This is not a real Beta in which we would ask you to keep an eye out for bugs; there are bugs aplenty, and we’re already working on fixing most of them. This is just a chance to run across the latest dev map and see a well-made game that’s under construction. Most traditional MMOs don’t open developer maps to the public because they aren’t polished or complete, but we want to do something nice for everyone stuck at home, and we’ve made a lot of progress since the CCT Beta back in November of 2019.

As in our November Beta, we’ve decided to make our travel powers available for this event. Go ahead and fly or superspeed run through the city, chat with your friends, or look for the cool things in the city as prototypes – and there are some. Find the entrance to the Beta Club; explore the hospital and the auction house. Enjoy yourself. But most of all, make some cool characters!

What’s new in this event

There is actually quite a list of things that are new in this event, compared to the one four months ago:

1. The CCT has been expanded and improved. We have added almost every improvement we planned to add, like a second color wheel, working morphs on the hands and feet, a few auras – not all of them are in yet – and a selection of alien ears and other options.

2. We’ve also added several new costumes and converted many of the original costumes that were only available on one character model to fit the others. Roughly 100 new costume pieces are in the game, spread over the three models, as well as the first capes in the game; there will be more.

3. Additional powersets and powers are now in the game being tested by devs, which means in this sort of an event, where we open the developer map to you, you are going to see and be able to choose powers that are not finished or polished. Why do we allow this? Because we think it will be fun for you.

4. The Controller Archetype and two initial powersets for it are also now active, introducing crowd control and pets into the game. This archetype is still very much under development, but to feel free to try it out! One change we made this morning is to enable controllers to do more damage, so they can level up solo, if slowly.

5. Combat is turned on! Once you are inside Apotheosis City, be aware that there are live enemies on the map. Not everywhere, but especially around the Science Park, the Warehouse District and the Hazard Zone. If they see you, they will attack you! Fortunately, you can be safely respawned on the north side of the map.

6. There are also some ambushes on the map, so keep alert; enemies may spawn out of nowhere if you go exploring in certain areas. This is a feature we are fiddling with right now, so expect the specifics to change in the future.

7. With a bit of combat, of course you can level up a bit. There are active trainers, vendors, and some mission-giving NPCs. We’ve turned off active instanced missions – we have to have something to show later in the year on our road to launch.

8. There are also crates that you can click to receive crafting materials. Our crafting system is just a prototype, but it is possible to gather materials into your inventory, and there is a crafting table somewhere on the map… see if you can find it.

9. Another feature to mention is mouse sensitivity and invert mouse functionality is now supported in the Interface options. This was something that was requested by people in the last Beta event we had, so we added it.

10. Finally, we have reestablished a day/night cycle. It’s dark at night, so have a look at the iconic Apotheosis City at all hours of the day.

How the community event works

This community event is completely unscripted and unplanned. The idea only occurred to us about a week ago. We’re opening the game, bugs and all, to everyone who has been receiving the Ship of Heroes newsletter. You should be aware that we don’t really have a customer service team in place. Our small development team is doing everything, aided by volunteers from among our families and friends, so if something goes wrong, please be patient. We will do everything we can to get you into the game.

If you have children who are unexpectedly home from school due to the coronavirus situation, a good run-through with the Ship of Heroes CCT can be just the thing to occupy a few hours with your kids. The point is to have fun!

Please keep an eye on your email as we will be sending out keys in batches this week. The first thing to do is to download and extract of the Ship of Heroes game. Please follow the instructions exactly; most problems occur when people assume what the next step in the process should be. We’re sending out the download emails in waves to mitigate against crushing the download server. But as of this morning, we think that we have sent them all out. If you did not receive an invitation, just send us a request using the “Contact Us” form on the website or an email to communityeventsupport@shipofheroes.com

Once you’re logged in

We’re providing a list of commands you can use in the game; type them into the chat once you’ve made a character and entered the city. If you discover that you need another command, please let us know in the forums. We’ll be doing our best to keep up with requests in real time, but some things may need to be added or fixed after the event.

Group commands

/invite or /inv – Invite to your group
/leave or /leavegroup – Leave your group
/kick – Kicks a player from your group
/uninvite – Removes your invite to a player

Emotes (these all take an optional target name, eg /wave Consultant)

/wave
/clap
/cheer
/crowdcheer – (YMCA)
/bow
/salute
/twist
/laydown
/sit
/frown
/smile
/neutral – Resets smile/frown morph
/emote (Example: /emote sights the Arches –– which would show: Consultant sights the Arches, for a character named Consultant)

Chat commands

/tell or /t – Sends a tell
/send or /s – Same as above
/m or msg – Seems to be same as above.
/party or /p or /group – Group chat.
/global or /g – Global chat
/say or /s – Say something only people nearby can hear
/yell or /y – Extended range say.
/reply or /r – Reply

Note: /yell will send a message to everyone in the area. By contrast, /say will only be heard by nearby players.

Other commands

/target or /tar – Targets the player named
/follow – Follows a player
/stick – Similar to follow but sticks in melee range

Note: You can toggle walking by holding down the period key while moving.

Leveling

With combat comes the opportunity to level up. You level up by using a power trainer who is located in front of the Ship security Building. Every second level you can choose a new power. Please note the little tabs at the bottom of the pop-up screen. You can choose powers from your primary or secondary powersets there. Press the K button and you will see a screen which allows you to add augment slots to your powers.

Superspeed FX

Lightning is the default superspeed FX. For the community event, we’ve temporarily enabled a special dev tool for players to change between different Superspeed particles by pressing the Numpad 2 key. Press P to open the powers menu and drag Superspeed onto the power bar at the bottom of the screen, then click it to toggle Superspeed on.

Adjusting settings

To access System Settings in-game, press the Escape key and select the System button from the pop-up menu.

• Audio can be turned down from the same settings windows. You can select the audio volume across various channels like Music and Sound, as well as the Master Volume. Video options are accessed through the same settings.
• Vertical Sync can be enabled in the main menu via the Settings button, in the System Settings in-game. This can help if your computer is not automatically synced and therefore tends to run hot.
  If you find that you are having frame rate problems, you can adjust this through the Graphics panel on the System Settings.
• There are two ways in which you can optimize performance. The first is automated using the Significance Manager. To do that, slide the Target Frame Rate to a higher number than 10. If your frame rate falls below this number, it will automatically lower your settings. So for example, if you set this to 50, and your frame rate is below 50, it will start dropping texture quality, shadows, etc.
• There are some limitations to the Significance Manager. For example, it can’t modify the screen resolution, which is one of the main causes of poor performance. Many users may want to tweak to their own preferences. To do this you can click on the Manual tab in the Graphics Settings and adjust the settings to your liking.

For most of the event, we’ll limit the number of players in one instance of Apotheosis City to around 50, with a hard cap of 75. If more players show up, another instance of the city will automatically spawn for them. And keep your eyes open on Friday evening, US east coast time. We will likely do something fun for all of the participants then, and repeat on Saturday for anyone who misses it. Enjoy! The community event is scheduled to continue until approximately noon on April 2nd, but we may extend it for a second week if there is continuing interest from the community. And if many of us are still stuck at home.