City of Heroes News & Events & Guides

What they talked about: Last month, NCsoft and Paragon Studios announced that their superhero massively multiplayer online role-playing game City of Heroes was going free-to-play under the new name City of Heroes: Freedom.

Thus, it's no surprise where the panel started off, with the developers talking about the move and the major content update, Issue 21, that will arrive alongside it. First, Miller walked the audience through what is offered with each subscription rate, going over the same material found in the change's announcement(CoH Influence).

The City of Heroes will grow with Issue 21.

Additionally, Miller talked about the Paragon Market, the in-game virtual store by which the studio will monetize the game for the free-to-play crowd. Various in-game items will be sold via this marketplace for all character types. Additionally, it will be updated weekly with new wares.

Once players are actually in the game they will be greeted by a new tutorial for Freedom, which takes place in an updated Galaxy City. A voice-over will guide players through the tutorial. According to Paragon, this was done because the developer wanted to make the experience "like a ride in an amusement park: quick and fun(City of Heroes influence)."