city-of-heroes posts

Last week's Hero Con has come and gone but the info revealed at the fan fest for City of Heroes has been pouring out of the MMO's official message boards. A lot of the info reveals developer Paragon Studios' plans for Going Rogue, the upcoming commercial expansion for the long running super hero MMO title.

The expansion, which will allow players to turn their hero characters into villains and vice verse, is currently due for release sometime in the second quarter (i. e. spring) of 2010, with a beta test to begin sometime earlier in 2010. The expansion will also include new power sets, new factions, and a optional graphical upgrade. You can check out the game's message boards for all of the info revealed at Hero Con.

[Via Massively]

One of the cool things about massively multiplayer games is the ability to generate live events and nowhere is that more evident than during Halloween where a number of MMO games stage live events filled with monsters and otherwise supernatural events. We've already reported on Champion Online's Blood Moon event and Star Wars Galaxies' Death Troopers but our sister site Massively has been keeping track of other MMOs holding similar events.

• Fallen Earth is letting its players fight off zombies in their Days of the Dead event which you can see above this post. That event begins next week.
• Everquest II players is holding its Nights of the Dead event from now until November 9 with decorations, special item drops and more.
• Warhammer Online players get serious with their Daemon Moon Rising event that begins on October 23. Look for a new public quest called Daemonball Rally among other things.
• City of Heroes players have their own unnamed Halloween event beginning on October 20. Heroes will face a wave of enemies when they destroy a Haunted Sigil and are rewarded with a "ghoulish surprise" if successful.

With the release of Cryptic's new MMO, Champions Online, there are now two superhero MMOs on the market. The first is Cryptic's old game, City of Heroes (now under the direction of Paragon Studios under NCsoft), and the distinctions between the two are very striking. If you don't have the money to throw down on subscriptions to both games, though, you probably want to choose just one. That's where we come in. We've played both Champions Online and City of Heroes extensively, and here's a comparison for what you want. Do you prefer character customization or content? We know the right game for your tastes.

Earlier this year, NCsoft announced that they would be launching a Guest Author program for their super hero MMO City of Heroes, allowing major outside talent to create new storylines for the game via the Mission Architect tools. Today NCsoft announced that acclaimed comic book author Bill Willingham will be added as one of the first people or teams involved in the Guest Author program.

Willingham is best known for his work on Fables, the DC Vertigo comic that takes a new spin on familiar fairy tale characters. He will be creating a City of Heroes mission called The Quest for Magic. He joins Red Vs Blue creators Rooster Teeth and PvP comic strip creator Scott Kurtz in making new missions for the MMO. All are scheduled to be made available to players of the game for free beginning on October 13.

In related news, City of Heroes is allowing all inactive accounts in good standing to be reactivated from now until Sunday at 11:59 pm PT. Also all characters will receive double their normal experience points during this weekend.

NCsoft and Paragon Studios are ramping up for the annual Hero Con event where fans of the super hero MMO City of Heroes will get together with the game's dev team, learn more about upcoming plans and in general have more fun than fans of MMO titles are allowed to have under law. This week, NCsoft announced that all attendees of Hero Con will get a chance to receive a special item.

That item is an invite to the closed beta test for City of Heroes: Going Rogue, the upcoming commercial expansion to the game that was announced earlier this year. The expansion itself will be shown in a "sneak peak" panel at Hero Con for the first time in public. Tickets for the event are still being sold; it will be held at October 24-25 (with some pre-con activities on October 23) at the Doubletree Hotel in San Jose, California. By the way you have to physically attend the show to get your closed beta invite. That's because NCsoft wants you to sign an NDA on site before you get the beta invite.

[Via Massively]

The retail game web site GoGamer.com is launching yet another mis-named "48 Hour Madness" sale on its site. It's mis-named because the sale will actually end at 3 am ET on Tuesday morning. However don't let that throw you; they have some excellent price cuts on lots of current and older PC game titles.

Among the game you can get on the cheap (or at least cheaper) are Champions Online for $39.90, Anno 1404 (also known as Dawn of Discovery) for $20.90, City of Heroes for $18.90, Painkiller Black for just $4.90, and Stronghold Legends for a mere $3.90. There are some other deals on both PC and console titles so make sure to check out the entire sales list.

The newest Cities of Heroes update, Issue 16: Power Spectrum, went live today and players on both the heroic or villainous sides can now further customize their powers with different colors to better match they costumes and theme. Additionally, Issue 16 brings new power combinations and further mission customization.

Download HD City of Heroes Issue 16: Power Spectrum Trailer (35 MB)
Check out all City of Heroes downloads

City of Heroes players have yet another big content update to check out today. Developer Paragon Studios and publisher NCsoft have launched "Issue 16", the new free update to the long running super hero MMO to their subscribers.

As we have previously reported the big new addition in Issue16 is power customization. Players will now be able to not only make cool super hero characters in the game but will also be allowed to customize the power effects with different colors and even some different kinds of animations. Some of the game's archtypes will be getting some new powerssets to use thanks to the Issue 16 update.

The NVIDIA line of graphics processors are among the most popular (if not the most popular) brand of high-end gaming hardware available today. However, some would argue that these days, graphics cards are offering fewer significant returns with each successive generation. With this in mind, it becomes important for the company to start shifting focus from strictly speed and high resolution frame rates (which are still a very important aspects of PC gaming) to the addressing the gameplay experience itself. One step in this direction was through adopting PhysX technology into its repertoire and having the software run using GPU instead of through a separate card. With PhysX, PC games offer deeper immersion using effects that operate in a realistic non-scripted fashion, like with smoke, cloth and liquids moving in real-time.

NVIDIA's 3D Vision technology takes the game experience even further by bringing games into the third dimension by stereoscoping games in real-time and using special shutter glasses. Unfortunately, not a lot of gamers have $600 to spend on 3D graphics. The glasses alone cost over $100 and the required 3D ready monitors that have a 120Hz refresh rates are very expensive and hard to find, leaving 3D out of the hands of the average consumer. However, NVIDIA has found a way around the prohibitive costs and an easy way to deliver a 3D experience. Not counting the cost of the video card itself, gamers can use NVIDIA 3D Vision Discover for almost nothing... or in some cases, exactly nothing. That's right, by taking the PhysX approach and incorporating 3D technology into the software drivers, PC gamers can literally give their games more depth.

Download the Resident Evil 5 Benchmark

City of Heroes' five-year monopoly on the comic book superhero MMO space came to an end recently with the much anticipated release of Champions Online. Based on the pen and paper role playing game and developed by Cryptic Studios, the company that originally started CoH in the first place, Champions is the newest contender for players who want to slip into virtual spandex, suits of armor, mystic robes and everything in between. They all come together to protect Millennium City, a metropolis under siege by practically every conceivable domestic, mystical, extradimensional and extraterrestrial threat.

Check out all Champions Online downloads