Avatea

On Wednesday, April 6, 2011, the City of Heroes Account server will be brought down to investigate an issue with character slots. All NCsoft Account services will be unavailable at that time.

Planned Start: 12:00 p.m. Pacific Time / 3:00 Central European Time
Planned Finish: To be determined

You will be unable to access the following areas during the maintenance:

• The City of Heroes Ingame Store (to purchase services or items like character transfers, renames, character slots or Respec tokens);
• The NCsoft Account Management System (to manage, create, upgrade or re-activate your account for instance);
• The creation of new Forum accounts (the use of existing Forum accounts will not however be affected);
• Newly created characters in Going Rogue may be required to run the Praetorian tutorial once again if it was not completed.

We apologise for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience with this matter.

Please note: the Live servers will still be available at that time and you will be able to log in to the game. Please make sure to check this thread for updates on the status of this maintenance!

Patch notes corrected to state that Destiny and Lore Rare and Very Rare slots provide an Incarnate shift instead of a level shift.

Typo fixed:

The Well of the Furies, the source of great cosmic power that gave heroes and villains alike a taste of Incarnate power in Issue 19, has chosen the Emperor of Praetoria, Marcus Cole, as its champion, granting him limitless energy and enough power to conquer the entire multiverse! Emperor Cole has begun sharing this power among his lieutenants, and it's up to you to band together and stop them. Issue 20 is indeed live!

• Players can band together to weaken the forces of Emperor Cole, seeking to expand their Incarnate powers and challenge his power. Issue 20 introduces the first two Incarnate Trials, the Behavioral Adjustment Facility and Lambda Sector. Completing these trials will slow Emperor Cole's plans, and grant you rewards that help further your progression through the Incarnate system.
• Issue 20 introduces four new Incarnate trees: Judgment, Lore, Destiny, and Interface. Players can now strive to attain even higher levels of power and join the ranks of some of the most famous (and infamous) names in the City!
• While their higher level counterparts are expanding their power in the all new Incarnate Trials, Heroes will band together to save Primal Earth from imminent danger in the all new level 20-40 Task Force, "The Sky is Falling". Villains between levels 20-40 have discovered a way to tap into the power of the Well of the Furies in the new Strike Force, "The Fire and the Flames"!
• Leagues (groups of up to 48 players) for the new Trials can either be preformed or players can find a League using the Team Up Teleporter feature.
• The Team Up Teleporter is a queuing system that allows players to sign up for an Incarnate Trial. When enough players have joined the queue, the teleporter will teleport the players to the Trial instance and group them into a league.
• All players will receive a free respec to help build your character as they gain more Incarnate powers in this Issue.

For full details, including guides on the new Incarnate Trials, be sure to check out the Issue 20 Overview Page and the patch notes! And don’t forget to watch the brand new Issue 20 trailer when you’re done with that!

Issues 20: Incarnates is now live, so prepare to reach new levels of power!

Join in the Community discussion now!

The Well of the Furies, the source of great cosmic power that gave heroes and villains alike a taste of Incarnate power in Issue 19, has chosen the Emperor of Praetoria, Marcus Cole, as its champion, granting him limitless energy and enough power to conquer the entire multiverse! Emperor Cole has begun sharing this power among his lieutenants, and it's up to you to band together and stop them. Issue 20 is indeed live!

• Players can band together to weaken the forces of Emperor Cole, seeking to expand their Incarnate powers and challenge his power. Issue 20 introduces the first two Incarnate Trials, the Behavioral Adjustment Facility and Lambda Sector. Completing these trials will slow Emperor Cole's plans, and grant you rewards that help further your progression through the Incarnate system.
• Issue 20 introduces four new Incarnate trees: Judgment, Lore, Destiny, and Interface. Players can now strive to attain even higher levels of power and join the ranks of some of the most famous (and infamous) names in the City!
• While their higher level counterparts are expanding their power in the all new Incarnate Trials, Heroes will band together to save Primal Earth from imminent danger in the all new level 20-40 Task Force, "The Sky is Falling". Villains between levels 20-40 have discovered a way to tap into the power of the Well of the Furies in the new Strike Force, "The Fire and the Flames"!
• Leagues (groups of up to 48 players) for the new Trials can either be preformed or players can find a League using the Team Up Teleporter feature.
• The Team Up Teleporter is a queuing system that allows players to sign up for an Incarnate Trial. When enough players have joined the queue, the teleporter will teleport the players to the Trial instance and group them into a league.
• All players will receive a free respec to help build your character as they gain more Incarnate powers in this Issue.

For full details, including guides on the new Incarnate Trials, be sure to check out the Issue 20 Overview Page and the patch notes! And don’t forget to watch the brand new Issue 20 trailer when you’re done with that!

Issues 20: Incarnates is now live, so prepare to reach new levels of power!

Patch notes for build 2000.201103302055.1.

