City of Heroes: A Talk With Melissa War Witch Bianco

Stradden · April 2010

MMORPG.com's Mike Bitton was at the recent Penny Arcade Expo in Boston where he spoke with City of Heroes' Melissa “War Witch” Bianco about the game and what's coming down the line.

City of Heroes was a prominent feature at the inaugural PAX East, and following up on our coverage of the “Re-Inventing a Superheroic MMO” panel, we’re bringing you this latest interview with the always awesome Melissa “War Witch” Bianco.

We met up with Melissa in the lobby of the Sheraton Boston Hotel (which was conveniently connected to the convention itself – yay!) where we proceeded to sit around on some couches and chat it up for about twenty minutes before getting into the nitty gritty.

Read A Talk With Melissa “War Witch” Bianco.

Hero_Alpha · April 2010

This is all sweet sounding stuff, cant wait to re-sub in July. Plus theres some easter egg hunting to do in RWZ.

Axeion · April 2010

Coh has always amazed me the amount of content they add with issues .Plan on suporting this game for a long time.

adam_nox · April 2010

Not to be an arse, but it really seemed like half the article was about what you did NOT learn. Hardly any new cool info. I'm actually quite interested in the specifics of electric control and the specifics of demon summoning, which will be arriving soon.

No one is asking about supergroups in going rogue for some reason. If all going rogue is the ability to switch sides, then that's pretty lame, and so there would be no necessary changes to the supergroup system. What I and a lot of others was hoping was that it would make it so villains and heroes could share the same zones and supergroups.

And finally, a gtx260 only able to run mid-ultra mode? Are they out of their fraking minds? That's a load of horsepoop, that card with those mediocre graphics should be at full blast.

Xondar123 · April 2010

Originally posted by Terikan3

No one is asking about supergroups in going rogue for some reason. If all going rogue is the ability to switch sides, then that's pretty lame, and so there would be no necessary changes to the supergroup system. What I and a lot of others was hoping was that it would make it so villains and heroes could share the same zones and supergroups.

I suggest you go read the dev digest on the official forums, because people are most certainly asking about supergroups and devs are even answering questions.

What we know so far: When you switch sides all your influence/infamy and the prestige you've earned for your SG goes into "escrow," you can't access it anymore from your new side, but if you ever switch back, you'll get 100% of your influence/infamy/prestige back. And finally, the devs don't actually really know what they'll do with SGs/VGs yet. All we know is you can't be on an SG and a VG at the same time, but you might be held in "reserve" for whatever group you started with after you've switched sides.

This seems to be something they're still tinkering with.

ogcopcka · April 2010

the game's graphic it's not optimized.(even with a HD4870). makes me sad.

Xeroshadow · April 2010

Originally posted by ogcopcka

the game's graphic it's not optimized.(even with a HD4870). makes me sad.

Truer words could not be said. I've been through 3 upgrades since this game came out. The most notable difference was actually the move from single to dual core. Graphic cards have not made a dent in the erratic FPS you see when playing, except if on the low-end where you have to turn off a lot of features or your fps will take a nosedive. I've used both camps, Nvidia and ATI, with neither showing dominance. Even after my upgrade to a quad-core then last upgrade to graphics, a 5850, I still see framerates all over the place. Even though I stay above 30 fps at all times, I don't understand why the movement of the landscape still goes by so jittery at times. This type of performance does not occur when I play DDO or WoW. I do not know what it is about CoH that makes computer systems beg for mercy. Sad indeed.

Somnulus · April 2010

Originally posted by Xeroshadow

Originally posted by ogcopcka

the game's graphic it's not optimized.(even with a HD4870). makes me sad.

Truer words could not be said. I've been through 3 upgrades since this game came out. The most notable difference was actually the move from single to dual core. Graphic cards have not made a dent in the erratic FPS you see when playing, except if on the low-end where you have to turn off a lot of features or your fps will take a nosedive. I've used both camps, Nvidia and ATI, with neither showing dominance. Even after my upgrade to a quad-core then last upgrade to graphics, a 5850, I still see framerates all over the place. Even though I stay above 30 fps at all times, I don't understand why the movement of the landscape still goes by so jittery at times. This type of performance does not occur when I play DDO or WoW. I do not know what it is about CoH that makes computer systems beg for mercy. Sad indeed.

