CoH has some of the most amazing character creation of any MMO out there.  Eurogamer has a look at how it compares.

Alright, so your Level 70 WoW Night Elf means a lot to you. He represents all your time in the game, a visual and statistical incarnation of all your achievements in dungeoneering and ganking and auctioneering over your hundreds of game-hours. His armour is his battlescars, a sign for other players to respect or fear him. But he isn't you. He's just a template someone else made. The Entomologist is me. I made him. From his appearance to his powers to his nebulous personality and back to a thousand new appearance tweaks later on, Ento is my proudest MMO achievement.

He isn't some preset Night Elf Warrior wearing the same Epic Armour set as every other Level 70 Night Elf Warrior. He's unique. Whenever I see him again, I smile. Sometimes I even shout "wheeee!" If I'm honest, the main reason I'm writing this is because it's an excuse to show screenshots of him to thousands of people. But more on him later. First, to prove I'm not mad, a word from some esteemed EG colleagues about how much more their City of Heroes characters mean to them than any other.

The article includes a screen shot of the incredible variables one can chose from while creating characters!

At first the news was shocking, horrible even!  But after much thought and quite a bit of reading, I've come to discover that the worst the City of Heroes and Villians announcement last week could bring, is a downward slide.  But we can't really blame NCSoft for other companies not sticking to their design documents, world presentation, and player communities!

There was a press release that stated ads are now coming to both worlds, in a tasteful and completely opt-outable way.

“City of Heroes is a key property for NCsoft and we take great care to grow and nurture our player community,” said Brian Clayton, General Manager of NCsoft’s Northern California studio. “We are pleased to work with Double Fusion on City of Heroes, as they have demonstrated sensitivity to the needs of our community and fundamentally understand how advertising can bring value to the players when executed gracefully, and in the appropriate context. In addition to allowing any of our players to opt-out if they so choose, their flexible technology will not only allow us to bring brand messages into the game but also provide a fun, new platform for displaying player-created materials.”

There's also a message from NCsoft NorCal Studio General Manager, Brian Clayton, on the CoH website.

So, how far do we plan to take these optional in-game ads? Initially, we are limiting ads to the exact same fictitious billboard placements that are already in the game. To get a better idea of this, check out these screenshot examples.

There are a whole lot of really fun ideas to consider, but the core game development of City of Heroes is by far our highest priority. Another interesting opportunity that the optional in-game advertising technology presents us is dynamically displaying other billboard content. We can swap in new signs that we create much more easily, and we can even display player-created content! This provides a cool new area for community contests, recognizing great player art, etc. In fact, we are inviting any interested players to submit their own advertising materials in our defined horizontal, vertical and square sizes (see all of the specific requirements here). We will use some of these to test the new optional ads on the Training Room (test servers).

Let's all remember this world already has fake advertising. So offering the ability to completely opt out and never be bothered with it again, while adding player made content and recognition is a huge step for COX, and I hope it goes well for the players!

After hearing Cryptic Studios' Jack Emmert go on and on at GDC about how he hates micro-transactions, and how they're not the wave of the future, imagine my surprise at City of Heroes opening up micro-transactions for character slots after Issue 12: Midnight Hour, is released!

In reading through all the community feedback (US and EU) and player reaction from the recent announcement of Issue 12: Midnight Hour, the overwhelming consensus is that players would like to have access to additional character slots. With all the great reasons to roll a new character included in Issue 12, we certainly understand the desire.

We want to let you know that we are working on systems to address this community request. Our intent is add purchasable character slots to round out our existing services of Character Transfer and Character Rename. We hope to have this implemented and available shortly after Issue 12 Launch.

As always, we are happy to listen and respond to your requests. Thanks for your feedback and continued support.

Guess no one can deny the money that this would bring in, regardless of what one wants to do to oneself when discussing nickel and diming players!

PlayNC, the official page for NCsoft's games has a look at the future of CoH with Senior Lead Designer Matt Miller.

As Lead Designer on the project, I have had a lot of control over what happens in the City of Heroes game, but in the past I still had hurdles to get some great ideas actualized. With the new studio, a lot of ideas that couldn’t take hold under the old management are being implemented into the game with outstanding results.

For instance, in February we launched a “between Issue” patch that added a lot of quality of life features to the game. For the first time you can see the real numbers behind your characters and their powers, what they mean, and how City of Heroes uses them. You can now see the exact details on how your character stacks up against another by simply looking at the numbers behind how your powers work. Another quality of life feature is the smoothing of the leveling rate in the game.

This feature also introduces Issue 12: Midnight Hour!

CoH Europe is celebrating Easter in style!

