Alexa

Hi everyone --

As promised in my announcement yesterday, I am making a follow-up post about the latest beta invitation wave. Please read this carefully...

The beta invitations finished sending on this end at approximately 2am Central this morning. With this last wave, we should have hit all of the remaining 12+ monthers who were eligible for the beta test under our long-time subscriber program. Of course, there is always a chance that some people were missed.

Note: The final cutoff date for 12+ month consideration was September 12, 2005. This means that you must have created your account no later than September 12, 2004 and had 12 or more months of paid subscription time in City of Heroes prior to the cutoff date in order to qualify. Your account must also be active (i.e. not in a cancelled state).

As a reminder, you must be 18 years or older to be considered for beta participation.

What should you do if you think you should have received a beta invitation but did not?

If you have checked the email address listed on your PlayNC master account and believe that you meet all of the qualifications above but never received a beta invitation, you can now contact the Account support group by emailing support@plaync.com. Be sure to provide the City of Heroes game account name that you believe made you an eligible candidate.

Please be patient while your account is researched. This is a manual process and might require a few days to complete. Do not submit multiple tickets for the same issue - the only thing this accomplishes is to create more work for the account group.

Please do not PM Alexa or CuppaJo and ask them to investigate your account details/history. They cannot do this. Research into your account billing history, etc., can only be performed by the account support group.

Thank you,
Alexa

Hi folks --

Just wanted to let you know that we will be sending out more CoV beta invites tonight, beginning in a couple of hours. With this batch, we hope to hit all of the remaining long-time subscribers (i.e. the 12+ monthers).

I will make a follow-up post later tonight (or possibly in the morning) to confirm that the batch has finished.

As a reminder, once you have entered the City of Villains Closed Beta, you are legally bound by a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA). This means no posting of screenshots, no verbal anecdotes, and no commenting on message boards or in chats about any aspect of the game. Should you do any of the mentioned or violate the Non-Disclosure Agreement in any way, it will result in automatic removal from the Closed Beta and legal action may be taken against you.

We look forward to seeing our new testers in the Rogue Isles!

Cheers,
Alexa

Built upon greed and human suffering, Bloody Bay’s calamitous history includes an inhuman massacre, corrupt commerce, and a vast, unmarked graveyard. Destroyed by a meteor shower in 1989, this island and its strange inhabitants are now being investigated by Arachnos and Longbow. Click here to learn more about this zone where heroes and villains collide.

In a memo for the Federal Bureau of Superpowered Affairs, Agent Indigo investigates Scirocco, the most puzzling of the super-powered Arachnos operatives. Once known as a hero in Paragon, the mysterious Scirocco and his murderous ally, Ice Mistral, control the Arachnos mystics. Read more about Scirocco’s enigmatic past in Agent Indigo’s report.

As the heroes of Paragon return to Siren’s Call, we discover the underhanded machinations responsible for the devastation of this district. In an attempt to expand his insidious empire toward the very heart of Paragon City, Lord Recluse proceeds with his preparations. Ghost Widow reflects on their knavish plans for these unwitting heroes in her latest journal entry.

Hi folks --

This is just a heads up that a new wave of invites is going out now. It will take a little while to complete the entire batch.

Please note that the information in the announcement above still applies.

Alexa

Hello everyone!

As promised, I am here to let you know that we intend to start sending the 2nd wave of Closed Beta invitations any moment now. (It will take a little while to complete the whole batch.)

As we have mentioned in the past, first priority into the Closed Beta is being offered to long-time, currently active City of Heroes subscribers as part of a program designed to reward their continued support. Please note that due to the huge number of people who have been with us for 12 months or longer, not everyone who qualifies under this program will receive an invitation today. It will take additional rounds of invites for us to reach everyone. So, if you are a long-time subscriber and you don’t receive an invitation this time, please do not bombard us with PMs and email asking why you didn’t get one! Everyone who qualifies under this program will be invited into the Closed Beta eventually.

For those of you who pre-ordered City of Villains or won a beta slot at E3, the exact date of your beta entry is still being determined. However, it will be at a later stage, after those who qualify under our long-time subscriber program have been invited.

As a reminder, once you have entered the City of Villains Closed Beta, you are legally bound by a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA). This means no posting of screenshots, no verbal anecdotes, and no commenting on message boards or in chats about any aspect of the game. Should you do any of the mentioned or violate the Non-Disclosure Agreement in any way, it will result in automatic removal from the Closed Beta and legal action may be taken against you.

We look forward to seeing our new testers in the Rogue Isles!

Yours in villainy,
Alexa

Due to a large number of disturbing reports, Ghost Widow is sent to Cap au Diable to investigate the activities of the Aeon Corporation. Her visit with the brilliant but erratic Dr. Aeon reveals a dangerous conflict and the true source of the area’s many energy-related deaths. The full details of this journey to the “Cape of the Devil” can be found in Ghost Widow’s latest journal entry.

Mercy Island, the arrival point for those new to the Rogue Isles, provides anything but mercy. Survival of the fittest is not just a concept, but a way of life. Much of the land is overrun with Snakes, vicious and powerful creatures who have managed to survive despite attempts to eradicate them. Find out more in this week's zone update.

City of Villains Closed Beta Is Starting!

Hello everyone!

I am very pleased to announce to you (as promised) that the start of the City of Villains Closed Beta Test is finally upon us!

