Archived News: Difference between revisions

From Unofficial Homecoming Wiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search
imported>TonyV
mNo edit summary
imported>SekoiaBot
m (Robot: Cosmetic changes)
 
(12 intermediate revisions by 3 users not shown)
Line 1: Line 1:
__NOEDITSECTION__
__NOEDITSECTION__
__TOC__
__TOC__
=== December 8, 2005 ===
{{:News/20071106}}
{{:News/20071029}}
{{:News/20071022}}
{{:News/20071009}}
{{:News/20070903}}
{{:News/20070829}}
{{:News/20070823}}
{{:News/20070724}}
{{:News/20070723}}
{{:News/20070715}}
{{:News/20070627}}
{{:News/20070604}}
{{:News/20070502}}
{{:News/20070501}}
{{:News/20070426}}
{{:News/20070422}}
{{:News/20070406}}
{{:News/20070403}}
{{:News/20070309}}
{{:News/20070307}}
{{:News/20070305}}
{{:News/20070213}}
{{:News/20070120}}
{{:News/20070117}}
{{:News/20070114}}
{{:News/20061128}}
{{:News/20061014}}
{{:News/20060925}}
{{:News/20060811}}
{{:News/20060305}}
{{:News/20060227}}
{{:News/20060220}}
{{:News/20060208}}
{{:News/20060207}}
{{:News/20060131}}
{{:News/20060122}}
{{:News/20060115}}
{{:News/20060106}}
{{:News/20051215}}
{{:News/20051208}}
{{:News/20051125}}
{{:News/20051122}}
{{:News/20051102}}
{{:News/20051031}}
{{:News/20051024}}
{{:News/20051018}}
{{:News/20051013}}


==== Winter Event 2005 ====
[[Category:News]]
 
The Winter Events of 2005 have begun!  Beginning today, all characters logging in will receive the [[Longbow Reservist Badge]] (if the character is a hero) or the [[Jet-Setter Badge]] (if the character is a villain).  In addition, all heroes and villains will receive the [[Temporary Powers#Holiday Rocket Pack|Holiday Rocket Pack]] as a whopping ''30-day'' temporary power!  See [http://www.cityofheroes.com/news/fc_radio_address.html Miss Liberty's Radio Address] and [http://www.cityofvillains.com/news/blackscorpionholiday.html Black Scorpion's Memo] for the announcement.
 
=== November 25, 2005 ===
 
==== New Admin: Arkenor ====
 
First of all, I'd like to welcome [[User:Arkenor|Arkenor]] aboard as the first site co-admin.  He's been an invaluable member of the wiki, having contributed and edited several articles, and even catching a couple of vandalism attempts.
 
==== Maintenance Monday: 2:00am EST ====
 
This Monday, November 28, I am going to run some routine maintenance on the ''Paragon City Free Press'' site, including the wiki, beginning at 2:00am EST (7:00am GMT).  During this time I will be backing everything up, shuffling a bunch of stuff around, and optimizing the databases.  I hope to be done by 6:00am EST (11:00am GMT).  Hopefully, it won't take that long, but I can't swear that it won't take a little longer.
 
During the outage, the site will be redirected to an "Under Maintenance" page.
 
=== November 22, 2005 ===
 
==== City of Villains Survey ====
 
Today, I received an e-mail from a psychology researcher for the University of Queensland, Australia conducting a study on social aspects of online game play such as how people adjust to playing a new game and how they come to identify with their new character.
 
He is seeking respondants to a short survey (approximately ten minutes).  To encourage players to take part, they are offering 12 free months of gameplay to one randomly selected participant.  If you are interested in taking the survey and entering the drawing, visit the [http://www.psy.uq.edu.au/webq/public/survey.php?name=City_of_Villains_Survey survey site].  I've also added a site link on the left in the "links" list.
 
=== November 2, 2005 ===
 
[[Image:ModMap.jpg|right|thumb|New version of Map Patch]]
==== Map Patch v0.4 Released ====
 
I've updated the [{{CoVMapPatchLatest}} downloadable in-game maps] to version 0.4.  There were a few minor additions and an icon added to aid in getting the [[Sweet Tooth Badge]] in Cap au Diable.  Currently, only the big four maps are included (Breakout, Mercy Island, Port Oakes, and Cap au Diable) plus Bloody Bay, but very soon I plan on releasing version 1.0, which will include all known information about all city zones.  Stay tuned!
 
