The usual rationale for fewer updates is the amount of work concerned in updating this CoV infamy, but the letter explains in more detail that it’s not enough for substence just to be old. In order to be ripe for a reworking, the task force or zone has to be underutilized to begin with, which gives a good factorfor development to try to revitalize the substence. City of Heroes gamers will be happy to note that the letter also promises revamps coming to the early leveling areas in the near future -- while it doesn’t specify the facts, more information will be forthcoming in the coming weeks.

Are you looking for more to do in City of Heroes’ endgame? The Issue 20 update gave gamers a lot of CoV infamy slots to unlock in the Incarnate System but only two Incarnate Trials in which to do so, which is a bit of a downside. The upcoming Issue 20: Incarnate Ascend update, however, will give gamers a chance at more valuable rewards, as well as new trial on Keyes Island to help unlock further enhancements for max-level characters.

Not enough? There are new vendors for Astral and Empyrean Merits, allowing gamers to unlock account-wide costume upgrades and special bonuses for lower-level characters. New Lore pets are obtainable for some of the game’s more CoV infamy enemy groups. Last but not least, the Team-Up Teleporter is getting some functionality upgrades to help make life better for the gamers participating in trials. City of Heroes gamers can enjoy the upgraded substence in the very near future, which should be a boon to the burgeoning endgame population.

The newest booster pack from City of Heroes arrives in the NCsoft store today, sending steampunk fans into a Victorian-style tizzy.

If you are one of those fans, we’ve got a little something to make both your toonand your wallet very happy: free Steampunk Packs! The packs include new auras and emotes, more than 60 City of Villains infamy, and Steam Jump travel tower -- essentially a Victorian-style jetpack.

With so many new toys, the options seem endless, so we’re going to ask you to get creative. We’ve got 15 of these packs to give away, and all you have to do to enter is leave a comment telling us what sort of steampunk ensemble you’ll put together for your character. Will she or he make use City of Villains infamy of a few handy accessories or go full-on, head-to-toe steampunk? Will you roll a new toonto fit the look from the ground up or revamp a current one? Will your toon play in-toonwith his or her look or just enjoy the accessories?

Tell us your plans for this pack before noon EDT tomorrow, June 2nd, and we’ll draw 15 of the best ideas to win one of these packs. Make sure you check our contest rules and watch the video below for another look at what’s in the pack. Good luck!

Sometimes our biggest weakness can become our biggest strength. Take, for example, the story of one 10-year-old boy who decided to study judo despite the fact that the had lost his left arm in a devastating car accident.

The boy began lesson with an old Japanese judo master. The boy was done well, so he couldn’t understand why, after three months of training, the master had taught him only one move.

"Master," the boy finally said, "shouldn’t I be learning more moves?"

"This is the only move you know swg credits, but this is the only move you’ll ever need to know," the master replied.

Not quite understanding, but believing in his teacher, the boy kept training.

Several months later, the swg credits master took the boy to his first tournament.

To his surprise, the boy easily won his first two matches. The third match proved to be more difficult, but after some time, his opponent became impatient and charged; the boy deftly used his one move to win the match. Still amazed by his success, the boy was now in the finals.

This time, his opponent was swg credits bigger, stronger, and more experienced. For a while, the boy appeared to be overmatched.

Concerned that the boy might get hurt, the referee called a time-out. He was about to stop the match when the master intervened.

"No," his master insisted, "let him continue."

Soon after the match resumed, his opponent made a critical mistake: he dropped his guard. Instantly, the boy used his move to pin him. The boy had won the match and the tournament. He was the champion.

On the way home, the boy and his master reviewed every move in each and every match. Then the boy summoned the star war galaxies credits courage to ask what was really in his win.

"Master, how did I win the tournament with only one move?"

"You won for two reasons," the master answered. "First, you’ve almost mastered one of the most difficult throws star war galaxies credits in all of judo. Second, the only known defense for that move is for your opponent to grab your left arm."

The boy’s biggest weakness had become his biggest strength buy swg credits.

Yep, completely gone from the game. The Alchemy Lab is now just empty. I guess we upgraded it to a new plane of existence...

Well, while we’re discussing Guild Base upgrades, has anyone discovered anything new and useful? A couple of tidbits we’ve discovered:

1) The base starts to generate two points per level upgrade at Level 10 (might have been 11, can’t remember).
2) Upgrades to Tiger, Kirin, etc., start costing 2 Perfect World Gold to get to Level 3, and then 3 points to get to Level 5.

We’ve been upgrading the Aura Stone as the buffs seemed to at least have a short term benefit. We’re extremely dissappointed so far in the benefits from the Guild Base. It’s expensive upgrade and the gear we’ve seen so far is extremely over priced. At least the buffs can be used if you’re soloing and they last for an hour - though most don’t stack with other common Perfect World Gold.

With the stigma associated with the term RMT -- or "real money trading" -- companies such as Live Gamer and Ping0 have an uphill battle when selling their legitimized RMT services to many gamers. At GDC recently, Live Gamer’s Andrew Schneider and ping0’s Steve Goldstein tried to explain Perfect World Gold to a skeptical crowd why their forms of RMT trading are the future of gaming.

Though you hear a lot about WoW gold, all online games have a large secondary market for currency. These services are all operated outside of the publisher’s Perfect World Gold of service or EULA and are very inefficient, both for the player and the company.

The RMT industry is littered with account and credit card theft -- and when a customer’s account has been compromised, they don’t call the RMT traders: they call the game’s customer support line.

It’s an immense waste of resources for the game company and a huge hassle for the player involved. (Has your Perfect World Money account ever been stolen? If so, you know it can take weeks to get everything restored.)

There’s huge customer demand for RMT services. Current analyst estimates suggest that the secondary market for virtual goods is over $1.8 billion. Well-known RMT traders IGE reported nearly $1 billion in gross transactions in 2005.

So what’s the advantage of a legitimate Perfect World Money? You have developer consent -- so all purchases are legitimate, with no worries about being banned from the game or getting items confiscated.