It is only fitting that PAX East 2011 would see another panel for City of Heroes, as last year’s convention was the first time the team from Paragon Studios had been to the east coast. While this year’s panel didn’t see the lots of announcements and surprising new reveals of last year, it is nice to see the team making the trek out to Boston one time again in what fans can only hope will be a regular event.
PAX East 2011: Shipping up to Boston with City of Heroes
Regrettably for those in attendance, the panel opened with the announcement that Matt Miller was unable to attend due to disease, leaving the panel occupied by art designer Ryan Roth, producer Nate Birkholz, and community manager Tia Parahui. (Thinking about the fan rumbling in the line prior to the panel, some players were probably a bit happier with this news.)
As always, the line to get in to the panel was gargantuan, with players lining up an hour before the panel doors opened for a chair in the comparatively small theater. One time players had filed in and the room had settled down, it was time for a glance at the past year or so for City of Heroes and at what players could expect for the near future, as well as the usual lively question-and-answer session.
As usual, the panel started with the recap of the events since the last major panel and a discussion of the content from Issue 19 onward. This included the first element of the Incarnate Technique, the beginning of the producer’s letters, the Intrepid Informer features to keep players looking behind the scenes, and the announced loyalty bonus leading up to the game’s seven-year anniversary. There was and a mention of the Animal Pack and the Every week Strike Target, both of which are recent additions that the team is happy with.
The first giant announcement for the future, however, came soon thereafter with the declaration that the North American servers and the European servers would be merging in to a single worldwide list, allowing all players access to everything. This also means European players will be able to start using the beta and check servers along with other players, thus keeping a wider community in the loop and in on the testing.
Heroes will be taking on the Admiral Sutter force, which includes the historicallyin the past previewed flotilla map and a devastated Skyway City as heroes fight against the Sky Raiders and their new allies in the Imperial Defense Force of Praetoria. Villains, on the other hand, get a different kind of aim in the Mortimer Kal force, in which they try to get their hands on a powerful Incarnate artifact that reportedly will stay with the player after the force is done. It was said specifically that the artifact can be turned in to Incarnate salvage at the higher levels, thus allowing characters to derive a new benefit from the earlier completion.
But the main centerpiece was naturally the previews of the upcoming content for Issue 20, beginning with the new mid-range Hero and Villain task forces. The one of them are different in focus, but both are designed to help inject more content in to the aging mid-level band.
The other major feature being introduced in the next update is the new teaming technique for the Incarnate trials. Both the featured and the Behavioral Manipulation Facility have been thoroughly explained, but some additional details on Lambda Sector were obtainable. Players will be forced to split up in to one teams as they assault the sector, a weapons research and storage facility overseen by Marauder. The team was also laughing about Marauder as a difficult fight, noting that they “really hates to stay in one place.”
Issue 20 will naturally see an expansion to the Incarnate abilities, with two new trees being unveiled in full — Judgment, Lore, Fate, and Interface. Judgment is an AoE attack; Lore provides summoned allies; Fate gives a party-wide buff; and Interface serves as a direct destroy ability. The visuals were shown off, with ice bullets and flame jets accompanying large electrical discharges in the assault section. As Roth put it, the art team wanted each Incarnate power to convey a sense of energy and movement and feel powerful to those watching.
As always, the panel was followed by fan questions. One of the most reassuring statements was that, while there’s several Incarnate trials on deck, Task and Strike Force content is not being abandoned — it is momentarily on pause. Similarly, the new grouping function for the trials is going to be adapted to other content over time, as it is obviously heavily in demand. Cross-server grouping is and a possibility, although it is something for the more distant future.
What is beyond Issue 20? They were shown previews of one Incarnate trials planned for later release: the Keyes Island Reactors and Underground Praetoria. The former sees players fighting against Anti-Matter and his Clockwork (including a couple that resembled the Seers) to try to close down the reactors and cripple Praetoria’s offensive abilities. Meanwhile, Underground Praetoria sees players exploring the deepest parts of the city, where it is becoming clear that Hamidon is coming back and creeping his way inward one time again. The environmental design for these areas was surreal and alien, with fungi and moss walking rampant through tunnels.
Supergroup functionality — bases — is being looked at, albeit with no actual timetable. The idea of having a personal base is an brilliant one, but the team realizes there’s lots of technical hurdles in place. Said hurdles also obstruct making power pools and Incarnate abilities customizable, although it is something the team would like to work on over time.
Naturally, it is not a CoH panel until someone asks about costumes. More enemy group pieces and street clothes are in the works — the main thing keeping some pieces out of the creator is that the team doesn’t need players to make an ideal duplicate of a generic enemy model. Backpacks are also on the list for potential future additions, as player demand for them is high. On a similar note, when asked about the walking animation for female characters, the staff members laughed and said that they would talk with the animation team.
Last but not least, the team was asked whether players could ever re-choose powers at the most basic level (for example, turning a Broadsword Scrapper in to a Dual Blades Scrapper). The team has discussed it but wishes to keep away from facilitating regular respecs for the “optimal” build or flavors of the week. It is, however, still on the table and being discussed.
Content revamps are still on the table, with the Citadel task force on the list of things to be addressed and fixed. The team would much like to fix a number of the issues with older Hero content as well, but as it stands, a delicate hand is necessary in figuring out what to revamp and where. Task forces are self-contained and a bit simpler to rewrite, as there is no risk of someone’s being stranded halfway through content. That having been said, the team does need to continue walking through older and less popular content and revising it, as there’s been lots of points of improvement over the past four years of development, and having every week targets makes it simpler to aggregate new feedback.
As always, the team from Paragon Studios put on a wonderful presentation and engaged the community in a personable and polite manner. They can only hope that the devs will come back for the convention one time again next year.
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