One of the greatest threats the world has ever seen, the vast mutated monster known as Hamidon has been held in check by the heroes of Paragon City for nearly three years. Soon, though, Hamidon will be evolving into a deadly new incarnation - and the villains of the Rogue Isles will also get a chance to face this tricky foe.

Find out more in our latest Issue #9 Feature Update.

After two and half years of patrolling the streets and skies of Paragon City in his familiar red and black costume, Bridger has decided that it’s time for a new look - and who better to come up with one than the heroes he’s dedicated his career to aiding?

What do I do?
All you have to do is design a new costume for Bridger, note down the details as explained below, then send them and a screenshot to ukcompetitions@cityofheroes.com before the end of Friday 30 March.

What will I win?
As well as the pride of seeing Bridger sporting your costume design at all official events and other in-game appearances, the creator of the winning costume will receive a unique title on the official message boards and for the character of their choice in-game, 60 days of free time for your game account, and a limited edition Lord Recluse statuette!

Interested? Read on for more details of how to enter…

With the Inventions system, Consignment Houses, all new and improved Hamidon and the Statesman Task Force, Issue #9: Breakthrough will change the face of Paragon City and the Rogue Isles forever. See these new features in action in the Issue #9 trailer available in our Movies section now.

You can find out more about Issue #9: Breakthrough from the Feature Updates in our Game Guide section, as well as from the recent articles and interviews on Boomtown, GameSpot and MMORPG.com, and you can chat about the Inventions system on our new message board section.

City of Heroes and Villains Lead Designer Matt ‘Positron’ Miller has been talking more about the Inventions system that will be introduced in the upcoming Issue #9 with MMORPG.com and GameSpot.

Over at MMORPG.com you can learn more about the history of Inventions, the basics of how the system will work, and see an example of one of the ‘enhancement sets’ that heroes and villains will be able to collect to give their characters new and unique abilities and bonuses:

We determined that adding mini-powers to your existing ones had a lot of potential, as the sky would nearly be the limit on what we could accomplish with these new Enhancements.

Read the full Inventions article at MMORPG.com.

GameSpot, meanwhile, has quizzed Matt about many aspects of the Inventions system - in the course of which, he reveals that the Auction system, which will make it easier for players to buy and sell Inventions and the materials required to make them, will work across servers:

The consignment houses are all cross-server. This means that someone on the Virtue server could be selling recipes and salvage to someone on the Justice server. This will result in a wealth of items to buy, and a wealth of buyers to sell to.

Read the full Q&A at GameSpot.

The third part of the new series of ‘Ask a Dev’ - where you, the players of City of Heroes and Villains, get a chance to ask the Cryptic development team about the past, present and future of our favourite games - is now available on Boomtown.

You can start by reading the Q&A with Jack ‘Statesman’ Emmert based on the questions submitted in the previous instalment, then head over to this page to learn more about Cryptic Producer Serdar Copur, the next dev in the series, and email in your questions for him.

In a few weeks, we’ll collect all the questions from European and US players, pick the best ones, then tie Serdar to a chair and shine a bright light in his eyes until he answers every single one. Actually, that last bit about the chair and the bright light probably won’t be necessary, but you get the general idea.

The more people charging about Recluse’s Victory, the more fun the zone is. So why not take part in the regular Recluse’s Victory events on both Union and Defiant and experience the zone at its very best?

On Union, Nicky is organising a regular RV rampage on Thursday evenings from 7pm GMT.  You can find out more - and let people know to expect you - in the thread on the official message boards.

Meanwhile, on Defiant, Master_Zaprobo has set up a regular Recluse’s Victory event on the last Saturday of every month, starting at 2pm GMT. Again, you can find out more in the thread on the official message boards.