Sure, you've learned everything there is to know about City of Heroes. You've read the FAQ no less than 113 times, and have probably watched the movie more than that. You post in the forums daily, and although it's getting better…you still have periodic panic attacks in the middle of the night when you awake from that hellish re-occurring nightmare where you're convinced that we've held the beta without you. Yeah, you're hooked.

But tell us…how much do you know about the company behind the game? What have you learned about the talented group of individuals providing you with your latest gaming obsession? Well, we're going to give you a little insight into the heroes behind CoH, Cryptic Studios - the developer responsible for the game that many are predicting will stand the world of online massively multiplayer RPG games on it's ear.

Cryptic Studios was formed in July of 2000 when a group of three former Atari employees and two members of the paper and pencil role-playing industry came together under one roof. The ex-Atarians had been circulating their technology demo under the name "Catch Games" but that changed when the RPGers came aboard with the "City of Heroes" concept. They had planned on calling their company "Crypteia" (an ancient Spartan secret society). After some discussions, compromises were made and 'Cryptic' was born.

According to the group, it took a long time for them to find a publisher for City of Heroes. Those initially interested thought a comic book style game couldn't be successful unless it licensed the characters from an already existing comic book company. Others viewed the comic book crowd as a niche market and thought the game would never have mass-market appeal. Still others couldn't wrap their heads around the idea of a whole world filled with super powered heroes, and wanted to turn CoH into a single player game. Then there were those who wanted the game finished before they published it, to minimize their own "risk."

Eventually, Cryptic decided that they had gotten far enough with the game on their own, and created the City of Heroes web site to declare their intentions publicly and generate game industry buzz that would attract the right kind of publisher. It worked in a big way! The response was positive and immediate, but it wasn't until Richard Garriott (of Ultima Online fame) and his team from NCsoft threw their hat into the ring, that Cryptic finally felt a true connection with a publisher. When it came right down to it, Cryptic and NCsoft saw eye-to-eye on the way a developer/publisher relationship should work.

Having a publisher has given Cryptic much more financial stability, allowing them to do things like move into a larger office in San Jose, CA, and grow their team to it's current 18 members (5 Programmers, 9 artists, 2 Game Designers, 1 contract Composer, and a CEO).

Their goal with City of Heroes is to try and raise the bar for online massively multiplayer games by combining them with the comic book genre - something never achieved before. They'd also like to bring a more action-oriented style to the MMRPG sector, which is not any easy task from a technological standpoint, but one that they're more than willing to tackle.

Once City of Heroes is released, the entire team will continue to create new content and upgrades for the game as long as there is enough interest from the game playing public to warrant add-ons. Much of the technology design behind City of Heroes has been structured in a way to allow the smooth and efficient expansion of both game content and engine features.

As for the future…Cryptic just wants to make cool games, whether they're online massively multiplayer, PC or console. They have no lack of ideas and game concepts, but agree whole-heartedly that "with great power comes great responsibility." And their responsibility for now is City of Heroes.

So be on the lookout for amazing things from this development team as City of Heroes moves forward towards launch. And to help you get to know them each a little better, stay tuned for "up close and personal" Dev Team "profiles," coming soon…