COMBINED

Team Up Teleporter

• The Team Up Teleporter is a new grouping feature that can be used to join an existing team, or assemble a new team in order to tackle the Incarnate Trials.
• To use the Team Up Teleporter, a solo player, Team leader, or League leader must click the LFG button in the area above the chat window.
• You can then select the Incarnate Trial you are looking to queue for, or select “First Available”
• You can leave the Queue by selecting “Leave Queue” when you are in it.
• Each Incarnate Trial has a “Minimum Launch Threshold” which is the smallest amount of players needed to start the event. Once the number of players in the queue reaches this number, an internal countdown begins, allowing more players to join the queue. When that countdown expires, or when the amount of players reaches the maximum allowed for that event, the event will launch.
  • For the Behavioral Adjustment Facility (B.A.F.)the Minimum Launch Threshold is 12, and the Maximum Players is 24.
  • For Lambda the Minimum Launch Threshold is 8, and the Maximum Players is 16.
• Once the Incarnate Trial is ready to launch, ALL eligible players will see a pop-up asking them to enter the event. This is your last chance to exit out gracefully.
• Additional players will be able to join an event in-progress when the current number of participants falls below the minimum threshold for the event.
• Players are not able to queue for Incarnate Trials from any instance map, including Super Group bases, PvP zones and while inside a mission map.

League

• A League is an assemblage of teams under one unified UI
• A League can have up to 6 teams of 8 characters each (up to 48 characters total).
• There is a single League Leader who can invite other characters into the League
• Each team also has a Team Leader who can invite other characters onto their Team.
• Team-wide buffs ONLY affect the team you are on.
  • This is a game balance issue, as these buffs stacked into the quantities a League could bring to bear would be more than overwhelming.
• The UI for the League allows you to look at all teams or an individual team.
  • When looking at All teams you can expand the UI to show the teams better.
  • A League Leader can use this expanded view to drag and drop team members onto new teams. If no team currently exists for the character, right clicking them and selecting the option for “place on Team N” will create a new team if Team N did not exist previously.
• There is a Focus tab within the UI as well
  • This is used for setting League members as a Focus.
  • Right Click any member of the league and select “Place on Focus Tab”
  • The Focus tab contains ONLY characters you have put there.
  • This is useful for having a quick way to monitor specific characters’ health or targeting.
• Offline or off-map characters will display as a greyed out box instead of identically to defeated characters.
• League members who are not a part of a player's group will show on the map.
  • These members will appear slightly faded to differentiate from team members.
  • A new radio button toggle has been added to the mini-map drop down menu to show or hide leaguemates.
• Players can choose to adopt a new Team and Pet UI style that matches the new League UI style as well.
  • A pop-up message will occur when first logging on asking whether you want to use the new UI style for Team/Pet windows as well or to retain the previous version.
  • The setting can be changed at any time within the Options menu.

The Player Help System

• When players log in for the first time on a character, they are prompted to select “Help Me!” or “Helper.” If the player chooses “Help Me!”, their name changes to a purple color, and they will have a title that says “Help Me!” If the player chooses Helper, their name changes to a gold color, and they will have a title that says “Helper.”
  • These titles do not override custom temporary titles, and will not display if you have a temporary title.
  • Hitting H will bring up the Help window where it is possible to change your help status.
• There is now a question mark icon in the chat channel selector list. This icon will allow you to chat to the Help channel.
• The Help channel has been added to the default list of chat channels displayed in the Global chat tab.
• The Help tab has been colored orange to help new players find it.
• /h, /help, and /guide now chat to the Help channel instead of opening the Help window. Type /helpwindow or hit H when not chatting to open the help window.
• Switching chat tabs to the Help tab will not automatically place the player in the Help chat channel. The player will see Help text, but will need to either type /h or click on the question mark icon in the chat channel selector list to chat to the Help channel

TASKS

General

• Fixed a bug that prevented mission rewards from being handed out on missions that had a base level of 54 and additional difficulty modifiers
  • Apex Task Force with +4 level adjust for example

Behavioral Adjustment Facility Incarnate Trial

Storyline

• Under the guidance of Mother Mayhem, Siege and Nightstar, wardens of the Behavioral Adjustment Facility, have perfected a technique called Mindwashing. This devastating mind control technology has been inflicted on many prisoners of the facility, and they are about to be unleashed upon the city in a staged attack which the Emperor plans to use for propaganda purposes. The psychological effect this breakout would have on the populace would instantly sour any hope for Incarnate success in stopping Emperor Cole, so the Incarnates must make their way to the B.A.F. and prevent the staged breakout as best as they can.

Synopsis

• The event takes place at the Behavioral Adjustment Facility in Imperial City. Players are tasked with making their way through the forces which guard the facility, then defeating Nightstar in an effort to infiltrate the facility. However, the battle comes too late, as no sooner is she defeated as the escape begins. However, after stopping the escapees from exiting the facility, players still need to deal with Siege before the facility can be contained. Unless, of course, the wardens have another trick up their sleeve….

