Interview Transcript:

Jack Emmert (lead designer): My personal inspirations have been George Perez and Marv Wolfman's New Teen Titans, and John Byrne and Chris Clairemont's Uncanny X-Men. I think that these comics were the first to take into consideration the adult reader. Instead of being perfect, heroes were portrayed as regular, normal people with abnormal powers.

• We've heard that there will be a monthly comic which will follow the development of the story in Paragon City and will even ultimately feature player's heroes. This sounds like an exciting prospect. Does the presence of a monthly story mean there will there be dynamic monthly epic events which players can participate in, or will this story be predetermined and beyond player influence? If there are events, will villains be developer-controlled?

Sean Michael Fish (designer): Since the roots of City of Heroes lie firmly in comic book soil, we are very excited about this comic that will contribute to the story of our game. The intent is that events in the comic will flow directly from events that occur in the game. You will see non-player characters, villains and eventually characters that the players create represented in the comic.

There is the possibility that there will be events using developer-controlled villains and if there are, it will certainly be up to the players to influence the outcome!

• Will we see a discernable comic style to the in-game atmosphere, with dialogue appearing in speech bubbles etc..., or will it be a "standard" 3D engine style? Did any specific comic artists styles in influence the development of CoH's graphics, character models and environments?

Michael Lewis (CEO, Cryptic): You will definitely see a game with comic styling. For instance, when you chat, it does appear both in a chat window and in a speech bubble. Players can turn off the speech bubble, but that is an option.

Jack Emmert: The visual feel of the game is drawn from several sources, including comic books. We all agreed that our heroes and villains should be modern – resembling those that you might encounter in today's comics rather than ones you'd see in the '40s or '60s.

Gameplay Features...
• We've heard that there are many 'contacts' in the game who players will receive their missions from. Do these contacts have their own agendas? Will they all be honourable and good or might they hold surprises for players?

Jack Emmert: Contacts are people in the city that a player will get to know in the course of their adventures. Each contact has his/her own unique background which involves one of the villain groups active in Paragon City. As the player gets to know the Contact better, he slowly learns more about this villain group through his involvement with the Contact. In return, the Contact will offer a player “items” that he/she has access to. Contacts are all good guys for the moment, but the surprises come as the player starts learning about the mysteries of various supervillains.

• Since combat is so important will it be predictable? Will players be able, or need to, employ different tactics and attacks for different foes? Some MMOG combat is awful because you almost certainly know before engaging a foe whether you will win or not and almost any attack type will be effective. Others have proven to have much greater lasting appeal because you can win a combat with skilled play which encourages characters to carefully balance and replenish their attributes and/or employ the correct type of attack.

Jack Emmert: Each villain group comes with its own panoply of powers that will necessitate different tactics. For instance, the hi-tech mercenary group Sky Raiders utilizes a portable force field generator. The minions occupy the players while one of them tries to set it up. The heroes must either choose whether to take out the immediate threat of the shooting Sky Raiders or stop the mechanic from erecting a force field generator which will make the Sky Raiders that much tougher to bring down.

In addition, some villain groups possess unique AI. The mystical Tsoo utilize hit and run tactics. They leap into combat, then leap out—while their sorcerous leaders stay well out of the fray.

Lastly, some villains have weaknesses to certain powers, and resistances to others. Players will find that they’ll need a flame-wielding partner to go up against a certain group, but an ice-caster against another.

• Superheroes are typically interesting because of the contrast between their powers and their human weaknesses. Will there be any effort to develop character's personalities and their social allegiances on top of their attributes as part of their character progression? Will there be decisions for them to make which will influence their social position? Will missions present players with choices which may restrict their access to powers/rewards/groups with particular moral restrictions? Or will missions only have success/failure as possible outcomes?

