Discussion: CoH Podcast Interviews Hero 1
By
anachrodragon,
Posted on: 2008-05-06 10:17 in News, Events and Announcement Discussion
cool, listening right now, thanks!!
Listen to Survival Guide. Because you should!
"You have a mom? I thought you were conceived through pure win?" ~Spinestradamus
"reading ur posts is like reading a stop sign, its red oddly shaped and makes me come to a complete stop...then i go" ~anon rep; thank you
Server crashed it looks like.
Classic Dungeon Crawl Arc ID: 2232-"A satirical look at your average dungeon"
Down the Rabbit Hole Arc IDs: 24346 24397-"Rescue a little girl from an insidious dream invader."
Server is down.
I must've gotten to it right in time then 
Listen to Survival Guide. Because you should!
"You have a mom? I thought you were conceived through pure win?" ~Spinestradamus
"reading ur posts is like reading a stop sign, its red oddly shaped and makes me come to a complete stop...then i go" ~anon rep; thank you
Server's up; saving to disk as I type 
Can anyone post a transcript of this podcast?
Deaf player here.... 
In the Arena of Logic, I fight unarmed.
Hmm link leads to an internal server error but if you just go to cohpodcast.com and click on their link it works.
Classic Dungeon Crawl Arc ID: 2232-"A satirical look at your average dungeon"
Down the Rabbit Hole Arc IDs: 24346 24397-"Rescue a little girl from an insidious dream invader."
Hahah! He said the Freem Fifteen! 
Playstation 3 - XBox 360 - Wii - PSP
Remember kids, crack is whack!
Samuel_Tow: Your avatar is... I think I like it
[ QUOTE ]
Can anyone post a transcript of this podcast?
Deaf player here....
[/ QUOTE ]
I think it's an hour 20 minutes long. 
Yeah it's a long interview. It was nice of Hero 1 to give them that much time actually.
He did say "Freem Fifteen" which is awesome. Also, a nice little tidbit, there are some easter eggs in the form of clues scattered around Cimorea (sp?). They're objects you can click on (one is a skull for example) for little bits of information about the history of the zone. You get a badge for finding them all.
[ QUOTE ]
Can anyone post a transcript of this podcast?
Deaf player here....
[/ QUOTE ]
Good Feedback, Gulver, I'll contact COHPodcast to see if anything can be transcribed, I'm certain our EU language players would also like to enjoy the shared content.
Ex
[ QUOTE ]
Can anyone post a transcript of this podcast?
Deaf player here....
[/ QUOTE ]
You got it! I'll get to work on it right now. No clue how long it will take, but rest assured it will be available as soon as possible. Thanks for the suggestion, and the interest!
[ QUOTE ]
Server crashed it looks like.
[/ QUOTE ]
Sorry! Thinking it must be all the traffic. If anyone is interested, we also have the interview in iTunes!
Spoilers!
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Can anyone post a transcript of this podcast?
Deaf player here....
[/ QUOTE ]
You got it! I'll get to work on it right now. No clue how long it will take, but rest assured it will be available as soon as possible. Thanks for the suggestion, and the interest!
[/ QUOTE ]
Oof, my best wishes are with you. From my college classes, I remember it takes about 8 hours to transcribe an hour of speech, which means you have a 9+ hour job ahead of you.
...I forgot what experience means.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Can anyone post a transcript of this podcast?
Deaf player here....
[/ QUOTE ]
You got it! I'll get to work on it right now. No clue how long it will take, but rest assured it will be available as soon as possible. Thanks for the suggestion, and the interest!
[/ QUOTE ]
Oof, my best wishes are with you. From my college classes, I remember it takes about 8 hours to transcribe an hour of speech, which means you have a 9+ hour job ahead of you.
[/ QUOTE ]
Really wishing you hadn't told me that... LOL! I figured it would take a long time, but it's well worth it.
QR
My wife does transcription (medical I think) and she says its about double the time of the talking to transcribe with fairly decent typing speed. So the 1.20hr would take approx 3hrs I'm guessing
Not quite as daunting as 9hrs
GOD bless,
Shem
Transcribed until about the 30 minute mark...
Questions from hosts about company.
How did Hero 1 get into game development?
A: He could lift a monitor! Was doing IT work at a company and it closed down...he had writing skills, went to an interview with Blizzard North <?> and thought he did poorly but got the job...doing story for Diablo II. English Lit background.
Requirement for the IT job was 'lifting a certain amount of weight' carrying monitors around. 
How did you get started with Cryptic
A:Always liked CoH...then Blizzard North shut down. Applied but they weren't hiring, different skillset. Wife and he were going to have a child, Hero II (laughs). Cryptic is in Los Gatos, a stone's throw from his residence. Positron returned a call with a phone interview...
Many points:
-Team called "Freem 15" or "Fighting 15" so many hats to each dev.
