Zwillinger

My name is Andy Belford, aka Zwillinger, and I'm your new Community Manager here at Paragon.

As a gamer, and a Community Manager I have a significant amount of experience with PvP Communities. As a Community Team we recognize that the PvP community in CoH is challenged and has a desire to know where PvP stands on the priority list for the development team.

In reading the forums here, I understand that there are many concerns and wishes regarding PvP. When speaking to the development team as a representative of Community interests, we convey these concerns, we express the frustrations and we make sure that the devs understand what it is you want out of your PvP experience. When speaking to the Community as representatives of the Development team, we convey that we have an understanding of player sentiment and what direction the development of PvP is heading.

The current development status of PvP, as the Community knows, isn't very active. For an extended period of time, development resources have been focused on improving and expanding upon other aspects of gameplay within CoH. With the introduction of Issue 20 and our continued focus on the PVE endgame, this will likely remain the case for the immediate future.

It would be easy to become disillusioned at the above statement. It would be easy to believe that the developers don't care about PvP in CoH. This couldn't be further from the truth. The spirit of competition is alive and well within us all and we embrace the fact that it's an important part of the game

So where can we start?

I’m not here to rehash the existing bugs and problems; those are already well documented in the threads stickied here in the forums. Your grievances and issues with the current state of PvP in CoH are very clearly and concisely presented, and for that, the Community team thanks you. These tools make it much easier for us to present your case to the developers.

What I would instead like to talk to you about and get your feedback regarding it something that’s very important when it comes to Player vs. Player interaction: What are the best PvP experiences you’ve had, be it in CoH or any other game. We’re not talking about balance wise or delivery wise, but when you get down to it, what are the visceral and exciting PvP encounters that have left your heart pounding and your hands shaking? What is it about these experiences that made them so exhilarating and compel you to go out there looking for it again and again..?

You guys start, and after I’ve had some time to think about it, I’ll chime in and offer my two cents.

Talk with me; have an open, honest and constructive discourse with me. I'll continue dialog with all of you as long as you're willing . I can't promise to fix everything, but I can listen and convey, and hopefully help to focus us as a Community.

I'll check in on this thread periodically over the weekend as I can. Just so you know, I'm still mid relocating my family from the East Coast to the West, so weekends are difficult right now.

-Z

We can all be casual or hardcore at any given time. In my humble opinion, it's more of a state of mind than anything.

Prior to my kids, I was pretty hardcore, often logging 25+ hours in a week. Life happened, kids change things and my gaming habits changed. While I still consider myself of a "Hardcore" mentality when I'm gaming (when I have my CM hat on, it's completely different ), I definitely don't have the time to put in the Hardcore hours.

I still make a point to play the game, many games actually, and those rare occasions that I can get more than a few hours per sitting are pure bliss. That being said, I still look at things "with my gamer hat on" from a fairly hardcore viewpoint.

• Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya...
• So I have this idea...hear me out...World of...Lady GAGA...Online.

It's been a quiet week here in Lake Woebe...

Oh wait.

Hope everyone had a great week! It's been a busy one here at Paragon Studios, our secret lair located miles below the surface of the earth. Here's a quick run down of what we've been doing and what we're working on...

• This week was a busy one for CoH in the gaming internet press, with several feature pieces in Massively, ZAM and PC Gamer!
• Last week we hosted the in game give away of the Animal Pack across all servers!
• Of course we launched said Animal Pack this last Wednesday!
• We'll be hosting some more Developer Lead Sneak Peek events next week! Stay tuned to the forums for more news coming your way courtesy of Avatea!
• Thar be ponies on that Facebook later today! (Don't ask...Beastyle is a unique individual!)

Next week promises to be just as busy and hectic around the office, with GDC right in our back yard!

We've also got some great new information about Issue 20 coming your way early next week...whatever could it be? Stay tuned for the Intrepid Informer to find out!

I hope everyone has an amazing weekend both in game and out! I'll be unpacking and moving things into the new house, so my checkins will be sporadic, but I'll be stopping by!

Also...mmmm Enriche.

O.O

I've actually been surprised, as a returning player and working my way through the new GR content I've managed to get a few really cool names like [CENSORED] and [BLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP], which I thought would have been taken for sure.

First off,

This is a great conversation. The Lore/Stories are an important and vital part of CoH and a huge reason that many are so invested.

So in reading this I'm seeing requests for continuation of the story of Malta and the Shadow Shard story lines.

What other stories do you feel need to be further explored?

Loving the pics folks! Keep them coming!

Everyone's going bananas over the new Animal Pack which is winging it's way to the NC Soft Store today!

Here's your opportunity to show everyone your fang-tastic and furry-ous (yeah, that one's a bit of a stretch) new animal costume designs! Post your screenshots here in all your spotted, stripped or horned glory!

(I promise, only a few more days of these terrible puns)

Hey all,

I know many of you are avidly mashing F5 right now waiting for the store to come back up (that's the button what makes your Google machine reload itself). As an FYI, this morning's PlayNC maintenance was actually just maintenance to implement some back end "stuff". The fact that it coincided with Animal Pack Day (I'm thinking national holiday here...) was simply coincidental.

We'll be putting up and official announcement later today and also be starting a thread for everyone to show off their new animal-istic costume creations!

Thanks everyone!

Alright meow...these puns are hare-iffic.

Let's keep the conversation constructive please .

Something to keep in mind when reading articles such as this. Yea though we link to it in the forums and on Facebook, the target audience for "gaming media articles" isn't always the active Community. Media outlets such as ZAM!, MMORPG.com or Massively give us a platform to reach a much broader range of readers who might be lapsed/former players of CoH or have never even picked up the game before.

Because we value direct and candid conversation with our active Community, we utilize venues such as the Producers Letter and direct communication through the forums to give the level of detail that the Community at large generally desires.

All that being said, we are certainly taking note of your concerns regarding the tone and content of this interview and will convey this feedback to Nate and "Slightly-Evil" Marketing (aka: Black Pebble).

Thanks!

- Z

Recently the kind folks over at ZAM! sat down with Nate "Second Measure" Birkholz to talk about the day to production of City of Heroes and what's coming up in Issue 20.

Be sure to check it out here!

Join in the discussion here!

Recently the kind folks over at ZAM! sat down with Nate "Second Measure" Birkholz to talk about the day to production of City of Heroes and what's coming up in Issue 20.

Be sure to check it out here!

Hey all,

First off, I want to start by thanking everyone for coming out to the event yesterday. Your support for these in game shin-digs help make them a fun and exciting time for everyone who participates, us included.

So in reading this, it appears that some folks didn't have as positive of an experience as others did. Regardless of the reason for this, I sincerely apologize if anything we did caused you to not enjoy yourself. The purpose of these events is to bring the Community together and for everyone to enjoy themselves, and when a good time isn't the result, it's not a good thing. So, my apologies.

To give you some insight as to why things happened the way they did: Unfortunately we had some last minute forum maintenance that sprang up late afternoon on Friday. This maintenance was absolutely necessary as it was part of a software upgrade applied organization wide. The timing of this sadly coincided with the Live Events happening on the North American servers, which resulted in us having to divide our resources between managing the Live Event and the forum maintenance. We definitely tried our best to provide the same experience to everyone who participated, unfortunately it seems as if some folks were left feeling unattended to. Again, this is something we sincerely apologize for.

Moving forward, we will be certain to request additional codes (or whatever prize or giveaway item it may be) to account for more people than expected, and we'll make an effort at least touch (no not that kind of touch...I'm looking at you Virtue) everyone we possibly can, even if that just means popping in and waving "hello".

Again, I just want to thank you all for your continuing to come out and party with us at these in game events, both on the Live Servers and the Test Servers. Your enthusiasm continues to make CoH the place to be!

- Z