August Producer's Letter

Content is king, as they say, and at Paragon Studios we have long embraced that philosophy. One of the most significant factors in City of Heroes’ seven years of success is in providing free Issue releases for our subscribers, and we remain committed to this philosophy for the future. Over the last 20 Issues we have added missions, zones, powers, enemies, map sets, huge features and gameplay systems, world-changing storylines, and a wealth of truly memorable characters. In Issue 21 and beyond we will continue to expand on all of these great features, as well as make surprising makeovers of some of our older content.

As a team, we have learned a lot from all the work we have done to develop Going Rogue, City of Heroes Freedom, and all of our other updates. That has paid off by increasing our ability to make great content and stick to an ambitious schedule. Over the last couple of years we have released not just our regular Issues, but also a number of other updates. Over the rest of this year we’ll be adding the fantastic new “Haunted Mansion” event to Halloween, two new Incarnate Trials, and some great updates to the Winter Event, as well.

In the future, we want to take advantage of this experience to give you more regular updates than we’ve provided in the past. We are working hard to improve the predictability and frequency of our Issues and other content. We’ll be much more focused in the content we provide with every issue, and by increasing the frequency of our releases, we will be giving you more great content in a year than we have before.

In the era of City of Heroes Freedom, an Issue is also going to include more than just the things that come out on release day. For starters, every month we will be releasing a new Signature Story. These are free for our VIP players, and they will give you more reasons to log in and play the game: not just every month to play the new Story Arc, but also to get the increased weekly rewards from the Signature Stories. Once a week you will be able to choose an Alignment Merit (if you are a Hero or Villain), quadruple Reward Merits, an Astral Merit (if your character is level 50), or ten Incarnate Threads (again if you are level 50). Of course, you can run the Signature Stories more than once a week for their normal levels of rewards, and every one of your characters can get their own rewards by running the Signature Stories alone or with a team.

In addition, every week there will also be something new in the Paragon Market. Some weeks this will be an item like a costume piece or an emote, and other weeks we will release a new power set or an entire costume set. As a VIP player, you will have 400 points a month, or even more when you have reached the top tier of the Paragon Rewards Program. These points give you the freedom to customize what an Issue means to you by letting you choose from the great items found in the Paragon Market. The Market isn’t changing our commitment to Issue releases, it’s expanding on it.

We embarked on the road to City of Heroes Freedom with the express purpose of giving you more value for your subscription and more reasons to play City of Heroes with your friends, old and new. Issues are still a huge part of that. Our current planning sessions are covering content for the next couple of years, and we are excited about continuing to share great new things with you as they take shape in the game.

I look forward to giving you all my dollars.

I am thoroughly pumped!

Curious when can we expect more Incarnate slots?

Does this mean we can get all the incarnate stuff solo? Cause I've posted a NUMBER of youtube videos on 3 servers showing that from 12-1am to 5-6am like 16-18 people are on total and there's NEVER been a way to do this stuff. Hence why I don't play this anymore.

It'll be interesting to see these new "trials"...if they're anything like the new low level Sewer Trial then...I'm all for 'em! Hooray new stuff to do!


And...will be interesting to see this "every week something new"....obviously some weeks will be 'cheapies' with just some emotes or a costume piece or two....but....we'll see...


I want a new powerset every week!

Where's my Dual Archery Defense powerset?!?! BABs better not have taken that with him.....

More frequent "stuff to do" releases, as well as other forms of content, sound good. I'll be impressed if the devs can pull it off; goodness knows they've been trying to release faster than they do over the years.

I'd like to know one thing about weekly purchasable-stuff releases, specifically costume pieces. We now know that some weeks, "a costume piece" will be added to the store, while other weeks, "an entire costume set" will be added. (Presumably, there'll be weeks when no costume parts are added, too.) Will the system be set up in such a way that individual pieces of a set will be purchasable before the entire set, or will things added as single costume pieces be one-offs?

To give an example, say that the Cyborg Pack items (a complete set), the Sharp Epaulettes (a single piece), and the Reaper head detail (another single piece) had not yet been released. Would we see a scenario where the Cyborg Cables chest detail was released in week 1, the Cyborg General shoulders in week 4, and the entire Cyborg set not until week 10? Or is the wording in the announcement meant to suggest something more along the lines of the Sharp Epaulettes being released in week 1, the Reaper head detail in week 4, and the Cyborg set in week 10?

This would be useful to know because, based on what we've been told about the price of, say, the Magic Pack sets in their entirety versus the cost of their individual pieces, it's cheaper to buy a costume set as a whole than as individual parts. Essentially, I'm asking whether it'll behoove us to wait on purchasing costume pieces for a while after they're released, in order to get them bundled. (Obviously, as a costume parts maven, I'd prefer to get everything for the slightly lower price up-front, but the whole design of a microtransaction system suggests to me that we might end up going the other way.)

I realize that there may not be an answer yet on this, or that if one exists, it might be secret for some reason.

I'm a little worried. While I like the idea of being able to pick and choose what I get out of the game... It feels like the previously 'free' issue releases will end up costing money now.

Actually.. I'm not sure that explains it right.
I'm worried that... the value of our money will drop. In other words... The amount of 'stuff' we could get per dollar will diminish because the 'cost' per item won't be accurate enough.

I'll give you an example: Powersets on Beta. Last time I checked, each one is costing 800 points. That's 2 months of paid membership (or 30 bucks straight up) out of the customers pocket. Going Rogue cost, what... 39.99 new? And it had 2 new powersets *and* new content. Heck, we've even had 'free' issue updates with new powersets and at the most that could be considered 15 bucks just for the ability to play them.

See what I'm getting at here? I'm all for the new system (and free play in general) but let's not kid ourselves. Customers *will* avoid paying if they feel like they're getting ripped off. And then... you're only hurting yourselves at that point.

My prime playtime is during the Dead Zone hours as well. Even on Virtue (which is one of my 2 prime servers) it can be bleeping hard, at times, to get anything going at 4am Central. Sometimes I can roll along with trials and such all night long (bless you Aussies, Kiwis, and NA night owls), but that's not common. I'm greatly looking forward to more ways to work on incarnate stuff aside from trying to put together a league during the Dead Zone, so I really hope they're working on that.

I'm actually quite thrilled that content will no longer to tied to issues for release. The Signature Arcs are just what the doctor ordered, and seeing the creative teams unbound from issues for new stories, costume bits, powers(!), etc., is quite thrilling to me. I also hope that this will see a substantial acceleration of new content of all types being released when compared to the old issue/subscription model.

That being said, I certainly look forward to issues still, since those should now be freed up for more ambitious projects