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'The Mummy' in VR was shallow, but the seats were not
VR seat company Positron teamed up with Universal at SXSW this year to showcase a "Zero Gravity VR Experience" tied in with the studio's The Mummy reboot. While it fell (way) short of simulating weightlessness, it was nonetheless a nice way to watch virtual reality. If only the stuff I was watching wasn't quite so shallow. Like the movie it's based on, Universal's setup at SXSW is flashy and expensive. You walk into a nondescript ballroom at a convention center, and are greeted by a section of an aircraft's fuselage, together with a life-sized "Egyptian" sarcophagus from the movie. Behind a blackout curtain lay 20 or so VR seats, arranged as you'd expect seating in a high-class movie theater. These seats -- Positron Voyagers -- are the real stars of the show. Positron debuted the Voyager at Sundance earlier this year, and has since been touting the seat at various VR and film shows. Resembling an Arne Jacobsen egg chair, but with none of the charm and subtlety, the Voyager contains motors to control pitch and yaw to simulate motion, a built-in Subpac for vibrations, as well as a standard Oculus Rift headset and some noise-canceling headphones. The actual VR experience was of the shallow PR-grab variety: a 10-minute featurette narrated by Tom Cruise, showing how the movie's zero-gravity action sequence (which was pretty much 90 percent of the trailer) was filmed.
City of Heroes rejoices in F2P success even as it mourns Statesman's passing
While Paragon Studios is being tight-lipped about exact numbers since City of Heroes' free-to-play conversion, Lead Designer Matt "Positron" Miller has said that the company has been "blown away" by the results. According to an interview at GameZone, City of Heroes has witnessed not only an "incredible number" of subscribers, but also a tidal wave of returning and first-time players curious about the new model. Miller cites the popularity of the Paragon Rewards program as a key factor in Freedom's success: "We've really broadened the idea of what a free game can be to a lot of people." On a more somber note, Positron delivered a touching eulogy for the recently departed Statesman on the City of Heroes website. "Statesman's hand was a hand that lifted us up with inspiration," he wrote. "His back was the strong back of a sheltering protector. His wisdom, that of an insightful teacher and leader. His confidence, driven by a profound optimism about the human spirit." Massively recently spoke with Paragon Studios about this momentous in-game event.
City of Heroes' Matt Miller answers our questions about the death of Statesman
Statesman has been the face of City of Heroes since the game has launched. He's been the man at the forefront of the game's lore and the setting-defining hero for players. He earned a lot of ire from some players due to the designer who had chosen him as his avatar, but that didn't diminish his importance to the game as a whole. But after surviving war against the Rikti, the machinations of his rival Lord Arachnos, and the invasion of his alternate self from Praetoria... Statesman has finally fallen and is no more. Of course, this brings up some pretty hefty questions about the future of the City of Heroes setting, since such a death is about as high-profile as in-game-deaths can be. We had the opportunity to ask Matt Miller a few questions about the ramifications of Statesman's death, the team's motivation, and what players can expect in the wake of his passing. After all, even though the hero is gone, the villain responsible is still out there...
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.
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: 2010's roguish review
I joked once, long ago, that I should never answer WRUP truthfully, because it will invariably result in a total lack of doing what I announced. Lo and behold, I had the time to play through a single Mission Architect mission amidst an intensely obnoxious virus (just at that level where you're sick enough to know it but not sick enough to avoid work) and the preparation needed to get my house ready for hosting an entire family. For the record? Never agree to do that for your family, no matter who your family is. So instead, we're going to take a look through the big news of the year, the five biggest stories that have affected City of Heroes in the past 12 months. I had originally planned to save this one for next week, but I doubt that we'll get an enormous piece of news between now and next week. It's been an interesting year for the game as a whole, so between an expansion, major updates, and tumultuous times in the larger MMO world, let's look at the five biggest stories pertaining to the city.
