City of Heroes goes free-to-play today with the launch of City of Heroes: Freedom.

While a VIP subscription option is still available to players, the launch of Freedom will allow gamers to play through City of Heroes' content (including Issue 21: Convergence, also now live) all the way to the level cap free-of-charge.

Speaking of content, Issue 21: Convergence introduces a new zone to the game with the 'First Ward,' a training and testing ground for Praetoria's most elite forces and powerful weapons. First Ward will also be home to a new zone-wide event involving the Seed of Hamidon.

Convergence also adds a new Incarnate Trial taking place in the lair of the Devouring Earth, located in the depths below Praetoria. Up to 28 players can participate in the trial, which culminates in what is being promised to be a battle of 'epic proportions' against the Avatar of Hamidon.

The update's various new challenges can be tackled with the use of three new powersets now available as well: Time Manipulation, Beam Rifle, and the long-awaited Street Justice set. Of the three, Time Manipulation is available free to VIP members, while Beam Rifle and Street Justice will have to be purchased separately.

Players' powerset options aren't the only thing expanding with Issue 21, either. Four new costume sets have also been added to the game (Barbarian, Defense, IDF, and Circle of Thorns) with the Defense costume set  available free to all VIP subscribers.

If the new zone and trial aren't enough, monthly Signature Story Arcs (also available free to VIP players) are making their debut with the launch of City of Heroes: Freedom today, as well.

Finally, the launch of City of Heroes: Freedom also marks the debut of the previously detailed Paragon Rewards program, which will replace the long-running Veterans Rewards program.

Find out more about City of Heroes: Freedom at the official City of Heroes website.

too bad  players  cants guild  up and  the content  is  horribly gated witha  free accounrt.May as well be a trail account  for  all the  actual "freedom" you get.. 

Not to mention it kills that the Forums are "Read Only" to all but the VIP subscribers.

Originally posted by diceman82

too bad  players  cants guild  up and  the content  is  horribly gated witha  free accounrt.May as well be a trail account  for  all the  actual "freedom" you get.. 

 

What content is gated for a free account?  You should have free access to all the missions that aren't player created, part of the Going Rogue expansion and the First Ward zone, and the new Signature Story Arc things they're going to put out every month.  That's a teeny amount of developer content they've gated off.

Unless of course, I've misunderstood the details somewhere.

hmmm for some reason i cant register.

entered everything correctly im 99% sure.

Im one of those people who has the client is not responding issue every 30min to 1hr. Totally baffles me, Im not used to clients not working right :/ I hope they manage to fix this.

EDIT : Had to remove loads of whitelines. Somehow they are added if you edit your comment directly under the news article.

Originally posted by diceman82

too bad  players  cants guild  up and  the content  is  horribly gated witha  free accounrt.May as well be a trail account  for  all the  actual "freedom" you get.. 

"Horribly Gated"?  There are 4 Incarnate trials, a signature story arc, and the Going rogue 1-29 content.  The other 7 years of content that goes from level 1-50 with multiple leveling paths....yeah, that is still accessible.

As for joining supergroups, spend $5.00 to earn a second token, and then you can be invited to supergroups. The 400 points you buy can then be used on anything you choose.

Game is laggy as heck from my experince a couple of nights ago. To bad I remember playing this on and off for 5 years. Great game just isn't top of the line anymore.

Installed, played and uninstall it at lvl 2.

I am just burnout of this type of old MMO and the gamplay is really bad.

lol Xmenty you really DO have burn out... you didnt even make it through the 5 min initial tutorial set up.

Honestly... Froob mentality....

On another recent CoH thread, I wrote about some of the conserns i had about re-subbing and my locked characters on certain servers even though i was paying a monthly fee again.

My original complaint was that i couldnt understand why i needed to pay to unlock characters I previously had now that i am paying a subscription again.

Well, having a few hours to spend on the game last night i discovered that for each locked character I had there was an empty slot to make a new character (on the next character page over). This allowed me to either unlock a previously made toon or create a new one. Unlocking a toon takes away a create a new character space, the option of deleting the unlocked character is still available after you unlock it also. 

I have never been a F2P fan, and that is the reason i am paying a sub.

All I am saying is don't let rage/hate for F2P stop you from checking your options out.

Shame they didnt fix the game freeze and crash issues before launch.

Originally posted by Wicoa

Shame they didnt fix the game freeze and crash issues before launch.

 No freezes or crashes here. The most ive seen is maybe a slight hicup if i turn too fast with alot of people around (like under Atlas).

The game runs fine. It has always run fine.

As a whole I like COH it has amazing customization options, a healthy selection of powers and a large world. It is an RP dreamland if you are into comics. The combat is what I find lacking, it is dull and just plain old. That is the one area DCUO shines.

To bad I can't take both games and mash together the best of each.

I know what you're saying about the combat being stale, but I'm still a subscriber after 7 years.

It helps to have serious altitis.

I'm not sure why people are having lag issues. Could be buggy after the F2P patch yesterday, but they should be able to fix that without any downtime.

As far as content being "gated off"; almost nothing is off limits to free players except for a few archetypes and some of the story arcs or trials.  Also, if you ever paid any money for anything, including a retail copy of the game, then you are automatically a premium player with access to supergroups and any veteran reward time you would have qualified for transfers to the PR program. Sure there are benefits to maintaining a sub, but if there weren't then people like my wife and I wouldn't maintain subs.

I don't understand why anyone would complain about a game they don't need to pay a single penny to play. Not even for a retail box. It's also not "pay to win" because none of the "free to VIP" content is unbalancing. Almost all of it is cosmetic or actual content in the form of story arcs or trials. There is still a very active community and there are regular raids (available to any player) on many servers. If you are a fan of comic books and/or ever enjoyed the game you have no reason not to give it one or two nights a week for a month to see if it hooks you. If it doesn’t you’re out nothing but time that you probably would have wasted on a different game you may or may not have liked.

I AM IN NO WAY AFFILIATED WITH NC

I'm with BlackAfrica!  No lag, playing VIP, and loving it.   As somebody pointed out to me online, if you want to play Free and you want the locked content, you can unlock things simply by paying some cash.  The stuff you unlock is permanent, and unless it's specifically flagged only for VIP, you can buy it.  If you want to spend $5 or $10 a month unlocking things, it's cheaper than a $15 per month subscription fee.  Personally, I'll keep paying the fee.  I LIKE my VIP bonus material.  I like the game.  As for combat... Sheesh, what do you guys want, a FPS?  I hate those things.  I like simpler combat where I don't have to worry about whether my virtually non-existant hand eye coordination is insufficient or not.  If you want console style FPS Bing Bing games, go buy a Wii or something.  Not playing EQ or CoH for the combat system, playing for the thousands of other reason I enjoy these games.

Everything that has anything to do with NCSoft sucks to inbelievable degree. Confirmed also with  COH. As always as with any of their products ... 1001 problem while installing ... while trying to run ... incredible. Deleted this shit out of my computer and this was very last time I at least tried anything from them. Period.

I subbed to this years ago, nice to get back in & enjoying it quite a lot, it's dated but polished quite well. I had zero problems installing it on my 7 year old PC & it runs a charm, which is nice considering my older hardware.

I may even resub if they've tackled the problem I used to have with it's over repetition of that 1 single warehouse zone & 1 sewer they used for every damn mission. Playing a villain this time around & the mix of zones feels better than I remember from the Hero side.

Despite being an evil megalomaniac villain I could never just go around making trouble. I would see all these curious buildings around the city but you cant blow a door off its hinges and go burning/looting/raping/shooting on a whim. Felt limited.