=== October 31, 2005 ===
 
[[Image:CoHCoVLogo.png|right|thumb|City of Villains Goes Live!]]
==== Go-Live! ====
 
The City of Villains beta and head start is over, and the game is now officially live for the general public.
 
==== A shorter URL ====
 
I have added '''<nowiki>http://wiki.pcfreepress.com</nowiki>''' to be redirected to this site.  This may make it a little easier to give the URL out in-game.  The old URL of '''<nowiki>http://www.pcfreepress.com/wiki</nowiki>''' will continue to work as well, in case anyone has the site bookmarked.
 
==== Please direct people to this site ====
 
Speaking of giving out the URL in-game, if you find this wiki useful, please refer people to it in-game.  I don't derive any financial profit from raising traffic at the site (in fact, it could eventually end up costing me a little more money if throngs of people flock here), but as a stereotypical geek, it makes me all warm and gooey inside when I see good numbers of visitors each month coming to see what's here.
 
==== News Archive Added ====
 
The news section was just plain getting too long.  I have added a [[Archived News]] page to save these items in.  I will leave the latest one or two things here.
 
=== October 24, 2005 ===
 
==== FAQs Added ====
 
I have added an article called [[FAQs]] to answer questions I constantly see in the chat channels.  If you're new to the game, please take a look, as it will be very helpful when you're just starting out.  Even if you've been around the block a while, you may still learn a thing or two!
 
If there are any questions you constantly see, please feel free to add them to the article.
 
=== October 18, 2005 ===
 
==== Added Content Update ====
 
I have added a lot of content over the past week.  The main thing I have been working on is getting maps, locations, and descriptions for [[Badges|badges]] entered.
 
In addition, I have created [{{CoVMapPatchLatest}} in-game maps] of the Rogue Islands.  Right now, I have maps ready of [[Breakout]], [[Mercy Island]], [[Port Oakes]], [[Cap Au Diable]], and [[Bloody Bay]], including marked locations for badges, monuments, [[reputation|Fortunata Fateweavers]], and Arachnos HQ's (where villains create Villain Groups and bases).  I have a bunch more to do.  Today, I spent a lot of time mapping out the locations of the firebases in Bloody Bay and will update the maps very soon.
 
=== October 13, 2005 ===
 
==== NDA Lifted ====
 
The City of Villains Nondisclosure Agreement has [http://boards.cityofvillains.com/showflat.php?Number=212542#Post212542 officially been lifted], so City of Villains articles can now be added to the wiki!  I am eagerly anticipating being able to add lots of stuff over the next few days, so stay tuned!
 
==== City of Villains Content Categories Added ====
 
I have added a special [[:Category:CoV|CoV category]] about content that is City of Villains-specific to make it easier to find material related to that game.  I will eventually re-edit all City of Heores-specific articles to be part of the [[:Category:CoH|CoH category]].

Latest revision as of 01:19, 10 June 2009

Tuesday November 6, 2007

NCsoft Acquires City of Heroes Franchise

NCsoft announced today that they have acquired the City of Heroes/City of Villains games in their entirety from Cryptic Studios and are creating a brand new studio to house its future development and expansion. Members of the Cryptic Studios development team have been hired by NCsoft to continue development on the City of Heroes games and will relocate to the new NCsoft NorCal studio.

As part of this change, the following bonuses will be implemented:

  • All players with accounts will have access to City of Heroes and City of Villains going forward. There will be no differentiation between the games for paid accounts.
  • At a date to be announced in the future, a one-time elimination of all character debt will take place.
  • Also at a date to be announced in the future, a one-time grant of 20,000 prestige per member will be awarded to all supergroups.

For more information please see the following resources:

We at the Paragon Wiki wish NCsoft the best, and will do our best to continue helping out with the City of Heroes community! Monday October 29, 2007

Issue 11 Open Beta

Issue 11 on the Training Room test server has been opened up to the public. Now is the time to go test all the new features of the Ouroboros and the Flashback system. You can copy your character via the character transfer utility. Monday October 22, 2007

You might have noticed the new Paragon Wiki logo in the top left corner of the page. We wanted to send a quick shout-out and thanks to Kanti, the designer. Thanks Kanti, it's awesome!

