Transcript - Joe "Hero 1" Morrissey on CoH Podcast
By
Lighthouse_NA,
Posted on: 2008-05-09 10:24 in Announcements
Viv: Maybe a Task Force?
Joe : Yeah, he's got to figure out how to deal with being Riktified pretty soon.
Chooch: So any chance of heading through a portal and landing on the surface of their home world?
Joe: 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.
Chooch: A question from Xilibrius who says, 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. And I thought that was part of the announcement.
Joe: 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' Task Force and we have some other stuff in there you can do as well, but there isn't as strong of a villain presence as I would like to see. And 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.
Chooch: I don't know, there's these nondisclosure things, and we don't talk about Fight Club.
Joe: Oh that's true, yeah that's true.
Viv: We cannot admit or deny that we are or are not in beta.
Joe: Okay. I was going to say, because by the time this goes live --
Viv: Tomorrow
Joe: -- yeah, everything should be good. It looks really good in there.
Viv: Yep, open beta!
Joe: And then the bugs will really fly in.
Viv: Oh yeah. Yeah, I feel for you guys.
Joe: 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. 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.
Viv: Well, and it's better to find them now than after the game goes live on the live servers, so you know, may as well just get ready for it.
Joe: Yeah, I have enough of those already.
Viv: So we have a question from Shadowings. 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?
Joe: Yeah, absolutely. All will be revealed with that. 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", before the storm has come, I guess I would say.
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. Weve 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." My hope is to surprise, and to shock and awe, if possible.
Viv: Well, we'll be as patient as we can possibly bear to be.
Joe: Well, it should be hopefully good news that we had even talked about this issue, about kind of wrapping up the plotlines, 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 kind of 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.
Viv: Well it makes sense.
So we have a question from Cipher, 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.
Joe: Brass Monday was actually even on the table at one point, when we were talking about the initial flashback stuff. It just, again, like to do it right, like to really make it as cool as we want it to be, were like, let's wait, like lets see what's going on. That's one of the great things about flashback, from a player's standpoint or 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 kind of, 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 kind of how they're going forward. But then I can also take you back to the beginnings of those ideas, and from that kind of 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.
Chooch: We have a question from Kitsune9tails, Stepping into Manticore's shoes: are you consciously trying to emulate what he had going on, or heading in your own direction?
Joe: I always need to be faithful to the lore of the game. Im probably the fourth or the fifth guy to take on this role here, so theres a lot thats been done before I got here. 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. My first job, like I said is to be faithful to what weve done and what we want to do. So, I need to figure out because there is so much content and so many people have worked on it. I think that Positron mentioned it before, theres a lot that we just dont remember about the game. Thats where sites like Paragon Wiki come in real handy to go through, and find out all of that stuff. My find in files works really helpfully, on my text file program. So Ill go through and first off find out what weve said, and then Ill look through the story bible and Ill see what we meant. I think theres another question from the forums that talked about whats the difficulty between those two, and really thats 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 didnt turn out that way. So trying to reconcile those two things is really where the difficulty comes from.
Chooch: I know there was one that said When it comes to novelization game play, when those contradictions happen, which one is right? Which ones cannon? (Question was from Johnny Butane).
Joe: The first one Id have to say is the game. The game trumps all. If weve said it in the game - now that doesnt mean that we wont come back and say, Yeah, you know we were actually wrong about that. We do hold that card; we generally try and only do that as a last resort. But first its what we said in the game, and from there we look at the story bible to see what we want. And theres a lot in the story bible that we havent released to the public, and so there isnt really a big conflict in that respect. Where there is a conflict, Id 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. Positron might disagree with me on that. I like the comic books much more, theyre much more now. They feel more tied to the world, so I think that would kind of win out over the novels.
Chooch: Memphis Bill kind of ties in a question similar to that How much of a bribe would it take to get a hold of that story bible for a day or two?
Joe: 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. 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.
Chooch: Very cool.
Viv: Okay, Memphis_Bill, get to work. Now you know.
Joe: I'm sure the people at Paragonwiki are going to love to hear that.
Chooch: Got another question from Olantern, Do you prefer creating new stories with the existing factions and elements or creating entirely new factions?
Joe: I actually like using existing factions. I can create a lot my own stuff; I dont have any creative issues with that. Theres just a nice puzzle element to taking something thats already in the game and putting something new to it that a player who was to just buy the game tomorrow wouldnt realize that there was actually multiple hands that touched that idea. Its definitely one of those things that I kind of like about this particular type of job, is that you come on and there is so much existing content already there, and your job to add in new content where it needs it, but not make it so that it stands out as something that doesnt fit. And that was kind of the trick with Midnight Squad this time around; I think there is a great example of that. My hope is that a player picks up the game tomorrow, the fact that now we have all these contacts for the Midnight Squad throughout the different zones isnt like, Wait, what are these guys doing here? This doesnt fit at all. You just kind of go, theyve always been here and it just kind of works itself right into the tapestry of the game. So thats my answer for that.
Its also what I pretty much had to do at my last three jobs. Its like you come in and the game and the lore is kind of there already and its your job to kind of take it to the next place that it needs to be.
Chooch: Kind of skipped over one from Kitsune9tails, In terms of ultimate veto, is it you or Posi that decides what story line is in the next issue and will be based on, whether Reichsman or Banished Pantheon will be the focus, for instance?
Joe: I think at the end of the day its actually Posi that has the final say, but he definitely gives me enough rope to hang myself on a regular basis. Midnight Squad is a great example of that, it was something that I felt very strong about that we could really do a lot of cool stuff with, and he was like Alright, go, do it. Then theres other stuff that well come back for that hell be like, Nope, we gotta do it like this. I mean hes been on the game for so long and he has so much familiarity with what works and what doesnt work. It seems like on a daily basis Ill be bringing up Hey, wouldnt it be cool if we did this? and hes like You know, I used to think that would be cool, but its not and heres why. And hell kind of teach me and guide me towards where the game needs to be. Thats really nice and really good to have.
Viv: It sounds ideal, actually.
Chooch: Weve got another couple of people that were thinking along the same wavelength. Rose had asked, Putting Posi's comments aside about fan created missions, because that is a long way off I would presume... Would you ever be willing to run a player based contest where they themselves could help write a COH storyline and bring it into development? and along a similar vein Zombie Man says, Would you want to see fan based story suggestions or do you need to keep up a high wall to prevent accusations of 'stealing' ideas?
