The City of Heroes / City of Villians franchise (known collectively as CoX) continues to pound ahead like an unstoppable juggernaut, allowing players to live out their dreams of being virtual crime fighters or dastardly villains bent on world domination. Nearing the three year mark, and with eight free massive content updates (referred to as "Issues" to maintain the comic book feel) under its belt, Cryptic Studios has recently been beta testing perhaps the latest and greatest Issue to date, Issue 9.

While previous updates added a plethora of new powers, zones, missions, evil villain groups, additional costume pieces and various badges and rewards, this one focuses on change the very way the game can be played. How? By giving the players the ability to create their own items and sell them to the masses. Player driven economies may be old hat for some MMOs, but totally new to this spandex clad environment.

The Invention System lets players collect "loot" in the form of Salvage (which comes in common, uncommon and rare forms) and Invention Recipes in a variety of ways. Together, these items can be used to invent temporary powers, inspirations, super-enhancements (that level up automatically with the player instead of expiring) or costume pieces. Additionally, there will be various "sets" of Enhancements that players can slot into their powers. As players slot these powers into their characters, they unlock things like increased Damage bonuses or Defense bonuses versus specific attacks. An entire set of these new Enhancements will be a challenge to collect because they will only be available as Story Arc rewards, Task Force rewards or Trial rewards.

As for all of the unused recipes and extra salvage that gets collected, players can sell it through the new auction house system. Throughout Paragon City Heroes will utilize Wentworth's Fine Consignments, while Villains can find one of the many "black market" trucks scattered throughout the back alleys in the Rogue Isles. Both places will take a small fee for listing and selling items (like eBay), but player's gain a much bigger market (and return on their investment) for their goods. Plus, gamers will likely be able to find the last piece of an Enhancement set or perhaps some rare salvage that could never be found any other way.

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