PlayNC Europe News

NCsoft Opens City of Heroes World to Mac Gamers

Thu, 8 1 2009 16:26:00 +0000

Brighton, January 8, 2009 – NCsoft®, the world’s premier publisher and developer of massively multiplayer online games (MMOs), today announced the commercial launch of City of Heroes® for the Apple® Macintosh® across all NCsoft West consumer territories. Now PC players and Mac players can live their comic-book dreams together, in the shared fictional world of Paragon CityTM and the Rogue IslesTM.

The game has been enabled for the Mac by TransGaming, Inc. (TSX-V: TNG), a leading developer of portability technologies for the electronic entertainment industry. Mac players can now purchase the digital-only Mac Special Edition of City of Heroes, from NCsoft’s PlayNC® store. The Mac Special Edition includes the client, 30 days of game time and a set of exclusive in-game items.

“Our community is excited that City of Heroes is coming to Mac,” said Brian Clayton, executive producer of City of Heroes for NCsoft West. “We are thrilled to offer avid Mac fans the ability to play the most robust comic-book inspired MMO on the market.”

In City of Heroes, players craft their own unique hero or villain identities and join millions of other player created characters in a constantly expanding universe. Unparalleled character customisation is a hallmark of the City of Heroes franchise. Players can choose from hundreds of different powers and thousands of costume options, resulting in near limitless personalisation. Players may go it alone or band together with others in Supergroups.

City of Heroes is rated PEGI 16+. For more information about City of Heroes go to http://eu.cityofheroes.com.

About NCsoft NCsoft, headquartered in Seoul, Korea, is the world’s premier publisher and developer of massively multiplayer online games, including the critically acclaimed Lineage®, Guild Wars® and City of Heroes® franchises. NCsoft West is a division of NCsoft which holds operating responsibilities for North America, Europe, South America and Australia/New Zealand. More information can be found at http://eu.plaync.com/eu/

### NCsoft, the interlocking NC logo, PlayNC, Lineage, Guild Wars, City of Heroes, Paragon City, Rogue Isles and all associated logos and designs are trademarks or registered trademarks of NCsoft Corporation. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Discover Lineage II site wins at DiMA:S!

Mon, 1 12 2008 11:39:00 +0000

NCsoft has scooped the award for ‘Outstanding Digital Design’ at this year’s Digital Media Awards: South, an event that recognises and rewards “passion, creativity and business genius in the digital media sector in the south of England”.

The award was for NCsoft’s work on Discover Lineage II, a microsite which brings the story of Lineage II to life through an interactive pop-up book.

This award is about the success of design in achieving the objectives, any formula for creating successful, high impact, engaging design in the digital space, design that works well across multiple digital platforms or is especially effective at just one particular media.

Discover Lineage II for yourself!

Buy one Guild Wars campaign, get a second for 50% off!

Wed, 19 11 2008 20:00:00 +0000

For a limited time, buy any Guild Wars campaign via PlayNC.com or the Guild Wars in-game store, and get a second campaign for half-price! This is your chance to catch up on any Guild Wars campaigns you might have missed, and to access to the golem hero M.O.X. (who is only available to players with all three campaigns active on their accounts). Check out the full details and complete your campaign collection today!

NCsoft exhibits at Memorabilia

Wed, 5 11 2008 16:15:00 +0000

Brighton, England (November 2008) - NCsoft®, the world’s premier publisher and developer of massively multiplayer online games (MMOs), is pleased to announce that it will be exhibiting at the Memorabilia consumer show, at Birmingham’s NEC on the 22nd and 23rd November 2008. NCsoft will be giving visitors the chance to play their award winning PC title City of Heroes®, as well as other games in the NCsoft range including Guild Wars™, Lineage® II and Richard Garriott’s Tabula Rasa®.

The Memorabilia show is the UK’s longest running and most established event for fans of movies, cult TV, comics and video games. The show attracts a staggering thirty thousand plus visitors a year and is a true celebration of popular culture. There will also be celebrity guests in attendance, as well as competitions and gaming tournaments for attendees to participate in over the two days.

This year, visitors to the NCsoft booth will be able to obtain special codes for unique in-game items such as the PPD Hardsuit power for City of Heroes and a special Lumin pet for Tabula Rasa! Starter Packs for Guild Wars, Lineage II and Tabula Rasa will also be available for a small fee, the proceeds of which will be given in full to the ‘Draw the World Together’ charity. These Starter Packs will grant players game trials for a period of free play. What’s more, the first 2,000 visitors to arrive at the show each day will be handed a free copy of the City of Villains™ Collector’s Edition box, which features a unique two sided poster, an art collection book, exclusive in-game items, and all seven custom-made City of Heroes and City of Villains HeroClix® figures!

In addition to hands on game play, NCsoft is bringing along two of the signature characters from their games. The heroic Ms. Liberty from City of Heroes and the Guild Wars Ranger Reyna will both be present during the weekend. This is a chance of a lifetime for fans to get a professional photo taken with the ladies themselves, while those who come dressed in their own character costume will be entered into an NCsoft Costume Contest, with more great prizes to be won!

