Face it, City of Heroes/Villains is growing long in the tooth when it comes to the game's visuals and it is long overdue for a graphics upgrade.

Is one such uograde coming with the Going Rogue expansion? This latest interview on Issue 16: Power Spectrum and the Going Rogue expansion over at TenTonHammer seems to hint at it:

Ten Ton Hammer: Will the graphics be revamped?

Matt: I can't officially say anything... but I'm not saying no.

Make of that what you will.

The full interview is available here.

Do you think a graphics upgrade or overhaul for City of Heroes will help the game stay afloat? Let us know in the comments below.

 Yes, because costume-unlock packs > item malls.

I sure hope not. The performance in that game is still horrid. Running a Quad CPU, 4GB DDR2, ATI 4870 1GB and CoV still runs like junk. It is the only game I cannot run on full blast. I can only assume revamping and updating the graphics would make it much worse.

The only thing that'd make me play City of Heroes is if the graphics overhaul turned the game's City into GTA 4's city.

Aaaaand, I don't see that happening.

I hate it when a MMO company says "we are revamping Graphics" espially one with age. They seem to think everyone has the latest and greatest. I've owned CoH since launce and run it on a duel core laptop i got 3 years ago (a upgrade from my original pentium 4) if i can't run CoH on my main rig thanks to a graphics update they just lost a long term subscriber, and i imagine i'm not the only one...

especially when we are in a recessions saying "Buy a new rig" more then ever means "we don't want you as a customer any more, go away"

Originally posted by nekollx

I hate it when a MMO company says "we are revamping Graphics" espially one with age. They seem to think everyone has the latest and greatest. I've owned CoH since launce and run it on a duel core laptop i got 3 years ago (a upgrade from my original pentium 4) if i can't run CoH on my main rig thanks to a graphics update they just lost a long term subscriber, and i imagine i'm not the only one...

 

especially when we are in a recessions saying "Buy a new rig" more then ever means "we don't want you as a customer any more, go away"

A graphics update won't necessarily require higher system specs. If they update the graphics to make them a bit flashier on newer cards, I'm sure they'd also try to keep the game working on older ones.

Everyone knows that one of the key ingredients to WOW's ongoing success is low system specs.

Originally posted by green13

Originally posted by nekollx

I hate it when a MMO company says "we are revamping Graphics" espially one with age. They seem to think everyone has the latest and greatest. I've owned CoH since launce and run it on a duel core laptop i got 3 years ago (a upgrade from my original pentium 4) if i can't run CoH on my main rig thanks to a graphics update they just lost a long term subscriber, and i imagine i'm not the only one...

 

especially when we are in a recessions saying "Buy a new rig" more then ever means "we don't want you as a customer any more, go away"

A graphics update won't necessarily require higher system specs. If they update the graphics to make them a bit flashier on newer cards, I'm sure they'd also try to keep the game working on older ones.

Everyone knows that one of the key ingredients to WOW's ongoing success is low system specs.

but some people forget that...i have faith in CoX though...still it had to be said

Classic non-commital answer because he cant give a definitive Yes or No.

If he said Yes then one doesnt come people would be angry.

If he said No then one did come people would be angry.

However, something will ne needed and soon because CoH has stayed afloat as long as it has because they have no competition in their particular niche.

That will soon change with Champions Online releasing in a couple weeks, DC Online next year then Marvel Online in a few years.

 I've tried to sub to this game four times and each time has been shorter than the last because it's overiding problems still have not changed it just reminds me of playing an arcade game (and not in a good way per se) graphical upgrades aren't going to change my opinion of this game but they really need to think outside of the box and do something drastic because now the real competition is about to start and I think with all the things we know about this game now they are going to be big losers once these new super hero mmos start.

Originally posted by Stellus

I sure hope not. The performance in that game is still horrid. Running a Quad CPU, 4GB DDR2, ATI 4870 1GB and CoV still runs like junk. It is the only game I cannot run on full blast. I can only assume revamping and updating the graphics would make it much worse.

Dang, sorry to hear that, but the problem is on your end.

