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Brian Clayton and Matt Miller: Page 3
Alternate BuildsMassively:There's a ton of new features that you guys are putting in here to go along with the leveling pact and to make up for Architect being moved over a little bit. Can you talk about multi-builds a little bit? Is there going to be a minimum level after which the feature's going to become available? Matt Miller: Yeah, I believe it's level 10. We're going to be experimenting with it in Closed Beta and seeing where's a good point to introduce this concept. Because it is a fairly complex concept and we don't want the new players to have to deal with it right away, at level 1! It's around 10 or 15, when you pretty much know how your character's playing, and an alternate build would probably be of actual benefit to you. Basically, what it is is you get to create a new character, the same level and archetype and powersets as your other character, and you can switch between them. You get a respec that doesn't actually change your main set of powers, but you level up that character, you pick where the slots go, you pick what powers you want, you slot those with Enhancements, and that's your alternate build. Massively: So basically you create the character, and he has the archetype and he has the power selections that he has when you make the character, but then you can switch what powers you have selected over the course of your career at a specific NPC, right? Matt Miller: Yep! Base ChangesMassively: You mention that base items will be seeing a change. We're wondering if any of that is going to come through with Issue 13. There were rumors that Issue 13 would be seeing a lot of base changes, and we're wondering if any of those are going to make it through, with this change to Issue 14. Matt Miller: One of the first things coming for base changes is going to be in Issue 13, and that is a repricing for a lot of things that supergroups can purchase for their bases. We're lowering a lot of the Prestige costs on not only rooms and base plot sizes, but for items as well, to make them more affordable. We have a lot of datamining now. We know exactly what plot sizes and rooms supergroups can afford. And so we're going through and we're making sure that more supergroups can afford those cooler rooms and those cooler base items, and things like that. "...we're getting rid of the Base Salvage out of the game, because a lot of the players were getting confused with the Invention Salvage, since they both get the same kind of message." And in addition, one of the things we're doing is we're getting rid of the Base Salvage out of the game, because a lot of the players were getting confused with the Invention Salvage, since they both get the same kind of message. Players get excited when they get Invention Salvage, and then they get disappointed when they find out it was only Base Salvage, especially if they don't have a supergroup or their supergroup doesn't really need the Base Salvage any more. So what we're going to do is we're going to get rid of the Base Salvage, and just make everything that's currently craftable in the bases from salvage, craftable through that Invention Salvage as well. Massively: So is that going to make turrets and other raid items for bases easier to get? Matt Miller: Oh yeah. Absolutely. The Ongoing StoryMassively: So there are some really great ongoing story arcs in the game, including the Rikti War and the Coming Storm, and there hasn't been a ton of information previously about whether there's going to be anything like that in Issue 13. Is there going to be a strong story component in Issue 13, or is that getting moved off to Issue 14 along with the Mission Architect? Matt Miller: The real big storyline stuff is coming in Issue 15! Massively: Any hints at all about what that would be touching on? Matt Miller: It's hopefully going to tie up a lot of loose ends that we've had hanging out there for a while now, while at the same time creating a lot more. Brian Clayton: Like any good superhero story. Matt Miller: Like any good superhero story, or episode of LOST. Side switching in the future?Massively: So one last question for Brian: we know there was a marketing survey that went out to players not too long ago, and there were a number of different questions, but one that we think players really attached to was the idea of players being able to switch sides. We wanted to know if this is something that's been taken up and noticed by the folks at NC Norcal, and whether or not you think that's something from your perspective that you guys might be able to address some time down the line? Brian Clayton: We're going to be doing more and more in-depth focus groups and research, and things like that, going forward, so eventually I think this is going to become more noise for the community than it is groundbreaking news! But what I can say is that having players go from hero to villain, and villain to hero, would nicely tie together what we've already done to date with City of Heroes and City of Villains. We certainly like the concept and the idea, but we're just not ready to talk about the details yet.Massively would like to extend our sincere thanks to Brian Clayton and Matt Miller for giving up so much of their time to answer our questions! Read what Brian and Matt had to say on PvP changes, and on the Super Booster packs.
