NCsoft has announced today that players can look forward to Issue 17, which has been titled "Dark Mirror," this April! Most players expected to find the new graphical updates featured in Going Rogue with the release of the upcoming expansion, however, it appears that the previously announced "Ultra Mode" will make it in with Issue 17!

Ultra Mode is an optional enhancement mode, enabling players that have the hardware to take advantage of the new bells and whistles to do so, without disturbing the game for those still running City of Heroes on their toasters. The mode will enhance the game with a "a new look and feel with a heightened level of detail in lighting, reflections, shadows and water effects."

Issue 17 will also introduce a "new and nefarious foe" that will be able to match players "blow for blow." Given the Issue's title, I'm guessing it will be your doppelganger, but for now Paragon Studios isn't saying anything more than that.

A short rundown of the issues other features is available below:

• New badges, new missions and new player emotes
• Epic Archetypes now available at level 20
• Improvements and additions to Mission Architect
• Enhancements to UI and game systems
• And dozens more

Was all that not exciting enough? How about the fact that beginning on March 2nd, those who pre-order Going Rogue will receive early access to the expansion's two new powersets, Dual Pistols, and Demon Summoning in April?!

The Going Rogue "Complete Edition" has also been announced, featuring both City of Heroes & City of Villains, 30 days of game time, and the "Complete Collection Item Pack," which contains Alpha and Omega costume sets and auras, four stance emotes, and The Shadowy Presence invisibility power.

The Going Rogue beta will begin this Spring, with the expansion's full release expected in July.

A small batch of new screenshots of Issue 17's Ultra Mode are available in our City of Heroes gallery.

I kind of feel bad for Cryptic....or should I ?

Cryptic Studios is not involved with City of Heroes/Villains.

This is not Cryptic, sorry. Paragon Studios rock. Get your info correct lol

Graphics overhaul ?  Looking at the before and after pics, it only look like they worked on shadows.

Originally posted by Aguitha

Graphics overhaul ?  Looking at the before and after only look like they worked on shadows.

"...heightened level of detail in lighting, reflections, shadows and water effects." Doesn't say models or textures, unfortunately.

Originally posted by MikeB

Cryptic Studios is not involved with City of Heroes/Villains.

I think that was his point ;)

ya....they didnt catch what he really meant.

Originally posted by Lobotomist

I kind of feel bad for Cryptic....or should I ?

Guess they are kicking themselves for giving up such a great game lol and then going off to make Champions Online and Star Trek Online lol

From the little I've talked with any devs about it, seems like 'Ultra Mode' goes beyond just shadow re-purposing and lighting fixes.  Mirrored glass used in skyscrapers should have imperfections, like the real thing, water looks and reacts (I think?) like water, etc.

Its sexier.  And free!  I'll take free!

From the Official Forums:

Ultra Graphics Mode
Ultra Graphics Mode is a new, OPTIONAL mode that allows you to turn on a whole host of new, awesome graphical improvements. Some of these are:

* Reflections:
o Real time, environmental reflections on all shiny surfaces including glass, metal, water.
o This includes shiny elements on a character costume, such as a goggles and armor.
o Reflections warp to the shape of the reflective surface. Glass windows will have imperfections which give realistic image distortions.
* Shadows:
o Real time dynamic shadows that change with the time of day.
o Real time realistic shadows of everything in the environment, including all toons and critter that show a true projection of their shapes.
o Ambient Occlusion: Shadows are not one shade value -- they dynamically get lighter and fuzzier near light sources and they get darker in deeper corners and holes. Objects in the shadows get darker and harder to see.
* Water:
o Angle-sensitive reflection and transparency: When viewed from on oblique angle, water surfaces are reflective; when viewed from above, the reflectivity diminishes and one can see into the water (at least at shallow depths).
o Shadows: Distorted shadows are cast onto the surface of the water and onto the floor of a water basin (at least at shallow depths).

(Thanks to Zombie Man for these detailed explanations)

And some other info:

* Minimum specs will remain relatively the same
* Preatoria was build with Ultra Mode in mind, but it is not required to play in Praetoria
* Will be available throughout the rest of the CoH universe as well
* It will all work on ATI cards, infact, the demo at Hero Con was run on an ATI card
* Nvidia 3D vision is coming...soon™ (Apparently the Nvidia rep said March?)
 

Keep in mind that this post was made 10-24-2009, just after HeroCon.  Things may have changed.

Originally posted by Pryetta

Originally posted by Lobotomist

I kind of feel bad for Cryptic....or should I ?

 

Guess they are kicking themselves for giving up such a great game lol and then going off to make Champions Online and Star Trek Online lol

and soon CO's big bad feature, The Nemisis, will have to compete with....The Doppleganger...

yeah CO is circling the drain

I don't think if this game was still in cryptic hand would have been still here or at least working like this think about CO "expansion" lol

Once again, the COH devs are focusing on the wrong things. Remember when they implemented PhysX when almost no one had any interest in buying the extra card? Adding that was a big performance hit. Now, once again, they're focusing on the environment. But the real draw in a Superhero game is the character model. I'm still seeing mittens! You still run everywhere like a ninny. No walking. The flight poses were removed, never to be seen again. No jet pack power or costume options. Anyone remember the Jingle Jet? Paragon, clean up your character models, then worry about the City! Ugh!

Originally posted by Lobotomist

I kind of feel bad for Cryptic....or should I ?

You feel bad for Cryptic for selling off their only good game then getting their butts handed to them by Paragon Studios, right?

Originally posted by MikeB

Cryptic Studios is not involved with City of Heroes/Villains.

Uh-huh

I thought irony was evident ?

....

I am sorry for Cryptic because City of Heroes is better in every way than Champions Online. Except graphic.

