Massively Interview: Marvel Heroes' Magneto makes his mark
Heroes are all well and good, but there is plenty of fan love for the villains. There's just something about those bad boys and girls redeeming themselves that makes those characters so interesting. Gazillion knows this and has responded by releasing Magneto, the latest of the playable villains, to the Marvel Heroes lineup. Fans of Professor Xavier's long-time nemesis/friend can now jump in and command the forces of magnetism to defeat foes and destroy the environment. We chatted with Creative Designer and Community Manager Ryan Collins about this latest addition. We even gleaned a few snippets about the upcoming Axis One-Shots and got a release time-frame for the Spider Girl enhanced costume.
For those who want to see Magneto in action, we've also included his official trailer. You can also tune in to Massively TV on Monday, December 8th, at 9:00 p.m. EST to watch him live.
Massively: Why was Magneto the next hero to come? Was he a staff favorite, or were players clamoring the loudest for him?
Ryan Collins: Both! Magneto is tied for favorite villain with Doctor Doom around here (my favorites are Magneto and Juggernaut) and was by and large the most requested villain, maybe second to Venom... who is conveniently next in line.
Magneto's powers are obviously based on his control over electromagnetism. In keeping with this, can Magneto control the metal-infused Wolverine in some fashion, anywhere from a crowd-control to a debuff? Even if he can't have obvious control over another player character in PvP, is there any chance he can have a fluff ability that can be used in hubs or something?
Ha! Unfortunately, we've relegated his control over Wolverine simply to lines of dialogue discussing ripping his adamantium from his bones and the like. I would love to see a "team emote" where Magneto levitates poor Wolvie in a hub!
Regarding Magneto's secondary Debris resource: Are there separate and distinct abilities that draw on this resource solely, or is it used just for the particle effects of amount of debris surrounding him?
It's tied in to MANY of his abilities. For instance, he has a toggle called Waste Not, which spends Debris (down to 50% of your max) to automatically fire shrapnel at nearby enemies. Two of his large cooldown powers, Polarity Surge and Magnetic Eruption, both deal bonus damage while above a certain threshold of Debris. He, of course, has other ways to spend it -- some powers consume Debris instead of Spirit and give him a pretty fun gameplay loop of rotating powers to gain Debris, spend Debris, and spend Spirit.
Because Magneto's powers are 100% energy damage, there was talk of "correcting the Rogue stolen power to be Energy damage (and possibly reviewing its functionality when Magneto launches) to match the Magneto boss, which deals pure energy damage." Is this still the case?
Great question! The current plan is that when Hulk's 52 Review comes along, we will be giving Rogue a new AoE Physical power comparable to the current Magneto power and then changing Magneto's to be Energy Damage and contain new functionality.
One question a lot of Magneto fans have is this: Will there be a Xorn regular or even an enhanced costume?
We definitely want to do a Xorn costume at some point; our next costume for him comes from Uncanny Avengers and may be a surprise for some, but man, it looks good.
On the subject of costumes, any word on when the Spider Girl enhanced costume is coming out?
I just got out of a meeting regarding this! The plan is for the costume to be released to Deluxe Advance Pack 2 customers near the beginning of the year and for it to hit the store in Q1.
On another note, do you have any other details you can share about the AXIS One-Shot that's in development?
Absolutely! The One-Shot essentially serves as our own version of "March to Axis" wherein we introduce Red Skull to our continuity. Players will arrive at an update version of HYDRA Island that contains a fierce battle of Mandarin's HYDRA Agents versus Red Skull's loyal HYDRA agents (who actually are brand-new mobs in red/black armor). The culmination of the One-Shot is the defeat of Red Skull... for now!
Thanks for your time, Ryan! And readers, join us tomorrow at 9:00 p.m. EST on Twitch as we stream the game!
When readers want the scoop on a launch or a patch (or even a brewing fiasco), Massively goes right to the source to interview the developers themselves. Be they John Smedley or Chris Roberts or anyone in between, we ask the devs the hard questions. Of course, whether they tell us the truth or not is up to them!