Brian Clayton and Matt Miller: Page 2
The Leveling PactMassively: Brian, you talked about how day jobs are part of NC Norcal's idea of involving players in the game even when they're not necessarily playing, and it seems like the Leveling Pact is obviously a tie-in to that. Can you talk a little bit about that, from a philosophical perspective? Brian Clayton: I'll talk about it from a philosophical perspective and then let Matt follow up with the nuts and bolts of it. The one thing that we continue to strive for with City of Heroes is to pick areas where the MMO genre could use some innovation. We certainly have the best character creation system, and I would argue that sidekicking was very innovative, at the time when that was released. Even the further iterations, like our base creation system, were still very innovative. So we looked at another area of innovation with the Mission Architect system, and now the Leveling Pact. These are things that had been begging to be done in the MMO space for so long. Again, while sidekicking and exemplaring accommodate a number of player types, we feel that the leveling pact now accomodates another type of player. These things not only benefit City of Heroes, they push the genre forward. Matt Miller: It's definitely one of those features that came to us based on a lot of feedback we had from our players, and especially our friends who are playing the game. They came to us and said 'You know, I like playing the game, and I like the sidekicking system, but I'm getting to a point where my friends are so far outleveling me that they don't want to exemplar down and do my stuff because they've already done it before. Is there any way that we can stay more in synch?' "So we had this idea for the Leveling Pact: essentially splitting each character's XP gain directly in half and just distributing it across two characters whether they're offline or online." So we had this idea for the Leveling Pact: essentially splitting each character's XP gain directly in half and just distributing it across two characters whether they're offline or online. And we said: 'You know what? There's a system here. This is a workable system. This is really innovative, and this is taking a new step in sidekicking, making sure that you and your friend are always able to play the game together, and will always be the same level.' Massively: So basically the main character's XP gain is halved, and the other part is given to the buddy? Matt Miller: Yeah, basically both characters when they earn XP, they go through all the calculations for earning XP – how much they're supposed to get, based on their team size, what they defeated – every calculation possible in the game, and at the very end it's divided in two and each person in the pact gets their share. Massively: So the obvious question there, and Brian, this might be more to you, is from a business standpoint, this seems like it might be a dangerous ground to walk for powerleveling services. Because there's some obvious ways that this could be taken advantage of by those kinds of guys. Is that a concern for the company?Brian Clayton: Sure. I mean, it's absolutely a concern. It's a concern that we deal with today, without the system. Really, what we're trying to do is build opportunities for our players to play the games in the way they want to. We'll continue to enforce our policies, and do everything we can to mitigate powerleveling services and things like that. But more importantly, this is a feature that our customers have been asking for, and it's a feature that we want to provide them with. Arguably, you could say we're making it easier for some of these powerleveling services, but at the same time we're probably improving the grouping experience for a substantial amount of our customers. Matt Miller: There's actually less incentive now to use a powerleveling service, because now instead of paying someone to powerlevel my guy, I can actually have my friend play... and I'm not giving up my play time to some other service. I actually get to play whenever I want to on my character. And my friend gets to play whenever he wants to on his character, and we're both leveling at the same rate.New Story ArcsMassively: So for both of you: Issue 13 had already announced that you were going to do more Cimerora mission arcs, and now we hear there will be more Midnight Squad arcs too. Can you talk about where those are coming from as far as the overall story is concerned, and what you guys are hoping to get across for players on the mission content front? Matt Miller: Sure. On the overall story, we always had more story to tell in Issue 12, with both the Midnight Squad and with Cimerora. We just didn't have time to get it all in. When we hired on – we just hired on a couple of new mission writers, and we wanted to make sure that their training didn't go to waste. We wanted to make sure that they understood the systems they were going to be dealing with. And so we had a bunch of these leftover stories from Issue 12, and said 'Okay, let's get these in. Let's train you, and at the same time, get content in the game.' It's a win for us in training, and it's a win for the players in that they get some content. So that's basically what we did, and the story arcs are really fun. They give you more of the background to Cimerora, and more of the characters of the area, and more of the characters in the Midnight Squad, and more of the background on who they are. So it's a lot of cool stuff for the people who are really into the storylines. Continue to Part 3
