We've recently talked about the Issue 12 update for the popular superhero MMO City of Heroes/City of Villains. The update brings some interesting additions to the game, such as Evil character archetypes and a new Midnight Squad super hero team that will challenge players to travel back in time to the Roman Age to battle an ancient and powerful foe that has found refuge there.

The developers at NCsoft seem to be thinking well ahead of the Issue 12 planned release and a post on the game-related forums has offered information on the next step that the developers plan to make. According to Lighthouse, who is Community Relations Manager on the behalf on NCsoft, the developer is currently developing a system that will allow players to have access to additional character slots from within the same game account.

The post statement thanks gamers for the support they have shown to the developers and for their feedback and says: "We want to let you know that we are working on systems to address this community request. Our intent is add purchasable character slots to round out our existing services of Character Transfer and Character Rename. We hope to have this implemented and available shortly after Issue 12 Launch."

There aren't too many details in that statement, but the downside is, of course, that the additional character slots will have to be paid for. Whether there will be a one-time fee for each new slot or a subscription add-on fee will be required to get access to new slots is not clear, although players seem to think the first option is more probable.

How will this move from NCsoft change the playing dynamics in City of Heroes? For one, it could lead to the demise of the alternate accounts many players have and give developers a better look at the real player numbers for the game. For other effects, we'll have to wait while the feature is implemented.