Not anymore it seems...

Originally posted by LordDraekon

Once again, the COH devs are focusing on the wrong things. Remember when they implemented PhysX when almost no one had any interest in buying the extra card? Adding that was a big performance hit. Now, once again, they're focusing on the environment. But the real draw in a Superhero game is the character model. I'm still seeing mittens! You still run everywhere like a ninny. No walking. The flight poses were removed, never to be seen again. No jet pack power or costume options. Anyone remember the Jingle Jet? Paragon, clean up your character models, then worry about the City! Ugh!

These new graphics updates do affect character models. One of the biggest requests from the CoH community is things like fully realized hands and not mittens, so I can only assume they'll be in the game eventually.

Also, I don't know if you noticed, but all new nVidea graphics cards have on-board PhysX (not sure if it works with City of Heroes,) so with that maybe they were just ahead of their time? ;)

Originally posted by LordDraekon

No walking. The flight poses were removed, never to be seen again.

I would admittedly also like to see the end of mitten-hands and an overall improvement of the character models, while in general they do still look good they could look much better.  Also back items would be spiffy.  However, they did add in a walk power a few months ago, and the fly poses have been in the game for a very long time.  You use the things like emotes as opposed to the game picking one randomly for you every time you move forward (like originally planned).

I'd certainly like to see the fly poses added in as part of power customization at some point, but they are still in the game and perfectly functional.

They put walking in a while back. I hardly ever see anyone use it. There are enough jet pack options now that it is easy to get one if you want it. I don't know why they won't just make it a costume option. This is a great development team that has done a lot for the game. The only place I would give them a fail is in PVP. They have really gone entirely the wrong direction there.

Originally posted by Lobotomist

I kind of feel bad for Cryptic....or should I ?

Subtle irony... pearls to the pigs, old chum. XD

Originally posted by Latric

They put walking in a while back. I hardly ever see anyone use it. There are enough jet pack options now that it is easy to get one if you want it. I don't know why they won't just make it a costume option. This is a great development team that has done a lot for the game. The only place I would give them a fail is in PVP. They have really gone entirely the wrong direction there.

Ironicly the female walk looks almost identical to CO's Vixen walk to....

I get the impression several of you have not played recently.

Personally, I'd like some work on character models as well, but to tell the truth, complaining about CoH/CoV in this area is like complaining about the classic being hanged with a gold rope.... Have you looked at some of the other games recently?  You like Bobble-head Characters that are escapees from some Japanimation nightmare?  You like static cookie cutter characters that only change when you put on armor?  Sure, they have nice hands.  But you only get one suit of clothing other than armor....

Champions Online tries real hard to help make things nicer, but I noticed that though the hands may look a bit less like mittens,  they still don't look 'normal'.  Walking?  Who ever walks.  I certainly don't, not in a superhero universe.  We're always moving fast as we can to get to the next normal to save.  No time for walking.

All the graphics in the world won't make up for a bad story line.  All the graphics in the world won't make a bad game good.  City of Heroes is a GOOD, possibly GREAT game and I can cut it a LOT of slack in the GRAPHICS department so long as I see they are still trying.  Almost every issue there is some new detail worked out.  Capes, coats, bows, swords and other weapons, new costume parts, emotes that effect animations that are fully nifty,

Sure, some of the changes are slow in coming.   However, after 30 years of playing computer games, I'm blown away by modern graphics, even the ones in COH/COV.  Sure, I'd love to see fully animated graphics like the intro to Halo they have been using in the comercials (I don't play Halo, so I don't know what the in game graphics look like) or the story animations used in just about every other game.  But I am pretty sure that if all the games were fully animated we'd be paying about a gagillion dollars to play instead of the fairly reasonable amount we play now.  All that graphics beauty takes money to develop.  Let them work it out, I'm sure that more work on character models is on the development list.  Along with about half a million other things.

(Remember Fantasy?  Hunt the Wumpus?  Mask of the Sun?  Want to go back to stick figures on a black and white cubist background?  My god, you people don't know how good you have it!)

That screen shot don't really do Ultra Mode justice.  Here's a video on youtube that they released during Hero Con:  www.youtube.com/watch   skip to about 12 mins in for the good stuff.  They even flip back and forth between the old version and new version.

Duey

They're taking good care of this game.

My problems were with the basic functions of how gameplay progressed, but the game is very good - just not my cup of tea (bit too repetitive in more than a few areas).

It is one of those titles I go back to every 5 or 6 months to check up on. Always new things being added. :)

Best thing about CoH was the mobs' death animations. Blasting/shooting/smashing/frying them is so much more enjoyable when they're ragdolls. I've often wondered why more MMOs don't have the same thing, instead of boring, static death animations. It was a little glitchy in CoH at times, but overall, it made "grinding" mobs more enjoyable.

Well, this Ultra Mode looks pretty good. Even if textures aren't being updated, it looks better than it does now.

For those griping about certain features...

Fly emotes were gone for one issue, that's it.  I use it all the time now.  You cannot use fly emote poses while using Hover, it has its own animation.

Walking was put in several months ago, and yeah, the women walk like vixens and the men clomp about.  I think they really just took existing designs they had and worked it into the character model

But, seriously!  I don't see why people grumble about certain features (like flight poses being taken away) when they were promised to return shortly, and did as planned.  Its a game, its there to play and enjoy, everyone loves it for a different reason; whether that is base buidling, the arena PvP ladder matches, RPing, AE missions, etc etc.

So if there was something that you always 'wanted to see implemented', but that was more than eight months ago?  Sign up for a fourteen day trial, read the last couple pages of patch notes, and refamiliarize yourself with the game - for free! - before taking that dive back in.  Everyone wins!