City of Heroes Homecoming fans, your long wait for fresh content is over – or will be soon, anyway. The officially licensed live version of the 21-year-old superhero MMORPG has released patch notes today for the issue landing on the beta server, which you can go check out in person yourself for free. Issue 28: Legacy, Page 2 includes a ton of new additions:

• a huge revamp of Kallisti Wharf that transforms it into a proper level 40-50 co-op zone with new mobs, music, badges, a giant monster spawn (the P.E.A.C.E. Keeper);
• a bunch of new story arcs in Kallisti Wharf for level 40-50 toons, including storylines about the Freaklok, the Skulls/Family spat, the Warriors, and the Council, plus some repeatables;
• a new enemy group called Blackwing Industries aka P.E.A.C.E.;
• the new Pyrotechnic Control set for Controllers and Dominators;
• the new Psionic Armor update for melee toons;
• a much-needed revamp of sleep powers that includes mechanics that (sometimes) keep mobs asleep longer, even when attacked;
• a long (long) list of balance updates to powers, inherents, and sets, including Sonic Attack, Electric Armor, Regen (Regen is now a Tanker set too), Gravity Control, Electric Control;
• but also some major nerfs too; heads-up, Plant Controllers and Radiation Armor people (there are probably more, but those jumped out at me as I play them).

Plus we’re getting all the new Blackwing armor pieces as costume bits, some costume-clean-up too, a few new weapons (I hope the swordfish broadsword is literal), new endgame rewards, new badges, and so forth.

Obviously, this patch is just on the beta server for now, so we don’t know when the patch will reach the official servers, nor do we know whether some of this will be rolled back before it does, so stay tuned.

In other City of Heroes Homecoming news, the community has been running a massive base building contest over the last year, and now Easter Bunny and the players running it have selected winners with some incredible prizes. We have gushed about the base building in this game before, but each one of these community efforts shows more and more of the detail possible in a game that is over two decades old. You can check out the whole thread on the official forums for winners and screenshots, or you can go visit all of the winners in person (we have a whole post on how to do that). Here’s the full list by shard – congrats to everyone who participated!