Read About City of Heroes Development on Warcry
By
Bunsen,
Posted on: 2007-10-08 15:27 in News, Events and Announcement Discussion
ooops edit
Darn it I broke another. These things are not meant for my hands to ever touch
Longbow Spec-Op: Did you hear a ruckus?
Longbow Eagle: Can you describe the ruckus?
One of the best pop culture references in the game, thanks the Mellisa and crew. Thanks for all of your hard work devs 
*Excellent* interview by War Witch. Best of the series in awhile actually.
With the mention of the Shadow Shard though, I'm curious: is the final product anywhere close to what was originally conceptualized? If not, can you give us some hints on what it SHOULD have looked like?
And Freakshow doesn't yell, "Oh I say, chap, that was bad form. You'll soon regret this transgression, I assure you!"
...we need a short arc, or even just one mission, where all the Freakshow *do* speak like this.
Re: Weather; although it doesn't add anything specifically interactive, it can make the ambiance of a zone much greater. Consider how much of the player base seems to like costume pieces which, by definition, add nothing but looks? This makes it seems like it would be an excellent reason to add something just to make the game look neater. Just make it less obtrusive than going so dark you can't see and it'd be fine. As well as allowing people to turn it off if possible, since there are always some people who immediately ask if they can get an option to turn it off. Regardless of what it is.
I also noticed this:
[ QUOTE ]
Around this point, we've done some internal playtests, raked each other over the coals with our feedback, and now we're fixing stuff internally, mostly the big glaring problems. I'm still doing the core zone work, assisting with mission writing, and fixing any bugs that are cropping up (and there are always bugs cropping up). At the same time, I'm trying to squeeze in fixes for older bugs or stuff that has come to my attention. By this time, we're coming up on deadline and things get a bit tight as we try and fit everything in before we have to submit our candidate to the publisher. At this point, we're already thinking about the next Issue. (emphasis mine)
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How I interpret this: bases get no love in Issue 11, but there's a high possibility that Issue 12 or 13 will have some stuff in store for bases, etc.
Case in point: Ex Libris' thread re: Official: Feedback and Suggestions for Bases! Many thought that we would see stuff in I11 for bases from this post, since arguably, many of these suggestions had been floating around for quite some time. However, the request for consolidation on 8/27/07 indicates that the devs were done working on the bulk of I11 content, and, already thinking about the next issue, were ready to address another issue of the game, similar to what they've done for weapons customization and new IO sets.
So far, especially this year, I think the devs have gone a long way towards not only adding new content, but addressing player requests and fixing/ tweaking/ improving the game based on player feedback. Hopefully, we can look towards more of the same sort of momentum and creativity in the months to come
The war witch article was great -- very insightful into the development process!
@Texarkana
@Thexder
The thing I got from her answers more than anything else was this: Be willing to start doing whatever they ask you to do. Do it as best as you can, and learn as much about everything you can get your hands on. You never know when opportunity meets your preparation, and you end up doing more than you ever thought you could.
Thanks for the inspirational, War Witch. Keep up the hard work on making City of * better for all of us.
Loose --> not tight.
Lose --> Did not win, misplace, cannot find, subtract.
One extra 'o' makes a big difference.
Great interview. I really liked learning about the zone creation process, and seeing the old zone ideas from before release.
Thanks, War Witch!
Please try my custom mission arcs!
Legacy of a Rogue (ID 459586, Entry for Dr. Aeon's Third Challenge)
Death for Dollars! (ID 1050)
Dr. Duplicate's Dastardly Dare (ID 1218)
Win the Past, Own the Future (ID 1429)
It is because of the great care and time taken by developers like Melissa and Vince to make CoH and CoV so fresh and multidimensional that I will never get bored from playing this game.
Well done, developers! Thanks for a peek behind the scenes of Paragon City and Rogue Isles.
