erSo, since most people aren't really looking at the official forums, here's a quick and dirty breakdown of key quotes:
Keynote Panel:
- Titan Weapons, 12/6
- TPN and Minds of Madness (MoM) Trial
-Players asked for: update to old zones
-Solo Incarnate Path
Issue 22: Death Incarnate!
DARK ASTORIA REVAMP!
Banished Pantheon and Tsoo upgraded to Incarnate level.
Love of Diabolique Trial.
New solo incarnate path.
You can go through arcs, get IXP and salvage and stuff.
DARKNESS CONTROL!
STAFF FIGHTING!
More proliferation.
New Tier 9 VIP rewards. Fire and Ice Armor sets.
Flying Carpet power.
Introducing "Super Packs," a pack of 5 random rewards. Costume pieces, consumables.
ATIO's are going to be exclusive to those packs.
They're not going to be very expensive.
Costume set that is exclusive to the packs.
Ton of new costumes in 2012.
New loyalty program open Dec 1-March 31
They want to expand the pet system and keep the load off the servers, thus why you only get one 'companion' pet. Pets take as much server effect as a player, so they limited the pets as they're expanding them.
The base editor was written a long time ago by someone who is no longer at the studio, and is very fragile. Every time they've tried to alter it, they broke it. So they want to get back to bases.
Epics and pool power customization?
Posi: "It's inevitable."
Samuraiko: "Can we have more videos? I can't make them all for you!"
Black Pebble has been working with the Seattle team on the next videos.
The Freedom launch trailer was worked on by an agency, rather than in house.
Posi: "There's some... stuff coming with weather. It's probably not what you're thinking, it's a lot more subtle. But it opens doors for new things in the future."
Posi: "I still want a moon base."
Nate: "Whenever we get a bug, it gets assigned to a default setting. One of the QA guys to tweak Posi's nose named it Moonbase. When is this bug going to get fixed? Moonbase."
WW: "Definitely Boomtown has come up for a revamp, it's been on the list."
Talk about the buff pet and vanity pet clashing. Once they've got the data mined they'll take a look at changing it.
PvP guy won't bloody shut up.
PvPguy has been talking for two minutes.
Nate: "We've had a lot of people saying "oh, just do this!" But that's how we got it to where it is in the first place. We want to have a robust design in mind for it."
GM asks who has PvPed in the last month, few hands. Asks if they would PvP with some changes, lot of hands.
They would love to do a Hero Con again. They were really busy this year.
The Pummit is essentially a proof of concept for future events. They want to increase interaction in events.
Chances of getting a wolf mastermind.
Posi: "Your chances now are better than they ever have been."
3D figure printing?
GM: "We thoroughly examined that. We just have some fundamental challenges with our in game models and making that work. Right now we don't have any realistic way to do it."
Female MM pets?
GM: "I just leaned over to Melissa and said "Fembots.""
Mastermind pet customization, even with preset pet types would be a UI nightmare. They're looking into it, but it will not be in the next few releases.
Randomizing AE facial features and hair. "That sounds like something we'd want to use."
They have a few ideas for rewards (salvage, recipes, etc) in the future that will help out with juggling all the drops and such.
If you run across a mission that doesn't tell you that it's a kill all, bug it.
Zone phases are going to be used sparingly, and used rarely for things like task forces in the future, since it breaks zone events.
Sharing stuff across an account, rather than having to e-mail it every 15 seconds. Someone from engineering "He's the two brightest people I know!" says that it wouldn't be difficult at all to do.
Ouroborii being merged?
Nate: "Isn't Ouroburos a dirty, dirty hack?"
It would be really hard.
They could, possibly, create moving characters between accounts. They managed to do it accidently when they set up the server transfer system. I didn't hear anything about plans to do it, however.
They've been thinking about incarnate/hard mode TF's like the LRSF and STF.
Two beacons per teleporter limit? They'd have to go in and take a look at why it's there and what the consequences might be.
Being able to invite your alts in your SG. Mass cheering. Posi says that it's been noted, but it runs counterintuitive to what SG's are supposed to be. Posi shoots it down "Blah blah server resources, blah blah, antisocial."
There's a very good chance we'll get a summer event at some point
***
Marking Panel
***
They look over sales data twice a day, as well as reading the forums with regards to what is selling, what isn't, what is liked and isn't.
Their goal is to put higher end costume pieces on the market. They are going to continue giving pieces for free to VIPs
http://yfrog.com/j2fmfdpj
Ooo, concept art for Titan Weapons that will be for sale, on December 6th.
They will continue to release a new power set with each issue. For 21 it was Time Manipulation, next is Darkness control.
Staff Fighting comes out next year.
Black Friday/Cyber Monday will be having some big sales.
They're experimenting with packages, sales, and bundles. They will consider permantly discounting items if they sell greatly at the lower price.
They have the weekly items well into 2012.