I play COX with all settings maxed out  on a core2duo 3 GHz, 2GB RAM, NVIDIA 512MB GTS8800

Your rig's specs are better than mine, yet I can run COX at max with no problems and you cannot.

Definately a user issue, you should get with someone that is knowledgeable  in computers to give you a hand.

now on to the subject of the post:

I would love to see them revamp the graphics in COX, I still consider it my favorite game. The graphics as they stand now aren't too bad but modernizing the look might make the game feel "new" again.

Originally posted by Soupgoblin

Originally posted by Stellus

I sure hope not. The performance in that game is still horrid. Running a Quad CPU, 4GB DDR2, ATI 4870 1GB and CoV still runs like junk. It is the only game I cannot run on full blast. I can only assume revamping and updating the graphics would make it much worse.

 

Dang, sorry to hear that, but the problem is on your end.

I play COX with all settings maxed out  on a core2duo 3 GHz, 2GB RAM, NVIDIA 512MB GTS8800

Your rig's specs are better than mine, yet I can run COX at max with no problems and you cannot.

Definately a user issue, you should get with someone that is knowledgeable  in computers to give you a hand.

 

now on to the subject of the post:

I would love to see them revamp the graphics in COX, I still consider it my favorite game. The graphics as they stand now aren't too bad but modernizing the look might make the game feel "new" again.

It might be play style differnce. I have your same specs except I have an extra GB RAM and if I do anything other then run regular missions (and sometimes even then) I have to bottom out my graphic settings. Especially in the last month. 

I agree with what most everyone else seems to be saying. That the game needs a performance up grade, rather then new grapics.

Originally posted by Soupgoblin

Originally posted by Stellus

I sure hope not. The performance in that game is still horrid. Running a Quad CPU, 4GB DDR2, ATI 4870 1GB and CoV still runs like junk. It is the only game I cannot run on full blast. I can only assume revamping and updating the graphics would make it much worse.

 

Dang, sorry to hear that, but the problem is on your end.

I play COX with all settings maxed out  on a core2duo 3 GHz, 2GB RAM, NVIDIA 512MB GTS8800

Your rig's specs are better than mine, yet I can run COX at max with no problems and you cannot.

Definately a user issue, you should get with someone that is knowledgeable  in computers to give you a hand.

 

now on to the subject of the post:

I would love to see them revamp the graphics in COX, I still consider it my favorite game. The graphics as they stand now aren't too bad but modernizing the look might make the game feel "new" again.

I am a Software Engineer. I build servers, I code applications, and I have at one point worked in the gaming industry (albeit on an audio level). I know my way in and out of a computer, its components, its drivers, etc. While you may be running things on full blast, your idea of "smooth framerate" may vastly differ from mine. 20fps to me is unacceptable whereas it may not be noticeable to you. Opinions differ.

Again, as stated before, CoV is the only game that runs horribly for me. Hell, Vanguard runs pretty darn good on my machine. Even when CoV was released, it was a widely known issue that Mercy Isle = FPS death. Go to Sharkhead Isle and look directly at the steam rising up from the smokestacks. Instant teen-level FPS. However, log onto Vanguard and look over the port city of Khal, or LOTRO's Bree. They are handled beautifully by my machine. Load up CoV and go to the trainer atop Mercy Isle. Boom. 15FPS. And these areas are littered all over the Rogue Isles.

I have actually had 2 different PC's that have attempted CoV. When it first released, I had two 7800 GTX's in SLI (which was the latest and greatest at that time).  Fast forward a few years to the ATI 4870 and Quad Core CPU. SAME framerate. The jump in technology has not bettered the situation at all which means one thing: their code sucks. From what I remember, Cryptic used OpenGL for CoH/CoV, not DirectX which in there lies the problem.

Originally posted by Stellus

Originally posted by Soupgoblin

Originally posted by Stellus

I sure hope not. The performance in that game is still horrid. Running a Quad CPU, 4GB DDR2, ATI 4870 1GB and CoV still runs like junk. It is the only game I cannot run on full blast. I can only assume revamping and updating the graphics would make it much worse.

