scholarman

The beta's over. If you want to download the client, hit account management, then 'download game client,' and it'll give you a place where you can get either the PC or Mac client.

Okay, there still seems to be some confusion. Let me make it as plain as possible:

If you are a current City of Heroes customer on the PC, you can download the client and play on your Mac, right now, at no extra charge. Current customers can play on either platform. You do not need to pay to do this.

If you pay the $19.99, you get the Mac Special Edition code. This unlocks the perks, right now, whether you have a Mac or not. This gives you the Valkyrie costume options and the 2 hour recharge mission teleporter, right now, no matter what platform you play on. This also gives you an extra month of game time included with the cost.

In 2 months time, a booster pack will be made available letting you get the Valkyrie Armor and the Mission Teleporter without the month of time. At this time, getting the booster pack and paying for a month of time separately looks like it will cost about $5 more than getting the Mac Special Edition today. That pricing may change before the 2 months is up.

In short: anyone who wants the new gubbins can buy the pack and use it, today. Anyone who has an active City of Heroes account can play CoH on the Mac, today.

They haven't officially put anything up on the front page, so my assumption is the live client is currently 'unofficial.' Which means technically it's still in Beta. Which means if the live client collapses and something bad happens, it's Not Their Fault we used it for Live. Assuming all goes well, I expect they'll announce the Mac client forthwith.

That is what seems to be true right now, across the board. Okay? Okay.

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Ex: I think you misunderstood Kohato.

I am on a Mac, I play in Windows, I want to play in Mac OS:

Can I download it from somewhere? Obviously i need a new download as the windows installer doesn't run so good in Mac OS

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You can get the Game Client from ftp://client.coh.com/US/MAC_CoH_Installer_US.dmg or you can download it from your account. Yes, the Mac client works. From all accounts, once you've installed it it doesn't matter if you haven't bought the pack -- you can play City of Heroes on your shiny Macintosh.

If you do buy the pack, you get the Valkyrie set and the mission teleporter, whether you are playing on a PC or a Mac.

To sum up: anyone with an active account can play the game, either from an Intel Mac or a PC, at no extra charge, as of now. Anyone, Mac or PC, can buy the Mac Special Edition and get a month of time and the special gubbins, as of right now.

Okay?

OTOH, they had said "pre-holiday" for the release, so I'm kind of hopeful we'll hit open beta soon.

As do so many of us. As do so many of us.

Right. Being stupid, I missed out on the initial wave of invites, though I expect my build would fit the needs (I fit right in the system requirements). Is there any sense of how long it will be before the next wave of invites?

(Please note -- I'm not not not not not complaining. I'm the one who screwed up his beta signup. I just want to know how often I should check my spam trap. )

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If you missed Lighthouse's post where he discussed the Closed Beta Application process, you can read it here.

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Rock on, sir. You're a pal! How I missed that post is beyond me.

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So when around do we expect to receive them and for it to start?

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Mac Closed Beta applicants who have met the minimum system/OS requirements will be contacted soon.


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How do you know what our system and OS are? The form just wanted our e-mail addresses. Was there a cookie probe?

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After checking, the first announced winners have been emailed their codes yesterday.

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Life is awesome.

Just because Cider can use SecureROM doesn't mean it must use SecureROM. TransGaming's extending the option to companies who use the moronic DRM on their games so they'll actually use Cider and release Mac versions. But, just like City of Heroes on the PC doesn't use SecureROM even though it could, technically, City of Heroes on the Mac won't incorporate SecureROM because it would have no advantage for doing so. And no, there is nothing innate in Cider that requires it, any more than there was in Cedega or WINE before it.

The link in question is indeed jumping to a conclusion and spreading a rumor. Since it's not in NCNC's best interests to restrict the copying of the client software (indeed, they want people to copy the client, because those people need an actual live account to play anyway), they're not going to poison the well with the heavy negative publicity attached to SecureROM.

This, I firmly believe.

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That is NOT what was said. The MAC Client will, just like the Good vs. Evil client, be a separate purchase. You need to purchase the MAC client to get the MAC client.

