Ask A Dev Question Thread #1 Featuring Manticore
By
13th_Stranger,
Posted on: 2005-08-05 08:35 in Developers' Corner
1) Have you ever wanted to write darker stories for COH, like Frank Miller type stuff? Obviously the CoV stories will be a touch more grim and gritty, but what about CoH?
2) Could you go into more detail about how you thought up some of the stories for the game (i.e. Superadine/Smuggler's Run)? And what was your inspiration (friends/fans/folklore)?
3) What's your favorite AT/powerset to play and why?
We have seen some screens from IGN from CoV featuring prison tile sets.
Q: Is there any plans to make a TF (issue 6-7) based off of the prison (Zig I think it's called) in Brickstown?
Thanks
"if I am guilty for what goes on in my mind, than give me the electric chair for all my future crimes"
Developer Manticore, my question is this.
Have you considered devoloping a story line in which we as the new guys get to run around with you?
Generaly speaking, Statesman is a nice mascot and all but I would rather like to run a mission or two with Manticore around to show my newbie heros the ropes. Manticore already gives a taskforce but seriously, I still want to see em in action.
Manticore,
One of my all time favorite mission texts comes from an alternate dimension mission filled with ghosts, usually on the destroyed city/waterworld map. The text ends up with you being the ultimate evil that killed all these people, thus why they attack you on sight. Will it ever be possible to script an event to face your evil self?
Thanks!
Night N'Gale - Emp/Dark | Kalashnikitty - AR/DEV
Hands of Mu - MA/Regen | PhiloBeddoe - Inv/EM
The Cake Is A Lie!
A view from the mushroom.
Didn't read them all, so these may be repeats:
1) Are there any plans to implement more live events, run by a Live Events Team, ala Matrix Online?
2) What plans are there for getting the playerbase more involved in the storyline?
3) Are there story events planned that do not involve killing a giant monster over and over again?
4) What comic book-story element do you think this game is still missing?
5) I was dissappointed that the Arenas didn't come with a story line. Will some be added later?
And finally......
6) There was a suggestion on the boards for the developers to hold a story arc/tf/mission writing contest. Is that something that could happen?
I have found the story in CoH very interesting and engaging, and I really enjoy uncovering more of it the more I play the game. However, I read a lot for school, and my job, and my personal reading list is backed up like crazy, so I don't see myself sitting down to read a CoH novel for a long time, if ever. Are story elements in the novel(s) going to be found only there? If I don't read them and play only the game (and read the boards some), am I missing out on important story pieces?
I suppose I'd level a related question about people who don't get the monthly comic. How important is the story on paper to the story in the game? How imporant is it going to be in the future?
My question is:
When will the playerbase actually care about some of the things the villains are saying or the message upon entering? I always tend to ignore it because it has nothing to do with finding the hostages or anything.
Will it ever be possible that random heroes could be placed into a story arc?
For example, say, someone starts a story arc that leads to the rescue of an existing player superhero, not the actual player but a copy of them, powerless and captured by a random faction.
Let's say my hero, Ace Kasbo, completes a story arc that deals with Crey (or other faction) trying to get a DNA sample to make a clone of him. Once completed, the look he had at the time is saved and used to affect another player's story arc. The other player ( at random ) now has a Crey ( or other faction ) story arc that leads them to free ( or destroy ) the clone.
Hopefully this makes some sense, I'm still a little drunk from last night hehe 
Dragon Wraith lvl 50 DM/Reg/DM Scrapper
Mud Lark lvl 50 SA/SS/EM Tanker
Galaxy Archon Athena lvl 50 Tri-Form PB
Miss Victory lvl 50 MA/inv/BM Scrapper
US Thunder lvl 50 Elec/Elec/Elec Blaster
First, I know this isn't a question but let me just say I've been going through the Kheldian Story arcs and I must say, very well done, very interesting. Good story arcs that are short but not too short and are fun to do, very nice job.
1.) You speak of this rivalry that the gangs have but yet many of the story arcs only seem to brush against those rivalries, will we see a greater story/trial that goes more in depth as to how these gangs tie together?
2.) In the Tsoo story arcs, their leader(sorry I can't remember his name offhand) is mentioned but yet we never see him. Will we ever see him as a boss or an AV in any story arcs?
3.) And just one more quick one, which trial/taskforce is your personal favorite? Is it your own? 
My question for Manticore is this.
How does the team decide on names for characters/races/items/groups/zones in the game?
