Player Created Missions 2.0

I must change my opinion on the mission creation system. At first I thought it was going to be away for players to make the perfect farming mission. Now that I have more information, it seems the developers want to see what the players can do. It was stated that the mission creation system was made to see what how creative the players can be and not to make farming missions. Knowing that they are some how not let going to let players make farm missions makes me think this new feature is really cool. I think it is cool now because you can make your own stories up for other people to play and enjoy. How cool would it be to make a story arc about your character for other people to play, it would be really cool. Now I have no idea how they are going to monitor this and they don’t even know how they are going to it yet, control drops. And I still have no idea have they are going to not allow farming missions to made, but they said they won’t be allowed and I believe them.

Just as a note I am not anti-farm missions I just think people abusing the new mission creation system just to make farming missions is sad because the game is not just about getting to level 50 it is about enjoying the world and its lore.

City of Heroes Issue 13: Architect Announced!

ISSUE 13 SUMMARY

Today Issue 13 of City of Heroes has been announced! There are some surprising new features! We all know about the new Mission Creator system they are adding but they are also adding in day jobs, this is really cool! Depending on where you log out for example in a university or a hospital your character gets influence and other benefits while your offline. This feature makes the game seem more realistic because all heroes have a secrete identity. Other features include the shields power set of course and the new pain domination for villains which will available to Corruptors and Masterminds. Pain domination is like empathy but with an evil twist. The new Merit Reward System is being added which. You get Merits for completing task forces and such, you can turn these Reward Merits in for rewards. They are also adding new story arcs and more back story to the Cimerora zone, which will be cool since the only thing to do their really is the Imperious Task Force. I am very excited about this issue there are some cool new features. I am most excited about the new day job feature.

The coolest thing about the day job feature is you can choose what you want to be. Want to be a doctor log out in the hospital, want to be a scholar log out in the university, and I am guessing that you can be a police man which would funny since you are a superhero. They told us that if you were to log out as the doctor when you log back in you get influence and a health buff. Also if you were to be a scholar you would get influence and get salvage items. The cool thing about this the more you do your job the better the benefits you get, like getting more influence and better benefits. This new feature really took me by surprise, I thought they were just going to add just a few minor things and they add a completely new thing. Sadly though no moon base, maybe in a later issue.

Also they are adding, new costume pieces, patron power respec, zone make overs, and new invention origin sets.

Here is the announcement page.

You must read this letter from Positron. (Has a lot more information on issue 13)

City of Heroes Issue 13 Features

IMPORTANT! This link has update information on City of Heroes Issue 13

CAUTION! This page has old or wrong information due to the fact that City of Heroes Issue 13 was announced today!

These are some of the features that maybe in Issue 13 of City of Heroes.

1. The shields power set.

2. The shield power set for any weapon that has a free hand.

3. Player created missions

4. A moon base

I am most excited about the moon base area, if they put this in. A moon base could have tons of possibilities like many new task/strike forces, new costume pieces, and cool temporary powers. Shields would a be cool thing to, because what would be cooler then a sword and shield. Player created missions I am not really that excited. (I have changed my views on player created missions, (read the updated article about it). The other features seem really cool though and will certainly add new and fun things to the game.

This page has really good information on City of Heroes Issue 13.

Trial Journal-Day Two

Play Session (levels 6-7)

I continued playing Slammys, the human warrior, and not much changed. I couldn’t stand doing quests were the enemies drop things you need for the quest. For example, I needed to get big candles from kobolds which all have candles on their heads, and it took a long time to do this quest. One thing that did make sense though is the drop gold dust, this didn’t drop a lot because its well gold dust. It did however get annoying when they didn’t drop at all after which I probably made the kobolds near extinct. I have also noticed, I didn’t notice this before, this game has quite a bit of micromanagement and its hard to keep money for yourself. First of, you need to keep your weapons durable, which costs money, if you forget to do this, which could happen to anyone, this would cost a lot of money. Also, buying abilities always annoyed me in this game. I never understood why the hell I had to pay to learn to abilities. Most games you simply just get them by leveling. And at later levels buying new abilities costs a nice amount of money. I was also forced to grind because I was to low level to do the quests I had. This made me mad because all the players near me were all very high levels and I had to grind all alone. I simply didn’t feel like grinding, so I had a quest in Stormwind that I had to do, but I stopped playing half way there because I was just so dang bored.

Play Session 4 (level 7) I don’t know played for like less then an hour maybe less.

So I started this play session and headed onward to Stormwind. I don’t know if its the crappy rig I am using as of right now or that I am playing the trial version of the game, Stormwind lagged like it was going out of style. So I turned in my quest and learned how to use two handed swords, which took about somewhere between 10-15 minutes, this is again probably due to the crappy computer I am using. I have better one but it doesn’t matter. So then I hearthed stoned back to the town I was in and simply didn’t feel like playing the game. It was to annoying for me. I don’t know if am simply bad at the game or just don’t enjoy the game. So I got to almost level 8 and was tired of running around and grinding and I made a new character. I thought maybe human warriors are not for me.

I made a Tauren Druid. I called him Wos, like World Of Slam. So I ran him around the Tauren starting area and simply got bored. The game play didn’t seem that different from a warrior. It should be completely different. I know I need to level up and I am going to have to suffer in the lower levels, so I can actually write about the game. I am going to have get passed the beginning game boredom.

Side notes, other things I have noticed. This is game is dated, duh. Maybe just maybe Blizzard will update the graphics. They will probably update the graphics in an expansion and not in an update which is where they should be updated. That is one reason the walking is so damn annoying. I mean in Age of Conan at least the game is pretty and has nice music to listen to so it doesn’t seem like a chore to run around the world. And one last point it feels like this game is work. Maybe its because I am taking notes on every little thing I do but when I am not and just running Azeroth it always ends up feeling like I am doing work. Like actual work.

