Happy Birthday Azer!

Woot! Survived another year with us eh?

Merry Christmas (Eve)!

I wanted to wish the entire team a very Merry Christmas and in advance, a very Happy New Year! So who's brave enough to put there New Year Resolutions in the comments? :P In COH/V related resolution, I vow to have a lvl 50 villain by the end of '09!

Jingle Bells, Baba Smells....

Happy holidays all! It's about that merry time ingame again so get on your skis, open a few presents, and earn some new auras! There's a new slalom run in the ski chalet and 3 new speed badges. You also get Frostbitten just for logging in!

I hope everyone has an amazing holiday, full of joy and great presents! If you want to be included on the Azrhiaz Christmas Card list, send your address to: omjolnir@aol.com

But I already have a job!

We always knew Baba had a god complex
So what are these things called Day Jobs? They are rewards given for logging out in a certain location for 25 days of time (or 600 hours worth). You might find you've gotten one or two already on toons you haven't logged in on for a while. What kind of rewards are we talking about here you ask? Here is a listing of hero side day jobs:

Day Job |-----| Log Out Location |-----| Benefit
City Official - City Hall (Atlas Park) Influence Bonus upon mission complete.
Law Enforcer - Police Stations - Experience Bonus upon mission complete
Commuter - Train Stations - Travel speed bonus.
Shop Keeper - Store Lobbies - Enhancement drop on mission complete.
Dimensional Explorer - Log off in the Shadow Shard - Jet Pack Power
Intern - Portal Corp Lobbies - Large Inspiration upon mission complete.
Caregiver - Hospital Lobbies - Out of combat regeneration bonus.
Professor - Inside Universities - Random tech salvage drop upon mission complete.
Patroller - Log off anywhere that doesn't have a Day Job Icon? - Earn Double XP up to 4 bars?
Banker - Inside a Vault - Influence Bonus upon mission complete.
Clubber - Pocket D - Out of combat recovery bonus.
Day Trader - Log off in Wentworths - Earn discounts on auction fees.
Vanguard Recruit - Log off in Vanguard Base - Merit Bonus upon mission complete.
Chronologist - Log off in Ouroboros - Earn random invention recipe upon mission complete.
Midnighter - Inside the Midnighter's Club - Random arcane salvage drop upon mission complete.
Duelist - Log off in the arena - bonus to max endurance.
Fashion Designer - Tailor Lobbies - Coupons that will grant a discount at the tailor.
Cimeroran - log off in Cimerora - bonus to damage resistance.
Predator - Log out in PvP zone - Earn bonus to recharge rate.
Monitor Duty - Log off near Base Portal - Earn prestige bonus.
Mortician - Graveyards - XP Debt Protection

There are also day job accolades that you can earn from getting two that are relevant to each other. Each accolade gives you a power of some sort, whether it be a police baton or way to rez your teammate. If you are looking for those or for more info, please visit: http://www.badge-hunter.com/boards/index.php?showtopic=4254

Ever wonder what the arena looks like behind the doors?

There's a hole in the Talos map that you can sneak out of. There's an old "island" of buildings out there and if you fly a certain way and under the map and use the /stuck command, you'll get transported into this little secret place. It's very matrix-y and kinda pretty.

Issue 13 Out Tomorrow

New Valkyrie Booster Set Coming Soon
Issue 13 will be uploaded to the live servers tomorrow! Death to PvP, merits for recipes and so little else! But make a villain with Pain or a melee toon with Shields! I'm sure you'll find something to do! I'm sure it was worth the wait (not).

First shot at videos

I got bored and downloaded Fraps. It is a video capture program with a free limited use offer. I made a couple of videos. Make demos in game, copy them using Fraps, then edit in Microsoft Movie Maker (freebie with MS XP computer I have). Upside is I had fun and they turned out alright. Downside is Movie Maker is as a good as a freebie program so the video's quality nosedives when I upload it to the 'net.



Links for the other one I made and You tube posts are here...look in lower right corner of screen for "watch in higher quality" option, click it if you have it:

Fraternity

Commercial

Calling all lvl 45-50 Villains Lord Recluse Calls

Planty Man and Planty Girl cordually invite you to lay the smack down on Statesman and his cronies in a Lord Recluse Strike Force, TOMORROW!!! Nov 30 @ 5 pm PST. Lvl 45 min.

Tough times ahead...I am a security specialist

This was my first villain. Mercy Mercy, a stalker. A long time ago. He reformed, he is a stone tank now :-). Azr and friends made the VG, Death Brigade when i7 dropped. Since then there has been 5 new issues, the 6th, issue 13 is about to drop. I13 includes the potential change where you can convert base salvage into invention salvage. In anticipation of this, several SGs/VGs have been robbed, wiped clean by bad people invited into SG/VGs and given permissions.

