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....