Halloween Event 2007 Live!

Trick or treat, the Halloween Event 2007 is now live on the servers! The event will be active through Sunday, November 4. There are three brand new badges available, along with the eight from years past. Be sure to read the Paragon Wiki article to get all of the information. Tuesday October 9, 2007

Issue 11 Closed Beta

Issue 11 has been patched to the Training Room testing server. It is in Closed Beta testing right now. We remind all those invited to honor the NDA.

An interview with Positron (citation needed) predicts that Issue 11 will be on the live servers long before December 12th(21st?). And Lighthouse says "Closed beta is not planned to be anywhere near as long as Issue 9 beta. Thanks for your understanding while we proceed with testing Issue 11." Monday September 3, 2007

Tabula Rasa Beta Key Contest Winners

Congratulations to the winners of the Tabula Rasa Beta Key contest! I've posted a message with the answers to the contest trivia questions and the winners in the Paragon Forums. I'd also like to give a heavy-duty shout-out to Wikia, who will be hosting the Paragon Wiki in the very near future, and who acquired the beta keys for this contest! Thanks again, and keep an eye out for future contests. --TonyV 23:22, 3 September 2007 (EDT) Wednesday August 29, 2007

Tabula Rasa Beta Key Giveaway

Aw, shucks, anything I write here is for historical purposes since there's a big yellow banner across the top of the page. Still, if historical purposes we need, historical purposes we'll have!

The Paragon Wiki and Wikia are giving away several beta keys to Richard Garriot's Tabula Rasa, compliments of NCsoft! To enter to win one of the keys, simply answer a few trivia questions, all of which can be found right here in the Paragon Wiki. The contest ends this Saturday (September 1, 2007) at 8:00pm Eastern. Thursday August 23, 2007

Paragon Wiki is moving to Wikia

Hey all, the Paragon Wiki is going to be moving to Wikia in a week or two. The plans have all been made, and I'm working with their technical gurus to get it all moved over. Don't worry, though, I'm not going to be leaving any time soon, I'll still be the administrator of the wiki and active in its continued growth and development.

I've written an article specifically about the move, including some questions and answers. If you have any other questions or concerns, please feel free to post a message on the Paragon Forums or e-mail me directly at tonyv@pcfreepress.com.

While the site is moving, I highly encourage everyone to pop over to Wikia and have a look around. I think you'll be impressed with their setup, and hopefully you'll be as excited as I am about us moving over!

--TonyV 21:37, 23 August 2007 (EDT)

Tuesday July 24, 2007

Issue 10: Invasion live!

<linkedimage> wikipage=Issue_10 tooltip=Issue 10: Invasion img_src=Image:Issue10.png img_alt=Issue 10: Invasion </linkedimage>

Issue 10 was released to the live servers this morning. The Rikti have been upgraded and are invading once again. Heroes and Villains must join together under the flag of the Vanguard to face this common foe.

All related articles will be updated by the end of the week (hopefully). Monday July 23, 2007

Update: Daily backups up and running again

After last weekend's disaster on a stick, a lot of time and effort has been dedicated to ensuring that reliable automated daily backups are being made once again. The results so far are that the entire wiki and forums databases are being backed up every morning at 4:30am Eastern (8:30am UTC), the least busy time of day for the wiki, and being stored off-site. Other changes are coming as well to make the wiki more stable and reliable; read this thread in the Paragon Forums for more information. Sunday July 15, 2007

Major Outage! DOOOM!!!

Okay, not DOOOM, but still a pretty major outage. The short version is that I did something stupid that wiped out the entire wiki database, and it's taken me a couple of days to get it restored and back online. All edits from 18:19 UTC on Tuesday July 10 until approximately 14:00 UTC on Saturday, July 14 have been lost, and Paragon Wiki has been inaccessible almost this whole weekend. http://paragonforums.com/forums/images/smiles/icon_cry.gif

I can't apologize enough for the inconvenience, but just in case one more time helps, I'm really sorry. We've gone for over a year and a half without any major hiccups, so I guess we were almost due. Nevertheless, I'll take corrective measures this week to make sure that nothing like this happens again and to mitigate the consequences a lot better in the event that it does. I'll post updates in the forums as I make progress.