I absolutely hate to be the one to say this... but I have never had any frame rate issues with CoH. My frame rate is normally steady within +/-8 on either side depending on the amount of particle effects occurring on the screen.

I've never seen the landscape jitter that you are referring to, and my system has never "begged for mercy" even with everything maxed.

I wish I could make some kind of useful recommendation, but having never seen the issues you are referring to, I can't imagine what to suggest that would correct your particular situation. And I've been playing CoH since beta.

The only possible recommendation I could make is to ensure that vsync is on. That would at least help by syncing up your fps with your monitor.

I am very excited about the graphics upgrade coming to CoH. It's long overdue and it should look beautiful on my HD5960.

Xeroshadow · April 2010

Originally posted by Somnulus

Originally posted by Xeroshadow

Originally posted by ogcopcka

the game's graphic it's not optimized.(even with a HD4870). makes me sad.

Truer words could not be said. I've been through 3 upgrades since this game came out. The most notable difference was actually the move from single to dual core. Graphic cards have not made a dent in the erratic FPS you see when playing, except if on the low-end where you have to turn off a lot of features or your fps will take a nosedive. I've used both camps, Nvidia and ATI, with neither showing dominance. Even after my upgrade to a quad-core then last upgrade to graphics, a 5850, I still see framerates all over the place. Even though I stay above 30 fps at all times, I don't understand why the movement of the landscape still goes by so jittery at times. This type of performance does not occur when I play DDO or WoW. I do not know what it is about CoH that makes computer systems beg for mercy. Sad indeed.

I absolutely hate to be the one to say this... but I have never had any frame rate issues with CoH. My frame rate is normally steady within +/-8 on either side depending on the amount of particle effects occurring on the screen.

I've never seen the landscape jitter that you are referring to, and my system has never "begged for mercy" even with everything maxed.

I wish I could make some kind of useful recommendation, but having never seen the issues you are referring to, I can't imagine what to suggest that would correct your particular situation. And I've been playing CoH since beta.

The only possible recommendation I could make is to ensure that vsync is on. That would at least help by syncing up your fps with your monitor.

I am very excited about the graphics upgrade coming to CoH. It's long overdue and it should look beautiful on my HD5960.

I have vsync on and it still fluctuates between 60 and 40 fps. This was just flying from the ferry in Sharkhead to the Crey building. The higher I got the better the framerates. I've gone from single core(Athlon 3200) to dual core to quad core CPU(Phenom II 920), from a Ti4400 to an ATI 9600 AIW>6600GT>7950GT>9800GTX and finally a 5850. CoH never keeps a consistent framerate, especially redside. At least I have gone from 15-30 to 40-60(this happened when jumping from single core to dual core) but personally I have never been pleased with CoH performance compared to other games.

The only correction would be mostly on the developer side. I'm hoping this changes with GR since it was mentioned all the demos were run on ATI hardware. If you have read the forums in the past, this game was more CPU limited than GPU so going from mid-range to high-end will garner little benefit.

I expect it in certain places such as the ITF or when many players are near firing off powers(or at Wentworth's) but soloing or traveling through a zone is not acceptable(if you have actually played the game, you cannot deny the Arachnos base map has problems). I'm sorry but I've played this game for 4+ years and have run through all the suggestions/option settings/reinstalls/driver updates/dxdiag logs/disabling processes/etc and the game just does not provide a consistent framerate on par with other games, single or multiplayer wise.

Edit: Not sure what an "HD5960" is. Is that your monitor or graphics card?

Somnulus · April 2010

Originally posted by Xeroshadow

Originally posted by Somnulus

Originally posted by Xeroshadow

Originally posted by ogcopcka

the game's graphic it's not optimized.(even with a HD4870). makes me sad.

Truer words could not be said. I've been through 3 upgrades since this game came out. The most notable difference was actually the move from single to dual core. Graphic cards have not made a dent in the erratic FPS you see when playing, except if on the low-end where you have to turn off a lot of features or your fps will take a nosedive. I've used both camps, Nvidia and ATI, with neither showing dominance. Even after my upgrade to a quad-core then last upgrade to graphics, a 5850, I still see framerates all over the place. Even though I stay above 30 fps at all times, I don't understand why the movement of the landscape still goes by so jittery at times. This type of performance does not occur when I play DDO or WoW. I do not know what it is about CoH that makes computer systems beg for mercy. Sad indeed.

