So I got my first CoV character to 10th at about 5am Pacific today. About eight hours to do it. Didn’t do it solo, had between a 3 to 7 person team during it all. Was a lot of fun, some good people involved. Good people whose character names I really can’t remember right now. Blegh. Just waking back up from a 4 hour nap. But CoV, very very fun.
(Originally posted at A Home Away from Hythia)
So I ran around in the PvP zones last night, on the theory that since their are no villains in game yet, this is the perfect time to get the explore badges from them without much threat to life and limb. All in all none of the zones were that exciting, my favorite is also the least safe, but still a neat addition to the game.
I have heard rumors that there is a fourth, Recluse’s Victory, but I have no idea how to get to it or where it is found. Given that it is an alternate future sort of thing, it might be via Portal Corp but I’ve been unable to find any means of access so far.
Bloody Bay
This is the lowest level PvP zone and accessible from a helicopter at the south end of Skyway City, not far from the entrance to Overbrook / Faultline. The zone auto-exemps / sidekicks you to 25.
Largely a forested zone with a small city area in it, the zone is probably the dullest of the three, but that also goes with being the lowest level. Because I was exemped in, the mission contact for the zone wouldn’t talk to me so I can’t say anything about what the PvP missions there are like, but I had heard they were pretty neat.
The big gimmick for the zone though is the ‘Shiva Strike’. Years ago Cassiopea I think blew up an asteroid that was on a collision course for earth, however six large fragments from the asteroid crashed down here and are causing odd effects. It turns out the fragments are part of some giant alien space creature and it is animating the remains of bodies by the fragments into wierd blue blob monsters. So both Longbow and Arachnos want to research this process.
The task then is to talk to the scientist’ish contact by where you arrive in the zone, get an ‘ore extractor’ temporary power, and visit the six fragments to take samples with the temp power. Then it gets trick. After you have six samples ( one from each fragment ) you have to find one of the firebases that have processing facilities and disable all of hte automated defenses. This is almost impossible with one person. The turrets rebuild themselves fast enough that I wasn’t able to get all 8 disabled ( four on the building itself, four spread out around it ) and into the building to use the computer in time. But if you do manage it, it turns the samples into a piece of processed ore, which you take back to the scientist for your reward, a ’summon shivan’ temp power with 5 uses.
I do think that once this goes live, there will likely be a lot of CoV stalkers just camping at the fragment spots waiting to assassinate people. When you approach a fragment it should spawn some Shivan to defend itself, if you approach one and nothing spawns, that means there is someone there invisible camping at it and you might want to leave quickly.
Siren’s Call
If I do PvP, it’ll probably be in this zone. This is accessible from the east side of Steel Canyon. A port city area, it’s story is that it used to have a War Wall defending it but when the hero Sunburst lost control of his powers some while back, he self-destructed and blew a hole in the War Wall which hasn’t been repaired yet leaving the neighborhood vulnerable. I don’t actually remember what level this zone auto-exemps / sidekicks you to, but it is between the other two.
The gimmick for this zone are the ‘neighborhood battles’ or hotspots in the zone. They’ll light up as red mission targets on your mini-map and when you get to them large groups of Longbow and Arachnos will be fighting. Heroes and Villains then can leap in to lend a hand and sway the battle one way or the other and earn ‘bounty’ points which they can trade in for inspirations or temp powers. There is a meter at the top of the screen showing which side, heroes or villains, are winning the battle.
I like this simply because of the structure. It basically, with the hotspots, says “If you want a fight, go here” and seeing the big hordes of Arachnos and Longbow duke it out is pretty cool too.
Warburg
Neat neat looking zone. Lots of tall gothic architecture buildings. You get here from a helicopter in Kings Row, right over by Blue Steel on the roof of the PCPD building. This is an island in the Rogue Islands which is a secret weapons manufacturing lab, really a missile lab. The zone auto-exemps / sidekicks you to 38.
The gimmick for this PvP zone is that you can get access to launch missiles into orbit yourself. To do this you need to go down into the WEB tunnels beneath the island, find a scientist and escort them back out to the surface and to one of the researh bunkers ( which they will light up as an escort target ) on the islands surface. Then they will give you a security key. You need three security keys, so need to rescue a scientist three times, and then you head back down into the tunnels to find an arming station ( a computer terminal ) which will arm a missile for you and give you a launch code. Now you have a limited amount of time to make it out of the tunnels, back to the surface, and to where there is a missile silo on the islands surface to activate your launch code and fire the missile into orbit and get a temporary power to call down an airstrike.
