Zwillinger

I'm going to say something which some of you may find unpopular, but there are times where it is my responsibility to stand up and be an advocate for our team. I apologize if my words cause you to be upset, but it is the right thing to say.

When you say we do not listen to feedback, it is disingenuous. You can accuse us of many things, but accusing this team, the team now, the developers who have been working on this game for over a year, of not taking player concerns into account it is something that is, quite frankly, hurtful.

For example, let's look at the Super Packs. Based on feedback we have implemented the following:

• ATO's available through in game means
• Enhancement Catalysts in game drops
• Price points for the packs set based on early feedback
• Offering discounts when purchasing in bulk based on early feedback both on the forums and at the Player Summit.
• Improvements made to the Inspirations found in the packs, over doubling their duration in some cases and making them persist through death (this change was done based on feedback that these items weren't originally very desirable, especially when found in Super Packs).
• Increased the rate at which costume pieces are discovered in packs
• Usability improvements based on feedback on the beta user start to finish experience.
• We're not launching with an alternate option to acquiring the costume pieces, but it is still something we're open to later on down the road.

What you say is important to us. We listen to it, we consider it. Sometimes we don't always agree with it, and sometimes you're not going to agree with what we decide, and that's just how it works out sometimes. I can point at all sorts of examples where we have made adjustments or changed our initial design based on Community feedback (costumes, Incarnate Trials, Powers designs, etc, etc...) and I know you can point to all sorts of instances where we haven't heeded or listened to expressed feedback. It's a give and take and there will always be compromise.

I love you guys. I will walk through the fire for my Community and I will always, no matter what, represent your interests, regardless of my personal opinion. I have worked with developers who completely disregard player feedback, and I promise you, the Paragon Studios development team is not among them.

-Z

Planning is underway for the next Freedom Player Summit, and we're ready to share the date with everyone! Mark your calenders for Saturday, April 28th 2012. We'll be hosting the second ever Freedom Player Summit (I will not call it the Pummit) here in the San Francisco Bay Area that weekend, so start your planning now.

We'll be changing a few things up this next time around, including switching to a single panel track and increasing the amount of interactive panels. That means we'll see the return of the "Build a Costume Set Workshop" in addition to some new and exciting player participation panels. We're still working on the planning for the event, so more details will be revealed in the coming weeks including venue (most likely the same venue as the last FPS), group rates, ticket pricing, and panel schedule!

We can't think of a better way to celebrate the 8th anniversary of City of Heroes than by spending the weekend with our Community. We look forward to seeing you all there!

For the record, that someone who suggested that we kill off Statesman?

Black Pebble

Evil Marketing indeed.

Planning is underway for the next Freedom Player Summit, and we're ready to share the date with everyone! Mark your calenders for Saturday, April 28th 2012. We'll be hosting the second ever Freedom Player Summit (I will not call it the Pummit) here in the San Francisco Bay Area that weekend, so start your planning now.

We'll be changing a few things up this next time around, including switching to a single panel track and increasing the amount of interactive panels. That means we'll see the return of the "Build a Costume Set Workshop" in addition to some new and exciting player participation panels. We're still working on the planning for the event, so more details will be revealed in the coming weeks including venue (most likely the same venue as the last FPS), group rates, ticket pricing, and panel schedule!

We can't think of a better way to celebrate the 8th anniversary of City of Heroes than by spending the weekend with our Community. We look forward to seeing you all there!

Join the Community Discussion!

Locking the thread since David is refocusing it.

To continue the discussion, please read this thread!

Thanks!

-Z

This should answer any questions you may have.

To repeat what I said in another thread: Beast Mastery is still early in development and should be taken as such. In other words, not yet ready for primetime.

The set is expected to launch within the Issue 22 timeframe, not neccessarily with the launch of Issue 22.

Also, no we won't add ferrets, so stop typing it now...Yes you, I'm looking at you.

First: omgcrotchgun.

Second: As a heads up, while Imperial Dynasty is certainly inspired by the Chinese New Year, it will not be available by January 23rd, which is the start of the Chinese New Year (the earliest possible date it could be held actually). As much as we wanted to celebrate the arrival of the year of the Dragon with the costume set, our production schedule didn't quite line up with it.

That being said, you should be able to check it out on Beta Very Soon™.

-Z

So as I said last week, I've been pretty heads down on documentation and prep for the next 12 months. We've got some exciting news to talk about in the coming weeks, including information about the next Freedom Player Summit, and tomorrow's Ustream Coffee Talk is no exception: We'll be debuting two, count em two, upcoming costume sets. David "Noble Savage" Nakayama will be stopping by to discuss these new sets and I'll try not to tangent too much. People say I tangent to much, but it's like that one time I went to the grocery store to get some bread. By the way, I had a great sandwich for lunch today. Oh look, there's a rock.

If you've never tuned into our Coffee Talks, you can check out our Ustream channel and "Join the Crowd"! If you want to participate in the chat, be sure to sign up for a Ustream account! We broadcast every Wed from 10:30 AM Pacific until 11:30 AM (ish).

See you there!

Good thing I washed it several times before sending it!

We (Paragon) are not working on Blade and Soul.

As far as the subject matter of the Coffee Talks goes: We'll try, every week, to cover something that talks about City of Heroes; whether it be news about the game itself, getting to know a new member of the Paragon team, covering community events or whatever, we'll have something (This week was getting to know Rob, our new Lead Engineer).

The important part of these chats isn't always going to be the subject matter. Let's set some expectations; we're not always going to rock your sock with new and amazing material. That's not the point of it. The purpose of Ustream is to provide a regular and consistent personal interaction with you, the Community in a venue other than the forums. Sometimes we're going to talk about random stuff, and sometimes it's going to be fairly structured.

And sometimes Tunnel Rat will say things she shouldn't.

All in all, we love doing Ustream. We love the interaction and we really enjoy that we get to dedicate a portion of our week to spending with our players in this format. I plan on continuing to host Ustream for the foreseeable future, and we're exploring new opportunities utilizing outlets such as Facebook, Twitter and starting this year, Google+. G+ Hangouts have some interesting applications and I'm playing around with how we can use them to create a cool, intimate connection between the Paragon team and you.

Hey guys,

We're back in the studio and working hard (I promise!). That being said, things may be quiet for the first week or so as we're getting back in the groove of things. Don't worry, we're not sleeping, we're just buried in documentation! (12 month Community plan won't write itself...no matter how hard I will it to)

Aside from that, hope everyone had a great holiday, got everything they asked for, ate lots of good food and broke at least 1 of there resolutions by now. As for me, we bought tons of Legos, you know, for the kids, and we spent tons of time putting them all together...you know...for the kids.

Their birthday is coming up and something tells me they'll be getting that giant Lego train and City set...

What?



-Z