Ask a Dev: Introducing Bruce Harlick!
By
Aliana Blue,
Posted on: 2008-09-09 09:59 in Developers' Corner
Welcome to the Loony Bin, Bruce
With such a long history with P&P games, what are your biggest challenges when designing story lines for a MMO?
Do you prefer Blue or Red?
(Trying to brainstorm potential Signature Characters for Bruce)
I don't have a question, just wanted to say that as a (um) Hero Games player from way back, I'm very familiar with your work and I think it's great you're here working on CoH/V!
Ping-Pong Ball Gun Temp Powers for everyone! 
I don't have any questions, but welcome to CoX! It's great to see you added to the Dev team, and I look forward to your contributions to the game!
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)
Oh wow Foxbat?
Ping Pong Ball Guns?
Centipededmobile? (if I remember it defies description :P )
Cool!
No question, but welcome Bruce, can't wait to see where such a mind takes our upcoming Story arcs and potentional new missions!
Find us here at Templars of the Abbey Webpage
Arc # 57740 - 'A Star is Rising Part One'
Arc # 90575 - 'A Lesson Taught'
Arc # 139943 - 'And The Game Goes Tilt'
Hola Bruce! You need a redname. Srsly. And no, we won't warp you. I'd offer up your coworkers as proof but I don't think that's a good metric although, in our defense, they were warped before we got them.
Onward! If you can answer, is there any possiblity of branching stories, where a different mission depending on the outcome of the previous mission is offered next?
Thanks.
Hey Bruce, welcome to the forumite wing of the kookhouse!
Questions, hm...
1. Any strengthening of the Portal Corp alternate worlds storyline to the current CoX one?
2. Resurrection of Leviathan?
3. More in-depth backgrounds on the enemy groups by mousing over corresponding badges? 
4. Or random CoX 'news articles' as a fourth option in the scanner/paper?
In any event, welcome to the team... put the whip on 'em... make 'em push out issues faster.
Apparently, I play "City of Shakespeare"
*Arc #95278-Gathering the Four Winds -3 step arc; challenging - 5 Ratings/3 Stars (still working out the kinks)
*Arc #177826-Lights, Camera, Scream! - 3 step arc, camp horror; try out in 1st person POV - 35 Ratings/4 Stars
Hello Bruce,
1) What's your fav AT?
2) Who is your fav character in comics, ever, from the begining of comic books?
Welcome to the madness... now with lemony fresh scent!
My question stems from the recent attention Origins have received with the Midnighter introduction. I was wondering if we can look forward to seeing origin-specific story and/or mission arcs in the future?
My mind wanders so often you've probably seen its picture on milk cartons. - Me... the first person version of the third person Steelclaw
Welcome Bruce and thanks for taking time to answer questions. I've been a big fan of your's for a long time, still have several of your books on my shelf, and look forward to seeing your work here.
Some of the most interesting missions in this game have been written for villains. However at the same time there are complaints that many missions don't "feel villainous" particularly the ones in Cooperative zones. In the past some of your best work relates to great acts of super villainy. Have you given any thought so far to the sort's of things you'd like to do to make some Villainous feeling villain missions?
"Null is as much an argument "for removing the cottage rule" as the moon being round is for buying tennis shoes." -Memphis Bill
Fantastic, Bruce! It's great to see you back in the Bay Area and back with superheroes. Amazing where the roads of one's life brings one is it not. I remember all the Hero System games we used to play back in 'the day' before the Ice Age of Hero Games with Steve Perrin and others both at his home and at game stores and at conventions.
I wonder what The Marksman would say about all this?
It's great you are writing content and systems for the game, and I look forward to interacting with the content. Your writing and editing style has always provided cool and interesting touches to the games you have been involved with.
Welcome to NCNC and welcome to The City!
(Karl)
Edit: Fixed a little typo.
Too Many Characters... not enough player
Member of Alts-R-Us.
Welcome to the place, hope you have a great time here Bruce
Now for the questions:
It says you worked for the MMO The Matrix Online and the DC Universe Online. While DC Universe has not been released yet, The Matrix has. So, What sort of commonalities and differences stand out between the City of Heroes / Villains and those other MMORPGS, from your perspective?
If I might be allowed a second question: What brought you back into the Games Industry, from your time as a Technical writer?
Just to answer a few immediate questions:
Bruce's red name: Bruce won't be posting directly on the forums.