Personally, this is my favorite looking zone. I like the gothic architecture and really had fun playing in the WEB tunnels beneath the island. The downside is that, unlike the other zones, it is open PvP. Heroes can attack heroes. I got offed by a group using a pair of storm defenders to herd people in the tunnels. Thankfully, player kills don’t cause you to debt, but they took my security key when they beat me up and that made me very sad.
(Originally posted at A Home Away from Hythia)
So my screenshots turned out to more or less be crap. Most of them are zoomed out so far that you can only barely make out the heroes in them, especially since without the UI in the pictures you don’t have the bright orange names to make them readily discernable. But, I did get pictures of the stat blocks on four of the ones I met ( turned out I saw Ravenstorm also, he is in the background on one of the stat blocks ) and a picture of the gathering afterwards.
(Originally posted at A Home Away from Hythia)
So the event is over, and while it was kind of cool, it was very chaotic and less of an event and more of a mass constant brawl. During it all at random intervals and at random points on the map portals would show up ( oddly enough, they were using the Ruluruu portal object, it even was Ruluruu faction ) and out of it would pour hordes of lvl 50 Longbow agents. Well, while they were level 50 they actually were all treated as Giant Monsters so we didn’t get slaughtered but it made for some long knockdown-dragout fights.
But the high points were when the Dev’s would show up. There were a lot of Dev’s running around named things like “Agent Hawk” who was a uber-Longbow agent ( prick had the Storm Summoning pool, I hate being on the recieving end of a Giant Monster’s hurricane ) but occasionally one of the main dev’s would be on as one of the Phalanx heroes. I only saw four of them myself.
Synapse, Sister Psyche and the Back Alley Brawler showed up once as a group when I was there and we took Synapse out, but the Brawler ran away and while we could get Psyche down to half, her Repulsion Field kept anyone from getting close enough to actually hit her.
Later those three showed up as a group again with Positron in tow and that time we took out Synapse and the Brawler, but Positron we couldn’t keep held for long enough to keep him from healing himself and we still couldn’t get into melee with Psyche.
One good moment was when Synapse stopped running around for a couple seconds to taunt someone on ‘local’ and reply to a taunt someone else said and a dozen or so stalkers all landed crit’s on him from out of hide and took a huge chunk from his health. Both times he fell it was largely due to the herd of corruptors who were enjoying the huge scourge damage they could do to him when his health got low.
I missed actually seeing the Brawler go down though, I was too busy trying to get a hold to stick on Positron and failing, but that was apparently a pretty epic fight as well.
But I got some good screenshots I’ll have to go through tomorrow and add on to this post then. After the event was over we got everyone we could in zone to gather back up around Kalinda, the first contact you get, and use the ‘holdtorch’ emote so there is a couple shots of about a hundred of us holding up torches and asking for more heroes to spawn so we can beat on them.
(Originally posted at A Home Away from Hythia)
So my CoV Collector’s Edition box arrived today. It contains:
CoV/CoH Art Collection book
CoV Game Manual
CoV DVD
CoH CCG Demo Deck ( Positron 2005 Preview 2 deck w/ Statesman hero card from Preview 1 )
Poster / Rogue Isles map
2005 NCSoft Product Catalog
Ad for CoV Time Card
Ad for CoH Novel “The Web of Arachnos”
Coupon for Top Cow comics website, expiring at the end of Jan 2006
Quick Reference Guide
14 day free trials of CoH for myself and a friend
Seven Hero Clix figures ( Positron, Manticore, Statesman ( w/ cape ), Lord Recluse, Black Scorpion, Captain Mako, Ghost Widow )
When I register the game code, it should also unlock a couple in-game items, the Arachnos chest-emblem and cape costume item.
My impressions of it… The Art Collection Book is cool, but I am a geek like that. Had some cool art in the CoH side showing Stateman’s previous costumes in the past, his 1930s and 1950s style costumes, as well as some neat concept art for some of the CoH villains.