MoggieCanada
[ QUOTE ]
War Witch : Ah, my own crazy idea-land. I wrote up a list of ideas when I first came on board, having little experience in level design. I feel so confident that ONE DAY someone will realize my brilliance, that I am going to paste a snippet of suggestions for your enjoyment. (That is, when you stop laughing.)
So welcome to November 14th, 2002:
Ex-Superhero Zone
Ex-superheroes retired/injured community. Almost everyone you talk to has seen "some" kind of action and has a story to tell -- maybe could even help players with their more lengthy quests. Plus you could do kind of an "irony" twist on some well-known superheroes -- but not, of course.
[This is more of a 'theme' than a zone. A whole zone dedicated to old geezers sitting on their front porches talking about the glory days? What do I fight?! Boredom?]
Hollywood Zone
Everyone's got a cell phone, every car is a BMW, every street has a tourist taking pictures of particular spots that look eerily familiar (but not, of course, exact). Maybe a few NPCs walking down Rondeno Drive (as opposed to Rodeo Drive) look or dress suspiciously familiar. Plus shopkeepers could be especially rude as they look the superhero up and down (kind of like the Pretty Woman thing with Julia Roberts). Villains? Everyone could be an Agent, Lawyer, or Publicist.
[/ QUOTE ]
I remember a rumour about having a retired hero zone (I liked the ads on some of the buildings about a retired hero community). Heh, it'd be funny to have retired Villains there too. With their banter about the 'good ol'days'
Then there could be an undercurrent of either an older villain who found a way to revitalize him/herself and/or their old team. All of the sudden villain groups start cropping up, and the retired heroes call upon the new generation to save the day....
It'd be great if there could be some 'zone events' that's non-leathal where film crews pop up in a neighbourhood in a zone with vans, cameras, props, lighting, etc. Where they pop up is random (such as in New Haven in Cap au Diable to Prometheus Park in Atlas Park to Monster Island).
Maybe it's for an upcoming movie (loosely) based on the Freedom Corps video game. Maybe it's an Arachnos propaganda film. Maybe it's a cover for something more devious....
Just because an idea might not make it as it was originally thought of, doesn't mean that it can't be used in other ways in the future
I took great interest in Melissa's view on weather in the game. She played a game where rain cut out all visibility....hmmmm.... who designed the fog in Dark Astoria?
My Arc - #51736 Here Wolf... There Wolf... Werewolf!!!
Don't worry about the mule going blind, just load the wagon.
>")))>< ~~~~
Wish I could've been on here live for the interview... a year or so ago a poll was taken on what theme zones we would like added to this game. I chose underwater and added comments for a more gothic element zone or upgrade to Croatoa. Anyway, I never saw any results from the poll. Does anyone know what was done with the information gathered?
My Arc - #51736 Here Wolf... There Wolf... Werewolf!!!
Don't worry about the mule going blind, just load the wagon.
>")))>< ~~~~
Always great to hear from War Witch (wish she wast...I mean spent more time posting. Ah well, she's keeping busy (I hope)). Surprised she didn't mention the Cryptic Lounge in Faultline.
Question I would have asked: What zones would you re-do/revamp if you had a chance/time?
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We come up with an 'idea' based on player requests, bang for the buck, cool factor, story advancement, and plausibility given time/tech/scheduling constraints. You've heard it all before. We say it like rote, but it's true. We have a set amount of resources so we need to make them stretch as farrrrrr as they'll go.
The 'blurb' is anything from a paragraph to a page that outlines the basic idea for the zone, plus anything new or signature we want to do. The document is then reviewed by key players and adjustments are made (usually something like time, tech, or scheduling has created a hiccup and the design needs to be revised).
