Paragon City.com has been ‘redesigning’ for so long I was starting to think its front page was just seriously minimalist. Hey, for some people black text on a white background is cool, yah?

Apparently though, they’ve just been waiting for the right moment to re-appear. Not content with having some packed forums that jump with players (and a whole lot of creativity, which we’ll spotlight sometime) they’re now looking for people to write content for the new site.

Interested? Then drop by the site, or to volunteer your services.

Andy Young of gaming site Pro-G has reviewed the US version of City of Heroes and, it seems, had a lot of fun doing so:

City of Heroes is an extremely refreshing experience. It’s accessible and fun, and to the credit of both players and the developers, it can be an engaging and exciting place.

You can go and read the full review here. Bear in mind that at the moment only the US version of the game is available for download, and you’ll miss out on all the nice shiny things we’re planning to put in the European box…

Jack ‘Statesman’ Emmert has managed to squeeze another interview into his busy schedule (does he ever sleep?), chatting to Derek dela Fuente of Total Video Games about all things heroic, including the upcoming launch of City of Heroes in Europe:

Paragon City is a metropolis for not just a single nation, but the entire world. The heroes of every country are needed to battle against the forces of evil. In the coming months, players will start seeing Paragon City’s threats becoming more world spanning – and heroes themselves will be going across the globe to protect humanity.

You can read the whole interview here.

Long running fansite City of Heroes Realm has recently taken on a new content manager, Cantatus, who’s been busy keeping it updated and has now published a rather nifty European City of Heroes FAQ based on my recent posts on the official US message boards. As well as being great for my ego, it’s also full of wholesome informational goodness.

If you want to go straight to the source, you can read the original thread.

Following its glowing review last month, strategy gamer’s haven The Wargamer has awarded City of Heroes a place on its 2004 Holiday Buying Guide. One of only four roleplaying games to make the grade this year, City of Heroes sits alongside EverQuest II, Temple of Elemental Evil and World of Warcraft in a list decided on by all of the regular Wargamer staff, who say:

Not only was this comic book MMORPG a huge success, but it turned into a critical success as well.  This is perhaps one of the best MMORPGs to be released in a couple of years...

Read the whole guide here, and check out The Wargamer’s full review here.

The Christmas edition of PC Gamer (that’s Issue 143, for those of you keeping count of these things) features a City of Heroes comic strip in the magazine’s Extra-Life section.

Penned by PCG regular Kieron Gillen, the two-page story details the team’s attempt to earn their capes - a mission that all heroes can attempt once they reach Security Level 20.

If you live in the UK, the Christmas edition of PC Gamer should be on the shelves of your local newsagent this weekend. 

Hello everybody; I’m your host for today’s grand opening of the first official City of Heroes European website. My name’s Rockjaw, although my mother christened me otherwise, and if you’ll indulge me for a minute I’d like to give you a tour of this fine facility…

Can you tell us a little about who you are, your background and how you came to be Lead Designer on City of Heroes?

I’m Jack ‘Statesman’ Emmert, and I’m Lead Designer of City of Heroes, working for Cryptic Studios in San Jose, California.

As for how I got this job, I had co-authored several pen and paper RPGs with Rick Dakan while I was still in school. Rick’s childhood friend, Michael Lewis, sold his video chip company and, together with Rick, wanted to get one of their ideas off the ground – a massively multiplayer super powered hero game. Michael provided the investment capital, and Rick asked me to join because of my gaming experience and comic book knowledge.

For potential new players, can you explain what City of Heroes is?

City of Heroes is the first, and only, super powered massively multiplayer online roleplaying game. Each player joins thousands of other heroes in the ongoing battle against evil.

Strange thought it may seem to us here in Europe, the custom of dressing up in bizarre costumes and parading around the streets of your home town on Halloween has proved enduringly popular with our American cousins - and the City of Heroes Halloween Costume Contest at the official US site only served to encourage them. Bless.

The overall winner was Hellgeist, with a costume so accurate you have to wonder whether he actually fights crime in his spare time and just recreated himself in-game:

If that’s whetted your appetite, see below…

Actually, it’s quite possible that there was no fire involved. It might not even have been cosy, to be completely honest. What is for sure, though, is that Graeme Boyd from Computer & Video Games recently got together with the lead designer of City of Heroes and asked him about everything from the appeal of costumed heroes to the importance of customisation:

From the very start we wanted to make sure that people could really realise the idea they had in their head of the superhero they would be. We felt that there was no-one else that hadn’t dreamed of being a superhero. You can jump right into City of Heroes and we give you everything: your origin is wide open and you can design your costume from the very start rather than us holding that off.