Joe: The first one, as far as the player based content, kind of letting them create their own story and we have a contest with it and whoever wins gets their story arc into the game. I think thats an excellent idea. I actually when I first started working at Cryptic, I thought there was a thread somewhere that had a thing like that going. I know Ex Libris sent it around to me, but I didnt know how to flag my forums to bookmark it and so I lost it. But, I think that would be a great idea, theres a lot of good fan stuff there. It always comes down to an issue of bandwidth at that point. When we did the comic book contest, I remember even that was somewhat taxing on us to try and go through all that because there were so many submissions. And it was a comic book, unlike somebody writes five or six missions for a story arc, then weve got to read through all of them and figure out which one we want to bring in. I think its a great idea. Is there a way I can manage that or handle that? Me personally, I could do that or I could give you my own new missions for an issue, I think it would be pretty much about the same amount of time. Thats not to say that, I know theres a big fan community of people that are doing their own fan fiction and stuff like that. I think if a group like that got behind it and there was a big push within the community I would definitely be willing to look at the best of the best in that respect.
And then Zombie Man, who seems to be in my brain more than he should be Ive noticed, was asking about whether or not we can get submissions for stuff. I actually get a fairly decent amount of submissions from people, with different ideas that they have for the game, or what they want to see, or like their own origin story. Theyll send over to me and want some feedback on it and stuff. When I have time I generally try and respond back to them. Id have to look at the EULA to see exactly what the rules are for any of that stuff. I think its kind of a situation that if it comes across the forums, or if it comes to me in a PM that its pretty much fair game for us to use if we want to. Now, is that cool on our part? Maybe not. I think a lot of times in my experience I notice that Ill create, or another mission designer will create a story arc that is very similar to the ones the player wants to see, or that they came up with themselves. The themes of the game kind of push our imaginations towards that same idea, so you get a decent amount of that. Ive never had any issues with people going, Hey, you stole my idea!, because generally if they find their idea in the game it should be a good thing. My other thought on that is that I think about going, Well that would mean, if I could get to the position Im at now by taking the ideas from the forums, I would either be a genius or a hack, which I could be a bit of both at any given moment, so who knows?
Viv: Then we have a question from Epic Hero, If you could choose a universe altering event for CoX what would it be, which group or groups would be involved and why?
Joe: This one might be a little like a personal one, not necessarily the game in general, but I would like to get rid of the teleporters. It was a little jarring for me when I first came on to the game when I was a fan playing. I understand that in a Mass Multiplayer you need to have a way to go and get your corpse or a way to respawn, but as a mission writer it makes things very difficult to kind of try and give any type of real weight to what youre doing, because theres no real consequence to your actions. And I think even the comic book showed that. Mark Wade in the first ones that he wrote for it, he takes that away from the story, he brings down the teleporters and in the process now all of a sudden you feel that these people could really get hurt, this is big time now. They even had one of the old, I think it was Rick Dakan doing the old Blue King stuff for the comics, there was a whole jury episode that had like those things being screwed up and how it actually involved in someones death. Thats one of the issues that I have coming in. Do I have a game play solution for it? Not exactly, I have some ideas, but nothing that youre going to see in Issue 13 thats like Oh hey we got rid of the when you die you teleport back to the hospital, but if we did ever do something like that it would have to be an event that we change drastically how the game works. And it would probably involve the Rikti, since the way that I remember the lore on that, pretty much we stole that technology from them. It would be a world changing event for that.
Viv: Definitely.
Joe: Odds of us seeing it? Not likely, but that would be my choice I think.
Chooch: It seems like every other MMO is trying to find ways to integrate fast transportation systems because people complain so much about how long it takes to get around. So to take out telepads would be huge.
Joe: Yeah, you would definitely have to come up with something else. Ive always got the opinion that early Mass Multiplayers, it felt more like you were just trying to come up with ways to make me play longer to get more cash out of me. And the minute I started to feel like that I became very uninterested in giving them my money. Theres a lot of situations people have seen that. I think weve also seen like, as MMOs have matured, theres been more of an interest of making sure the players are having more fun on a regular basis, then the fact that they just have to play longer. I think thats something that you always need to hold to. Which is why you see a lot of design mechanics that are coming from console games or from other PC games where there isnt a monthly charge because its kind of that players expect the stuff to get better. Its really bad to sit in a room with people and you go, Well this is a really bad idea and you get, Well when I was playing <insert some old Mass Multiplayer game that I dont want to mention> you should have seen that! Because I had to stand in line for the guy to spawn. And youre like, Really? Does that make you that the idiot, or does that make the game the idiot? So at least thats always my take on it, it should feel very natural. I think were doing a good job of that. Thats my preface to if I was to ever pulled the pads out; it would be a system that would actually be a step forward from that.
Viv: Gotcha, so we dont need to totally freak out right now? We can just know that if it were to happen that there would be an improvement. Okay, I can breathe again.
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Joe: Also know that Hero 1 has no authority whatsoever. Its just some guys talking.
Chooch: Right, see the Posi veto question.
Joe: Exactly.
Chooch: Weve got a question from BlueSigma3, From a creative perspective, where do you get your inspiration for these stories and/or storylines? Comic books? Novels? Slight twists on real life events then insert fantastic elements?
Joe: I get this question every now and then from people, and it actually reminds me of a Peter David review I read once where hed gotten the question posed to him about where does he get his inspirations from, and he actually gave a mailing address that you can send like fifteen bucks to, and then theyll send you really good ideas. And it just happened to be his home address that he was giving out. I believe that was the story.
Chooch: As an aside, a friend of ours, Mur Lafferty, who is an author, just started a daily project where every day she does a blog post with a new story idea. It says this is creative commons, use it, dont use it, just give me credit and its called the News from Poughkeepsie because
Viv: Keepsie. She did Playing for Keeps, and put it out as a podiobook for free for everybody to listen to. Its about superheroes, bad guys, good guys, its really amazing.
Joe: Thats really cool. I definitely love good superhero books.
