Issue 14 of City of Heroes is in Open Beta...

[demiurgent]

...which means I can pimp out my closed beta arcs. :) This thing is awesome and addictive. Please, for the Love of God, play and rate the arcs I pimp to you now.

Arc 1240: Dash Davids and Team Dasher: The Lost Relics of Eden: DEV'S CHOICE Bold scientific adventurer Dash Davids and his crack team of two fisted intellectual heavyweights have come up with a means of driving the Devouring Earth temporarily out of a section of Eden. They are now investigating the area, finding and cataloging the artifacts and relics of ancient pre-Mu times that the Devouring Earth have brought to the surface with their upheavals. You are a villain, hired by the evil Doctor Iniquitous to beat Team Dasher down and rob them blind. (A very short 1-mission arc -- praised for writing and lots of fast, frenetic fun, based on everything from old Republic Serials through Doc Savage and all the way up to Johnny Quest. There are Elite Bosses, though also an Elite Ally. Be warned, but be there!)

Arc 1425: Ripping Out Reform: DEV'S CHOICE Something's rotten in the Rogue Islands -- or more to the point, something is fresh. The Rogue Island Police have started to clean up their act, purging the corrupt thugs who've traditionally terrorized their beats and actually beginning to uphold the law -- and the people behind it are spreading a lot of money around. You want that money, and you wouldn't mind stopping this reform movement in its tracks, either. (A Level 10-19 Villainside arc, with a lot of police action, chances for good old fashion money grabbing, and the occasional beatdown.)

Arc 2297: A Contamination Problem: Someone is experimenting with the Outbreak Drug, causing a detonation and contamination of a building with a more advanced, power suppressing strain. You have to rescue sick heroes and subdue Contaminated heroes -- and straight Contaminated -- with almost none of your powers. Then, after you make it out of that, you and the friends you make in that new Outbreak hunt down the man responsible -- a man who wants to weaponize Outbreak in a new way. (A heroic arc, starting at L1 and ending with a pile of Allies in a high powered free-for-all! Medium length.)

Arc 2561: Proactive Destiny: For too long, becoming a true, epic threat in the Rogue Islands means little more than 'earning the respect' of Lord Recluse, the Arbiters, Ghost Widow, Bob the Janitor and any number of other Arachnos nobodies. Instead, wouldn't you like to earn respect -- and fear -- by seizing your own destiny and terrifying hundreds of thousands in the process? Now's your chance. Grab a prominent scientist! Make him build a giant death ray! Coerce powerful villains to give you the help you need to make your dark vision a reality. Threaten all of Paragon City with destruction if your demands are not met. And beat down the so-called heroes who come to stop your destiny from taking form! (An experiment in creating a truly proactive adventure, as well as high level L40-50 villainside content where your only goal is extorting millions of dollars from the pathetic weaklings of Paragon City. This can be soloed with the right build, but a group may not be the worst idea ever.)

Comments

[warpwind.livejournal.com]

These sound damn awesome I'm going to have to play a few.

[deathchibi.livejournal.com]

They do sound really neat! A lot of people are really looking forward to this. (Even me and my whacky mastermind. >>)

[caraig.livejournal.com]

I DEFINITELY like 2561! It makes City of Villains much more, you know, 'city of villains' rather than 'city of mercenaries' or 'city of flunkies.' Or 'city of minions.' And 1425 sounds very neat, as well! I hope they're available on all servers.

[cmdr-zoom.livejournal.com]

The only problem I see with that one is that lots of people have announced their intention to do virtually that same arc. (All that pent-up frustration at being cast in a reactive role even as villains, who in the comics are the proactive force...)

[demiurgent.livejournal.com]

Well, sure.

But I got there first.

[demiurgent.livejournal.com]

Anything published to the Arc Server on live will be available everywhere -- including European Servers, I would add. Right now they're just on Test. When we hit Live, I'll make sure to mention the Live Arc Numbers.

[interlocutron.livejournal.com]

This is what you get when you let RP-ers run free.

Scandalous.

Hey, are there Dev anti-choices? I would love to play through an absolutely horrid arc involving mystical pregnancies, shoe-horned Mary-Sues, and a suffocating sense of "why are we even here? This is just Mantis: Guest starring the Avengers."