Unique Powers

• Sequestration: Siege and Nightstar are equipped with powerful technologies that enable them to quickly bring enemies under control. Focusing on their main target, they will surround them with a field and begin the sequestration process. If their attention remains on the main target for three warnings, that target and all those caught in the field are locked down.
• Security Towers: The B.A.F. is equipped with a set of towers which will quickly debilitate any target who remains within their range for too long. Rumor has it that they can be shut down by the terminals near their base, but approaching these terminals is quite risky.
• Defiance: Siege’s assisting Warworks feature new AI protocols which allow them to increase their attack strength and chance to hit the longer they remain attacking. If too many of his allies arrive, they can quickly overwhelm almost any opponent.
• Mindwashed Contagion: the Mindwashed escapees are not much of a threat to the Incarnates, as these prisoners are programmed simply to leave the facility immediately. However, their Mindwashing does have a side effect: there is a chance that they can sow confusion amongst those who get to close to them, hampering the Incarnates’ ability to stop them!

Lambda Sector Incarnate Trial

Storyline

• Within Neutropolis lies Lambda Sector, Neuron's crowning achievement and a critical component of Tyrant's war machinery. It is within Lambda Sector that Tyrant's super-soldiers are birthed, trained, and housed. It is critical that this facility be destroyed and the Super Soldier program scrapped if there is to be any hope of crippling Emperor Cole’s ability to put forth an army that can threaten the Incarnates trying to prevent him from controlling both Primal and Praetorian Earth.

Synopsis

• The event takes place at the Lambda Sector complex in Neutropolis. Players are tasked with making their way through the forces which guard the facility, then breaking in and doing as much damage to the complex as they can. However, as soon as the complex is breached, Marauder will begin making his way to the area. When he arrives, the time for sabotage is over, and the time to take down an empowered Marauder will begin.

Unique Powers

• Nova Fist: Marauder will charge up a powerful melee attack in which he punches the ground with tremendous force. The shock waves sent out by this attack do significant damage to those too close to him.
• Artillery Barrage: Off-site artillery guns will bombard those who get far enough away from Marauder to be distinguished as a target.
• Pacification Grenade: Marauder’s defenses are significantly increased by the power of a serum given to him by Neuron. The only way to bring down these defenses is to pacify him with these grenades, found inside Lambda Sector during the sabotage.
• Molecular Acid: Marauder’s arrival also signals the activation of the reinforcement portals which allow IDF forces from within Lambda Sector to quickly move to the surface to aid Marauder. Only Molecular Acid can be used to shut down these portals and prevent reinforcements from overwhelming the Incarnates. The Molecular Acid can also be recovered during the sabotage stage.

I20: Rewards

• Incarnate XP will now be awarded by all trials. The Behavioral Adjustment Facility will award XP for the Judgement and Lore slots. Lambda Sector will award XP for the Interface and Destiny slots.
• If you have not unlocked your Alpha slot, both trials will allow you to unlock that slot before accumulating XP in the other slots.
• Astral Merits and Empyrean Merits are awarded in each trial. These are new Incarnate only currencies that can be used for advancement in the Incarnate system.
• Astral Merits are awarded for completing key objectives during an event.
• Empyrean Merits are awarded for event completion.
  • Each Incarnate Trial can only award one Empyrean Merit upon successful completion within an 18-hour period. If you would receive another Empyrean in that time period from that specific Trial, you will earn an Astral Merit instead.
• Astral and Empyrean Merits may be exchanged within the Incarnate crafting system for additional Incarnate Components. These Merits will also be used in the future to earn additional rewards which can be obtained by running Incarnate Trials.
• Reward Tables are offered on the completion of an event.
• These reward tables will include incarnate threads, super inspirations, or incarnate components. The rarer the component, the rarer its presence in the reward table.
• Badges of the following types are present in each trial:
• One badge for completion of the event, awarded at the first successful completion.
• Four achievement badges for unique challenges within each event. The first successful completion of a badge will award a random Uncommon component and an Astral Merit. Each successive completion will award an Astral Merit.
• One mastery badge for acquiring the completion badge and all four achievement badges. The first successful mastery completion will award a random Rare component.

