With the next major update to City of Heroes and City of Villains drawing closer, lead designer Matt Miller (otherwise known as Positron) gives us an overview of what the future holds for our favourite super-powered games…

In last week’s Feature Update, we gave an overview of how the upcoming Veteran Rewards program will work. Now, we’re pleased to announce the rewards that our loyal players will earn for their first 12 months of playing City of Heroes and City of Villains, which include new costume options, powers and badges.

For full details, see our new Veteran Rewards page. Over the coming weeks we’ll be updating this page with additional rewards, so be sure to check back regularly.

We have created a special set of NCsoft Widgets to run on the Yahoo! Widget Engine that will help you keep tabs on your favourite NCsoft games.

Yahoo! Widgets are handy mini-applications that you can run on your desktop via an easy-to-use program called the Yahoo! Widget Engine, which is available for both Windows and Mac OS X.

Widgets are available to perform any number of tasks such as checking your email, showing you the weather forecast, or perhaps unleashing a crazed monster that roams your desktop, chewing on application windows, and attacking the mouse cursor if it gets too close. Yes, really.

Check out the City of Heroes News Tracker Widget here, or head over to PlayNC to see the full set!

As revealed in our first Issue #8 Feature Update, the next free content update for City of Heroes and Villains will introduce our Veteran Rewards program. We can now reveal more information about this exciting new system, which will reward our loyal players for the time they’ve spent subscribed with badges, powers, costume items and more… Including the long-awaited wings!

To find out more about the Veteran Rewards program, check out our latest Feature Update for an overview of how the system will work and a handy FAQ to answer any questions you may have. Over the coming weeks, we’ll be bringing you more details of the specific rewards that will be available.

If you want more wings, you should also take a look at our Media section, where you can download a Wings trailer from the Movies page or adorn your desktop with a new wings-themed addition to our Wallpapers page.

And don’t forget to take a look at the City of Villains site for some less heroic wallpapers and screenshots!

Read on to see wings in action…

We’re pleased to announce that the winner of the Creative Genius competition for August is ScarletVengeance for the superb character portraits of Two Fist, Lady Doom, Black Jon Bludd and Scarlet Vengeance herself.

This was one of the hardest months to judge so far, with several excellent submissions being nominated including artwork, music, videos and websites. It was very tough to choose between them, and many deserve honourable mentions in their own right. You can take a look at them all by checking the August Nominations thread on the official message boards, which contains links to the nominated submissions.

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

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 September’s Creative Genius will be opened on the Creative board in the first week of September, so there’s plenty of time to post your submissions.

In the meantime, read on to see more of ScarletVengeance’s character portraits…

If you’re on Defiant and interested in PvP, make sure you head over to the Arena at 8pm UK time for A8PM (Arena at 8 PM), a daily meeting organised by jakku that’s open to any and all players, regardles of skill level or experience.

In Paragon City, A8PM takes place in the Emerald Zone of the Galaxy City Arena. Villains are also welcome, however, and should use the A8PM Global Chat channel to organise and arrange matches, as well as discussing builds, tactics and other PvP topics.

From the lost files of Jackson Turner, former reporter for the Paragon Times:

There are many frightening and dangerous entities in our world. Some are relatively mundane, such as gang members with super powers, or the clunky clockwork robots of the Clockwork King, while others aspire to grandiose villainy and arch-plans, such as the criminals of the Rogue Isles. But there are some threats that outstrip almost all others, and cause even the greatest heroes (and villains, too, I suppose), pause. The Federal Bureau of Super-powered Affairs calls them “Threats” officially (although they seem to classify everything as a threat) but they are more commonly referred to among agents by the informal phrase, “Giant Monsters”.

Continue reading to see the leaked FBSA files found with Turner’s notes…

We’re pleased to announce that on 29 September, NCsoft Europe will be releasing a new ‘Good vs. Evil’ Combined Edition of City of Heroes and City of Villains, featuring both games and some unique bonus in-game goodies.

With two award-winning games at a special new low price, there’s never been a better way to enter the world of Paragon City and the Rogue Isles!

For full details, please see our new Combined Edition page. Existing players can also discuss this new edition of our favourite games on the official message boards.

The nominations for August’s Creative Genius Award are now open. If you already know which of last month’s submissions you feel is the best, head over to the nomination thread and let us know. Otherwise, you can peruse the Creative board and see what you think is worthy of recognition.

Nominations will close on Tuesday 12 September, and the winner will be announced later next week.

We’re pleased to announce the opening of the Powers Listings in the Game Guide sections of the City of Heroes and City of Villains websites.

This initial version of the Powers listings covers all of the Primary and Secondary Power Sets for the standard Archetypes in both games, giving descriptions and basic information about the powers in each set. Many powers are illustrated with screenshots or short movies showing the power in use.

This is just the first stage of the listings, and over time we’ll be expanding them with:

• Pool Powers
• Ancillary Powers
• Patron Powers
• Kheldian Powers
• More screenshots and movies of powers in use.

Please bear in mind that this is very much a work in progress, and at this early stage there will almost certainly still be some mistakes – particularly when it comes to the details of which Enhancements can be slotted in each power. We’re working our way through the listings and fixing any problems that we find, but if you spot any errors, please help us out by posting the details in this thread on the official message boards.

Enjoy!