Today NCsoft announced their plans to step up its fight against “the growing menace of intellectual property theft,” with plans to target private Lineage II servers in Greece and Russia.

Ever the benevolent corporation, NCsoft insists they’re not just looking after their own monetary interests with this crackdown, but warn that, “Unauthorized servers often feature - or require users to download - illegally modified and potentially harmful game data, thereby changing the intended online experience.” Unauthorized servers also don’t require a monthly fee.

NCsoft has previously had a great deal of success battling piracy in the virtually piracy-free MMO space. Last year in Greece, NCsoft obtained a court order against Internet cafe business e-GLOBAL, after which four of its cafes were raided and several private Lineage II servers were shutdown. In 2006, NCsoft worked with the FBI to bring down L2Extreme.com, which hosted private Lineage II servers and claimed to support 50,000 active accounts.

Piracy is much less of a problem with MMOs than with other games, as even those who regularly pirate games would rather play on ‘real’ servers where their accomplishments ‘mean something.’ As the single most prolific MMO publisher in the world, however, it’s in NCsofts best interest to see every private server, no matter how small, stamped out of existence.

NCsoft versus Unauthorized Servers [Blue's News]

Double Fusion and NCsoft have announced plans to team up and battle the evil of drying revenue streams by bringing an optional in-game advertising program to City of Heroes. In-game ads for real world products would replace Paragon City’s fictional billboards to help fund continued development of the superhero MMO. Subscribers who would rather see ads for Hero Quencher than Gatorade are welcome to opt out of the system, but City of Heroes’ development manager Brian Clayton hopes most players choose not to, as “all ad revenue dollars go directly to the further development of the game.”

In November, NCsoft transfered development of City of Heroes from Cryptic Studios to a new studio in Northern California. Brian Clayton assures leery fans that City of Heroes is “entering a major phase of reinvestment for the game (and brand)” under the direction of this new studio. They hope to keep City of Heroes relevant in an ever-expanding MMO market.

As far as in-game advertising campaigns go, City of Heroes’ looks to be as unobtrusive as possible. NCsoft is merely trading one set of billboards and street signs for another. Ultimately, the in-game ads will bring more new content to the aging MMO more quickly than before, which should quiet any fans currently up in arms over Double Fusion’s arrival in Paragon City. Just the same, here’s hoping Pepsi billboards don’t start cropping up in the fantasy worlds of Guild Wars and Lineage.

Double Fusion, NCsoft Partner For In-Game City of Heroes Ads [Gamasutra]