David Reid sets the record straight on NC West: Part 3
Dungeon RunnersMassively: Now when you're talking about stepping more in the direction of the triple-A titles, that sort of implies that you're getting away from some of the smaller games that you guys have been working on in the past. We know that the Dungeon Runners team is experiencing some changes – can you talk specifically about that game, and what's going to be happening with those folks? David Reid: Even before the NC West announcement, the Dungeon Runners team went through some changes. You're probably referring to the announcement of the reduction we had of about 21 people, several weeks before the announcement of NC West, and Dungeon Runners was part of that. And that was about the fact that – yes, we like Dungeon Runners as a service, but there was a decision not to port that product on to other platforms but to keep the game intact as it is right now on the PC platform. There were a number of other projects that had not been announced that were part of that, and they too were what we'll call lighter and smaller MMO fare, rather than triple-A types of products. Beyond that, Dungeon Runners is as healthy as it's ever been, and is still a vibrant part of the NCsoft portfolio. It's just that it's a different sort of business, and one that is a very successful kind of business overall, it's just not where NCsoft is going to continue investing its product development publishing resources, going forward. Massively: So it would be fair to say that people who enjoy Dungeon Runners shouldn't expect it to go anywhere, but as far as a ton of new content in the future... that would probably not be the direction that the company would be going in for that product? David Reid: I'd clarify that answer just a bit. We were thinking seriously about 'should we bring Dungeon Runners to other, alternative platforms?' And that's what a large amount of that team was working on, and other parts of NCsoft. That decision has been: no, we're not going to. I wouldn't read into that anything about the amount of content that the Dungeon Runners team is going to be making on a regular basis. That will continue to go forward. Console PortsMassively: You mentioned porting to other platforms a couple of times now. We think it's a little more than a year ago at this point that you announced you had that agreement with Sony to think about doing some stuff for the PS3. We haven't really seen that so far. Is that part of this announcement, sort of refocusing NC West on getting some of Ncsoft's more stable games over to the Playstation 3? David Reid: Yeah... I can tell you that we do think console development is an incredibly important part of our future. We do think that, you know, you look at companies like... NCsoft today is a PC only company, and we've seen what's happened with some of these formerly PC only (or predominantly PC) companies who have successfully brought their properties to the console. As a gamer myself, I take a lot of inspiration from what the Tom Clancy series did for UbiSoft, or what Morrowind as a shifted Xbox and PC title did for Bethesda. And we believe that there is a transition like that that NCsoft can have, by taking some of its triple-A properties, and making a great triple-A MMO that works on the console. "As a gamer myself, I take a lot of inspiration from what the Tom Clancy series did for UbiSoft, or what Morrowind as a shifted Xbox and PC title did for Bethesda." So yeah, it is true. You can't do everything all the time, and at some level we recognise that the best prize for NCsoft to be focused on is the triple-A space, and that's on the PC platform and on the console platform. But beyond that, I don't have an announcement that I can make for you at this time! Massively: Not a problem. We just wanted to clarify, because it seems like a natural progression from where you guys are talking about with triple-A titles being your focus. David Reid: We passionately agree. Absolutely. Massively: We really appreciate you guys' time. We know that the readers have been... we guess the best word is confused, because as we said, it sort of came out of nowhere. And we're glad we had the chance to talk! David Reid: You bet! Well, at the end of the day, I hope that for folks who are fans of these giant triple-A games, these big investments in the MMO space with high production quality, there should be no confusion: this is good news for that game. We are going to get back to doing this all day, every day, in a world class way. The lighter side of the business, the free-to-plays and things like that, those are great businesses, but there will be other companies who will be delivering that form. It won't be NCsoft so much, going forward.Read what David Reid had to say on Tabula Rasa and Guild Wars.
