News Archive

The next free expansion coming to City of Heroes and City of Villains, Issue 12: Midnight Hour, has entered Open Beta Testing. This means any and all subscribers to the game can log into the Training Room and try out the many additions and improvements included in Issue 12 for themselves! If you haven’t been to the Training Room before, click here for instructions on how to configure your computer to do so.

To read the many changes in the current version, join us on the Official Message Forums to view the patch notes..

DJ Jules from Split Infinity Radio sat down and talked shop with Senior Lead Designer Positron and Powers Designer Castle. They talked about Powerset Proliferation, went over other features of Issue 12: Midnight Hour and answered listener questions.

Visit the SI Radio Website to download and listen to the interview.

To discuss this interview with your fellow players, join us on the Official Message Forums.

Listen in as CoH Podcast interviews City of Heroes Development Team Lead Writer, Joe “Hero 1” Morrissey. The discussion ranges from follow up questions to Joe’s recent Development Diary, to content writing, Issue 11, Issue 12 and more!

Click here to listen to the full interview!

If you missed it on MMORPG.com, here's your opportunity to read the full Developer Diary by Lead City of Heroes Writer, Joe Morrissey. Joe talks about what he does on the Development Team and his involvement in creating game content. Also, get the inside scoop on the thoughts behind Issue 12's "Midnight Hour" storyline!

Click here to read the feature.

City of Heroes Development Team Lead Writer, Joe "Hero 1" Morrissey, will be featured in a coming installment of the fan created CoH Podcast! If you haven't visited CoH Podcast before, be sure to visit their website and see what they have been up to. They deliver a regular podcast with information and tips about City of Heroes for the casual gamer.

To help the conversation roll along in the podcast, we have set up an official discussion thread on the forums to pose your questions to Joe. Then, on Monday, May 5th we'll collect those questions for the recording session of the podcast.

Click here to pose your questions to Joe!

If you aren't familiar with whom Joe is or what he does on the City of Heroes Development Team, click here to read Joe's Issue 12 Development Diary on MMORPG.com.

MMORPG.com presents an exclusive first look at City of Heroes Lead Writer Joe Morrissey's developer journal telling us about the Midnight Squad, a group of heroes that has appeared in past lore, but makes their first appearance in Issue 12. Here's a brief clip:

“So, why the Midnight Hour?”

The Midnight Squad takes the main focus of this issue. They’ve got some of the coolest history, yet hardly any of it has been opened up to the players. I choose the Midnight Squad because they were seriously crippled by the invasion and therefore were extremely motivated to take action against the Rikti. We did a lot with the Rikti story for Issue 10, but it was only through the single lens of the Vanguard. Now we see a second perspective, through the eyes of those hardest hit from the invasion, the Midnighters.

Click here to read the full article.

To discuss this article on the Official Message Forums, join us here.

Split Infinity Radio, one of the recent MMOFury.com fansite award winners, will be hosting Senior Lead Designer Positron and Powers Designer Castle live on air Tuesday, May 6th at 5 PM Pacifc / 8 PM Eastern.

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April 28th, 2008 marks the fourth year since the launch of City of Heroes. To celebrate this achievement, the NCsoft NorCal team has created a City of Heroes / City of Villains calendar for fans of the game. This downloadable calendar features each of the 12 “Issues” that have been launched since the games release, one for each month of the year.

The calendar also includes an Anniversary message from Matt “Positron” Miller, along with important dates for the next year, including:

• May 6th, 2008: Issue 12: Midnight Hour enters Open Beta Testing
• July 18, 2008: Double XP Weekend Begins
• October 20, 2008: Halloween Event Begins
• December 15, 2008: Winter Event Begins
• January 23, 2009: Double XP Weekend Begins

To view these dates, plus many more from the lore and history of City of Heroes, visit the 4 Year Anniversary Calendar web page.

Four years.

I will say that again in case you misread it.

Four years.

I am pleased beyond all belief that this game continues to prosper four years into its life. Our community is stronger than ever, the game as a whole is stronger than it ever has been, and the future for the game, as well as the franchise is extremely bright.

When I look back upon the game that we shipped in 2004, I can’t help but look at all the things that were missing from it. Things we added immediately, and things we added recently. Badges were not in the initial launch. Heck, level 41 to 50 were not shipped with City of Heroes! As the game has progressed, I think we have added more free features with our updates than any other MMO on the planet. Multiple zones, missions, features and systems have been added to the base game over the past four years, making the game better and better with every update.

Every time I visit the Tailor in the game, I say to myself “Heh, I couldn’t even change my costume when City of Heroes launched.” Every time I Exemplar down to play content with my lower level friends, I note that this too was not a feature in the game four years ago. Now I actively seek out Inventions and Recipes both in missions and on the Black Market. The Invention System worked out very well for both City of Heroes and City of Villains, and was not part of the plan when we were finishing up CoH in the first quarter of 2004. Just over this last six months we’ve also added our Ouroboros Flashback System, Weapon Customization, and more quality of life features than the game had ever seen (until Issue 12).

That’s not to say we haven’t been without our missteps. We’ve implemented a couple things imperfectly (Epic Archetypes and Enhancement Diversification come to mind), which caused a lot of headaches for us down the road. I can’t promise that we will never make mistakes, but I will say we will do our best to ensure that we don’t repeat them.

I can’t tell you how excited I am for our game’s future, and although we have some major announcements yet to be made, one of the things I can talk about is a feature that we are planning. Similar in concept to our character creator, it allows you, the players, to create missions and story arcs for your characters and others to participate in. You’ll be able to pick the map, villain group, and objectives, as well as write the dialog and any clues needed for the missions. When you are satisfied with it, you can upload it and have other players across all servers play it and rate it. Fame will come to the players whose stories rate the best overall. It is features like these that we never dreamed of including when we first shipped, but are excited to be able to offer players very soon.