 

Dang, sorry to hear that, but the problem is on your end.

I play COX with all settings maxed out  on a core2duo 3 GHz, 2GB RAM, NVIDIA 512MB GTS8800

Your rig's specs are better than mine, yet I can run COX at max with no problems and you cannot.

Definately a user issue, you should get with someone that is knowledgeable  in computers to give you a hand.

 

now on to the subject of the post:

I would love to see them revamp the graphics in COX, I still consider it my favorite game. The graphics as they stand now aren't too bad but modernizing the look might make the game feel "new" again.

 

I am a Software Engineer. I build servers, I code applications, and I have at one point worked in the gaming industry (albeit on an audio level). I know my way in and out of a computer, its components, its drivers, etc. While you may be running things on full blast, your idea of "smooth framerate" may vastly differ from mine. 20fps to me is unacceptable whereas it may not be noticeable to you. Opinions differ.

Again, as stated before, CoV is the only game that runs horribly for me. Hell, Vanguard runs pretty darn good on my machine. Even when CoV was released, it was a widely known issue that Mercy Isle = FPS death. Go to Sharkhead Isle and look directly at the steam rising up from the smokestacks. Instant teen-level FPS. However, log onto Vanguard and look over the port city of Khal, or LOTRO's Bree. They are handled beautifully by my machine. Load up CoV and go to the trainer atop Mercy Isle. Boom. 15FPS. And these areas are littered all over the Rogue Isles.

I have actually had 2 different PC's that have attempted CoV. When it first released, I had two 7800 GTX's in SLI (which was the latest and greatest at that time).  Fast forward a few years to the ATI 4870 and Quad Core CPU. SAME framerate. The jump in technology has not bettered the situation at all which means one thing: their code sucks.

Lol your in the wrong trade if you can't get your setup to run cov at full with good fps. I can run cov at high setting also with an oc 8800gtx, so your either lying or your doin something wrong.
 

 Thats fantastic news! I once won a costume contest in CoH, which btw is one of the best customizing proxesses a game has to date, I got my guy to look perfectly how I watned him too and thats saying alot.

Graphics upgrade? Are you kidding me? CoX has some of the best graphics in the business. Images are sharp, crisp and shiny.  I run 2.5ghz duel core AMD, 2gig ddr2, Nvidia 9600gt 512mb and get buttery smooth lagless graphics with all options turned up all the way. I wish SWG, EQ1, EQ2, LOTRO had a graphics engine as good as the CoX engine. What the devs at paragon studios should work on is giving the game more purpose then just seeing how many Lvl 50s you can make.  The reason CoX is getting stale is not because of the graphics but its lack of imagination and lack of some sort of real storyline that can grab the masses. If they want to revamp the graphice then lower the system specs a bit so more people can play the game. By what I have seen CoX graphics is way better then the lame cell-shaded that Champions online is going to have. And yet the reson I am excited to play Champions online over CoX is because of game content and not graphics. I mean comeon creae your own Arch-villian that will constantly antagonize you is awsome.

Anyway Paragon studios is waisting time and money if they are revamping the graphics when they should be comming up with more ideas to improve the overall game play.  CoX is about to get some serious players moving into the neighborhood and if they dont do something to change the repetitiveness of the game they will be sittin with MxO, Tabula Rasa and others in the MMO graveyard.