Azr basically lets Electron Kid, my wife, and I run the base, along with a few others. I feel like we need to take care of our own. For the most part there are a dozen or so regulars playing in the Death Brigade, it is mainly alts in it atm.

You have one week to log on. Toons over 30 days old are gonna get the boot. I was gonna raise permissions to pull salvage, but decided not to change t0o much, I will not let terrorists ruin our freedoms in the base. The point of the game is to have fun. The devs made a stupid economy and it really is turning into a real life mess of an economy with real life affects such as theft. So the entry logs need to get clean in the Death Brigade. There are some alts I recognize and will not punt. But I don't know them all.

Log on. And join us, I really love the red side of this game.

PS. Az did you try my apple pie recipe I posted on the forums for you?

What does Mr. Turkey Say?

Gobble Gobble Gobble!

How would you like a chance to come kill your favorite PvPEC reps? Got a grudge against Ninja Havoc? Want to farm HH? Want to kick Azrhiaz's butt?

Join us for our Turkey Hunt!!!!!!

Details

Hunting Hours: Friday, November 21st @ 7:30 - 9:30 pst

Hunting Fields: Warburg

Game: "Turkeys" are the wonderful PvPEC Reps! HH, Azrhiaz (on Iduna) and Ninja Havoc!

Scoring: The hunter with the most kills at the end of the event will be the winner. Notice that kills are indicated by final blow, so beware of kill-stealers. No exceptions.

Prizes: A prize will be given to the player with the most kills. All turkeys will lay an egg and the winner will get to choose which egg he or she wishes.

About the Game (the targets...not the actual game):
- All turkeys have been genetically modified by Crey Industries.
- They have enhanced stealth, super speed and super jump.
- Turkeys will NEVER attack, only flee when in danger.
- Because of genome splicing with the bubblegum apes of New Zealand, turkeys cannot swim and will only be found on land.
- Turkeys will stop at regular intervals to graze (approx. every 5 mins for 30 seconds)
- Turkeys are constantly searching for a mate. When a turkey feels unthreatened, he/she will occasionally display his plumage (drop stealth), dance his mating walk (/e dance), and yell "Gobble Gobble Gobble." This can be a key time to strike!
- Turkeys generally prefer natural environments (forests, parks, grassy areas) over more urban areas (city streets, factories, etc)
- Turkeys have no natural healing powers and will not "rest", despite health level.
- When a turkey is killed, he will leave the veterinarian as soon as possible, regardless of health level.


Hunter Guidelines- Orange reflective vests are not required, but strongly recommended to avoid a "Cheney"
- Anything goes! Attacking your fellow hunters is not only allowed by encouraged! Just be sure you don't spend too much time fighting each other to let the turkeys get away.
- Buffing, Debuffing, Caging and even Healing of the turkeys is strategically permitted.
- Hunting parties are strongly encouraged.

---

I'd like to also give a big shout out to Megeara and to Deep for helping test the PvP TF! It was a lot of fun and I hope to have it up and running for the public soon!

LRSF reveals surprising results...

Turns out Synapse has a thing for dead Plant Doms. ew.

Speaking of 13

I have reached my 13th 50!! That's 13 times more than Colder has! Hazbyn hit last week and today, Britney Blades dinged the big five-oh. She's my first 50 melee heroside too!

Alright ya'll, we need to schedule a base raid before 13 hits since they will be turning that feature off. They apparently broke the pathing issue on items and couldn't be bothered to fix it. PvP will also be a broken, new ball of wax so this will be the last time you'll know how your powers work in PvP.

Lucky 13

Or "Not Quite So Lucky As The Devs Might Have Thought..."

Well, I13 Open Beta has descended like a bolt from on high. And just about blew the boards in half.

I'd link the forums but my code-fu is actually pretty weak.

Highlights include:

The merit system replacing recipe drops for Task and Strikeforces. They would also scale per the supposed time invested in the endeavor. I. E. no more speedy Katies or 10 minute Eden Trials.

The PvP mechanics have been completely overhauled. The jury is still fighting over the result. The definition of good or bad seems to be related to how much PvP-ing you actually do. I'd really like to hear Da Boss's take on it.

A lot of streamlineing is taking place. Badges can be sorted now by a number of topics. Oh, and masterminds can buff an entire load of minions with only two hits. That and the Pain Domination powerset almost makes me want to try another MM.

Almost.

Thoughts?