-Needed to get "Joe up to speed", trial by fire sort of thing.
-Picked "Hero1" as redname...Invasion was very 'trial by fire' and Hero1 was 'dramatically changed' which tied to the dev's experience.
-Rednames by personality "You're more of a 'José Borgan' " (laughs)
-This (Issue 12) is the best issue we've done, Inventions was really cool...hosts are very excited about new features.
-Cautious about what to expect but everything went off without a snag.
-Hero1 was behind Contact redesign...stealing ideas from forums...would be nice for badges too.
Hosts: "CoH Developers are more involved with community than anyone they've seen"
Hero1 "We're always shipping but we've always shipped...the feedback is great. Closed Beta is nervewracking, missions and systems are getting stress tested. Great response for Imperious Task Force (ITF)"
Hosts "Is the content made around systems or content?"
A: "Changing dynamic, forward thinking...used to be a roundtable deciding features. My job was giving context...something like a mission computer became Ouroboros."
"Roman theme is seeped in game's lore. Flashback Task Force, how do we tell the story of the Midnight Squad? They're cool...talking to fans. Fans (at meet and greet) wanted 'Magic stuff' and it came together"
-Plotlines are tied together for the future.
-I10, 11 and 12 are tied together more contentwise and lorewise than previous issues.
Hosts: "Questions from forums...about Roman theme"
A: "How do we make it relevant to the player? Why does the player care. Did a decent job heroside, could have done a better job villainside."
Hosts: "Origin of Powers"
A: "Sister Solaris is too hot not to work on her (laughs). Nothing on Kheldians, my bad. Do we tell you where your powers come from? No, probably not. Wanted to show the connections fo powers...Oirgin of Power was more 'History of Power'...for example War Witch had tons of dialogue for Magic characters, but not so much for others."
Hosts: "Yeah you see a lot of people in the 'Peach Pit' in Atlas Park, so many backgrounds and such, good that you're not rewriting it"
A: "Yeah, I play on Virtue a lot...lots of different backgrounds and it's cool to see."
(That takes us to the 28 minute mark, all I had time to transcribe...but he said Rikti are a major threat to the game and will be ongoing as such)
Questions about the game, either side? /t @Neuronia or @Neuronium, with your queries!
168760: A Death in the Gish. 3 missions, 1-14. Easy to solo.
Infinity Villains
Champion, Pinnacle, Virtue Heroes
[ QUOTE ]
QR
My wife does transcription (medical I think) and she says its about double the time of the talking to transcribe with fairly decent typing speed. So the 1.20hr would take approx 3hrs I'm guessing
Not quite as daunting as 9hrs
GOD bless,
Shem
[/ QUOTE ]
Good point - my knowledge was from anthropology classes where we had to deal with accents and everything else. Either way though, it's going to be a good chunk of a day.
...I forgot what experience means.
It was a nice interview. I love how the game is getting rich in lore, history, tradition and mythos but I am getting bored of the play. Too many arcs/missions are in the exact same environment etc and it gets tiresome. Sometimes the missions are just dull. I was hoping they'd add some variety to the missions. Have some shorter arcs. Have some where the reward is a cool PERMANENT weapon or 'pet' (kinda like the patron powers). How about some trials where you can win a divine power?
How about expanding the weapons and costume pieces you can buy at WW or BM. Maybe even some travel items like jet packs, flying platforms you can use etc.
I think it's great to expand on the game's rich mythos etc but does that make the game play much better? I think it makes it better but not a ton better. Anyway, maybe i12 will have some wild, cool stuff that will really surprise! I think the Vill EATs will be great tho (probably my fave feature so far in i12).
Fun listen.
And joe, joe, joe... Surprised that Reichsman, who's barely mentioned in lore, is so popular? I have two words... or rather, one name ... for you.
"Boba Fett."
C'mon, the guy had what, a few seconds of screentime, with one line directed at him ("No disintigrations") and became hugely popular. So yeah, Reichsman = COH's Boba Fett. Without Clonedad.
(Oh, and... *points to kheld backstory guide* If that's what it takes to get to the story bible...)
Here are the next few forum questions and their answers.
[27:59]
Chooch: There were two questions that were actually related somewhat. One was from Proeliator -- I'm sure I'm going to murder some of these names -- who wrote,
[ QUOTE ]
Are there more plans for the Rikti? Since the midnight squad is so anti rikti, It makes sense, but are there any new major things. Are we going to visit the surface of their home world? Are we going to finally figure out why they hate us so much? Are we going to learn more about how a human becomes a rikti and Rikti background in general? [link]
[/ QUOTE ]
C: And Mr_Magnanimous says,
[ QUOTE ]
Story wise will you ever get a better impression of the alien race that long ago altered the people of the Rikti Home World dimension? [link]
[/ QUOTE ]
Joe "Hero 1" Morrissey: I think the short answer is "yes," if I had to guess, because as a fan I would totally love to say "yes" to all of those questions. I would. And so my job, as a dev, is to bring those questions to life. I know for sure we're not going to walk away from the Rikti anytime soon. They're a major threat in the game, and Issue 12 brings them back into focus through the Midnight Squad, and you see what other impact they've had, besides just through Vanguard. I think all of that lore is so rich, and that we'd be fools not to explore it. And that way you can get Hero 1 in a mission again, so I'm all for that.
