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.

Scott Kurtz, Rooster Tooth dabble in City of Heroes

NCsoft and Paragon Studios today announced a new Guest Author program for the Mission Architect user-generated content system in City of Heroes. This program invites influential writers and aspiring game or story designers to collaborate with the team behind the City of Heroes MMORPG and publish custom missions directly into the City of Heroes game using the Mission Architect system. Participants in the Guest Author program will be announced on a regular basis. The first participants of this program will be Red vs. Blue series creators Rooster Teeth and PVP creator Scott Kurtz

Rooster Teeth plans to bring Captain Dynamic and his nemesis, The Great Face, from YouTube to City of Heroes, while Kurtz plans to bring character LolBat to life within Mission Architect.

Those attending the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) in Seattle this week should make time for the City of Heroes panel discussion entitled “Mission Architect: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Story.” Both Scott Kurtz and Rooster Teeth’s Joel Heyman will be on hand with City of Heroes developers to talk about their experiences creating their own unique, personalized missions for the game. The panel will be Saturday, Sept. 5th, 2:30pm - 3:30pm Raven Theatre at the Washington State Convention & Trade Center.

City of Heroes Mission Architect in Open Beta

Issue 14 of City of Heroes / City of Villains is now in open beta, giving players at large of NCsoft’s popular super hero MMO a chance to play with the Mission Architect system. NCsoft believes that, by allowing players to create their own story arcs and missions, it will breathe new life into this aging MMO. The general consensus among both former and current players is that the company is right.

Available on the Training Room / Open Beta server, the Mission Architect lets players to create 3 missions per account, using their own fiction. These missions can be comprised of up to five chapters containing different characters, environments, mission objectives, and enemies, dialogue, and up to 25 objectives. Developers will be able to pick and highlight their favorite missions -which will in turn give selected missions prominence and earn creators special badges. Likewise a system is in place for the community to vote on missions and put the best of the best in a “Hall of Fame.”

For more information on Issue 14, check out the official City of Heroes web site.

thanks, RPS.