New Incarnate Slots

• The following slots are now accessible: Alpha, Interface, Judgement, Lore and Destiny. All powers in all slots are accessible.
• Incarnate slots can be unlocked by earning Incarnate XP from standard enemy kills inside the Incarnate Trials. Various Incarnate Trials provide Physical or Psychic Incarnate XP which unlocks one or the other tracks of slots. Incarnate XP can also be earned by sacrificing Incarnate Sub-components.
• Once a slot is unlocked, created Incarnate abilities can be slotted in them.
• The recipes for abilities in the four new slots and the new recipes for Alpha abilities require the new components which can only be found in the Incarnate Trials. The earlier Alpha component recipes are still valid but are no longer the only way to obtain those abilities. Likewise, it is now possible to unlock the Alpha slot by earning Incarnate XP in the trials.
• The Interface slot contains a variety of powers which provide global proc debuffs which apply to all powers. These procs will be applied directly to almost every enhanceable damaging power. The debuffs from this power stack globally – that is, multiple characters with the same Interface equipped share the same debuff stack on their foes. This slot does not provide a level shift.
• The Judgement slot contains a variety of large-scale AOE damaging powers with powerful secondary effects. Judgement powers are unaffected by standard character buffs to damage or to hit, but have a high base accuracy and are affected by global enhancements such as those provided by the Alpha and Interface slot. Judgement power damage is unaffected by archetype damage mods, and the recharge of Judgement powers cannot be buffed or debuffed. This slot does not provide a level shift.
• The Lore slot provides access to summonable essences of defeated Praetorian foes to fight for you. Unlike normal summon powers, these allies are controllable using the Mastermind control interface, even for non-Masterminds. The recharge of Lore powers cannot be buffed or debuffed. Rare and Very Rare powers in this slot provide an Incarnate shift.
• The Destiny slot contains a variety of large-scale defensive AOE powers which provide healing, protection, or buffs to friendlies within a large radius. The strength and duration of these buffs is unaffected by archetype buff mods, and the recharge of Destiny powers cannot be buffed or debuffed. Rare and Very Rare powers in this slot provide an Incarnate shift.

Incarnate Components

• Added Empyrean Merit -> Incarnate Component conversions to the Incarnate Create interface:
  • Incarnate Rare Components cost 8 Empyrean Merits.
  • Incarnate Very Rare Components cost 30 Empyrean Merits.
  • Note: Astral and Empyrean Merits will be used to purchase additional rewards besides Incarnate Components in releases following Issue 20.
• Added a conversion recipe to synthesize Notices of the Well from lesser components and inf.
• Added an upconversion to turn Incarnate Shards into Incarnate Threads. The ratio is 10 Shards to 10 Threads once every 20 hours, or a more costly conversion of 10 Shards to 5 Threads with no restrictions.
• The restriction that players are combat level 50 for Incarnate Shards to drop has been removed.
  • Incarnate Shards can be earned by those who have their Alpha Slot unlocked even when exemplared. Incarnate Shards will not drop during Incarnate Trials, Incarnate Threads will drop instead.

I20: Prometheus

• Prometheus the Titan has arrived in Ouroboros to provide guidance and insight to new Incarnates. He brings with him a great deal of knowledge of what it means to be an Incarnate and what challenges lie ahead for those who choose to pursue their Incarnate potential. He will only deign to speak to those who are already Incarnates, however, so be sure to unlock your Alpha slot in order to gain his insights!

Admiral Sutter Task Force

• Admiral Sutter of the United States Navy is seeking heroes to investigate a mysterious inter-dimensional rift signature originating off the coast of Paragon City in the Atlantic Ocean. He is currently docked in Independence Port aboard the USS Mason.
• Teams of 4 or more heroes between the levels of 20 and 40 can sign up to assist him.
• On this task force you defend Paragon City from the land, sea, and air as the insidious Praetorian Imperial Defense Force begins their invasion of Primal Earth.

Mortimer Kal Strike Force

• Mortimer Kal, a venerable wizard and member of the Midnight Squad, has been spotted in Sharkhead Isle. Rumors abound that he has secret information regarding Incarnate artifacts and ways of seizing such power. But whispers amongst dark circles tell of a weakness of his which can be exploited to force him to reveal those secrets to anyone brave enough to cross him.
• A special Tip Mission now drops for villains and rogues in the Rogue Isles greater than level 20 revealing Mortimer Kal’s weakness. Completing this mission will allow you to start Mortimer Kal’s Strike Force with a team of at least 4 villains between levels 20 and 40.
• Only the leader of the Strike Force needs to have completed the Tip Mission to unlock Mortimer Kal as a contact.
• On this strike force you can expect to exploit and/or betray anyone and everyone you encounter in an effort to claim glorious incarnate power! Crushed and broken enemies will be left in your wake, as nothing will keep you from the power that is rightfully yours!

Apex and Tin Mage

• Apex and Tin Mage TFs now reward 2 Incarnate Threads upon successful completion instead of Incarnate Shards.

Critters

• Reduced the visual effect intensity of the missile volley attack from IDF Heavy Trooper, Heavy Commander, and Mobile Artillery foes.

Alignment Missions

• Today's Newspaper: Frostfire should spawn at the appropriate level.
• Crossing the Line: Doc Quantum should spawn at the appropriate level.

Powers

• Ouroboros Portal
  • The clickable region of the Ouroboros Portal has been raised and had its shape altered to match the floating light graphical effect.