Next week they're going to have a Thanksgiving-themed costume piece.
Enhancement converters.
Super packs.
Enhancement converter UI. Convert an enhancement into another one.
In-set will change one IO into another one of the same set.
In-category to change one IO to one of a similar type. Melee to Melee.
There will be another one that is random based on rarity. Purple to purple, orange to orange.
Super packs have 5 items of variable rarity. It will contain buckets of reward merits, Elemental Order costume parts, and ATIO's.
Video showing the basic UI for this.
You are guaranteed at least a Rare card if not a Very Rare.
They mention an Enhancement Catalyst, which they will get to later.
You can track the pieces through the Collect screen. The elemental pieces exist at every level. Once you get an account bound item it will not appear again and waste a card. YAAAAY!
http://yfrog.com/h0i62xgj
http://yfrog.com/nxai1ztj
http://yfrog.com/klhdvpzj
ATIO's are unique, one set per character. The set bonuses and procs can be specific to the AT. Stalker's Guile puts you into Hide when it goes off, for example.
Scrappers get +Crit, Tankers get +Res, etc.
http://yfrog.com/oc1cnjj
Enhancement Catalyst turns ATIOs into Superior ATIO's, which are not tradeable. You combine them at level 50 (essentially making them Purple-con IOs)
http://yfrog.com/gybl0jbj
The VRATIO percentages get higher, the procs hit more often, for bigger effects.
http://yfrog.com/od6e7lpj
http://yfrog.com/nwtq7pnj
http://yfrog.com/oc1cnjj
http://yfrog.com/gybl0jbj
http://yfrog.com/nvapcjkj
http://yfrog.com/nxx3zddj
Fire and Ice Tier 9 armors will come out in early 2012. Celestial Armor will be "put in the Disney Vault" once the third Tier 9 comes out.
They have stuff planned for Xmas and New Year's.
http://yfrog.com/khlzfgmwj
Q and A time.
http://yfrog.com/oelaeraj
http://yfrog.com/hs190xcj
http://yfrog.com/gz17ladj
They are still working on getting your veteran tokens up front.
Talk about the 30 day IO license.
They want to keep Incarnate pieces VIP only.
Starting out with a contact's call capability and the crafting table as possible QoL purchases. They considered the table. Posi has to talk to Black Scorpion to see if it's possible.
The Super Packs will be cheaper than 350 points. "Significantly cheaper."
They're going to keep Tier 9 VIP rewards for about 6 months.
Enhancement Catalysts exist only to boost ATIO's.
One of the devs want to put Rularuu weapons in the store.
They want to cycle Tier 9 VIP rewards due to not wanting it to become too complex and unwieldy.
They've been looking at how to do the Bank missions after you've outleveled them. It's another piece of arcane tech by people who don't work with the company. They're extremely interested in it, and as players themselves they want it. They've talked about it.
"Harriet Jones, Prime Minister. Is there a way to re-chose veteran rewards that I made a mistake on?"
It is technically possible, but they don't want to take anything away from someone.
Ghost Falcon, NPC Transformation powers: "They cost as much as they do because I really hate those people on eBay that are selling these for like $100 and $200 and $300."
"He means if he disproves of their actions. He doesn't hate them."
Posi: "You only hate them because you can't sell them for that much."
Accessing live servers from outside of the game client causes load issues.
Posi restates that adding 3 extra slots as a potential buy to the market broke a huge number of things. It's something they want to do. Second Measure says "It would likely require an entire revamp to the way the power system works."
Zwill: "So it accidently the whole thing?"
SG rename? They've looked into it, but they have to weigh it on if it is potentially worth Customer Service possibly murdering them.
***
Lore Panel
***
Posi: "Tell us about Praetoria."
Protean: "Praetoria, f*** yeah!"
Posi: "There are words on the screen here, but for some reason I have trouble focusing."
First Ward is just a start of the story about Tyrant wanting to stamp out any magic not under his control.
Dr. Aeon didn't realize the guy in the SSA looked liked Penn Jilette until someone on the forums said it. "Hey he doesn't like Penn... oh, yes he does."
Posi: "And he does illusions! We didn't even realize that!"
Praetoria's story will end
Batallion is most definitely the Coming Storm and it will be the next threat after Praetoria.
More on Prometheus, Ouroburos, and time travel will come in the future.
They've had over 20 people writing for CoH over the years.
Posi: "We've had Sean McCann trying to tie up loose ends..."
Viridian: "Kill everyone."
Aeon: "I'm going as fast as I can! I can't kill them fast enough!"
State of defeated Praetorians: Defeated and contained, comic book dead, and outright dead. They have a list.
"We have a list of who Sean is allowed to kill."
Aeon: "It keeps getting shorter by the day."
Samuraiko: "I was about to cry when you put up the slide about Dark Astoria. I thank God..."
"You'll want to thank Mot for it."
"I will worship Mot if it gets I22 out quicker."
