City of Heroes Gets Issue 17

NCsoft has announced that it plans to introduce a new significant update to its superhero-based MMO, City of Heroes/City of Villains. Issue 17 will be named Dark Mirror and is set to arrive in April in order to deliver a better graphics rendering engine to the game, called Ultra Mode, which will introduce significant updates to lightning, reflections, shadows and water effects.

The new mode will allow gamers with more powerful machines to play a better looking MMO while assuring that those with low-end machines are not forced to get out of the title.

Issue 17 is also set to introduce changes to the user interface and bug fixes to some longstanding problems, new Epic Archetypes, which can be accessed at Level 20, fresh badges, missions and player emotes. There are also changes done to the Mission Architect, the editor that allows City of Heroes players to create their own adventures and then share them with the entire player base.

This should be the last of the free updates to City of Heroes before the launch of the Going Rogue expansion for the MMO. The arrival of the new content will be heralded on March 2 by the introduction of the Dual Pistols power set expected to be available to all those who pre-order Going Rogue. In April, those who get the expansion early will also be able to use the Demon Summoning power set.

Going Rogue will sell for 29.99 dollars and will be available as a bundle with City of Heroes and City of Heroes as a Complete Collection, which only costs 10 dollars more and comes complete with a month of free play time. The expansion will permit players to actually change their allegiance going from Villain to Paragon and the other way around through specially crafted story arcs.