I absolutely hate to be the one to say this... but I have never had any frame rate issues with CoH. My frame rate is normally steady within +/-8 on either side depending on the amount of particle effects occurring on the screen.

I've never seen the landscape jitter that you are referring to, and my system has never "begged for mercy" even with everything maxed.

I wish I could make some kind of useful recommendation, but having never seen the issues you are referring to, I can't imagine what to suggest that would correct your particular situation. And I've been playing CoH since beta.

The only possible recommendation I could make is to ensure that vsync is on. That would at least help by syncing up your fps with your monitor.

I am very excited about the graphics upgrade coming to CoH. It's long overdue and it should look beautiful on my HD5960.

I have vsync on and it still fluctuates between 60 and 40 fps. This was just flying from the ferry in Sharkhead to the Crey building. The higher I got the better the framerates. I've gone from single core(Athlon 3200) to dual core to quad core CPU(Phenom II 920), from a Ti4400 to an ATI 9600 AIW>6600GT>7950GT>9800GTX and finally a 5850. CoH never keeps a consistent framerate, especially redside. At least I have gone from 15-30 to 40-60(this happened when jumping from single core to dual core) but personally I have never been pleased with CoH performance compared to other games.

The only correction would be mostly on the developer side. I'm hoping this changes with GR since it was mentioned all the demos were run on ATI hardware. If you have read the forums in the past, this game was more CPU limited than GPU so going from mid-range to high-end will garner little benefit.

I expect it in certain places such as the ITF or when many players are near firing off powers(or at Wentworth's) but soloing or traveling through a zone is not acceptable(if you have actually played the game, you cannot deny the Arachnos base map has problems). I'm sorry but I've played this game for 4+ years and have run through all the suggestions/option settings/reinstalls/driver updates/dxdiag logs/disabling processes/etc and the game just does not provide a consistent framerate on par with other games, single or multiplayer wise.

Edit: Not sure what an "HD5960" is. Is that your monitor or graphics card?

Well, like I said, I wish I had something useful to contribute to your particular situation. I've never encountered the issues you are referring to, even when I was playing on an AMD Athlon 2100+ CPU, 2GB of DDR3 RAM, and a GeForce FX5800.

I just ran a FRAPS test to re-check my frame rates in various zones.

My frame rate is a static 60 fps when FRAPS is not in capture mode. As previously mentioned, other than zone loads and particle effects, running through zones I only encountered dips in frame rate of +/- 8 fps.

With FRAPS running in capture mode, my frame rate is a static 30 fps, capturing 1680x1050 resolution with a 60mhz refresh rate. I had the same performance as previously discusssed.

I did a benchmark Excel output of my FPS, changing zones three times and just running around, but I'm not sure how I could upload it to show you. In benchmark capture, my fps averaged 60 fps.

The results were pretty much exactly as I indicated, solid columns of 60 fps except for huge dips that were clearly zone loads as I changed zones multiple times. The big dips were very brief, then the frame rate jumped right back up to 60fps.

My current system runs on an Intel Core 2 Extreme 3.0 ghz QX9650, 4gb of PC8500 RAM, and my XFX HD5970 Black Edition video card (had a typo there in my previous post). Your video card is a HD5850. The HD is the ATI card model prefix and they started adding it to their gaming / enthusiast Radeon line of gaming cards beginning with the 2000 series.

I don't doubt your experiences, but I also don't believe they are the norm. For me and the vast majority of my friends who play CoH, it provides a consistent experience that is very much on par with any other MMO. In many cases, the game experience is more consistent and of better quality than the vast majority of MMOs on the market today.

I have experienced performance decrease in the Arachnos bases and I attribute that to poor texture optimization, which is definitely a developer issue.

It would be very nice if they managed to add in multi-core CPU support with the graphics upgrade. I guess we'll see what they add / don't add when the upgrade releases.

Xeroshadow · April 2010

I must read different forums than you because CoH is not the norm as far as FPS and typically falls below that of other games. Suffice to say I really don't believe you having been through so many different configurations and tweaking. If we are going to count your friends we may as well count the 2 to 1 posters here as proof CoH has poor performance.

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City of Heroes: A Talk With Melissa War Witch Bianco