Yeah, another great MMO for the Mac is coming as NCSoft has announced they are bringing City of Heroes to OS X, joining EVE Online and World of Warcraft. Unfortunately, NC Soft also announced they’ll be using Cider by Transgaming to port the game. Now, the idea behind Cider is brilliant, unfortunately the execution fails in many ways. First, the software is unreliable, with performance issues abound and don’t even get me started about the SecurROM DRM which is attached.

But let’s focus on the positive! NCSoft is releasing this as a special edition, digital only release, which will include special in-game items, like a teleporter, as well as a Valkyrie costume usable on your in-game character.

Then again, many die hard fans of the game are already running it via Boot Camp, so will the in-game items really be enough to attract them away?

Via: Gay Gamer

NCSoft, all things golden in massive-multiplayers that don’t end in ‘craft’, today announced the official launch of Dungeon Runners, their new MMORPG based on team-raiding fantasy-themed dungeons. Sporting a more playful, cartoony art style than Guild Wars, Dungeon Runners also features a similar price tag to GW, free! That’s right, Dungeon Runners is NCSoft’s first free to download and free to play MMO. There is a premium subscription model at $4.99 however, which gives players access to a bank to store their dungeon treasure, high-level equipment (such as armor) and the ability to stack potions in your inventory. All around, it’s looking good and I’m hoping NCSoft’s approach starts to work. Now, if they’d just quit screwing around and introduce that one-price, play-all subscription model similar to SOE’s which NCSoft’s CEO teased us all with a year or so ago!

Official press release after the jump..

Read more of “NCSoft launches Dungeon Runners, free MMO“

Yes Auto Assault is still going and from what we hear it’s not actually as bad as all the night elf lovers have made it seem. NetDevil are a good bunch and they seem to be working their asses off to try and fix up some of the early problems which plagued the release of AA so we’re more than happy to see them still fighting the good fight. Recently it was revealed at the Auto Assault forums that Update 3 for AA is currently going through the internal QA process and should address quite a few issues some of the critics have been lobbing their way, including some much needed balancing, clan name support and new instances.

Read a list of upcoming changes to Auto Assault after the jump..

Read more of “Auto Assault’s Update 3 coming soonish“

Well, that was shocking. Cryptic, Marvel Entertainment and Microsoft Game Studios today announced that Cryptic has been tapped to develop Marvel’s upcoming MMO, Marvel Universe Online, which will be released for the Xbox 360(!!) and Windows Vista, presumably next year. This is a shock because it was only a short time ago that Marvel Entertainment (and DC Comics) had Cryptic and NCsoft in their sights, accusing both of allowing users to infringe on their respective copyrights, by allowing users of NCsoft MMO City of Heroes to create characters resembling well-known Marvel and DC brands. I’m sure somewhere in South Korea, an NCsoft executive is throwing things at the poor intern who has to break this piece of bad news. How this will affect NCsoft is unknown yet, but, I can only imagine that with the release of Marvel Online Universe, NCsoft had better be planning a way around the potential fallout, as City of Heroes and City of Villains players abandon ship to play as Marvel-created super heroes. Though, whether players will actually get to play as Wolverine or Spider-Man remains to be seen.

Read more: Marvel and Microsoft announce Cryptic as Marvel Universe Online developer | Cryptic’s open letter to their fans

As the new City of Heroes Issue 8 expansion approaches, more information has been released on the City of Heroes rewards program, which NCsoft is using to show their appreciation for their subscribers, a smart move considering the beating the City of Heroes has been taking in the past few months. Players get rewards based on the length of time they’ve been in-game, going in 3 month increments, rewarding players with badges, tokens, costume upgrades and the ultimate, a free respec, always a good thing to have in a MMORPG.

3 months: Trustworthy
- Trustworthy badge
- Costume Piece: Trenchcoats
- Costume Change Token given to all characters on account

6 months: Faithful
- Faithful badge
- Costume Piece: Greek Alphabet Chest Emblems
- Costume Change Token given to all characters on account

9 months: Dependable
- Dependable badge
- Costume Piece: Belly Shirt for Females, Scottish Kilts for Males
- Respec given to all characters on account
- Costume Change Token given to all characters on account

12 months: Loyal
- Loyal badge
- Temporary Power: CHOICE: Permanent Undead Slaying Axe or Permanent Sands of Mu
- Pre-Order Sprints: Rush, Dash, Quick, Surge
- Base Item: Wall Mounted Weapon Displays

Read more: City of Heroes Veteran Rewards program

Tabula Rasa, the upcoming MMOFPS from the Garriot brothers and Starr Long, is a much anticipated return for the Ultima creators and for fans of NCsoft’s massive-multiplayers. The story revolves around an alien race attacking a human-variant race and the resulting battles will play out across a few planets (at release, more will open up in future expansions), with it rumoured that players will be able to effect the overall outcome of the war with every battle that is waged, though the game’s focus has shifted greatly during it’s development, so most of the previous rumours may prove to be untrue. One thing that will probably not change much is the game’s lofty system specifications. Not one to be happy with meeting just the minimum system specs, I’ll certainly have to perform a series of upgrades in order meet even come close to the recommended system specs, something I imagine many fans looking forward to Tabula Rasa will be doing as well.

Minimum system specifications for Tabula Rasa:

* Windows® 2000/XP/Vista
* 512 MB System RAM
* 2.5 GHz Intel® Pentium® 4 or equivalent AMD™ processor
* 128 MB Direct3D and Shader 2.0 compatible video card and DirectX 9.0 compatible driver
* 8x DVD-ROM drive
* 4.6 GB free hard disk space
* DirectX 9.0c
* DirectX 8.1 compatible sound card
* Keyboard, Mouse
* Broadband Internet connection

Recommended system specifications for Tabula Rasa:

* Windows 2000/XP/Vista
* 3.5 GHz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent AMD processor
* 2 GB System RAM
* ATI™ X1800 series, NVIDIA® GeForce 7800 series, or higher 3.0 Shader compliant video card

Read more: Tabula Rasa system specifications

In a recent interview over at GamesIndustry.biz, one of the directors of NCsoft Europe, Thomas Bidaux, spoke of bringing NCsoft MMOs to consoles and the difficulties that are present in creating a viable persistant online world and supporting the community via a console. Though I’d rather NCsoft finally come out with their one-price-play-all stucture, I’d certainly love to be able to play Auto Assault or Tabula Rasa via the Xbox 360, or dare I say, Nintendo Wii. Unfortunately, it seems Nintendo will continue to be as unfriendly as possible in their support of online gaming, so it seems the Xbox 360 is the perfect candidate to see console-version MMOs in the future. Thinking of the different NCsoft properties, I’d love to be able to play City of Heroes and Lineage II via a console, but, there will be some massive hurdles to overcome from a design perspective.

Read more: GamesIndustry.biz interview NCsoft’s Thomas Bidaux