David Reid sets the record straight on NC West: Part 2
Massively: Great. So it's actually more towards NC West as sort of a general umbrella under which these specific studios can have their own names, and really carve out their own places within the company? David Reid: Absolutely. Think about it this way: the reorganization and the establishment of NC West is more of an acknowledgement that we as a company can be doing better on the publishing side, in terms of taking these great products that these veteran leadership studios have been able to crank out, and turn them into much bigger phenomena. Right? I mean, we've had great success with City of Heroes, we've had great success with Guild Wars, but we think it can be bigger. What we're not doing is changing the studio organization, other than the studios all now report in to Jeff Strain, who has moved on from the day to day management of ArenaNet – Michael O'Brien is now the studio head there, and is leading the Guild Wars 2 team and other projects there – but Jeff serves as a manager across the studio organization. "... we've had great success with City of Heroes, we've had great success with Guild Wars, but we think it can be bigger." And in parallel, what I get to do for Jeff and those studios is make sure that we do the best we can to deliver triple-A world class launches across our Western territories, and make sure that the marketing, the sales, the customer support – all the elements that great developers look to great publishers to do – are being done here. There's going to be some common platforms and things on the technology side, and a common team that helps serve the business, but nothing really changes on the product development side. Massively: Okay. So you're saying nothing much is going to change on the product development side, but to that end it seems like as part of the NC West conglomeration, there are some folks moving around. There's a little more... we guess you could say refinement in what people are doing in a couple of these different studios. Could you talk generally about what we're seeing, as far as people moving on to new positions, people moving on from Austin to Seattle, those sorts of things? David Reid: I should say one thing: that the decision about moving out NC West in the way we're doing it is, while there's no real change happening at the studio level, there is this ratification of 'NCsoft is going to be in the triple-A MMO space day in and day out', right? We've done some interesting things and had some success with smaller titles, things like Dungeon Runners and Exteel are doing well for us, but the company by and large is the company that Lineage built, and this reorganization is a ratification of getting back to that business and going all-in on the Lineages, Guild Wars, Aions, City of Heroes, Tabula Rasas, Blade and Souls, those sorts of games are what NCsoft is going to be doing day in, day out here in the West. Now, there's a specific question you asked there about how does this impact certain people. We are planning to – we're in the process of now porting the internal people that we would like to relocate to Seattle, and have offered a healthy number of folks a relocation up to Seattle to be part of what is principally a publishing headquarters. And so that's where the bulk of the North American and global leadership for marketing, for sales, for PR, aspects like that, we're thinking will be headquartered in Seattle. Seattle for us was the logical place to go because of the relationship with Seoul, and Seattle just happens to be the place where you get the best number of non-stop flights to Seoul and to our West Coast studios, and to our UK office, out of Seattle versus any other city on the West Coast. And so we are also relocating what is now our Eastern games studio, the folks that are our North American and European producer team, for bringing games like Aion and Lineage and Blade and Soul into the Western market. Those folks are moving to Seattle, as well as the publishing headquarters. Continue to Part 3
David Reid sets the record straight on NC West
Nobody can have failed to notice the announcement of NC West, which broke recently amid rumors of staffing reshuffles in various NCsoft studios. Although some key concerns were addressed very swiftly, many of our readers had plenty of questions to ask, and so did we.David Reid, appointed President of Publishing, was kind enough to give up considerable time yesterday for an interview. We discussed Guild Wars and Tabula Rasa, but the main focus was on the NC West announcement.Massively: We really do appreciate you guys talking to us, because there are a lot of Massively readers who are concerned with this announcement. It was kind of sudden – the NCsoft West thing just kind of snuck up on them, and they're not entirely sure about what's going on. Although you guys have put out a couple of statements so far about it, I think people are still a little unclear on it. David Reid: That's exactly why we are keen to talk with you. Let us be clear about whatever questions your readers have, and set things straight on that. Massively: Great! As a broad question: NC West sounds like (to us, and we want to make sure we have this clear) a conglomeration of the game development assets for NCsoft in the US, into a smaller number of groups than it is right now. Is that the primary goal?
