May 29, 2006
Continuing with our parade of submitted Tsoo screenshots, we now present this (note: Picture removed due to long load times. The link still shows the image if you’re interested -OI). It’s Guardsmen alpha-hero AmericanClassic doing … well, what you’d expect. You know the theme of these pictures by now.
I don’t know who that chick on the right is. Possibly the makeup assistant.
May 27, 2006
I'm not sure why NCSoft asked for a lot of pictures of Tsoo being beat up. Frankly, to me it carries a whiff of unsavoriness, but who am I to judge? Whatever does it for you, NCSoft, go for it and don't be ashamed.
Anyway, the contest is over, so there ain't no harm in showing off the picture I submitted:
Pictured here is courageous hero Grandstand stunning a gaggle of Tsoo with his signature Energy Ground-Pound manuever. Although Grandstand is a hero, this is happening in the alternate "Pinnacle" universe so it's okay to cheer him on.
May 24, 2006
This posted on the official boards yesterday, but I noticed it only now. Until 5 pm CST, Friday 5/26, NCSoft has a new contest in effect!
What We Want
An engaging screenshot of your character …Fighting with the Tsoo.
It can be an action shot. It can be an atmospheric shot. It can be a funny or interesting shot. It cannot be a boring shot.
They'll accept screenshots from either CoH or CoV; but as always, only one submission per player. Now go do bad things to Tsoo and take pictures of it!
May 23, 2006
City of Villains has got me thinkin' lately. Listen up.
I love CoV to death (as you may have noticed, seeing as I have a website about it), and it's got a richness in setting and storyline at least the equal of City of Heroes. It's designed to be viable as a standalone game, not just an expansion, and it succeeds, rocking hard to boot.
But — in my mind, at least — everything that goes down on the Rogue Isles is always subordinate to the happenings in Paragon City. Because the heroes are, you know, the heroes of our universe. And whatever the villains do, it's secondary, almost by definition. CoH and CoV are equivalent products from any technical standpoint, yet to me CoH has always seemed like the main game, with CoV its evil hunchback albino little brother.
Why do I have this bias? Partly, I guess, it's because CoH came out first. But mostly it's because that's how the source material — comic books themselves — frame the good vs. evil conflict. With few exceptions (see below), comics are about the good guys. The heroes are the protagonists. They get the dialogue and the drama. They come first. The books are usually named after them. As for the villains … well, they're around to give the heroes something to do. You rarely see them doing anything else. Spider-Man can have all sorts of personal issues, like sick old Aunt May, which are portrayed in detail because, hey, it's his book. Electro might have a sick old aunt, too, but if he does, it doesn't affect anything and we're not told about it. In comics, as in a lot of popular culture, the villains exist for the heroes. Ya with me?
City of Villains provides something that doesn't have much precedent anywhere else. We're telling the story of a group of superbeings, but they're evil stories. When the protagonists succeed in their goals, the world is worse off. Their victories are a total downer for pretty much everyone but themselves.
What if there were an Infamy Unlimited monthly comic? Would you read it? Or would it just depress you?
I've tried to search around for examples of villains who have been the stars of their own monthly books, and not surprisingly, the field is sparse. Kobra, which DC ran for a while in the late '70s, is all I could find. (I'm leaving out Suicide Squad and other "antihero" titles, which are not really what I'm talking about here.)
I never read Kobra, but I can't help but imagine each story must have this sort of effect on the reader: either Kobra is thwarted in his Evil Plot of the Month, and you feel like you totally wasted your thirty 1976 cents; or else he succeeds in his Evil Plot of the Month, and kills a bunch of puppies or whatever, and you're left all bummed out and maybe in need of a shower. It doesn't surprise me that this has not been an experiment that's been tried often.
On the other hand, maybe the trick is simply using the right villain. Because would I read a monthly Joker comic? Hell yeah. Joker rules.
The floor is yours, true believers. Evil comics: an artistically and commercially viable form of expression? Discuss.
May 18, 2006
Somewhere beneath Cap au Diable, in the subbasement of a long-abandoned laboratory, Infamy Unlimited makes its hidden headquarters. Only the Grinning Ghoul and a few select Ringleaders know the exact building under which their base lies (accessible only via teleporter due to the Ghoul's insane obsession with security). In this secret hideout, the metal corridors of Infamy Central serve as refuge, meeting place, workshop, and prison for the organization. And one of the base's most puzzling features is its tendency to alter its floor plan every so often.
How the Ghoul accomplishes this feat is his own little secret, since the base is always unoccupied whenever he does it. Rooms will appear, move, or vanish; floors and ceilings will rise and fall; and huge pieces of machinery will somehow move from one side of the headquarters to the other. Perhaps the Ghoul has some reality-warping gizmo which he keeps to himself. Perhaps he contracts temporary workers to do the labor, slaughtering them afterwards to preserve IU's secrets. Or possibly the abandoned lab complex is vaster than it seems, and the Ghoul only occupies a portion of it at a time for reasons of his own.
Whatever the truth, we can at least safely rule out the intervention of the "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" crew. Or can we?