Changes, changes, changes

The changes that were being made when this whole mess was instigated have been implemented. The most major one is that the URL to access the wiki and its articles has changed. Before, it was http://paragonwiki.com/stuff. Now, it is buried one subdirectory deeper, under http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/stuff. Why? here is the full discussion.

I've also taken advantage of the fact that the wiki was down hard for so long to go ahead and make a minor upgrade of MediaWiki from version 1.10.0 to 1.10.1. Lemonade, right?

Last, but not least, I've made a few back-end changes to make managing the site easier. (This is the step which actually caused all the kerfuffle.)

I'll post more information as I can on the forums, and if you have any trouble, please let me know.

--TonyV 20:34, 15 July 2007 (EDT) Wednesday June 27, 2007

Issue 10 Public Beta

Issue 10 open beta testing is open! Hit the Test Server and give the new content a run for its money. Monday June 4, 2007

Double XP Weekend

Double XP Weekend is rolling around once again. This time, it's June 15-17. Time to pull out all those level 30-somethings you have and see how far up you can take them! A great time to sidekick and lackey your friends, and an even better time to refer them to the game. Wednesday May 2, 2007

Wiki Optimizations

Wow, what a hard day this has been on the Paragon Wiki! You guys pounded our sparkly new server with 100% utilization almost all day today! No, really, it wasn't our fault at all! It was Issue 9, and it's not like we had a configuration parameter set wrong that could have been a contributing factor. No, really we didn't! We really... Um...

What were we talking about again? Oh yes...

We have installed the accelerator software on the new server, and it has made a big difference in the Wiki's performance. Will it be big enough? We'll know better once the throngs of people are hitting the site again at peak hours. In the meantime, you can keep up with our progress in the Site Issues forum.

Sorry again for the miserable performance today, and rest assured that we will continue making improvements! Tuesday May 1, 2007

Issue 9 Released

Issue 9 has been officially released to the live servers. Get inventing, folks. https://web.archive.org/web/20071004061257/http://paragonwiki.com/forums/images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif

Paragon Wiki has Moved!

What is the "read-only" and Paragon Wiki relocation stuff about? As mentioned in the previous news item, due to increasing traffic on the Paragon Wiki, the site has relocated to a server with additional computing resources to help the site run better and handle a load that had the old server squirming. I know, bummer of timing, but it was a necessary evil in order to keep everything on the site running smoothly.

As always, whenever a major infrastructure change takes place, there is a chance that it might cause bugs and glitches in the system. If you notice any problems, please post a message in the Site Issues section of the Paragon Forums. Thursday April 26, 2007

A Season of Growth

Well, first the good news: The Paragon Wiki continues to enjoy astounding growth. Now, the bad news: The Paragon Wiki continues to enjoy astounding growth. We are now seeing well over 1,300,000 page hits a month and have increased traffic and visitors by around 35% in the first quarter of 2007. As a result, the Wiki has officially outgrown its shared host and needs to be moved to a location that can handle the amount of resource load placed on its server.

We are currently in the process of acquiring a virtual private host to be the Paragon Wiki's new home, and this week, perhaps extending into the weekend, we will be setting up the new server and moving everything over. Ideally, this process will be completely transparent, and no one will be any the wiser until the yellow banner at the top of this page goes away.

In reality, there will be at least a little bit of downtime while the transfer is in process, and depending on how well the move goes, that downtime may extend to longer than "a little bit." We'll certainly do our best to keep at least some sort of notice posted on the progress.

We're sorry in advance for any prolonged outage, but rest assured that we are working diligently to make this transition as quick and painless as possible. Sunday April 22, 2007

Caching Enabled!

I won't make any bones about it—the wiki has gotten very busy lately. We are serving up well over a million pages every month to players looking for information (45,993 pages yesterday alone!), and as a result, the wiki is putting a pretty good beating on the server where it's installed.

To try to increase performance and reduce the load on the server's CPU, a few changes have been implemented. Ideally, these changes will be completely transparent to all of the wiki's visitors. Of course, whenever any type of major changes take place, though, things sometimes go awry. If you notice any weirdness or errors, please feel free to post a message in the Site Issues forum, or if you can't reach the forums, e-mail me at tonyv@pcfreepress.com and let me know.