NCsoft 'very encouraged' by Guild Wars 2
Massively recently got to talk to David Reid, the newly appointed President of Publishing for NC West, about several key NCsoft matters. We took the opportunity to ask David about ArenaNet and Guild Wars, and in particular, what was happening with Guild Wars 2. Massively: Something we know the Guild Wars players are very interested in, is with Jeff Strain now moving into his new position within the company, what does that say for ArenaNet and Guild Wars 2, which is obviously a product that ArenaNet's been working on for some time? Guild Wars players are... well, they're dying for you to let them know what's going on with that game. Is this a good sign or a bad sign for the company, and what should this say to Guild Wars players who are looking forward to the sequel with more than bated breath? David Reid: First thing: I'd be remiss if I didn't acknowledge that we, too, have an enormous amount of enthusiasm for Guild Wars 2! And we're very encouraged by what we're seeing.
Tabula Rasa is triple-A and here to stay, says NC West President
Massively recently had the chance to speak with NC West's newly appointed President of Publishing, David Reid. The bulk of the interview concerned the formation of NC West and its implications for NCsoft as a whole, but David also took the time to answer our questions about several of NCsoft's existing triple-A titles, including Tabula Rasa. Massively: Obviously, Tabula Rasa is one of the triple-A titles NCsoft has in its stable. We hope you'll disagree, but we've heard again and again these rumors from players who are talking to people and from people within the industry, that people within the company are looking at Tabula Rasa to perform better than it has in the past, and that if it doesn't, then there might be consequences to that business reality. Can you clarify that for us, or expand upon that?
Austin 'critically important' to NCsoft, says David Reid
With the formation of NC West recently announced, industry professionals and interested gamers alike have been trading rumors concerning the NC Austin studio. Sanya Weathers has a lot to say on the subject, and DJ Jester of w00tradio.net devoted a large chunk of his recent podcast to the events and the gossip surrounding them.Now the President of Publishing for NC West, David Reid, has given an interview with Edge Online. Dismissing speculation as erroneous, he states that 'Austin continues to be a critically important space for NCsoft. The Tabula Rasa team is still there, along with customer service and QA.'
Dungeon Runners is safe, says NCsoft
Despite earlier reports that NCsoft's Dungeon Runners was on its way out, in line with the company's recent plans to concentrate on larger triple-A MMO titles, we now hear that the free-to-play cult favorite is not going anywhere just yet. David Reid, NCsoft's VP of Marketing explained that the company will continue to focus on the larger titles, but Dungeon Runners is indeed safe. He does point out though that it's unlikely that the smaller titles will receive the same support and attention they've always had.Plus, as is the case with so many other MMO publishers and developers these days, NCsoft is expected to pursue its relationship with Sony to bring MMOs to the PS3. "We have a good relationship with Sony and we're excited about it, but there are a lot of good platforms out there," Reid explained.
NCsoft creates NC West, confirms UK layoffs
NCsoft is doing some massive consolidation and bringing NC Interactive, NC Europe, NC Austin and ArenaNet under one umbrella: NC West. The publisher will focus on becoming the "world's premier western publisher of MMOs" ... we're sure Blizzard is shaking. By year's end, NC West's headquarters will be established in Seattle.The company also confirmed rumors that 58 positions at the company's UK office, most of which were in product development, are "potentially redundant." Joystiq's Corp-speak Translator®: They is fired.
NCsoft announces formation of NC West
Update: 'Minor reductions' have been reported at NC Austin: Tabula Rasa is once again confirmed as secure.Update 2: David Reid has told Kotaku.com that NCsoft will now be focusing on triple-A MMO titles, and moving away from lighter ones. Creating several online games for PS3 with Sony will also be important.In the midst of intense speculation and rumor, NCsoft today announced that it will be merging several subsidiaries under a unified banner, with a headquarters to be sited in Seattle. According to the press release, 'NCsoft's existing subsidiaries NC Interactive, NC Europe, NC Austin, and ArenaNet will be led as a unified organization under NC West with a dedicated focus towards becoming the world's premier western publisher of MMOs.' This throws new light on reports of job losses at NC Europe, and indeed gives a greater clarity to the recent events at NC Austin. The job losses at NC Europe are not yet tallied, with reports varying from 50 to 70 employees, but we can confirm, with great personal sadness, that Stephen 'Rockjaw' Reid is one of those affected. Rockjaw was the Creative Concepts manager at NC Europe, well regarded by the community, and the driving force behind many successful events, not to mention putting in sterling work for Draw the World Together.
