Neowin.net

NCsoft™ Europe is pleased to announce the arrival of City of Heroes™ Deluxe Edition in stores throughout Europe this week, exclusively for PC. "We are extraordinarily happy with how well the European Beta went," says Sebastian Vidal, COO, NCsoft Europe. "Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, and we are looking forward to a similarly successful retail launch."

NCsoft is going all out with the City of Heroes Deluxe edition. This expansive release exclusive to European gamers contains many bonus extras including - among other things - all three game content updates (Issues 1-3), a stunning 88-page comic digest, and serial codes to unlock an in-game Prestige Power, unique cape (available for Level 20 characters) and VIP badge.

City of Heroes has an s.r.p. of £29.99 / €39.99. Monthly subscriptions will be £8.99 / €12.99 with discounts available for three-months £23.99 / €34.99 and six-months £44.99 / €64.99. NCsoft will also be making collectable City of Heroes Game Time Cards available. Game Time Cards will allow players without credit cards to play for 60 days at £17.99 / €25.99, and come in three different designs.

More information on City of Heroes and City of Heroes Deluxe edition is available at the official European web site:

http://eu.cityofheroes.com/

News source: Bluesnews

Q: How does the IE team percieve the ongoing interest in Mozilla Firefox and what plans do the IE Team have to intercept it?

Dave: From my personal perspective I think it is great to have interest in other browsers. We believe that browsing is an essential part of a modern operating system and we certainly plan to provide a great browsing experience as part of Windows. We’ve done a lot of work to ensure that Windows customers have an opportunity to choose from the broadest set of third party applications in the industry. While Internet Explorer is the choice of hundreds of millions because of the unique value it provides, we respect that some customers will choose an alternative. We also know that choosing a browser is about more than a handful of features. Microsoft continues to make major investments in Internet Explorer, including significant security enhancements with Windows XP Service Pack 2 and the dedicated focus of the Microsoft Security Response Center. Microsoft also encourages ISVs to continue adding to the broad ecosystem of third party add-ons to extend the functionality of Internet Explorer. All of this, combined with Microsoft’s enterprise and consumer customer support and Internet Explorer’s vast Website and application compatibility, continue to make Internet Explorer a compelling choice for consumers and enterprises.

Q: I'm not sure it's a smart thing to do to wait 5 years for a major IE release (Windows XP 2001 > Longhorn 2006) the general opinion is that the updates in IE SP2 fell short of what is available in the current '3rd party' web-browser market.

Dave: Beyond our recent enhancements delivered in Service Pack 2, a vibrant ecosystem involving hundreds of partners and independent software vendors continues to develop some of the most popular browser features and add-ons for customers to download and enjoy today. These range from complete browsers with tabbed browsing built on the Internet Explorer platform, to toolbars and other utilities that plug directly into Internet Explorer itself. Users can visit http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/addon to find and download the add-ons that meet their needs. Going forward, IE will deliver new features that will make it even more powerful and more secure. The IE team is in the process of designing and developing Internet Explorer for Longhorn. It’s too early to provide a list of specific features, but major investments are being made in the areas of end user features, security and privacy, and developer support (for both add-on and website developers).

Q: I understand you won't be able to say much about the future but isn't it fair to at least confirm some features that are long wanted/needed in IE and are available in Firefox/Opera.

Dave: As someone who worked on the Internet Explorer team for IE4, IE5, IE5.5 and part of IE6, I'm excited by the work we have to do. I returned to the team last year as there is clearly a need to provide improvements and update IE. As a company I think we recognize the importance of the browser and plan to continue to invest heavily here on an ongoing basis not just for the next version. While I think the other browsers have been doing a good job, I think we all have a long way to go to improve the overall browsing experience. Some may look at tabs as being revolutionary but it is worth noting that they first appeared with NetCaptor http://www.netcaptor.com which is an IE-based browser; some users love them but others do not. It may take us some time to get there but I really think we need to think further out about how we want to be browsing in ten years time. That means working on a trustworthy experience, a productive user experience and improvements for web developers as well to provide better content. We definitely have a sense of purpose and understand the need to deliver a great browser and are excited by the work we have to do.

Thanks Dave for answering our questions and I wish you all the best with the ongoing development of IE.

View: Tabbed Browsing in IE by Microgarden $15 (Trial)
View: Internet Explorer Add-ons Web Site & Windows Marketplace