Badges

• Dimensional Warder
  • Incarnate Trial Siege, Nightstar and Marauder as well as Alpha Strike Battle Maiden, Neuron, and Bobcat now count as valid kills for the purposes of this badge in addition to the previously valid versions of those Arch-villains.
• Spider Smasher
  • Modified badge hint text to read "Defeat 200 Arachnos Wolf Spiders to earn this badge"
• Respec Badges
  • Players who switch alignments can now collect all six respec badges.
  • The limit of three total respecs still applies to these trials.

Mission Architect

• New Praetorian Warehouse maps added.

Mac Client

• Fixed Mac graphics bug causing only lowest graphics settings to be used.
  • Note that in order to get graphics settings back to desired settings, you need to go into the game and bring up the options dialog and set desired graphics settings.
  • Until you do this the first time you will still have the lowest settings.

CITY OF HEROES

Powers

Scrapper

• Darkness Mastery - Night Fall now accepts only To Hit Debuff, Accurate To Hit Debuff and Targeted AoE Damage sets like other versions of this power.

Hero Epic Archetypes

• If a level 30+ Peacebringer or Warshade becomes a Villain, they will no longer have the chance to encounter level 40 Quantum/CoS critters

Tasks

• Calvin Scott Mission 1
  • Rescued team members should no longer attack the fire.

CITY OF VILLAINS

I20: Black Helicopters

• The Black Helicopter line in the Rogue Isles has acquired four additional stops. These stops include: Port Oakes, Sharkhead Isle, Nerva Archipelago North and Grandville North.

Powers

• The Corruptor Patron Pool power "Electric Shackles" now does Scourge damage on each tick of the DoT.
• Mastermind Dark Miasma - Twilight Grasp radius has been increased to 20 feet to match other versions of this power.
• Corruptor Radiation Emission - Lingering Radiation now debuffs run speed like other versions of this power.
• Corruptor Sonic Attack - Shriek has had its endurance cost reduced to 4.37 and its basic damage scale reduced to 0.84 to match its 3 second recharge time and the other versions of Shriek.

PRAETORIA

Mission maps

• Several missions which take place in warehouse maps now use Praetorian specific warehouse maps.

We introduced our Producer letter and Intrepid Informer back in January to diversify the channels of communication in order to reach out to you, our players. To kick things up a notch, we are now introducing yet another way for us, at Paragon Studios, to give you more insight into the life of your favorite MMORPG!

So come and join us on USTREAM between 6:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. Pacific Time on Thursday, March 31, 2011 ! Developers John "Protean" Hegner and Tim "Black Scorpion" Sweeney will be on deck with Andy "Zwillinger" Belford and André "Beastyle" Carlos from the Paragon Studios Community team, to chat with our viewers and tell you more about Issue 20! So make sure you log in to USTREAM to watch and participate to the very first City of Heroes videochat with the makers of the world's number one Super Hero MMORPG.

We'll see you there!

Join in the Community discussion now!

We introduced our Producer letter and Intrepid Informer back in January to diversify the channels of communication in order to reach out to you, our players. To kick things up a notch, we are now introducing yet another way for us, at Paragon Studios, to give you more insight into the life of your favorite MMORPG!

So come and join us on USTREAM between 6:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. Pacific Time on Thursday, March 31, 2011 ! Developers John "Protean" Hegner and Tim "Black Scorpion" Sweeney will be on deck with Andy "Zwillinger" Belford and André "Beastyle" Carlos from the Paragon Studios Community team, to chat with our viewers and tell you more about Issue 20! So make sure you log in to USTREAM to watch and participate to the very first City of Heroes videochat with the makers of the world's number one Super Hero MMORPG.

We'll see you there!

Original post updated to reflect that the live servers are not affected by the bugged /bug command at this time.

The tracking of /bug reports is currently broken on the European Training Room and North American Beta server ONLY. We are working on a fix for the problem but for now any bug report submitted via /bug should also be reported on the City of Heroes/Villains forums.

Use this link for all bug reports in the Issue 20 Beta:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/forumdisplay.php?f=730

We appreciate your patience with this matter.

The discussion thread for this announcement is available here.

The tracking of /bug reports is currently broken on the European Training Room and North American Beta server ONLY. We are working on a fix for the problem but for now any bug report submitted via /bug should also be reported on the City of Heroes/Villains forums.

Use this link for all bug reports in the Issue 20 Beta:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/forumdisplay.php?f=730

We appreciate your patience with this matter.

The Issue 20 Overview page has been updated with guides to the Behavioral Adjustment Facility and the Lambda Sector, brand new Incarnate Trials that will pit you against Praetorian villains when Issue 20 goes live!

If you haven't been able to attend one of our Issue 20 Beta sessions on the North American Beta server or the European Training Room, this is your chance to familiarize yourselves with the content of those upcoming trials now!

Join in the Community discussion now!

The Issue 20 Overview page has been updated with guides to the Behavioral Adjustment Facility and the Lambda Sector, brand new Incarnate Trials that will pit you against Praetorian villains when Issue 20 goes live!