For example, things like Kheldian isn't just something you can pluck of out of the air from existing fiction. Does the team have a brainstorming sessions where they throw out ideas or do they just go down a sheet with sylables until something sounds good. Clearly Coralax is a sea themed name. So did you just have a list like.
Coral -ax
Coral -or
Coral -en
Coral -at
...and see what sounded good?
(edit) Two more questions, inreguards to continuity this time.
This story bible you are working from which outlines the overarching storyline.
How far ahead does it detail things? Are you looking at it all being played out over 2-3 years of the game's existance or does is simply cover the next 12 months of development with it being continually updated?
Next.. the 5th Column. My question is as follows.
A great deal of controversy surrounds the take over of the 5th Column by the Counsil. Many people claim its tied to development issues rather than something that was planned as part of the storyline. The devs have said it was planned however I have two questions which are genuine concerns in reguards to the continuity and raise suspicion.
Why was the Nazi/5th Column Dimention where the Axis won WWII mission (in the Portal Corp story arcs) changed into a Counsil controlled world? Surely there was no need to remove and rework that mission at all since it had no bearing on the take over of the 5th Column at all. Additionaly, why have almost all references to the 5th Column removed from the game and replaced with things like 'Requiem's old organisation'? Or the fact that the Atlas Statue no longer lists the attack on Independance Port being staged by the 5th Column? Its been changed to simply being a generic Axis army.
Will any more wars (ala the council v 5th column war) be included in the game?? (it was so fun)
Will there be any lvl 50 only zone's (of course with specific villains, missions, TF's and other various content for lvl 50 characters) with rewards suitable to lvl 50 characters?
Will events from CoV ever bleed over into CoH (an invasion in CoH or earthquake or rivalry) or vise versa?
Will any important figures from outside of paragon ever make an appearance or more importantly have an impact on gameplay (such as the "president" or other political figure or sports "Hero")?
Will events in real life (landing a spacecraft on a comet) ever have an impact on the game?
Will the 5th column ever return?
Will Statesman and "the gang" ever become contact-ish, a hero only being able to contact them near the end of a TF or some such thing?
Will other heroes ever need an escourt out of a mission (in the escourt missions)?
Will Statesman and the crew have their own base of operations and will we get to tour it?
Will an underwater zone ever be included? (in a dome of course)
Will any other mini games ever be introduced into the storyarcs? (the only one I can think of now is the firefighter mini game-ish content)
Will there ever be Power Set or at least AT specific story arcs?
Thanks for the look and thanks for all the hard work on the game.
Will the Arena ever include PvE type content (see how many bosses you can take down in a given time or see which team can kill an AV quicker, or with the least deaths, or races through complicated courses, could also be team races or at least a training mode so that one could practice their skills or test a build)?
Will any of the Zones get updated in the future (will the Rikti crash site or some other such Zone be renovated)
Any plans to have a TF story arc where the heroes end up splitting up because of different goals all towards the same end? Or a regular story arc where you have to team up with similar results?
-end rant
Three questions from me:
1. Will player heroes with particularly good origin stories ever get a mention in the game? The stories for my characters revolve heavily around the story of the game, without being so stand-out as to shoehorn themselves in. For example, my magic hero used to work for the Circle of Thorns, but didn't know about the human sacrifices until early-on during the ritual that the Dream Doctor stopped in the timeline. My hero turned himself in, but was trained by Ajax instead, to help combat evil. So, will things like that ever get integrated into the story, or will we just have to pretend that all these things happened?
2. Will heroes, at level 50, get to talk to a GM to create a personalized mission or something? It would certainly make the end-game content better.
3. I remember seeing a plaque in Boomtown mentioning that there was a superadine lab that the Freedom Phalanx shut down, and swore a vow of secrecy over what they saw. Will there ever be any in-game content that shows us what they saw? If you say that we'll find out more about it in, "The Web of Arachnos," I'm going to take your quote out of my sig.
[B]The Once and Future Official Minister of Awesome[/B]
[I]And don't you forget it.[/I]
[URL="http://paragonunleashed.proboards.com/index.cgi"][IMG]http://gamefacelive.com/bre/joker.png[/IMG][/URL]
Already been asked a lot, but I'll pee into the wind by repeating it;
Will we see options other than Hamidon for high-level content? Ideally, IMO, there should be one for each Origin type, and even more ideally, different tactics / team compositions / strengths should be required for each one.
