It seems that the self-styled ‘Destined Ones’ of Arachnos are planning to invade Siren’s Call on the on the evening of Saturday 3 June. In response, Stryker is organising a defense, and if you want to help keep Paragon City safe from the lackeys of Lord Recluse, be sure to sign up on the Official Message Boards.

The intrepid chaps from Boomtown managed to grab some time with Matt ‘Positron’ Miller at E3, where Jakob Paulsen asked the Lead Designer of City of Heroes and Villains about his newly expanded role and his plans for the future of the games:

Boomtown: What will change now that you are the lead developer?
Matt Miller: Well, CoH and CoV are still Jack [Emmert’s] games, but he has entrusted me to lead the games’ direction. I’ve always wanted to make them more story driven and have worked for a long period to achieve that. While he still has his say, I now decide which systems and features we work on, how we implement them, which zones we create or rework and so on.

You can read Boomtown’s full interview by clicking here.

Last weekend saw the City of Heroes and Villains community team, in the distinctive shapes of Amboss, Midoh and Bridger, setting up shop at the Bristol International Comic Expo and manning the NCsoft Europe stand. This year’s Expo was a great success, and everyone involved had a great time.

In addition to chatting about the games, giving away goodies and running the odd prize draw or two, we were able to demonstrate the City of Heroes Collectible Card Game from AEG, show off some trailers of our upcoming games, and host another Draw the World Together event to raise money for EveryChild.

We even managed to find the time to buy some comics.

We’d like to thank all the players that came to see us, all the artists who generously gave of their time to support Draw the World Together, and everyone who donated money in return for sketches of your heroes and villains. Also, a special mention must go to rochefort, for generously donating his time and extensive collection of cards to running demonstration games of the City of Heroes CCG.

If you didn’t manage to make it this time, don’t worry - we’re planning to be at a few more shows this year, and will be bringing you more details as soon as we can. In the meantime, you can head over to the message boards to take a look at some of the character sketches people got done and check out some of the photos, or read on to see some of our snaps from the Expo…

On Saturday 22 July, the Arenas of Union will echo with the sounds of battle as the Super Slamdown 2006 gets underway. Organised by Infurnus, this community event will pit Featherweight (Level 1-5) Pentad teams against each other in an action-packed tournament.

For more details, follow the link above or check the latest thread on the Official Message Boards.

In Issue #7, the heroes of Paragon will clash with the Destined Ones of Arachnos in an alternate version of Atlas Park known as Recluse’s Victory. See what’s in store with the latest addition to our Movies section.

The second of the planned trilogy of novels based on City of Heroes is due out in June, and Warcry have been chatting to author Robin Laws about the book and what it’s like to write a story set in an established world:

WarCry: Where does your book fit with the first book (The Web of Arachnos)? Is it continuing the same story or is this an entirely new tale?

It’s a standalone story with a few nods to the first book.

You don’t have to have read The Web Of Arachnos (or for that matter even know the City of Heroes world) to follow the action.

Freedom Phalanx picks up the Paragon City story fifty years later, in the mid-80s, at a low point for the city and for Statesman.

You can read the complete interview by clicking here.

Robbie Cooper’s Alter Ego project has seen him travel from Europe to Australia and beyond, camera in hand, in hot pursuit of the world’s “most colourful, interesting, or significant gamers”. Working with writer Tracy Spaight, award winning photojournalist Cooper has been busy capturing the essence of gamer culture through interviews and pictures, the results of which will be published in a book this summer.

If you fancy taking part, all you need to do is send an email directly to Robbie, containing the following information:

• A picture of yourself.
• A picture of your favourite City of Heroes character.
• A short description of who you are, what you do and what makes your character different or interesting from all others (think about back story, personality, similarities between you and your character etc).

Send your submission to Robbie Cooper direct at using “Alter Ego submission - NCsoft” as the subject line.

Take a look at the latest Feature Update over on the City of Villains site for a look at some of the new costume options in Issue #7: Destiny Manifest.