To anyone who's curious, the exact changes I've made are:

  • Installed my own (hopefully!) optimized copy of php 5.2.1
  • Installed and configured FastCGI in php
  • Built and installed eAccelerator, a compiled php caching system

Hopefully, these changes will not only make my hosting provider happier, but speed up access to the wiki as well. Friday April 6, 2007

Massive Information Upload of Issue 9

Since Issue 9 was released to public beta without that pesky non-disclosure agreement to get in the way, massive amounts of information about Issue 9 have been added to the Paragon Wiki. Some of the highlights include articles on:

In short, be sure to check in frequently with the Paragon Wiki for the latest and greatest information on this major new feature release to City of Heroes and City of Villains. If you have any questions, don't be afraid to drop by our forums, and as always, be sure to edit any articles that are unclear, incorrect, or incomplete. Remember, you are what makes the wiki work so well! Tuesday April 3, 2007

Issue 9 open to all on Training Room

The Closed beta of Issue 9 has ended. Training room open to all. Badges and other information being added wiki as this is typed. Friday March 9, 2007

European Users Able to Buy U.S. Codes

According to reports on the official forums[1], European users are now once again able to buy codes to access U.S. servers. Wednesday March 7, 2007

PlayNC European Store Update

According to ThinIce on the official forums, the following message was received by support regarding the inability for players to order game and upgrade codes for servers outside of their region:

"We apologise for the inconvenience, however if you cannot currently see the option to purchase a US serial code, this will be changed in a few days. In the meantime, we thank you for your patience." [2]

It now appears that the change to the stores was intended only to be a default, not to lock players into playing on certain servers. More updates will be posted as received. Monday March 5, 2007

European Players Denied U.S. Server Access

Important Note: To clarify, existing European players are still able to access the U.S. Servers. The following applies to new accounts and account upgrades only.

Players with European IP addresses are now unable to purchase game codes for playing on U.S. servers.[3] As a result, all new purchases of City of Heroes, City of Villains, and premium account upgrade options from NCsoft within Europe are effectively denied for non-European server access. This action was implemented without any advance warning, other than an announcement that the option to transfer accounts from U.S. servers to to European servers would be disabled[4], with no warning that new accounts and premium account upgrades would be denied to European players.

The motives behind this decision are subject only to speculation, but a post in the official NCsoft forums offering to facilitate Europeans obtaining codes for playing on U.S. servers was deleted. Since NCsoft doesn't wish for messages pertaining to such an offer to be posted on their site, I (TonyV) will echo it here:

If anyone wants to get a U.S. code, drop me a PM or e-mail me at tonyv@pcfreepress.com and we'll see if we can work out getting you one through PayPal or something. (But that's just a friendly offer; if I start getting hundreds of requests or people don't pay me back, I'll stop.)

If you wish to contact me via forum private message regarding this offer, please do so on the Paragon Forums instead of NCsoft's forums, as I do wish to respect their decision not to have messages of such a subject posted or sent via their forums. Tuesday February 13, 2007

Valentine's Day Event Live!

The Valentine's Day Event 2007 is now released on the live servers! Among the perks in this event are:

  • The rare ability for heroes and villains to work together to accomplish missions in Pocket D
  • Several new badges, including badges from last year's Valentine's event and badges normally available exclusively to a character's enemy's side
  • A new "Heart" costume pattern

Be sure to check out the article for all the details about the event! Saturday January 20, 2007

Issue 9 info

A confirmed list of content to appear in Issue 9 has been released and added to the wiki. Anxiously awaiting it's drop to Training Room. Smilies smile.gif Wednesday January 17, 2007

Double XP Weekend Coming January 26-28

Double Experience Weekend is Coming! Jan 26-28!

Gather your teams and get ready! Shape up your soloing prowess! Get those eager lackeys and sidekicks in line! It's time to clean up and cash in!
Another Double Experience Weekend looms on the horizon! Mark January 26th to the 28th on your calendar because you won't want to miss it! All weekend long, experience, infamy/influence and prestige rewards will be doubled! It's time to level up!
This does not include enhancement drops.