Viv: Well its really good, and shes actually a former player. I dont think she plays now because she spend so much time writing but she has created some characters in the game that she got the ideas
Im not sure which way it fed, whether the game fed her ideas for characters in the book or whether she created characters based off of her book, but she loves the game too.
Joe: Is it a comic book or a novel?
Chooch: A novel at Playingforkeepsnovel.com.
Viv: Or murverse.com. So, there ya go Mur, we plugged you!
Joe: Alright, Im looking at the sight right now.
Viv: Awesome, shes an amazing writer.
Joe: That is cool, we could use some of those.
Most of the inspiration I get for the game itself comes from the game. Ill read through the story bible which I have a bound print out of that I read through whenever I get a chance, because theres just so much of it to kind of parse through, or going through old stories. A lot of times, if you get a group of the fans of the game together theyll start talking about the great moments of the game for them. And theyll be like, Ah, I was doing this one mission and all of these robots just started to come to life while I was in this room, it was awesome. As a mission designer, youve got to listen to that. And theres a lot of go kill ten skulls in the game, but every now and then theres other stuff that kind of stands out. My overall push is to get less kill ten skulls and more of that really cool stuff. So, Ill look at those missions and Ill see what they did differently. And then Ill troll the forums, Im a pretty big lurker there, to go through and see what people are asking about or how they want to see things a little bit differently.
It was kind of weird; Ive been on the team for about a year now, so its really not that long in all honesty. Im still, in my opinion, green on the project. But Issue 10 was just like trying to play catch up and get all that stuff, make sure I didnt spell a guys name wrong or something like that, which I do way too often. Issue 11 there was a lot. That was where I really got to delve into the history of the game because we were doing so much flashback content. It was really a chance to look at what it was, what stories brought the game to that place. And (Issue) 12 was kind of the first time for me to start branching out and start looking at it and now I have a list of stories on my whiteboard that I didnt get a chance to tell. So Ive now gotten to that place where Im We really need to do that or Do you know what would be cool?
One I can give you because if it shows up or not it doesnt matter. For Issue 11, I always wanted to do a Groundhog Day mission. I thought that would be a blast. Because your time traveling and you go back and every time you go back you have just one thing that you have to do differently. A part of me is like, you know a cruel joke of the game designer would want to put you on some office map, because you always have to see the office maps and youd be like, Aw, Ive got to go through the office map, Ive got to fight the thorns again. Oh, man! Whens this going to be different? You know each time its going to be just slightly different, too. So, who knows, maybe someday Ill get a chance to write that. Thats kind of where, like you asked before, where the ideas come from and stuff, and there isnt any right now, any contextual reason why that arc would need to exist, its just a cool idea.
And so the next part of my job would go, what is it about the theme of the issue as a whole that would warrant one of the contacts to say, I need you to go and do this. Why is Mender Tesseract going to send you back to redo this thing all over and over again, or why is The Pilgrim going to give you this mission. Thats the fun part because then you really start to go, Well who is this character? Why would they want to do that? How does that build towards everything else that were doing with the issue? So, yeah, Im growing. Im done, that was it. Sorry.
Viv: So, then we have a question from Pathway, If you could change one thing about the pre-existing COH/COV lore, what would it be?
Joe: I think on some levels I mightve answered that already with the one event that I would do to the game is that I would change that lore aspect of it; I would pull the teleporters out. I mean, I thought about other stuff that I would change, and right now either I dont know enough of the lore to hate any of it. Theres definitely a lot there and theres a lot to work with. Theres not a lot that I would go, You know I dont like how Statesman and Lord Recluse are tied together in their powers or I didnt really like how Synapse got his powers or whatever. I think all that stuff is really good and its fun to explore. Because so much of it we actually havent really brought out to the players as much as we could. Its like why would I want to change any of it, I can make it now. I can do whatever I want with it.
That was the nice part about the Spider Weaves His Web story arc for Issue 11, where you play a villain and you have to help Lord Recluse overthrow the Rogue Isles and that was just great to get into Marchand and what hes doing there and also all the aspects and all the fun little tidbits of the dialog. That was actually one that War Witch worked on, she actually did that arc, which you can kind of tell if you know her style when she does her zone population of all the little one liners that she puts in the zone as you play through and youll laugh about stuff. You can see that same touch that she has in those missions.
Chooch: A question from Blackguard, I'm a huge fan of the 5th Column. Even though I joined with City of Villains, their story has always fascinated me, and their arch villains are without a doubt my favorites. They had a cameo in i11 with mysterious hints, i12 will probably feature lots about the Path of the Dark and the 5th, but I'm waiting for the heavy hitter - Reichsman. What happened to him? Are there any hints you could share about the possible future endeavors of the 5th Column or their heavy hitter himself?
Joe: If I remember correctly, Reichsmans actually frozen underneath the Freedom Phalanxs main headquarters. I cant give anything regarding plans we have for him, but just like some of the other things we talked about like the Rikti home world it comes up probably more than it should to be ignored. Its funny though; this guy Reichsman is not even in the game. I checked up and as far as I can tell hes just a line or two on the website and the fact that one guy could have that much momentum behind him. We always get asked, When are you going to bring this guy out? Its so funny, because we always like, Wow, really? Him? Okay.
Viv: Ill admit it; I didnt recognize the name at all when I saw it.
Joe: Hes basically an alternate version of Statesman, and I think that idea really resonates with a lot of people, and thats why a lot of them like the Praetorian stuff so much, which I think is awesome. I think that stuffs so great. I would love to go back again and explore some of that stuff as well, given the opportunity.
Chooch: Speaking of the Praetorian Earth, Dr_Illuminatus asks, Could a player use Ouroboros to try to alter events on Praetorian Earth? (ie save Miss Liberty, alter certain events in Dominatrix's life to turn her into Lady Statesman?)
Joe: I would have to say that would be a yes. You would have to be able to get to Praetorian Earth and there would have to be an Ouroboros there, which since everything seems to kind of be reversed you probably wouldnt end up with the Ouroboros that you know and love in our world. So the effects might not be exactly as intended. In theory, if there was that particular method of time travel open to the players then the characters would be able to go through and try and do that stuff. Entirely hypothetically of course.
Choochus: Fleeting_Whisper asks, Are we actually going to be seeing a reduction in the usage of the Prussian Prince of Automatons? I love Nemesis, and having the great mastermind behind a million and a half schemes just vanish when his future self shows up would be disappointing.
