Prepare to join the ranks of millions of super-powered heroes and villains. City of Heroes brings the world of comic books alive in this massively multiplayer 3D online universe. It's counterpart, City of Villains, represents the dark side of the struggle between good and evil, allowing players to create the ultimate super powered villain. City of Heroes Architect Edition includes both award-winning titles in one box, plus the innovative Mission Architect, and your choice between two exclusive in-game item packs, the Cyborg Pack or the Magic Pack.
Build your own character.
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Create expansive outdoor environments.
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Write your own storylines
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Shape a futuristic world.
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Hone sharable missions.
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Register custom characters.
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Breaking New Ground with Mission Architect
Introducing user created content. City of Heroes is pushing the MMO genre forward, allowing players to design their own missions and story arcs to share with the entire City of Heroes community. Using an intuitive interface similar to the game's detailed character creator, players can create missions from the ground up. Players will determine details ranging from environments, mission objectives, and enemies, to written fiction and character dialogue; giving their stories nearly infinite depth and personalization. Now every player can be an Architect. City of Heroes
City of Heroes is a new kind of massive multiplayer online game. If you've ever wanted to defend your city from evildoers as a mighty superhero, now's your chance. Choose your powers, join a team and go online for tremendous role-playing action. You'll also have to watch your Fame meter -- the higher your reputation gets, the more bonuses and rewards you'll get. Team up with other players online, to form new superhero groups and take down the bad guys more effectively. City of Villains
City of Villains is the standalone sequel to critically acclaimed MMORPG City of Heroes. Using a staggering assortment of new powers, abilities, and customization options, players can now experience sinister game play from the other side of the mask. With diabolical craft and guile, players forge new super-powered villain characters in an attempt to dominate the world. Heroes and authorities of Paragon City will do all in their power to thwart these evil plans of destruction. It will take a supreme effort for true domination. Key Game Features:- A copy of both City of Heroes and it's counterpart, City of Villains, access to the innovative Mission Architect, and your choice between two exclusive in-game item packs, the Cyborg Pack or the Magic Pack.
- Special online play rate for both City of Heroes and City of Villains*.
- First month of play included.
- Includes 13 free major content updates.
- Win/Mac support.
- Mission Architect features.
- Create Stories - Present your story to other players in the game through the story title, description, and character dialogue. Stories can be as short as a single mission and as long as five.
- Create Characters - Use existing characters from City of Heroes lore or create your own characters from scratch using the costume creator and a robust powers selection interface. Create individual characters which can be used as enemies, allies and contacts or create whole enemy groups to fill your missions.
- Write Dialogue - Every character that you place into a story or mission has its own dialogue. Whether it's the contact that directs characters to their mission, the hostages that you rescue, or the enemies that you must defeat, they all speak through text bubbles at various points during your encounters.
- Define Objectives - Defend, collect, defeat, destroy, rescue, and more. Mission architects can string objectives together making missions as simple or complex as desired, using up to a current maximum of 25 objectives per mission.
- Use Advanced Options - For characters and missions select alignment, placement, difficulty, animations, behavior and more. Every mission objective has multiple advanced options, allowing you to truly customize how you want your story to play out.
- Test and Iterate Before Publishing - Take as much time as you want to create your content and test it by yourself or with others. Once your masterpiece is complete, you can Publish it for other players to enjoy and rate.
- Sort Stories and Search for Key Criteria - Players can use the Mission Browser to sort published stories by rating, date, length, and title, or search for content using key words like the character who created them or the subject matter within the stories.
- Hall of Fame - Stories that have achieved a critical combination of high player ratings and number of views will be elevated into Hall of Fame status and will be listed under the Hall of Fame section.
- Developer's Choice - Stories that are hand-picked by the developer will be deemed Developer's Choice and listed within the Developer's Choice section.
System Requirements: | Minimum Specifications: | | OS: | Windows 2000/Vista/Window XP; Mac OS | | Processor: | Intel Pentium III 800 MHz or AMD Athlon 800 MHz | | RAM: | 512MB RAM or more | | Video: | NVIDIA® GeForce 2 Series, ATI® Radeon® 7500 or Intel® i810G Series Video Card | | Sound: | 16-bit Sound Card | | DVD-ROM: | 4x DVD-ROM drive or faster | | Hard Drive Space: | 4GB of Free Space | | Other: | Internet connection and fee required for online play |
*Players can play both City of Heroes and City of Villains (included in the Anniversary Edition) for the single subscription fee (approximately $15 per month). | |
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 Lesser known facts about CoH: Architect Edition | | Review Date: April 17, 2009 | | Reviewer: Rock Peterson, San Diego | Ok, there's already numerous reviews up explaining all the wonders of player created content and all the amazing things you can do with the latest update. I want to mention a few things that don't always get enough coverage.
First of all, YOU DO NOT NEED TO BUY THIS DISK if you just want to be able to play with the mission creator. You can get by just as well by buying one of the out of date expansions if you can find one for cheap (Game Stop was recently selling CoV Collectors Editions for a whopping $5.00, a bargain for the Heroclix figures alone, plus it comes with the game, an art book, and a month of free game time). If you already play the game or get the game via any other source (including the $20.00 Target game cards that come with a 30 Jet Pack), you will still be able to play with the Mission Architect system and design your own missions, story arcs, and custom villains.
So you might ask now, "Well why would I buy this then?" Simple... It comes with an up to date patch of the game. If you've ever had to download and patch an MMO that's been up and running for a couple years, you know that that can take hours or even DAYS depending on your internet speed. With the DVD that comes with this purchase (yes, it's a DVD, so you need a DVD drive to take advantage of this feature) you can install or reinstall the game much faster than downloading or even installing from an older disk and patching. That's pretty handy all by itself.
