AIR RAID! PARAGON CITY! THIS IS NO DRILL!
Any and all Superpowered individuals are needed immediately to stave off the Rikti Invasion that threatens all of humanity! To support the fight against this ruinous alien invasion, all former players in good standing have their accounts reactivated from Thursday, August 2nd through late Sunday night (August 5th, 8:59PM PST / 11:59PM EST). Anyone who has previously played City of Heroes or City of Villains is able to log in get into the fight! Spread the word to your supergroup or guild mates and online friends who might not be playing CoH that now is the time to come back and check out the great new Issue 10, for FREE!
Welcome back to these Heroes and Villains! Join the fight against the Rikti Invasion Force and have a great "City of" weekend!
Starting 8/29/2007 the City of Heroes and City of Villains Character Name Policy will be re-enacted with some changes. As previously announced last year, we are hereby giving players 30 days notice that this policy will be turned back on effective Wednesday, August 29, 2007.
We’re pleased to bring you the latest City of Heroes developer diary by lead designer, Matt “Positron” Miller. Matt discusses the inspirations for Issue 10: Invasion, and some of the processes behind the story.
Issue 10: Invasion, the 10th free expansion to City of Heroes and City of Villains, launched this week to great success and rave reviews from the players. You can check out what some of the news outlets are saying here:
Matt “Positron” Miller narrates a tour of the new Rikti War Zone in this movie for Issue 10: Invasion, the 10th free expansion since the launch of City of Heroes in April 2004. Meet the Vanguard, Earth’s last line of defense against alien, extra-dimensional, or even astral threats. Beyond the Vanguard base are areas of heavy fighting, including the redesigned crashed Rikti mother ship. Heroes and villains both help the Vanguard, and can cooperate on a new joint task-force. They will need to cooperate if they want to survive the 2nd Rikti War!
Gamespot has the first look at the full City of Heroes Issue 10 Trailer for the Rikti War Zone, narrated by Matt "Positron" Miller! Matt discusses the features of I10, and takes a close look at Vanguard, the revamped zone, and the Rikti threat.
Read all about it in this special edition of the Paragon Times! Extra! Extra!
PARAGON CITY, Rhode Island, July 24 – The city’s morning calm was shattered by air raid sirens just after 10:00 a.m. The Vanguard issued an all-alerts broadcast on the Emergency Alert System declaring, “AIR RAID! PARAGON CITY! THIS IS NO DRILL!”
If you are visiting the San Diego International Comic Con, be sure to stop by the NCsoft booth, #3949 and see City of Heroes and City of Villains in action. NCsoft Online Community Manager Alex “Lighthouse” von Minden will be on hand, as will esteemed Top Cow City of Heroes Comic Book artist, David Nakayama! David will be doing character sketches, so be sure to bring a screenshot of your favorite character. Alex will just be shaking hands and answering questions, since he can’t draw very well.
We are looking forward to seeing you at this year’s San Diego Comic Con!
Starting on Tuesday, July 17th, the Training Room Test Server will have two new game features enabled for testing: Character Transfer and Character Rename. Character Transfer will allow customers to move characters from one server to another. Character Rename will allow customers to rename a selected character. Both of these features are not part of Issue 10: Invasion. Although we are beginning to test them, we anticipate that they will not be enabled on the live service until after the launch of Issue 10.
We estimate that both features, Character Transfer and Character Rename, will carry a transaction fee of $9.99 each per use (there will be no fee for transfers to or renames on the Training Room). Should a Character Transfer have a name conflict on the destination server, a free Character Rename will be made available to resolve the conflict and rename the moving character.
These new features exemplify our commitment to improve the quality of the City of Heroes experience. We feel the price of these features is enough to prevent potential abuse, but also reasonable enough to not be prohibitive for those who want to improve their gaming experience by moving servers or changing a character name.
IMPORTANT! Customers who are interested in taking advantage of the Character Transfer service should know that it is possible in the future that we may make changes to the game that would remove the need to Transfer servers. One example of such a change would be a “server-less” game configuration where all players can group with anyone, without the restriction of which server they play on. We are not committing to this “server-less” configuration, and in fact there are no plans to implement a “server-less” environment this calendar year, but because we are charging a fee for these services, it is important that our players understand that the possibility exists. We want to be very clear in this regard so that those who do decide to make use of a Server Transfer, when it becomes available, understand that they may not need it in the future.
For those interested in assisting with the testing efforts of Character Transfer and Character Rename, keep your eye on the Official City of Heroes Training Room Forum for further details. Thank you for your continued support.
The City of Heroes Development Team
Gay.com is covering a recent LGBT prom night - Rainbow Prom - that was held in Paragon City. They take a good look at the positive LGBT community in City of Heroes, and report that attendees had a blast at the prom.
From the article:
Rainbow Prom may have been the first virtual LGBT prom ever. Hundreds of super-powered lesbians and gays let their magical hair down at a new LGBT prom recently. They danced, flirted, elected a prom king and (drag) queen, played outdoors in their underwear at a mountain ski resort, and levitated with robotic boots and angels' wings until they crashed the server. Yes, they were in a virtual online world called "City of Heroes."
Gay.com is also working with NCsoft to provide 14-day free trial memberships.
Read the full article here.
The tenth free expansion to City of Heroes, “Invasion,” introduces a new group to the world of Paragon City and the Rogue Isles. Vanguard’s primary role is to defend the world against alien invasion, no matter the cost. But not everyone agrees with their tactics or principles. Longbow has compiled a Top Secret report on Vanguard.
Matt Miller, aka Positron, the lead designer of City of Heroes and City of Villains takes some time to discuss the planning that went into the upcoming free expansion, Issue 10: “Invasion.” Issue 10 advances the story of Paragon City and the Rogue Isles by throwing a combined threat at the heroes and villains – a second invasion by the dreaded Rikti.
Issue 19 of the Top Cow City of Heroes comic is now available for download as a PDF from our site. Issue 19, “Passing the Torch,” is the penultimate issue in the Top Cow run. It features the return of Dark Watcher, has cameos from two forum regulars, and foreshadows upcoming game events!
In this lead up to the next free expansion, Issue 10: Invasion, the Paragon Times reports on a Senate inquiry questioning the role of the Vanguard today.