Sean Michael Fish: From the start of the game, the player’s first content options will be determined by their Origin. The different origin types will be set against different villain groups by their contacts. As the players progress through the game they will build up a relationship with their contacts. As that relationship improves the player will receive benefits from those contacts. These will include introductions to new contacts, some of which allow the player access to different storylines. In the end, the only possible outcome for an individual task is success or failure.

• CoH is entirely combat based. With no items, no tradeskills, no player-crafting of items and no housing, will this seem like a lack of depth to players from other MMOGs?

Michael: We’ve left out anything that we consider “boring” in a game. So yes, there are no “trade skills” as such, but there are plenty of complexities within interactions that don’t require a player to spend hours doing repetitious tasks with no excitement, danger, or challenge. For example, you may have a Contact that is a source of certain types of Enhancements. This makes you a resource for your team or Supergroup, and you, in turn, may need to rely on your teammates for certain hard-to-find Enhancements yourself.

• Some of the content is aimed at groups being able to complete missions which might require several group members. Since players invariably live in different places and have different demands on their everyday lives, is it possible for players to come and go from a group? Can these missions be completed with a reduced group, or resumed later, if players need to leave?

Michael: We try to provide content for everyone, but that’s not the same as everyone will be able to do all the content. The game is very large… not everyone (probably no one) will be able to do everything in the game. As long as you are having fun, why worry that you aren’t a “power gamer” that can play 60 hours a week? If you want to be that person, do it.

• At the moment death penalties are just a small XP deficit which can be worked off. What is the reaction to this in the beta? With no risk and little fear of defeat play-styles are usually affected considerably because there's nothing at stake. Comics are filled with characters who suffer a defeat and then struggle to deal with it in order to rise to their former glory. Will the penalty be sufficient to reflect this, or is it simplistic in order to keep an arcadey feel to the gamplay mechanic?

Michael: Games are about having fun… not about simulating “real life.” (Even sim games are highly simplified models designed to be entertaining.) So being beat-down by a villain might have dramatic consequences in a story—and if that story is about you, you’d be pretty upset. The only real reason to have a “defeat penalty” is to prevent exploits. So we made ours just enough to discourage exploiting certain kinds of (not fun, in our opinion) behavior.

UK and Subscription Related...
• Do you have any idea when the game is likely to make it to UK shores officially?

NCsoft does not have plans to release the game in Europe in the near future.

• What will happen with the story arc when the game arrives in the UK? Will it start again here or will it pick up where the US version is?

Once we know about the plans to expand into Europe, we’ll decide how best to introduce the game to the UK.

• Will there be an official option for non-US players to subscribe on the US servers for an extra charge to cover the monthly cost of the comic postage?

At this point that’s not possible, but we are thinking about other ways we can accommodate our European customers with regards to the comic prior to launching service officially in Europe.

• Will there be an option to subscribe to the game and download it over the Internet, or will it only be available in stores and from e-tailers?

The game will be available only through stores and online retailers.

Technical Issues...
• Superheroes adapt and improvise—something which is difficult in a game. Does the game engine cater for this in any way? Will players be able to use the environment to their advantage (acrobatics/cover/destruction)?

Michael: Characters are continuously evolving, from learning new powers to tweaking the way those powers work for them. And even in the heat of combat, a character can resort to Inspirations which can turn the tide of a difficult battle.

Line of sight and distance are important parts of combat. I’ve often used the “run-away around a corner and cold-cock them when the come around after me” trick. There are plenty more examples of using terrain to your advantage, especially when you have flight, leaping, or teleporting abilities.

• Will it be possible for players to run 'macros' which play the game automatically and give them an advantage over regular players? Is there an enforceable, official stance on 3rd party programs and macros?

Michael: Most players find that robots and macros cheapen the gaming experience, and we’ve done what we can to reduce the utility and possibility of using these tricks. City of Heroes is a service, so of course the End User License Agreement (EULA) covers what people can and cannot do with the servers.

• Will the game be Windows only or will there be Linux/Mac/console versions?

Michael: Windows only.