mind that our EULA and rules of conduct still apply.

PLEASE NOTE: While the NDA has been lifted, it is important to remember that even though you can now talk about the game anywhere, as a beta tester, it should still be your first priority to play the game and provide feedback on the Beta Message Board. Just as a reminder, the beta board is located here:

http://boards.cityofvillains.com

Any questions or comments that are posted on the City of Heroes message board, that are obviously meant for a beta audience, will be removed from that board. For example: “Why is the CoV beta server down?” or “How come my mastermind zombies don’t do x?” These are questions for the beta board, not the public board, and if posted on the public board will be removed.

Thank you very much for your time and participation.

-The City of Villains Team

Hi all --

The support group has asked us to follow up about CoV beta invitations.

If you believe you qualify for long-term subscriber beta access to City of Villains and have not yet received an invite, please review the following criteria to ensure that you qualify.

To qualify:

- You must currently have an active City of Heroes account.

- You must have subscribed to City of Heroes for at least 12 months (not necessarily concurrent) by the cutoff date of September 12th, 2005.

- You must be 18 or over.

If you have not received your beta invitation and believe that you meet all of the above criteria, please contact customer support at support@plaync.com

IMPORTANT: If you have already contacted customer support about this issue, please do NOT resubmit a ticket. The group is diligently working through every petition submitted. This is a time consuming process and they will get to your ticket as soon as possible. Resubmitting will only slow down the process and will take time away from other legitimate issues.

Your patience while support processes these requests is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Alexa