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The third time I read that, I figured out that what she means by "key players" is "important people within the company," not "selected customers." It took me a while, because honestly, having zone ideas reviewed by selected customers (under NDA) before they invest a bucketload of time and money in them struck me as something that would never have occurred to me, but would make one heck of a lot of sense. I was all fired up to ask, "How do I audition for that job?" Because let's face it; have you seen some of the threads on these forums about dangling plot threads and so forth? I'm not convinced that there's anybody at Cryptic or NCSoft who knows the full game story as well as, say, the most obsessive 2 or 3 fans of the game do. So borrowing a few of us as volunteer "continuity editors" made a lot of sense. But now that I reread it a couple of times, I'm guessing that's not what she meant.
I do want to say that you can spot, in the history of the game, the moment at which War Witch took over zone design. I'm not saying that whoever was doing it before was incompetent, but I will say that before she took over the process, the zones and spawns and so forth in City of Heroes were ordinary, merely as good as any other MMO; nothing any cooler than every MMO out there did, and as many real clunker design choices as any other MMO out there. Before she came along, if it weren't for the reasonably cool powerset choices and the insanely cool costume editor, I'm not sure the game would have survived. Now that she's taken over, the zones that she wrote all but carry the rest of the game on their backs. That she wrote nearly all of the villain zones has an awful lot to do with why I can't stand to play the hero game.
So yeah, even though I almost entirely play villains, I look forward to the day when Kings Row, Steel Canyon, Skyway City, Talos Island, Independence Port, Brickstown, and Founders Falls have their own self-contained storylines, when mob faction distribution across Paragon City doesn't feel so random, when contacts in the zones feel like people who are actually from and in their own neighborhoods. (I also look forward to the day that they give her a few days or a week to repair the horrific mess that is Sharkhead Isle.) I know not to hold my breath, but I do look forward to it.
I thought the answer about the rocket launch site construction areas was a little too evasive, though. If what she wanted to say was, "We changed our mind about doing what we were going to use them for, we're just going to leave them the way they are until we think up a new use for them," which is how I interpreted her answer, then I wish she'd just said it that plainly. That being said, I was disappointed that the last issue hadn't changed those two construction sites at all. (It was, literally, the first thing I checked for when the issue hit public beta, before I even headed to the RWZ.) If you're not going to use them soon, fine. But as much hype as there is in the radio/newspaper missions about rocket construction, and as blatant as those two construction sites are, shouldn't there be at least some progress visible from one issue to another? A few art tweaks, if nothing else?
A great insight into the world of game development. I liked War Witch's take on the stages an issue release goes through, very informative. Her masterful use of the word "slippage" in a sentence made me smile.
Looking forward to seeing what Vince has to say about the nuts and bolts of the game.
K5K - The Killbot 5000
A Spanner In The Works Part One, ArcID: 336662, A Spanner In The Works Part Two, ArcID: 336665, Enter Japes, ArcID: 96001
In The Darkness Creeping, ArcID: 347709, When Dimensions Collide, ArcID: 412416.
[ QUOTE ]
I thought the answer about the rocket launch site construction areas was a little too evasive, though. If what she wanted to say was, "We changed our mind about doing what we were going to use them for, we're just going to leave them the way they are until we think up a new use for them," which is how I interpreted her answer, then I wish she'd just said it that plainly. That being said, I was disappointed that the last issue hadn't changed those two construction sites at all. (It was, literally, the first thing I checked for when the issue hit public beta, before I even headed to the RWZ.) If you're not going to use them soon, fine. But as much hype as there is in the radio/newspaper missions about rocket construction, and as blatant as those two construction sites are, shouldn't there be at least some progress visible from one issue to another? A few art tweaks, if nothing else?
[/ QUOTE ]
Give
us
the
MOONBASE!!!!
"OK, first of all... Shut Up." - My 13-Year-Old Daughter
29973 "The Running of the Bulls" [SFMA] - WINNER of the Mighty Big Story Arc Contest !
- The Stellar Wind Orbital Space Platform
Lighthouse... scooped.
Thank you so much for answering my question so well War Witch!! Never realized so much went into zone creation so I really gotta say YOU ROCK!!!! Keep up the excellent work!!