As if this wasn’t enough excitement for one weekend, artists from the ‘Draw the World Together’ charity project will also be on hand over the weekend to recreate your in-game characters on paper! On Saturday, Mike Collins and Neil Edwards will be sketching your characters, while on Sunday Neil will be joined by an as-yet unnamed artist. Kat Nicholson and Jason Cardy will be present throughout the weekend to colour the artwork. The team will be drawing on behalf of the EveryChild charity, details of which are below.

Memorabilia 2008 is a must attend event for fans of NCsoft’s City of Heroes, a title currently played all over Europe by comic and games fans alike. The extravagant world of super-powered mayhem will both thrill and excite Memorabilia’s regular attendees as well as newcomers to the show.

More information on all NCsoft’s current and forthcoming titles, plus full details on NCsoft’s involvement at this event can be found on the official websites:

http://eu.cityofheroes.com/ http://www.plaync.com

Memorabilia official site - http://www.memorabilia.co.uk/ Draw the World Together Website - http://www.drawtheworldtogether.com/ Draw The World’s charity, EveryChild - http://www.everychild.org.uk/

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NCsoft, the interlocking NC logo, PlayNC, Lineage, Guild Wars, City of Heroes, Paragon City, Rogue Isles and all associated logos and designs are trademarks or registered trademarks of NCsoft Corporation. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

NCsoft and TransGaming Announce City of Heroes for the Mac

Thu, 30 10 2008 14:11:00 +0000

SEATTLE and TORONTO, Ontario, October 30, 2008 – NCsoft®, the world’s premier publisher and developer of massively multiplayer online games (MMOs), today announced a partnership with TransGaming, Inc. (TSX-V: TNG) to bring their award-winning City of Heroes® franchise to the Apple® Macintosh®. The game has been enabled for the Mac by TransGaming, a leading developer of portability technologies for the electronic entertainment industry. City of Heroes for Mac will be available for public beta testing with the release of the game’s thirteenth expansion, Issue 13: Power and Responsibility later this autumn. The official launch will occur pre-holiday this year with a special digital-only Mac edition of City of Heroes, available across all NCsoft West consumer territories.

“Players will soon be able to join the battle of good versus evil in the most popular comic book MMO on both the PC and Mac platforms…and in the same game world,” commented Brian Clayton, executive producer of City of Heroes for NCsoft West. “Given the Mac’s fame as a platform for creative people and City of Heroes’ unprecedented character customisation options, I think City of Heroes is a perfect fit for the Mac gaming community.”

In City of Heroes, the most popular comic book inspired MMO on the market, players craft their hero or villain identities and join millions of other player created characters in a constantly expanding universe. Unparalleled character customisation is a hallmark of the City of Heroes franchise. Players can choose from hundreds of different powers and thousands of costume options, resulting in near limitless personalisation. Players may go it alone or band together with others in super groups.

City of Heroes for Mac was made possible using TransGaming’s CiderTM Portability Engine, which acts as a “wrapper” around the game software, enabling it to run seamlessly on Intel-based Macs. The partnership with NCsoft to develop and publish City of Heroes for Mac offers the Mac gaming community its first opportunity to do battle in the streets of Paragon City™ and the Rogue Isles™ in a persistent universe with no differentiation between the PC and Mac. “NCsoft’s City of Heroes MMO is an incredible franchise and TransGaming is thrilled to provide Mac gamers the ability to demonstrate their creativity by building their own heroes and villains and immersing themselves in the battle between good and evil,” commented Vikas Gupta, CEO & president of TransGaming. “Through Cider, the Mac version will parallel the developments of the PC version, providing all game updates, new features, and storylines simultaneously on both platforms.”

The City of Heroes Mac Special Edition digital product will be sold at the PlayNC store. City of Heroes is rated “16+”. For more information about City of Heroes go to http://uk.cityofheroes.com/.

About TransGaming, Inc. TransGaming Inc. (TSX-V: TNG), is a leader in the development of unique software portability products that facilitate the deployment of games across multiple platforms. TransGaming’s portability technologies significantly reduce the time-to-market for and costs associated with multi-platform game releases. TransGaming works with many of the industry’s leading developers and publishers to enable their games on the Mac and Linux operating systems, and currently markets its products under four brand names: Cider (Mac Gaming), Cedega (Linux Gaming), SwiftShader (Graphics Rendering) and GameTreeOnline.com (Digital Retail). TransGaming is headquartered in Toronto, Canada and maintains a research and development center in Ottawa, Canada. To learn more about TransGaming’s products visit http://www.transgaming.com

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PlayNC Downtime 17/9

Wed, 17 9 2008 09:08:00 +0000

On 17/9 at 15:30 BST we will be conducting maintenance on portions of the PlayNC website. Several services may be affected by this maintenance period, so please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused. We anticipate this maintenance window to last about 2 hours.