MediaWiki Upgrade

An upgrade to the wiki *may* occur this weekend as well. However, everyone should be enjoying the double rewards too much to notice. Sunday January 14, 2007

Paragon Maps updated to v2.0

Forum Announcement:

Paragon Maps has been updated. Most notably are the addition of Safeguard missions. Download from here. Tuesday November 28, 2006

Issue 8 is live

Testing time is over, now get out there and find out the real truth about Faultline. And Paragon City drug stores are reporting a huge increase in sales of allergy medicine, due to all the dander floating about from the new wings! Saturday October 14, 2006

Issue 8 on Training Room Server

That's right, it's your chance to play with all of the nifty new features of Issue 8 before it goes live! The Paragon Wiki is busily updating all of the information to reflect the new changes. Stay tuned, because there is a LOT more to come! News/20060925 Friday August 11, 2006

Upgrade!

The Paragon Wiki is now running on the latest version of MediaWiki, version 1.7.1. This will allow for some new features to be implemented as well as correct some potential security issues. There is a discussion topic about the upgrade on the forums. If you have any issues or comments about the upgrade, feel free to drop by and let us know.

The upgrade took place from approximately 1:30pm EDT until 2:30pm EDT, and all went relatively smoothly. Sunday March 5, 2006

New Hero Wiki Skin Implemented

Changes are afoot! There is a new skin called "Heroic," and it has been set to the default skin of the wiki. All existing accounts have also been switched over to the new skin. If you prefer the old skin, simply go to your Preferences under the Skin settings, and set your skin back to MonoBook.

The changes are purely cosmetic and do not affect the look or feel of the actual wiki content, merely the outer navigational, header, and footer appearance. If you experience any difficulties with this skin or you have any comments or questions, please post a message on the wiki forums and let me know. Otherwise, enjoy! Monday February 27, 2006

Software Upgrade

The Paragon Wiki has been upgraded! This weekend, after extensive testing and and development of software installations and automation scripts, the MediaWiki software that runs the Paragon Wiki was upgraded from version 1.4.9 to version 1.5.6. (If interested in the technical details, please see the MediaWiki release notes.)

When all was said and done, the upgrade went very quickly and smoothly. The wiki was down from 3:20 am EST until 3:23 am EST. For a pretty major upgrade, that's not bad at all. Still, if you notice any glitches or problems, please e-mail tonyv@pcfreepress.com or post a message on our forums.

If you happened to try to access the wiki between 3:20 am EST and 3:23 am EST early Monday morning, I apologize for the inconvenience. Monday February 20, 2006

City of Villains Exploration Badges Complete

Hey all, a rather intensive effort over the past couple of days to document and audit all of the City of Villains Exploration Badge articles is complete. In addition to the normal wiki information fare, each article has got the badge description, a detailed explanation of how to get to the badge, and an in-game picture showing you exactly where the badge is. Also, each has been formatted according to a rational standard and categorized correctly.

Valentine's Day Event 2006 Wrapping Up

If you have not participated in the Valentine's Day Event 2006 activities, you should be sure to log on now. The event wraps up the morning of Wednesday, February 22, 2006, so you only have a little time left! Wednesday February 8, 2006

Valentine's Day Event 2006

Wow, a brand new unpublished event was sprung on us today! At midnight Eastern (for the east coast servers) and 9 pm Pacific (for the west coast servers), heroes and villains who logged in received a new costume part and an accolade! Read more about the event in the Valentine's Day Event 2006 article! Tuesday February 7, 2006

Paragon Wiki Forums Test

Test forums have been installed for the site to discuss anything you have on your mind, such as mistakes in articles, requests for articles, asking for help, and so on. Currently, the forums and the wiki use two different user databases, but before the forums are considered live, the databases will be integrated. We apologize for the inconvenience, but hey, that's what makes them test forums! If you'd like to participate in the test, register for an account and post away.

Also please note that as test forums, you should consider them purely beta, and though we'll be making periodic backups of the database for them (as part of my own administrative testing), you should keep copies of anything that you consider too important to be lost if the forum database eats itself on a whim. The default phpBB logos, colors, and icons have not been changed, but before the forums are considered live, there will definitely be some "aestheticization" of the site.

