As City of Heroes celebrates its third birthday, Community Relations Manager Lighthouse takes a moment to bring us the thoughts of the Cryptic development team about where the game has been, where it is now, and where it’s going next…

This May will see the NCsoft Europe community team at not one but two shows in the UK, where you’ll be able to meet members of your community teams, grab some free swag - including brand new and exclusive City of Heroes and City of Villains badges pictured here - and pick up copies of our games at bargain prices - including limited Collector’s Editions and other hard to find versions. At the Bristol Comic Expo, you’ll also be able to get sketches of your characters from famous comic artists, arranged by Draw the World Together.

First up is…

The fourth 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.

First, you can read Serdar’s answers to questions from players in the US and Europe. Then find out more about character artist Jay Doherty - yes, the one who does the costumes - and submit your questions for him to answer in the next instalment.

In a few weeks, we’ll collect all the questions from European and US players, pick the best ones and pester Jay until he answers every last one. It’s a tough job, but we really are that dedicated.

City of Heroes and Villains fansite CoHmpedium has just announced the CoHmpendium City of Heroes and City of Villains Championship (C4), a team-based PvP tournament that will be open to all European City of Heroes and Villains players, with matches to be held on the Training Room, to allow players from all four European Live servers to compete.

To find out more about C4, head over to the English C4 page and check the ‘Rules’ section. If you’re interested in taking part, you can sign up by following the link at the bottom of the page.

As well as fame, fortune and the bragging rights, the eventual winners of the C4 tournament will also be showered with prizes, sponsored by NCsoft Europe. The exact details will be determined following registration, so be sure to sign-up soon.

If you have any questions about the rules, organisation or other aspects of C4, you can post them to CoHmpendium’s message boards where organisers Robin and Benny will be happy to help out.

Self-styled head of Arachnos Research and Development Master_Zaprobo is throwing a competition on the official message boards, looking for creative works inspired by the upcoming Inventions system, one of the major features of the next free update for City of Heroes and Villains, Issue #9: Breakthrough.

So, if you fancy gracing your Super Group base with a shiny new flying machine, head over to the MZ’s Easter Flyer thread on the official message boards now - the closing date for the competition is this Friday!

Receive a FREE month of game time on your City of Heroes and/or Villains account when you recruit a friend who goes on to become a subscriber. You can invite up to four friends at a time to play City of Heroes and City of Villains free for 10 days!

Head over to the Refer-a-Friend feature page for everything you need to get started.

We’re pleased to announce that the first version of Issue #9: Breakthrough, the next major free update for City of Heroes and Villains, is now available for testing on the European Training Room (Test Server).

As well as introducing the Inventions system, allowing heroes and villains to create their own enhancements, costume pieces and temporary powers, Issue #9 also introduces an auction system to make it easy for players to trade the items they invent, the long-awaited Statesman Task Force for high level heroes, and a new and improved version of the Hamidon raid, now available to villains for the first time!

You can see all this and more on the European Training Room right now, and your testing will help us to improve and polish Issue #9 before it’s released to the Live servers. For more information, including the first draft of the Issue #9 release notes and full instructions for accessing the test server, see the Training Room section of the official message boards.

We’re pleased to announce that the winner of the Creative Genius competition for February 2007 is OhGodtheRats, for the artwork of Miss Ellie and Grav Mistress shown here.

Congratulations to OhGodtheRats, 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, see the The Creative Board and Creative Genius thread on the official message boards.

The Nominations for March’s Creative Genius are open now on the Creative board, and there’s plenty of time submit your creative works for April’s award.

In the meantime, read on to see February’s ‘honourable mention’…