If you haven't been able to attend one of our Issue 20 Beta sessions on the North American Beta server or the European Training Room, this is your chance to familiarize yourselves with the content of those upcoming trials now!

The European Training Room and North American Beta Shard will once again be open to all active accounts from Wednesday, March 23, 2011, 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time / 5:00 p.m. GMT, through to Monday, March 28, 2011, 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time / 6:00 p.m. British Time!

Members of the Paragon Studios team will be back in the Beta to run the Behavioral Adjustment Facility and the Lambda Sector with you on Wednesday, March 23, 2011 between 8:00 p.m. GMT and 10:00 p.m. GMT on the European Training room, and between 5:00 p.m. PacificTime and 7:00 p.m. PacificTime on the North American Beta Server.

Not to mention that the community team will also be there to give away a few Costume codes!


The focus of those testing sessions will remain the Behavioral Adjustment Facility, the Lambda Sector Incarnate Trials and the Team Up Teleporter system but the Issue 20 Hero Task Force, Villain Strike Force AND brand new Incarnate abilities will also be available.

If you are not familiar with the ongoings of this beta, here are a few useful links for you:

How to connect to the Beta server for our North American testers
How to connect to the Beta server (European Training Room Test Server) for our European testers
Issue 20 Beta Patch Notes - March 3, 2011
Issue 20 Beta Patch Notes - March 10, 2011
Issue 20 Beta Patch Notes - March 16, 2011
Issue 20 Beta Patch Notes - March 18, 2011
I20 Beta: Chatter and Discussion forums
I20 Beta: Feedback
I20 Beta: Bugs

Happy Beta testing everybody!

NCsoft sends its most heart-felt condolences to the victims and people of Japan. As such, NCsoft will donate 500 million Yen (approx 4.5 million Euros/3.9 million GBP/6.3 million USD) to restoration of damages in the region. Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Japan.

NCsoft senior executive Sung Joon Park stated, “In order to support those who have suffered from the earthquake and to help restoration, we decided to donate 500 million Yen, which corresponds to one month of sales.” He also added that, “We’ll maintain the service with the minimal electricity and personnel. Maintaining daily life is also important; therefore, we plan to uphold the service.” NCsoft’s Vice-President, Corporate Communications Jaesung Lee added from headquarters in Seoul, South Korea that, “We sincerely hope Japan can overcome the current difficulties as soon as possible.”

Additionally, many organizations and funds have mobilized to provide relief to those affected by the disaster. If you are interested in contributing, below are some links to charitable organizations in alphabetical order working in earnest to help the victims in Japan.

Doctors Without Borders

International Fund for Animal Welfare

International Medical Corps

The Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Relief Fund

The Red Cross

Salvation Army

Shelter Box

UNICEF

The Community discussion thread can be accessed here.

NCsoft sends its most heart-felt condolences to the victims and people of Japan. As such, NCsoft will donate 500 million Yen (approx 4.5 million Euros/3.9 million GBP/6.3 million USD) to restoration of damages in the region. Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Japan.

NCsoft senior executive Sung Joon Park stated, “In order to support those who have suffered from the earthquake and to help restoration, we decided to donate 500 million Yen, which corresponds to one month of sales.” He also added that, “We’ll maintain the service with the minimal electricity and personnel. Maintaining daily life is also important; therefore, we plan to uphold the service.” NCsoft’s Vice-President, Corporate Communications Jaesung Lee added from headquarters in Seoul, South Korea that, “We sincerely hope Japan can overcome the current difficulties as soon as possible.”

Additionally, many organizations and funds have mobilized to provide relief to those affected by the disaster. If you are interested in contributing, below are some links to charitable organizations in alphabetical order working in earnest to help the victims in Japan.

Doctors Without Borders

International Fund for Animal Welfare

International Medical Corps

The Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Relief Fund

The Red Cross

Salvation Army

Shelter Box

UNICEF

Welcome to our 3rd issue of the Intrepid Informer!

As indicated in our last issue, Gilbert Martinez is back to tell us more about the floating fortress that some of you may have already seen on the North American Beta server or the European Training Room. Indeed, if you have participated in one of our Issue 20 Beta sessions, you would have been able to head over to Independence Port to talk to Admiral Sutter of the U.S. Navy in order to investigate an intriguing inter-dimensional rift signature originating off the coast of Paragon City in the Atlantic Ocean.

Before you launch yourselves into yet another mysterious investigation, make sure you delve further into how the flotilla came to existence to better appreciate this brand new environment from our amazing art team!


The Floating Fortress Art Process: Part 2
by Gilbert Martinez

Hi folks,


Last time I talked about how the Floating Fortress exterior art for Issue 20 translated from a 2D design idea into the final 3D location you see in the game. This week I'd like to focus on the phases the interior ship map went through to become final art.

The image below is a three-quarter, top-down view of Senior Environment Artist Ryan Roth's "greybox" layout for the two-level ship interior required by this mission. A greybox is like a 3D sketch, a fairly simple mockup of a gameplay space created in a 3D modeling package that allows artists to iterate quickly with the design team on the size of areas and placement of key components such as doorways , stairways, and hallways. They were able to run around in it in game and make sure the spaces were big enough, all the elements needed were represented, and navigation would make sense for players. Ryan gathered photo reference of military ship interiors to help guide the look and feel of these areas so that players will feel like they are running around inside a military ship. When the Art and Design teams felt like the greybox met the criteria for a fun and exciting mission space it was locked down so that Ryan could move onto the next step.

Welcome to our 3rd issue of the Intrepid Informer!

As indicated in our last issue, Gilbert Martinez is back to tell us more about the floating fortress that some of you may have already seen on the North American Beta server or the European Training Room. Indeed, if you have participated in one of our Issue 20 Beta sessions, you would have been able to head over to Independence Port to talk to Admiral Sutter of the U.S. Navy in order to investigate an intriguing inter-dimensional rift signature originating off the coast of Paragon City in the Atlantic Ocean.

Before you launch yourselves into yet another mysterious investigation, make sure you delve further into how the flotilla came to existence to better appreciate this brand new environment from our amazing art team!


The Floating Fortress Art Process: Part 2
by Gilbert Martinez

Hi folks,


Last time I talked about how the Floating Fortress exterior art for Issue 20 translated from a 2D design idea into the final 3D location you see in the game. This week I'd like to focus on the phases the interior ship map went through to become final art.

The image below is a three-quarter, top-down view of Senior Environment Artist Ryan Roth's "greybox" layout for the two-level ship interior required by this mission. A greybox is like a 3D sketch, a fairly simple mockup of a gameplay space created in a 3D modeling package that allows artists to iterate quickly with the design team on the size of areas and placement of key components such as doorways , stairways, and hallways. They were able to run around in it in game and make sure the spaces were big enough, all the elements needed were represented, and navigation would make sense for players. Ryan gathered photo reference of military ship interiors to help guide the look and feel of these areas so that players will feel like they are running around inside a military ship. When the Art and Design teams felt like the greybox met the criteria for a fun and exciting mission space it was locked down so that Ryan could move onto the next step.

Happy St. Patrick's Day to those of you who observe this very important day across the Irish and Irish friendly world!

While we may not dye the waters of Paragon City and the Rogue Isles a bright green (we care for our fishies) as they do the Chicago river, we still wanted to mark the occasion by asking you all to post your green-tastic costumes in this thread for all to admire!

You got it, green is the only costume requirement so get dying that fabulous attire of yours!

Patch notes for 1950.201103080206.1.

COMBINED

Powers

• The 78 Month Veteran Award power, Experienced is now applied to characters even when exemplared up.

PvP

• Fixed an issue that allowed observers to attack arena combatants while using Walk.

Critters

• Animal Pack Costume NPCs have been added to Pocket D and Studio 51.

CITY OF HEROES

• None.

CITY OF VILLAINS

• None.

PRAETORIA

• None.

Please be aware that there will be a publish on all live servers on Tuesday, March 15, 2011 starting at 4:00 a.m. Pacific / 7:00 a.m. Eastern / 12:00 p.m. GMT / 13:00 CET for a scheduled end at 6:00 a.m. Pacific / 9:00 a.m. Eastern / 2:00 p.m. GMT / 15:00 CET.

Patch notes for this update will be available in the Patch notes section of the website as soon as possible after the publish.

Thank you for your patience with this matter!

A few members of the City of Heroes were at PAX East, Boston, over the weekend for our first City of Heroes Meet & Greet of the year but also for a panel where much exciting news was imparted to the audience and the people viewing the live feed!

Along with the Global Server Access that was unveiled during the panel, exciting Issue 20 content was discussed and the brand new official Issue 20 teaser trailer was shown to the applauding audience!

If you haven’t been able to catch up with the latest from PAX East, here are a few links to the websites that covered all the City of Heroes happenings!

Massively:

“PAX East 2011: Shipping up to Boston with City of Heroes”

Gamespot:

“Spotlight On - City of Heroes (Updates for 2011)”

MMORPG.COM:

“City of Heroes : Issue 20: Incarnates Preview Video”

Game Informer:

“New Video Shows Off Upcoming City Of Heroes Raids”

It’s certainly been a great beginning of the year for City of Heroes so stick around, 2011 is only just starting and promises to be full of excitement!

Join in the Community discussion now!

A few members of the City of Heroes were at PAX East, Boston, over the weekend for our first City of Heroes Meet & Greet of the year but also for a panel where much exciting news was imparted to the audience and the people viewing the live feed!

Along with the Global Server Access that was unveiled during the panel, exciting Issue 20 content was discussed and the brand new official Issue 20 teaser trailer was shown to the applauding audience!

