Dev Diary - Spring Flings & Wedding Things

[Cobalt Arachne]

  

💟 Hello, Homecoming do-gooders, evil-doers, and other dimensional entities! 💕

Hey everyone, it's Cobalt Arachne!
I'm one of the designers here on the Homecoming Team!

Hope everyone is having a fabulous February! It’s that time of year again! Spring is a flingin' and to celebrate we’ve added a brand-new event mission!

But beyond that, we’ve added a missing piece of City of Heroes history back to the game for the first time, allowing our players to experience what was a pivotal narrative moment in the series’ timeline!

 Tis the season and romance is the reason! 

 

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Back during the Spring Fling event of 2008 (Wow… 17 years ago, crazy!), the development team running the game at that time organized a special live in-game event for players to experience a momentous occasion.

 

The developers logged in as their signature characters for a special performance where two of the game’s NPC heroes, Manticore and Sister Psyche, were to be married, and they were going to let the players be a part of it. This was during the heyday of heroes vs. villains, so of course, the wedding would see the Arachnos bad guys interfere, and in the end the whole event devolved into an insane PvP free-for-all, with players having the opportunity to fight alongside and against the developers in a chaotic scrap.

 

It was a unique experience, but one many remembered fondly but also one that many didn’t have the chance to experience, given the limited seating available and the short run of the event.

 Ah, good old 2008 screen resolution! 

 

@Arcanum brought forward a suggestion that we could re-create the wedding event in mission form, with the content added to the game in a way that could be experienced by those who weren’t players back then or didn’t have the opportunity to join the event when it was running.

It was a fascinating and unique part of City of Heroes’ history, and we wanted to find a way to bring it back due to how limited the experience was originally.

 

Since I myself also missed this event, the idea of recreating it and bringing it to life for everyone else who missed it to experience was particularly exciting, and I got to work right away on bringing the idea to life.

 Step aside Sela Vermont, Cobalt's organizing this timeline's wedding! 

 

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With the idea in hand, I took the lead in designing a new mission experience that would emulate the happenings of the original wedding event, and in a fun way we could add to the game as part of this year’s Spring Fling event.

For me, it was about ensuring two things:

1. Faithful to the original event.
2. Channeling the same fun/chaotic vibes.

 

To ensure the first, we found an archived video on YouTube of the original event; From here I transcribed the wedding ceremony text and vows, this ensuring they had 100% historical accuracy. Everything Positron, Manticore, and Sister Psyche say during that ceremony is faithful to the original event.

 

We even fished up the original special map version of Ouroboros that was used in the original and restored it for this occasion!

 Timelines? Time is not made of lines, it's made of circles! That's why Ouroboros is round! 

 

Next, to secure the second goal, after the ceremony we needed to recapture that element of instant chaos, with Lord Recluse appearing without warning and the whole event descending into a mad brawl!

 

I wanted this mission to have something a little more unique, so I gave players a pair of AV helpers, which allowed for the mission design to lean a little more into the chaotic element by letting us have larger groups of enemies, since the AV helpers would ensure players didn’t run into completion issues. This helped in ensuring the vibe felt appropriate to the content!

 Wow! What a turn out! Seems like everyone was invited! 

 

Lastly, the Freedom Phalanx all received special wedding outfits for the original event, and not wanting the villains to feel left out, we gave the Arachnos elite their own brand new fancy outfits!

After all, if you're going to crash your nemesis' super group's special occasion, a true super villain knows to do it in style!

 Evil never looked so fashionable! 

 

For those looking for something a little bit spicier at Level 50, might I recommend the team leader talking to Positron when they have both the Best Man / Maid of Honor + Wedding Crasher badges?

There might be a dangerous surprise waiting in store! 💫

 

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That's all for this Valentine's dev diary! It's our hope that everyone has fun with this year's Spring Fling event!

Additionally, look forward to Issue 28, Page 2 and beyond, coming later this year!

Everyone is working hard to create some really impressive stuff for our loyal heroes, villains, and Praetorians!

 

💌 Thanks for being awesome players, Homecoming! Here's to another year of City of Heroes in 2025! 💞

[bentlax33]

So Awesome!  This was such a great idea!!!!!  I can't wait to experience it.

[lobster]

Missed this the first time around, looks fun!

[Starhammer]

Love the bow tie on Black Scorpion and Mako. Hope we see them available for players as more generalized chest details or shoulder options soon 🙂

[Canopian]

This sounds fantastic. Can't wait to try! Loved reading the thought process behind it. Thank you!

[Cliff_Snowpeak]

What a fantastic idea! I never got to experience the original event back in the day, so this is going to be such a treat. This team has been doing an amazing job, finding ways to remain faithful to the original game, while trying to improve the experience for everyone who's stuck with it for 20 years, and this looks to be no exception. Really looking forward to this!

Also, I love Mako's little bow tie!

[Tygorr]

Very cool. I missed the original event due to being deployed to the Middle East. Thanks for bringing it back.

[TauntingMonk]

Thank you so much! Amazing work!

 

 

 

 

P.S. don't mind the tears...  my eyes are just really sweaty right now is all..

[starro]

No I don’t bitterly remember being locked out of the event. COH fans never hold a grudge. 

[VULCAN]

Damn ! You rocks !!!

[Shockwave_]

I have to say, you hit a home run on this one.  Having played through it several times now, I can say it is a fun and chaotic mission.  Would love to see more short pure chaos stuff like this.

[laudwic]

The Surprise is really fun with the right team!

[DawL]

Very cool! Very nice to let the players all get the chance to "be there"! What a unique idea for a mission setting. I hope this will be a yearly thing for the Spring Fling!

[eltfreak]

Fantastic!  I was graduating college this year so was a bit too busy in life to play this.  15+ years later, I'm gonna play he 4311 out of this!

[Acroyear]

I remember the original event on Live from way back in 2008. This new version of the event is a lot of fun. Thanks for your hard work in providing an enjoyable experience! 

[angar 100]

Sadly this requires going to pocket D so I will not be doing this content.