(crazeyal) Will there be options and definitions that allow people to look silly and/or comical? If so How Silly??

None of the costume options are currently “silly”; you can’t create a cartoon character such as Tawny Tiger or Loony Leo. There is some room for light heartedness though.

(Blackstar) Will Leaping, Teleportation, and Levitation characters also be able to transport "passengers"?

Leaping and teleporting characters will not be able to take other characters with them; with Levitation, heroes will be able to lift their allies into the air.

(Drayst) I know there will be chest logos, but I wanna know that what type of logos there will be and how many?

There are dozens different chest logos currently; players can change the colors of nearly all of them.

(Drayst) Can you just shoot the power to somewhere, even there is no enemy or does the power need somekind of target to hit??

A player must target a villain in order to use an attack.

Take 3,000 pairs of Bry Nylon underwear (external wear only), 2,500 specially designed face-masks, several hundred flowing capes and several acres of flame-retardant cloth, mix well with city in need of heroic intervention and a rabid online population desperate for something new, and what have you got?

[SNIP]
What about other powerful abilities -- invulnerability has been mentioned --how are they being balanced? "Very, very carefully! Actually, many defenses are good only against certain types of attacks, so no hero is completely invulnerable," Emmert assured.

From the range of abilities promised, we could well be looking at a vast range of individual characters available. Does the same apply to the look of the characters that players can choose? "There will be three basic avatar types available: male, female and gargantuan male," said Emmert. "Each of them will be scalable in height. As for costume options, we have hundreds of different textures, colors and geometries for every body part. There are many thousands of unique costume combinations. And yes, heroes will be able to change their costume over time. In fact, as a hero grows in fame, he will be able to add new options to his costume."
[SNIP]

Ncsoft to Publish Cryptic Studios' City of Heroes

World Wide Launch Planned for Highly Anticipated Superhero Massively Multiplayer Online Title

AUSTIN, Texas, March 11, 2002 - NCsoft(tm) Corporation, the world's largest independent online game company, announced today that it will publish one of the most anticipated online game titles currently in development, Cryptic Studios' City of Heroes(tm). The game will bring the concept of superhero role-playing to the massively multiplayer (MMP) genre and add yet another impressive title to NCsoft's growing list of online games.

City of Heroes is a 3-D superhero-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game. The game is set in Paragon City, a modern day metropolis full of super powered villains, alien invaders and underground monsters. Players take on the roles of Paragon City's superhero defenders and will be able to create their own hero, choose statistics, skills, and powers and design their own superhero costume.

"We're delighted to have City of Heroes in our publishing family," said Robert Garriott, CEO of NCsoft's Austin, Texas subsidiary. "The online world has been waiting for a game based on comic book-styled superheroes. Cryptic Studios has assembled a team of incredible talent to deliver a game that will have far-reaching appeal."

"NCsoft is exactly what we were looking for in a publishing partner," said Cameron Petty, Cryptic Studios(tm) CEO. "The company has a proven track record in launching subscription-based online games in a global market. NCsoft also has a clear understanding of online content development and we're excited about working with them to make City of Heroes the best it can possibly be."

Plans for a City of Heroes public beta test will be announced later this year. NCsoft and Cryptic Studios will be showing City of Heroes at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, May 22-24. More information about City of Heroes can be found at http://www.cityofheroes.com.

About Ncsoft
Headquartered in Seoul, South Korea, NCsoft Corp. is the world's largest independent online game company. Established in 1997 as a systems integration company, NCsoft has leaped to become Korea's and the world's leading online game software company. In Korea, its blockbuster hit game Lineage commands a 47% market share and attracts the greatest number of concurrent users in the world. Earlier this year, NCsoft announced plans to provide service for Sony Online Entertainment's massively popular EverQuest® in Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Currently NCsoft is positioning itself to fund online titles for worldwide distribution, and is now actively recruiting more subscription-based online titles for publishing in Asia and other territories. NCsoft is a public company and is traded on the KOSDAQ Korean stock exchange. In fiscal 2001, NCsoft posted revenues of 124,735,958,000 Korean won or approximately US$95 million. More information about NCsoft can be found at http://www.ncsoft.co.kr/default_e.htm.

About Cryptic Studios
Cryptic Studios, Inc., located in San Jose, California, was established in July of 2000 and is an independent developer of massively multiplayer online games for the PC and next generation consoles. Its first game, City of Heroes, is currently in development and will launch a virtual world where thousands of people play simultaneously, take on the role of superheroes, fight villains and help create a dynamic story in a visually-stunning, 3-D graphical world.