[demiurgent.livejournal.com]

Just reverse sort by rating. Get past the 0 stars rated ones (0 stars means "not rated yet") and you'll reach "1 star" rating.

We can hook you up, man.

(I'll admit, I've been tempted to write "Railroad Engineer and the Elite NPCs.")

[mrbankies.livejournal.com]

Apropos of not much, what sort of system requirements are needed to run the CoH/CoV client? I'm finally getting around to buying a new computer. Pretty much set on the Mac mini. Would it do well with the software or die a gruesome death, although a gruesome death is probably what my wife would hand me for getting sucked into a MMO.

[ardaniel]

Specs suggest to me that a Mac mini would be acceptable if it were crammed with RAM-- ie, more than a gig. CoX's nVidia support has always been better than its ATI support, and the proc's speedy enough.

[wmilliken]

My wife is running CoH on the latest version of the Air, so a Mini with 2GB memory should be OK. May not have all the graphics features full up, or a really high framerate, but it's quite usable. The Mini has a faster processor but less cache, and uses the same graphics unit.

For that matter, I'm running CoH on a new 2.53GHz Macbook Pro with 4GB memory, but using the slow graphics unit (black screen of death problems with the fast one until Apple figures out how to turn the fans on properly). Standing in front of City Hall in Atlas Park, I'm seeing about 30 fps on a 1440x900 display. A Mini with 2GB memory should be fairly comparable, though the CPU's about 20% slower -- the 9400M GPU and main memory speed are the same.

[longstrider.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on two Dev's Choice. Remember that the ratings during open beta get wiped when things go live and you'll have to republish and get rated again.

[demiurgent.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know. I know.

Some of the Dev's Choice is going to be migrated over as-is by the Devs, so I expect Dash Davids at the least to be ported live. (It's one of the highest rated and played things -- largely due to it being very short. ;) ). However, other stuff will have to be done from scratch, after I grind enough tickets to unlock content.

[wmilliken]

Sounds like you're all over the evil side, anything for heroes?

And alas, my villains are all weak snake fodder at the moment, L7 or less.

I'll probably write something myself, but not until it gets out of beta. (Mythic Babysitting crossed with CoH, maybe, if I can figure out how to work it...)

[demiurgent.livejournal.com]

Actually, "A Contamination Problem" is a heroside arc. And one of the nice things about Architect Entertainment is it'll work regardless of level -- the "Ripping Out Reform" arc has been successfully played enjoyably (so I am told) by L5 villains.

Further? Heroes and Villains can both play any arc. It is, after all, entertainment. So if your bold hero feels like... well, roleplaying as a villain for an afternoon....

[wmilliken]

That would be, well, evil....

Well, if I can ever download the test version (current estimate: 63h 42m) I'll see what I can do with one of the Pentomino sisters, maybe.

[deathchibi.livejournal.com]

What server are you on? I'm on Virtue if you need help redside. My mastermind is usually running people about just because I love story arcs and badges, ehehe.

[wmilliken]

Currently mostly on Pinnacle, and have a couple characters on Infinity, I fear. (The latter two are stray character concepts after I used up all my basic slots on Pinnacle. Sigh.)

[wmilliken]

Got a chance to try out Dash (with L6 corruptor Pentomino Aleph), which was pretty easy, but most of the references there went cleanly over my head. Spotted one typo, which should be in your comments.

Also tried Contamination (with L5 tanker Malakat). First mission was pretty typically easy, second was insanely hard, due to one overhigh spawn group in the middle -- orange major and two yellow soldiers spent all their time chain-stunning me. Third was a walk in the park; the NPCs basically took over and smacked everything, including the bosses, without any real help. Commented on the middle mission problem and also a typo, which I fear I couldn't remember the source of. Also, after I commented, I spotted another typo in the final dialog from the contact -- there's a missing "they" in the last line (I think it was).

[chorus.livejournal.com]

Hah, I'd been meaning to ask you what your global was there, and then I loaded up test today and saw THREE Dev Choiced arcs with a very familiar name on them. (I've been behind on LJ so didn't see this post til today.)

Haven't played 'em yet, but I plan to.

[demiurgent.livejournal.com]

Yay! I actually have a fourth that's Dev's Choice but broke in the last patch. It should be up soon. And my fifth published arc - "Doctor Unorthodox and the Red Haired Psychic Legion" -- should go up tomorrow!