Trial Journal-Day One

Just to start off installing the trial of World of Warcraft was extremely easy and I give kudos to Blizzard for that.

Play Session 1 (Played for 3 mins.) (Level 1)

I made a human warrior. I made a human warrior because it is the simplest character to make. I will however try out a Horde warrior to see of any differences. And I will try a spell caster and a rogue on both sides. Going on, in this three minutes I did notice many new things like the mini map. There were question marks and exclamation points on the it, this was a nice new feature making it easier to find and turn in quests. Also I found the tracking thing cool although you can only track one kind of thing at a time.

Play Session 2 (Played for 1 hr.) ( Lvls 1-6)

This play session I actually played the game. I got back into the groove of the game very quickly and started remembering the hot keys. The one hot key that was bothering me was going to the inventory is hotkey “b” and I was hitting “i” which sends you to the party search screen. So I started questing with my human warrior named Slammys, the name Slammy was already taken. Slammys had to kill the kobold vermin and get meat from dead wolves. Getting the meat was very annoying, because some of the wolves didn’t have meat. I remembered the annoying quest drops from when I quit. In Age of Conan, I play it, if your looking for wolf meat or a lion mane they will always have drop it when killed because a male lion will always have it’s mane and dead wolf will always have meat on it. Why a wolf doesn’t have meat on it I do not understand and never understood. Also I had to get the bandannas from the Defias Thugs. All of them had bandannas and of course some times they didn’t drop, WHY?! While fighting the creatures and finishing up the starting quests I noticed, I have never noticed this before, the combat is very dull. The battle animations are the same so far for different abilities, they should look different. When I use Rend and make a enemy bleed it look different from a Heroic Strike dealing extra damage. You are basically watching your character fight. I do know that I am a low level and there won’t be many options to start out with, but this was also another reason I quit because the combat was repetitive. It is almost like an action rpg simulator.

Oddly enough I started grinding. Which is very odd indeed because I hate the whole idea of grinding. I just started attacking creatures. It was like killing those creature was some form of crack. After which seemed like a long time I turned in my last quests and continued on. So I stopped playing and Slammys is now resting in the Lion’s Pride Inn. When I was done I was level six.

I would like to make a note, I now see the need to grind. This need to grind makes me sad because there should not be a need to grind. I know I am only level six but I got so much experience points from grinding combined with the quest experience. It was an odd feeling just sitting at the computer attacking small creatures over and over again. Damn World of Warcrack, damn it.

World of Warcraft Research

Since the main point of my blog is ripping on World of Warcraft I have made a decision. This decision is to rejoin the World of Warcraft and attempt to get the level 70 and see what the game has to offer. My mission is to see how the game has changed and to see if I really want to stay playing it. This is a bold move I am making and I am going to set up Slam’s WoW Journal in the near future. To get back in the groove of things I am going to try the free trial first and then move on to the full game.

So two new things I am going to add this blog, Slam’s Trial Journal and later Slam’s WoW Journal.

Player Created Missions: Developers getting lazy?

Here is my new opinion on player created missions.

In issue 13 of City of Heroes there is suppose a new feature. This new feature enables players to make their own missions. This is a cool feature and will allow players let there ideas come out. To me this also means that the game developers are getting lazy. If the developers can’t think of new missions for us to play that probably means City of Heroes time is short. These are some questions I have about this new feature.

How will the missions be distributed?

What drops will be allowed and how will drops work?

Will it be difficult to make missions?

Could this be abused? For example could a player make a mission with very good drops.

How will these missions be accessed?

Will the players be the contacts? That would be cool.

And of course players could easily make a farming mission of their and make it perfect for farming, this would be very cool and honestly everyone will be making farming missions.

So I really hope they don’t screw this up and I hope the developers are not getting lazy, even though we all know that City of Heroes time is very short.

Natural Travel Powers

City of Heroes needs to add natural travel powers. For super speed it could be a fast car, super jump their could be a jump pack, for flying a rocket pack, and for teleportation some sort of device. I know there are already jump packs and rocket packs, but they are only temporary powers. These ones need to be permanent powers and customizable.

New Archetype Idea: City of Heroes

A new feature City of Heroes should add instead of a new powerset is a completely new archetype. This archetype wouldn’t be an epic archetype, it would be for everyone to play. My idea for the archetype is the Shape shifter. The Shape shifters primary powerset of course would be shape shifting. The powersets could be, Animals, different attacks would shape shift into different animals. A general shape shifting powerset with different attacks and in character custimaztion you choose what the shape shifted character would like. Finally a elemental powerset with earth, fire, and ice. I haven’t really thought of a secondary powerset for the Shape shifter. The shape shifter probably wouldn’t need a secondary powerset.

Paragon City’s Black Out

With the announcement of Champion’s Online and DC Universe, Paragon City is going to need a lot more fuel to keep fans interested. I being a veteran in City of Heroes feel that I have done everything and I feel I’ve done everything twice. While I have accepted that I will probably leave Paragon City for DC Universe or Champions Online, the developers of City Of Heroes need to add something new.

There is word that issue 13 will add shields and even a moon base. A moon base would be cool, but they need to add something completely new. I don’t  know what. Instead of adding a new power set or new areas they need to add new game play. Again I don’t know how they will doe this maybe issue 13 will be the final issue and they are accepting their fate. When I leave City of Heroes I want to leave something worth remembering.