Meg

Help Wanted

I need some folks to help me run a new PvP event: the PvP Taskforce! This is a SF created by me that revolves around PvP! I need some hero types to help work it. You can opt to do a single mission or more than one. Our test run of it will be on Sunday, November 16th at 7pm pacific. It will consist of 8 missions and currently I need people on Mission One, Two, Three, Four and Six. If you want to sign up for the first mission, you can be either hero or villain and it will run for approximately 20 minutes. Might be a good one for you East Coasters. Hit me up if interested and I'll give you more information!

Visionary Badge

Anyone have any tip on getting one? Meg needs the funky eyeball hammer.

Hee hee!

Thanks for all the b-day wishes folks! Now, someone pass me my walker, find my geritol and get those damn kids off my lawn...

Meg

We were robbed

So the costume contest finalists are finally listed several days late and man what stinkers. The crowd of hopefuls was quite upset at the lame selections and I think the response is gonna make it even worse:

Hey gang,

Sorry you don't feel the finalists were up to snuff. I think they all have great qualities on the aspects we were judging on. Honestly, we bit off more than we should have with this contest. With the low barrier to entry we were swamped with entries to judge - anyone can snap screenshots of their character afterall. We probably could have taken three times as long with the judging and still not done them all justice.

This came at a time when we have a lot going on in the Community Team (Hero-Con, Closed Beta and Forum Migration to name a few) and the contest just hasn't been in a position to receive the bandwidth that it probably deserved.

Ultimately, we'll push ahead with what we have and aim for better planning for the future. Thanks in advance for your understanding.

--------------------
Lighthouse
Community Relations Manager

So all I have to say is:

Spank You Very Much

Death Brigade's two newest 50s: Furiya and Stabuli Katan
Ebon Mauler and Furiya got off to a great start. There were 8 teams for the 200 mill inf tourney last night. We drew a cold defender and an /elec brute. We promptly wiped the floor with them. Deep and his stalker teammate also had a fun tossing around their opponents. We both moved on to the semi-finals where Ebon and I unfortunately drew a perma dom and a spine/regen with taunt. We got our asses kicked. Fortunately, that particular team lost to a blaster/stalker duo at the end. Am I sad about watching the dom get smooshed? Nah!

Thanks to Ebon for being a great teammate and also thanks to Ebon, Ruby, and Divine for helping me pay for a build for Furiya! I spent close to 200 million on it.

Also a big thank you to Colder for putting me on ignore! The zombie invasion must have eaten his brains! To fix this, go into your Friend drop down menu and go to the Global Ignore section. From there you can delete me out. Unless you like it better this way. :-P

Oh and speaking of spankings! A very happy birthday to our favorite ice/mace tank, Meg!!

Got Brains?

Knowing this group, not likely, but if you are running around Paragon or the Rogue Isles, you'll find some handsome fellows searching for just that!


The Halloween event has started! Trick or treat for salvage drops or temporary costumes! There are four new badges and an unlockable costume piece for the Zombie Invasions also! The devs did a pretty nice job with this one and you might feel like you are in the Michael Jackson "Thriller" video.

A big congrats to myself on winning the "Gimps Around the World" tourney on my MM, Azrharn who was teamed with Psyrene from Paragon Elite on his storm/psy defender, Psycl0ne. Guess I'm not so gimped after all. Wish Ebon and I luck this coming Saturday in the 200 mill Inf tourney! Furiya has about 9 bars to 50, so help me out too!

Hidden Rooms and other Gems in G'ville? SPOILER ALERTS

OK, I was running a treespec with Mylia from TW 2.0 and thoroughly enjoying our screaming 32 minute completion time, when someone posted a question about Grandville. It was rumored that a hidden room and other gems where in the zone. Bored, Metoid and I researched it and found not one, not two, but three little gems. If you want hints scroll down, if you want pics and movies, go further down (whoa!). Yup I downloaded fraps so I can make and edit my own movies, look for a Debt Brigade movie production day coming to a studio nearest you.










FIRST SPOILER WARNING: HINTS BELOW CONTINUE AT YOUR OWN PERIL













There is a hidden room in the tunnels under the city. To get there go to the Fab (island on North side of G'ville map). Go the lower level (you will recognize it if you have done an STF before). When you get to bottom of the ramp leading down, take a RIGHT (don't go into Fab i.e. a left). You will be in the tunnels. It is a bit of a maze but once you are under the central part of the city (check on map) start looking at corners of the tunnel as it turns and twists. In the corner are some pieces of equipment, behind on of them is a secret hallway leading to the room. Story has it the original hidden room was neat and orderly with pics of the dev team. After the NCSoft/Cryptic split, the room was changed to its current state. Stand near the bathroom doors and turn your speakers up. GO to your menu then options, under graphics/audio tab turn up FX all the way. Name that tune.