Joe: I feel like Fleeting_Whisper and I need to wear t-shirts that say Vote for Nemesis. I personally think the guys really awesome. I like the idea of the villain, the plots-within-plots, I think its very cool. Honestly, weve used him a lot in recent time, so I dont think were walking away from him but we might be kind of dancing with another group for awhile, but hes still there.
Viv: Youre just on a break.
Joe: Exactly, yeah. Very much so, the stuff we revealed for Rikti War Zone with him, and the stuff players have been able to parse together for Issue 11, I think it continues to set stuff up. We just need to make sure that we give some of the other groups some time, because theres a lot of really good groups in the game that we could start looking at again and bring some more out of. Im sure hell wait patiently for us to reveal everything.
Viv: We have a question, another one from Olantern: What are the most important differences between writing a story arc and creating other kinds of fiction? Do you find it difficult to create a coherent story when you know nothing about the protagonist, the player hero or villain that will play through it?
Joe: This is actually kind of the nature of the beast for game writing. Its why so many other writers have difficulty trying to come in to game writing because they try and put the motivation on the player and tell them what they feel and tell them how to act and stuff like that and, especially for Massive Multiplayers, that doesnt work. People do not like to be told what to do in that respect. Its fine to some extent in a first person game, or a single player game, youre more along for the ride on that. I think thats great, but for Massive Multiplayers as a writer you need to put your emphasis on the contacts themselves in this case. Thats kind of the job that I do, to have them be the ones that are upset about whats going on, or theyre unhappy about it, theyre jazzed about what youre doing. Show the emotion through them and let the players kind of decide how their own characters respond to that.
There are some decent villain arcs that actually do I think a good job of this where they kind of cross a line on what makes people feel should cross in regards to being a villain and being evil. Ive seen some forum threads where people arguing like did this go too far, and I think thats great, I want to see more of that of that kind of conversation of players going, You know my character doesnt feel like they would do this. Well then you have a great opportunity to not play that arc, or to choose to do a different arc.
And maybe that stuff with the contextual dialog or branching dialog that we might be able to explore more to kind of give you an idea of that. But Im not sure how much within the existing system that we have like that will actually be likely. Thats kind of going off on another angle there. Essentially, in order to do it for game writing versus other kinds of writing, you really have to kind of get used to the fact that you dont know who your main character is, and then its just about building up the setting and the plot and then kind of let the character be what its going to be, who they want to be.
Chooch: Weve got a question from MasterJediJared, Will the City of Heroes story line continue with the predominant Greek themes and motifs? Will more ancient Greek stories and philosophies be integrated into new characters and NPC groups?
Joe: I think so much of the world of Paragon, even the name Paragon City ties back to that, I know when they initially were creating all of that lore, theres no way that we can really, even if I wanted to get away from it, that we could. I think that Issue 12 is a sign that I didnt want to get away from it. I wanted to more embrace it. The balance of that again is just like what I was talking about before with, you cant put words into the heros mouth. They dont really like that. So if you start to go down a path where its all Roman and Greek all the time a lot of guys are going to be like, look this has nothing to do really with my own origin with what I want to do so you need to balance those two things. But I think theres plenty of room to play within those themes and motifs. Its classic for our Western culture, it literally is classic with a big C, its what we understand without even knowing that we understand whats going on there.
Its the same thing with old school Tolkien fantasy, like everybody kind of gets it without having to really sit down and explain like you would have to do with other genres, what every class is and with everything going on.
Chooch: Do you have a favorite mission or Task Force?
Joe: Right now it would be Times Arrow, thats my favorite Task Force. I mentioned before that I had been buried in the Midnight Squad for so long that its pretty much all that I can think about, but I really like Montague Castanellas story arc Lost And Found. We really got to do a lot of different stuff with those missions, and really kind of do some crazy stuff with the stories. I was really jazzed about that, and the fact that it goes from 10 to 50 I think is going to be awesome. I think the players are really going to like that.
Darren Wades arc, its got some cool stuff. Its all about the last mission on that one. Im not going to reveal it to anybody, but there are some big surprises and then even when you go back and talk to him at the end of the mission. For those who maybe dont always read all the text it might be worthwhile to read what he says when you go back and talk to him because he kind of points out some interesting things of where he wants to see things go. That was fun because Darren Wade was once a member of the Midnight Squad and he pretty much sold out, stole a bunch of stuff, has gone to the Rogue Isles and is selling his information and all the stuff he took from their stores to the highest bidder. So you have some good stuff youve got to do with him.
This actually wasnt really necessarily a question but is something that I wanted to bring up that I really liked how it turned out for this issue. For those who go out to the zones and look for the Easter eggs and stuff that War Witch puts out there, she had gotten this idea to do kind of this mystery clue thing for the Midnight Squad zone. Throughout the zone there would be these different clues that you would click on and each clue would kind of lead you to another clue to reveal some secret of the Midnight Squad. She asked me, Hey do you want to write some stuff up for this, and I was like, I would love to, this would be great, Im not sure how much time I have but Ill see what I can do. So I started working on it and I just went crazy. It was so much fun. Theres thirteen clues, and each one I really tried to get into the lore and the history of the Midnight Squad and from different angles each time. One is a journal entry from the guy who first starts the Midnight Squad, one is like the skull of one of the guys who is now cursed. Thats the first clue most people find, theres a skull right on the desk when you first walk in and that kind of starts all of it, and you click on it.
It was different than the writing that I normally do because normally my stuff is all mission based. This was really just kind of sitting back and going, So, what did happen to the Dream Doctor? How did so-and-so get their powers? Where did all these magic items come from? Yeah, theres some fun stuff in there. That was one of the things that I really enjoyed and I hope the players enjoy it. Our hope was to make it a little more accessible than the Easter Eggs usually are, because you walk into the Midnight zone and theres a guy behind a desk youre supposed to talk to and right there is the skull. And its kind of natural that you click on the skull and it gives you a little bit of information and says Hey, go look for the other clues. We give you a badge at the end of it too, so thats nice. And you can just go onto the forums and find all the clues and where theyre all at if youre that type of player, thats fine. Or you can look for them yourselves, theyre not that hard to find.
Viv: That sounds really fun.
