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City of Heroes Issue Four Released
The fourth free expansions pack for City of Heroes has been released, and it's quite a doozy. Included in the latest release are a ton of new costume options, new content, and (most significantly) large coliseum where heroes can battle it out in PvP battles. Statement by Jack Emmert from the article: "I believe PVP will supplement the game while not detracting from City of Heroes' missions or story arcs...I see the PVP arenas as a way for players to hone their skills and as a change of pace from arresting villains."
There's a lot of contention over what Issue #4 has done to the game, good and bad. Lemme give a brief overview of the changes.
1. A PVP arena. It's really an amazing piece of work, a huge addition to the game. The question is, will you really want to play in it? Certain classes ("archetypes") have innate advantages due to higher offense and defensive mixes, while others suffer because they don't have enough of either. Odds are more balancing will take place as the days go on; they've come far from when the beta of the arena went up, but still have farther yet to go.
2. New costuming. The costuming system in COH is already top notch, and this adds more elements to it. Mostly it's asian-themed items but there are other generic items in too. Some have clipping issues which will need to be resolved, but it's not too shabby. It also introduces body physique / face sliders like in Star Wars Galaxies.
3. Power changes. The alien archetype they introduced got serious boosts, other powers got little boosts... but as with ANY MMORPG IN THE HISTORY OF TIME, some changes are going to be downward rather than upward. (You can't "buff everybody, nerf nobody" without ending up in a nuclear arms race.) So, if you hit COH forums you'll see OMG sky is falling type posts from folks who now have to change their play style. But... again, to be fair, some of the changes are really phenominally heavy handed. The devs have admitted that they're looking at alternate ways to get the effect they want without harsh penalties, and they're starting to analyze the archetypes one at a time to bring them into balance. It'll take time.
Like any MMO it's got plusses and minuses. Each issue releases new toys to play with and new changes to deal with. City of Heroes gets a big fat recommendation from me; even with the issues-with-its-issues, it's still a lot of fun and very good for casual gamers who want to try an MMO but don't want it to be a second job.