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: The changing of the environment
If I had to make a list of video game characters I hate... well, it would take up a thousand words and then some. (Fuuka Yamagishi would be on there.) But if I just had to make a list of MMO lore characters that I hate... actually, again, it would take up a thousand words and then some. (Tyrande Whisperwind would be on there.) Still, near the top of the list would be one of my least favorite characters from the lore of any game, and appropriately enough it's City of Heroes -- because I really, really hate Statesman. Honestly, before I even knew about his background, Statesman rubbed me the wrong way. But it was only made worse by the fact that he derived his powers from Jack Emmert's ego, thereby giving him nearly limitless everything as long as Emmert was in charge. The comics made him out to be a jerk; the game made him out to be The Best Hero In The World Ever. And through it all there was a subtle reminder that he was the real hero. Your character was great and all, but you weren't really the hero. It was Statesman.
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: All the news that's fit from PAX
The revelations at PAX East were pretty darn big for City of Heroes, but they had a big advantage over PAX Prime. At the time we sat down in Boston, Going Rogue was months away, and we knew almost nothing about what it would bring us. This time around, it's been out for a couple of weeks, and most of the fancy pieces of knowledge are pretty well established. It would be hard, if not impossible, for the development team to hit us with the same one-two punch. I wouldn't argue that the team quite managed that -- there's no comparison to revealing two new power sets, the endgame system, and video demonstrations of much-awaited sets -- but Paragon Studios sure did manage to drop quite a bomb on us. As I've done frequently in the past, we're going to take this point by point, with a full collection of neat pieces of news that leave me wondering just how much interesting stuff is yet to come from the development team.
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.
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%
Power customization teased at for City of Heroes
We've always operated under the assumption that City of Heroes was designed in such a way that power customization would be very difficult. So a recent forum post hinting by lead designer Matt "Positron" Miller showing that it's apparently happening makes this news all the more interesting.Of course, all we get are a couple screenshots of purple and blue imps to tease us, but then again what else do you really need to know right now? Well okay, we suppose you could know how colorization works and if it's something that's done only during character creation or at any time while playing. It would also be nice to know the extent that powers could be customized, too.We'll just have to wait until July to hear more about Issue 16. So until then, dream about City of Heroes in whatever color you like -- even made up ones!
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.
Massively Exclusive: An anniversary chat with Matt Miller
Unless you've been hiding under a rock, you undoubtedly know that today is the 5th anniversary since the launch of City of Heroes - an MMO giving players the chance to don tights and fight for truth, justice, and the fun of it. Recently, we had the chance to catch up with Matt "Positron" Miller, Senior Lead Designer for Paragon Studios, who gave us some of his personal insights into what the last five years have been like - and a bit about what players can expect in the next five. Be sure and join us after the break to read more about what's planned for Paragon City and the Rogue Isles! Massively: You've got five great years of City of Heroes under your belt. What's it been like watching your MMO grow and develop over that time? How about staying together through everything your team has been through, to finally becoming Paragon Studios?Matt "Positron" Miller: I think that it's a testament to the game that so many of us who were here at the launch are still on the project. Watching CoH grow up year after year is awesome. I look back to what CoH shipped with compared to where it is today and I am blown away by how much quality free content we have added and given back to our players over the last five years.
City of Heroes spill the beans on their 5th birthday celebrations
Yes another one of NCSoft's MMOs is celebrating its birthday this week and this time it's City of Heroes. Celebrating its fifth birthday on April 28th and continuing through May, the devs have plenty planned in an attempt to reward existing players and tempt back lapsed heroes and villains to Paragon City.Whilst being vague about exactly what's going on, the devs have an in-game event planned beginning 11am EDT on April 28th. Apparently 'all CHAOS is going to break loose' until 12am on the 29th. There's the promise of merits, badges and lovely XP. Also at 8pm EDT, there will be a special address from Lead Developer Positron; apparently he has some info to share. What could that be I wonder? The broadcast will also appear shortly after on the game's official website.Also keen to bring heroes and villains out of retirement, anyone who logs on between 28th April and 3rd May with an expired trial or retail account will be able to access the live servers and join in on the fun. As a final incentive, any character -- that's character not account -- who logs in between 11am on 28th April until 31st of May will find themselves awarded with a special fifth anniversary badge.There will also be some cool contests running, including one where you get to design a t-shirt logo and another where you can create an homage video. Details will appear on the official site next week, but for now, more details can be found here.