She wants to see the Revenant Hero thing continued and more Crey.
"Don't assume that Crey hasn't gotten into Praetoria. Heroes tend to face Crey tech once they've got it perfected."
AE lore has to be handled with care so players don't go "Well, AE is evil. I feel stupid for using it."
"Didn't Crey invent MARTy?"
There are no 5th Column plans at the moment. There is some 5th column lore in revamped DA.
Praetorian Stephan Richter.
Posi: "Two fates, either really dead, or something else. I know that's lame. But we did write ourselves a back door if we want him to appear in Praetoria, even though we wrote him as dead."
"The Power of Tartarus DOES reside in someone in Praetoria."
If/when they look at Shadow Shard a revamp Darren Wade would likely be involved.
Viridian thinks that the Goldbrickers are the awesomest, least utilized villain group and wants to use them more.
Protean wrote a story arc involving the Zig during his interview, it's still sitting around waiting to be used.
Eventuallly they will conclude the story of Hero 1.
Arbiter Fabulous asks about Weaver One and dubs him "Nightmare Fuel."
Posi: "That's fertile ground for development. As far as I know, you know everything about him that we've wrote."
Brass Monday and similar time travel things are kind of hard to do, since they would have to make whole new cars, architecture, etc.
Zwill will be putting the powerpoints online next week.
Hero Corps was before even Positron's time. Posi has never been interested in the mercenary, heroes for hire type of thing. Hero Corps does have a shady side, being sponsored by Crey.
There are two timelines in the game 2004-now and the 7 years of game-time, and the timeline of your levelling. They try and unveil information keeping the world in your levelling path.
There's a story they want to tell with the Galaxy City Shivans that they have planned.
Malta lore
"What, do you hate your endurance bar?"
"I'm an Empathy Defender. I want people screaming for Recovery Aura."
The Knives of Artemis has some stuff coming up in content.
"Terrible Volta" needs to be looked at.
"So you want Johnny Ambush here to go over that?"
Talk about how TV.
Posi: "I want to make it like an Incarnate Trial. But I think Tim Sweeny's head just exploded because he doesn't know how to code handing out Respecs."
Talk about character interacts that would like to see. Ghost Widow and Belladonna. You've got Ghost Widow wanting to bring herself back to life, in a living body, and what better body than one that is essentially her own.
The writers seems to like the idea.
There have not been many mirror matches regarding Primal and Pratorian versions meet. They've discussed several pairings.
Katie Douglas stuck in First Ward was meant to be a cliffhanger, meant to make you just want to murder Mother Mayhem. But there's story coming up where you free her.
Luddites will get something soon.
"It's tough to gather them because they don't have text messaging."
"They have carrier pigeons."
Talk about the abandoned Portal Corps building in the Hive.
Positron has been trying to get an airport into the game forever.
Protean: "You don't have airplanes. You fly through Hero Air. 20 heroes with Group Fly."
"Until recently they flew faster than you."
"You couldn't have 20 Masterminds on a plane."
"You could make an arc early on in Mercy. You could have the Snakes on a plane."
Posi: "SECURITY!"
Posi is fondest of Ouroburos and the 13 methods of time travel.
Aeon's proudest of the Dean MacArthur arc.
Protean likes First Ward the best, getting the Ostermann building designed. His least favorite is Dominatrix and Tyrant.
"I sense the words "Retcon" followed by" Eww, eww, eww, eww, eww."
Protean: "That is filthy Resistance propaganda."
Arc they'd like to see most:
Posi: 5th Column Moonbase.
Aeon: Rise of Dean MacArthur!
"Sean! See me in my office!"
Protean: The rise and repowering of Orenbaga.
Viridian: Allowing villain players to actually destroy the world.
Posi: "Once per server."
"Do farming Jaegers tend Nemesis plots?"
Dev panel: "ERROR! ERROR! ERROR!"
They have a rule of three for art assets, if you have three uses for it, usually it'll get a thumbs up.
Regarding Resistance slang: "What is a slippery biscuit?"
Protean: "Let me answer a question with a question, what do you think a slippery biscuit is?"
"T for Teen!"
Protean and Sean Pittman worked on resistance slang, which they dubbed "Spitspeak" due to the abbreviation of Sean's name.
They did not make a dictionary to make it seem more chaotic and leave it to each individual resistance member to determine meanings and keep it cryptic. As well as to be purposely confusing. Having someone look at Clockwork bugs and go "I don't understand this." Or having seers talking spitspeak around Mother Mayhem. "Terminate that one."
***
Costume Design Panel
***
Avatea introduces David Nakayama, Second Measure, War Witch, and Eric Chen.
Random doodling as Second Measure talks about the design process.
SM: "Tech sleek armor, potty suit. Err... power suit."
A lot of sci-fi and retro future suggestions.
SM: "Techno ninja pirate catgirl crossed out, bear written in."
