Update from the Homecoming Team (April 26th): Excelsior!

[Jimmy]

Hey folks,

 

We’ve got some exciting news about an additional shard, the 15th anniversary of City of Heroes, and some Double XP headed your way.

 

Before we get to that, though, we’ve got more cool stats to share!

• Peak player count has increased to just over 3,500
  
• Over 22,000 accounts have been created
  
• Over 47,000 characters have been made
  
• 1,421,429,180 XP has been earned (that’s 38 million XP per hour the last 30 hours!)
  
• 1,541,311,910 influence is being held by characters (up just over 1.2B in 30 hours)
  
• There are a couple of people who have already reached level 50, that’s real dedication!
  
• Here are the origins you all have selected; Magic continues to dominate here:
  
  • 13,612 Magic
    
  • 10,174 Mutation
    
  • 8,668 Natural
    
  • 7,455 Technology (+1)
    
  • 7,089 Science (-1)

   

  [*]Here’s a rundown of the Archetypes people are playing; Widows still aren’t seeing much love =(  :

  • 6,340 Brutes (+1)
    
  • 6,064 Masterminds (+1)
    
  • 5,996 Blasters (-2)
    
  • 5,413 Scrappers
    
  • 4,177 Controllers
    
  • 3,765 Tankers
    
  • 3,296 Defenders
    
  • 2,920 Corruptors
    
  • 2,432 Sentinels
    
  • 2,159 Dominators
    
  • 1,702 Stalkers
    
  • 777 Peacebringers
    
  • 740 Arachnos Soldiers (+1)
    
  • 709 Warshades (-1)
    
  • 508 Arachnos Widows

 

The 15th Anniversary: Double XP & Events!

In order to help celebrate the Anniversary, double XP will be enabled on Saturday, April 27th and will continue to remain active until 12:00 AM (Midnight) PST on Monday.

 

Update: Unfortunately hosting the costume contests is not an option at this time due to instability.

We may decide to try this out again once things are working more smoothly but we cannot make any guarantees at this time.

Sorry about that!

 

We are planning to host costume contests at approx. 2 PM PST on Saturday, April 27th, on the Excelsior shard. Because of the amount of players we are expecting to have online over the weekend we cannot make this a guarantee but rest assured that it something that we want to do and will try our hardest to work out.

 

As it currently stands, we plan to host these costume contests in Kings Row at Freedom Plaza (next to Blue Steel). The GMs will be spreading out across the different Kings Row instances to organize and run each costume contest.

 

The winner in each costume contest will be awarded with 10 million influence and a fancy golden title. The three runner-ups will each be awarded 2 million influence and a slightly less fancy golden title.

 

A Second Shard: Excelsior!

We have launched second shard named Excelsior! Over the past 48 hours we’ve been closely monitoring the servers, and while we’ve been able to address and resolve some of the problems, we’re at a point where any further improvements we make to Torchbearer will suffer from diminishing returns. We’re hoping that this new shard will help spread the load out a little so that we are able to continue to grow and handle all of the hugs you guys are giving the servers.

 

Here’s some information that we can provide about the shard right now:

• Global chat and Wentsworth's are shared cross-shard
  
• No character transfers will be available at this time, and this is unlikely to happen in the near future
  
• You will have the same Global name on both Torchbearer & Excelsior
  
• We cannot currently hard-cap a shard’s population. We’re going to try to keep everyone up to date on the population of the shards with the hope that the players will balance out the load between the two
  
  • Note that a shard with a lower population is going to perform better; this should incentivize playing on the new shard

   

  [*]This shard will be accessible in the same manner as Torchbearer. Simply log in with your existing account and it will show up in the list alongside Torchbearer

 

 

In order to encourage the playerbase to spread across the two servers, the 15th Anniversary double XP buff has been enabled early on Excelsior. You should have the buff as soon as you log into the Excelsior shard.

 

Permanence

The question of permanence of the servers and characters is being brought up again since Excelsior’s launch. The statement that we made on this topic yesterday still stands true for both shards; the short answer is that we do not know yet.

 

Our primary long-term goal is still to ensure that the community has a stable server that we can all enjoy together in perpetuity. Right now we cannot say if his server will be that, but we are not closed off to that possibility. If for whatever reason that primary goal requires us to shut this server down or wipe the character database, then we will do that.

 

Outside of fulfilling that goal, we don’t foresee any reason why a character wipe would need to occur.

 

 

As always… Go. Hunt. Kill Skuls.

 

 

- The Homecoming Team

[vynestra450]

Thanks for all the hard work!!!

 

By any chance, can you clarify what time the main server torchbearer will get double xp saturday? Would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

[Water]

Oh please stop "embarrassing" that Korean games company..

[Stahlfeder]

Thanks for your hard work!

[Nightmarer]

Awesome news. By the way, Excelsior global handle is different than Torchbearer's global handle (not complaining in the slightest, just letting you guys know)

[Artillerie]

Many thanks to all you folks.

[flamedevil]

Awesome! Thank you all so much. Any chance we could get a live server pop counter?