Second gem is the dev who designed G'ville "signed" his work. Look on map. There is the central tower and surrounding towers. The lower right tower is where you want to go. On the northwest corner of that tower, halfway up in a small nook, look for a tiny piece of white tab.

Third hidden item is on the beach, so grab your suntan lotion. On west side, in a small pool of water surrounded by rocks is a nice hint of a zone lots of players have wanted. Jump in the pool, way in.




FINAL SPOILERS BELOW PICS AND VIDEO LOOK IF YOU DARE

Screenshot Snafus

Perhro thinks "I'm sure glad Baba Kanoosh isn't here."
Alright all, I need some help. I, like Baba, am going to try entering the Character Creator contest. As some may know, Melqar was found in a slab of ice in Greenland. Scientists were fascinated by his appearance so they brought him back to life. Boy was he pissed....

So I've been trying to get some action shots of him. Ebon was kind enough to let me use the "Defeat Archdemon" mission a few times and out of a bazillion pictures, the two following are what I came up with. Which should I use or should I go back and try again?

The 411 on the new powers

I don't know if anyone has seen the powers in the the new sets but here's the skinny for those that don't know:

Pain Domination

and

Shield Defense

Sneak Peek

If you haven't received an invite to closed beta yet (like me), you can still go to test and look at new costumes and the shield/pain sets. You can create a toon just can't keep it. Looks great, but the read up on shields leaves me the feeling it isn't gonna be too hardy in the early stages.

Day Jobs

Write Up on Day Jobs Find out how Day Jobs can enhance your character and their wardrobe!

Should anyone be interested, there is a new PvPEC event going on! "Gimps Against the World!" This tourney is designed to use toons that do not excel at PvP! For more information, go here!

As Woodpeckers go...

...This one is O so Wicked.

So this is my action shot for my entry in the Costume Contest. O Wicked Woodpecker is O so sexy.

Contests!

The first contest is a Character Creator contest, sponsored by City of Heroes and Palit and AMD Video Cards! Can you create an amazing character both in costume and bio? If so, read here for details! You could win a video card or even the grand prize of a custom gaming PC!

If that's too much work for you, come out Sunday at 6pm pacific to Pocket D and run some gladiator matches! No worries about dying and just a laid back time! I will be hosting this and if there's enough people interested, I'll set up a tournament!

Otelo also rescheduled his 200 million mixed duo tourney for the end of the month! I'd link to it, but the boards are down at the moment. :( Furiya is a breath away from 45 so she should be ready in time!

If you are also interested in some new power tweaks, read here for an update from Castle on what will be changing PvE wise for powers! This includes stuff like no toggle drops when held (unless it affects the enemy), kheld changes, changes to /EA brutes, and the Invulnerability set!

They're Back!

The Rikti have focused another effort on invading our world! Intelligence reports their efforts will be exhausted by October 2nd. So if you are looking for the accolade or the badges, get out there Soldier!

Well my Freakshow recruitment poster did not win, I'm sorry to say. This was it below:


The level 4 Fights on Protector were well attended but it was the most challenging tournament I have ever run due to the limited attention span and the pouty people who left mid tournament cause they were losing. I doubt I will make a tournament geared towards PvErs ever again! Heather is hosting Friday Night Fights still so show up for a bit of PvP. Lots of people with non-FOTM toons and skills there, so don't feel like you have to be an expert. She normally starts around 5pm pacific.

Hazbyn needs Synapse and Citadel still. Anyone up for it? Maybe tonight around 8pm pacific?

Hold Your Horses!

Well, I know you were all looking forward to the new issue 13. Positron recently announced a sweeping change to the schedule, most importantly, delaying the Mission Architect until early 2009. Players clamored for customized characters and the dev team decided to hold off on the Architect until this feature could be included.

However, he also mentioned some new additions to 13:

Issue 13: Power and Responsibility will contain the bulk of features announced previously, including:

• Shield and Pain Domination powersets
• Merit Reward system
• Day Jobs (that include a suite of new costume pieces)
• Additional Cimerora and Midnight Squad mission arcs

In addition, there are some other new exciting features to reveal that will be included in Issue 13: Power and Responsibility. These include:

• Leveling Pact
• Multi-Builds (woo hoo! But you better start saving up since you'll have to enhance both)
• PvE & PvP Powers rebalancing
• Villain Patron Power Respec
• Supergroup Base Repricing

For the complete announcement, go here!