InvaderGUI is perfectly right, I don't think a graphic revamp will change much the destiny of this game. At least for me.
I played nearly 2 years on the EU servers, left after issue 12 and resub a couple months for I13 and I14.
Currently that game has given me all that it could give. The only thing that could spawn some new interest in the game are new gameplay challenges and not simply a make-up of the graphics.
PVE side, COX has increased its "grinding" nature: you grind up to level 50, you grind to get the necessary influence to craft the sets you want to use. Mission Architect, sadly, simply gave a tool to satisfy the grinding nature of most of the COX community (there ARE very good stories in the MA, sure, but finding a good team nowadays is really difficult as everyone wants to level fast and thus prefer missions with fast exp).
Raids and Task Forces have still issue that should be addressed: Hero TFs are too long, Villain TF are too few, new TF are introduced sparingly. The only existing Raid is Hamidon and no one is doing it anymore as its rewards aren't so interesting anymore after they introduced Invention Sets, Rikti War Zone raid is nice, but in the end it doesn't give such good rewards.
Some zones are mostly ignored by the players (esp. Hero side: Shadow Shard, Boomtown, Eden - except for those that want to do the Trial there).
Inventions and sets have been "badly conceived" from the start: all the freedom you had in slotting your toon with SOs has been a bit crippled with sets; they had to introduce different group of sets ('Accurate Healing', Taunt, 'Recharge-intensive Pets', iirc) because some powers could not benefit at all from the set that were initially intoduced.
And last but not least, pvp was changed in a way that annoyed most of the old pvp community. I wasn't a hard pvper, but I enjoyed it really (and still look for a game with pvp so dynamic as was COX pre I13). I knew it had some really evident flaws (overhealing, too much resistance that could be stacked, melee characters underperforming, some travel powers generally useless), but some of the changes they thrown in the game (base pvp resistance and diminishing returns on them, heavily reduced effectiveness of control powers) created a new community of pvpers that prefer self-sustaining archetypes (tankers, brutes) that made support and crowd-control archetypes nearly useless. Mind it: maybe the new community enjoys that pvp style, I simply don't, especially because I preferred support toons and I don't have time to level another toon to 50 and put all the relevant sets in it.
And pvp base raids are there since I6 but no one is doing them as they're heavily buggy (and no reward is there for winning or simply taking part in them).
No, a simple graphic revamp won't be a big hit for COX, unless some of these gameplay issues are addressed seriously...
 

Originally posted by Stellus

Originally posted by Soupgoblin

Originally posted by Stellus

I sure hope not. The performance in that game is still horrid. Running a Quad CPU, 4GB DDR2, ATI 4870 1GB and CoV still runs like junk. It is the only game I cannot run on full blast. I can only assume revamping and updating the graphics would make it much worse.

 

Dang, sorry to hear that, but the problem is on your end.

I play COX with all settings maxed out  on a core2duo 3 GHz, 2GB RAM, NVIDIA 512MB GTS8800

Your rig's specs are better than mine, yet I can run COX at max with no problems and you cannot.

Definately a user issue, you should get with someone that is knowledgeable  in computers to give you a hand.

 

now on to the subject of the post:

I would love to see them revamp the graphics in COX, I still consider it my favorite game. The graphics as they stand now aren't too bad but modernizing the look might make the game feel "new" again.

 

I am a Software Engineer. I build servers, I code applications, and I have at one point worked in the gaming industry (albeit on an audio level). I know my way in and out of a computer, its components, its drivers, etc. While you may be running things on full blast, your idea of "smooth framerate" may vastly differ from mine. 20fps to me is unacceptable whereas it may not be noticeable to you. Opinions differ.

Again, as stated before, CoV is the only game that runs horribly for me. Hell, Vanguard runs pretty darn good on my machine. Even when CoV was released, it was a widely known issue that Mercy Isle = FPS death. Go to Sharkhead Isle and look directly at the steam rising up from the smokestacks. Instant teen-level FPS. However, log onto Vanguard and look over the port city of Khal, or LOTRO's Bree. They are handled beautifully by my machine. Load up CoV and go to the trainer atop Mercy Isle. Boom. 15FPS. And these areas are littered all over the Rogue Isles.

I have actually had 2 different PC's that have attempted CoV. When it first released, I had two 7800 GTX's in SLI (which was the latest and greatest at that time).  Fast forward a few years to the ATI 4870 and Quad Core CPU. SAME framerate. The jump in technology has not bettered the situation at all which means one thing: their code sucks. From what I remember, Cryptic used OpenGL for CoH/CoV, not DirectX which in there lies the problem.