Without that, Transgaming wouldn't make any money and wouldn't have any reason to do/support the port

On the other hand, regardless of which client you USE, you can play the game: that's what the quote says: you can play using your existing account from any client (that you have purchased)

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That's a point. And like I said, I already preordered it. I mean, if you want to play on a Mac and if you want the new shiny things, there's no reason not to. Looking at past bonus material packs, players will almost certainly pay the difference between a month of play and the $19.99 this thing cost anyway, so by preordering I'm just paying for another month of play I would be getting anyway. Not A Big Deal.

So, for twenty bucks you can play native on your Mac and get some shiny things and an extra month of play. For probably 4-6 bucks you can get the new power and costume set without the Mac client or the extra month of play.

Seems fair to me. Heck, I've spent more than that on Crossover Games for Mac play by itself, and they didn't even give me chick armor.

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How will this affect people who have macs and already have accounts? (I dont have a Mac, I'm just wondering)

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Your game account will work no matter which client you are using.

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I assume we'll be able to download the client without buying a copy, assuming we don't want or care about the bonus stuff, yes?

(For the record, I preordered the Mac Client anyway. I'm certainly going to drop the money on the Valkyrie set and the Mission Teleporter anyway, and if things are true to form the difference in cost will be the one free month we get anyway, so I'll add the code to my account, take the month, and enjoy delicious chick armor on my Mac on day one. But I assume I could get the client at no extra charge if I needed.)

Oh, for the record, "eaburns" should have been "scholarman," but hey, I'm not about to worry about it.

Out of curiosity, when will winners of the Freakshow contest start getting their costume codes?

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Awesome story, eaburn.

Eco.

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Thanks, sir!

There's some movement on the horizon, if the recent marketing survey is any indication, towards some form of alignment shift. As we learn more, this proposal may, of course, need modification.

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I really think we should have the toons be able to cross over and be free to do almost all of the missions. Make it time limited.

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What you're really describing isn't cross-faction teaming. It's redemption and falling -- limited redemption, maybe, but redemption nonetheless. That's at least somewhat different from what we're discussing here. It's a worthy discussion, but probably would get better traction if you posted it as its own suggestion (or appended it to one of the many redemption/falling threads that have come before).

As for me -- I wouldn't much want to see a time based probation/duress system. If a villain can cross into a heroic zone and act like a hero without supervision, he's not a villain any more. If a hero goes and spends three hours on the Rogue Islands breaking the law, he shouldn't be able to go back home to Paragon City and call himself a hero. If characters can hop the fence at any time, then it becomes a very different game. Maybe it would be a cool game, but it wouldn't be superheroes and supervillains any longer.

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Depending on how many badges you accumulate over the course of your travels would dictate on how Heroic or how Villainous you are (CELEBRITY/MOST WANTED points depending on what side you are on). Accumulate enough points and you might be able to cross over to the other side for certain missions on your own.

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Oh, now that is a good thought.

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Love the idea. One suggestion though that no more than half of the team should be made up of opposite faction members.

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That's the core reason "behind the scenes" for requiring a Sponsor, and only letting one person Sponsor a single Probatee/Duressed Hero. The in-game explanation is it's either the good word of a specific registered hero allowing the villain to cross over and join the group, or there is a specific villain who has something on a hero and is forcing him to do nasty things in the Rogue Isles. The practical effect is at most you can have four heroes and four villains on any crossfaction team, and at no point will the 'alien' faction outnumber the 'native' faction on a given team.

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Now, as for the Exemp thing, I'm gonna say the best thing to do would be impliment the PVP Zone levelcode. You're SK'd up to or exemplared down to the level of your benefactor. If you are same level, nothing happens, but you still count as SK'd.

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Is this, strictly speaking, necessary? I mean, it would likely work, but...

Hm. Maybe a variation of this -- perhaps, if the sponsoree and the sponsor are close enough in level to get XP for each other's missions, they remain their normal levels unless explicitly SK/Exemping, and if they're outside that range it kicks in automatically?