"Costume for my mans."
"Steampunk Transformers."
"Nonhumanoid body types, four legged, blob, etc."
"Disguises. Like groucho glasses."
"More mustaches."
"More shorts."
Predominating themes are street clothes and retro sci-fi.
Giving player models fingers was looked at, but the amount of data required would increase by a great deal as well as the time needed to be put in. I think they said the entire rig at the moment has 14 "bones," each hand has like 15.
Suggestion that the bubble helmet be a neck option rather than a head option.
The older monster heads look so bad due to them trying to get them to conform to standards of the normal feature placement of auras and the like. They're standardized from the skeleton.
Texas Justice suggests the bubble helmet going with it by itself, having it headless, kind of like Mysterio from Spiderman.
Suggestion of a classic KITT/Cylon aura.
"Can we get a rifle with a plunger looking thing like a Dalek? Who doesn't want to go around in a bubble helmet with a plunger gun going "EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!""
Asymmetry costs a lot in resources. Not so much geometry as in texture space. If they went nuts with asymmetrical options they would essentially knock out the bottom 10% of computers.
There's apparently a cool background of Romulus Augustus.
Goldfish in boots.
Peanut Gallery: "Talsorian Suspenders!"
"Ming the Merciless super collar!"
Panel says that the collar would clip with a lot of hairstyles. Chat is saying that long hair ALREADY clips with high collar capes.
"If you make the ring vertical it's Uranus!"
"Lusca baby backpack!"
***
Endgame/Beyond Panel
***
Powers Panel
***
Misc. Details
***
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."
Keynote Panel:
- Titan Weapons, 12/6
- TPN and Minds of Madness (MoM) Trial
-Players asked for: update to old zones
-Solo Incarnate Path
Issue 22: Death Incarnate!
DARK ASTORIA REVAMP!
Banished Pantheon and Tsoo upgraded to Incarnate level.
Love of Diabolique Trial.
New solo incarnate path.
You can go through arcs, get IXP and salvage and stuff.
DARKNESS CONTROL!
STAFF FIGHTING!
More proliferation.
New Tier 9 VIP rewards. Fire and Ice Armor sets.
Flying Carpet power.
Introducing "Super Packs," a pack of 5 random rewards. Costume pieces, consumables.
ATIO's are going to be exclusive to those packs.
They're not going to be very expensive.
Costume set that is exclusive to the packs.
Ton of new costumes in 2012.
New loyalty program open Dec 1-March 31
They want to expand the pet system and keep the load off the servers, thus why you only get one 'companion' pet. Pets take as much server effect as a player, so they limited the pets as they're expanding them.
The base editor was written a long time ago by someone who is no longer at the studio, and is very fragile. Every time they've tried to alter it, they broke it. So they want to get back to bases.
Epics and pool power customization?
Posi: "It's inevitable."
Samuraiko: "Can we have more videos? I can't make them all for you!"
Black Pebble has been working with the Seattle team on the next videos.
The Freedom launch trailer was worked on by an agency, rather than in house.
Posi: "There's some... stuff coming with weather. It's probably not what you're thinking, it's a lot more subtle. But it opens doors for new things in the future."
Posi: "I still want a moon base."
Nate: "Whenever we get a bug, it gets assigned to a default setting. One of the QA guys to tweak Posi's nose named it Moonbase. When is this bug going to get fixed? Moonbase."
WW: "Definitely Boomtown has come up for a revamp, it's been on the list."
Talk about the buff pet and vanity pet clashing. Once they've got the data mined they'll take a look at changing it.
PvP guy won't bloody shut up.
PvPguy has been talking for two minutes.
Nate: "We've had a lot of people saying "oh, just do this!" But that's how we got it to where it is in the first place. We want to have a robust design in mind for it."
GM asks who has PvPed in the last month, few hands. Asks if they would PvP with some changes, lot of hands.
They would love to do a Hero Con again. They were really busy this year.
The Pummit is essentially a proof of concept for future events. They want to increase interaction in events.
Chances of getting a wolf mastermind.
Posi: "Your chances now are better than they ever have been."
3D figure printing?
GM: "We thoroughly examined that. We just have some fundamental challenges with our in game models and making that work. Right now we don't have any realistic way to do it."
Female MM pets?
GM: "I just leaned over to Melissa and said "Fembots.""
Mastermind pet customization, even with preset pet types would be a UI nightmare. They're looking into it, but it will not be in the next few releases.
Randomizing AE facial features and hair. "That sounds like something we'd want to use."
They have a few ideas for rewards (salvage, recipes, etc) in the future that will help out with juggling all the drops and such.
If you run across a mission that doesn't tell you that it's a kill all, bug it.
Zone phases are going to be used sparingly, and used rarely for things like task forces in the future, since it breaks zone events.
Sharing stuff across an account, rather than having to e-mail it every 15 seconds. Someone from engineering "He's the two brightest people I know!" says that it wouldn't be difficult at all to do.