The Game Manual sucks. Not too surprising, but it does. It isn’t even useful like the CoH one is in listing powersets. While the CoH one was out of date almost before the game was released, they didn’t even try to list the powerset info in the CoV one. Plus, where CoH had “Statesman Sez”, CoV has “Lord Recluse Intones” and even worse then that he refers to himself in third-person in at least one of them. Ugh.
Actually, the best parts of the manual is the flavor-text talking about the three PvP zones and the part talking about bases ( I hadn’t realized I could adjust floor height in them, will have to try that ).
The Poster / Map isn’t bad. The map at least shows which CoH zones you can use to get to the new PvP zones ( Steel Canyon door to Siren’s Call, Steel Canyon helicopter to Bloody Bay, King’s Row helicopter to Warburg? ).
The CCG demo deck is uh.. Interesting. Game comes out in November and I am sure I will pick it up, but the demo deck… Got a Positron demo deck and it is just awfully setup. I can’t actually ever put one of the cards in play because the demo deck doesn’t include the needed pre-requisite card. The part that bugs / perplexes me more is that the little instructional manual that came with it mentions “Most exciting will be the opportunity for players of the online game to get access to special promotional cards though completing in-game goals, and for players of the card game to unlock special in-game items in the online game by competing in card game leagues and tournaments.” Part of me thinks “Neat!” and the other part of me ( the insane completionist ) thinks “Aw fuck, going to have to nag a game store owner nearby to setup a league for this game now…”.
Either way, I think the Art Collection Book alone made it worth my extra few bucks for the Collector’s Edition.
(Originally posted at A Home Away from Hythia)
So my Fire/Fire Dominator just hit 10 a few minutes ago and formed an SG in the CoV beta. Of which today is the last day. But at least I made it in time to take a peek at the base editing stuff and new SG interface.
So, bases. You start with a tiny little plot, which is thankfully big enough to do a minimal PvE only base with all the basic facilities ( Workshop, Control, Power, Medical, and Teleporter rooms ) because the next plot size up gets expensive. The basic SG base plot “TinyHiddenSpot” is free, and is an 8×8 grid. The next one up, “Hidden Spot” is a 12×12 grid for 3.3 million Prestige. Won’t even bother looking at the ‘Secure’ spots yet ( basically they let you place more defensive items in rooms )since the smallest ‘Secure’ plot, “Small Secure Location” is 12×16 and 11.25 million Prestige. This is JUST for the land to build the base on.
Anyways, playing around I did confirm that the basic bootstrap base design would work on the basic grid, and that it would cost about 2 million prestige to build without any decorations in the base, and while a bit frustrated that I couldn’t build a teleporter yet ( Have to actually craft one at the workshop tables to teleport to zones. You can buy a teleporter that is used only in Raids, but it wouldn’t fit in the room I built for it anyways. ) it was still pretty neat to play with it. Definately “Sims Of Villains” sort of base building.
Also found out that the SG gets 20k bonus Prestige for every member who joins for the first 15 members, which is pretty cool too. Nice little bonus to help get started. Going from 300k to 2m is less daunting looking at least then getting to the same goal from 0.
The Items of Power don’t really impress me that much. The four you can buy in the Beta right now ( in the Live game it’ll be a Trial or mission to get them apparently ) are “Anger Monument” for a 1% damage increase, “Torment Monument” for a 1% debt repayment bonus, “Monument of Iron” for a 1% psi damage resist bonus, and “Fury Monument” for a 1% earned EXP increase. So the bonuses really aren’t all that exciting for something that requires a special room to keep it in and I think a Raid capable base in Live to place them at all.
The other interesting one was looking at the workshops and the types of Salvage you can process into making stuff. Among the factions you can get Tech salvage from were… 5th Column, Axis America, and Spetnatz Commandos. Two groups that I didn’t think were going to be accessible anymore ( though it has always been rumored that they were going to make a come back ) and a Russian special forces unit? Wacky. Can’t wait to find out where you fight them all at.
That is all for the moment though. Supposed to be a big event later today to end the Beta with, “Statesman’s Strike” upon the Rogue Isles or something. Not sure how that is going to work. *shrugs* But will try to snag screenshots if I figure it out at least.
