Discussion: City of Heroes Does BayCon 2010!
By
CatMan,
Posted on: 2010-05-18 08:55 in News, Events and Announcement Discussion
I am discouraged to hear that no one was ever at the table for those going around the convention. They missed a good opportunity to set up a great display and do some "Advertising" since they were there already.
On the plus side, it seems like a lot of good info was restated and clarrified, not to mention more good info passed about the whole GR and "Incarnates" systems. All in all, good news for us all. These Meet and Greets seem to be worhtwhile.
With that being said, I am sure that within two posts, three at the top, someone will complain again about the M &G's.
I think they missed an opportunity with the table at the con too. Their time is limited, and they can only do so much, though. The panel was well done and interesting and I'm glad I went. It was even worth missing the regular Saturday Kitty Pounce Force for. 
I hadn't looked at the Going Rogue website in a while and didn't realize how much of that information - most of the villain groups, for instance - was already there. The information on the Incarnates was new to me, as well.
No matter what the development team does, someone will complain about it. Ignore them, or politely ask them to keep their muttering elsewhere.
I'm such a geek. Some of my heroes have journals.
It sounds - and looks - like the presentation was almost identical to the PAX East one - although, the info on the Ghouls being the result of experiments is new.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
C. W. Bennett is best known as pohsyb, or The Backwards Bishop.
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That makes sense; PAX East was before the I17 release, and that would all have been less well known. Showing off Dual Pistols when they've already been the FOTM made it pretty clear these weren't new slides.|
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
It sounds - and looks - like the presentation was almost identical to the PAX East one - although, the info on the Ghouls being the result of experiments is new.
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I hadn't seen a lot of it, or any of the stuff on the Incarnates, though, which was interesting.
I'm such a geek. Some of my heroes have journals.
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Supergroup Bases and Empowerment Stations apparently don't count |
Ancillary Power Pools Arenas Auction Houses Badges Capes/Auras Day Jobs Epic Archetypes Global Chat Inventions Level Pact Merit Rewards Mission Architecht Multiple Builds Oroborus System Patron Powers Pocket D Co-Op Zone Power Customization Powerset Proliferation PvP Zones Safegaurd Missions Mayhem Missions Task Forces Strike Forces Co-Op Task Forces Trials Weapon Customization Zone Events World Events |
www.SaveCOH.com: Calls to Action and Events Calendar
This is what 3700 heroes in a single zone looks like.
Thanks to @EnsonsDeath for the GVE code that made me VIP again!
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I think they were trying to keep the list to one slide. There's a ton of stuff that could be there.|
Originally Posted by Leandro
Supergroup Bases and Empowerment Stations apparently don't count
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A friend of mine immediately said, "What about the No-XP button? That's the best feature they've added." He's dead serious too. He always hated out leveling things, and now he doesn't have to worry about it. Someone says, "Want to do a TF?" and he can go have a great time and play the game without worrying his contacts will snub him.
The panel thought Mission Architect, the Invention System, and Ororborus were the best parts... I would have put Global Chat up there as "best" myself. It lets me talk to people no matter where I'm playing.
What else did they forget?
I'm such a geek. Some of my heroes have journals.
Nice post, thanks for the info
I never did see anything at their table, but I did attend the panel today at Baycon. I was pleased to see they got one of the big ballrooms at the convention center, and surprised to see it wasn't full. I blame not having enough notice.
INTRODUCTION
The panel consisted of the people advertised, plus Mercedes Lackey. Larry Dixon was there for a moment, but had to escape elsewhere; it's clear he plays and enjoys the game.
Mercedes Lackey, Eric Johnsen, Vince D'Amelio (Dark Watcher) (flickr)
Matt Miller (Positron), Eric Cleaver (theOcho) (flickr)
I'll try and summarize the panel; I'm presuming anything that Matt Miller presents in front of an audience at a convention isn't secret. If it is, they should have said something.
theOcho started off with introductions, and passed the discussion to Positron, aka Matt Miller. Mr. Miller went through a prepared slide show, some of which we'd seen on the forums before and some of which was new. It was a well put together set of slides and he is a good speaker.