Chooch: Very cool.
Joe: Yeah, I was like, Man, we should do this in every zone. This is cool. So who knows, we might put some more of those in.
Chooch: I think we had one last question. And you know were really a fan project, but is there any way we can get some official hero names?
Joe: The real question finally comes out
Viv: Now you know why its the last one, weve got you relaxed, a little tired
Joe: Yeah its true; Im like things are good. Maybe you guys are tired; were still on work hours now. Everyone else is looking at me, Are you still on that interview?, and Im like Yeah, I dont have to work, this is awesome. As far as getting your own names, I think we might be able to arrange something, I can see that. But it all depends on your willingness to completely give that character over to Hero 1 to do with what he will.
Viv: Okay, now Im in a puddle on the floor and I need Chooch to fan me because Im just all woo hoo!
Joe: This issue I actually kind of experimented with creating a couple smaller heroes to kind of come out, I have Cadaver (sp?) Kill and Sigil, are two that you probably wont even really notice are in there at all, but I actually had a lot of fun creating their background story and doing all the stuff with them. That was fun, I enjoyed that. Of course granted Im now getting a handful of bugs about them so maybe I shouldnt do this more. That was fun so I think more stuff like that. We even had stuff like that in comic book towards the end we started to bring in other characters, and we had a contest. I love that stuff. I think the thing that keeps this game alive is the people playing it. We do it all for you guys, so anything we can do to kind of bring more of that stuff, I think that would be awesome. That being said, I dont want a huge list of people who are like, Put my name in the game! Put my name in the game!
Viv: Well, since we have your ear, I will say for Chooch without even asking him, we put ourselves completely in your hands if you were to ever get the urge to do that. We totally trust you, and name your caffeine addiction and we will send you cases. Bribery, whatever.
Joe: Caffeines good.
Viv: We understand everybody wants their own; we actually only asked as a joke but
yes, please! Yes, please! We trust you, whatever you want!
Joe: Thats the joy of it, to be working on a game thats always there, its always going to be out, theres always going to be new stuff for it. Because of that, its so different from every other game Ive worked on because theres always the possibility of doing whatever you want with it. So trying to actualize that every issue. It helps to keep us going to keep us so inspired about it. I was worried that if I was going to come on I was going to be like, Man Ive got to work on that game forever, like really? And now Im like, This is great, this is like exactly what I would want where youre constantly building this story and constantly building the world and youre never done and youre always like Okay, whats next? And its a great feeling.
Viv: Its so cool too, because, and of course all we know is what we see on the forums, but it just seems like such an amazing group of people.
Joe: It is, it really is. I dont think Ive worked with a better group. Everybody takes responsibility for what they do, everybody does everything they can to help everybody else out, theyre all really talented. I mean, they kind of had to be. This all happened before I came on, but when it was only the fifteen of them, you couldnt have a slacker in the group and you had to wear a lot of hats. They were supporting how many subscribers off of fifteen people? Youve got to be rock stars to do that, and that was kind of daunting coming on and working with these guys and going, Wow, theyre the real deal here. Its been great to try and step up to match their level.
And hopefully when we bring on new people, theyll be rock stars to, and itll just get that much better, which I think is what is pretty much happening. Were being very careful about how weve grown a lot since weve moved to the new offices. Everyone seems like good hires. I think were really going to be on to something, you guys are really going to be excited in the coming months, years, decades whatever we can keep this game going.
Chooch: Was there anything else that we didnt cover that you wanted to cover?
Joe: Lets see, dont think so. Im trying to think, I pitched the Wiki as much as possible, theyll like that. I think pretty much I cant really think of much else. It seemed like a pretty decent interview. We covered a lot of stuff, and answered the majority of questions that I think needed to be answered by the fans, so thats good. There are a lot of them.
Oh, I do see one question here that was I related at all to the singer (Morrissey). Yeah, that was funny, there were times in high school where to meet a girl, I might fib a little with that. But no, theres no actual relation, thankfully.
Viv: As a girl, I can say that line wouldve worked with me, I had a major crush on him. I knew better but it didnt matter. Theres something just, yeah, I bet that would have worked well.
Joe: It never really did, no. I think that might have had more to do with me than the name.
Viv: You may have just been pitching to the wrong girls, that may have just been the problem.
Joe: Yeah, thankfully I dont have to worry about that anymore. Happily married.
Viv: Thats awesome.
Chooch: Alright, well thanks for coming on Joe, its been a real pleasure talking to you.
Joe: Thanks for having me on, its been a blast. I hope I didnt ramble on too long for you guys, its nice to have a captive audience.
Chooch: If theres one thing that weve found out from the fans of this show, our shows cannot be too long.
Viv: Absolutely, amazingly. And believe me they will sit how ever long this goes and be very happy, because we have Hero 1!
Joe: Well thats good to hear.
Viv: So, thanks again, and we hope we get to talk to you again soon.
Joe: I hope so, too. They might take my microphone away after this, well see.
Viv: We hope not!
(Transitional music)
Chooch: That wraps up this special episode of the City of Heroes Podcast.
Viv: We really want to thank Joe for coming on and breaking us in gently with the whole redname thing. Hopefully, hes the first of many, and wed love to have him back again. It was so fun talking to him.
Chooch: And Lighthouse and Ex Libris for setting it up.
Viv: Yes, big thank yous!
Chooch: Everybodys so awesome at that company.
Viv: I know, big love. Were so glad our money goes there. Its a good investment.
Chooch: And for everybody who hit the official boards and put in the questions, sorry, I know we didnt get everybodys questions in but we only had so much time, so we did what we did.
So if you have any feedback for us you can send us an email to cohpodcast@gmail.com or you can leave a comment on the site at cohpodcast.com. And while youre there, join the forums. Look around, dont post porn, but look around and have fun.
Chooch: Yeah, we have a lot of fun there. Oh, well have pictures up from the listener meet up, which we dont have time to talk about now, but we will later. It was awesome.
Viv: It was awesome.
Chooch: Great turn out, lots of fun.
Viv: We love them all. So take care everybody, thanks for listening.
Chooch: Talk to you next time.
Viv: Good hunting, Heroes.