Main Comp:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 3.0GHZ

4GB RAM 1000MHZ

250 HD 32MB CACHE

Geforece GX280 1GB Card

Cox runs on max with Fps around 120

Second comp laptop:

Intel Core 2 Duo T6400 (2.0GHz) Processor

512MB Nvidia GeForce G105M Graphics

2 GB RAM

120 GB HD

Cox runs around 80 fps solid

Im also a techie and build computers and in my experience alot of problems are cause by cheap components Buying a good processor and good graphics are putting them on a cheap motherboard with cheap value ram and a cheap large hard drive and then expecting a great performance never turns out well, i always recommend pay the extra for the better components. Im not saying COX has a great performace accross the board and it doesn't it has its flaws like all games some worse than others, but by the sounds of things your performance issue's may have another cause i would invest some time looking into your system's and maybe upgrading parts for better performance the hard drive is one most people overlook.

 Hmmm... well people like shiny so perhaps it will help. 

However, I honestly don't have this massive problem with CoX graphics? In fact, I rather like them better than those of some more recent games and I think they work well for the game.

Excited/hopeful about more end-game content, though.

My vote is no, whats the point of new graphics, when essentally its just the exact same gameplay but a tiny bit better looking? If they wanna stay afloat they need to change the gameplay in some major way to make the game seem fresh. The create a mission thing kinda ruined the game, Because hardly anyone does any other content, they just run a Create a mish with nothing but bosses that are level 54.

---

Originally posted by InvaderGUI
Graphics upgrade? Are you kidding me? CoX has some of the best graphics in the business. Images are sharp, crisp and shiny.  I run 2.5ghz duel core AMD, 2gig ddr2, Nvidia 9600gt 512mb and get buttery smooth lagless graphics with all options turned up all the way. I wish SWG, EQ1, EQ2, LOTRO had a graphics engine as good as the CoX engine. What the devs at paragon studios should work on is giving the game more purpose then just seeing how many Lvl 50s you can make.  The reason CoX is getting stale is not because of the graphics but its lack of imagination and lack of some sort of real storyline that can grab the masses. If they want to revamp the graphice then lower the system specs a bit so more people can play the game. By what I have seen CoX graphics is way better then the lame cell-shaded that Champions online is going to have. And yet the reson I am excited to play Champions online over CoX is because of game content and not graphics. I mean comeon creae your own Arch-villian that will constantly antagonize you is awsome.
Anyway Paragon studios is waisting time and money if they are revamping the graphics when they should be comming up with more ideas to improve the overall game play.  CoX is about to get some serious players moving into the neighborhood and if they dont do something to change the repetitiveness of the game they will be sittin with MxO, Tabula Rasa and others in the MMO graveyard.
 

---

Well said, but I can't help but feel the creative vision for this game left when Cryptic walked out the door.

Originally posted by Kravis

 

 

Well said, but I can't help but feel the creative vision for this game left when Cryptic walked out the door.

You can totally tell that CoX is just a prototype for Champions. I really dont think that Cryptic ever had any intentions to running this game through its lifespan. Imo Cryptic used CoX to create and perfect the technologies they invisioned for Champions. And they also used CoX to get the funding for Champions and STO. Cryptic is one of the best MMO developers in the business. Maybe only rivaled by Blizzard. ,  I just really dont think NC NoCal has what it takes to save CoX and make them survive in the future with all the big time compatition comming like a freight train  with no brakes and no mercy. And in a month and a half we will really see what CoX is made of.

For a 5+ year old game, CoX is still looking pretty good.  So if they do any graphic upgrades, I wouldn't do too much.  We don't need EQ2/AoC quality here, especially on strikeforces with a bunch of masterminds.   My dern PC would probably melt with 30 or so pets running amok.

 A graphics-upgrade would be most welcome-and,CoH still Rocks ! WooT :)

If they made a fresh server to go with Going Rogue I would play CoX again.

It just offers so much more then CO in terms of gameplay and content.

I honestly dont understand how some of you guys are havign problems running CoX at max graphics on the machines you have. My old x1800xt ran the game perfectly at max settings back in the day. Since then i've played it on various cards ranging from 8800GTX to GTX295 and always the same result... smooth as silk.