A post from development team member "Synapse" has appeared on the official City of Heroes forums saying that 89 of the 113 Mission Architect badges will be removed in Issue 15, as they encourage abuse of the mission creation system. It's largely "count" badges that are up for the chop such as the Malefactor badge, currently awarded for completing 50 mission arcs as a villain, in Mission Architect mode.

The full list of affected badges appears after the jump, while Synapse's post and answers to frequently asked questions can be found here.

Do you have the Architect Edition of City of Heroes yet? If you don't, the expanion is now available in the NCsoft store to download directly to your computer for $19.99.

The Architect Edition, which contains the new Mission Architect system that allows you to create your own story arcs, allows you to choose between the exclusive Cyborg and Magic in-game item packs. These item packs can also be purchased separately for $9.99 each.

You can buy the expansion directly through the NCsoft store here.

NCsoft has announced its second expansion for City of Heroes, under the title Going Rogue. The expansion involves Praetoria, a parallel world featuring evil clones of some of City of Heroes' signature characters. Going Rogue will feature a new alignment system to signify that there's not just good and evil, but also shades of grey.

A trailer is available on Going Rogue's teaser site, for anyone wanting a sneak peak at the new expansion.

UPDATE: Further details are available on City of Heroes' official website, with the press release announcing the expansion available here, and a set of frequently asked questions here. In addition to the features listed above, Going Rogue's new alignment system will allow heroes and villains to switch sides, allowing villain archetypes into Paragon City and hero archetypes into the Rogue Isles.

Source: Kotaku

NCsoft has reported its earning for the first quarter of 2009 and the company has seen sharp quarter-to-quarter increases in sales, operating profit and net profit. According to a press release, on a consolidated basis sales came to $107.7 million, which is a 34% quarter-to-quarter increase; operating profit came to $34.3 million, a 221% increase; and net profit came to $27 million, a 422% increase.

In first quarter sales by region, Korea brought in $72 million, which is incredibly high compared to Japan's $14.6 million and North America's $8.7 million. According to the release, "The successful launch of Aion influenced sales growth in Korea and expected sales of the Lineage series increased the significance of Japan. On the other hand, a decrease in Guild Wars sales due to no retail expansion package releases this quarter led to a drop of sales in the North American and European regions."

Quarter-to-quarter sales of Lineage and Lineage II increased 23% and 33%, respectively. Sales of Aion jumped up 34%, while sales of City of Heroes and Guild Wars stayed low at 5% and 3%, respectively. You can read the full press release after the jump.

We hope all you City of Heroes players got the chance to celebrate the game's fifth anniversary on April 28. And even if missed that date, you can still sign in before May 31 to receive the 5-Year Anniversary Badge.

Whether you were logged in on the game's birthday or not, you can watch the new anniversary video the City of Heroes team has released to thank all of the game's players who have enjoyed the game for the last 5 years. The video's available on the game's official YouTube channel, which contains various other videos that you may have missed.

The moment you hear anything about user-designed content affecting an MMORPG world, then, chances are, someone's going to find some way to abuse the system. Today it was no different with City Of Heros' Mission Architect, which offered players the opportunity to design their own missions and create some really cool stories for their heroes. Unfourtunately, players quickly discovered a way to quickly powerlevel themselves by creating 'meow' missions - user created missions that involve luring large groups of enemies to explosive crates, and then detonating the crates to easily dispatch the enemies.

Today, Positron has posted an outline of Paragon's hard-line stance they will be taking against these exploiters, beginning now. Players who have abused the Mission Architect may find themselves losing access to their characters and rewards, and other players may find themselves unable to publish story arcs if their missions get flagged or banned too many times. Read Positron's full set of stipulations below!

As per usual, this post contains all of our exclusive features for the past week, as well as all of our noteworthy news stories. Perhaps the most exciting news for us here at ZAM is the launch of our new Free Realms site to coincide with the release of Sonly Online Entertainment's kid-friendly game. Keep reading below and after the jump for all of the links.

ZAM Features

ZAM Launches Free Realms Site: We are happy to announce that our newest game portal is dedicted to SOE's ground-breaking new MMORPG, which just launched on April 28.

Free Realms: A Fresh New Direction for MMORPGs: If you're on the fence about whether you'd like to try out Free Realms, check out Christopher "Pwyff" Tom's review.

Total Customization: Craig Zinkievich, executive producer of Star Trek Online, has written an exclusive letter to the ZAM community about how ship customization will function within the game.

Five Years of Heroes: We spoke with C.W. Bennett, a senior engineer at Paragon Studios, about how it feels to have City of Heroes reach the fifth-anniversary mark.

The City of Heroes team is currently in the midst of a wealth of festivities to celebrate the game's fifth anniversary, including working on Issue 15. There's all sorts of ways you can join in on the fun! Here's just a sampling:

• Prepare for Issue 15: Anniversary, the next free content update. It will include the revival of the villainous 5th Column group, as well as new costumes, emotes and faces.
• Read Lead Designer Matt "Positron" Miller's anniversary address, where he talks more about Issue 15. All accounts will have access to the closed beta, and you can expect to see some Mission Architect tweaks.
• You have until May 19 to enter your submissions for either the T-shirt logo contest or the video homage contest. Show off your creativity through either medium and you could win all sorts of City of Heroes prizes.

And of course you can also check out our recent interview with C.W. Bennett, a senior engineer at Paragon Studios. So once again, happy anniversary from all of us at ZAM!

In case you missed it, we've been celebrating the fifth anniversary of the first MMO to bring Super Heroes to life -- City of Heroes. In light of this monumental occasion, we caught up with C.W. Bennett, a Sr. Engineer at Paragon Studios who's been working on CoH since 2002.

ZAM: First of all, happy 5th anniversary!

C.W. Bennett: Thanks!

ZAM: Will you guys be doing anything special in the office to celebrate this occasion?

C.W.: I'm not doing anything personally, but there is a lot of excitement in the office. I am sure something special will be done to mark this momentous occasion.

ZAM: Are you happy with how the game has developed over the past five years? If so, what's your favorite aspect of City of Heroes right now?

First of all, Happy 5th Anniversary City of Heroes! The team over at Paragon Studios has announced that they will be celebrating the 5th Anniversary of City of Heroes with tons of great events. If I were you, I'd check out the servers between 11AM EDT on April 28th to 12AM EDT on April 29th and take part in all the "CHAOS that is going to break loose in-game." Not only that, but the team developers themselves will be hanging out in the training room test server all day. There will also be a T-Shirt Logo Contest that *may* get turned into an actual shirt, to be produced for a limited run, as well as a City of Heroes Video Homage contest!

Finally, anybody who logs into the server between now and May 29th will recieve an awesome 5 year anniversary badge. And for players who have expired accounts, but have always wanted to check out the new Mission Architect... From April 28th to May 3rd, all expired retail and trial accounts in good standing will be able to access the Live Servers! So once more, congratulations Paragon Studios, and here's to another 5 more years!