Hey all! Cryptic has announced that they will be giving priority slots for beta to those subscribers who have played the longest! For some of us, that’s pretty good news, but for newcomers it might be a bit discouraging. You can read about it here:

NCsoft, Cryptic Studios Announce Beta Test Plans for `City of Villains’

What are your thoughts?

For anyone who missed it, tonight on test server we got to test the Halloween “patch” - and it was wonderful!

The sky in Atlas was pitch dark.. and every hero ran from door to door search for vampires, witches, werewolves and more! You could knock on ANY mission door (whether you had a mission or not) and you’d either get a TRICK- one of the monsters would jump out at you for a fight! - or a TREAT - free inspirations, enhancements, even a temporary power called “rock” which let’s you throw a rock It was awesome!

I’ve gotten some mail from folks who stumbled across this blog and have no idea what I’m talking about City of Heroes is a massively multiplayer online game, in which you play a superhero defender of Paragon City. It’s also addictive - just ask any one of the hundreds of thousands (yes, you read that right) of subscribers in North America alone.

I first encountered City of Heroes at E3 in 2003. (My kid brother owns a software store and he took me with him. You can all stop drooling now.) I saw it, and stood around to watch it for a few minutes.

I was looking for a good entry today, so last night my teammate and I decided to make two completely new characters that are rarely seen. My choice was a storm/electricity defender. I braced myself for a slow, infuriating gameplay experience.

I was totally wrong. This powerset has got to be one of the hidden gems of City Of Heroes!

The key here is that you have to let go of the idea that defenders are healers. I don’t play a defender often, but when I do I generally go for a strong healing powerset. What this set has WAY over the others is O2 boost.

I’ve been playing an ice/ice blaster since I bought the game, and as I approach level 32 (hey I’m a casual gamer, what can I say?) I’ve decided that it’s my favorite combination. Why? Well, one hella cool black ninja tip - get Ice patch. No, really. It rocks. Baddies can’t keep their footing if you lay down some ice, and if they can’t stand, guess what? They can’t move (effectively slowing them to 0 speed) and they almost never shoot! Like fish in a barrel.

As Stan might say on South Park,
“I learned something today. I learned that 5th column are devious, and the devs like to help them in their deviousness. One way they help them is with secret tunnels that don’t show up on the map. Tunnels which sometimes contain bad guys - which is a real pain in the ass if you’re ona timed “kill everything” mission.”

Don’t believe me? Here’s the proof:

For months now, Statesman has been taunting us with, in his words, an upcoming feature “that allows you to improve your character without combat” ie without experience point gain. There has been rampant speculation on the boards that crafting would make an appearance… but we have just learned that the SSOCS is actually SKILL TRAINING.

Here’s an excerpt: