City of Heroes Senior Designer Joe Morrissey writes this developer journal telling us about the Midnight Squad, a group of heroes that has appeared in past lore, but makes their first appearance in Issue 12.

“So, why the Midnight Hour?”

The Midnight Squad takes the main focus of this issue. They’ve got some of the coolest history, yet hardly any of it has been opened up to the players. I choose the Midnight Squad because they were seriously crippled by the invasion and therefore were extremely motivated to take action against the Rikti. We did a lot with the Rikti story for Issue 10, but it was only through the single lens of the Vanguard. Now we see a second perspective, through the eyes of those hardest hit from the invasion, the Midnighters.

Rather than retreating further back into their libraries, they are stepping out of the shadows and throwing their pipes and monocles into the fight against the Rikti. The Squad has always been a group of intellects who research, discuss and analyze the world of the unknown, but now they have a purpose. They have an enemy – an enemy who thought them important enough to attack first. An intelligent man might believe there was something to that, something the Midnighters can use to their advantage. Now all that knowledge and hidden power is being turned against the Rikti.

Read more here.

I'm interested in seeing the dialogue branching in action. I12 looks like a really good issue.

... even if every time I read about it I start singing, "I'm gonna wait til the Midnight hour / when my love comes tumbling down ... " ;-)

The teases keep coming out. I am so looking forward to I 12.

Originally posted by UnSub

I'm interested in seeing the dialogue branching in action. I12 looks like a really good issue.

... even if every time I read about it I start singing, "I'm gonna wait til the Midnight hour / when my love comes tumbling down ... " ;-)

There's no branching, as far as I can tell from the article.  It seems to be more like they will now acknowledge the fact that you're a Mutant as part of their otherwise-static speech.  Or talk (linearly) about your mission status.

You know, the kind of thing most fantasy-based MMOGs have been doing since they launched.

Not that I'm trying to be a downer -- the Midnight stuff is probably going to be the best part of Issue 12.  I just question the wisdom of drawing attention to this new "feature" that should have been in the game from the start.

The branching feature has been discussed elsewhere. 

Not to say that it wouldn't have been nice for the game's designers to have access to both features sooner.  Hopefully they will go back and apply the Contextual Dialog capability to the missions shared between CoH and CoV that currently assume the player's character is a hero.

Besides the Villain EAT, this branching feature I find interesting.  If done right, it could really make the game more fun as npcs will seem to be tailored to "you" personally.

I have also read that they are working on a way to allow players to make their own missions.  Whether or not that gets into I12 or was just "on the horizon" on their part we will find out later.

Originally posted by Hexxeity

 

Originally posted by UnSub

I'm interested in seeing the dialogue branching in action. I12 looks like a really good issue.

... even if every time I read about it I start singing, "I'm gonna wait til the Midnight hour / when my love comes tumbling down ... " ;-)

There's no branching, as far as I can tell from the article.  It seems to be more like they will now acknowledge the fact that you're a Mutant as part of their otherwise-static speech.  Or talk (linearly) about your mission status.

You know, the kind of thing most fantasy-based MMOGs have been doing since they launched.

Not that I'm trying to be a downer -- the Midnight stuff is probably going to be the best part of Issue 12.  I just question the wisdom of drawing attention to this new "feature" that should have been in the game from the start.

 

I'm not sure if I have ever agreed with you before Hex, esp. about CoX, but in this case I came away with the same impression.  Not dialgoue (or consequently mission) branching but simply conversation customization.  I'm hoping they meant the former but it wasn't articulated very well if it was meant that way.

Edit:  I'd also like to add, it seems like the developers generally take baby steps towards newer, bigger features.  Perhaps contextual dialogue is a step towards mission/dicussion branching down the road but that's merely personal speculation.

Try clicking on the word "elsewhere" in my post above.  It'll take you to an article in which the branching is discussed.

the game is a dead. after all the dumb nurphing. and the same old missions over and over. other than that there isn't much to do in the game. get to 50 and thats it. instead of wasting all that energy on COV. they should have taken the bar to 70 added new missions rather than re do old zones. the game has lost alot of it's core players because of this. and whats states did with his nurphing craz. now with champions coming soon they better wake up and put out some new missions "CONTENT" OR THEY WILL GO DOWN. it's all about content. the riki thing whater we have been dealing with that for a year now same old same old. nothing new. I've stopped playing this past month after a few years.  went and played LOTR. and there at lest are things to do other than grind grind grind. which in coh is all you have., we could have items like homes and such but heh that would mean work for the devs, piff. no content no money for me.

Originally posted by tasanna

the game is a dead. after all the dumb nurphing. and the same old missions over and over. other than that there isn't much to do in the game. get to 50 and thats it. instead of wasting all that energy on COV. they should have taken the bar to 70 added new missions rather than re do old zones. the game has lost alot of it's core players because of this. and whats states did with his nurphing craz. now with champions coming soon they better wake up and put out some new missions "CONTENT" OR THEY WILL GO DOWN. it's all about content. the riki thing whater we have been dealing with that for a year now same old same old. nothing new. I've stopped playing this past month after a few years.  went and played LOTR. and there at lest are things to do other than grind grind grind. which in coh is all you have., we could have items like homes and such but heh that would mean work for the devs, piff. no content no money for me.

1. Never actually played the game

2. Played briefly and couldn't find the "I win" spec so quit

3. Turned into a CoX Hater due to some percieved nerf (not nurph) of their archtype

Anyhoo, the game has added significant content since release.  Recently the Invention system gave the game crafting and a much needed marketplace.  WIth Flashback you can redo missions you either missed or outleveled before.  Rikti Invasion was so popular they brought it back as an "encore", showing that they listen to player requests.

CoH got a lot of new content since release, even revamped the formerly dead zone of Faultline.  My only minor complaint would be for the red side to get some new zones as well like Croatoa or Striga.