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City of Heroes explores the process of making missions
It's been a little while since the last installment of City of Heroes' developer dispatch newsletter, the Intrepid Informer, due in no small part to the upcoming hybrid business model domination the news sphere. But the second part of the series on designing missions for the games has just recently been posted, giving players a look behind the scenes at the process that goes into crafting compelling arcs for players to enjoy time and again. Penned by Matt Miller, the installment explains some of the thought processes that go on during mission development. For example, as Miller explains, the main reason that level bands restrict available enemy groups is simply plausibility -- if you're still seeing Hellions at level 50, it implies that the Rikti are essentially equivalent to punks in red jackets. Miller also talks about the importance of finding little quirks to help the mission feel unique and memorable, an important element in a game that allows you to flash back to older missions at almost any time. It's sure to be an interesting read for longtime fans interested in seeing how the team goes about taking a broad concept and turns it into a playable arc.
Matt "Positron" Miller discusses designing City of Heroes Freedom
Whenever a subscription-based MMO announces its transition to a free-to-play model, players tend to worry. There are a number of aspects to the F2P model that can drastically change the game's dynamics. Will players who pay have an innate advantage over those who don't? What about rewards for the customers who have remained loyal subscribers over the years? The folks at Paragon Studios understand these concerns, and Matt "Positron" Miller has posted up a short diary explaining the thought process behind the recently announced City of Heroes Freedom. Miller takes the time to assure players that the switch to a hybrid payment model is not a decision the team made lightly, and that the devs have plans set to ensure that the game remains enjoyable for long-time subscribers and new, non-paying players alike. It's a rather interesting and candid look into the philosophy behind the switch and is well worth the read for any CoH fan. You can check out the whole piece on the official site.
PAX East 2010: City of Heroes panel reveals many things
Unpacking the City of Heroes panel at PAX East is a big deal: there were huge amounts of information being thrown around, and a lot of new pieces of information to process. For that matter, there was far more than anyone expected, with information about the full spread of new issues up to Issue 19 and the reveal of Matt "Positron" Miller's heretofore unrevealed new endgame system. The panel as a whole featured a huge breadth of information about the game from concept into the future, and was filled with people long before the official start time, with fans vocally professing their adoration for the team the whole way through. We had the good fortune to be front and center at the theatre, and once we started taking notes we didn't really stop until the event was over. At the panel were lead designer Melissa Bianco, former lead designer and current lead system designer Matt Miller, art lead David Nakayama, and development producer Jesse Caceres. They opened off with a discussion of the game's history from launch back in 2004 to the present. The changeover from Cryptic to Paragon Studios was discussed in brief, mentioning that four of the major launch employees (Miller, Bianco, CW Bennet, and Brian Clayton) were still with Paragon even after the change.
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: The endgame oddity
As long as I'm exhorting our new lead designer and hoping she brings a swift death to the warehouse map, it seems only fitting to take a look at the promised new "endgame system" that Matt "Positron" Miller is supposedly developing. I say this in quotes because, really, that's all we've been told. It is a system and it will involve the endgame, and presumably some sort of rewards in exchange for effort. For all we know it's going to be an interactive kitten-petting simulator. Regardless, I think that Miller is exactly the right person for the job. (I'm sure Paragon Studios has been waiting for my approval.) We've seen some spectacular system launches during his tenure, but the content problem extends through to the endgame, and is an issue that City of Heroes needs to deal with. And the oddity is that the game simultaneously has the most populated endgame possible, with huge amounts of things to do... yet not nearly as many interesting things to do when you hit max level as other games. It's a bit of design strangeness, one that serves the game well up until the last level and will take some clever work to overcome. How can the endgame be so sparse when it's so rich?
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: Death to the warehouse map!
If you've played City of Heroes from levels 1 to anything, you already know the map I'm talking about. The more levels you've been through, the more you've seen it. Heck, you probably knew exactly what map I was talking about just from the subject line, because... well, it's the warehouse map. As I was thinking about this week's column, I was trying to figure out why it is that City of Heroes gets criticized as often as it does for being "repetitive." I'd gladly concede the point, but the follow-up question becomes, well, what's so inherently different between the gameplay here as opposed to World of Warcraft, or EverQuest II, or Lord of the Rings Online, or even Dungeons and Dragons Online? How is killing X of critter Y for questgiver Z in any way less repetitive than punching the Fifth Column around for the hundredth time? But with the recent addition of Melissa "War Witch" Bianco as lead designer, with her promises of "more content," I formed at least part of an idea of why that pointless accusation will not go away. And I believe the blame can be laid squarely at the feet of that stupid warehouse map.
