Some new details gleaned of City of Heroes Issue 13

Carolyn Koh of MMORPG.com has recently had a chat with several of the City of Heroes developers, in particular the infectiously enthusiastic Joe 'Hero 1' Morrissey, about the history of the property and the recently announced Issue 13: Architect. The development team has doubled in size, from 20 people to 40, and the Mission Design department now has three people instead of just one. With that in mind, we're now even more curious to see the mission content in Issue 13; so far, the only Dev-made mission content that's been explicitly mentioned is more Cimerora arcs.

Much of what the interview covers will already have been picked up on by eager CoX players, but there are some nuggets of apparently brand new information. According to the article, the Day Jobs feature will not just offer appropriate buffs for logging out in a given area, but a bonus to XP when you log back in. If this feature is in, it means CoX will at last have 'rested XP', which was once (a long time ago) dismissed by one of the then-developers as 'rewarding players for not playing'. It seems a lot has changed with the shift in management.

The other major news is that the day job badges will lead to Accolades; and it's at this point that the information lockdown kicks in again, just as Positron was about to 'leak more than he should'. (Positron leaks are a serious business, as Captain Mako could tell you.) Accolades frequently unlock unique and interesting bonus powers, such as the Geas of the Kind Ones or the Demonic Aura. New badges are big news in CoX whether they unlock new powers or not, and the Day Jobs badges will no doubt have the completists in a frenzy.