Eire Unlimited!

To celebrate the second anniversary of City of Heroes, NCSoft is giving away a different prize each day during the month of April. Just log in to either CoH or CoV, no matter how briefly, and you'll be eligible for that day's prize. Prizes range from very cool GeForce 6800 video cards to very lame CoV capes, which presumably come with a free beating.

A few more tipoffs you're on a bad pick up group:

• The leader keeps inviting people until there's eight members, even if the villains vary 6-8 levels from each other.
• The mission you're on is for a guy 2-3 levels above everyone else. All foes are purple.
• Half the members are sidekicked and so far below the team average that when their boss is out of range they die in seconds.
• When the team starts getting overwhelmed, instead of pulling back and recovering, they just stand there and die.
• The team is unbalanced – all Masterminds, say, or Corruptors and Dominators but no Brutes.
• People take forever to gather at mission entrances.
• The Stalker thinks Hide makes him completely invisible to all foes under all circumstances, and keeps wandering too close and drawing aggro before the team is gathered.
• Bonus: the leader puts out a desperate plea for help with a mission. Upon accepting the invite, there is no mission chosen, and the other teammates are wandering around patrolling in order to level.

Monday, Ageia along with Cryptic Studios announced support for Ageia’s PhysX Processor. The PhysX Processor allows for more complex object interaction and display in games programmed specifically for its usage. To get a better understanding of how this can enhance your experience, please take a look at the press release below:

NCsoft and Cryptic Studios to Support AGEIA PhysX Processor in Award-Winning City of Villains

Popular New MMORPG to Increase Number and Intensity of Physics-Based Environments and Effects

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – March 21, 2006 – AGEIA™ Technologies, Inc., the pioneer in hardware-accelerated physics for games, today announced that City of Villains™ developer Cryptic Studios plans to supercharge the game’s powers and effects for players whose PCs are equipped with Physics Accelerator add-in boards powered by the AGEIA PhysX™ processor. The standalone sequel to the hugely popular City of Heroes from NCsoft, City of Villains was an immediate hit among MMORPG fans and critics alike with its intense interactivity and exceptional particle systems.

While all City of Villains players benefit from the game’s software physics created by the AGEIA PhysX SDK, players with PhysX Accelerator cards will experience some 10 times the number of particles displayed in physics-based events, resulting in an even more immersive experience. For example:

* Mayhem Missions, which are set in a destructible environment, have destroyed objects taking greater advantage of the physics effects, such as a newspaper vending machine which, when blown up, shreds thousands of particles of paper around it.
* Physics particles can be affected by external forces. For example, the shredded bits from the newspaper machine linger in the air only to be blown away by other explosions.
* World geometry will be retrofitted with reactive physics effects, such as leaves being dropped from trees when a Power Blast is cast nearby.

“City of Villains players with PhysX-based Physics Accelerator add-in boards in their PCs will be blown away by the added realism and immersiveness of the game,” said Michael Lewis, CEO of Cryptic Studios. “While the ability to succeed in the game will be unaffected, the overall user experience will be greatly enhanced through support for the AGEIA PhysX processor.”

“The team at Cryptic Studios is among the most talented in the business, and it’s exciting to see them apply their wizardry using AGEIA PhysX technology,” said Kathy Schoback, vice president of content acquisition at AGEIA. “City of Villains is already a one-of-a-kind game experience, but the action acceleration of the AGEIA PhysX processor will take it to an entirely new level.”

Source: http://ageia.vnewscenter.com/press.jsp?id=1141898679390

Initially, only new systems built by Dell and Alienware (recently purchased by Dell) will have the cards available. System board add-on manufacturers BFG Technologies and ASUS are set to release add-on boards for the rest of us this May. Price estimations are in the $250 range for the initial PCI based release. There are rumors of a PCI-e release for a more powerful version of the processor at some point in time in the future. Footage of the PhysX Processor can be found here.

With all the excitement around this truly amazing product, there is a reason for some concern. In a recent FiringSquad article, it was noted “…there were so many objects on screen that the texture detail had to be toned down a tad just to get the game to run at an acceptable framerate. Yep, the graphics chip got overwhelmed by the demo, not the physics chip. The demo was being run on an Alienware rig with an Athlon 64 FX-60 CPU from AMD and dual NVIDIA 7800 GTX graphics cards running in SLI mode.”

Also, in a separate interview with bit-tech.net, Ageia’s Andy Hess commented: “When you have a PhysX processor in your system, you’ve gotta have that SLI. You’ve gotta have both graphics cards to handle the amount of data that we send out. We keep those guys really busy.”

While exciting and impressive, it also sounds potentially expensive. While acknowledging that “inexpensive” and “new technology” rarely go hand-in-hand, one would hope that a happy medium would be available for the majority of people who do not have Nvidia SLI based computers.