City of Heroes unveils new lead designer
It's been a quiet week on Lake Salamanca... well, actually, all across City of Heroes, when you get right down to it. For those of us not on the inside, it looked as if nothing of interest was happening with the game. But that's apparently quite far from the truth, since it appears there have been quite a few internal shakeups over the holiday season and most of the month. Matt Miller, longtime lead designer of City of Heroes, has passed the mantle on to Melissa Bianco. Miller is continuing to work on the game, but will be involved in rather vaguely-described endgame systems as well as some undisclosed projects. Bianco (also known as "War Witch" in keeping with the developer nicknaming scheme) has already given an interview on her plans and the state of CoH, with promises of new content before and after Going Rogue goes live. And speaking of Going Rogue, we're promised more frequent pieces of information on the expansion, which has seen very little revealed since its announcement. There's also an opportunity to take part in a community Q&A with Bianco. The quiet week seems to be over... which is really for the best, when you get right down to it.
The community of architects in City of Heroes
If there's one thing that City of Heroes has become known for, it's the Mission Architect system. The player-generated content spans a huge number of adventures, ranging from the silly to the sublime. It's also robust enough in its search function that it's essentially added another venue of content into the game. The official site recently highlighted a feature in The Escapist, interviewing a number of community members and acclaimed users of the system about its ups, downs, and the overall experience. The system has faced a few problems -- abuse of it early on led to bans and some content removal, since it's easy when creating content to be too generous with the rewards and too light with the difficulty. There's also the issue of inappropriate content, and of course the possibility that a large portion of what's available just isn't all that good. The full piece highlights some of the better arcs available (including more than a few Developer's Choice missions, which were selected as being good enough to qualify as official content), as well as the efforts and reasoning behind the more popular creators and what they've built. Matt Miller was quoted as saying that players did in one day with the system what it took the developers five years to accomplish. Quite an argument in favor of player-created content, that.
NCsoft and Paragon Studios announce HeroCon 2009 for October
Paragon Studios and NCsoft today announced that HeroCon has been expanded to a two-day convention and will be taking place on 24th- 25th October. This year's event, which is taking place in San Jose, California, is the 2nd HeroCon and offers a chance for fans of City of Heroes to meet up and share their passion for the game. As if you needed anything else to tempt you into attending, the tickets cost $79.99 and there's even a goody bag which includes a special con t-shirt and an exclusive in-game item.The event promises pre-con activities on the Friday night as well as developer panel discussions, live mission event and contests, social events with the development team and there's even a rather posh-sounding banquet dinner with live entertainment and an awards ceremony. As usual Matt "Positron" Miller and Paragon Studios head, Brian Clayton, will be doing a community address as well as the usual round of interesting announcements – hopefully including something about the Going Rogue expansion.For more information on the event and where to stay, check out the official site.
Matt "Positron" Miller prepares his radioactive banhammer against mission architect abusers
Mission architect -- an amazing system that allows a very creative player-base to finally take the reigns of creation and make amazing in-game arcs that feature personalized stories, personalized characters, farming, well made.... wait, what?Yes, you heard that right, people have already began to leverage City of Heroes's architect system into nothing more than powerleveling tool, and the community doesn't find that to be too enjoyable. Luckily, Matt "Positron" Miller, the lead designer, has already stepped up with a post to the community on the City of Heroes message board about how they plan on dealing with these problems.The team wishes to remove the rewards some characters may have gained through powerleveling, all the way up to removing access to characters that were solely leveled up via mission architect exploits. Past working on a player by player bases, some badges will be changed while others may be removed entirely due to the exploiting groups surrounding them. Lastly, but certainly not least, the team will be proactively banning missions that are created to exploit the system.For Matt's full plan, check out his post over on the City of Heroes message board.
