Laura Genender looks at the veteran rewards due to hit CoH/V tomorrow
Introduced with the "Issue 8: To Protect and Serve" expansion to City of Heroes and City of Villains, Cryptic Studios will be implementing a Veteran Award system that rewards players based on how long they've had an activated account for the duo of games. These rewards range from costume pieces to special powers to extra base items, including a lot of novelty items that City of Heroes and Villains fans have been anticipating since the opening of the game.
That's right, we're talking wings.
As stated above, the Veteran Awards are based on how long you have had an activated account. These rewards are cumulative; for example, players who have had an active City of Heroes/Villains account for three months will receive a "Trustworthy" badge, access to Trench coats in the costume shop, and one token for a free costume makeover. Players who have had an active account for six months will also receive a "Faithful" badge, access to Greek alphabet chest emblems in the costume shop, another free costume makeover, and the three months rewards.
Players will receive other rewards besides the cosmetic rewards. At nine months, players receive a token that allows them one free respec of their skills. Due to City of Villain's superpower trees, players can make mistakes while leveling up and picking their new powers that can only be fixed with respecs. Respecs are granted at the end of specific, difficult taskforces or sometimes when a new expansion is released. The addition of Veteran respecs will allow players another chance to switch builds without waiting for new expansions.
At the one year milestone, players receive their first Veteran power - a choice between Ghost Slaying Axe or Sands of Mu. These are permanent powers granted to the player, which do a good amount of damage with a fairly decent recharge time. At the one year mark players also receive access to the preorder skills, special sprint powers that improve player runspeeds, even if they did not preorder originally. Lastly at the one year milestone, players will receive the first of their base item rewards. These rewards are special cosmetic items that players can place in their base, such as the twelve-month weapon display cases containing enemy weaponry.
The costume rewards are common to all characters, while the free makeovers, free respecs, prestige powers, etc are redeemable through the badges window.
These rewards are escalating, and as displayed above, cater to both hardcore players looking for improvements to gameplay (powers, respecs) as well as the more casual group that enjoys costumes and base design. Some of the later cool rewards include the fifteen month wings reward, with a choice between angel wings and demon wings, the two year reward of an immediate emergency base teleporter skill, to get you out of those sticky situations, and the three year base item reward Archanos Flyer or Longbow Chaser (yes, the jets!).
This progression seems fair, allowing players fairly early access to wings, one of the most requested costume additions to the game (and yes, they are animated with flying and falling), while rewarding long-time subscribers with unexpected, awesome additions.
For now, buying months in advance will not earn you more Veteran reward time, but the system will be retroactive - i.e., if you've been playing for a year when Issue 8 releases, you will have access to the one year rewards. If your account was cancelled for two of those months, you will only have access to the 9 months reward - in short, the system only counts active account time.
Full List of Veteran Rewards
3 Months
- Trustworthy badge
- Costume Piece: Trenchcoats
- Costume Change Token given to all characters on account
6 Months
- Faithful badge
- Costume Piece: Greek Alphabet Chest Emblems
- Costume Change Token given to all characters on account
9 Months
- Dependable badge
- Costume Piece: Belly Shirt for Females, Scottish Kilts for Males
- Respec given to all existing characters on account
- Costume Change Token given to all characters on account
12 Months
- Loyal badge
- Prestige Power: CHOICE: Permanent Ghost Slaying Axe or Permanent Sands of Mu
- Pre-Order Sprints: Rush, Dash, Quick, Surge
- Base Item: Wall Mounted Weapon Displays
15 Months
- Zealous badge
- Costume Piece: Angelic Wings and Demon Wings
- Costume Change Token given to all characters on account
18 Months
- Unwavering badge
- Costume Piece: Samurai Armor
- Costume Change Token given to all characters on account
21 Months
- Steadfast badge
- Costume Piece: Shoulder Cape
- Respec given to all existing characters on account
- Costume Change Token given to all characters on account
24 Months
- Devoted badge
- Prestige Power: Emergency Base Teleporter (long recharge item that teleports you to your Base)
- Base Item: Posters of the City of Heroes Comic Covers.
- Veteran's Titles for Level 15 characters.
27 Months
- Dedicated badge
- Costume Piece: Anime-style tech armor
- Costume Change Token given to all characters on account
30 Months
- Committed badge
- Costume Piece: Signature Group Chest Emblem (Freedom Phalanx, Vindicators, Vanguard, Arachnos, PPD, Cage Consortium, CoT, Council)
- Costume Change Token given to all characters on account
- Base Items: Hero: Scirocco's Sword, Ghost Widow's Cape, Black Scorpion's Armor, Captain Mako's Tooth, Lord Recluse's Helm, Hamidon Goo. Villain: Positron's Helmet, Synapse's Goggles, Numina's Cape, Sister Psyche's Belt, Citadel's Brain, Manticore's Bow, Statesman's Faceplate.