Or not... hrm. I don't see a good reason not to treat this like any other teaming. I know I was the one who suggested the two level thing in the first place, but in the end this complicates things to an unnecessary degree.

Going back to the discussion of flagging yourself for crossfaction PUGs... my original thought had been to use a similar system to the Arenas-- if you're interested in crossfaction, you hit a terminal in the Wyvern/Hero Corps office and wait. It sounds like folks would rather there be some kind of 'registration' instead -- maybe go there, click the "I am interested in cross-faction" button, and be flagged on appropriate LFT queries until you click it off. If that's the case, though, I would personally hope that when you joined a team on your own side it would automatically set your crossfaction LFT to 'off,' and the same when you logged out or disconnected.

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Back on topic, I think Ex/Mal should remain a separate game mechanic. If a 50 wants to join a crossfaction team then they can choose to Ex/Mal once they get there.

Don't get me wrong, RP reasons deserve consideration but ultimately more flexibility in game play means the feature is more useful to more players. And on top of that, if they devs don't have to tie in an existing piece of code with a new piece then that's that much less work they have to do.

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On the other hand, having a "heroic" team with one hero and seven villains would seem... imprudent. I really like the idea that there needs to be a sponsor, so that at most the teams would be 4 and 4.

Does it have to be in the LK/Exemplar slot? I don't know. I should think if it were in the slot, it should be independent of whether or not there is LK/Exemplaring going on -- though I would suggest that whatever LK/Exemplaring happens happen specifically between the sponsor and the character on probation/under duress.

I wouldn't want this to become Supergroup only, however. I think leaving the possibility for PUGs would be a good thing.

I think restricting the Probationary/Duressed character from communicating with their native side while they're across the factional line is a good idea, however.

I think the best way to ensure we don't have cross-factional annoying recruiting going on is to only permit the transaction to take place at Wyvern/Hero Corps. To solicit players on the other side, you have to go through the terminal interface and can only talk to the folks on the other side of said interface.

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Agreed. /kicking should lead to immediate teleport, even when in a PvP or even Co-Op zone.

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Gah -- /kicking should lead to a thirty second delayed teleport, not instant teleport -- so that in a potential team wipe situation, the leader of the team can't /kick the probate/duress character(s) to punch them out of danger.

That's what I meant. Really. Don't look at me like that.

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This system would be an absolutely amazing addition to the game. I really hope this idea has been PMed directly to Positron.

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I PM'd him a link to the thread. It would be a bit much to be replicated in a PM, and the comments have improved it along the way.

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As for badges, I say let the badges be available to the opposing faction, but they are not granted the accolade even if they get all the associated badges. If a permenant side switch becomes available then I would strip opposite side accolades and immediatly grant the new side's accolades (if the character qualifies).

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Going allllll the way back to CoV Beta, there was once a bug that would dump us into Atlas Park instead of Mercy Island, which gave us a chance to run around and do Atlas Park type stuff as villains (all the same stuff conned hostile to us as heroes, with the additions of Police Drones one-shotting you straight into a Mercy Island hospital.)

One thing we discovered was some of the badges (like Patriot) were different for villains instead of heroes. The Devs at the time confirmed that they'd flagged many of the badges differently for heroes and villains, just to simplify their jobs later on down the line if they wanted to, say, give Villains access to the true Kings Row for some reason.

Assuming they continued to do this, they could conceivably change specific names/tags of badges for villains than heroes, blocking access to Heroic Accolades even if the villain met all the requirements. And vice versa, if they went the other way.

I don't think there should be a supergroup sponsorship component -- the sponsor is important, but even as we've agreed the two level difference was a bad idea, I think this puts a restriction that doesn't need to be there. Just make sure there's a specific hero sponsoring a specific villain, with consequences (IE -- instaport out of zone) if the two stay out of range of each other for too long, and give other heroes on the team the chance to sponsor the villain if the first hero quits or is disconnected.

And, naturally, the same for heroes in the Rogue Islands.