A New Domain Name

The domain name paragonwiki.com and its variants have been registered and redirected to this site. Since the Paragon City Free Press and the Paragon Wiki serve two conceptually different functions, serious consideration is being given to splitting them up. Before you panic, All current pointers will be retained, so all existing bookmarks, links, and such will still work fine. Mainly, the look of http://paragonwiki.com is better than http://www.pcfreepress.com/wiki, as it's much more readily apparent what it points to and it's much easier to remember. More information will be posted on this later. Tuesday January 31, 2006

Issue 7 Preview Released

The Issue 7 Preview has been released on the City of Heroes and City of Villains official sites. With a new zone, new mission types, an increase in the villain level cap, new power sets, and much, more, this looks like it will be an exciting new chapter in the CoH universe! Sunday January 22, 2006

New Administrator

I've added another person as an administrator of the site, StarGeek. If you've seen the Recent Changes log lately, you'll know that his additions to the wiki have been invaluable, and spread across several areas such as enemy articles, powersets, error corrections, and more. With administrator privileges, he will now have even more access to change protected pages and perform user administration as well.

Thanks for your contributions, StarGeek, and I'm looking forward to seeing what's next!

Server Outage

Well, not exactly. The DNS servers for this site went kaput sometime yesterday (Saturday) afternoon Eastern time, which had the same effect: For hours, the site was inaccessible. It was, unfortunately, completely beyond my control other than logging a couple of tickets with my web hosting provider to try to have the matter resolved. Sometime between around 11:00pm EST Saturday night and 5:30am EST this morning, the problem was resolved and normal service restored. I apologize for any inconvenience this caused, and hope that the service provider takes steps to keep from having such a long outage again.

January 15, 2006

Spam Filter

Well, if you've been checking the Recent Changes page, you may have noticed that the Paragon Wiki has lately been the victim of some vandals who are, no doubt, trying to increase their sites' link counts by posting hidden links to sites of, shall we say, questionable repute, in articles.

If you're thinking about doing this (or have done this), I'd like to remind you of three things. First, this site is a purely volunteer effort, which basically means that you're going to hell, have a nice day! Second, this wiki is configured with rel=nofollow links that do not get followed by search engines, so your site is not getting credit for links from this site and you're wasting your time. Third, I do check this site for changes at least once a day (usually more), and your links are taken down before any search engines really have a chance to see them.

Nevertheless, I resigned myself a long time ago to the old Internet adage that if you build it, they will attack. I guess that I should take it as a kind of backhanded compliment that my site is important enough now to be spammed! Anyway, to alleviate the issue, I've implemented the wiki spam filter that the Wikipedia uses. Thanks, Taxibot Yellow for pointing me to it!

If you have trouble editing or posting a legitimate article, please let me know by e-mailing me at tonyv@pcfreepress.com, and I apologize in advance.

Friday January 6, 2006

E-Mail Snafu

First of all, I apologize for a mistake I made when I moved the site over to a different server. In the process, I forgot to set up the email forwarder which forwards e-mail to tonyv@pcfreepress.com to the web mail client I use. The end result is that any e-mail that has been sent to me in the past couple of weeks was sent out to the Shadow Shard somewhere, never to be seen again. I apologize profusely if you sent me something and I did not respond. Please send it again, and I assure you that it will be read by me now.

Happy New Year!

That said, I hope that everyone is having a wonderful 2006 so far. The Winter Event 2005 was a raving success in Paragon City, and most heroes (and villains!) seem to still be thoroughly enjoying their rocket packs. Don't forget, they only last for thirty days from the time you got them, not from the end of the event!

Game of the Year

How did NCsoft start off the new year? How about by winning Game of the Year from MMORPG.com! Congratulations and kudos to the developers, and it's a great way to start what I am certain will be another fantastic year of fighting crime—or causing it—in Paragon City and the Rogue Isles. I promise that Paragon Wiki will continue to follow all changes and updates and become even bigger and better with tons of new information during the year!

Thursday December 15, 2005

Winter Events Continue!

Last week, we got a new toy and a badge. Today begins Lord Recluse's Operation Scrooge and Miss Liberty's Operation Holiday Cheer to counter his nefarious plans. Along with the festivities comes another accolade and a special new look for the heroes and villains of Paragon City and the Rogue Isles! See all of the updates in the Winter Event 2005 article.

