It was only a few weeks ago that we wrote about the City of Heroes Issue 15 beta testing, but this latest update to the game, Anniversary, has gone live. Issue 15 brings a host of improvements to City of Heroes particularly in terms of hero and villain character customization. There are 20 new character faces to choose from, two new costume sets, and costume change emotes, which provide flashy transitions between costumes for your characters.

Issue 15: Anniversary also marks the return of The 5th Column and The Reichsman, and thus new missions at levels 45-50 -- with Villain Strikeforce and Hero Taskforce arcs, depending upon which side of the law you're on. NCsoft has more info about Issue 15 on their Anniversary overview site, and asks, "What does the opening of the Omega Team Time Capsule hold in store for Paragon City and the Rogue Isles?" The answers, we suspect, should be clear as City of Heroes and City of Villains players explore the new Issue 15 content.

We've always operated under the assumption that City of Heroes was designed in such a way that power customization would be very difficult. So a recent forum post hinting by lead designer Matt "Positron" Miller showing that it's apparently happening makes this news all the more interesting.

Of course, all we get are a couple screenshots of purple and blue imps to tease us, but then again what else do you really need to know right now? Well okay, we suppose you could know how colorization works and if it's something that's done only during character creation or at any time while playing. It would also be nice to know the extent that powers could be customized, too.

We'll just have to wait until July to hear more about Issue 16. So until then, dream about City of Heroes in whatever color you like -- even made up ones!

Massively is proud to host a new dev diary from the folks at Paragon Studios. This particular dev diary was written by Christopher Bruce, Senior Lead Animator/VFX Artist for City of Heroes, and it pertains to the character customization options that have been improved with Issue 15. Enjoy!

In addition to supporting the two new task forces for Issue 15, we also wanted to focus some attention on expanding our character creation system. Character customization is a hallmark of City of Heroes and we're always striving to improve and expand upon our players' ability to create a truly unique super powered hero or villain.

For Issue 15, there are two new costume sets available to everyone, created by the newest addition to our character artist team, Cheryl Austin. "Vines" is a new pattern while "Ulterior" is a new texture set, both of which work with most of the existing costume pieces. Cheryl has also created over twenty new face textures, something we haven't done since City of Villains launched. While our options for individual costume pieces and sets have continued to expand over the years, our selection of faces hasn't received the same amount of attention. Her goal was to create a set of new face textures that were a bit more subtle and realistic and while also working well across our full range skin tones.

Any hero worth their cape can tell you that Atlas Park is generally considered to be one of, if not the, biggest hangout on many City of Heroes servers. Normally the statue near Ms. Liberty is a fairly laid-back spot for heroes to hang out and hold costume contests, but it truly gets to be fun when event monsters spawn there unexpectedly! Today's One Shots was captured by Ryan F. who was hanging out on Atlas' knee during the recent anniversary events and managed to capture this image of heroes poised and ready to deal with the next wave of nasties.

Sunday is a popular day for people to log in and get some MMO time. So while you're out adventuring, why not take a snap of your favorite game? We'd love to see what you're up to. Just email your screenshots to us here at oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name, the name of the game, and a brief description of what's going on. We'll post it out here and give you credit for sending it in!

Massively mentioned yesterday that City of Heroes Issue 15: Anniversary has gone into open beta testing. Along with that announcement and an overview of the Issue 15 features, Paragon Studios senior designer Bruce Harlick has written a developer diary titled "A Circle of Fifths: Designing the Ultimate Fifth Anniversary Task Force and Strike Force"

Harlick writes that when Paragon Studios was hashing through ideas for the game's strike force and task force for the City of Heroes 5th Anniversary, bringing the 5th Column back to Paragon City seemed the right thing to do. It also lets them bring The Reichsman into the game, leading to some interesting mission arcs. Harlick writes, "I didn't want the two arcs to be simple mirrors of each others, with the villains doing something and the heroes stopping it." He adds, "I wanted the villains to succeed with their plan and to deal with the consequences, and I wanted the heroes to deal with an emerging big problem."

Have a look at Bruce Harlick's developer diary on City of Heroes Issue 15: Anniversary, for more about what he describes as "a story that's worthy of the return of one of the biggest threats to ever hit Paragon City and the Rogue Islands."

NCsoft has announced that City of Heroes Issue 15: Anniversary has entered open beta. They write, "We are pleased to announce that City of Heroes content Update Issue 15: Anniversary has gone straight into Open Beta phase. Now is your change to celebrate the return of The 5th Column by playing and giving feedback on the new Task Force and Strike Force."

But what will Issue 15: Anniversary introduce to City of Heroes? They've put together an overview of the update that gives more info on the Villain Strikeforce and the Hero Taskforce (both Levels 45-50), new costumes and costume change emotes (colorful transitions between costumes on a given character), as well as greater character customization options. If you're interested in checking out the Issue 15: Anniversary open beta, they've got a forum thread that will walk you through getting set up to play on the Training Room test server.

When City of Heroes brought us Issue 14, they also brought something rather unique to the MMO space with the Mission Architect -- the ability for players to create their own mission scenarios and share them with other players. Unfortunately, when many games offer achievements of some sort, there are people who figure out ways to cheat the system and farm them out... which, sadly, has proven to be the case with City of Heroes.

Synapse (aka Phil Zeleski) from the City of Heroes development team addresses this in a recent blog post. He writes: "We really didn't want the Mission Architect to be an environment that encourages farming for XP, Rewards or Badges, and we thought long and hard about the current Architect badge situation. Ultimately we'd like it to be a place where you go to play great player created content." To keep the Mission Architect system in keeping with their initial goals, Paragon Studios is removing the badges commonly farmed from the game, 90 of them in all, which he lists in his post.

