Positron and Statesman have been dropping some hints for a while, and now we have the first official details about the features of Issue #8, the next free content update for City of Heroes and City of Villains.

You can see what’s coming in our Game Guide section.

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Wondering what’s coming next to the world of City of Heroes and City of Villains? Over at GameSpot UK they’ve been asking Cryptic’s Lead Designer, Matt ‘Positron’ Miller exactly the same thing:

Well, first off, we did a major overhaul to the City of Heroes zone Faultline. It includes new contacts and missions, as well as a better street-hunting experience. We also have brought the randomly generated missions that we had in City of Villains (which villain characters got from the newspapers and brokers) to hero characters. The City of Heroes version is called “police band missions”, and these can lead players into safeguard missions where they must protect Paragon City from vandals and stop major crimes in progress.

You can get more information about the upcoming Issue #8: To Protect And Serve by reading the full interview.

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This Thursday, 31 August, will see the 21st birthday of long-term community member Stasis, and in order to celebrate this special occassion, Silver_Weasel and Fire_Guardian are organising a party for her in Pocket D on Union.

Heroes and villains of all stripes (and no stripes at all) are cordially invited to come along to Pocket D on Union from 8pm BST onwards to wish Stasis well and have fun with their fellow players, while listening to FG’s birthday set on Evolution Radio. I’m afraid I won’t be able to stay for the whole event, but I will be popping along.

Remember, if you’re organising an event for City of Heroes or City of Villains and would like to see it mentioned here, drop me a mail to

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We’re pleased to announce that the winner of the Creative Genius competition for July is Coile for for the excellent ‘A for Android’ fiction, including A for Android: Pantheon of Beauty and A for Android: Fragrance of Madness:

There is a faint and familiar scent in the air. I open my eyes in the dark. I know the scent. It is her, her natural musk after a patrol. I sit up in the bed and listen. There are no sounds. I get up and walk to the closed guest room door pulling the trousers on. I open the door. The apartment is silent, there is no one there. Still I can smell her. Sharp, deep pain pierces my chest.

If you enjoy them, be sure to check the other ‘A for Android’ pieces - you can find a list of them, complete with links, in Coile’s post here.

Congratulations to Coile, who is now the proud owner of a ‘Creative Genius’ title on the official message boards and 60 days of free game time!

We’d also like to give a special ‘honourable mention’ to Fire_Guardian for The Insps Don’t Work, which also received several nominations.

The Creative Genius competition is a monthly contest held on the Creative board. For more details of the recently revised competition, see the Creative Genius - A new start thread on the official message boards. The Nominations for August’s Creative Genius will be opened on the Creative board in the first week of September.

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Michael Lafferty and Matthew Eberle move into the closing stages of their serial fiction set in the world of City of Heroes and City of Villains with the first part of Chapter Five: The Conclusion, which is available now over at GameZone.

Charger had hit the bank with the speed of a small tornado, his eyes keyed on the big black swirling cloud, emitters firing. A fist would emerge ever so often, to pound this or swipe away that. Bullets were penetrating the mist around the body, but seemed to have little impact. He couldn’t tell if his beams were having any effect and that made him nervous. Yes, he was staring intently at the black cloud, too intently.

If you want to catch up on the previous action, you can do so via the index page at GameZone.

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This week will see thousands of gamers descend on Leipzig, Germany for the annual Games Convention, where NCsoft Europe will be showing off our games, hosting the finals of the Guild Wars: Factions World Championship and, together with ShoutedFM throwing a massive Community Party for all our players on Friday night.

If you can’t make it in person, though, you’ll still be able to join us virtually by tuning into the live audio broadcast on ShoutedFM‘s mth.House channel from 8pm BST on Friday 25 August, which will include an epic DJ battle between our very own Amboss and the mth.House Allstars!

We’ll also be offering photo coverage of the entire show on our Flickr-Account.

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The official 2000AD art auction in aid of Draw the World Together has now ended.

The five day long eBay auction finished with a desperate bidding war, which saw prices shoot up above expectations to eventually total around £3000. The money raised will be donated to the EveryChild project, who work with children in the Prey Veng province of Cambodia.

Many thanks to all who participated to help support Draw the World Together, we hope to organise some more events relating to City of Heroes and City of Villains in the near future.

