If you don't like the depth of field you can turn it off. What is your problem?
Personally, I don't know any eye or optical device that can focus on nearby and distant objects at the same time.
As for the fog, it is set quite low, In a zone like Talos I would like a thick sea fog to come in sometimes, as you would expect. Variable fog, as the start to weather effects, I would like to see.
In fact, that's all the fog is a graphical effect to add atmosphere and realism, it isn't tied to the draw distance, which is set seperately.
Maybe what you really want is an increase in the maximum draw distance alowed in the graphics settings? This has already been increased once, so it could be increased again to alow more powerful machines to benefit.
I really should do something about this signature.
As I say I'm not sure wether the overexagerated distance cueing/fog/haze is because our machines can't handle rendering more and thats the only reasonable way to cover the fact. If it is the tech then it's a shame but I look forward to the day when I can see Paragon in all it's glory.
The draw distance is variable. You can set that in the graphics settings. You can increase it if you have a powerful machine.
The fog has nothing to do with performance, it is there for atmosphere only. Some zone have lots of fog (Dark Astoria), some zones are huge and have none (Shadow Shard).
I don't know what your machine is like, but on mine Talos seems rather lacking in fog for a typical seaside place.
I really should do something about this signature.
To my understanding, that haze effect represents all the gack floating around in the atmosphere inside our gilded cage of a city.
War-walls don't allow much airflow (unless air can pass through an energy barrier that solid objects cannot? Does anyone have canon on this?) meaning that all the traffic fumes, factory stack smoke and everything in-between is still floating about, being breathed in and seen through by everyone in every zone until convection carries it up and over the walls. Frankly, with all the aforementioned gack everyone's breathing in, is it any surprise there are so many mutants?
I digress. The haze is accurate to an extent, although in a city as large as Paragon I'd expect the kind of pea-soupers that plagued London in England before the clean-air act was implemented, especially in the more compact areas like Atlas Park and King's Row.
iw ish they had more zones liek Dark Astoria. bloody love that zone so much
Paragon City has remarkably clear air compared to London or Manchester.
I really should do something about this signature.
As a long-time professional game developer I can tell you that to at least some extent fogging is generally used to prevent visible clipping at the extent of the draw distance. I know that certain zones have a lower fog distance but that is indeed purely for atmosphere. However even interior maps have fogging to some extent to stop you seeing the end of the visible part of the world suddenly disappear in the distance. Sometimes 'darkness' is substituted for fog by having the world fade out to black towards the extent of the draw distance but this is just a variant of fogging - little more than changing the fog colour for a map. Extending your draw distance will probably lessen this (except of course where fog is added for atmosphere) - like PRAF says, if your graphics card can handle it I would imagine - there'd be little point in having a user-modifiable draw distance otherwise.
After some expariments it appears world detail shows a greater quantity of geometry at longer distance though bitmap defenanition remains at 0 at 700 yds approx. making me believe that this is not connected to the atmospheric fog that I am reffering to.
Quote-Paragon City has remarkably clear air compared to London or Manchester. - I live in Liverpool and on a good day you can see the hills in Wales ( and tell what colour they are ) somewhat further than 700 yds infact if what you were true I wouldn't be even to tell what was on the otherside of the river.
Quote- visible clipping - I know what clipping is in reference to music but not graphics can you clue me in plz?
And as a game developer do you know whether making the bitmaps visible once the geometry is already drawn will significantly increase the 'weight' of the process. To my mind it depends on the order in which you process if you process geometry colour first then it shouldn't if however you process the fog amount first removing the need for geometry colour calculations at fog => 100% then it could overtax your graphics card.
Clipping if visible would be like the world stopping being rendered past a certain distance, for example the floor would abrubtly stop past a certain distance and there would be nothingness (probably the sky colour) along a line in the distance (assuming a flat floor). Fogging sort of blends this into the background and looks a lot better. If geometry is completely fogged out (i.e. past the line of nothingness) then it isnt rendered at all and therefore doesn't strain the graphics card much at all. Some calculations need to be done but not much.
Virtually any graphics engine can only display a certain portion of the world at any time due to processing limitations.
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Quote-Paragon City has remarkably clear air compared to London or Manchester. - I live in Liverpool and on a good day you can see the hills in Wales ( and tell what colour they are ) somewhat further than 700 yds infact if what you were true I wouldn't be even to tell what was on the otherside of the river.
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I've lived in Liverpool to: the air is much clearer than Manchester, which is surrounded by hills on three sides. Anyway, the popluation of Liverpool has shrunk so much since the 70's that it barly warrents the city title anymore.
There is another factor wth the welsh mountains as seen from Liverpool though: you can only see the tops of the mountains, the lower portion is below the horizion. Draw the world to to greater distance, and it becomes more obvious that for Paragon City, the world is flat, not spherical.
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To my mind it depends on the order in which you process if you process geometry colour first then it shouldn't if however you process the fog amount first removing the need for geometry colour calculations at fog => 100% then it could overtax your graphics card.
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Quite so. The CoX engine does the geometry first, and then adds the fog, so the amount of fog does not affect performance either way. It is purely cosmetic.
I really should do something about this signature.
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Talos seems rather lacking in fog for a typical seaside place.
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But it's always sunny there, so it's burnt off quickly.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
Check out the fog in 'Dark Astoria' people.
Nuff Said...
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Check out the fog in 'Dark Astoria' people.
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Why? Has it turned into candy floss?! 
Can anyone tell me why the 'Fog' in Dark Astoria is not actually volumetric, just this grey wall of gloom you never quite reach, retreating before you unconvincingly and not actually being permeable?, Storm powerset's Steamy-Mist clouds are convincing - why not DA's?
Thanks in Advance.
Because it's alive and running away from you! 
Fog has now been found to be the major cause of everyone missing some quite fabulous graphical experiences, and I know the painstaking work involved in creating those views which are now unfortunatly obscured behind an excess of haze. Now I know there is a depth of field option in options/graphics/advanced but all this does is remove a white haze and some rather overdone blurring effect, so my first suggestion would be everbody disable that as the bitmap defenition and crispness of colour benefit greatly.
My second suggestions is, if it ain't gonna burn out our poor graphics cards turn down that distance cue haze. It's set about 0 defenition at 6-700 yds IMHO it needs only 1/2 or even possibly a third as strong. From Talos you would be able to see the islands and from the hill in the hollows you could see well the hollows (instead of to the bottom of the hill?). As I say this might not be technically possible at it might stress the rendering engine too much but if it's possible well I think we are missing out on some great imagery.