_Viv_: Maybe a Task Force.
J: Yeah, he's got to figure out how to deal with being Riktified pretty soon.
C: So any chance of heading through a portal and landing on the surface of their home world?
J: Not in the near future, but it definitely is something that we talk about. It would be very nice to be able to do. It just, again, it all depends on how -- not wanting to give anything away -- but it's like how I mentioned that we understand the landscape of where we want this game to go, but that doesn't mean we understand all of the landmarks along the way. And we know, okay, at some point we want to wrap up the Rikti invasion, and what's the best way to do that? And honestly, that way might go a completely different direction than even the fans and myself can perceive of right now, but it would be so much cooler than whatever way it is.
[30:28]
C: Question from Xilibrius who says,
[ QUOTE ]
Hello the biggest question on my mind is will the new zone being added with issue 12, which is level 35 to 50, follow the footsteps of the Rikti War Zone in being a co-op zone for both heroes and villains. [link]
[/ QUOTE ]
C: I thought that was part of the announcement.
J: Yeah, that was in the announcement. It might not have been as strong, but yeah, it is a co-op zone. I think it's going to, like I said, what we have in there now for the content, because we got Imperius's Task Force and we have some other stuff you can do in there as well, but there isn't as strong of a villain presence as I would like to see. So hopefully that's something I can dip my hands into as we move forward. At least that's definitely our goal, because -- I don't know if you guys have gotten a chance to go into the zone or check out any of the instance missions that we have in there, but they're gorgeous, they're just absolutely beautiful. So we're like, we should really just have the game hang out here for a while, this is nice. But we'll see.
C: I don't know, there's these nondisclosure things, then we don't talk about Fight Club.
J: Oh that's true, yeah that's true.
V: We cannot admit or deny that we are or are not in beta.
J: Okay. I was going to say, because by the time this goes live --
V: Tomorrow.
J: -- yeah, everything should be good. It looks really good in there.
V: Open beta.
J: And the bugs will really fly in.
V: Oh yeah. Yeah, I feel for you guys.
J: It's the fun part of it. It's maybe not the fun part, but it's the necessary part, to actually start seeing what comes back. This time, things have been fairly good, I say crossing my fingers. Off and on. We've got a couple ones, but I feel like I'm finally starting to get a handle on our systems here in the game.
V: Well, and it's better to find them now than after the game goes live on the live servers, so you may as well just get ready for it.
J: Yeah, I have enough of those already.
[32:34]
V: So we have a question from ShadowWings:
[ QUOTE ]
In the upcoming issues, will the 'Storm' mentioned by Ouroboros, be further introduced, including the writer of the letters you find in certain Ouroboros missions/tfs [link]
[/ QUOTE ]
J: Yeah, absolutely. All will be revealed with that.
V: Nice.
J: It was an idea that sprung to mind while we were working on 11, as far as the letters. And the "coming storm" is a seed for events down the road. It's one of those mountains that when we want to take you to that mountain, it will play out, and it'll be very cool. And as far as the letters, I don't necessarily know if I want to say if they're tied together right now, with the "coming storm" and the letters. They definitely are, when you read them, but there's a lot of reveals with those that we can do before we get to the "coming storm." But before the storm has come, so to say.
V: Gotcha.
J: But we actually -- Positron and I talked for Issue 12, if we wanted to reveal who it was that writes the letters. Because we haven't even done that yet, right, we're totally teasing you guys. But at the end of it, we decided to continue to tease, basically. We got some really cool stuff for it, I'm really excited about it, and again, I'm hoping the players are going to look at stuff and go "Wow." I hope is to surprise, and to shock and awe, if possible. See what happens.
V: Well we'll be as patient as we can possibly bear to be.
J: Well, it should be hopefully good news that we had even talked about this issue, about kind of wrapping up the pause. Because I initially saw this, at least part of the letters, to be a plot line that we could wrap up fairly quickly, because like I said before, I didn't want to have a lingering plot thread out there that just never really got resolved. It just wasn't best for this issue. We didn't have enough flashback content, this issue, to really merit it, and since you only get these notes from when you do a flashback mission, and I stash them in somewhat hidden places. So it was like, well, we only have one this time, so we don't really want that to be the one, so let's see how we do next time.
V: Well it makes sense.
