Issue 17 Goes Live Today

Coinciding with it's 6th anniversary, Paragon Studios is releasing the 17th free update to City of Heroes. It's amazing to me that they've stuck it out for so long, given that for the most part they fly under the mmo radar. But here's the thing: the fans that CoX does have, they're real fans. Not those "I'm gonna quit this shitty game when Warhammer comes out" WoW fans. Real, superhero-to-the-core fans. And that's something you have to admire.

Sticking it out for the long haul rewards those fans with added features and content that shows the development team tries to listen to it's fanbase without sacrificing the integrity of the game (see Star Trek Online). Also, they get neat veteran rewards and anniversary rewards.

Issue 17: Dark Mirror is fairly modest in size, content wise. After all, we're only getting four or so story arcs out of the deal. However, it lays the groundwork for their third paid expansion, Going Rogue. And that's something to be excited about. The Going Rogue system is innovative, and allows heroes and villains to walk the line between good and evil, and possibly cross it. But let's not get ahead of ourselves...

What Issue 17 does give us is the new graphical update (albeit a superficial one), as well as extra costume pieces and animated tails. We also get some neat "quality of life" updates, including the ability to send money to ourselves via the mail system (iknorite?).

All in all, I'm pretty excited about the changes coming to the game. I'm starting to think that I came back to the game at exactly the right time.