Issue 15
Overview
Issue 15, titled Anniversary, will be a major revision to City of Heroes and City of Villains. Positron has said in past interviews that Issue 15 will be more story-driven.
This article summarizes some of the major features in Issue 15. For more complete details, see the release date's patch notes.
Confirmed Content
5th Column Task Force
- Villain Strikeforce
- Levels 45 - 50: 5 Missions
- The Villains are hired for what seems like a simple, high-paying job: Steal information from the Hero 1 Time Capsule. Things go awry when the job ends up leading to the return of an enemy from the past. Now the villains have to deal with the mess they've made - while trying to make as much profit from it as possible.
- Hero Taskforce
- Levels 45 - 50: 5 Missions
- The Heroes follow the trail of some stolen information to find that an old foe is returning... in a big way! Forced to deal with an invasion, the Heroes must scramble to find a way to defeat a seemingly unstoppable enemy.
Costume Creator
- New Costume Sets
- New Issue 15 costumes include the Vines and Ulterior themed costume sets. More details to come!
- New Costume Change Emotes
- Just recently introduced in Super Booster II: Magic, Costume Change Emotes represent a brand new feature type that provide fun and colorful transitions between two different costumes for a given character. Players activate them using the costume change interface, selectable from the main Menu, or through the /cce slash command.
- Backflip
- Salute
- Howl
- Evil Laugh
- Peacebringer Transform (Kheldians only)
- Warshade Transform (Kheldians only)
- Vanguard Sigil
- New Character Faces
- Over 20 new character faces provide even more options for character customization.
Mission Architect Updates
- Architect toolbox allows players to better and more easily polish their content before sharing it with the public.
- Missions can now be selected for both "Hall of Fame" and "Dev Choice," allowing players to attain both badges. "Dev Choice" missions also have selectable reward types.
- Enhanced searching and navigation options like key phrase tagging and arc difficulty display help players find the content they're looking for even faster
- New Server-wide Architect Chat channel
- Plus several other features and improvements to Mission Architect
Posted separately from the above changes, Sunstorm added:
- They will be setting up a custom power selection mode. Critters will start with the standard powers for their rank, and any other power in the set can be added individually.
Interviews
The 8/25/2008 Massively interview with Positron and Brian Clayton included the following:
- Matt Miller: The real big storyline stuff is coming in Issue 15!
- Massively: Any hints at all about what that would be touching on?
- Matt Miller: It's hopefully going to tie up a lot of loose ends that we've had hanging out there for a while now, while at the same time creating a lot more.
- Brian Clayton: Like any good superhero story.
- Matt Miller: Like any good superhero story, or episode of LOST.
The 12/1/2008 IGN interview from Issue 13's release included a small teaser from Positron:
- Issue 15 will be centered around the Fifth... Anniversary of City of Heroes.
This was followed by a note from IGN stating the date of the anniversary. This caused speculation from the player-base that the issue would be released at that time.
However, GhostRaptor followed up on 3/5/2009, saying:
- Issue 15 does not have a release date, or even a release window, yet. Nothing has been officially stated. The rumour floating around that Issue 15 will coincide with the 5th anniversary is nothing more than that: a rumour. Most likely started by a very wild piece of speculation based on a comment made in an interview that had nothing to do with release dates at all.
The 12/3/2008 Gaming Nexus interview with Positron included the following question:
- Q. What's next for City of Heroes? Can you give us a hint about what to expect in Issue 14?
- A. Issue 14 is all about the Mission Architect. Issue 15 will bring us back into some more story-driven content. That’s all I can say for now about that though!
Possible Content
Though unlikely to be included in Issue 15 due to the late date involved, in-game dialogue and generally accepted timeline information suggests that Hero 1 and Omega Team's time capsule will be opened in November of 2009. If delayed long enough, Issue 15 could see this come to fruition.
Powers designer Castle posted on the forums on April 28, 2009 that there would be a buff to Dominators sometime "post I15 launch". The stated goals for the buff are to:
- Eliminate Jeckyll and Hyde feeling.
- Improve "feel" of low level play.
- Have minimal impact on "perma-dom" players.
- Increase Dominator vs. Controller viability.
Castle provided more details on the buff in a May 13, 2009 forum post. The damage bonus provided by Domination would be removed, but would be added to the base damage value of the AT.