(Outro music)
This podcast, its hosts, and websites are not in any way affiliated with NCSoft, Cryptic Studios or City of Heroes. All views expressed are solely of the hosts and their guests. This podcast is released under a Creative Commons, attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license, which is explained in detail at cohpodcast.com. Good hunting, Heroes!
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.
Click here to discuss this 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.
Here it is - word for word from CoH Podcast - all 25 pages of it!
City of Heroes Podcast
Special Episode 3
Hero 1 Interview
May 6, 2008
Click here to listen to the Interview
-Recorded May 5, 2008
Chooch: City of Heroes Podcast, Special Episode 3
Viv: Guys, weve got Hero 1. How you doin?
(Intro music)
Welcome to the City of Heroes Podcast, a resource for the casual Heroes gamer. Your hosts Chooch and Viv are here to explain basic and advanced features of CoH, as well as give tips and answer your questions about this great MMO.
(Transitional music)
Viv: Hey guys, welcome! Weve got something special for you tonight. We actually just finished recording the interview with Hero 1, and he was so gracious. It went really long.
Chooch: Yes, we went over our allotted time.
Viv: Yeah, it turns out all three of us are chatty.
Chooch: So we had actually recorded a full episode or our regular news and feedback segments, and then the interview was going to be the main topic. Theres just way too much, so well release that regular episode later in the week.
Viv: Right, this was too big for us to chop up and make it fit. So, Joe gets his own episode.
Chooch: Oh yeah, he deserves it.
Viv: He totally does. Guys, he was so nice and so cool. We really want to have him on again as soon as Posi allows it!
Chooch: So without further ado, heres the interview.
Viv: Squeeeeee!
(transitional music)
Chooch: Welcome back! Now the part that most people have tuned in for, I would imagine.
Viv: Right, theyre skipping to this part.
Chooch: Viv and I have a special guest on the phone and wed like to introduce Joe Morrissey, otherwise known as Hero 1!
Joe: Hello!
Viv: Hi Joe! We lost sound for a minute there. That was scary. So, welcome! Sorry for the technical difficulty but we have you now, and were going to keep you for as many hours as youll let us keep you!
Joe: Alright, War Witch might get upset
Chooch: We know that in the official forums there were a whole bunch of questions posted, and I have a bunch that Ive come up with. I want to intro with a couple of things about you and the company, and then get into more content questions. The first natural question is how did you get into game development?
Joe: I could lift a computer monitor. Initially, I was working at a start up company in the Bay Area that was one of the many that didnt start up. When that was beginning to fail, my manager suggested I should maybe look for another job, because the company was going to be closing. I was like, Im playing a lot of video games and Ive got this English background, that I should maybe do something with that. I was doing I.T. (information technology) work at this company at the time, so I applied for an I.T. job at Blizzard North. I went for this horrendous interview that I totally thought I had failed, but they called back like, three weeks later and offered the job. I literally asked if they were sure they had called the right person, because I did really badly on that interview. They said that I had done better than most people. It was one of those I.T. tests that you werent supposed to pass. It was really more about how you tried to solve the problems, I didnt realize that when I went into it.
I started doing I.T. work, and was across the hall from a lot of the guys who were working on the story for Diablo II at the time, and I would talk to them about stuff. With my background in English Lit, there was a lot that I actually had to offer, and two or three months in the guy who was working on the story ended up actually going to another company, and I think it was Erich Schaefer, one of the initial five(?) founders that asked Does anybody knew what is going on with the quests for this game? We need somebody to work on that. I said, Well, I know , so it was just being in the right place at the right time. And ever since, went more of the story and mission design route with both of them, and thats pretty much how I got in. One of the requirements for that I.T. job was that you had to be able to lift a certain amount of weight because the artists had these giant monitors that you had to be able to carry around with you to put on their desks. I was like, Wow, I can lift 50 pounds, I can do this job, that works. Not really a glamorous way in, thats for sure.
Chooch: Well, most of I.T. isnt.
Joe: Thankfully, I dont have to do any of that anymore.
Chooch: Kind of a follow-up question, how did you get started with Cryptic/NCSoft?
Joe: I had always like City of Heroes. I was still working at Blizzard at the time and they relocated the team down to Irvine from San Mateo up in the Bay Area. I applied then, but they werent hiring at the time, and I may not have had the skill set that they were looking for. I ended up going to another company for about 18 months. Then my wife and I found out about a little over ayear ago that we were going to have our first kid.
Viv: Awww!
Joe: Yep, Hero 2.
My commute at my other job at Backbone Entertainment was about and hour and a half, one way. It was a long drive from where I lived in San Jose, and so we had the conversation Okay, youre going to have a kid, youve got to be home more. I wouldnt get home until 7 or 8 oclock at night. We looked around at game studios that were in the area and Cryptic was in Los Gatos which was literally like a stones throw from where we lived. I decided Id apply again, but didnt know if I was good enough to get in there. I applied, Positron called me up, we did a phone interview, and then they brought me in and offered me the job. That was pretty much it. The commute was great; it was like, ten minutes. The team is awesome; theyre called the Freem Fifteen, or whatever, now. The Fighting Fifteen, because each one of these people are just really unbelievable with what they can do, because they all have to wear so many different hats.
It was a little intimidating to come on, because it was kind of in the heat of Issue 10. Constellation was the guy who doing this job before I, and he needed to move up to Marvel for work they needed him to do on that project. So, it was Get Joe up to speed ASAP. It was definitely a trial by fire in that respect, but I like that, and thats the awesome part about that job. And the great part was that no one got mad if you failed, because you were in this impossible situation and had to get things done so you could really just experiment with it. The trick was really bringing Constellations vision to life, because he had already set a lot of the foundation for what he wanted the Issue 10: Invasion to be, and it was just a matter of me going in and making sure that the scripting worked, and the logic worked, and that the right guys showed up and they said the right dialog, and everything unlocked when it was supposed to. Which was crazy, but I got through it somehow.
Which is why, to totally ramble at this point, I actually picked Hero 1 as my redname, because there were two things that I really liked about Hero 1. One was going through Issue 10, kind of that very Invasion trial by fire thing was very reminiscent to what I was feeling at the time while working on Issue 10. So here you had this hero that was dramatically changed in the process by the Rikti. And the second thing was more from my Diablo background for writing, we always had this prevalent theme in the game which was the hero might win, but at what cost. Hero 1 just resonated with me, heres this guy who does the biggest sacrifice you can do and throws himself in through the portal with the Omega Team to close it down, and saves the world but you find out later that he paid for it with his soul, basically. He was completely corrupt, and I thought that was totally awesome, and I totally want to be that guy. That might answer a couple of your questions.