There is also an interview with Positron over this announcement which goes into a little more detail here!

Reminders!

Stabuli Katan battles the mighty Scirocco!
The "Get Your Freak On!" Level 4 Fights by the PvPEC is happening THIS Saturday at 4pm pacific! It's over on the Protector server so be sure to get your toon built and ready! You'll win a special code that'll allow you to dress up any of your toons as a Freakshow tank!

Also this Saturday is the 200 mill 2v2 on Triumph. One villain, one hero (one must be ranged, one must be melee), this tourney starts at 7pm pacific! Tonight is the cutoff for sign-ups however, so get your team entered!

The Wailer Lord against the small but powerful, Furiya
There is an interview with Positron at IGN.com if you are interested. And if you haven't heard yet, there is a new add-on pack "Cyborg" for all you robot fans available now in the COH store!

DAMN YOU COX CABLE!

Why can't you gimme a single, stable connection!?!

Sorry about the vanishing act last night Baba. I think I may have to stay out of longer things until they quit messing around with storm clean up.

:(

Doc T

DB FTW

Well, I entered the w00t contest. Can you pick out which artwork is mine?

Ebon and I are signed up for the 200 million inf tourney. I sense a buttload of death coming Azrharn's way. Too bad I can't get Furiya to 50. Or can I?!? Heather is hosting Fight Nights every Saturday so if you wanna get some practice in, it's a newb friendly place to get your smackdown on!

What characters have you been working on? We've become a bit quiet lately and I'm not liking it! :) Hazbyn is at 47 now, and so is Britney Blades.

Any TFs we want to do? Maybe we can do Faathim for those who have not done it? We also need to do a LRSF with our new villain 50s!

Cold/Ice PVP build. HELP!

In looking at this guy on mid's I have joined the hair club for men as I have pulled all mine out. There just seems to be too many powers I want (probably the way it goes for anyone). I have posted this question on the boards and have gotten some feed back but would like some confirmation.

One of the suggestions is to take CJ, SJ, and Acro. To take this I would have to get rid of the leadership pool. How sad. Other pools are concealment, fitness, and super speed topped off with the epic, power build up.

As far as prim/sec goes all cold dom powers are good enough to keep giving me a balance of buff/debuff. The question is secondary powers. Freeze ray seems like such an obvious choice but I am having trouble fitting it in. What I have in it right now is ice bolt, ice blast, and bitter ice blast. I suppose I could get rid of Ice blast.

Any how all suggestions are welcome :)

Repel Ball! Sunday 9/14 6pm pac

Heather and I are scheduling a repel ball match for our SGs this Sunday! What is repel ball, you ask? It's set up in base raid fashion. Everyone rolls a level 2 kinetic defender with the repel power. A MM zones in and drops a low level pet on passive. The two teams try to repel the pet into their goals.



So who's up for it? This will be on the Test Server in a PvPEC base that has the court.

Caption Contest!

Get cracking!

Meg

Freaky Fun Times

Hopkins, the AV from Manticore
Why ya'll have been a bit quiet lately! Gimme something to read at work, darn you! :)

Anyway, so what is happening in the COH universe that might appeal to you? There are a lot of Freak VIP contests going on. The PvPEC is doing a Level 4 Fight Night on Protector and handing out a few as prizes. It'll take you all of 10 minutes to roll a level 4 something so try to come out! It's easy-going PvP where you don't have to worry about build or skill, just get your kill-steal on! I'll be there on Honeymoon (a fire/fire blaster)! Oh and even if you could give a flip about an ingame Freakshow costume, please know one of these codes just sold for $300 on Ebay, so it might be worth your while!

If the Protector server offends you, Otelo (a Triumph PvPEC rep) is hosting a 2v2 tournament with a 200 million inf prize! It should be a challenge because the teams must be one hero and one villain and there needs to be a melee on the team. I don't think I have anything at 50 that's melee. :(

Lastly, w00t studios is giving away some VIP codes for creative screenshot/artwork submissions. Find out the details here!

Oh and if you saw one and didn't know where it came from, the jetpack below is the one from the Game Cards that are available at Target and Best Buy. It's an actual subscription, not a time card though. I heard it might be available as an add-on, but haven't seen anything at official store.

Bring on the Pain but Don't Quit Your Day Job

Official announcement on Issue 13!

---

The following is a letter to the players from Matt "Positron" Miller detailing Issue 13!

MATT MILLER ANNOUNCEMENT OF ISSUE 13

Good morning Players!