How long can questions be asked? Questions will be collected on Monday, September 22nd from both the North American and European forums.
When will the questions be answered? Shortly after they are collected we'll post up Bruce's replies.
Not long after that, we'll introduce our next dev and ask for your questions for them.
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.
Hey dude, welcome aboard!
- did you guys develop the mission architect partially as an excuse to beef up your existing mission development tools? In which case, is there stuff you can do with it that you couldn't do before?
- how likely is it that we'll start seeing more complicated mission objectives, or more complicated mission encounters, in the same spirit as the final mission of the sewer trial, or the final mission of the Darrin Wade arc?
- what about more destructible objects in missions, either as objectives or just as simple fun? Will destructible objects be available to us in the mission architect? What about destructible segments of wall or other parts that seem to be pieces of the map until we bash them?
- what about more non-instanced missions? Is that something you guys are working to support, or is the game too tied in to the instanced mission paradigm to allow for that?
bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonner-
ronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenth ur-
nuk!
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I’m primarily responsible for making cool stories and missions, and designing systems to help support missions.
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Most of the zone events at the moment are fairly one-dimensional. Giant monster spawn, Rikti Invasion, Steel Canyon fire - all are relatively simple in terms of how they execute. What do you think about making more complex zone events? I know people were brainstorming the zombie invasion, but thinking more generally, what do you think about making zone events that were more non-linear: they reacted to player participation, and changed with each iteration. In a simple example, the RWZ zone has a sequenced event: defeat towers to drop shield, plant bombs to unlock final critter, defeat final critter.
Conversely, the Rikti Invasion went the opposite direction: rather than see defeating the drop ships as an opportunity to add a new element to the zone event (crashed dropships in ths city) they were basically put "back onto the railroad" to maintain the linear progression of the event.
And in either case, zone events typically do not have a lot of story attached to them. In the case of the Rikti invasion, its a culmination of a story, but there's no story actually *in* it. Similarly, there's no story attached to the Hellions burning up buildings in Steel. Maybe there shouldn't be, in that case, if its intended to be random acts of violence, but I've always wondered if that was a passed opportunity as well. Maybe there's a reason they are targetting buildings in Steel. Maybe they are being put up to it. Maybe there's something special about those buildings in particular, or the sites they are on.
Would you prefer to see more complex zone events, or do you see an advantage to simpler zone events? Do you think they should have more story, or should be reserved as the punchlines for story content in other places? What would factor into your decision-making for that sort of content?
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Hi Bruce!
Two quick questions:
1) What are the plans for increasing the variety of maps/tile sets in the game? I think mixing up the look of missions would go a long way to reduce tedium.
2) Are there any plans for environmental dangers in missions? I'm thinking pit traps, spike traps, lava or poison water, etc.
Agua Man lvl 48 Water/Electric Blaster
"To die hating NCSoft for shutting down City of Heroes, that was Freedom."
My question would be, is there a chance to see some low level epic fights? What i mean is when your 10-15 you will almost never see a full fledged hero/av and it's cool fighting impossible odds at lowbie levels at times.
Like the capa TF your 15-20 fighting two AV's thats epic, or the first time fighting frost fire that seems epic so on and so forth.
The funny thing is, even though you seem like one of the whiners that got the changes made in the first place, you're probably still bad..------Macskull on Crop_of_shaolin
http://ravens-wins.mybrute.com
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Just to answer a few immediate questions:
Bruce's red name: Bruce won't be posting directly on the forums.
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Chicken. 
My question is simple: What are you going to give me and how soon can I have it? (My inner child might be in control today.)
When we will see a character named Batfox?
Clearly I have no serious questions to ask. Welcome at the City.
The Alt Alphabet ~ OPC: Other People's Characters ~ Terrific Screenshots of Cool ~ Superhero Fiction
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My question would be, is there a chance to see some low level epic fights? What i mean is when your 10-15 you will almost never see a full fledged hero/av and it's cool fighting impossible odds at lowbie levels at times.
Like the capa TF your 15-20 fighting two AV's thats epic, or the first time fighting frost fire that seems epic so on and so forth.
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They're out there.
"Null is as much an argument "for removing the cottage rule" as the moon being round is for buying tennis shoes." -Memphis Bill
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Just to answer a few immediate questions:
Bruce's red name: Bruce won't be posting directly on the forums.
How long can questions be asked? