Chad Gulzow-Man

Oh my god, those were phenomenal. I grabbed a couple for me and my girlfriend, not knowing exactly what they were, and they were delicious! ... But then I couldn't find the lady carrying the tray around, so I didn't get to have any more.

But I did get to play the Street Justice set through the new tutorial, so I guess we'll call it even. >_>

(Street Justice: day one purchase for me. You knocked it out of the park, devs.)

What, the bit about something in the works for Dominators?

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...73#post3728973

There were bugs, and not all features were available. I don't think we'll be seeing an open beta before August at the earliest, and quite possibly September or October.

Tell that to iPhone owners.

I'm not going to argue everything you said point by point, but as with the phone analogy, there's an exception that people are more than happy to pay for. In many cases--as with CoH--there is no other provider that you can take your subscription-based product to; it's a choice of paying the subscription, or not getting the service at all.

It uses a fair bit of the linear Praetorian Sewer geometry, just covered in goop and spores and plant-y bits. I was a little confused about what we were doing/where we were going at first, but then I pulled up the map and saw that the way is actually pretty straightforward.

As with all the other TFs and trials, after a few runs it'll become second nature.

I didn't personally see anything that was Praetorian-only. Granted, the Comic Con builds aren't full-featured; the Underground Trial we saw, for example, was only stage 3 of 3. So maybe there will be new content specific to Praetorian characters.

But, as I said before, they plan to add all the Praetorian content to Ouroboros in the future. And Going Rogue will be automatically unlocked for VIPs, regardless of prior purchase or not, so you'll get access to any such content eventually.

As GG said, there's also Street Justice. Those 4 are the only officially announced powersets we know are in development at this time and will be out in Issue 21 (though not all at launch--they're planning to stagger them by a bit to keep things fresh). There's also "something in the works" for Dominators that will come later, but no official info on it.

Anything specific you want to know? I'll be back there on Sunday, and if you think you've got a question that they can actually answer, I'll be happy to ask it.

From the brief amount of time I had my hands on it, I really enjoyed Street Justice. It's brawl-y, like Super Strength, but quick like Martial Arts. It's got a good feel to it, and the combo mechanic is neat without being too overwhelming.

Basically, some of your attacks BUILD combo points, primarily the T1 and T2 powers, while others subtract them. The finishing moves (T3 and T9 powers, if memory serves) do additional damage and have additional secondary effects applied when you have at least 3 combo points--the T3 is a swinging hook punch that can do knockdown with combos, and the T9 is a stun that can become a hold with combo points. The combo counter shows up with your buffs underneath your health/end/XP bar.

There may have been other moves that qualify as a finishing bonus, but I was kind of overwhelmed with all the other shinies, like the giant Shivan in the tutorial. I am a bad con reporter.

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I also took part in the Underground Incarnate Trial test this morning. Positron said during the panel yesterday that it was meant to be more like "an old-fashioned dungeon crawl." Whereas the other trials are all open and objectives near to one another, the Underground Trial is about navigating through (really friggin cool) tunnels and fighting through Devouring Earth and infected Praetorians. There are proximity bombs along your path that you must avoid or dispose of while you lead Desdemona through the maze, and the fight with the Avatar of Hamidon at the end is crazy! I foresee Clarion Destiny being as big a part in this trial as Rebirth is in Keyes due to the magnitude of some of the mezzes in there.

(One of the devs mentioned to me while we were blowing up some proximity mines that there will be a badge for completing the trial without detonating a single mine. "Yay Stalkers," he said. )

They feel very strongly about making sure that your subscription is worth it. There will always be some things you mentioned above, like powersets and costume sets, that will be included for VIPs, and others that everyone must pay for.

I agree with you about the marketting, though. If they don't bring in more traffic, then there won't be a point in making these changes to the game. They really need to step outside their comfort zone and advertise in places they haven't been before if they want to up their numbers.

(And no, a TV commercial would still be dumb. World of Warcraft does it, yes, but their commercials are undoubtedly very dumb. )

Fix't.

They won't--or shall I say, can't--outperform the non-pay sets, otherwise you end up in a pay-to-win situation. However, you can't charge $10 for a vanilla set, either. There's got to be some sort of draw to a pay set.

Regardless, I spoke with the devs, and they said there will definitely be more new free-to-VIP powersets in the future, and more unannounced sets that have to be paid for as well.

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If you love playing with new powersets and rolling new alts, this is actually a good thing if you stop and think about it. Would you rather get two free sets every 18 months, or one free set and 4 pay sets a year? The additional income from the powersets will fuel the production for more; the areas that are drawing the most money will be where it gets funneled right back into.

I played the new tutorial today using Street Justice. It's so much fun, I think I may stop asking for Energy Melee for Scrappers and roll the Energy Melee/Willpower character I've been waiting for as SJ/WP instead.

As I have been told several times these last two days while hanging out around the NCSoft booth: the prices in the beta are not final. They repeated it with such sternness that I'm pretty sure we'll be seeing a lot of fluxuation between the Comic Con previews and the release.

I suspect that they'll realize that $10 per costume slot per character is a bit steep.

I didn't expect it as a reward, but it was one of the first things they announced as a purchaseable consumable from the Paragon Points store.

Yes and no. With Going Rogue, you can switch existing characters from hero to villain (or vice versa), or you can make new characters in Praetoria and, once you hit level 20, decide whether to become a hero or villain from there.

Coming in Issue 21 (presumably this fall) will be a new tutorial for all non-Praetorian characters, during which you choose whether to be a hero or villain. At that point, you will truly be able to make a villain blaster or hero stalker right out of the gate.

If you're actually doing the trials and just using the thread->iXP conversions to bolster what you're already earning otherwise, they drop so frequently that you won't really miss them. I used plenty of threads for iXP on both of my Incarnate characters and still had T3s crafted by the time the slots were unlocked.

Can... can you please at least explain what it is you were asking for? I'm really curious.

This is incorrect. Our Inherent is Assassination, the ability to auto-crit from Hide, as well as random critical hits outside of it. Hide itself is not an Inherent--it is part of the Defensive powerset. This is why we can put enhancement slots in it, while Dominators cannot put slots into Domination.

The 1.88% Defense bonus that Hide gives is when you're outside of Hidden status, by the way. While Hidden, you have an additional 3.75% Defensive bonus to all except AOEs, which get an additional 37.5%.

Tin Mage and Apex now reward you with a choice of 10 (I think) Incarnate Threads. Incarnate Threads can be converted into Incarnate Experience.

If I'm not mistaken it takes 30 Incarnate Threads worth if iXP to unlock the first slot and 45 to unlock the second. Therefore, you could feasibly unlock all four slots beyond Alpha with 15 Tin Mage/Apex TFs and zero trials.