Grinders rejoice! According to a recent Q & A with City of Heroes lead designer Matt Miller, the game will soon feature a “smoother” XP curve. While the date this will go live remains unclear, players should soon expect a “near global” increase in the experience points earned as well as more and more varied quests for certain problematic character levels. Together with this weekend’s “Double XP Weekend” event, this will almost certainly mean more heroes and villains hitting the MMORPG’s level cap of 50. This could present a potential problem for NCSoft as the game is already criticized for a lack of endgame content.

Everyone knows there are 4.287 terrible World of Warcraft clones released every second, but Blizzard is doing their part to at least make them better. During a rather revealing presentation today at the DICE Summit in Las Vegas, Blizzard’s Rob Pardo laid out in detail just some of the reasons Blizzard went from making games like the Super Nintendo’s The Death and Return of Superman to a genre-defining classic ten years later. The full rundown at Next Generation is worth reading, if only to note that their mark of quality is when their developers skip work to play their own games. It’s a benchmark I’m fervently trying to instate here as well.

Also from DICE: If you’re still looking for some closure in the whole Mass Effect / Fox News “SeXbox” controversy, you’re not alone. In an interview with N’Gai Croal, BioWare’s Ray Muzyka explained the response, or lack thereof, from BioWare on the criticism of their game. Here’s the money quote:

As for why he and his colleagues didn’t take the lead on the rebuttal, Muzyka not only cited the quote he’d given the New York Times, but added that there were different ways to respond to incidents such as these, and that his focus would be to continue to loudly proclaim at every opportunity that videogames are an art form deserving of serious respect.

Croal goes on to make the case that a stronger response was warranted, and in an environment where presidential candidates are moving toward regulations on video gaming, it’s hard to argue that one can stand idly by during such criticism.

Left Behind: Eternal Forces is now “free” for download at the publisher’s website. Of course, that’s “free” as in “not free.” (That’s the same sense in that the game is “good.”) For a small “convenience fee,” you can download and play this modern classic. While the offer is valid for only the first million people who take advantage of it, you migh want to still act soon, as the last attempt to give this game away for free didn’t go so well.

- Scott Parker