I wanted to be the first to let you all know that the primary Feature list for Issue 13: Architect is now live! That said, I’d like to take this opportunity to talk to you about some of the new features, more in depth.

First off is the issue name, Architect. I liked the correlation that the name has between some of the improvements we are making to bases (in the way new things are purchased for them) and to our Mission Architect feature. Players can now be architects of their own story arcs that other players can play. When I first mentioned this system in the 4th Anniversary post, I had no idea how wildly popular that single concept would be. The thread that followed that post had a plethora of ideas of how such a system could, and should work from a player’s perspective.

With virtually no information to go on, some people very much underestimated what would be possible with the Mission Architect. Some got it spot on, and some people wanted features that were simply impossible to get into the system at launch. Even so, we are very proud of the system as it stands. Players can make their own story arcs using a customized version of the tool used by our mission writers, in some cases rivaling our own internal tools in ease-of-use. I am really looking forward to playing the stories you all create with this amazing tool!

I should probably take this moment to talk about what the Mission Architect is not meant for. It is not meant for “easy leveling” or “badging” or “farming”. Those are things that we specifically wanted the Mission Architect NOT to do. This may be a disappointment to some, I know. The goal was to give creative minds an outlet to tell the stories they have in their heads. We didn’t want the system clogged with Farm missions, so actually finding someone’s story that they lovingly crafted became more a chore than it was worth.

To that end, the Rewards in the Mission Architect are something we, ahem, discussed with raised voices time and time again. How much was too much? How little was too little? What limits needed to be put into place to stop farming? Should we even have such limits? Etc. In the end, we have a system that we believe is the best suited for what Mission Architect was made for, and is not abusable. Time and testing will tell if that is really the case though. Like the Invention System, there will be many iterations on the Mission Architect to make sure we get it right before it goes to the Live servers.

Next I want to talk about Day Jobs. This started out as a kind of “secret identity” system, but we wanted to save the term Secret Identity for a system that fit that name better. Day Jobs works well because it is “what your character is doing when not being a Hero or a Villain”. It’s their “day job”. A character who logs out in the Hospital is assumed to be working in a medicinal capacity, and they will receive a themed bonus when they log back in, that sort of thing. We even made it possible to have your character’s Day Job to be “On Patrol” or “Committing Crimes”, just in case you couldn’t envision your character having a “normal life” while you were not actively playing them.

There are plenty of other features in Issue 13: Architect as well, like the new powersets, including the much requested “Villainous Version of Empathy” called Pain Domination. We’re also adding some great new missions to Issue 12’s Roman Zone “Cimerora,” as well as a brand new reward system that will hopefully see the end of “necessary” Task Force farming trying to get that one specific Recipe you have been dying to get. The Issue 13 Feature List explains more about that. We’ll be announcing more specifics of each of these features between now and the beta testing for Issue 13.

Finally, I want to tell you about two “Booster Packs” that will be available in a month or so. Many players have requested the ability to buy the 30 day temporary jetpack that comes with the new City of Heroes Game Cards. Once the retailer exclusive period ends next month, we are making the same jetpack available for purchase for $4.99 (which is the cost difference between the one month game time and the $20 Game Card price). We are also excited to launch our Super Booster I: Cyborg Pack for $9.99. This pack has an awesome set of costume pieces, emotes, auras and a power. We’ll be sharing all of the details shortly.

So thank you players for the enthusiastic support and I can’t wait to get these new features into your hands and to answer your questions about Issue 13 over the coming months and at Hero-Con in October.

Happy hunting!

Matt “Positron” Miller
Lead Designer, City of Heroes/Villains

****************************************************************************

ISSUE 13: ARCHITECT FEATURE LIST

City of Heroes® Issue 13: Architect

Mission Architect:
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.

Among other rewards, authors and architects who create the most extraordinary content will garner acclaim and reputation. Community feedback will be paramount and some missions will elevate in status unlocking new rewards and benefits for their creators.

Day Jobs (Offline Character Progression)
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.

Once characters have accumulated the required amount of time for each Day Job, they are rewarded with the appropriate Day Job Badge and Title, increasing their “earnings” for that job. Multiple Badges can be combined to unlock Accolades and the ability to accumulate additional new rewards. Almost every location within Paragon City™ and the Rogue Isles™ has an associated Day Job, resulting in a wide selection of jobs and rewards!