Meet the ultimate City of Heroes Issue 13 guide, Infoman
Walking down the street, you're suddenly stopped by a man wearing a fedora and trench coat. "Hey you, yeah you!" he spits out in hushed tones. "Uh, what's up?" you respond cautiously."Yo, the name's Infoman," he looks about nervously, like someone may be watching him, "check out the merchandise" opening his jacket to reveal countless links for articles all about the recent City of Heroes' Issue 13 update. Everything from the Positron interview at Joystiq to in-depth fan-made videos of all the new systems added into the game."It's all free, take whatever ya like." says the calm street walker, who now seems like a pretty nice guy. "I'll take that Floyd 'Castle' Grubb interview about the new powersets." you say. He nods, hands it over and says, "I gots more if'n you want it, kid. Be down at the docks." and struts off down the street whistling a tune.
Joystiq asks Positron about keeping City of Heroes competitive
Yesterday brought us the launch of City of Heroes Issue 13: Power and Responsibility. This is arguably the third major launch in the last month. So the question on Jason Dobson's mind is how is CoH keeping pace with the the largest games on the market? And Positron (a.k.a. Matt Miller, Senior Designer at NCSoft) answers. He sounds proud of the separatist nature CoH seems to enjoy in comparison to what he dubs the monotonous "sword and sorcery" games. Even now, four years in, they have one of the most complex and thoroughly enjoyable character creators around, a loyal player base, and plans for future releases. There's even a Mac version of the game in beta right now, with future boxed releases in the works for 2009.Coming soon-ish will be the magic Super-Booster pack and Issue 14: Architect. You may recall that Architect was originally going to be Issue 13, but it was pushed back in September to allow more time for development. Last we heard Issue 14 will be released in Q1 2009 and it seems Issue 15 will be released shortly thereafter, in time for the fifth anniversary of the game (April 2009). Or was that a reference to the Fifth Column we spotted...?
Matt "Positron" Miller confident in the face of costumed nemeses
Matt "Positron" Miller, NCsoft's NorCal Senior Designer, was snatched and grilled by the gang at Ten Ton Hammer just recently. Among the topics touched on were speculations about the impact of upcoming costumed nemeses in the super-hero-themed MMOG genre. City of Heroes/Villains was, back in the day, something of a dark horse. While Cryptic Studios and NCsoft were working on the game, there was intense speculation and skepticism about the material. How could it even work? Well, work it did, and very well. Miller is confident that it will continue to do so. Miller acknowledges that it's hard to predict what impact the new games will have on CoX's player numbers. We wouldn't be putting any money down on predictions ourselves, but it's going to be interesting.
Super Boosters and beyond in City of Heroes
Massively recently had the chance to talk with City of Heroes executive producer Brian Clayton and Lead Designer Matt Miller about a multitude of CoX topics. One of the points we covered was the downloadable optional content, such as the recent Cyborg Pack.Massively: The recent changes in the studio, the additional bandwidth you were talking about: would you connect those to the changes you've made in pricing, with the additional purchaseable content? Or is that more a direct result of NC NorCal coming into its own? Brian Clayton: It's a little bit of both, to be perfectly honest. We certainly have huge plans, plans that go over the next five to ten years, for the City of Heroes franchise. So we certainly need to ramp up for that. But we also feel that by providing the Super Booster packs and things like that, it's a win-win in that it helps grow the studio internally to provide more things for our community, but it also helps us to justify those costs and build for the future. I think that's certainly a part of it, but there are larger initiatives again that we can't fully go into detail about, for the future of the franchise.