Ouroborii being merged?
Nate: "Isn't Ouroburos a dirty, dirty hack?"
It would be really hard.
They could, possibly, create moving characters between accounts. They managed to do it accidently when they set up the server transfer system. I didn't hear anything about plans to do it, however.
They've been thinking about incarnate/hard mode TF's like the LRSF and STF.
Two beacons per teleporter limit? They'd have to go in and take a look at why it's there and what the consequences might be.
Being able to invite your alts in your SG. Mass cheering. Posi says that it's been noted, but it runs counterintuitive to what SG's are supposed to be. Posi shoots it down "Blah blah server resources, blah blah, antisocial."
There's a very good chance we'll get a summer event at some point
***
Marking Panel
***
They look over sales data twice a day, as well as reading the forums with regards to what is selling, what isn't, what is liked and isn't.
Their goal is to put higher end costume pieces on the market. They are going to continue giving pieces for free to VIPs
http://yfrog.com/j2fmfdpj
Ooo, concept art for Titan Weapons that will be for sale, on December 6th.
They will continue to release a new power set with each issue. For 21 it was Time Manipulation, next is Darkness control.
Staff Fighting comes out next year.
Black Friday/Cyber Monday will be having some big sales.
They're experimenting with packages, sales, and bundles. They will consider permantly discounting items if they sell greatly at the lower price.
They have the weekly items well into 2012.
Next week they're going to have a Thanksgiving-themed costume piece.
Enhancement converters.
Super packs.
Enhancement converter UI. Convert an enhancement into another one.
In-set will change one IO into another one of the same set.
In-category to change one IO to one of a similar type. Melee to Melee.
There will be another one that is random based on rarity. Purple to purple, orange to orange.
Super packs have 5 items of variable rarity. It will contain buckets of reward merits, Elemental Order costume parts, and ATIO's.
Video showing the basic UI for this.
You are guaranteed at least a Rare card if not a Very Rare.
They mention an Enhancement Catalyst, which they will get to later.
You can track the pieces through the Collect screen. The elemental pieces exist at every level. Once you get an account bound item it will not appear again and waste a card. YAAAAY!
http://yfrog.com/h0i62xgj
http://yfrog.com/nxai1ztj
http://yfrog.com/klhdvpzj
ATIO's are unique, one set per character. The set bonuses and procs can be specific to the AT. Stalker's Guile puts you into Hide when it goes off, for example.
Scrappers get +Crit, Tankers get +Res, etc.
http://yfrog.com/oc1cnjj
Enhancement Catalyst turns ATIOs into Superior ATIO's, which are not tradeable. You combine them at level 50 (essentially making them Purple-con IOs)
http://yfrog.com/gybl0jbj
The VRATIO percentages get higher, the procs hit more often, for bigger effects.
http://yfrog.com/od6e7lpj
http://yfrog.com/nwtq7pnj
http://yfrog.com/oc1cnjj
http://yfrog.com/gybl0jbj
http://yfrog.com/nvapcjkj
http://yfrog.com/nxx3zddj
Fire and Ice Tier 9 armors will come out in early 2012. Celestial Armor will be "put in the Disney Vault" once the third Tier 9 comes out.
They have stuff planned for Xmas and New Year's.
http://yfrog.com/khlzfgmwj
Q and A time.
http://yfrog.com/oelaeraj
http://yfrog.com/hs190xcj
http://yfrog.com/gz17ladj
They are still working on getting your veteran tokens up front.
Talk about the 30 day IO license.
They want to keep Incarnate pieces VIP only.
Starting out with a contact's call capability and the crafting table as possible QoL purchases. They considered the table. Posi has to talk to Black Scorpion to see if it's possible.
The Super Packs will be cheaper than 350 points. "Significantly cheaper."
They're going to keep Tier 9 VIP rewards for about 6 months.
Enhancement Catalysts exist only to boost ATIO's.
One of the devs want to put Rularuu weapons in the store.
They want to cycle Tier 9 VIP rewards due to not wanting it to become too complex and unwieldy.
They've been looking at how to do the Bank missions after you've outleveled them. It's another piece of arcane tech by people who don't work with the company. They're extremely interested in it, and as players themselves they want it. They've talked about it.
"Harriet Jones, Prime Minister. Is there a way to re-chose veteran rewards that I made a mistake on?"
It is technically possible, but they don't want to take anything away from someone.
Ghost Falcon, NPC Transformation powers: "They cost as much as they do because I really hate those people on eBay that are selling these for like $100 and $200 and $300."
"He means if he disproves of their actions. He doesn't hate them."
Posi: "You only hate them because you can't sell them for that much."
Accessing live servers from outside of the game client causes load issues.
Posi restates that adding 3 extra slots as a potential buy to the market broke a huge number of things. It's something they want to do. Second Measure says "It would likely require an entire revamp to the way the power system works."