New Powersets
• Shields – Heft a Shield for Heroic of Villainous Ends! This new powerset brings a classic power to City of Heroes: Shields! Now, you can arm Tankers, Scrappers, Brutes and Stalkers with a powerful shield to protect themselves and their allies.
• Pain Domination – Villains can now bend the power of pain to serve their own ends! Those playing a Corruptor or Mastermind have access to this new powerset. The antithesis of the Hero healing powerset “Empathy,” Pain Domination brings parity between Heroes and Villains with a distinctively evil flair.
New Cimerora Missions – New Hero and Villain story arcs expand upon the history and lore, and delve into the players and politics of Cimerora.

The Merit Rewards System is a new game system that allows players to earn tokens by completing Trials, Task Forces, Strike Forces, Raids, etc. The most challenging and time consuming tasks grant the most reward tokens, which can be redeemed throughout Hero and Villain zones for recipes, enhancements, salvage, costume pieces, badges, inspirations and other game items.

Other features include new Invention Origin Sets, new Costume Sets, a Patron Power Respec, Zone Refinements, and more!

Free loot

OK I finally got my crafting table power on Ed. If you see any IOs in storage in the base that has the name Eduardo Foster on it, feel free to take 'em. Make sure to leave Az's stuff in the energy room alone or she'll kill you. Most are in this storage table near the salvage vault and base crafting table (in picture). It cost me well over $100 million to get it done and I doubt I will replicate it on any other toons lol. It occurred to me now that I have it, I really don't need it since I crafted anything I ever needed working to get it. Hahhaha, once again I look up to the sky and scream in my best Captain Kirk voice, PositronnnnnnnN!

I have come to hate...

...the stench of robot exhaust.

But Doc Technophilia has finally popped the big 50!

Lordy, has that been a long time coming.

Now, what kinda baddie epic to make... Any suggestions?

Also, for a change of pace, Meg needs an number of taskforce badges. They include Imperious, Lady Grey, and all of the Ourubourous taskforces. Along with such sundry things such as the Shadow Shard task forces, and ,ahem, Positron and his lowbie Death/Debt March. Yes, I've been slacking, sue me. Life ain't fair right now.

Any takers for a poor ice/mace tank looking to add to her badge collection? :)

Megeara/Doctor Technophilia

A Saturday of Evil and Coming Soon?

Furiya and the Crabs, Andronid, Aribiter Kreed and Rust Crab)
Well Ebon is family free this weekend, so he is putting in lots of game time! Last night we opted to be bad guys and ran the Tesserect SF followed by the Officer Renault one. We blasted our ways through scores of Loyal Citizens and washed it down with smearing the floor with the Coralaxes. Then we poked a big eyeball until it popped.

Then the crabs played in the water spouts, flying about the room like fall leaves. :) Much fun.


In case you hadn't seen "the survey", here is a link to it. Please note, it's a "survey" and does not mean it's Issue 13. But it does hold some interesting tidbits of what we might be getting in the future! Anything look fun to you in it? Just you wait on the Azrhiaz TF! :D

Warburg Rumble

Come one, come all to the beat up town of Warburg! Level 30 minimum! If there's enough of us, we can put a team together!

Fight Night

Hotheaded Heather (from Dark Knights) and I are hosting a Friday Night Fights event this Friday at 7pm pacific. C'mon out and have a bit of fun in the arena.

Reminder: Base Raid tomorrow!

That's right folks! Sunday August 3rd at 3pm pacific is a rematch with the Dark Knights of Overkill!

In case you haven't noticed, the Rikti have returned!

They have also made an option of buying respecs for your character if you run out in game and cannot afford to spend a ton of loot at the auction house.

And the winners are....!

A big hearty congratulations to Ebon Mauler and Dry Icicle on winning the Two Against the World tourney on Triumph! What a nice birthday present for Deep too!


It was quite crazy on the Perez map but Ebon and Deep soundly won the tourney with 16 kills with a tie for second with 10. Ex Libris will award your titles in early August.

More Pictures here (scroll down)

Happy Birthday Deep!

Raid Cancelled!

I'm sorry but I have to postpone the raid. So it will not be tomorrow. It is rescheduled for the same time on August 3rd! I forgot I had a tournament planned and there's no way I can squeeze the two in!

If you still want to get your PvP on, please come out to the Duo Free-For-All instead! The Two Against the World tournament will be held in Pocket D tomorrow (Sunday) night @5pm pacific/8pm eastern! You and a partner will get thrown into the arena to try and win the most kills against up to 7 other duo teams! For more information and signups, go to this link! Rumor has it that Ebon and Deep are gonna step out to do a bit of damage! Remember the tip I gave ya Ebon and you'll clean up!

Also starting on August 1st, the Rikti will be back to try and take over Paragon yet again! Need the accolade? Now's your chance!

How Did Dbl XP Treat You?

