City of Heroes Double XP weekend Oct. 8 - 11

If by some chance you strayed from the loving embrace of City of Heroes to play some other game (Champions Online) or just grew tired of the game altogether, NCsoft wants you back. The team at Paragon Studios is celebrating the recent launch of Issue 16: Power Spectrum with a free Reactivation and Double XP weekend. Beginning Thursday, October 8, where all inactive accounts in good standing (I.E. you paid your bill) can log into City of Heroes and enjoy all the new Powers Customization and Mission Architect features free! More importantly, all Hero and Villain characters will receive double the experience points (XP), Influence, and Infamy for their accomplishments in game. You can also check out a massive amount of user created missions thanks to the Mission Architect, which has resulted in more than 50,000 story arcs to play.

The magic of Double XP ends on Oct. 11. Download the Mac or PC client at http://www.cityofheroes.com. City of Heroes: Architect Edition is also available in stores and online via Steam.

City of Heroes Issue 16 details, Comic-Con plans

NCsoft’s Paragon Studios team have revealed the next major content update, Issue 16: Power Spectrum. Issue 16 will let players customize their powers, in addition to an update to the character creator, powerset proliferation options and more. Powers customization is the most requested feature that players have wanted and they are going to get it this fall, according to NCsoft. More details can be found at www.cityofheroes.com.

The City of Heroes team will be at Comic-Con this week, showing off the game, including the closed beta version of Issue 16. They are also are holding a panel discussion on Saturday, July 25 at 6:30pm in room 7AB. The panel synopsis, City of Heroes—Five Years and Going Strong: How to Keep Your MMO Alive and Kickin’, will feature Brian Clayton (GM/Executive Producer), Matt Miller (Lead Designer), Vince D’Amelio (Lead Engineer), and Joe Morrissey (Senior Designer).

City of Heroes Issue 15: Anniversary goes live

City of Heroes Issue 15: Anniversary has launched, bringing a whole new chapter and new content to the comic-book inspired MMO. Commemorating the game’s recent five-year anniversary celebration, Issue 15: Anniversary brings City of Heroes its 15th free content update, which introduces new content, missions, features and customization tools.

Issue 15: Anniversary marks the revival of The 5th Column, the most popular villain group in the game, through 10 new missions. Players can tackle these villains in a Hero Task Force or a Villain Strike Force, to uncover the mystery behind the resurgence of this long dormant foe. Along with the new missions, players can now customize their characters with more than 20 extra character faces, Vines and Ulterior themed costume sets and several new costume change emotes - visual animations that come to life when characters transition between costumes within the game.

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City of Heroes: Going Rogue Announced

NCsoft announced the development of City of Heroes Going Rogue, the first major expansion for the City of Heroes franchise since the launch of City of Villains in 2005. Going Rogue hopes to open up the worlds of Heroes and Villains to both sides for the first time using an alignment system. This will be possible by creating a new parallel universe known as Praetoria, which is governed by Tyrant, the evil incarnation of the game’s main protagonist, Statesman.

The new alignment system will encourage players to explore the shades of gray by allowing hero characters you become villains and vice versa. This means that the archetypes restricted to each region will be able to take on missions in the Rogue Isles and Paragon City. Clearly marked missions, in addition to behaviors and decisions made by the player, will move a hero’s or villain’s moral compass, which could eventually change the hero’s or villain’s alignment. Going Rogue will also introduce two primary new fictional characters representative of this alignment shift in the game’s lore: Maelstrom, a pistol-wielding hero gone rogue, and Desdemona, a demon-summoning villain who has been redeemed.

NCsoft will share more details on Going Rogue in the coming months. The biggest challenge I see is in balancing these missions to work with a whole new set of archetypes. How will the various Paragon City missions be affected by an archetype like the Mastermind? It will be interesting to see how it all works out. In the meantime, check out the FAQ ripped from the official City of Heroes page, after the break.

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Hero-Con ‘08 Registration Opens

Details on Hero-Con ‘08, NCsoft’s annual fan gathering dedicated to all things related to City of Heroes / City of Villains, were released today and registration is now open. This year promises to raise the roof of Hyatt Regency Hotel in Santa Clara, California on Saturday, October 18, 2008. The first thing to note is that NCsoft has secured a special rate deal of $119.00 per night at the hotel for attendees looking to book a room (from here, use code G-NCSO).

Moving on, this year’s event feature a community address from Lead Designer, Matt “Positron” Miller, and Executive Producer, Brian Clayton; a banquet dinner, with entertainment and exclusive announcements; Q&A, Round Table Discussions, and Workshop sessions provided by City of Heroes game creators and players; free gifts and in game rewards; a live mission event with a team of 8 other players that you can participate in for a grand prize; rub elbows with the development team; participate in a myriad of contests; and VIP passes to unlock the Carnival Harlequin Costume Power.

Sign up now at www.cityofheroes.com.

NCsoft Q2 Results

NCsoft announced its second quarter numbers, showing a seven percent increase in sales over last year and a drop in operating profit, pre-tax profit and net income. The company reported second quarter 2008 sales of KRW 81.2 billion (US $78.6 million), operating profit of KRW 8 billion (US $7.7 million), pre-tax profit of KRW 10 billion (US $9.7 million), and net income of KRW 6.1 billion (US $5.9 million).

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