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GDC: City of Heroes/Villains Preview
City of Heroes / City of Villains Issue 7: Manifest Destiny Preview
In one of the more elaborate massively multiplayer showings of GDC, NCSoft and Cryptic Studios gave a special preview of Issue 7: Manifest Destiny - the upcoming free expansion for City of Heroes and City of Villains. We were ushered in to a special screening room at the Montgomery Hotel where several of City's developers walked us through some of the new features.
The new zones include Grandville and Recluse's Victory. Grandville is reminiscent of what you'd expect if a super villain took over the world of George Orwell's 1984. Propaganda posters and statues of Lord Recluse dot the very dingy urban environment. Joining Recluse's forces involves gaining the trust of his lieutenants and showing your worth through completing of missions and other unsavory activities.
One of my favoThe new zones include Grandville and Recluse's Victory.rite features you can gain in this area was the Patron Powers. Once you go to the dark side, you select one of Recluse's top goons to model your powers off of. Meaning, if you always liked Captain Mako's spirit shark attack, you can assimilate his key powers and abilities by choosing him as your patron. It's a serious choice - once you choose a Patron you can't undo it. The good folks at Cryptic Studios were wise enough to provide a plethora of statistical data so you can objectively decide the pros and cons of your choice.
Recluse's Victory is a specialized PVP zone where good and evil duke it out for control of Paragon City. The battle is structured over a series of territories controlled by a super pillbox. These pillbox platforms are no joke - player-controllable turrets surround it on each side and it takes some major firepower to take out and capture. Its helpful to have one of the giant mecha units or spider-like droids both sides can utilize to act as tanks. In essence, they're glorified pets like in any other MMO but the firepower they pack is more than impressive.
When the heroes or villains capture four strategic locations, the game releases NPC reinforcements into the zone to aide the opposing side. It's a unique choice that makes battle far more interesting and ups the level of strategic thinking required. If your side is struggling and can't pull it together, the NPC reinforcements can be a lifesaver. In theory the balancing effect this can have sounds appealing, but I could see how some PVP purists might see this intervention as a cop out.
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