I sat in the second row, like the fanboy I am, and took pictures of all the slides. I'm not going to post them all here because they're horrible pictures, but some were worth putting up. Taking pictures of a screen is always hard. The whole thing is in the flickr set if you want to look.
GAME HISTORY
The slides covered a brief history of the franchise, which worked well to remind all of us how far they'd come. One particularly impressive slde was the list of things added to the game since release, which listed:
Pretty amazing when you put it that way, isn't it?
One of the other slides mentioned that there are at least four employees who've been on the team since launch, C. W. Bennett, Melissa Bianco (War Witch), Brian Clayton, and Matt Miller (Positron). If there's a game name for C. W. Bennet or Mr. Clayton, I missed it.
The history also discussed the creation of Paragon Studios, to give full rights to the franchise to a single organization. Positron noted that every person on the CoH team was offered a position, and every person took the offer. I'd heard this before, but it's still a pretty amazing thing.
Positron stopped for a moment and also talked about the Mac client from Transgaming. Apparently they approached the Paragon Studios team and wanted to meet to discuss the possibility. At the first meeting they showed the client running on the Mac! The Paragon Studios team thought this was amazing (it is!) and made the arrangements. Since then, Transgaming has kept the clients completely in sync and the Mac users play the same game, with the same servers as the PC users.
ISSUE 17: DARK MIRROR
Dark Watcher got to talk about Ultra Mode. The goal was to do a complete upgrade to the graphics engine, to allow use of the new features and capabilities of modern video cards. As some players have seen, it's really pretty and works amazingly well. He seemed quite happy with how this came out, and told us that it's even better in Praetoria where the art resources were designed for it.
Positron went over the other new features of Issue 17, dopplegangers, the new arcs, and the new UI for the auction houses. I haven't run all the new content yet, but the dopplegangers are great. There was a little video sample of the shadow-players in action. One question from the audience was, "Where are these things?" which never got answered. Go run the new Positron TF. It's cool, and has dopplegangers.
It was mentioned that they hope to add the doppleganger technology to the mission architect.
ISSUE 18: GOING ROGUE
Next, the general information for Going Rogue was discuses. Most of it has been heard here on the forums before, but it's a new paid expansion, contains new 1 to 20 content with a "cohesive storyline" and allows players to create a Praetorian. They choose to be Loyalists or Resistance, and can pick from any power set available to players.
The new stuff is set in Praetoria, an alternate earth, ruled by Emperor Cole. Some feel he's a tyrant. It's a utopia with a cost.
Tyrant's Tower Concept Art (flickr)
As a note, Eric Johnsen said that the tower came out pretty much like the concept art. Maybe bigger. He also said he can just zoom around the new zones playing tourist and looking at them. I think we're in for a treat.
There are several new zones, Nova Praetora, Imperial City, Neutropolis, and The Underground. Nova Praetoria is supposed to be clean, wonderful, and perfect, with the other zones slowly become less perfect and more grim, revealing the stresses of the world.
Imperial City Concept Art (flickr)
There were pictures of some of the new enemy groups. They looked neat, and I'll post what I have, even if the shots aren't excellent.
Praetoria Police (flickr)
The Praetoria Police stop the bad guys. Except when they get surly about the supers and stop them, too.
Seers (flickr)
The Seers are Mother Mayhem's watchers, keeping check on the minds of the people. They watch without watching to make sure no one is thinking bad things. Creeepy. I'm sorry my picture isn't better on this one because a lot of the creepiness is lost.
The Resistance (flickr)
Another lousy photo. The Resistance is trying to stop the Emperor, apparently.
Praetorian Clockwork (flickr)
The Praetorians have clockwork to do the menial work no human wants to do. Where we have Prototype Oscillators and clockwork are made of scrap, these are refined and impressive. They are generally peaceful, but can be deputized at an instant by the police and are armed.
The Syndicate (flickr)
There must be some bad guys! Organized crime has further organized, squeezing all the lingering forces into one big collection, The Syndicate.