Chooch: That was one of our questions later on, how did you get to pick your redname, and if it was some ritualistic or hazing?
Joe: If I had to guess we might go a little bit more, you dont pick your redname, your redname picks you. It was a different story when there was just fifteen of us, now as were getting larger were starting to think we should control it a little bit more. Well see how it goes.
Chooch: So dartboard?
Joe: I think its more the personality like, You know, youre more of a Jose Brogan, no thats not true. We dont have a Jose Brogan.
Chooch: So how much have things changed since youre NCNC (NCSoft NorCal)?
Joe: Its weird, its like it hasnt changed at all, but its changed a lot. Its the same team, its all the same people, were in different cubes, were in a different location. Now that were beginning to hire on more people, its interesting to see the team grow to fit what our vision of what we want the game to be, its the nice part about it. I was only at Cryptic for about six months before everything happened, and the team of COH was really tight. We were actually on a different floor than the Marvel team, and we didnt have a lot of interaction with them. It feels like that still, even though this office doesnt have a second story to it, there could be a whole other team up there working on something and it would feel pretty much the same way. Now that Brians stepped up to take over everything for the studio, and Matts really come into his own with leading the vision of where we kind of want this game to go, its really exciting. Its definitely the dream job, especially for my part. I get to think you know, I think we really need to do this, and we say Okay, lets do it. And NCSoft is really good, theyre very hands off with how we want to make the game, what we want to make it as, theyre great for feedback. We go to them to talk about our upcoming issues and what we want to do. Theyre game makers too, and theyve been doing it as long if not longer than a lot of us, and theres a great feedback in regards to that, which is nice.
Viv: Thats all you can really hope for.
Joe: Yeah, Im trying to think of like maybe it would be closer to my house?
Viv: Like in your backyard?
Joe: Yeah, theres not really that much more to ask for. I mean, this issue alone is probably the best issue weve ever done easily, since Ive been on the team. Some might even argue period, but inventions were pretty cool, Ill admit. Ill leave that up to the fans to decide.
Chooch: The list of new features is very impressive.
Viv: It really is. Were very excited about i12 ourselves.
Joe: Initially, we were worried, we were cautious about moving into the new office, getting the new people up to speed, everything that goes into that when it was going to happen. We were initially concerned about how it was going, so we were cautious about what to expect from Issue 12, but as weve hit the ground running. It really seemed like it went off without a snag for the most part, with the move, the computers, the network, and getting everyone up to speed. There were a couple minor hiccups, but nothing major. That just meant that we got to crank out so much more content for stuff. Im a big fan of the quality of life stuff, like the contact redesign, I was one of the main guys behind that.
Viv: Thank you!
Joe: Its been something the players have been asking for. Really, it was just stealing from the forums; it was like This could be better. And youre right, so could badges, that would be nice, too.
Chooch: That was my first comment; could you please apply this to badges?
Joe: We all kind of laughed about it, because we have that same comment internally.
Chooch: And informally talking to people, the most excited people seem to really be is the new user interface tweaks, the new quick slots, and moving them around.
Joe: The guy working on that is crazy with that stuff. Hes such a big player, which is great to have guys that go way past the rest of us as far as their understanding of the game, and they really do know what the players want because theyre one of them. Hes one of those guys, and all the stuff hes been working on has been great.
Chooch: The COH developers are more involved with the forums and interacting with the community than Ive ever seen in any game, its amazing.
Joe: This is arguably my first Massive Multiplayer, one of my old bosses would argue that Diablo 2 was actually a Massive Multiplayer. Thats a topic for a roundtable at the game developers conference. But yeah, its interesting to be working on a game that youre always shipping, but that youve always shipped. On one hand, youre always going to the forums and getting feedback on what the players like or dont like, and then youre always thinking forward about what it is you want to bring to the table. And thats just been really great to see.
I actually love the, as nerve-wracking as it is, I love the closed beta and open beta period, because its where the rubber hits the road for a lot of the missions and a lot of the systems that come into place. A great example is the Imperious Task Force that we have for Issue 12, I put a lot of work, probably more work than I should have, into that Task Force. So far the response has been pretty good from it, so thats good. I dont know if that makes up for the amount of time that I spent when I could have been working on other content, but its been nice.
Chooch: In your Dev Diary you said, Dont blame Posi for this, which made me curious about how these new issues and storylines get started - if they are driven by new technology that becomes available, or driven by a story specifically, or customer requests?
Joe: It would be nice to say that there is a simple system to this, but there really isnt a lot of the time. Well do a roundtable and decide, at least this is the way it was done in the past. I kind of get the impression now that were under NCSofts roof wholly that our dynamic is kind of changing. Were now thinking much more forward than we used to. So it used to be that we would do a roundtable and say What new features do we want to bring to the table? What new story elements do we want to bring to the table? And then from that, its kind of how I saw, I mean I wasnt around for the Issue 10 pitch for Invasion, but for Flashback, I was in the room for that and it was a feature that we think will bring a lot to the table, it could be very cool. And my job for that was to then give a story trapping to that, besides just making it a mission computer that you can go up and get a mission, you know and flash back. It was really giving it some context, and thats where we came up with Ouroboros, and Mender Silas and all the rest of them to kind of go from there and even the secret, hidden letters that I put all over the place. Which I have way too much fun with, as well.
So for Issue 12, it was maybe more along the lines of what you would expect from a story angle that we had always wanted to do this Roman theme to stuff because so much of the games lore is kind of steeped in it. We even tried to do it for Issue 11, like one of the arcs that you have for Issue 12 now, we pretty much already had in Issue 11, and just time didnt allot for that to come out, so we pushed it back into i12, which is where you have Times Arrow, the flashback Task Force that you have now.
