City of Heroes will close by the end of this year. NCsoft will shut down Paragon Studios and with that the City of Heroes MMO. Many players are angry about the decision; there are rumors that the game is still profitable. There are also rumors about a potential game licensing issues between NCsoft and the Perfect World which now owns Cryptic. Here is the post from the City of Heroes website. One thing for sure there will be one less Super Hero MMO by the end of the year and many diehard fans will be no longer be able to visit their characters.

Farewell, from all of us at Paragon StudiosThis morning we announced that Paragon Studios will be taking to the skies of City of Heroes for the last time.

In a realignment of company focus and publishing support, NCsoft has made the decision to close Paragon Studios. Effective immediately, all development on City of Heroes will cease and we will begin preparations to sunset the world's first, and best, Super Hero MMORPG before the end of the year. As part of this, all recurring subscription billing and Paragon Market purchasing will be discontinued effective immediately. We will have more information regarding a detailed timeline for the cessation of services and what you can expect in game in the coming weeks.

The team here at Paragon deserves special praise for all that we have accomplished over the last 5+ years. These developers are some of the most creative and talented people in the gaming industry. By now, we've all been given this news internally, but to anyone who may be reading this message after the fact; know that your hard work and dedication has not gone unappreciated or unnoticed. To any potential studios looking to grow your team; hire these people. You won't regret it.

To our Community,

Thank you. Thank you for your years of support. You've been with us every step of the way, sharing in our challenges, encouraging us to make City of Heroes better, more than everyone else thought it could be. We couldn't have come this far without you. I implore you all, focus on the good things of CoH and Paragon Studios. Don't dwell on the "how" or the "why", but rather join us in celebrating the legacy of an amazing partnership between the players and the development team.

Thank you, and I'll see you in the skies, one last time.

Andy Belford

Community Manager

Paragon Studios.

Cryptic has released the second part of the three-part CG trailer for Neverwinter, a new Free-to-Play Action MMORPG by Cryptic Studios, slated for release at the end of 2012.

Cryptic, producers of Star Trek Online and Champions Online, has just announced that they had a security breach in December 2010 that allowed attackers access to their players account name, handle, and encrypted passwords.

"The unauthorized access included user account names, handles, and encrypted passwords for those accounts. Even though the passwords were encrypted, it is apparent that the intruder has been able to crack some portion of the passwords in this database. All accounts that we believe were present in the database have had the passwords reset, and customers registered to these accounts have been notified via e-mail of this incident."

Soure: http://www.crypticstudios.com/securitynotice

Here is a very nice video showing Cryptic's upcoming MMO, Neverwinter. In this interview we learn that Neverwinter will be an action-mmo and it will be released in late 2012. We also learn that PvP will not be released initially but will follow soon after the initial launch.

Neverwinter will also allow players build their own dungeons though the use of "The Foundry" currently available in Cryptic's other title Star Trek Online. Neverwinter will be a Free-to-Play title

If you would like some Star Wars action but are not interested dumping cash into Star Wars: The Old Republic, look no further. Cryptic announce a new archetype (class) in their free-to-play MMO Champions Online. The archetype called The Unleashed is a close range melee wielding dual light blades that looks very much alike to a Jedi Knight.

Read full Unleashed Description