33 Months
- Unswerving badge
- Power: CHOICE: Permanent Nemesis Staff or Permanent Blackwand
- Respec given to all characters on account
36 Months
- Addicted badge
- Base Item: Arachnos Flyer (Villains), Longbow Chaser (Heroes)
- Power (Choice): Demon Pet, Clockwork Pet, Red Cap Pet, Rikti Monkey Pet, Robot Pet
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Must...resist...urge...to rejoin...can't...must resist...
Resistance isn't futile...resist...resist....RESIST!
Check: Aggravated enough toward the PvP enforcement to resist for now...better find a game fix to resist longer...
Issue 8 went live today...veteran rewards are available right now...as well as everything else in Issue 8.
Check out the patch notes if you don't believe me:
http://www.cityofheroes.com/news/patch_notes.html
oh yeah...not to mention the forum post about it:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=7081387&an=0&page=0#Post7081387
and I can confirm this is already live on the servers...my account is up to the Loyal (12 month) level of veteran rewards....3 months shy of the wings...damnit.
Veteran rewards are always something people complain about...especially if they are new to a game or haven't been playing for long.
Agreed. And this marketing ploy didn't keep me playing, I cancelled.
Note that I would have qualified for wings in one more month but I quit in disgust at seeing them place that vital costume component as a reward. That's garbage.
The costume-creation process is the one thing that makes the CoH/V game stand out and they want to turn the most requested addition for it into a ploy to keep players.
Didn't work with me.
you must have been already ready to quit if that kind of thing forced you to quit...
what keeps me playing is the game itself...not stuff like this...I find the game fun...if you don't you shouldn't be playing anyway...if the addition of a simple costume option is something that would make the game fun to you...perhaps you should go find a ball of yarn to play with...you're obviously easily amused...
lol...just watched Superman Returns....I just got suckered into reactivating it lol.
<shrug> Fun times.
Wings is just a cape replacement... nothing biggie. I love the pets tho for the 36th month.. rikti monkey is cute :P
Everyone will get a chance to have wings, it's just the Veteran's wings got there first.
As others have said, the only advantage of the Veteran Rewards wings is 1) veterans get them before everyone else and (as yet unmentioned) 2) a veteran player can give their character wings at lvl 1. Other than that, they are purely cosmetic.
lol...just watched Superman Returns....I just got suckered into reactivating it lol.
Ahhhhh...can't lower my guard...resist I must! *holding breath*
EDIT: found my game fixe with Civ Mod: Rhys and Fall of civilisation, all made and adapted for Warlord, kinda awesome. :) Will prolly last me quite a few still. Finish 1 game with China, want to try others.
Why you say? With in 3 hours I had 2 client crashes and 3 map disconnects.. I want my 14 bucks back damn it all..
Freaking sad that is still happening today.
Yep, too bad every Issue is marred by performance problems. I had upgraded twice during CoH and the first upgrade did nothing(around Issue 6) then in Issue 7 I finally upgraded to dual-core. Find the Anandtech article on City of Villains and the Ageia card. They were right that this game is CPU limited not GPU. I went from around 20fps to always getting 30-60fps......that was all destroyed with the release of Issue 8. I thought it was because it took out the -renderthread 1 on everyone''s shortcut but I reactivated it so it uses both cores annnnd no noticeable increase in performance. Now getting around 20-25fps.
Faultline - meh. must be because the after 30 grind gets to everyone so they keep putting off level 50 content
Police Band - nice short missions and good way to earn Prestige quicker for your SG
Safeguard missions - they are ok
Costume additions - more fluff and making the character generation and changing costumer more important than it needs to be. doesn't add to gameplay imo.
Vet Rewards - tried them and unimpressed
I would rate this Issue only slightly more exciting than Issue 4. Some people will spin it as a 45 more levels of content because of the Police Band missions and a new zone but when it comes down to having played this game for a few months you will not really notice any change to the gameplay. Going from contact to contact for missions there is just not anything different/nothing you could not do before.
Lol is a bit sad my guild leaders keep popping on my head like giant Pigeons! DAMN YOU LEADERRRR!!!
As for the Fps drop.. hrmm havent noticed one yet. Nor any crashes or lag. Its so random really. Some Issues I get lag, some I dont*Shrugs*