If you haven’t been able to catch up with the latest from PAX East, here are a few links to the websites that covered all the City of Heroes happenings!

Massively:

“PAX East 2011: Shipping up to Boston with City of Heroes”

Gamespot:

“Spotlight On - City of Heroes (Updates for 2011)”

MMORPG.COM:

“City of Heroes : Issue 20: Incarnates Preview Video”

Game Informer:

“New Video Shows Off Upcoming City Of Heroes Raids”

It’s certainly been a great beginning of the year for City of Heroes so stick around, 2011 is only just starting and promises to be full of excitement!

We announced a pretty exciting piece of news over the weekend and as promised, we have a few Questions and Answers to share with you about the upcoming Global Server Access that will see the unification of both the North American and European server lists in the Summer.

Thank you for reading, we hope you are looking forward to it as much as we are!


Global Server Access FAQ

1- When is Global Server Access going to be available?

Global Server Access will be available to all our active subscribers by the end of summer. We will have a more definite date for you at a later time so watch this space!

2-How will I be able to access the new server list? Will it have all of the North American and European servers?

All you need to do is launch your City of Heroes client via the NCsoft launcher, log in to your City of Heroes account and all 15 North American and European servers will be accessible on the Server selection screen. Read on if you are a European player.

3- What will happen if my European account name is the same as someone else’s in North America?

We wanted to keep this process as simple and manageable as possible to allow European and North American accounts to access all City of Heroes servers. All European accounts with a name conflicting with a North American account will be prepended with an “EU”. For instance, let’s take a hypothetical European account called “Cityof”. Pre-pended with “EU” would make it “EUCityof”. That is the only change to account names in that respect. We determined that this was the lowest number of users that would be affected by this account name change. North American accounts with conflicting names won’t be affected by this change.

4- So if I’m a European player with an account name conflicting with a North American account, what do I need to enter at login to get into the game?

All you need to remember is that, if you are a European player, you may be required to add “EU” (without he quotes) before your account name if your login fails the first time you try to access your account after Global Server Access has been implemented.

Don’t forget that you can check your City of Heroes account name by logging into your NCsoft Master account at https://secure.ncsoft.com/cgi-bin/accountManagement.pl. You will be able to find all your NCsoft games accounts on the account management page and will be able to verify the name of all your City of Heroes accounts if you have several of them.

5- How do I know that my account name is conflicting with another account?

We will be emailing all users who will be affected by this change at the email address registered on your NCsoft Master Account. However, emails sometimes don’t reach their destination so we recommend you keep in mind that you may need to “EU” before your account name if your game login fails. See 4- above.

6- Can previous bonus codes (Good vs Evil Edition for instance, or a costume code, etc) still be applied after the serverlist has been unified?

We have endeavored to have serial codes continue to work as they have before Global Server Access. However, it is possible that some codes may be affected as part of the transition. If a code fails to apply to your City of Heroes account, contact Customer Support (North American or European) and they will be able look into it. Please note that codes will still not be interchangeable. For instance, a European code will not be usable on a North American account or vice versa.

7- What about global handle in game? Will those be affected by name collisions?

Yes indeed. All European players with a global chat handle name collision will have their global handle changed to the name of the last character they log out with before Global Server Access is enabled. If the global handle still has a collision after the initial change, letters will continue to be dropped from the end of the name until no collision is present.

The European players that are affected by the chat handle collision will receive a global name change. This name change will only be offered to the players affected by the automatic name change.

Please note that character names will not be affected. We are merely unifying both server lists and as such, all characters will remain on their original server.

8- What are the advantages of a unified serverlist/Global Server Access?

The advantages are manifold and include the following:

• Access to 15 servers means more character slots if you have altitis.
• Access to the same Training room and the same Beta server so everybody gets the same treatment when it comes to trying out upcoming features or new builds.
• Better and easier interaction between our North American and European users not only on the City of Heroes forums but also the game servers.
• No need to update 2 different sets of clients now if you have a North American and a European account.

9- What happens to the global chat handles associated with trial accounts?


I order to minimize the impact of global handle renaming on full retail accounts; we will be renaming all global handles linked to trial accounts. Those global handles will be fully replaced with “Trial“ after Global Server Access has been implemented.

10- When can we expect a reactivation weekend in order to change our global handles?

The Reactivation will take place after Global server Access has been enabled between Tuesday, May 10, 2011 at 6:00 p.m. Pacific Time (9:00 p.m. Eastern Time / 2:00 a.m. British Time / 3:00 Central European Time) and Wednesday, May 18, 2011 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time (2:59 a.m. Eastern Time / 7:59 a.m. British Time / 8:59 Central European Time). a free global handle token will be applied to all accounts affected by a global handle name collision. If you own 1 North American account and 1 European account with the exact same global handle, and one or both accounts have lapsed, the Reactivation weekend will allow you to change both global handles

Join in the Community discussion now!