Ghouls (flickr)
Don't know much about these! Subhuman experiments which have escaped, the ghouls are more than they appear. Positron said the devices on their necks and hands and feet did something... don't know what!
Teaser (flickr)
Naturally, my picture of the "teaser" is the worst of the lot. Guess it's still a tease! That's all they said, except that it would be revealed in more detail on the web site soon.
Other than the new enemy groups, there was some discussion of the new Going Rogue system. System starts at level 20. Characters up to max level can participate. The system includes a "gradual progression of a hero falling from grace or a villain on the road to redemption." Heroes will become vigilantes, eventually give up on the law, and fall to villainy. Villains become rogues then earn true heroic status. They did not say if the same character can go through the process more than once.
Going Rogue has new powesets; Demon Summoning for Masterminds and Dual Pistols for Corruptors, Blasters, and Defenders have already come out for prepurchasers. Also coming with GR is Kinetic Melee for Stalkers, Brutes, Scrappers and Tankers as well as Electric Control for Controllers and Dominators. Showed slides of Electric Control (looked like Tesla Cage to me, and maybe some electricy pets) and a video of Kinetic Melee.
ISSUE 19: INCARNATES
I've heard a few people discuss possibilities for what Issue 19 is, and the name "Incarnates" has been around, but this was the most concrete information I'd heard from a solid source. Of course, it's hearsay for you now, but that's just how it goes.
The Incarnate System is designed to give players end-game content. It adds "Incarnate Levels" to level 50 characters. The first Incarnate Level comes with Going Rogue, and was called "Alpha" during the talk. It adds "Incarnate Abilities", which are situational powers to allow the 50-Alpha characters to do additional things.
Issue 19 adds more Incarnate Levels and Abilities, new rewards, new zone events for Incarnates.
Going Rogue will be required to participate in the Incarnate system. Some of the zone events will take you to Praetoria.
Q&A
The last section of the panel was Q&A. theOcho had some prepared questions to get the panelists talking, which were interesting but not critical. He asked Matt Miller what he thought the biggest improvement to the game was. The answer: Oroborus, to let you see and re-do old stuff. theOcho asked Dark Watcher about his favorite contribution, which turned out to be the Invention Houses, as he was involved in creating them and is a crafter himself. The question to Mercedes Lackey was what, as a player, was her favorite change. Perhaps unsurprisingly, she liked the Mission Architecht and the wonderful creativity it unlocks. I know there was a question for Eric Johnsen too, but I lost it. Sorry, Eric.
I believe Black Pebble (Bright Pebble?) from marketing was there, too. I wish he'd have stood up and been introduced so I could have taken his picture too. Yes, people might be there to see "the devs" but everyone on the team has an important role and does interesting things, and people like to have faces for the names! At least I do.
Lots of people asked good questions. Since I was not taking notes, I didn't get them all. I think everyone in the crowd could have asked something if they wanted, and I didn't think of anything I wanted to ask, as they'd just given us all sorts of great stuff.
Someone asked, quite firmly, why there weren't more convention appearances on the East Coast. The entire dev team said, "Money!" and was sorry they couldn't get to more places and see more people. The word "Dragoncon" was bandied about, but with no real sense of authority behind it. It was clear that fans want to see more of them, and want them to head East, and they got that.
That led to a mention of why no more Hero Con - again, money and time. They decided they'd do more meet and greets rather than just the big convention. The big con was great, but took a ton of resources from the whole team and they decided more chances for people to see them was better.
Several people asked for clarifications of how the Going Rogue system works, and got them. You're not a Hero or a Villain, you're a Praetorian and are a Loyalist or a Reistance member.
Someone asked if there would be more slots available for the full servers. Positron said they were "considering" another free transfer time, to help people move characters around. More slots was "not on the list" but not impossible. They've learned their lesson and rarely say anything will never happen.
I'm sure there were more but those are all I remember. I couldn't take pictures of the slides to jog my memory.
Unrelated to anything, Matt Miller showed the extreme good taste of appreciating the Blake's 7 t-shirt I was wearing. The man clearly knows good stuff when he sees it.
Did anyone else make it to the panel?
I'm such a geek. Some of my heroes have journals.