Zwill: "So it accidently the whole thing?"
SG rename? They've looked into it, but they have to weigh it on if it is potentially worth Customer Service possibly murdering them.
***
Lore Panel
***
Posi: "Tell us about Praetoria."
Protean: "Praetoria, f*** yeah!"
Posi: "There are words on the screen here, but for some reason I have trouble focusing."
First Ward is just a start of the story about Tyrant wanting to stamp out any magic not under his control.
Dr. Aeon didn't realize the guy in the SSA looked liked Penn Jilette until someone on the forums said it. "Hey he doesn't like Penn... oh, yes he does."
Posi: "And he does illusions! We didn't even realize that!"
Praetoria's story will end
Batallion is most definitely the Coming Storm and it will be the next threat after Praetoria.
More on Prometheus, Ouroburos, and time travel will come in the future.
They've had over 20 people writing for CoH over the years.
Posi: "We've had Sean McCann trying to tie up loose ends..."
Viridian: "Kill everyone."
Aeon: "I'm going as fast as I can! I can't kill them fast enough!"
State of defeated Praetorians: Defeated and contained, comic book dead, and outright dead. They have a list.
"We have a list of who Sean is allowed to kill."
Aeon: "It keeps getting shorter by the day."
Samuraiko: "I was about to cry when you put up the slide about Dark Astoria. I thank God..."
"You'll want to thank Mot for it."
"I will worship Mot if it gets I22 out quicker."
She wants to see the Revenant Hero thing continued and more Crey.
"Don't assume that Crey hasn't gotten into Praetoria. Heroes tend to face Crey tech once they've got it perfected."
AE lore has to be handled with care so players don't go "Well, AE is evil. I feel stupid for using it."
"Didn't Crey invent MARTy?"
There are no 5th Column plans at the moment. There is some 5th column lore in revamped DA.
Praetorian Stephan Richter.
Posi: "Two fates, either really dead, or something else. I know that's lame. But we did write ourselves a back door if we want him to appear in Praetoria, even though we wrote him as dead."
"The Power of Tartarus DOES reside in someone in Praetoria."
If/when they look at Shadow Shard a revamp Darren Wade would likely be involved.
Viridian thinks that the Goldbrickers are the awesomest, least utilized villain group and wants to use them more.
Protean wrote a story arc involving the Zig during his interview, it's still sitting around waiting to be used.
Eventuallly they will conclude the story of Hero 1.
Arbiter Fabulous asks about Weaver One and dubs him "Nightmare Fuel."
Posi: "That's fertile ground for development. As far as I know, you know everything about him that we've wrote."
Brass Monday and similar time travel things are kind of hard to do, since they would have to make whole new cars, architecture, etc.
Zwill will be putting the powerpoints online next week.
Hero Corps was before even Positron's time. Posi has never been interested in the mercenary, heroes for hire type of thing. Hero Corps does have a shady side, being sponsored by Crey.
There are two timelines in the game 2004-now and the 7 years of game-time, and the timeline of your levelling. They try and unveil information keeping the world in your levelling path.
There's a story they want to tell with the Galaxy City Shivans that they have planned.
Malta lore
"What, do you hate your endurance bar?"
"I'm an Empathy Defender. I want people screaming for Recovery Aura."
The Knives of Artemis has some stuff coming up in content.
"Terrible Volta" needs to be looked at.
"So you want Johnny Ambush here to go over that?"
Talk about how TV.
Posi: "I want to make it like an Incarnate Trial. But I think Tim Sweeny's head just exploded because he doesn't know how to code handing out Respecs."
Talk about character interacts that would like to see. Ghost Widow and Belladonna. You've got Ghost Widow wanting to bring herself back to life, in a living body, and what better body than one that is essentially her own.
The writers seems to like the idea.
There have not been many mirror matches regarding Primal and Pratorian versions meet. They've discussed several pairings.
Katie Douglas stuck in First Ward was meant to be a cliffhanger, meant to make you just want to murder Mother Mayhem. But there's story coming up where you free her.
Luddites will get something soon.
"It's tough to gather them because they don't have text messaging."
"They have carrier pigeons."
Talk about the abandoned Portal Corps building in the Hive.
Positron has been trying to get an airport into the game forever.
Protean: "You don't have airplanes. You fly through Hero Air. 20 heroes with Group Fly."
"Until recently they flew faster than you."
"You couldn't have 20 Masterminds on a plane."
"You could make an arc early on in Mercy. You could have the Snakes on a plane."
Posi: "SECURITY!"
Posi is fondest of Ouroburos and the 13 methods of time travel.
Aeon's proudest of the Dean MacArthur arc.
Protean likes First Ward the best, getting the Ostermann building designed. His least favorite is Dominatrix and Tyrant.
"I sense the words "Retcon" followed by" Eww, eww, eww, eww, eww."