[Thanos]

I'm writing this as of 7:45pm EST, Friday night. When does either of these servers become perm?

[Veracor]

Thank you very much for the time and effort you have been putting in on this.  I last played in 2006 and have been thoroughly enjoying my nostalgia trip!

 

Legit question: Why is Magic such a popular origin?

[MWDarkAge]

Awesome! Thank you all so much. Any chance we could get a live server pop counter?

 

Maybe instead of three red dots, and actual count????

 

[silversanguis]

Permanence

The question of permanence of the servers and characters is being brought up again since Excelsior’s launch. The statement that we made on this topic yesterday still stands true for both shards; the short answer is that we do not know yet.

 

Our primary long-term goal is still to ensure that the community has a stable server that we can all enjoy together in perpetuity. Right now we cannot say if his server will be that, but we are not closed off to that possibility. If for whatever reason that primary goal requires us to shut this server down or wipe the character database, then we will do that.

 

Outside of fulfilling that goal, we don’t foresee any reason why a character wipe would need to occur.

 

I'm going to get flak for this, but i think you should just announce at the current servers are just test servers, and will be wiped.

 

You're still working out the kinks, and i25 is still unknown territory, even for the coders, especially as long as its source isn't really accessible. Throwing your eggs in this specific basket, when you don't even know whether you can expand on it, is probably a risk you may not want to take.

 

I think it's best to keep trying stuff out for now: Keep the intents and promises about wipes for until you can definitively announce a permanent setup. This will likely take a non-insignificant pressure off your back :)

[Deathmaw]

Permanence

The question of permanence of the servers and characters is being brought up again since Excelsior’s launch. The statement that we made on this topic yesterday still stands true for both shards; the short answer is that we do not know yet.

 

Our primary long-term goal is still to ensure that the community has a stable server that we can all enjoy together in perpetuity. Right now we cannot say if his server will be that, but we are not closed off to that possibility. If for whatever reason that primary goal requires us to shut this server down or wipe the character database, then we will do that.

 

Outside of fulfilling that goal, we don’t foresee any reason why a character wipe would need to occur.

 

On the note of this, I've noticed there is a command called "packageent" it requires access level 9 to execute but it dumps characters to a text file, was curious, if its possible to allow anyone to access it? just thinking it would be nice to at least keep a local backup of characters if something was to happen.

[Emperon]

Cant thank you all enough!

[MeanLady]

Ty for all the hard work and keeping us updated and hosting this weekend and EVERYTHING you all have done and continue to do for us all!

[Generator]

Thank you very much for the time and effort you have been putting in on this.  I last played in 2006 and have been thoroughly enjoying my nostalgia trip!

 

Legit question: Why is Magic such a popular origin?

 

Hmm, isn't it first in Alphabetical order?  So if someone doesn't GAF, they just click on the first one in the list?

 

Just a theory.

[Tater Todd]

I always felt like Natural and Mutant have the best Orgin powers.

[Lamb Chop]

So does that mean Torchbearer is as much a regular server as Excelsior? I was under the impression Torchbearer was a test server and Excelsior was not. Am I correct?

 

Legit question: Why is Magic such a popular origin?

 

It's the origin that most easily explains any power combinations. No science or tech or genetics requiring a backstory or explainations, just one word: Magic. Done. Easy. Or at least that's my theory.

[HelloRaptor]

Magic is probably the most removed from our mundane lives, so it's not surprising it's a popular option for escapist fantasy. It's also frequently the most flamboyant origin in its displays of personal power, if you look across super hero source material.

[Surelle]

This weekend is going to be a total blast! Thanks for all the tireless efforts-- you guys are nothing short of absolutely amazing.  Boy, who knew a month ago we'd all be celebrating the 15th anniversary like this?  Wow!!

[Valverde]

Thanks again for all your efforts!

[Heraclea]

I made my broadsword scrapper Technology orign. 

 

A broadsword is technology, innit?

 

It probably helped that the character wasn't sure how his broadsword worked.

[Chester]

Is the Double XP going to be like old days disabled in AE?

 

[Odee]

I cannot thank you guys enough, for letting me relive those glorious golden days of COH again.

[Burnt Toast]

From everything they have posted... both servers are intended to be "regular" servers.

 

So does that mean Torchbearer is as much a regular server as Excelsior? I was under the impression Torchbearer was a test server and Excelsior was not. Am I correct?

 

Legit question: Why is Magic such a popular origin?

 

It's the origin that most easily explains any power combinations. No science or tech or genetics requiring a backstory or explainations, just one word: Magic. Done. Easy. Or at least that's my theory.

[EspejoRotoCoX]

It's the origin that most easily explains any power combinations. No science or tech or genetics requiring a backstory or explainations, just one word: Magic. Done. Easy. Or at least that's my theory.

 

Not to be contrary, but coming from a game like EvE Online (where even we joke about "space magic"), I've come to embrace the way that Arthur C. Clarke explained the fuzzy line between technology and magic.

 

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

 

Magic is an easy hand-wave at the explanation, but tech and science aren't much harder to buy into once you scale them up some.