As of today, Infamy Unlimited members will notice yet another reconfiguration to the base floor plan. This layout makes the best use of Infamy Central's 8×8 plot and should keep us comfortable for some time. In the short term, it also prepares us for some seriously cool base upgrades that will become available in Issue 7, such as the awesome meeting table. Here's a list of the base's various rooms:
Member interest in a second teleporter room was high the last time I asked, so now we have one!
Some furniture had to be sold in order to buy the new rooms, but the sparseness will be merely temporary until we earn a little more Prestige. After I7, I'll put Infamy Central through a heavy makeover to make our headquarters as well-stocked and modern as possible. Then the world will writhe in our grasp! Ha ha ha ha ha!
May 17, 2006
Anandtech.com has updated their initial review of the Ageia PhysX card. What they've done this time around is include CoV as part of thier review. Here's the direct link to the CoV portion of the review.
VR-Zone has put up their review of the ASUS PhysX card here.
UPDATE: City of Villains player Horatus has taken several screenshots of mayhem missions with the Ageia PhysX card in his system. If you have the card, you'll see many more particle effects than without. You can see this reflected in the styrofoam peanuts scattered across the ground and the extra particles in some of the explosions in his series of screenshots. Thanks to Horatus for providing the screens! His explanations for each screenshot are here.
May 15, 2006
Aaaaaand, that's just about enough for Emo Week. Thanks for playing! Hope you all had a good sulk and got some catharsis. But we're done now.
Okay, just one more:
Yeah. That's the stuff.
May 11, 2006
Emo Week at IU chugs onward with a technical question to the viewers of this site. Oh shoot, I'm not good at beating around the bush, so I'll just blurt it out: Are my screenshots too dim?
Here's the deal. On my PC at home, I take action- and drama-filled screenshots of CoX using the magical Print Screen key. Then I paste the capture into Paint, save it as a .bmp, then load that into ArcSoft PhotoStudio 2000. Here I crop the picture, adjust the size, and paste Jennifer Connelly's head on all the female NPCs' torsos. Those go into a special folder and are not relevant to this post. The screenshots destined for this website get saved as .jpg files, and are then uploaded for all to enjoy here, here, and here.
But here's the kicker: when I'm viewing this site from my PC at the office, my screenshots look really, really dark. They look fine, however, when I view them from home – on the PC where I took the screenshots. I don't know the reason for the difference, whether it's an issue with my office PC or my home one, or if it's a problem for anyone else who looks at this site. It doesn't help, either, that my technological skill set begins and ends with replacing the batteries in my electric pencil sharpener. Hence I pose the issue to you, loyal readers.
Are y'all seeing what I'm seeing? Any help would be super. I'm very, very angsty and moody about this.
May 8, 2006
TechReport.com takes a look at all of the hubbub around the PhysX PPU. Recently, Ageia has been under fire from physics rival Havok. The first reviews from Hexus.net and Anandtech.com seem to cast an iffy light on Ageia's new hardware. The article links to these reviews as well as the promised Ageia follow-up to Havok's claims from FiringSquad.com. They take a cautionary look at the criticisms and reiterate previously mentioned insight on how Ageia's technology works.
Not a single review of the hardware has "City of" implementations. The test server has a physics slider in the options area and notes whether or not the Ageia PhysX hardware was detected in your system. Last I recall, Cryptic stated that the PhysX implementation is not enabled on the test server yet. Until this is available and people with "City of" accounts test and reveal their experiences with the hardware, we can only hope that Cryptic's implementation on the hardware and software side is better than what's been seen so far.
Update: Thanks to manlyman's post on Shacknews.com, I've downloaded, installed and run the Cell Factor Demo on my non-Ageia hardware based system. If you follow the post, it will tell you how. It was extremely cool! Earlier today, Cryptic enabled the Ageia portion of Issue 7 on the test server! I have the latest Ageia software drivers on my system, so I'm hoping the test server will at least allow for the software based effects to show.
PhysX boards from BFG Technologies and ASUSTeK Computer are available for purchase today. Check your local retailer or online at Newegg, TigerDirect or via Froogle.
May 8, 2006
It's Emo Week here at Infamy Unlimited! Sure, being supervillains, we enjoy reveling in our own wickedness. And we always will. But this week, we shine the black spotlight on the empty, barren stage of our angst — that cold marble slab upon which we dance our daily joyless jig as we endure the numb stares of a disinterested audience.
That's a total metaphor right there. The stage is, like, our lives; and the audience is the WHOLE WORLD. Or possibly just your girlfriend, or maybe your parents. Whatever works.
Why does the Grinning Ghoul always lash out? Why does he always hurt others? Is it because of the razor-sharp steel claws protruding from his wrists? Of course not. This is Emo Week, and that means the practical, straightforward answer is always wrong. The Grinning Ghoul hurts because he CANNOT LOVE. Because he doesn't DESERVE love. His only outlets are mass murder and moody poetry, but all you know about is the murder part because he keeps the poetry to himself because he's afraid of being judged.
Regular, non-angsty Infamy Unlimited service will resume on Sunday, Mother's Day. Nothing clears away the clouds of depression like the love of Mom. (Unless Mom is a crackhead.) Until then, Emo Week kicks off with the unveiling of a new page to the blog: Foes & Others, profiles of the heroes and villains who make Infamy Unlimited's life so, so hard every day. I hope you will be as interested by this new window onto IU's little world as I was in putting it together.
Now weep. Weep, damn you!
