City of Heroes Winter Event (on Test Server for now)

This will probably go live later in December. From the oficile forums. :)

From the forums:

Winter is blowing in across the bay to Paragon City™, and settling on the Rogue Isles™ like an icy blanket. Snow seekers are making their way to the ski slopes to find fresh new powder! New presents and threats await both heroes and villains this holiday season!

Visit the Training Room Test Server and see our latest version of the game, which includes the Winter Event. The event will be available for testing the first weekend in December, so be sure to log in and check it out!

Here are the things to look for in testing the event:

Log in:
When you first log in you will receive two temporary powers as well as have a holiday costume piece unlocked. The temporary powers are as follows:

The Holiday Spirit Temporary Power: This power will grant you 24 hours of debt protection. It is a one use power that, once turned on, will keep you from getting debt for the next 24 hours of real time passed.

The Holiday Cheer Power: This power has one use only, so choose your target wisely! Target another player who you want to give a Mystery Gift to! They can then use their Mystery Gift temporary power to get a bonus! They will likely receive 250 influence or infamy (or prestige if they are in Supergroup mode) or they might receive 1 of a variety of bonus gifts! You can obtain more Mystery Gifts through Phase 2 of the Winter Event (see below).

Use this thread to discuss the Winter Event Log in features .

Ski Chalet: [mentioned in the update 8 thread here-geo]
The mountains have fresh snow and winter fun for all! Make your way to Pocket D and through the shadow shard to enjoy this piece of winter wonderland!

Father Time’s Mission:
You can find Father Time enjoying the snow and fresh mountain air in the Ski Chalet. However, issues weigh heavy on Father Time and he is looking for assistance from both Heroes and Villains. In fact, Heroes and Villains may band together to tackle this task

Phase 2:
Starting later in the December’s 1st weekend, we will turn on the second phase of the event. This will add presents that spawn randomly across areas of Paragon City and the Rogue Isles. Click on the presents for fun!

We won’t spoil all the things you can obtain or experience from the presents, but we do want to mention that one thing you can get is another of the 1 use Mystery Gift temporary powers you obtain when you first log in.

Sometimes I think they do a better job with most events than the base game itself. :D Former players tend to flock back for these things and disappear once it’s over (in my experience, anyway).

What’s funny is my 44 martial arts scrapper still has his Santa costume (and Santa Cap, an “exclusive” from the last Winter holiday event) from last year. I just can’t believe it’s been so long.

I want my jetpack the runs on snowflakes back!

I’m guessing with the level 5-10 Mayhem/Safeguard offering a jet pack on completion it was considered “redundant” or something.

No word yet on what all is in the mystery gifts, though some people have been picking up snowball temp powers from them.

–GF

Also, obligatory images from the Father Time Mission-

Hey, it’s Snowatoa. And those aren’t reindeer.

Some more old friends come out to play - and yes, there’s a ton of icy terrain, even in the overworld.

And you save this little guy, who is a reference to either Austin Powers or the original Star Trek, depending on how old you are.

–GF

An SG bud reminded me:
-The exclusive costume pieces are furry boots, gloves and earmuffs (I think))
-On Test, they adjusted the temp debt protection so that it works for 48 hours of “in-game” time rather than 24 hours of “real time,” and is activated automatically when you login. Not sure if it will work exactly like that when it goes live.

As for jetpacks, maybe they’ll be among the gifts. They try to do something different each year.

I had argued they should supply the jetpacks to some of the NPCs in the wasted shard world (Fire Base Zulu) zone. And just have everyone in the zone receive the temp jetpack while they’re there. Maybe then players would actually spend time there. The maddening “propulsion chutes” are a mess, and it and Rikti Crash Site are probably the most un-visited, un-used zones (especially now that Faultline’s been re-done) in the game, the arenas notwithstanding. Perhaps they’ll re-do them in some later update.