For your knowledge, Nvidia SLI allows for multiple graphics cards to be used in a system with an SLI compatible motherboard. Graphics performance is then scaled across these boards to yield greater performance. Nvidia claims that SLI can be enabled for every gaming application and has over 200 game profiles that have SLI optimizations. If the game is not listed, you can create your own SLI profile for the game. I have no personal experience with this. A quick scan of the listed games does not show City of Heroes or City of Villains. Nvidia’s SLIZone has guidance on creating a customized profile.

Separately, Nvidia announced a collaboration with Havok to produce the worlds first GPU-Powered game physics solution. There was no mention of City of Heroes or City of Villains. Cryptic’s sites clearly show support Ageia PhysX technology. I’m not sure how likely they would be to include support for Havok technology as well. Only time will tell.

March 7, 2006, 3:47 am.  Infamy Central autosecurity cameras record the Grinning Ghoul at work in the base laboratory, experimenting on equipment recently stolen from a raid on a Portal Corporation facility.  (Reviewing the video feed afterwards, Lord Negatron identifies the machinery as “some sort of prototype subquantum tunneler.”  It is known that the Ghoul had lately been obsessed with dimensional mechanics, having been inspired by the Pocket D nightclub, and many recent IU thefts had concentrated on furthering this research.)

At 03:47:12, the video shows the Grinning Ghoul connecting his prototype to the external power line, which siphons energy from the Cap au Diable grid.  (Possibly the machine required more power than the base generator could yield.)  At 03:47:48, the Ghoul switches on the power.

Just before the explosion, which occurs at 03:47:56, there is a single frame of a Cap au Diable energy “gremlin” materializing by the power conduit.  This manifestation seems to trigger an energy surge in the equipment.  There are a few frames showing the Ghoul reaching toward the machinery, presumably to deactivate it, followed by three full seconds of nothing but blue-white light.  After this, the video feed ends, the security camera in the room having ceased to exist.

The first Infamy Unlimited members to arrive on the scene discovered an extremely localized scorch pattern in that corner of the lab.  No trace of any machinery, or of the Grinning Ghoul, was detected.

The obvious conclusion — that the Ghoul had disintegrated in the explosion — was denied by Mind-Grinder, who performed a mental scan of the room and then announced, cryptically, that the Ghoul was still alive somewhere, and that he, Mind-Grinder, knew where to find him.  “Do nothing stupid until I return,” he sneered, then teleported away in his customary style.  Neither villain has been seen since.

As for Cast Iron Carl, he has been unreachable for comment, having been pressed into service by Arachnos for a major prolonged offensive in Siren’s Call.  The leader of Infamy Unlimited, and two of its members, are (for the time being) gone.  How will the organization continue — or will it simply tear itself apart?

(And now, the real-world explanation.  I’m off on vacation to the exotic and inverted continent of Australia, and won’t be back until the 26th!  Until then, have fun, you crazy criminals!)

On the headquarters front, we recently bought our newest teleport beacon (to Mercy Island), making four teleport zones in all.  So, you may ask, what’s next?  Where’s all our glorious Prestige going to go now?  Consider the following proposal.  In order:

• Database (106,000 Prestige).  This is another computer purchase for the control room.  We need it in order to increase our Control level to run other machines.  As such, it’s pretty much a no-brainer as to the thing which we ought to obtain next.
• Advanced Tech Worktable (50,000 Prestige).  We’re already familiar with the uses of our Basic Worktable in processing salvage.  The Advanced table gives us additional crafting options, including two new types of Tech components: Prototype and Hardware.  The last time I talked about this subject, I opined that IU didn’t have much use for Advanced salvage.  What’s changed?  Nothing, really.  But it’s relatively cheap, and with the additional base items scheduled to be introduced in Issue #7, who knows?  There might be some useful new gadgets craftable on the Advanced table, and we’d be ready to rock.
• Infirmary (150,000 Prestige).  This 2×2 room would be the last addition we could put on the base before needing to upgrade to the next size plot.  In here would be housed healing items such as:
• Resurrection Chamber (10,000 Prestige).  When you die, you have the choice of waking up in the Infirmary (partially healed, as though you’d used an Awaken) instead of some filthy Rogue Isles hospital.  Not overwhelmingly useful, maybe, but you can’t beat that price.

You might ask: What about a teleporter to Nerva Archipelago and St. Martial?  That’d sure be useful!  You bet it would, but we’re limited by the fact that a Teleportation Room can only hold 2 telepads, and each telepad can only be set for 2 destinations.  We can only add Nerva/Martial by removing one of the destinations we already have (such as Mercy Island).

There’s another option, which is to build a second Teleportation Room and have a Nerva-Martial telepad there.  The choice would come down to that or an Infirmary, since we wouldn’t have space in our plot for both rooms.  (EDIT: Not quite true; see below comments.)