You can read the whole interview here.

The rather splendid City of Heroes Warcry has posted interviews with two of the winners of the immensely popular Paragon City Film Festival that was held a while ago. Both were asked the same questions, which makes for an interesting comparison. When asked if there was anything he would have done differently, Brian Shapiro, winner of the Best Comedy award, said:

Actually, this is one the few films that came out exactly as I envisioned it. If I had to be picky, though, I’m not good with lighting. I wish that could have been better. Personally, I wish I had more hair as well!

Whereas Best Action winner Mike D’Anna of the Liberty League thought:

One thing that I did not know of at the time that I would have utilized more of had I known was demo editing; the only demo editing I did was to remove playernames & damage dispays. I have since seen some of the amazing shots people have created from scratch with demo editing, but all the shots in our movie were filmed “live”.

You can read the full Brian Shapiro interview here and the Mike D’Anna interview here. You can download their winning movies - as well as the other winners and honourable mentions - at the movies page of the official US site.

* Or rather ‘Buffs! Demorecord! Pull!’ - you’ll get the idea…

In between masterminding the continuing evolution of our favourite game and saving the world from the myriad forces of evil, Jack ‘Statesman’ Emmert has found the time to be interviewed by one of my favourite sites, geek-mecca Slashdot.

As is traditional at Slashdot, the questions come from the readers of the site, which can make Slashdot interviews a little more pointed than some, and also means they can cover a lot of ground. This is no exception, covering everything from how City of Villains will interact with City of Heroes to the state of massively multiplayer games in general:

What the MMP medium has NOT had is the breakout hit that defines it. Duke Nukem and Doom, for instance, were so popular that they created the FPS explosion that continues to this day. In the RTS medium, every game is still compared to Warcraft and Starcraft. Successful MMP’s have sold hundreds of thousands of copies, but nothing has yet sold the millions to match what these other games have. Eventually, there will be one. Of course, it’s impossible to predict something like that until it already happens.

If you want to see Jack expound on this and other subjects, including death penalties, battling the grind and user generated content, you can read the whole thing here...

Only a couple of weeks after winning PC or Console Game of the Year and Multiplayer Game of the Year at Billboard Magazine‘s first annual Digital Entertainment Awards, the New York Times has picked City of Heroes as one of its top 10 games of the year.

Beating off competition from heavyweight contenders like Halo 2 and Call of Duty, City of Heroes takes a place in a list that includes the likes of The Sims 2, Far Cry and Burnout 3: Takedown. Charles Herold of the New York Times says:

The notion of a city overflowing with superheroes was mocked in the Tick comic books, but the online role-playing game City of Heroes makes it seem like a pretty good idea. The degree of customization in looks and powers allows every superhero to be different, making the game as much about coming up with the coolest design as about saving the world.

You can read the whole list here (registration required). 

Popular European gaming site Eurogamer.net let renowned UK journo Kieron Gillen loose on City of Heroes recently, and he came back from the experience with plenty of positive things to say:

Most MMO games haven’t had the strength of vision to choose their target, preferring to point ineffectually around a variety of targets. City of Heroes doesn’t have complicated trade economies.

City of Heroes is about this: hitting people in the face.

And also this: looking really good.

So, ultimately: hitting people in the face, while looking really good.

Well, we’d say there was a little bit more to it than that, but as long as Kieron enjoys himself....

Oh boy, this one is kinda embarrassing. Please bear in mind CoH Vault grabbed me to talk while I was drunk. Only kidding; but it was done a while ago, just like that Warcry yakfest, which dates some of the answers somewhat. That’s ‘some’ of the answers, mind:

We’re hoping to release all our future games from 2005 onwards on a global, simultaneous basis, so check back with me early next year and I’ll be hiring again… that said, if you’re a fan of ANYTHING NCsoft has in production at the moment and you’re in Europe, it can’t hurt to send us your resume.

True dat. The is still open, folks. Anyway, if you want to know about my (gasp) hobbies and the fact that (louder gasp) I’ve never built my own PC, City of Heroes Vault has you covered.

By the way, I’m well aware of the self-relexive nature of quoting an interview with me in a post by me. But what can I say, it’s like lookin’ in a mirror and likin’ what you see.