Paragon Studios does it again

'It' being finding another way to rehash already existing content and art assets with minimal effort and some dodgy storytelling.



I love City of Heroes /City of VIllains, don't get me wrong. But...

I have to hand it to them, Paragon Studios are masters at rehashing content & assets and having their players work for them or failing that running after the carrot of rare dropping enhancement sets. The only true 'new' content that they created themselves, after Mythic Studio's hemorrhaged City of Villains, was some bland year-and-a-half-too-late Troy / 300 bandwagon jump thing. And now comes this announced expansion:

City of Heroes goes Rogue.
For the official announcement, go here.
Meaning with this "expansion" Heroes will be able to go slumming on the Rogue Isles and the Villains can clean up their act and visit Paragon City, only they can't do mayhem missions then, only goody two-shoes heroics. So what their incentive will be is anyone's guess.

I know that being able to visit the "other side" is one of the most requested features on the player forums, the other being taking down the blue forceshields which show the ends of the instanced "zones". I guess the visiting option was the least unfeasible of the two. But to me asking to be able to visit the Rogue Isles with your Hero means you're bored playing the same old, same old on your hero. But don't you feel the same with your Villain? How long is slumming on the Rogue isles doing the same old same old Rogue missions only with your Hero going to stay interesting?

Keep in mind the separate powersets have already beld over into each other. So all this is going to give you is the your brightly coloured hero running around using not-so-different-anymore powersets in the same old, same old missions. Since costume pieces have always been shared between villains & Rogues this actually adds nothing. Issue 14's Mission Architect system was way more revigorating, innovative and worthy of an actual Expansion in than this lowering of the virtual iron curtain.

Heck, pooring the Architect stuff (the making of missions) into an expansion mold might have kept out some of the crud makers and farming mission builders/users. Not to mention an expansion's budget might have included the means to have an actually working moderation system and maybe even a comparative voting system. I.e. the one system known to work when you're trying to get that 2% of User Created Content that's not crap.

They really, really need to add more than just "visiting rights" in this expansion to make it interesting (read, have them keep subscribers in the face of fresh air Champions Online).
But then again, I might be totally mistaken. They do mention something about "Alternate Reality", but that sounds more like segregation of those with- and those without Going Rogue.

Rock paper Shotgun have a more hopeful article regarding the announcement