Hey if War Witch ever needs a date, I hear War Raze is available. *Just bring a can of Flea Off* 
Weather in zones sucks balls. Its been tried in MUDs since the dawn of time, and not once has it added a solid aspect to the game. Everyone pushes for 'cold/heat damages you!' or 'being in winter makes you catch a cold', and then you have to add in stupid features like umbrellas. Then someone points out your Steel Platemail gets rusty in the rain so that gets coded, but then everyone complains about how tedious it is to do an armour change just because it gets wet. So a mage demands to know how to rustproof armour, and then everyone has rustproof armour. And that cancels another reason for having weather.
Been mudding since '95, apart from fancy graphics theres no new ideas in the mmporg field.
[ QUOTE ]
Give us the MOONBASE!!!!
[/ QUOTE ]
How I'm reading her answer is "We were going to, but we decided to do the 2nd Rikti War instead, so now the rocket launch sites are on hold until we decide to do some space-based expansion, which isn't on the schedule. So they'll just sit like this until we do, or until we give up and delete them."
Again, I wish she'd actually said what she meant instead of dancing around it.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Give us the MOONBASE!!!!
[/ QUOTE ]
How I'm reading her answer is "We were going to, but we decided to do the 2nd Rikti War instead, so now the rocket launch sites are on hold until we decide to do some space-based expansion, which isn't on the schedule. So they'll just sit like this until we do, or until we give up and delete them."
Again, I wish she'd actually said what she meant instead of dancing around it.
[/ QUOTE ]
I would too.
I was HUGELY disappointed to learn that i10 wouldn't have the Lunar Zone. But I thought, "Meh, I guess i11 will be fine." So now no Lunar Zone in i11 either. i12? Nothing said yet.
I understand wanting to move the game's plot forward and all, but I thought the Lunar Zone was the most popular choice when they had the player base vote on possible new content. That and the fact that they started dropping a lot of the least subtle hints ever that a Lunar Zone was on the way.
I'm a Sad Panda. 
"OK, first of all... Shut Up." - My 13-Year-Old Daughter
29973 "The Running of the Bulls" [SFMA] - WINNER of the Mighty Big Story Arc Contest !
- The Stellar Wind Orbital Space Platform
Ah! That was it! I voted for the Underwater zone and Outer Space zone, and made comments about making Croatoa more gothic. The underwater zone would be totally unique if environment survival would be part of the equation. Plus, it'd give Captain Mako a place of his own. They'll have to do something really cool with the Space zone, otherwise it'll just be Cascade Archipelago.... with buildings.
My Arc - #51736 Here Wolf... There Wolf... Werewolf!!!
Don't worry about the mule going blind, just load the wagon.
>")))>< ~~~~
Voted? I haven't been playing or reading the forums much.
Did I miss another vote?
Regarding the question about the road to nowhere in Port Oakes-- I'm looking at my Rogue Isles map, but I don't see a small island with a rocket. Can someone enlighten me?
Mains:
* Molneeya, Electric/Electric Mutant Blaster
* Doctor Magus, Illusion/Force Field Magic Controller
* Gilded Girl, Invulnerable/Super Strength Technology Tanker
* White Wasp, Martial Arts/Regeneration Science Scrapper
* Q'org, Empathy/Radiation Natural Defender
Use this thread to discuss the below announcement
Warcry.com presents City of Heroes developers Melissa War Witch Bianco and programmer Vince DAmelio. Melissa answers questions about building and designing City of Heroes zones while Vince describes what he does on the team. You can pose questions to Vince about the programming side of City of Heroes development that he will answer in a future article.
Melissa War Witch Bianco answers zone building questions.
Vince DAmelio talks City of Heroes programming.
Lighthouse
Community Relations Manager
If you have a specific in game, account, tech or billing problem please contact our Customer Support team via The Knowledge Base "Ask A Question" page.