In the end I just want to send out a thanks to all of the players of City of Heroes and City of Villains. Everyone, from the veterans who have been with this game since it launched (and even earlier for some beta testers!) to the users who just subscribed last week, have made this the most fun game to work on in my seventeen years in the industry. I look forward to reviewing our accomplishments this time next year when we celebrate our 5th anniversary!

- Lead Designer, Matt Miller (Positron)

To highlight the four years of City of Heroes gaming, we bring you some fun facts about the game.

Since City of Heroes launched:

• More than 32 million characters created – that’s 4 times the population of New York City!
• Players have spent a combined 292 centuries playing City of Heroes and City of Villains
• More than 100 million items have been traded through the consignment (auction) houses since they were launched in 2007

Additional items of interest include:

Most Popular Origins
Mutant (25%)
Magic (24%)
Natural (21%)

Most Popular Archetypes
Hero: Blaster
Villain: Mastermind

Most Popular Travel Powers
Fly (34%)
Super Jump (30%)

Most Traded Item (via Consignment House)
Base Salvage: Alien Tech Salvage

Most Wealthy Archetypes
Heroes: Scrappers
Villains: Brutes

The City of Heroes Team will be out and about at the following trade show events this summer:

Comic Con, San Diego, CA
July 23rd to July 27th

Penny Arcade Expo, Seattle, WA
August 29th to August 31st

We’ll have more details as to who will be there and what we will be showing as we get closer to these dates, but we want to give those who may be interested in attending advance notice.

Also, we want to mention that we will be doing a player Meet ‘n Greet in the San Francisco Bay Area in mid to late October this year. We had a great time and received a lot of positive feedback from last year’s Meet ‘n Greet event and we’re excited to be planning for another one this year. We’re still working out the details of the event and we will let you know more about it as we get closer.

We look forward to seeing you at the shows!

Warcry.com recently sat down with Senior Lead Designer Matt "Positron" Miller and Powers Designer Floyd "Castle" Grubb and talked about City of Heroes, Issue 12: Midnight Hour and other topics.

As NCsoft NorCal is exclusively focused on all things City of, they had promised to dedicate more resources to it. For example, when they release new elements of micro-content, such as a recent wedding pack, the money they make off it is put right back into the game's expansion and development.

This tighter focus and increased budget has allowed them to do some of the things they always wanted to do, but never could quite fit into a past issue. The main one for Issue 12 is Epic Villain Archetypes.

Click here to read the full interview.

In case you missed it, you can now view the video by Longbow Agent “Major Tasker” that reports all the details about the new Villain Epic Archetypes. Called the Soldiers of Arachnos, these new archetypes are included in the next free expansion to City of Heroes, Issue 12: Midnight Hour.

Click here to visit the City of Heroes movie gallery!

Issue 12: Midnight hour, the next free expansion coming to City of Heroes and City of Villains includes the exciting new Villain Epic Archetypes, called the Soldiers of Arachnos. Massively.com delivers an exclusive first look at a video report from Longbow high command outlining this new threat from the Arachnos Villain organization!

Click here to read the details and watch the video!

To discuss this video, join us on the Official Message Forums!

Brace yourselves as the full fury of the Rikti Invasion Force is set to descend upon Paragon City™ and the Rogue Isles™ starting on Friday, April 18th and continuing through Thursday, April 24th.

For details or to discuss this event with fellow players, please join us on the Official City of Heroes Message Forums.

NCsoft NorCal Studios is pleased to announce the pricing and details for the coming Optional Additional Character Slot feature. As we previously announced, we heard the request for a system to allow more characters on a single server and this is our answer. City of Heroes is a unique game that offers many playstyle options; options that are growing in a large way due to Powerset Proliferation and the addition of the Villain Epic Archetypes in the next free expansion, Issue 12: Midnight Hour. To accommodate playing more characters on your favorite server, we will be including the following features in Issue 12:

• All current subscribers will receive 2 free character slots, each of which can be used on the specific server of their choice. This is to help you make new characters to take advantage of the new features of Issue 12, even if you already have maxed out your “home” server’s character slots.
• 1 free character slot will be granted retroactively on a yearly basis through the current Veteran Reward system. Every 12 months that a subscription is maintained will unlock an additional free character slot that the user can apply to the server of their choice. Thus, existing players will be eligible for up to 4 additional character slots at the launch of Issue 12. This will continue into the future for Veteran Rewards given out every 12 months, so you get another slot for 5 years, another one for 6 years, etc.
• Additional Optional Character Slots will be available on a purchasable basis. These are one-time fees, not an addition to your monthly subscription rate. The additional slots can be had at the following price points:

  • 1 Optional Character Slot for a one-time fee of $5.99
  • 2 Optional Character Slots for a one-time fee of $9.99
  • 5 Optional Character Slots for a one-time fee of $19.99

• Players can have up to 36 slots per server, with an update to the character selection screen that lets you re-organize your character list by Drag and Drop, as well as easily flip between up to three pages of characters available on that server. All customers benefit from these great new User Interface features included with the revisions for Optional Character Slots.

The above features are planned to be made available at the launch of Issue 12: Midnight Hour, which is currently in closed beta testing. Be sure to check out this feature, along with the rest of Issue 12 when we enter the open beta testing period that should be starting in several more weeks.


To discuss this announcement, please join us on the Official Message Forums.