Well alas, the excitement is now done and over with! With double xp weekend drawn to a close, what did you accomplish with it?

I reached 50 number 10 with bane spider, Hagelaz. 19 with Cactaz, 45.5 with Britney Blades, and new widow, Furiya is now 15. I'd like to congratulate Kinzap, Brain Basher, and CrystalClear on reaching the big five-oh as well!

3 DB'ers in one place! O RLY?

Hey gang. If you've noticed, I've been absent lately from Paragon City. Well, I'm pretty scarce as it is so maybe no one noticed :P

Anyhoo, I was out in Los Angeles for E3 and Az was gracious enough to let me take up valuable space on her couch for the week. Awww...what a great SG leader!

It was great to finally meet Az and Deep also made a trip down to see everyone's favorite ice blaster. Good times...and bonus points to Deep for buying me a shot and the three of us dinner! Hmmm...I think someone is looking for a SG promotion...

Seriously though, a big thanks to Az for her hospitality and a big kudos to Deep for making the drive down. I know a bunch of you DB'ers live in California so next time, I demand that you drop everything on your schedule just to see and appease me :D

Colder, Azrhiaz, and Deep. What a fine looking group but damnit, I wanted to be the only Asian in the SG! Boooo!

Double XP!

First off, congrats to Nina Nails on hitting 50! Also congrats to Death Brigade on earning the Scorpion Surprise turret and nearing 10 million prestige banked. I hope you all enjoyed the new layout heroside also!

Secondly, this weekend is Double XP weekend. Starting Friday and going through Sunday night. Don't miss out in leveling some of your favorite toons!

Base raid on the 27th. I have a Duo FFA tourney at 5pm so might have to leave early, but I'm sure you guys can handle the Knights very well on your own. Make sure to have some salvage for pylons pre-made!! If we drop them quickly, you can all come to the tournament! :D For more info on the tourney, click here. Get on vent if you haven't already! Login info under the "About Debt Brigade" link here on the site.

Happy Birthday Garl!

Hope it's a happy one! No graphic, I'm at work! :(

Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July to all the American DBer's! We Canadians already had our celebration :P::

July Happenings

Nothing on TV? Come play COH!
The Dark Knights of Overkill tell me they are up for another beating! So how about we beat them and we BEAT them this time. Let's organize a team of 6 to be our pylon placers! This event is scheduled for Sunday, the 27th at 3pm pacific. Please give me an RSVP to let me know you'll be coming!

What else fun is happening, you might ask? Well it's about time you had twice the fun you had before! DOUBLE XP WEEKEND is happening on Friday July 18th thru Sunday July 20th. I'll be hanging with Colder for part of that but I'm sure I'll still manage to get to 50 before most of you do. :)

As you can see, the heroside base is under construction. I sent a PM to pohsyb (he's a developer at COH if you didn't know) and finally heard back from him in regards to the Dimensional Vortex DC issue. He said he forwarded it on to the person working on bases! So no answers there, but hopefully, something will be done about it soon. I will be putting the majority of teleporters into one room and wanted a bigger workshop. The workshop won't fit however, so I had to put in two small ones.

As you can see from the picture above, I have earned the Field Crafter badge. So if you need some generic IOs, I can craft them for 1/2 price. Also a reminder of the freebie IO storage in the planeterium! Take what you like!

We mentioned doing a shard TF. Anyone want to do it on Saturday the 12th? Sara Moore is kinda long so we might want to start early. But the maps are fun and talk about a tall AV!

Happy Birthday Colder and Chica!

May two of my favorite DBers have an awesome birthday!

Raiding. . .with Children?

The Debt Brigade officially joins the I Love Kelly Bundy Fan Club
No doubt about it. We love Kelly Bundy. Friendly, fun, and keeps coming back for more, what more can one ask for?

The Dark Knights put up the fight of their lives and successfully defended against our floudering attempts at pylon drops. A dark day for the Debt Brigade, but we sure as hell had fun trying!

Baba, Colder, and I discussed having a pylon drop team for next time. Their only job would be to create and drop pylons. They will be well prepared with salvage and work together to get those suckers down. No more horsing around, yo.

I'm hoping that there aren't too many hard feelings with some of the Knights as they were a fun bunch and I'd love to raid with them again. I truly felt most of us did a good job avoiding the spawn, but with their tactics of hanging around that area and doing foul invader deeds, it made it difficult to avoid it totally. Ah well, what is a defending team supposed to do.

I'm going to write an email to Pohsyb about the base and see if he answers. At least we know it's not necessarily the arcane generator. I'm sure everyone would love that DC issue fixed. Unless IOPs come back of course. :D