City of Heroes shows off the upcoming Kinetic Melee set

I want to support CoX, but it's disappointing that, after six years and even including this new Going Rogue expansion, there is STILL no end game and little to do once you hit level 50. With GR, about all I can do is "betray" my 50 villain to the hero side (or "betray" my four level 50 heroes to the villain side) but why would I bother when there's nothing new to do once I get there?

And "guessing" that "later there will be this or that added" isn't really changing Going Rogue's content any right now, which is when they're charging for this expansion.

If you already have both heroes and villains and don't care much about leveling yet another alt to 20, Going Rogue will probably disappoint you. There's no way for existing characters to even access Praetoria's new content; you have to roll a new character there to experience it, and you're really forced to leave it for hero-side or villain-side once you ding 20. The end.

I do think that PS panicked when Champions Online first launched, so they released a lot of their planned Going Rogue content early to try and keep their subscribers, which hurt them somewhat for Going Rogue's launch. Power customization was an awesome feat, don't get me wrong, but it might have had more impact on the current CoX player base had it come inside Going Rogue's box.

Pratetoria with its several new mobs and its few new instanced maps looks flashy and all, but I sure hope Paragon Studios isn't going to use CoX's engine to make City of Heroes 2. We really don't need a second version of "a zillion instances using the same few maps over and over ad infinitum." CoX 2 needs to reinvent the series, with more open-world content and zones, faster combat, real rewards and class balance for PvP, and actual end-game content. Then they won't have to keep the post-30 leveling curve so long, either, if there's actually enough to do between PvP and capped character content that max-level players feel compelled to stay.

I have to agree with the first post here. Going Rogue looks like it will be a big miss.

I also have to wonder how the devs call slightly different mission scenario presentations and dialogue an evolution of this game. That is just sad. I know the engine is limited but they can do so much more. Seeing the same mission maps over and over is just too much. I am not into this game anymore. I will try GR but it seems like it will be a dud - post #1 covered a lot of the key points.

I don't understand what these game designers think. Honestly. Piling on the tired old content in a new wrapper is a recipe for disaster. It's too bad. I enjoy the game as it allows for casual and serious gamers. Can't wait for DCUo and SWTOR!

They are great at saying how exciting the future of CoH is but constantly fail in the actual delivery as we get the same old thing. It is NOT exciting to play through the same content with a different archetype.

I want to say so much more but all I can really say is I also agree with the first poster.

No, they need to add something substantial instead of the constant re-hashing of content. I don't care what you think about the morality system. It is yet another example of giving us a thimblefull of new content while rehashing the entire bucket. No amount of your spin can convince me otherwise. Just waiting for DCUO.

I also think GR will be a little light on content that players can actually spend time doing, but with the endgame system that follows in the next issue I expect them to be very good foundations to build a lot of new content on - the new lead dev is a zone designer/creator and mission builder, not a systems person like the outgoing lead dev, and she has confirmed that her focus will be on adding new mission/story content.

It may come too late - like many here I'm eagerly awaiting GW2, SW:TOR and the WH40K MMO, amongst others - but I think it will come, eventually. CoH has always been a game to revisit when there's new content, and not just play constantly to burnout like you would with WoW/EQ-style MMOs.

The only thing that perturbs me about Paragon Studios is that imho they turned out their best work when there were only 15 of them at the studio, post-CoV launch - from issues 7 to 12. When NCSoft reinvested tons of cash into CoH and PS started working on mission architect and GR, and started hiring tons of new staff, that's when the content in issues really slowed down and was lesser quality. Only now has it started to pick up again.

My hunch is that when you expand a studio from 15 people to 60 people it's natural that most of the senior/veteran staff would have had their time taken up by needing to train the new people - so, apart from MA, I think that explains most of the last 5 issues or so over the last 18 months - they were training exercises, done by new staff under the auspices of the vet staff. Hopefully all the training is past now, and once GR is launched they can really push content creation into high gear.

Although I can't help but think a lot of the people who worked on GR will either go on to work on another CoH expansion, or a new MMO entirely, after GR launches. We shall see.

On the whole though I still think CoH is far from dead and that there's plenty of innovation, new surprises and good stuff to come in future from Paragon Studios. They're still my favourite Dev team - certainly a lot more capable and responsive to their customers than their former co-workers at Cryptic, most of SOE's in-house teams, etc., and I'd take them over Blizzard any day (the 6 months I played WoW they patched in no new content at all, they only patched nerfs!).

I hate to say it but GR looks to be deserving of all the negative comments. I think the one ray of hope for the game is a new lead dev. She may actually realize we want things to do and not a bunch of systems. Positron had no clue and his crap incarnate system is delayed because it was not fun. That guy just doesn't get it.

Anyway, the game is not dead but it might be on it's way. If DCUO is any good at all, I will wash my hands of this game despite it's decent playstyle. Also, it;s not burnout - I think it's more to do with us getting almost the exact same things to do over and over again. Positron put this game in a bad state....it may never recover.