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SDCC 09: City of Heroes devs on the future of player-created content
This week marked the annual pilgrimage to Comic-Con International in San Diego for the comics and gaming faithful, and a number of superhero MMO developers were there as well to whip the fanboys (and girls) into a frenzy. When you think about it, comic conventions are as big for superhero games as other events like E3 and PAX. Massively was on the ground at SDCC this year and among the games we took a look at was, not surprisingly, City of Heroes. We caught up with City of Heroes game designers Joe Morrissey and Matt "Positron" Miller who shared with us a bit about how things have changed in the game in recent months, and gave us some info about the content and features on the way in Issue 16: Power Spectrum.%Gallery-68649%
GDC09: Mission Architect in-depth
At GDC recently, Joe Morrissey, Senior Designer at NCsoft and Lead Designer for Mission Architect talked to an audience about the challenges of implementing a user generated content system in a 5-year old MMO. Afterwards, we had a chance to sit him down and ask a few questions of our own. But to start with, the basics, for those of you who haven't been following Mission Architect's development: it's a system that allows any City of Heroes or City of Villains player to create their own missions, complete with their own characters and stories. (If the idea of user generated content sounds strange and foreign to you, let Captain Dynamic explain the idea to you.) Currently in beta, this content Godzilla will be released upon the live realms in Issue 14. (For people who haven't yet dived into the City of franchise, there will also be a new game box coming out for Mission Architect: the aptly named Architect Edition.)%Gallery-48661%%Gallery-45908%
A chat with the architect of City of Heroes Issue 14
If you're anything like we are, the goodies coming in City of Heroes upcoming Issue 14: Architect have you pretty excited. Sure, opening up player-built content means someone will likely try to cobble together a flying penis in there somewhere (not that we'll likely ever see it, mind) but you have to take the bad with the good. After all, the refinements that are helping I14 become reality are the same ones that have brought other improvements like the ones for SG/VG bases.The folks over at Ten Ton Hammer got the chance to sit down and talk with Joe Morrissey, Senior Designer for City of Heroes. He explained some of the things we can expect with Architect, how the project fits in with the lore, and touched on some of the other things we've already heard in the hour-long audio clip we brought you earlier. Overall, though it's definitely an interesting teaser of what we can look forward to when I14 drops later this month!
Full details on Mission Architect system for City of Heroes
Today, NCsoft has lifted the veil on their Mission Architect system coming in the free Issue 14 update for City of Heroes -- which is currently looking at a March 2009 release.We've got both a shiny collection of screens and a nice juicy hour-long audio file of Joe Morrissey discussing the various (and numerous) ins and outs of this hugely anticipated feature. Of course, we've also distilled the most pertinent information into an easily skimmed list, which you can find after the break along with the audio.%Gallery-45908%
Some new details gleaned of City of Heroes Issue 13
Carolyn Koh of MMORPG.com has recently had a chat with several of the City of Heroes developers, in particular the infectiously enthusiastic Joe 'Hero 1' Morrissey, about the history of the property and the recently announced Issue 13: Architect. The development team has doubled in size, from 20 people to 40, and the Mission Design department now has three people instead of just one. With that in mind, we're now even more curious to see the mission content in Issue 13; so far, the only Dev-made mission content that's been explicitly mentioned is more Cimerora arcs.Much of what the interview covers will already have been picked up on by eager CoX players, but there are some nuggets of apparently brand new information. According to the article, the Day Jobs feature will not just offer appropriate buffs for logging out in a given area, but a bonus to XP when you log back in. If this feature is in, it means CoX will at last have 'rested XP', which was once (a long time ago) dismissed by one of the then-developers as 'rewarding players for not playing'. It seems a lot has changed with the shift in management.
Joe Morrissey reveals more details of CoX Mission Architect
One of the most eagerly anticipated features of City of Heroes Issue 13: Architect is the Mission Maker, which will let players build their own story arcs for others to play through. There's been a torrent of speculation about what we will and won't be able to do. Now, lead CoX writer Joe 'Hero 1' Morrissey has given a brief question and answer session live from PAX, via the CoX Test Server.Arriving in character as 'the Honoree', Joe proceeded to answer selected questions from the storm that followed his appearance, mostly in clipped Rikti dialect. An in-the-flesh presentation at PAX filled in some additional information. We were pleased to see that missions will indeed be more sophisticated than just radio missions with new text. Players will be 'able to customize existing heroes, villains and enemy groups with a dozen or so options, if not more at launch.' It will also be possible to include Archvillains and Heroes, though some of this content might need to be unlocked.
City of Heroes' lead designer contemplates the Midnight Hour, Issue 12
Senior Designer Joe Morrissey, otherwise known as "Hero 1", has a lot of enthusiasm for the upcoming Issue 12 patch for City of Heroes. Not because of technology, though there are some great additions on the way. Not because of the new epic archetypes, though those are completely awesome. No, Joe is really excited because the City of Heroes story is going places it's never gone before. The designer/writer for NCsoft's superhero title sent us over a great developer diary to explain some of those places.Following up on the Rikti invasion highlighted by Issue 10, the magical group known as the Midnight Squad is stepping out the shadows. The aliens, always a pain for good-hearted earthfolk, struck the magical community hard and fast. The aliens may have advanced tech but, as Morrissey points out, they tipped their hand a bit. Now the powerful time-traveling boffins of the Squad are recruiting, and your character is very much on their list.To cap things, off, the designer runs down a few of the plot arcs we can expect in the next issue, as well as touching more on the fascinating plot thread feature coming to contacts. Read on below the cut for the entire discussion.%Gallery-18214%
