City of Heroes Gets Visual Upgrade
The super-hero MMORPG is getting a face-lift in the next update.
A few years ago when I worked at Billy Wilson's non-VE gaming site, NCSoft offered me a six month press pass to City of Heroes. That had to be one of the best games I've played in a long time. Who wouldn't like to play a super hero? with that said, there's no question as to why the MMORPG is still around.
Now it seems that NCSoft is revamping the visuals (aka Ultra Mode) in the next update called Issue 17, "Dark Mirror." Slated for this April, the company is not only throwing in a revamped graphics rendering process, but other goodies such as improvements to the Mission Architect, enhancements to UI and game systems, new badges, new missions, new emotes, and more.
For more info, head here. Haven't checked out the super-powered MMORPG? Go have a trial run.

i played it for 2 1/2 years, then i quit because of school. a year or so later, i joined it back because of a free weekend... what was i thinking playing this game for so long? I guess my interests were different when i was younger..
Last off as said above, The game engine that powers this is about the worst optimized EVER(it uses like under 50% of almost all video cards[Even during the most intense parts] and does not even max out a dual core cpu most of the time, use it all and make it run better.). When they brought out the dual core optimization they pretty much leveled single core users to half the performance(so they actually lost performance[for single core] not just giving dual core more).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SItM3OLqb5w
Still, I can't really tell too much of a difference in the images above.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SItM3OLqb5w
But here is a 2 year old still image that shows the effects in the water have been there. they just tossed it in before it was ready.
http://img534.imageshack.us/img534/8375/screenshot2008072716121.jpg
2008-07-27
And for those who liked AE(Mission Architect), it was good and all, but it turned about 90% of the games players into farmers. So next thing you knew the only teams running are 54 boss farms. Goodbye fun.
I am also saying this as a person who has played the game since release(well on and off)
Honestly however, the thing I like most about it is you don't need the "holy trinity" (tank, dps, healz) to do anything so it's very much just log on and play, without worrying about having to wait 40 minutes for the shaman or enchanter or cleric or whatever to log on. I also like the fact I can set the game down for 3 months and come back and my toons aren't out of date and so far behind my guildies I can't play with them anymore. This MMO is just very friendly to those of us who don't want to spend more than an hour or two every third day in front of the computer.
I realize this isn't the majority opinion of MMO players, but that's fine there's plenty of other MMOs out there to satisfy those players. CoX works well for me.