Protean: "That is filthy Resistance propaganda."
Arc they'd like to see most:
Posi: 5th Column Moonbase.
Aeon: Rise of Dean MacArthur!
"Sean! See me in my office!"
Protean: The rise and repowering of Orenbaga.
Viridian: Allowing villain players to actually destroy the world.
Posi: "Once per server."
"Do farming Jaegers tend Nemesis plots?"
Dev panel: "ERROR! ERROR! ERROR!"
They have a rule of three for art assets, if you have three uses for it, usually it'll get a thumbs up.
Regarding Resistance slang: "What is a slippery biscuit?"
Protean: "Let me answer a question with a question, what do you think a slippery biscuit is?"
"T for Teen!"
Protean and Sean Pittman worked on resistance slang, which they dubbed "Spitspeak" due to the abbreviation of Sean's name.
They did not make a dictionary to make it seem more chaotic and leave it to each individual resistance member to determine meanings and keep it cryptic. As well as to be purposely confusing. Having someone look at Clockwork bugs and go "I don't understand this." Or having seers talking spitspeak around Mother Mayhem. "Terminate that one."
***
Costume Design Panel
***
Avatea introduces David Nakayama, Second Measure, War Witch, and Eric Chen.
Random doodling as Second Measure talks about the design process.
SM: "Tech sleek armor, potty suit. Err... power suit."
A lot of sci-fi and retro future suggestions.
SM: "Techno ninja pirate catgirl crossed out, bear written in."
"Costume for my mans."
"Steampunk Transformers."
"Nonhumanoid body types, four legged, blob, etc."
"Disguises. Like groucho glasses."
"More mustaches."
"More shorts."
Predominating themes are street clothes and retro sci-fi.
Giving player models fingers was looked at, but the amount of data required would increase by a great deal as well as the time needed to be put in. I think they said the entire rig at the moment has 14 "bones," each hand has like 15.
Suggestion that the bubble helmet be a neck option rather than a head option.
The older monster heads look so bad due to them trying to get them to conform to standards of the normal feature placement of auras and the like. They're standardized from the skeleton.
Texas Justice suggests the bubble helmet going with it by itself, having it headless, kind of like Mysterio from Spiderman.
Suggestion of a classic KITT/Cylon aura.
"Can we get a rifle with a plunger looking thing like a Dalek? Who doesn't want to go around in a bubble helmet with a plunger gun going "EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!""
Asymmetry costs a lot in resources. Not so much geometry as in texture space. If they went nuts with asymmetrical options they would essentially knock out the bottom 10% of computers.
There's apparently a cool background of Romulus Augustus.
Goldfish in boots.
Peanut Gallery: "Talsorian Suspenders!"
"Ming the Merciless super collar!"
Panel says that the collar would clip with a lot of hairstyles. Chat is saying that long hair ALREADY clips with high collar capes.
"If you make the ring vertical it's Uranus!"
"Lusca baby backpack!"
***
Endgame/Beyond Panel
***
Quote:Here's the quick summary of the Incarnate panel based on my recollections:
Dark Astoria getting a revamp with Mot, PB and Tsoo (this was in the keynote but bears repeating). Old DA will be available through Ourborus (like Galaxy City).
New DA will have different story Arcs for Heroes and Villains along with repeatable content. Based on what they said it sounds like the repeatable content is implied to be co-op with tip mission style "moral choices" but they didn't say that outright.
Regarding new slots, they will definitely not be coming out in I22. However Black Scorpion did say that they have heard the complaints regarding the number of currencies and the current plan is that the new slots will not have new currencies/salvage associated with them.
The new Incarnate trial featuring Diabolique will effectively be an epilogue new DA storyline but will not be the culmination of it (so not like Striga and Croatoa where you have to do a TF to see the final story).
Maelstrom's Teleport Kick attack in TPN Campus was the inspiration for Vorpal Judgement.
Adamastor will appear in the new DA but will not be a major opponent.
In terms of Incarnate story, the Preatorian arc is intended as an epic-cross-over battle of armies" style story which is why it's Trial focused. The Mot arc is being designed as more of an individual heroes comic book and as such is more single character/team focused.
We will eventually fight Cole and when we defeat him the well will be left without a champion. And nothing bad can come form that... Right?
That's what I recall, I'm probably missing some stuff but I think I hit the high points.
Quote:I talked with Viridian after the summit was over to get a little clarification and it sounds like heroes and villains run the same basic story arcs but your decisions (As in heroic or villainous choices) play a larger role in how they turn out, with things wildly diverging towards the end based on what you decide to do.***
Anyway, going back to the panel, both Astral and Empyrian merits (Along with Incarnate XP, threads, and salvage) will be available through the content in Dark Astoria, though it was noted that Empyrians (Maybe Astrals too, it wasn't clear whether they were talking about one or both) will likely have a time lock on them to keep people from getting them too fast.