Thursday December 8, 2005

Winter Event 2005

Naughty or Nice?

The Winter Events of 2005 have begun! Beginning today, all characters logging in will receive the Longbow Reservist Badge (if the character is a hero) or the Jet-Setter Badge (if the character is a villain). In addition, all heroes and villains will receive the Holiday Rocket Pack as a whopping 30-day temporary power! See Miss Liberty's Radio Address and Black Scorpion's Memo for the announcement.

November 25, 2005

New Admin: Arkenor

First of all, I'd like to welcome Arkenor aboard as the first site co-admin. He's been an invaluable member of the wiki, having contributed and edited several articles, and even catching a couple of vandalism attempts.

Maintenance Monday: 2:00am EST

This Monday, November 28, I am going to run some routine maintenance on the Paragon City Free Press site, including the wiki, beginning at 2:00am EST (7:00am GMT). During this time I will be backing everything up, shuffling a bunch of stuff around, and optimizing the databases. I hope to be done by 6:00am EST (11:00am GMT). Hopefully, it won't take that long, but I can't swear that it won't take a little longer.

During the outage, the site will be redirected to an "Under Maintenance" page.

November 22, 2005

City of Villains Survey

Today, I received an e-mail from a psychology researcher for the University of Queensland, Australia conducting a study on social aspects of online game play such as how people adjust to playing a new game and how they come to identify with their new character.

He is seeking respondants to a short survey (approximately ten minutes). To encourage players to take part, they are offering 12 free months of gameplay to one randomly selected participant. If you are interested in taking the survey and entering the drawing, visit the survey site. I've also added a site link on the left in the "links" list.

November 2, 2005

New version of Map Patch

Map Patch v0.4 Released

I've updated the downloadable in-game maps to version 0.4. There were a few minor additions and an icon added to aid in getting the Sweet Tooth Badge in Cap au Diable. Currently, only the big four maps are included (Breakout, Mercy Island, Port Oakes, and Cap au Diable) plus Bloody Bay, but very soon I plan on releasing version 1.0, which will include all known information about all city zones. Stay tuned!

October 31, 2005

City of Villains Goes Live!

Go-Live!

The City of Villains beta and head start is over, and the game is now officially live for the general public.

A shorter URL

I have added http://wiki.pcfreepress.com to be redirected to this site. This may make it a little easier to give the URL out in-game. The old URL of http://www.pcfreepress.com/wiki will continue to work as well, in case anyone has the site bookmarked.

Please direct people to this site

Speaking of giving out the URL in-game, if you find this wiki useful, please refer people to it in-game. I don't derive any financial profit from raising traffic at the site (in fact, it could eventually end up costing me a little more money if throngs of people flock here), but as a stereotypical geek, it makes me all warm and gooey inside when I see good numbers of visitors each month coming to see what's here.

News Archive Added

The news section was just plain getting too long. I have added a Archived News page to save these items in. I will leave the latest one or two things here.

October 24, 2005

FAQs Added

I have added an article called FAQs to answer questions I constantly see in the chat channels. If you're new to the game, please take a look, as it will be very helpful when you're just starting out. Even if you've been around the block a while, you may still learn a thing or two!

If there are any questions you constantly see, please feel free to add them to the article.

October 18, 2005

Added Content Update

I have added a lot of content over the past week. The main thing I have been working on is getting maps, locations, and descriptions for badges entered.

In addition, I have created in-game maps of the Rogue Islands. Right now, I have maps ready of Breakout, Mercy Island, Port Oakes, Cap au Diable, and Bloody Bay, including marked locations for badges, monuments, Fortunata Fateweavers, and Arachnos HQ's (where villains create Villain Groups and bases). I have a bunch more to do. Today, I spent a lot of time mapping out the locations of the firebases in Bloody Bay and will update the maps very soon.

October 13, 2005

NDA Lifted

The City of Villains Nondisclosure Agreement has officially been lifted, so City of Villains articles can now be added to the wiki! I am eagerly anticipating being able to add lots of stuff over the next few days, so stay tuned!

City of Villains Content Categories Added

I have added a special CoV category about content that is City of Villains-specific to make it easier to find material related to that game. I will eventually re-edit all City of Heores-specific articles to be part of the CoH category.