Another great advantage to it is the bonus costumes. Over the past year or so, the CoH team has taken to offering "Super Booster Packs" which are small premium expansions. It started with "The Wedding Pack" which included some very nice bridal and formal wear costume pieces and some matrimonial character emotes (like being able to throw rice). It was a niche product for a small percentage of the players that wanted those costume pieces, but the company claimed it generated enough extra revenue to allow them to put more resources into providing part of a free content update earlier. Because of this success, every few months they have released an additional premium upgrade that includes very high quality costume pieces, emotes, and a temp power that all fit a central theme. The last one was the Cyborg pack, and it was very popular. Along with the release of the Mission Architect system they have released the Magic themed Super Booster Pack, which includes some excellent Victorian style coats and cloaks, witches hats, High Collared Shoulder Capes/cloaks, and a nifty "fortune telling" power that allows you to generate a random buff for an ally.
Under normal circumstances, these Super Booster Packs cost $9.99 (plus applicable taxes) and could only be purchased online through the NC Soft Online Store. For some folks this isn't a problem, but for others who don't have a credit card or paypal access (or people living in certain nations) it was impossible to buy these upgrades. With the purchase of this edition of the game however, you also get access to your choice of the Cyborg Pack or the Magic Pack.
This is a great deal to start off with just because of the cost. When you add the free month of game time (normally $14.99) to the Booster Pack price ($9.99), this edition is a Five dollar savings! (possibly a couple bucks more depending on whether you pay tax on internet purchases in your region. I have to pay tax on my purchases from the online store, but not from Amazon, so I save almost 8 dollars overall by buying on Amazon as long as I can get something else at the same time to qualify for Super Saver Free Shipping). Also, if you don't have either booster pack yet, you can buy two copies of this edition, and use one activation code for each booster pack. The free game time you receive continues to add up so it won't be wasted!
One last thing about the Architect system itself... If you're at all like me, you may use the City of Heroes character creation system to build dozens or even hundreds of different characters just for the sake of creativity. Before, we were limited to just building characters in one of the 12 slots available on each server, and if we ran out of slots we sometimes had to erase an existing character in order to create a new one, even if we just wanted to build a character based on some concept rather than actually playing it though the whole game. With the Mission Architects ability to create custom characters to include in the missions you write, you can now make an unlimited number of characters (well, there is theoretically a limit since each character file is saved locally on your hard drive and takes up 5-10k of space, but if you have half a gig of free space, you'll probably never be able to make that many characters), and you don't have to level them up to try out special costume options likes capes, auras, or even Vanguard & Roman costume pieces. So now those of us suffering from "creative overflow" can build alts to our heart's content without having to sacrifice established characters in the game to do it! |
Long time player | | Review Date: May 19, 2009 | | Reviewer: Genericface, | | I've played this game for quite a while now. I bought this edition in order to get an updated install disk, as well as for the unlockable content in it. |
Fun and new DVD makes it easier to reinstall | | Review Date: July 14, 2009 | | Reviewer: The Doughboy, Atlanta, GA United States | Mission architect is the new system that lets players create their own missions in City of Heroes and City of Villains. Subscribers do not need this edition of the game to get access to the mission architect, but this new DVD has the latest version of the game (as of issue 14, May 2009) and makes it easier to install or reinstall. You'll spend less time downloading updates with this DVD.
The architect edition comes with a free month of gameplay and lets you choose one of several "booster packs" that have extra costumes and minor powers. The boosters normally cost about 10.00. Gameplay is about 15.00, so the architect edition is a value of nearly 25.00. It's a good deal.
I'm a longtime City of Heroes/City of Villains player. I bought this edition of the game and now I'm looking forward to the game's first expansion in four years: Going Rogue. Going Rogue will let players switch sides and will include at least two new power sets: dual pistols and demon summoning. Should be a blast all the way around! |
Not a Bad Expansion | | Review Date: November 13, 2009 | | Reviewer: William Alexander, Spartanburg, SC | I am not a "gamer," but I have enjoyed "City of Villains" for quite a while now. And this expansion pack was worth its low price for the architect features and the chance to "jazz up" your tired and boring characters, giving them new life. I had no installation problems, and it allowed a bit of fresh air into the COH/COV universe, which was becoming very staid, predictable, and stale.
Recommended at its price (not to exceed $ 19.99). I would pay no more than that for what you get, but what you do get, as I mentioned, is sufficient to justify the cost and re-enjoy the game all over again.
(Added note: Please see the comment in this review by Mr. Stull, who kindly took the time to correct my deficient gaming "lingo!" My thanks to him!)
Recommend. |
Write your own Comicbook adventure online! | | Review Date: April 15, 2009 | | Reviewer: Stephen Hayden, Landover, MD United States | | Issue 14 of City of Heroes come with a mission editor where you can create your own missions and objectives, and you can create, assign powers in combinations unavailable for players and design the look and dialog responses from minions through Arch Villians! You can give a blaster a tank's armor and make him a super tough boss. Plus this pack not only gives you a month free, it gives you your choice of the Cyborg pack with costumes, a self-destruct power and 3 emotes or the Arcane pack with costumes, 4 costume changing emotes (available when you earn a second costume slot) and a Buff/debuff teammate tarot power. By far the most popular bonus pack, it brought NCSofts store down to a crashing crawl. This box is a great deal for a month of play time and a costume pack on an excellent issue update! |
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