In the newest Dev Diary, Game Designer Phil Zeleski explains the new Day Jobs system that will be introduced in Issue 13: Power and Responsibility. Day Jobs takes the concept of offline character progression to a new level, incorporating a variety of potential rewards and allowing players to add further depth to their character’s identity and back-story. Is your Hero a Banker when not out stopping crime, or maybe a simple Shop Keeper? Is your Villain an avid Clubber, or perhaps a Smuggler? Whatever you choose, Badges and Accolades await in addition to other bonuses!

Last month we asked you to pose some questions for Senior Designer Bruce Harlick. Bruce has selected a range of questions to answer, and we have them for you today on the Official Forums. Bruce answers questions on mission design, which super movie of the summer he preferred, future story direction and more! Make sure to drop by the forum thread to read the full Q&A and leave your comments ... and maybe a Redname suggestion.

Next up in the series is Senior Animator/VFX Artist, Chris “Back Alley Brawler” Bruce. To learn more about Chris and the particulars of his role in the City of Heroes dev team, exit the highway and follow the signs to the alleyways of the Developer’s Corner. Back Alley Brawler is ready to answer your questions, so make sure to leave yours in this thread before 21st October.

Issue 13: Power and Responsibility includes a whole host of new developments. Not only are there significant new features, but there is also ongoing development to the existing game. A big part of the game is the balance of all the Archetypes, their respective power sets and how they compare to each other. Maintaining a level of equity between everything is also a continual goal. In this article, NCsoft NorCal Senior Designer Floyd “Castle” Grubb gives us the scoop on some proposed powers changes that will be in testing with Issue 13.  Please keep in mind that there is still the entire testing and revision process to go through with these changes. The team is excited to see how these refinements stand up to player feedback, datamining, and the beta process!

Click here to read the article

City of Heroes Executive Producer Brian Clayton and Lead Designer Matt Miller have been busy talking to the press in the wake of the latest news about Issue 13 and Issue 14. They have provided Interviews with Massively.com and MMORPG.com talking about these recent developments with City of Heroes.

At Massively, you can find three separate interviews:

• Brian Clayton and Matt Miller on Power and Responsibility in City of Heroes
• A new era for PvP in City of Heroes
• Super Boosters and Beyond in City of Heroes

Meanwhile MMORPG.com present their City of Heroes Issue 13 Changes Interview.

This is to allow community-suggested improvements to the Mission Architect. Issue 13 will now be known as Issue 13: Power and Responsibility and will be launched this autumn, including all previously announced features - except Mission Architect - and more announced today.

The Mission Architect will now become the main feature for Issue 14: Architect, announced today. Issue 14 is currently scheduled to be launched in the first quarter 2009. In addition to the Mission Architect, Issue 14 will include other yet-to-be-announced features.

We’re not done yet! Matt ‘Positron’ Miller has put his fingers to the keyboard once more to explain the reasoning behind the decision to make this change and includes some of the newly announced features in Power and Responsibility, such as the Levelling Pact and Multiple Builds.

Super Booster I: Cyborg

City of Heroes Super Booster I: Cyborg includes an extensive costume set, three character emotes, four selectable auras that activate in combat mode and a special Cyborg “Self-Destruct” power.  This purchase enables these features for all characters on your game account

Click here for details.

Mini Booster: Temporary 30 Day Jetpack

Sometimes even super powered Heroes and Villains can use a lift.  City of Heroes Mini Booster: Temporary 30 Day Jetpack includes a jetpack travel power for all characters on the game account for 30 days, beginning at the time of purchase.  After 30 days the jetpack will no longer be include within each character’s selectable powers.

Click here for details.

Join us on the Official Forums to get to know members of the City of Heroes Development Team in the “Ask a Dev” article series. In this instalment, we introduce Senior Designer Bruce Harlick. Bruce is primarily responsible for making cool stories and missions, and designing systems to help support missions.

To find out more about Bruce, read through his Biography and self-introduction in this forum thread. Then, you can post your questions for him to answer in his follow up article. The deadline for submissions is September 22nd.

Issue 13: Architect will bring the much-anticipated Mission Architect, which will allow players to create their own missions and story arcs to share with the community. Other new features include two new powersets, new Cimerora missions, a new Merits rewards system and a new Day Jobs system which will allow characters to continue earning rewards whilst offline.

For all the details on Issue 13: Architect, read the announcement and then head over to read Positron’s Issue 13 address.

City of Heroes community member and Player vs Player enthusiast Knight Stalker has been busy putting together a PvP tournament based on the Super Summer Slam Spectacular run in 2005. X4: The Evolution will feature a modified Pentad format and two divisions: Level 40 Cruiserweight and Level 21 Featherweight.

For all the details on the tournament structure and rules, please see this forum thread. Best of luck to all who enter!

Aion fully playable! A packed show schedule! Quests for great prizes! It’s not enough – we’re going even further with our activities at Games Convention – we’re going fully multimedia!

Our community team has been working to create an official City of Heroes page on Facebook where you can receive news feeds, share images and videos with the community, and stay in touch with all your heroic and villainous friends.

You can even create a “Masked” profile to hide your secret identity, a place to put your Hero or Villain’s character profile and connect to other Heroes and Villains… a way to share and promote the game to your mild mannered friends on Facebook. So come and join us, you never know who you might run into!

City of Heroes players who come to the Games Convention in Leipzig (or the Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle) this month are in store for a special treat!

We’ll be giving away exclusive codes for a new costume power: The PPD hardsuit!

How do you get it? Well, simply seek out a community representative of your choice (GhostRaptor, Palladium, Avatea or Kerensky) at the NCsoft booth and ask them kindly. Please note that codes given out at European conventions only work on EU accounts.

If you want to know more about these events, either check out all our announcements or have a look at the convention websites:

• Games Convention (20th - 24th August 2008)
  
• Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) (28th - 31st August 2008)

We look forward to seeing you there!

We now accept PayPal as a payment option for all digital code purchases made through the PlayNC store (not for subscriptions or NCcoin) for the UK and Germany. The PayPal payment option will show up beneath the Credit Card payment option and will require you to log into your PayPal account to complete the transaction. If you have any questions about this new payment option, please visit the Support Center for help.

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, August 1st and continuing through Thursday, August 7th. For details or to discuss this event with fellow players, please join us on this forum thread.

City of Heroes has expanded the suite of available purchasable services to include Character Respecs (short for Respecifications). Over the course of levelling up, there are many powers that a character can choose from. A Character Respec allows the character to re-select their powers from their chosen primary and secondary powers, along with any other pools of powers they have access to. To be clear, this optional purchasable Respec does not allow the primary or secondary powerset to be reselected; it functions like existing respecs currently available in game.

Optional Character Respecs are available via the in-game store, found at the character select screen, for the price of £ 5.99 / € 8.99.

There are already multiple in-game methods that players can obtain a Respec. Now, if the convenience of purchasing a Respec is desired, it is available. Having a purchasable option has been an often heard desire from the game’s customers.

Once a player purchases a Respec they must then visit a Respec Contact in-game to use it, in the same manner as the in-game obtainable respecs are done. The Respec Contacts include: Jack Wolf in Galaxy City and Arbiter Lupin in Nerva.