The general idea was that we need Romans, or Romanesque, theyre not traditional Romans. From there it was, how do we want to tell the story of these guys, and what lens do we want to put them through, and I mentioned that in the Dev Diary. The Midnighter Squad was always a group that as I would do research, I would always come across their name and I was like, These guys are really cool, I could really see this. Honestly, at the meet and greet here in the Bay Area a little while ago, I was talking to some of the fans there, and one of them was basically saying, You guys need to do more magic stuff, youve been doing this tech stuff for awhile, you need to do more magic. I told him I would look into that and sure enough he was totally right, we were lacking on some magic. So I thought we could take a magic theme, well have some Romanesque stuff, I can focus on the Midnight Squad, and then bam, we kind of went to where were at now. But Issue 13 and forward, I think we have a much stronger vision for where well be going with those, which is good.
Chooch: That was one of the questions, was how far ahead do you have things planned, Issues 13, 14, 25?
Joe: We know the big points. If you looked at it like a landscape, we know the mountains, and we know that at some point were going to want to resolve this plotline, at some point were going to have this reveal. Which kind of makes it good because you can look at once were going to kick off for an issue, and say is this when were going to bring out this character? Is this where we do this reveal? Is this when we go to this zone? Um, not yet. Or hey, we should really do this. And to some extent its dictated by what we see on the boards and how players are responding. Its also the direction that we want to take the game in general. Ive really tried to make i10, i11 and i12 actually feel more closely tied together, as far as lore wise or content wise, then the other issues might have been. Which hopefully will pay off eventually, right now it just feels more like Im hanging plot threads out for players that I will never resolve which I plan not to do that. I dont like the hanging plot thread.
Chooch: We appreciate that.
Joe: Its one of my biggest problems with Lost, Id have to say. Are you ever going to answer why that statue only had, what was it, three toes or whatever?
Viv: Ive stopped watching Lost because of that. Ill wait until the whole series is over, and then Ill just lock myself in the house for a week and watch it all over again.
Joe: Yeah, and thats actually the best way I think to do it. Its hard, you know everyone here talks about it when it comes out, and its hard to kind of not be a part of those conversations, but its definitely the best way, it makes it less painful.
Chooch: On the forums, and Im sure a lot of forum people are looking forward to having their questions answered
Joe: Hopefully, I think Ive answered some of them.
Chooch: Yeah, I would actually say that the first one from Olantern was saying What inspired the Roman theme, you pretty much already covered that. And further he says
Joe: What was the most difficult part of it? I think the most difficult part was how to make it relevant to the player. Its always difficult when you have to do time travel anyways, but to make this important to - why is it important to go back to this ancient zone long ago. I think we did a pretty decent job of it on the hero side. The villain side we probably could have done a better job of it, and I think that we will do a better job of as we go forward, the zone is by no means done. Youre going to get all the content that you have now for i12 in it, but for going forward its such a beautiful place that were going back there. Weve got plenty of stuff to do there down the road. But that was probably the most difficult point, to go Why should a villain care that he goes back here and has to do all of this stuff. Or why should a hero care?
Viv: A question from Heavensrun, Im actually going to take a portion of that question that really intrigues me and that was, Is this upcoming origin of powers storyline going to tell all of us exactly where all of our superpowers come from? And how do the kheldians fit into the origin specific dialogue you mentioned?
Joe: The kheldian one is easy, because there is no specific dialog for them. I didnt do any, thats my bad. I probably should have.
Chooch: You were working on Task Forces.
Joe: Yeah, I was too busy Sister Solaris is just way too hot to not work on her all the time.
Viv: Well, we now know where everyone will be lining up on launch day.
Joe: Oh man, yeah. We were like, Really, Jay, really? Okay
Its funny when you say, I want really sexy Amazon women from like Paradise Island, which is what I think you guys were trying to remember. Jay takes direction well, so that was good.
But as far as the actual real question, which is do we tell you where your powers come from, or how you got your powers, and my answer is hopefully not. We really tried to make sure that we didnt overwrite somebodys own creation that theyve done for their origin. Even with the Dr. Brainstorm stuff with the proliferation, it was a concern we had while working on that at the table. We wanted to show more the connections of powers and not as much All naturals get their super abilities through this or All magic users get their abilities through this.
My main focus on the origin of power arc was more the history of power. Like, how its come through the world of Paragon and the Rogue Isles to kind of be what it is now. I think that was a lot of fun to actually do. I know the War Witch character that you go and talk to if you are magic origin; she has pages of information for those who care to read it. And those who dont can say thank you and be done. That was one of the nice things about this contextual dialog, or branching dialog, however we refer to it, is that it opens up a door for me to give the players who really arent as concerned about what text is there, to kind of just give them the nuts and bolts of what they need. But the guy who wants a little bit more, you know, I can now add a link there would you like to know the origin of where all this stuff is coming from?, and they can click on that and get that. Im not sure if well see a lot of split of that where well have a lot of missions that will have, you know, the quick and dirty version or the long version. But the options there for me now, so thats good.
Viv: I think a lot of people are going to appreciate that you give that how do things tie together, rather than blowing whatever concept that theyve come up with for their characters. Because thats one of my favorite things about hanging out in what I call the Peach Pit in Atlas Park, and you can see different characters and read their bio and see what theyve come up with on how theyve gotten their powers, and its nice that you guys arent over-riding that with something else.
Joe: Ive actually thought about doing a once a week contest, where I would post my favorite character bio that I saw that somebody had, and then I realized that it would just be on Virtue because thats all I play on. Im like, maybe thats not such a good idea.
Viv: All of a sudden Virtue would be having problems.
Joe: Well, youd get a lot of people, rightfully so, that are like, Hey, how come you never go to Freedom?
Viv: Well, everyone is just going to transfer to Virtue, so, you know, log in problems.
Joe: And thankfully, no one knows who I actually play on live, which is good.
Viv: Thats what you have to do to enjoy the game I think, too, to actually have a pure experience of it.
Joe: Thats pretty much what it seems to me, I play the game and then I have a notepad next to me of all the things I want to do to the missions or to the area or whatever. I cant seem to turn my brain off most of the time when I play it.
Viv: Awww.
Joe: Its fine, it just means eventually you know, the game will be that much better for it.
Viv: Even better!
Chooch: There were two questions that were actually related somewhat, one was from Proeliator, Im sure Im going to murder some of these names, who wrote, 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? and Mr. Magnanimous says, 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?
Joe: 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 its kind of 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.
Lighthouse
Community Relations Manager
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