14 DAY TRIAL // NCsoft says that the Issue 13 update for City of Heroes, its superhero based MMO, will no longer include the Architect, the editor which will allow players to make their own adventures.
Issue 13 is now named Power and responsibility and will feature things like The Leveling Pact, Multi Builds and a lot of rebalancing. The Leveling Pact is an option which allows two players to link their level so that they are always the same, regardless of how much each of them plays. It sounds like an interesting way of having people get their buddies into the game. Multi Builds are another NCsoft innovation, which permits a player to maintain two different builds with different load outs of the same character, with the ability to switch between them at will. The balance for some powers has also been worked on to offer a better playing experience and new seeds for some of the superpower trees have been added.
The Mission Architect will be now designated as Issue 14 and it will arrive later. The reason is that the team working on it decided that the product should incorporate a new feature, which they deem as critical for creating fresh experiences. The team is now working hard to add a tool required to create custom characters, which will be more than necessary if players are interested in creating their own adventures and their own villains to fight against.
Issue 13 will be out shortly if NCsoft does not encounter any glitch while testing it and the company says that Issue 14: Architect will arrive in the first quarter of 2009. The MMO will likely manage to retain its current player base and might even add quite a few players if it succeeds in adding a robust editor that can be used to create new adventures.