HeroCon Online! Reaching out to the Masses!

So, let's be honest. We all want to know what goes on at ComicCon, or PAX. But not everyone can get there. Every year, thousands upon thousands of City of Heroes players are forced to watch from the sidelines as the lucky few who can afford to travel, or who are fortunate enough to live near a major convention get to grab new information first hand!

Well, I propose we change that.

Ladies and Gentlemen... City of Heroes has an amazing community team to go with an amazing community.

So, I figured... let's bring the convention to us!

If HeroCon is too cost prohibitive in the real world, why don't we bring it to the virtual one?

Thus...
HeroCon Online!

The world's first MMO based Comic Book Convention (That We Know Of).

The concept is simple, really. Take some of the awesome community stuff we do currently, and condense it into THE MOST EPIC EVENT PARAGON CITY HAS EVER SEEN!

Some example events.

Meet and Greet:
Come chill with your favorite signature characters and Paragon Studios staff members in Pocket D!

The Costume Contest:
A staple of any convention. Win prizes from the Paragon Store, gold titles, and other prizes for having the best costume around. (And try out the signature character Cosplay Contest! Ain't a convention without one!)

Scheduled Content:
Tired of Signature Heroes just standing around? Why don't you join them as they fight alongside you in these special leagues! Help Back Alley Brawler defeat Marauder, or team up with the Vindicators as they fight what lurks within the Sewers. It's an experience you'll never forget.

Clash of the Titans:
PVP is dead? ...Well, yes. But a massive Hero v. Villain Charge lead by signature heroes and villains is far more interesting than a Stalker-Fest, don't you think?

Costume Codes!:
Well, they're -selling- these now, but it wouldn't be a con without them.

The Panel!:
The big one! Join the Paragon Studios team as they reveal new content and take your questions. I mean... they do something like this weekly with UStream, but still.

Beta Stress Test:
This... isn't needed, but it would give many people a happygasm. If a major new issue is being tested, then giving people a few days to play with it would be a cool event if it was far enough along.

Other Stuff?
Double XP? Ski Chalet? Halloween Events? Winter Events? Everything AT ONCE?!



The gist of the suggestion is to take the spirit of HeroCon, a celebration of all things City of Heroes, and to turn it into the biggest, most awesome In Game Event ever seen.

Standard Code, Time, and Money rants apply. But... cool, yes?

I personally would love to see the Dev team host a pvp party... each hero/villain dev.. forms a league and just have a lot of fun in RV. Spawn the AVs and let the madness begin. Etc etc...

And no.. I am not a big pvper.. I just think it would be a lot of fun

comiccon is a 2-3 day's event right, so maybe they can do something like that with more then just some guy's standing in pocket-D
they should IMO make a small zone that you can only get to trough a portal, this zone is comiccon it self, or at least the boot.
this would allow ppl to experience the boot without having to go all the way to the comiccon, cheaper too.

the computers that show the freedom things teleports you to the new tutorial with compressed level and only the first 2 powers usable to experience how it's done, the real thing is still better but it does make it a good way of showing they care (ok, bad excuse....but still an excuse )

The big draw of HeroCon, for me at least and I suspect sor several others as well, was getting to meet and hang out with other players from our server and from the forums. Some of this was during the official events, but much of it was outside of the official events, be it player organized meals, players going sight-seeing, player organized after-parties in the players rooms, hanging out in the bars and lounges of the hotels during events that the player wasn't interested in attending.

Sure, it was nice getting to meet and chat with the Devs and OCR people, especially when they joined in some of the player organized stuff mentioned above or just hanging out in the lounges and bars.

But the part that was most enjoyable was meeting the players I'd been talking to for years in the games or on the forums and getting to spend time just visiting with them. Even with some of the generic NCSoft Meet n Greets that have been held in Texas I've enjoyed just meeting the other players, especially some of the more notable forum personalities such as Bill Z Bubba, or Moggie from Virtue, or Rowr.

You can't really simulate some of the personal interactions in the same way during a server event.

And, as Aggelakis points out, much of that is what generally happens during the anniversary events.