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Brian Clayton and Matt Miller on Power and Responsibility in City of Heroes
Right now the news is breaking about a major change to the City of Heroes issue release schedule. The Mission Architect feature is being moved to Issue 14, because overwhelming player response convinced the developers not to release the feature until it contained a key element the players wanted: the ability to include customized allies and opponents. Issue 13, now titled Power and Responsibility, will include a whole lot more cool content and reach the player base that much sooner. City of Heroes executive producer Brian Clayton and lead designer Matt Miller were extremely generous with their time yesterday and gave us a lengthy interview, in which they covered a whole host of details about the improvements coming in Issue 13, the changes to the studio, and the future of the City of Heroes franchise.Matt Miller: So the title for Issue 13, Power and Responsibility, that has a lot of meanings. We picked it very specifically to make sure that not only were we conveying the fact that we're adding more powersets and giving players more power in what they're able to choose for rewards and things like that, but then the responsibility nature takes on the day jobs, that offline character advancement system, the responsibilities your character has when you're not playing.
City of Heroes Mission Architect moving to next year!
They didn't know it when they woke up this morning, but City of Heroes fans are about to have a really great day. That headline might make you think that there are going to be some disappointed folks today. Not so. Not at all. You see, while the Mission Architect is moving out to Issue 14 in early winter of 2009, that's just leaving a ton of room in this year's Issue 13 (now called "Power and Responsibility") for an epic amount of awesome stuff. Even the reason for the delay is great: the City of Heroes developers have listened to the players. They realized their system just didn't have everything it needed to be truly special, and they're giving it the extra time to get it right.So what is replacing Architect? How about an all new level syncing system that will ensure you can always keep up with your buddies? The "Day Jobs" system, with brand-new civilian costumes and a brand-new game mechanic? Rebalancing of powers for PvP? A new merit reward system? How about a new element where you can have multiple power specs kitting out for one character, and can be switched between almost at will? All this and more are in Issue 13, and you can read all the sordid details below the cut in the official release.But wait! There's more! Stick around to read our in-depth interview with City of Heroes executive producer Brian Clayton and lead designer Matt Miller! They describe all the new game tweaks, and the future of NCsoft Norcal in our discussion. Plus! Check out specific details on the deep changes to CoX PvP, and the bright future for microtransaction content in the game! All right here at Massively.com