[35:02]
V: So we have a question from Cipher:
[ QUOTE ]
Will we see more historical scenarios added to Ouroboros? I'd love to visit more bits of history: Brass Monday, the December 7, 1941 invasion, Recluse's overthrow of The Weaver. [link]
[/ QUOTE ]
J: Brass Monday wasn't even actually on the table at one point, when we were talking about the initial flashback stuff. Again, like to do it right, like to really make it as cool as we want it to be. We were like, eh, let's wait, let's see what's going on. That's one of the great things about flashback. From a player's standpoint, a system standpoint, the crystal is great to go back and play old content that already came out. But from a storyteller place, I have this great opportunity where basically I can tell two stories at the same time. I can tell the story of where you guys are at, why the missions you're doing now, and how they're going forward. But then I can also take you back to the beginnings of those ideas, and from that give you background and ideas about why what you're doing now is important and how long it's been around. And I think stuff like Brass Monday would be an excellent way to do that. Yeah, that would be an awesome one. I'm already thinking about it.
V: Oh, cool.
C: Nice.
[36:19]
C: And a question from Kitsune9tails says,
[ QUOTE ]
Stepping into Manticore's shoes: are you consciously trying to emulate what he had going on, or heading in your own direction? [link]
[/ QUOTE ]
J: I always need to be faithful to the lore of the game. I'm probably the fourth or fifth guy, I think, to take on this role here. So there's a lot that's been done before I got here, and if I was to completely break out on my own, then that would probably be bad. And Manticore definitely helped establish a lot of where things are going. So my first job is really, like I said, to be faithful to what we've done, and what we want to do. So I need to figure out, because there's so much content, and so many people who have worked on other stuff, that -- I think Positron had mentioned this before -- there's a lot that we just don't remember about the game. And that's where sites like Paragonwiki come in real handy, to go through and find out all of that stuff. Go through there, my "Find in Files" works really helpfully, on my text file program. So I'll go through, and first of all, I'll find out what we've said, and then I'll look through the story bible and I'll see what we meant, because a lot of times, there's -- I think there was another question on the forums that talked about what's the difficulty between those two, and really, that's what it comes down to is that the story bible will have one way or one vision for how a certain event will play out, but then the mission designer, down the road, might have written it in a different way, or because, just the nature of game development, things just didn't turn out that way. And so trying to reconcile those two things is really where the difficulty comes from, in the two of them.
C: Yeah, I know there was one who had basically said, when it comes to novelization, gameplay, when those contradictions happen, which one's right, which one's canon? [note: Johnny_Butane asked this. [link] -ed.]
J: The first one, I'd have to say, is the game. The game trumps all. If we've said it in the game -- now that doesn't mean we won't come back and go, yeah, you know what, we were actually wrong about that, sorry. We do hold that card. We generally try and only do that only as a last resort. First it's what we've said in the game, and then, from there, we look at the story bible to see what we want. And there's a lot of stuff that's in the story bible that we haven't released to the public, and so there really isn't a big conflict in that respect. But where there is a conflict, I'd probably have to say that me personally I would go: game, then website, then comic book, then novel. The novel and comic book I could see going back and forth on, but Positron might disagree with me on that. I like the comic books much more, they're much more "now," they feel more tied to the world. So I think that that would win out over the novels.
[39:36]
C: And Memphis_Bill ties in a question similar to that:
[ QUOTE ]
How much of a bribe would it take to get ahold of that story bible for a day or two? [link]
[/ QUOTE ]
J: My answer to that is always pretty much the same. Which is, if you guys update all the stuff on the wiki, so that it's completely up to date and accurate and everything's there, then I'll let you guys look at the story bible.
C: Nice.
V: Gotcha.
J: Because I'll go there and you guys don't have everything. There's a couple things that are missing. I'm like, hey why isn't this there? Which is also why I have an account but have yet to really post much on there.
C: Very cool.
V: Okay, Memphis_Bill, get to work.
C: Yep.
V: Now you know.
J: I'm sure the people at Paragonwiki are going to love to hear that.
C: Yeah.
[40:20]
Joe, the reason Reichsman is so popular is all down to Manticore. He said the Fifth Column would return 'led by the butt kicking Reichsman' some time ago.
Hey, Joe, guess where I am?
<-----
Mmmmm... brainnnss...
Whoa... what a rush... tastes like San Fran State U. English Major....
(linked in)
Speeding Through New DA Repeatables || Spreadsheet o' Enhancements || Zombie Skins: better skins for these forums || Guide to Guides
Please use this thread to discuss the below announcement.
Listen in as CoH Podcast interviews City of Heroes Development Team Lead Writer, Joe "Hero 1" Morrissey. The discussion ranges from follow up questions to Joes recent Development Diary, to content writing, Issue 11, Issue 12 and more!
Click here to listen to the full interview!
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.