City of Heroes continues to be a popular place to be, especially with the recent anniversary events. Today's One Shots comes to us from Ryan F, and was taken of Jurassik going nuts in the Hollows during the recent event. Ryan wrote in to explain a bit further: Because there were sooooo many people in the same small area it seems a lot of them didn't show up in the screenshots (battle fraction). In some images barely a fourth of the battle against the rikti, zombies, or Giant Monsters can be seen. At times I would not have been surprised to find out there was more than 100 heroes fighting around us.

If you're playing a game we haven't highlighted here recently, we'd love to see your screenshots. It's always interesting to check in on lands we don't often see! Just snap a screen and send it to us here at oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name and a quick description of the image. (Server info, guilds, etc are also welcome in there too -- it's up to you.) If we use your image, you get full credit for sending it along.

This morning I'm finally getting 'round to installing City of Heroes. But while the game downloads and patches, I've been reading the manuals and trying to figure out which side I want to join. Normally I follow my friends or take the moral high-ground by picking the 'good' side.

Granted, in many fantasy MMOs, the line between good and evil is a blurry mess. Take WoW for example. The Alliance are not angels but neither are the Horde completely without merit or compassion. City of Heroes is stark in its choices and definitions of good and evil; there's a line. So readers, I ask you, how do you choose a side? Do you prefer playing as good or evil characters? Do you think our definitions of good and bad have the same ramifications in the virtual world as they do in reality?

Two worlds collide. Loyalties will change. Where will you stand? This is the question posed to us as NCsoft announces the first major expansion for the City of Heroes franchise since the launch of City of Villains in 2005. Going Rogue will be a new experience for CoH fans introducing the 'mirror universe' of Praetoria and an all-new alignment system that blurs the lines between Heroes and Villains.

For the first time ever, Heroes can become Villains, and Villains can become Heroes. This is yet another groundbreaking game mechanic that the Paragon Studios folks have introduced in a recent whirlwind of exciting new features. Look out Champions Online and DC Universe Online; City of Heroes is raising the standard of superhero MMOs.

Check out the exciting new teaser trailer right after the jump, and to answer any questions you may have, they've compiled a handy FAQ.

Once a week our writers will give you a glimpse into their lives, to let you get to know them and the characters they play a little better. Click here to read more Meet the Team.

What do you do for Massively.com?

I'm a webcartoonist, I draw the weekly Massively feature, Grinders. That's pretty much the full and half of it.

What is your favourite MMO?

City of Heroes, hands down. I've played most of the MMOs that have come to market since EverQuest, looking for the Next Big Thing, and I didn't even realize I had found it until I was on my third year of playing City. I'm still going strong. The game has enough variety to entertain my short attention span, the gameplay, while unarguably repetitive, has a rhythm that really entertains and relaxes me, no matter what role on a team I'm playing. I never was a fan for loot ("Judge a toon not by the color of their armor, but the content of their attributes."), I blame this mostly on not growing up on Dungeons & Dragons. I'd rather spend points on stats behind the scenes than wear a hand-me-down piece of clothing from a corpse... seriously, am I the only person bothered by that?

Mission architect -- an amazing system that allows a very creative player-base to finally take the reigns of creation and make amazing in-game arcs that feature personalized stories, personalized characters, farming, well made.... wait, what?

Yes, you heard that right, people have already began to leverage City of Heroes's architect system into nothing more than powerleveling tool, and the community doesn't find that to be too enjoyable. Luckily, Matt "Positron" Miller, the lead designer, has already stepped up with a post to the community on the City of Heroes message board about how they plan on dealing with these problems.

The team wishes to remove the rewards some characters may have gained through powerleveling, all the way up to removing access to characters that were solely leveled up via mission architect exploits. Past working on a player by player bases, some badges will be changed while others may be removed entirely due to the exploiting groups surrounding them. Lastly, but certainly not least, the team will be proactively banning missions that are created to exploit the system.

For Matt's full plan, check out his post over on the City of Heroes message board.

Just in time for City of Heroes' fifth birthday, Samuraiko Productions have released an epic video which looks back at some of the biggest in-game events over the last five years. It's bound to send long-time players into nostalgic reveries as well as inspiring those who, like me, haven't visited Paragon City yet.

It's a fascinating video which is superbly edited and features a catchy soundtrack. You also get to see twenty of the biggest in-game happenings which seems to revolve around the demise of numerous villains and a couple of heroes. This is one of those cases when a video says more than a thousand words, so check it out after the jump.

Things were absolutely crazy in Paragon City and the Rogue Isles yesterday with all manner of baddies showing up in City of Heroes! Players who logged in during the event were not only treated to lots of fun, but lots and lots of strange occurrences - like monsters in zones they normally never show up in. Today's One Shots shows off one such moment of eek from City of Heroes yesterday that was sent in to us by Ryan F, who writes: In [this] image "triple jacks" you can see the first two jacks quite dead on the ground and the third fading out in the middle. That's only a small taste of what we've been fighting. Lord Recluse and all his friends have made several appearances; sometimes in double or quick succession. Pile on rampant rikti and zombie raids, and you get a whole lot of fun. Oh and some wicked experience, Prestige and Influence...but it's all about the fun.

If you're playing a game we haven't highlighted here recently, we'd love to see your screenshots. It's always interesting to check in on lands we don't often see! Just snap a screen and send it to us here at oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name and a quick description of the image. (Server info, guilds, etc are also welcome in there too -- it's up to you.) If we use your image, you get full credit for sending it along -- plus you get the bragging rights of showing everyone you game with!