As we have mentioned in the past, first priority into the Closed Beta will be offered to long-time, currently active City of Heroes subscribers as part of a program designed to reward their continued support. Please note that due to the sheer number of people who have been with us for 12 months or longer, not everyone who qualifies under this program will receive an invitation today. Because of hardware constraints, stability issues, etc., beta tests typically start small and then ramp up gradually to include more and more people. This test is no exception. So, if you are a long-time subscriber and you don’t receive an invitation right away, please do not bombard us with PMs and email asking why you didn’t get one! Everyone who qualifies under this program will be invited into the Closed Beta eventually.

Contest winners should expect to receive invites within the next couple of weeks. We will send you an email in the coming days to verify your account information, so please be on the lookout for that.

For those of you who pre-ordered City of Villains or won a beta slot at E3, the exact date of your beta entry is still being determined. However, it will be at a later stage, after those who qualify under our long-time subscriber program have been invited.

As a reminder, once you have entered the City of Villains Closed Beta, you are legally bound by a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA). Please be considerate and don’t flaunt your participation to other members of the City of Heroes community. All it will do is make the people who haven’t been invited feel bad, and will only encourage them to ask you for information that you cannot give them. Please note that no discussion of the game whatsoever includes no taking of screenshots, no verbal anecdotes, and no commenting on message boards or in chats about any aspect of the game. Should you do any of the mentioned or violate the Non-Disclosure Agreement in any way, it will result in automatic removal from the Closed Beta and legal action may be taken against you.

We are very excited to see the start of Closed Beta and can't wait to see you there!

Yours in villainy,
Alexa

[ QUOTE ]
Now I've got the most basic question in the world. Has any system specs at all been release for CoV? I've heard that the graphics are going to be a improvement on the CoH design. But does anyone know any system specs?

[/ QUOTE ]

The currently estimated system specs can be found at the bottom of this page...

http://www.cityofvillains.com/faq/

Okay everyone - I'm back with more info. You can check out pictures of all the helmets here!

Regarding the other issues you've raised in this thread regarding the genders of the helmets and associated issues... although there will be a period of exclusivity for these items, we do plan to make them available to our community eventually. So if you can't get your hands on a particular costume piece right now, we will announce at a later date how you can acquire all the helmets.

Have a great weekend!
Alexa

Hi all --

We've been getting lots of questions about the CoV pre-order... specifically, which exclusive item is available at which retailer. Here's the list:

-Crab Spider Battle Helmet: EB Games (male helmet)
-Helm of the Blood Widows: GameStop (female helmet)
-Arachnos Mystic Helm: Best Buy (male helmet)
-Wolf Spider War Helmet: All other U.S. retailers (male helmet)

I've recently received graphics of all 4 helmets and am working to get them posted for you to look at. If this doesn't happen today, I will try my hardest to have them available for you on Monday. I'll post again with a link when this is done.

Yours in villainy,
Alexa

A division of Freedom Corps dedicated to dealing with super-powered beings, Longbow acts as military support for heroes. In her latest journal entry, Ghost Widow provides insight into their history and an assessment of their organization.

IGN continues its exclusive coverage of the signature villains this week with a focus on the mutant Gideon Ray and his rise to power as the vicious and cunning Captain Mako. Once an adversary of Arachnos, Captain Mako eventually became one of Lord Recluse’s personal enforcers and requested Sharkhead Isle as his personal domain. His fascination with the island and what he seeks there are sources of intense speculation. Click here for the full report.

For some time now, the Rogue Isles have been home to a network of individuals who call themselves Brokers. Up-and-coming villains would do well to impress these figures, as they are extremely well-connected and a source of great opportunity. Ghost Widow uncovers more about their operations in her latest mission for Lord Recluse.

Click here for the full story.

Lord Recluse has enticed many villains to the Rogue Isles, but only a few have risen to his inner circle. Today’s IGN exclusive focuses on these signature villains, including details about their personal henchmen, their relationships with each other, and how players will encounter them in City of Villains. IGN also managed to obtain a previously top-secret report containing information about how Belladonna Vetrano became the ruthless and deadly Ghost Widow. Click here for the full story.

An international port that lies between the Rogue Isles and Paragon City, the Nerva Archipelago is a place where good and evil meet. The latest GameSpot exclusive provides an in-depth look at this zone through an intriguing new video narrated by Lord Recluse himself, CoV designer Zeb Cook.

You don’t have to spend much time in Lord Recluse’s domain to realize that there are many groups, and each has its own agenda. Arachnos troops on patrol, Longbow soldiers at the ready, Crey scientists conducting mysterious research… today’s screenshot update reveals just a glimpse of who you’ll encounter in the world of City of Villains.

At the behest of Lord Recluse, Ghost Widow travels to Port Oakes to investigate the ethereal Red Hands. Once the most feared band of pirates to sail the Atlantic, these spirits are bound to Fort Hades, the site of their horrible death. Learn more about their bloody history here.

Villains, take heed. The Legacy Chain, a growing force of misguided zealots, will not rest until all practitioners of the dark arts have been eradicated. Ghost Widow reveals details of the latest incident here.

From concept art to menacing creatures to the innermost reaches of a secret base, today’s screenshot update offers provocative new glimpses into Lord Recluse’s domain.

Check it out here.

Evil is everywhere, and even Stratics can’t resist the dark side. The massively multiplayer network announced the winners of its first annual E3 awards, the Golden Cogs, and City of Villains has smashed the competition in two categories. For the full story, including a list of all winners, visit the Stratics awards page.

Hey everyone,

I've just posted some polls related to City of Villains. You can check them out here.

Alexa