In addition, they mentioned that the groups that are getting involved in this such as the Banished Pantheon and the Tsoo are getting some more powerful members, with members that were previously bosses being downgraded to Lieutenants and so on. There was some mention of Underlings being part of these group as well but I can't recall what was said. The pre-Incarnate versions of these groups are unaffected.
In terms of characters that are involved in Dark Astoria's storyline, Mot is obviously a major figure, and Diabolique will also play a part that will likely tie in to her trial. The third major character the Devs mentioned is Blue Steel, who it sounds like we may finally get to fight if we choose to (Though the Devs jokingly warned that it may not be a good idea).
Finally, it was mentioned that our incarnate shifts, normally reserved for the incarnate trials, will actually work both indoors and outdoors in Dark Astoria.
Powers Panel
***
Quote:Ok, here's what I've got from my notes:
Time Manipulation fun fact- swirl direction changes depending on if you are buffing or debuffing someone. Clockwise=Buff Counterclockwise=DeBuff
Titan Weapons-
-Available to Scrappers, Tanks, and Brutes (sorry, not for stalkers, then again kind of hard to be sneaky with a giant a$$ hammer)
-Essentially allows 1 power to do 2 things (with momentum or without momentum)
-Goes off of a momentum system.
-No momentum, slow attacks, if you have momentum you have shorter animations and more AoE goodness.
-So far Hammer and Sword, potential for Axe as well.
Dark Control- Sorry, no tentacles people
Move list:
Shadowy Binds- DoT/Imob
Dark Grasp- Mod Dmg/Hold
Living Shadows- Wide Cone/Dot/Imob
Posses- Confuse (with glowing eye goodness)
Fearsome Stare- Cone/Terror
Heart of Darkness- PBAoE/DoT/Disorient
Haunt- Summons Shades Dmg/Fear/Taunt (to the shades). Essentially, the shades will go out and attack the mob in question, casting taunt and fear on them while attacking them. If the mob dies, they will move on to another (like gangwar, we can't control where they go) to attack. They ARE killable, and somewhat squishy.
Shadow Field- Ranged AoE/Hold
Tier 9- TBA
It looked really interesting, with all the dreary, inky effects.
Staff Melee- Scrapper, Brute, Tank, Stalker
Power Staff Mastery- much like Swap Ammo, in where you can pick from three styles
Mind = gives boost to recharge
Body= Gives boost to Damage
Soul= Gives end discount
Perfection is built thru attacks, and there are two attacks that will either build or spend it.
Eye of the Storm and Sky Splitter.
Staff will have a longer range than most melee classes.
Addition:
Dark Assault for Dominators
Two new darkness powers (I believe for controllers in the prestige pool? Was hard to hear)
Soul Absorption- Regen+ after defeating enemies (for whole group
Fade- Targeted, like a mini MoG for others.
Quote:We're testing three improvements to stalkers in i22:***
-Assassin's Strike: using Assassin's Strike outside of hide will be an uninterruptible attack with no windup time, dealing Superior damage. This will allow Stalkers to do very competitive dps.
-All Stalker attacks that are not Assassin's Strike will build stacks of a buff called Assassin's Focus. Assassin's Focus increases your chance to critically strike with the out-of-hide Assassin's Strike.
-Stalker Buffed Max HP will be increased by about 400. This should allow them to fully benefit from powers like dull pain, hoarfrost, etc.
-These changes to Stalkers should make them very competitive top-end damage dealers, and help them with their early attack chain since they can use Assassin's Strike mid-combat.
Misc. Details
***
Quote:Quote:---
[table][/table] /boards.cityofheroes.com/styles/CoH/gradients/alt2.gif);">http://boards.cityofheroe...CoH/gradients/alt2.gif); background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 10px; border-top-width: 1px; border-right-width: 1px; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-width: 1px; border-top-style: inset; border-right-style: inset; border-bottom-style: inset; border-left-style: inset; border-color: initial; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat no-repeat; ">For those who attended The Three Missing Panels(tm)...
1. Will the Dark Astoria Incarnate Zone offer Threads, Astrals, and Empyreans? Or just Shards? or just Threads, for that matter?
Dark Astoria critters and mission content will provide threads, components, and both Astral and Empyrean merits.
Quote:
[table][/table] /boards.cityofheroes.com/styles/CoH/gradients/alt2.gif);">http://boards.cityofheroe...CoH/gradients/alt2.gif); background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 10px; border-top-width: 1px; border-right-width: 1px; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-width: 1px; border-top-style: inset; border-right-style: inset; border-bottom-style: inset; border-left-style: inset; border-color: initial; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat no-repeat; ">2. Does it have repeatable content or just story arcs and a new trial? "Street sweeping" was mentioned but presumably there's more.
Dark Astoria has Incarnate story arc, repeatable mission content, and level 50 to 54 npc enemies from several villain groups if you feel like street sweeping.
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."