Marvel and NCSoft have settled the lawsuit by the former against the latter. Huzzah. Quoth CuppaJo:
Marvel Entertainment, Inc., NCsoft® Corporation, NC Interactive, Inc. and Cryptic Studios™, Inc. are pleased to announce today that they have amicably settled all claims brought by Marvel and all claims brought by NCsoft, NC Interactive, Inc. and Cryptic Studios, Inc.
The parties’ settlement allows them all to continue to develop and sell exciting and innovative products, but does not reduce the players’ ability to express their creativity in making and playing original and exciting characters.
In other words, no nerfs to the costume designer (or, for that matter, the Claws primary).
Therefore, no changes to City of Heroes® or City of Villains’™ character creation engine are part of the settlement. The parties have agreed that protecting intellectual property rights is critically important and each will continue aggressively to protect such rights in accordance with all applicable laws.
In other words, the devs will still turn your green giant brute “Bruce Purplepants” into “GenericHero470,” and “Wylvoreen” the Claws Scrapper will suffer a similar fate.
While the terms of the settlement were not disclosed, all parties agree that this case was never about monetary issues and that the fans of their respective products and characters are the winners in this settlement.
Regardless of the ludicrousness of the first half of that “agreement,” the second half is certainly true.