Not just other raids, but also other systems of reward, such as custom HO's, new auras, costume options and badges, temporary powers (jetpacks, medkits, one-shot gizmos that allow one to teleport to the nearest hospital without dying, etc), and so forth?
1) Perhaps an enormous kraken / sea-serpent as part of a Coralax-unlocking epid raid, with a horde of aquatic humanoid 'minions' that have to be held back while the level 50's tackle the beast itself.
Those who complete the raid can create a Coralax character, or perhaps gain access to new powersets, such as Water Control or Ice Melee / Ice Armor for Scrapper characters or just a new Inherent power that allows super-swimming, to better explore the new Coralax specific undersea zone?
2) Or the Rikti mothership could stagger into the air, surrounded by dozens of smaller flying Rikti attack sleds, and a few smaller assault craft that attempt to protect it while it makes it to space, forcing the heroes to divide into teams, some tackling the smaller craft and sky-sleds while other teams assault the ship itself, taking out weapons, etc. as individual mobs until they can land on the ship itself and zone into a final conflict with the crew inside the ship itself, running through and disabling as many integral ship's systems (reactors, shield control, warp drive, communications) as possible, while fighting off waves of Rikti crew.
If they fail, they are emergency beamed out of the ship as it leaves the atmosphere, if they succeed, they are beamed out as it crashes back into it's crater, unable to leave orbit and temporarily defunct.
Survivors could be mutated by the warp reactor, not just being able to respec, but perhaps being allowed a /Secondary respec, allowing them reselect their Secondary powerset (but not their Primary, and certainly not their AT).
Alternately, they might automatically gain an Accolade power, something unique and perhaps even AT-specific, like a Radiaoactive Field that acts as a weak damage shield for a Tanker or Scrapper, or increases the effects of secondary effects / status attacks for Defenders / Controllers / Blasters.
3) An enormous Magmite could dwell at the center of a volcano (perhaps the one in Striga?), and torrents of lava force the teams to travel up each pathway seperately, clearing all of the four to six entrance points of Magmites and CoT (who are sacrificing in an attempt to summon the spirit of the volcano, so they can steal his power) before they re-unite at the central caldera for the final battle with the creature itself. If they fail, not only do they wake up at the hospital, but the volcano erupts and that zone is not available for a set period of time.
After the volcano-spirit is felled, the eruption subsides and all present for the mission are rewarded by a spirit of land and sky, who can take any two SO's handed to her and merge them into a custom HO that must be slotted before the possesser leaves the zone, or it is lost (so no making them for friends who aren't high enough to enter the zone!).
I suppose my question(s) is quite simple, but at the same time important and involved. Being you are so deeply invloved in the content, What is your influence on the game "Balance"?
As head of story writing for most of the game it seems, Are you able to influence the actual code writers and developers into pushing and improving the technology to allow for more interesting and interactive missions? Even with the new map tilesets and good content story-wise, the missions themselves are lacking and repetative... Obviously the story content is exceptionally important, are any of your writings able to "push" the way missions are run?
I hope those questions made sense for you.
Cheers!
Manticore,
1) Out of all the villian groups you've created, why was the Devouring Earth chosen to be the strongest one currently? They are more annoying than frightening, and the Hamidon is definitely not the most interesting bad "guy" in the game.
My question:
Why are some AT's so much weaker than other AT's?
IE..Super-reflex is MUCH much weaker in defense than Regen or any other defensive power..which leaves no incentive to use super-reflex.
Manticore,
With all the Souveniers we collect and the future SG bases, would it be possible to have a "trophy" room? The room could be built by "themes" for each of the ATs and Origins. badges, accolades could also be placed here.
Great Job so far!
ArchRex Dojhrom x ?
* Sidus Loricatus: B-NRG2, S-BS/Reg, T-Fire/Ice, MM-Bots/FF, St-NRG2, Dom-Psi/NRG, Cor-Son/Traps, Cor-Ice/Kin, Ctrl-Fire/Kin, PB-LB/LA
* Arachnos Loricatus: Soldier, Widow
* Praetoria Loricatus: B-DP/Dev, Cor-Elec/Elec
Manticore
Where do you see the storyline for CoH/CoV in exactly one year from now (as in # new villain groups, new zones, PCs affecting gameplay, etc.)
Thanks!
~ Kraze
My question:
Was there ever a time or an instance where you felt that the story you wanted to tell was being held back by the current technical limitations of COH?
Hey Maniticore. You have done a fantastic job thus far. You, Posi, and States are my favorite developers period.
Here's my question: Can I have your job?
