City of Heroes: Issue 13

[Aegis]

City of Heroes is gearing up for it's next major free expansion. Again they're adding some massive stuff in for nothing!

This time, we have the new Day Jobs component - when you log out of the game, your character will gain some bonus based on where you are when you next login:

Scholar? Caregiver? City Official? Now when players log out of City of Heroes / Villains they’re just getting started! A character’s day job is determined by the actual in-game location from which he or she logs out. If players log out from a University their day job is considered to be a Scholar. If they log out from City Hall they're a City Official. The benefits are thematically appropriate to the location. For example, a City Official earns extra Influence, a Scholar is granted Salvage, a Caregiver is granted Health Regeneration Buffs, etc.

New powersets - Pain Domination which is the villain inverse equivalent of the hero Empathy set. And the massively demanded Shields powerset - finally you can make your Captain America clones (Admiral Australia here I come )

there's a new merit system to let you earn the super rare items in a different way without having to devote 8 hours to a task force that probably wont give you the item you want...

new costume sets, enhancements, zone changes annnnnnnnnnnnnnnd

the player Mission Creator!!! I don't know if this is the first MMO to let players create their own game content, but it's a major allowance.

First the City of Heroes Character Creator set a new standard for player creation and customization. Now, Issue 13 takes another giant step, allowing players to design their own missions and story arcs to share with the entire City of Heroes community. Using an intuitive interface similar to the game’s detailed Character Creator, players can create missions from the ground up. Players will determine details ranging from environments, mission objectives, and enemies, to written fiction and character dialogue; giving their stories nearly infinite depth and personalization.

everyone who's played the game knows how awesome the character creator is - so if the mission creator is even half as good, this should be pure awesome on buttered-mother****ing-toast!

[Aegis]

The details of issue 13 have finally been released: CoH Community Site

It looks like the mission architect is actually going into issue 14, but we still have the shields powerset coming, and the day jobs feature. Also a few other things that they hadn't let slip, like this one:

Leveling Pact A new innovation to MMOs, this system allows you and a friend to create new characters and have your XP be permanently in sync, whether both characters are online or not. You will always be the same level, even if your friend plays ten times more often than you do! It's sort of like "Extreme Sidekicking."

holy crap! Mind you with the sidekicking setup in game, it's never been much of a problem teaming up with buddies who're more than 5 levels ahead of you - this should be good for those people that want to experience the higher level powers quickly but may not necessarily be able to play the game much. Obvious drawback, of course, is that you wouldn't be earning any $$$ or getting any drops from missions you arent actually a part of. This could see you hit level 50 with no assets to enhance your abilities with.

The final big ticket item (for me anyway) is this:

Multiple Builds Another character customization option and City of Heroes innovation, Issue 13 delivers the ability to have two different build-outs for each character, including which powers are selected and which Enhancements are slotted. With this feature it will now be possible for all characters to diversify their game experience by visiting any Trainer and switching the entire build of their character to an alternate one.

woohoo! the ability to try out new powers without having to start from scratch or respec!

[deadplayer]

Why CoH has so many expansion.

[Aegis]

they appreciate their players - these are all free expansions. I've only been playing for a bit over a year now, but I'm really impressed with the scale of the content they add with each of these Issues.

A big reason they do it i'd say tho, is to hang onto the old players - if you dont update frequently the old players will get bored and move on - not good for an MMO's continued financial solvency