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Those hard working folk over at Woot radio have just published the latest edition of The Jester’s Court, their regular podcast that takes a look inside the world of MMORPGs. In this latest edition the Woot team got the chance to chat with none other than Crytpic Studios’ own Matt ‘Positron’ Miller.

But! This is no ordinary interview. Positron takes a defiant stand against the threatening mob of uncertainty, and lets forth a blast of facts which divulge such a huge list of information on Cryptic Studios’ future plans, that summarising it all here would be impossible.

Amongst the incalculable abundance of truly interesting tit bits we find mention of trench coats, wings and jetpacks, plus the name of Issue 8, and plans for future events,

To learn what the future has in store for the heroic citizens of Paragon City, and villainous denizens of the Rogue Isles, download the latest edition of The Jester’s Court.

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You may recall the charity sketch sessions we held at the Brighton and Bristol Comic Expos this year and last, where together with Draw the World Together and EveryChild, we offered you the chance to get your hero or villain sketched by a well known comic artist, for a small donation to charity.

Well those heroic organisers at Draw the World Together are once again blazing the fundraising trail by auctioning off some original artwork from the world famous comic 2000AD. You know you want a piece!

The auction, taking place on eBay, features some incredible artwork from ‘Art Droids’ such as Henry Flint, Mike Collins, Disreali, Christ Weston, Steve Yeowell, Dave Gibbons, Carlos Esquerra and more.

The auctions will last for five days, so go and check out the great art and help support Draw the World Together and EveryChild!

All of the funds raised will go to the EveryChild project in the Prey Veng province of Cambodia.

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Spirals of Fate, the epic fan fiction based in the streets of Paragon City, has reached its fourth chapter. Shadows of the Future, Part 1, follows Charger and Snowman, two heroes sworn to protect the citizens of Paragon, but not quite prepared for the effects a stray laser beam can have on a heroic partnership.

Snowman had to fight the urge to grab his hair in both hands and begin pulling it out. Then he realized he didn’t have any hair and what he really wanted to do was grab the hair of the youthful superhero standing in front of him and begin pulling his hair out. But he knew that would be stepping over the limits, something he was addressing with his ‘teammate’ at that very moment.

The massive man took a deep breath and tried counting slowly to ten. “Ok, let’s go over this again,” he said in a strained voice…

Chapter 4: Shadows of the Future, Part 1 is available now, and for anyone who still hasn’t read them, the previous chapters can all be found over on Gamezone.

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The City of Heroes and City of Villains servers have been updated with a new patch. Head over to the Game Guide section of the site to find out about all the changes.

On a side note, we have to inform you that there won’t be any in-game support available today. However none of your tickets will get lost, they will simply be dealt with outside the game world. Support will resume as usual on Saturday morning.

We would like to apologise for any inconvenience this may cause, and thank you for your patience.

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People who have Lineage II accounts, active or inactive, may experience problems logging in to their PlayNC Master Account. If you are having problems logging in, and you think you might be affected, please use the “forgot password” link. You will then be prompted to enter some details, and answer your security question, after which you will be emailed a new password.

If your PlayNC password is the same for any game accounts, you may also have to change these too. If you find you cannot log in to a game, this may be the reason why.

If you experience problems with this system, or have any questions or concerns, please visit the Knowledge Base and click on the Ask a Question tab. Under Department, select Account Support to best direct your enquiry.

If you do have a Lineage II Account, please read this message over on the official Lineage II site.

The City of Heroes and City of Villains forums are currently down for maintenance.

Thank you for your assistance and your continued patience. We remain dedicated to providing the best possible service for our customers and apologise for the inconvenience.

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Gamezone has released the latest chapter of Spirals of Fate - a work of serial fiction set in the City of Heroes and City of Villains universe. This latest instalment Harsh Environments shifts the focus of the story back towards villains and the chance of a new future with Arachnos. You can read it here!

Mosaic was avidly staring at the landing zone the flyer was approaching. Soon he would be back on the ground, in the center of an Arachnos base. All he would need to rebuild his small empire would be right at his fingertips. Everything he could possibly require would be available – if he was clever enough to gain access to them…

Head over to Gamezone to check the latest Chapter: Harsh Environments, or for those who haven’t read the previous installments, you can catch up on those too.

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