The Freakshow have a thing for lopping off various limbs and replacing them with huge metal implements of death. Which makes me wonder: what happens to the meat arms they removed? Or, in the case of Freak Tanks, what happened to the rest of their body below the neck?
On a related (but more disgusting) note, the description of the Freakshow who got both arms replaced says that they're incredibly destructive, but "must rely on other Freaks to feed them." But how do they do things like blow their noses (among other things)? Is that relegated to the really low-level Freaks who are being punished? I will be perfectly understanding if the answer to this is "I don't want to think about it, and neither should you." 
On an also related but less disgusting note, there are some Portal Corporation missions which send you to worlds dominated by the Freakshow. These worlds are, as one would expect of an Earth where the Freaks are in charge, total dumps which have been completely trashed. Since I don't think the Freakshow "SMASH THE STATE, DESTRUCTION IS FREEDOM" mantra has a "but leave the infrastructure intact" rider on it, how do they get things like food, water, and electricity?
Aha! So Manticore is the one I should be pestering about licensing an official City of Heroes ZBoard .
Done.
For the CCG, will we be building our own characters as the game progresses or will we be playing with signature and/or already created generic heroes?
From the pen and paper game, how closely does the game tie to the online version. How will significant changes, such as I5, affect the PnP rules?
For the comic, can you get me a guest shot? Seriously, love the new Top Cow stuff and I'm really glad for your involvement there. I really like the alternating writers, but I am glad we have someone of your caliber keeping it all together.
Now on to the game. Like many, there are several ideas I would like to see implemented for missions and mission related quality of life issues. I'll just list them, and feel free to choose one or more to discuss any plans that may be on the table for any of them. Just treat each point as if it had a 'Will we ever see' attached to it
(1) Would really love to see a Mission Journal. So many of the good stories are lost to the void. Even the Story Arc recaps don't do them justice. I really love Red Tomax's recaps, but I'd love to see them automated in the game for all missions, as well as the possibility of exporting the text to the clipboard at least.
(2) Supergroup missions. I know you want to do them, and there are several good ideas floating around about different types. Mostly I would just like to know if there are any plans, and if so please start a thread asking for good constructive ideas.
(3) Lots more ways of alternative mission completion. especially relying on the strengths of ATs that are not primarily damage dealers. And on the flip side, more clear mission objectives on existing missions. I hate stealthing a mission for glowies or hostages with my controller only to find out it was a defeat all mission after all.
(4) Using the arena system for flashback missions as well as using similar code to run repeatable 'danger room' type missions. These missions would actually not be for XP, but rather for the pure challenge and story. For example, allowing an instanced mission versus the Kronos Titan. Perhaps having team rankings for fastest times or fewest people on the team for each mission. Basically take advantage of the existing arena code to really enhance the PvE game.
Great Job, Manticore. Second to the theme, the stories are my favorite part of CoH!
I wonder...
1) How much input do you have into the comics/novels/game? Are you final veto? Is the author? Is Jack? where do you rank relative to Captain Mako (the developer, not the character. Oh heck, that too)?
2) Playing through the game, you always have more questions than answers about npcs and story lines. Will we see more and new ways to get a handle on what's going on, and whom we're dealing with? For instance: more villain monologues or a way to converse with npcs?
3) To what degree do you share control of characters that may not have been created by you, like Statesman, War Witch, or even poor Horus?
Story Arcs I created:
Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!
Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!
Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!
1: Have you seen this picture and of course what do you think of it. Cuppajo said she was going to send it to you but I never got around to finding out if she did. (Picture links have to be pasted directly into a browser window because Angelfire does not allow remote linking.)
)
http://www.angelfire.com/d20/gideon_an/Manticore.jpg
2: Same question as #1 with different picture that Cuppajo hasn't seen.
http://www.angelfire.com/d20/gideon_...rtant/EBay.jpg
3: Is there going to be a place where Players can look up info on their favorite archvillians like Mother Mayhem, Maurauder, Chimera, Statesman. (Couldn't resist the reference to the highest lvl (54th) AV there
4: Simular question as above concerning Trainers, Heroes, and the people that create taskforces.
(Virtue/Champion) Neil Fracas: Inv/SS
(Virtue) Gideon Fontaine: MA/SR (Sc), Generic Hero 114: Ice/Cold, Marcus Tyler AR/En, Project F: Spines/DA (S)
(Champion) Jenna Sidal BS/SD, Generic Hero 114: En/En (Bl), Loganne Claws/WP (Sc)