You are far from the only one. Some people spend hours creating costumes and such for their characters. And a stand alone creator they can use offline has been requested since the game started. Just the regular costume parts have a huge number of combinations that work together. The booster packs are only a small addition to that, but there are some very nice things in them. And now you can preview everything before buying.
Having fun with the new issue. A new server is also a great opportunity to get some good character names but the game crashing my ATI card is starting to get old. Problem started two drivers ago. Crossing my fingers there will be a fix in the next one.
I think I just need to drop my subscription to this and DC Online. I log on once every month and a half to City of Heroes to de-idle characters, and that’s it…
I took a couple month break due to playing Steam summer sale games but popped back in for I21. Between the new Time Manipulation and Beam Rifle sets and upcoming Street Justice, Titan Weapons and Staff Fighting sets, I figure there might be enough new and shiny to keep me a round a bit longer.
I take it “Issue” is what this game calls expansions?
More or less, although they tend to be more on the order of the subdivisions within a WoW expansion in size, like patch 4.2 rather than Cataclysm as a whole. An issue will typically include a new zone or TF (raid/dungeon), some new system mechanic, new powersets, and some new costumes, plus assorted QoL and bug fixes.
Yes, the free updates are Issues (a la Comic Book issues) and there have been two paid expansions: City of Villains (which was actually a stand alone game as well) and Going Rogue (which was not). Right now the game is transitioning to a Free to Play hybrid model but that is not yet available to the public.
You forgot the most important word in that description. They are all free. COH has had 2 large expansions that cost money, and around 10 small packs adding costumes, emotes, powers, etc. for $5-$10 each, otherwise all the new material in the game has been added for free. That is changing slightly now with the hybrid model they are going to, but they will continue the free issues as well as adding stuff to the market.
In regards to the upcoming “Freedom” hybrid model, I have a question.
- I am currently paying my 14? bucks a month. Do I become a VIP player at 14$ a month when “Freedom” releases?
Yep. In fact, you’re a VIP now, with access to the store and a small stash of points to spend. They haven’t yet opened the game to free accounts, but subscribers/VIPs have access to everything right now.
A couple questions:
-
When I create a new character, is there a way to simply save the character without moving directly into the game? The dialog at the end of the process asks, “Do you want to save this character and enter the game?” (or words to that effect), which suggests the answer to my question is “no”. It’s a bit irksome to have to wait however long it takes to load into the game and then immediately wait another 30 seconds to log right back out, when I just want to save the character.
-
Is there a way to dismiss/turn off those “temporary powers” you get when somebody reads your fortune? I’ve had a couple people offer to read my fortune (some specific character power that does this?), and when I accepted it said I’d gained a “temporary power”, but didn’t tell me what it was. But it didn’t take me long to figure out - my “fortune” was “The Fool”, (I found the icon up under my health bar) which gave me a movement speed boost. I was moving so fast that I couldn’t control my character — running face-first into walls, overshooting my destination, etc. I finally located the icon for this power, up there among the “Always-on Powers” icons, and in my attempts to dismiss the buff I ended up hiding all those icons and now I can’t make them come back.
-
What are these “sewer runs” I keep seeing people LFG-ing for?
Sorry, if you want to save the character you have to log in. Although you can save the costume and custom power colors in the creator - I generally do that while creating in case some bug hits me and i lose all my work.
Unhiding the icons is somewhere in Options, General I believe (lots of customization options in the menu, I recommend you check them out). I understand that now you can cancel the buff by right clicking on the icon. Also, if you don’t want to accept that and other buffs for whatever reason (or want to automatically accept them), you can visit Null the Gull in Pocket D. He’s a seagull on top of a truck in the villain side of the club. If you don’t know where that is, the lowest level access is in King’s row, you can find it on the map. It’s useful for shortcuts between several zones at the very least, and stuffed full of roleplayers on Virtue. It also lets Rogues & Vigilantes cross sides.
I’m not sure what it is now; it used to be going though the Atlas Park sewers for some low level powerlevelling, but there’s new stuff to do there with this Issue that I haven’t really looked into yet.
I found the relevant settings in the Options menu, but they didn’t seem to have any effect. I’ll see if my icons come back the next time I log the character in.
That was the first thing I tried, since that’s how I’m used to doing it in WoW, but I think what actually happened was it brought up a popup menu, and clicking one of the options in that menu is what made all my icons disappear.
It’s now a really awesome short TF. Providing a WoW-analog again for Mister Rik, it’s like the Deadmines or Ragefire Chasm except it’s for newly-created characters. Creating alts is a bigger deal in City than in WoW, and after a while the low levels get to be a bit of a chore, so it’s a fun way to rocket yourself up a few levels.
You can give it a go if you like, as it’s a good intro to teaming in City, but as you’re still very new you might find it easier to follow story missions at your own pace for now.
I have 43 WoW characters.
Crap, I’m doomed. DOOOOOOOMED!
Figured it out. Right-click and then select “Cancel” from the popup menu. Sadly, my “always-on powers” icons are still missing on that one character.
Please tell me the game isn’t streaming the audio to me? In addition to some connectivity issues last night (“Lost connection to map server”) — which I’m only guessing may have been related to it being Friday night and there being heavy server loads — my audio was a steady “whup-whup-whup-whup-whup-whup-whup-whup…”. That got so annoying I ended up turning my sound all the way down.
I’ve gotten curious since the free to play (FTP) coming up.
First, How much freedom do you have in regards to designing the look? How does it compare to, say, Champions Online? In that regard, let’s say I took Fire Blast as a Blaster or Corrupter. Can I change how the power looks? Can I add weapons which look as though they’re actually firing?
Fortunately, it looks as though these people can do FTP right. Whereas Champions Online was pretty much a giant insult to the very concept of FTP. And I’ve been looking for a new MMO since I’ve pretty much lost all my friends in WoW and DDo is nightmarishly grindy.
You can change most powers’ colors. City only allows two colors at a time but makes up for it with many more costume parts to choose from at the start.
Only the ones that come with a power (like Assault Rifle or Dual Pistols) but you can change the default weapon to something else.
I’ve never played CO, so this is off secondhand reports. From what I’ve heard there’s a little more customization in CO (such as more asymmetrical costume parts), but the art quality is better in CoX and you have more pieces.
In CoX, you can choose the color of your main powers and max level Incarnate powers (generic pool powers are as yet uncustomizable), often you can choose between two styles (most often ‘Light’, and a more solid looking ‘Dark’ palette). Many powers have alternate animations such as Psionic Blast attacks that can either be fired from the head or the hand; or the top level Super Strength attack which is either a Foot Stomp or Hulk-style Ground Punch; or Earth powers which can generally come in Rock, Crystal and Lava variants.
As for weapons, if you want weapons you have to choose a set that already uses weapons; Assault Rifle, Beam Rifle, Broadsword, Katana, Dual Pistols, Archery, etc; you can’t just have you Fire Blaster shooting a fire gun (at least not yet). However there’s quite a few different custom weapon types.
Sounds good. I liked the customization in Champions Online - but it was very, very stylized in a way that didn’t suit every character. You couldn’t really build “mysterious” or “subtle” in; the nature of the design just didn’t support it. You were best off not bothering with anything less than bright and obvious.
The reason I asked was because they didn’t have a lot of border between powers. So if I wanted a crazy flame-spewing guy with a science background, it might look wrong. Ah well, have to work with it.
How far can you bend the limits of “human” ? Can you make a character that looks feline or alien? (Why, yes, I have been posessed by the dark power of the African leopard? How did you know?)
BTW, thank you for linking that awesome site. Handy.