(Originally posted at A Home Away from Hythia)
So watching VH1 this morning, actually still early enough in the day that they are playing videos ( Depeche Mode’s “Precious” right now, keep thinking about picking up their new CD ) and getting the CoV Beta and Issue 6 downloaded. Took far less time then expected, about 45 minutes for each, on my younger sister’s cable modem connection.
Playing around in the CoV Beta right now. Just have to say… Wow. The change in the physics model for the way people move and respond to being hit, the added particle effects for animations ( playing a Fire/Fire Dominator right now, several of my fire attacks send sparks flying into the landscape where they burn for a little bit ), just make it truly amazing to look at. Going to make CoH feel new again too if these make it back into CoH with Issue 6.
Hit 4th as a Fire/Fire Dominator so far, actually almost 5th. The intro missions are pretty cool and while I can imagine I would get bored of doing them over and over, they are a nice change from the CoH intro ones. The starting zone, Mercy Island is really a wasteland of ruined buildings and debris in the streets. Very cool.
(Originally posted at A Home Away from Hythia)
Been passing some of the daytime hours lately watching movies with a friend. Odd thing to say, given that the friend is in another timezone, but it works out. Been fun, hadn’t seen some fo the movies for a while, some I had never seen before ( though owned, don’t ask. my dvd sorting method is poor. ).
Watched Ever After today. Hadn’t seen that in a long long time. You’ve Got Mail a few days ago. Actually, can’t think off hand of the entire list of movies we’ve watched. Also watched some of the Record of the Lodoss Wars and the third season of The Slayers.
Other then that… Drooling over CoV info still. City of Villains looks like a cooler game the more I hear about it. Really hoping that a lot of the little quality of life improvements, like shared mission completion ( 2 people have the same mission, they do one persons copy, both people can claim credit for it and both can advance their story-arcs from it ), will make it back into CoH.
Did the Synapse Task Force again last night. Long thing, but still fun. One of my favorites because I simply enjoy fighting Clockwork. Nice, simple, straightforward fights. Took my Ice/Ice blaster on it, was fun to have him out to play again too. Did take long enough that my back was hurting pretty bad by the end of it though.
Not much other news from my life then that. Scar still feels stiff and funny on my stomach. Ribs are still cracked and hurt when in chair for too long. Left hand still needs the splint most of the time and right hand still twinges with pain at weird times ( bruised but didn’t break it ).
(Originally posted at A Home Away from Hythia)
Usually write these on Sunday nights, but was on playing until my back was hurting too much to want to post here and then still pulled one more mission helping a friend with some Tsoo, so a bit delayed but here we go…
Energy/Energy blaster is still 50, not been on too much lately. Still needs most of the Issue 5 badges and Tyrant, Red Kronos Titan, and the last Mez’d and Damage Taken badge from before.
Invul/Energy tanker went from 21 to 23 and respec’d and got SO enhancements and has been a lot of fun to play again. I think some of it is just having Stamina now, some si the better performance from the SOs and some may be that I haven’t played a melee character in a while so it was a nice change.
AR/Devices blaster is still 11 and ignored except for RP and SG business.
Kin/Elec defender is still 16 and fun, but usually in teams I have other characters that are more fun so hasn’t been played for a bit.
Ice/Ice blaster hasn’t been on except to make himself look active. Still at 25.
My Warshade is still at 12 and pretty solidly ignored.
My Peacebringer hit 20 and got Stamina and while I haven’t actually played with it much since then, I know that’ll be a nice improvement given how tiring it was getting with the wait between fights at times.
Sonic/Sonic defender is still at 13. Play it a little here and there. Definately a lot of fun. Picked up the first of the Sonic rings / bubbles at 12 so he has something to contribute to a team other then just Assault now.
Been drooling over the CoV beta boards. Can’t get the beta to download since it is too huge for my poor little dial-up connection to suck down. Waiting now for my pre-order copy to arrive. Got a couple things in mind already, a Fire/Fire Dominator and a Robotics/Traps Mastermind. Oddly enough, the most blaster / defender’ish class, the Corruptors, interest me less the more I look at them. Maybe that’ll change when I can actually play one. A Rad/Rad Corruptor might be fun to try.
(Originally posted at A Home Away from Hythia)