This Easter weekend (Friday March 21st to Monday 24th) Omega Sektor, situated in the heart of Birmingham (UK) will be hosting NCsoft and City of Heroes for a non-stop gaming extravaganza. Here are just some of the highlights…

• 400+ high-end gaming PCs for you to play on, every one of them packed with every one of NCsoft’s games!
• Dozens of cutting-edge gaming consoles, with a huge selection of heroic games plus music-based party favourites...
• Melissa ‘War Witch’ Bianco, Game Designer for City of Heroes will be our guest of honour for the entire weekend - and spilling details on the upcoming City of Heroes expansion, Issue 12!
• Tournaments and competitions all weekend.. from the mighty TaskForce: Omega to Death Races, PvP to Costume Competitions, there will be something for everyone!
• Bargain-priced NCsoft games, plus official merchandise on sale...
• The professional comic book artists of Draw the World Together, creating your very own character sketch before your eyes for a charity donation! (Saturday/Sunday only.)
• The ghastly Ghost Widow and the marvellous Ms. Liberty, appearing in person on Saturday only. Get ‘into the game’ by posing for a photo with them in Recluse’s Victory!

Whoever goes, take pictures!  For the rest of the details, try here.

City of Heroes has announced their 24 month vet rewards!

* Battle Hardened Badge
* Summon Pet Power: CHOICE: Light Fairy, Dark Fairy, Blue Wisp, Red Wisp, Shield Oscillator, Power Oscillator, Shield Drone, or Power Drone.

For the 4 year veteran reward, players receive the Battle Hardened badge and the choice of a Summon Pet Power.

There are 8 different pets the player can choose from: The Light Fairy, the Dark Fairy, the Blue Wisp, the Red Wisp, the Shield Oscillatory, the Power Oscillator, the Shield Drone, and the Power Drone. Each gives a specific bonus to you and your team.

The Veteran Reward will be available after the live update on Wednesday March 5th, 2008!

Check out the screenshots!

City of Heroes' Valentines events continue, even if the so-called holiday is now behind us!  The Paragon Times has more details on events you can find running through the month!

Valentine’s Day also kicks off this year’s annual Spring Fling event, including DJ Zero’s Pocket D Jubilee. Just head over to Pocket D, the space between Paragon and the Rogue Isles™, where DJ Zero will be playing host again. Ganymede, Emissary of the God Eros, will be back, hoping to harness the primordial force of love, allowing Hero and Villain alike to lay down arms and join together to complete a host of missions.

Outside of the Pocket D, and in conjunction with the live Wedding event, players will find new Hero and Villain contacts in Atlas Park™ and Mercy Island. Sela Vermont, wedding coordinator of Manticore and Sister Psyche, sends Heroes on a special wedding gift reconnaissance mission while Zev Scalamore, under direction of Arachnos, enlists Villains to do his dirty work.

Read on for the times, and be sure to check it out!

This press release comes straight to us from the CoX folks!

Friday 8th February/...  Matt “Positron” Miller, Lead Designer of NCsoft's heroic massively multiplayer online role-playing game, City of Heroes/City of Villains, answers questions about the forthcoming tweaks to the game's experience system and explains why players can look forward to a faster, more exciting game experience.

Q: Please tell us what exactly this XP Curve “Smoothing” means.

A: Well, the leveling speed “curve” looked like a jagged mountain slope more than a smooth line. There were some levels in City of Heroes and City of Villains that just took players longer to get through. This was due to a variety of reasons, mostly in the realm of available mission content. We have tried to add new content in those areas over the past few updates, but a stronger hand was needed in some of the real problem areas. We went in and, through data mining, determined how long characters “lived” (existed) at any given level. This pointed out exactly where our problem areas were and exactly how we could address them. In addition we did a near global increase to the XP earned for defeating enemies. This will have everyone leveling faster than previous issues.

Read on for more details, and my apologies to the CoV folks, who don't get this news in their own category!  We're working on it!  This is a great change to XP for these games!

City of Heroes is offering a double XP weekend!

It’s an exciting new year. Paragon City™ and the Rogue Isles™ are buzzing because the time is coming once again. Roughly twice a year we turn up the dial and invite players to rack up XP at double the normal rate. For an entire weekend, Hero and Villain characters will receive double the XP, Prestige, Influence, and Infamy for all of their accomplishments in the game.

The fun begins Friday, February 8, 2008! Take advantage of this opportunity to level up your favorite Heroes and Villains twice as quickly as normal. Good luck and have fun!

Get in there and xp like crazy people!

The NCsoft State of the Game is out for CoX.

The New Year is always a time for reflecting upon the year past, as well as setting goals and outlining plans for the year to come. In looking back, we feel that 2007 was a banner year for City of Heroes. Three major free expansions, among the 21 total game updates over 12 months, made for exciting times! We added a completely new game system with Inventions, bringing “loot” and strengthening our economy, invited players to fight off an alien invasion and travel through time, among other things!

If you're looking for a good look back on 2007, and thoughts on what's coming for 2008, it's worth a read!