City of Heroes: Going Rogue Preview

CITY OF HEROES is now in its sixth year – an achievement few games can claim – and NCsoft's superhero MMO is showing no signs of slowing down. I recently visited Paragon Studios to have a look at the upcoming expansion, City of Heroes: Going Rogue.

Ever since the last City of Heroes expansion – City of Villains – way back in 2005, players have desired a way to change their superhero into a being of malevolence. The team behind the game even had plans to allow for that at the launch of CoV, but it was a system that they weren't entirely happy with, so it was put on the backburner. City of Heroes: Going Rogue brings with it a system the team is finally satisfied with, allowing villains to become heroes and heroes to become villains.

The way it works is this: while playing the game, after level 20, enemies will occasionally drop "tips," which allow players to play a special mission. After playing about 10 "tip" missions, a morality mission opens up, and players have the choice of moving to a new alignment. Heroes may become vigilantes, vigilantes can become villains (or go back to hero), villains can go rogue, and rogues can become heroes or villains. There are rewards for cycling through, but there are also rewards for consistently sticking with hero or villain. Although being neutral has its own rewards, being a vigilante or rogue gives players access to the entire game – even parts of the game that were originally exclusive to hero or villain. In addition, vigilantes and rogues can team up with anyone.

The tip missions range in size, from very quick to something a little more involved. The morality missions are meant to serve as the culmination of a good deal of effort, so they're more extensive. They also follow a loose story arc of sorts, and you will see recurring characters and themes as you progress around the alignment circle.

It's all a bit complicated, though, and can be pretty daunting for new players, so along with the alignment system, a new area called "Praetoria" is being introduced. Well, it's not entirely new; veteran players may recognize it as one of the cities in an alternate dimension that had been occasionally featured within the game. Here it is fully fleshed out and playable. It serves as a training ground for players to get used to switching alliances.

Praetoria is a utopian metropolis of sorts, run by a hero known as Emperor Cole to some and Tyrant to others. His grip on his society has naturally caused his people to splinter into two groups – the Loyalists and the Resistance – and which side you take is totally your personal choice. But beware, for your choice can have far-reaching and permanent implications such as the death of your mission contacts.

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For a game as old as City of Heroes is, Praetoria is surprisingly sleek. The buildings mix different architectural styles, and the slow drift from pristine in the center to ghetto at the city limits serves to show where Cole/Tyrant's interests lie. The details, such as the propaganda spread around the city, serve to flesh this idea out further.

Players creating a character in City of Heroes: Going Rogue will have access to all 10 hero archetypes, rather than the five that heroes and villains are each limited to. In addition, two new power sets are available – dual pistols and necromancy.

I messed around with a low-level dual pistols character for a while, and I have to admit, it was pretty neat. Higher level characters have access to much cooler maneuvers, of course, with bullets whizzing and spinning everywhere as well as a multitude of status effects to inflict.

While the expansion doesn't seem to add a great deal of content to the endgame (players will have to wait for a post-expansion patch for that), it looks like it creates a huge amount of content for good players who want to be bad and vice versa. We'll have to wait until it is released in August to get a full feel for how City of Heroes: Going Rogue has shaped up.