NCsoft Announces Formation of ‘NC West’

Thu, 11 9 2008 10:35:00 +0000

SEOUL, Korea, Sept. 11, 2008— NCsoft ® Corporation (KSE: 036570.KS), the world’s leading publisher and developer of massively multiplayer online games (MMOs), including award-winning franchises Lineage ®, Guild Wars ® and City of Heroes ®, today announced the formation of “NC West™”. A wholly-owned subsidiary of NCsoft with operating responsibility for western regions including the US and Europe, NC West will be led by Chris Chung as CEO, Jeff Strain as president, product development, David Reid as president, publishing, and Patrick Wyatt as CTO as well as yet unannounced European executives.

NCsoft’s existing subsidiaries NC Interactive, NC Europe, NC Austin, and ArenaNet will be led as a unified organization under NC West with a dedicated focus towards becoming the world’s premier western publisher of MMOs. NC West is the tentative name for the organization, and the company expects to announce final naming and corporate structure in the near future. NC West’s headquarters is planned to be established in Seattle, WA by the end of 2008.

Chris Chung, previously CEO of NC Interactive, has a long history with NCsoft. He began his tenure at NCsoft’s ArenaNet® studio, where he managed that studio’s business and helped launch the multi-platinum selling Guild Wars franchise. Chung later went on to become the chief publishing officer for NCsoft’s Seoul headquarters. Prior to NCsoft, Chung spent more than five years at Microsoft and later co-founded a marketing research firm. As CEO of NC West, Chung will continue to report directly to NCsoft CEO Taek Jin (TJ) Kim.

“We are confident that by combining our subsidiaries into a unified global organization under Chris Chung’s leadership, NC West will become a more powerful force to be reckoned with in the western MMO market,” said TJ Kim. “Chris has become a guiding force within our company and has been extremely successful at every position he has held with us. His detailed first-hand knowledge of all aspects of our business is invaluable and will help establish NC West as a global leader.”

Jeff Strain was formerly the president and co-founder of ArenaNet, a company he formed with Patrick Wyatt and Mike O’Brien when they left senior roles at Blizzard Entertainment in 2000. Additionally, Strain held the position of executive producer of Guild Wars 2™ prior to taking this new role. Strain will report directly to Chung and manage all NC West development studios across all existing and future products. Strain will also direct the production of NCsoft’s Asian-developed titles for NC West territories.

David Reid began with NCsoft in March 2008 as vice-president, marketing for North America. Reid came to NCsoft from Turner Broadcasting’s GameTap, where he served as vice-president, marketing. Prior to that, he worked at Microsoft as director of global platform marketing, where he launched the Xbox 360. In his new role, Reid will continue to report to Chung and will lead franchise management, marketing, public relations, sales, and customer support for NC West.

As a founder of ArenaNet, Patrick Wyatt led the development of the network and server technologies for the Guild Wars franchise, and directed the architecture and deployment of ArenaNet’s global game network infrastructure. Before co-founding ArenaNet with Strain and O’Brien, Wyatt was the vice president of research and development for Blizzard Entertainment, where he led programming for the Warcraft, StarCraft, and Diablo franchises. As CTO for NC West, Wyatt will report to Chung and will focus on platform technology development, network operations, and systems engineering. “There is an unparalleled opportunity for growth in the massively multiplayer online market,” said Chris Chung. “By combining the strength of our US and European teams, NCsoft has the best global infrastructure to win in new and existing markets, and the best developer talent capable of creating blockbuster MMO franchises.”

About NC West NC West is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Korea-based NCsoft Corporation, a world leading publisher and developer of massively multiplayer online games including Lineage/Lineage II, Guild Wars, City of Heroes, Richard Garriott’s Tabula Rasa®, and Aion®: The Tower of Eternity™. More information about NCsoft can be found at http://www.PlayNC.com.

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NCsoft, ArenaNet, Lineage, City of Heroes, Guild Wars, Guild Wars 2, Tabula Rasa, Aion, The Tower of Eternity and all associated logos and designs are trademarks or registered trademarks of NCsoft Corporation. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

The final podcast from Games Convention 08!

Tue, 26 8 2008 17:11:01 +0000

The final podcast from this year’s Games Convention has just landed. In the last of our “live” podcasts from the Games Convention in Leipzig, we join ‘Avatea’, Community Co-ordinator for Richard Garriott’s Tabula Rasa and Lead Designer Tom Potter from Destination Games as they answer some of your questions and talk about the role of a games’ lead designer.

To listen to the podcast, simply click here!

We’re back! Podcast #3 from Games Convention 08.

Tue, 26 8 2008 17:08:00 +0000

We’re back home from the Games Convention in Leipzig now, but the work isn’t over yet! Join Martin Kerstein, Community Co-ordinator for Guild Wars and special guests from Arenanet as they take a look at what life is like working on Guild Wars and take questions from the audience. To listen to the podcast, just click here!

Building a community. Live podcast from Games Convention 2008.

Fri, 22 8 2008 16:50:01 +0000

It’s day two of the Games Convention in Leipzig, and we join the NCsoft Europe Community team as they answer more of your questions! Read on for details…

Click here to listen to the latest podcast.

We’ll be bringing more podcasts out over the duration of the Games Convention. To stay up to date with the latest information straight from the show floor, make sure you regularly check back to our podcast page!