TOP SECRET – Sensitive Compartmented Information – TOP SECRET

Operation: Holiday Cheer
Target Date: 16 / 12 / 2005
Duration: Through January 2nd, 2006

ATTN: Agents of Longbow
RE: The Scrooge Isles

Heads up, Longbow! Those dastards in Arachnos have some bloody nerve! As you know, we have been running a massive toy and charity drive through Freedom Corps. This is the kind of good work that Paragon needs to heal and move forward.

And those skunks have had the audacity to get in our faces! Early this morning, an Arachnos villain group raided the cargo ship the Red Maple. Several injuries were reported, but luckily there were no fatalities. However, the sleazeballs did manage to steal an entire shipment of gifts.

This aggression will not stand!

Major General Mackenzie, you will prepare Longbow helicopters for an immediate counter-strike. Agent Wallace will call in our super-powered allies and transport them to Mercy Island in order to retrieve the stolen gifts. Between the Longbow choppers and their Freedom Corps jetpacks, our strike should catch them with their pants down – we’ll show them who has the real stones!

General, take note that more shipments are arriving through the holidays. The last shipments are due on January 2nd, so we must keep the Longbow choppers on high alert. Tell the heroes to be especially vigilant, and that everyone needs to do his or her part to ensure Paragon’s holidays are safe!

Good luck, agents.

Ms. Liberty

Thanks to the kindness of Ms Liberty, heroes are zipping around the city with their brand new, top of the line ‘jingle jet’ rocket packs, and brandishing their unique badges.

If you haven’t taken one of these babies for a test fly yet, login to any European server to see what you’re missing!

But while these first gifts have arrived for all good heroes, that was only the beginning…

Heroes of Paragon,

Thanks to the bravery and courage of undercover Longbow agents on the Rogue Isles, word has reached me of a grave threat to our city. Apparently, the vicious psychopath known as ‘Jawbreaker’ is forging an alliance of various villain factions and will shortly be leading a large-scale assault on Siren’s Call. His intention appears to be to overwhelm our defenders by force of numbers and claim the zone for Arachnos.

If Arachnos gains control of Siren’s Call, it would allow Lord Recluse’s lackeys to strike at the heart of Paragon at will. This assault cannot be allowed to succeed.

Your city needs you. Join me on Defiant at the Steel Canyon entrance to Siren’s Call at 5.30pm GMT on Wednesday 14 December. Longbow believes that Jawbreaker will begin his assault at 6pm GMT that evening, and their tactical assessment predicts that if we can hold off his forces for two hours, Jawbreaker’s hastily-formed alliance will crumble and Siren’s Call will be saved.

Please note, FBSA rules will only permit heroes of Security Level 20 or above to enter Siren’s Call.

Bridger

My fellow heroes,

The time has come for the heroes of Union to join forces, rally together and take back Siren’s Call: to honour Thomas Danner, also known as the hero Sunburst.

As many of you will know, Sunburst’s death caused the destruction now readily apparent within Siren’s Call. At Statesman’s urging, I will lead a coalition of you willing heroes into Siren’s Call in an attempt to take back the city zone for the forces of good.

Be aware - many villains will seek to oppose us, and Longbow intelligence indicates that Crater, a well-known villain of great power within the Rogue Isles, may be aware of our actions. Even now he is gathering an alliance of evil in an attempt to thwart us.

If you feel up to the challenge, join me in Steel Canyon, at the entrance to Siren’s Call, on Wednesday 14th December from 8:00pm GMT. Our operation will commence when our forces are ready, and I believe if we can hold Siren’s Call for Paragon City until 10:30pm, Crater’s men will scatter like the cowards they truly are. Remember, under FBSA guidelines only heroes of Security Level 20 or above can enter Siren’s Call.

Do not fail me. Do not fail Paragon City. Remember Sunburst!

Rockjaw

This clever widget will let you make a personalised card of your Hero from a screenshot, lets you fill in your own name, powers, and add some of your own text to give it some shine. If you print the card out, it will even be considered legal for tournaments! Come on, you know you want some.

Check out the Card Builder here!

The site also has information about the rules, PDF previews of the demo decks, a description of the “You Are the Hero” Contest Winner Ahnek Rah-Zul, card lists and more, including the Card Preview Countdowns, showing off one card per day until release! Click here for the official site!

Ah, the wonders of the web. If you missed the chance to get a real copy of our recent ‘A Day in the Double Life’ comic, and haven’t had the time to pop a stamped, self-addressed envelope in the post, fear not, you can now download all the winning entries!

Print them off, give them to your friends for Christmas, they’ll love you for it.

We’re extremely happy to announce that the Global Chat system will be available on the European City of Heroes and Villains servers from tomorrow morning.

For important information about using Global Chat, please see this announcement on the Official Message Boards.

Heroes of Paragon, as the threat of Arachnos darkens our shores and the Rikti future remains unknown, these are dangerous times certain to try even the strongest hero’s resolve. 

Yet, day after day you ceaselessly strive to protect the freedom and honor of your home. Your stalwart struggle against the tyranny of evil is for neither fame nor money. Instead you rise above these concerns as you fight for what you know in your heart to be right.

We believe that this selfless dedication to the principles of justice must be recognized! In order to acknowledge your superlative contribution to the ongoing and ever growing glory of Paragon City, we at Freedom Corps have arranged a special holiday gift for you all!

To encourage a holiday season full of good cheer, we have contacted the top technological minds across the city to develop a special treat for every hero! I won’t ruin the surprise, but I will tell you that these technological marvels are only the beginning of our upcoming festivities.

To get your well-earned reward, be sure to join us in Paragon City anytime after 8 December, 2005.

But don’t to wait too long, we will surely run out of gifts by 2 January, 2006!

The DJs of Evolution Radio braved the beer and babes of Brighton to broadcast live from the Comic Expo a couple of weeks ago, and during that crazy weekend, they cornered Bridger and I, Rockjaw, to talk about all things City of Heroes. (With a bit of City of Villains thrown in, too.)

The resulting chat is a little rough around the edges in the best punk rock tradition, but nevertheless if you want to download this 15Mb MP3, you’ll get 45-odd minutes of chat about your favourite MMORPGs, including such probing questions as “What is your favourite beer?” (Hey, I didn’t ask ‘em.)

Outside of our drinking habits however, we do talk a bit about gaming. Warning: excessive verbiage ahead.

If you attended the recent Comic Expo here in Brighton, then it’s likely that someone from NCsoft thrust a copy of ‘A Day in the Double Life’ into your hands - or perhaps you hung around our stand nicking fistfuls of copies.

Either way, you’ve already got a copy of our exclusive, 16-page comic created by City of Heroes players - but what if you didn’t make it to Brighton, and aren’t a canny thief? Well, your lucky day has arrived....

Yes, we have quite a few copies of the anthology comic left and we’re happy to give them to you. All you need to do is send us a stamped, self-addressed envelope with enough postage on it to get back to you, wherever you are. Send it to the address below and we’ll pop a copy in the post - it’s that simple.

If for whatever reason you don’t want a physical copy of the comic (you do though, honest, it’s lovely) then stay tuned - we’ll be running the winning stories here on the site very soon.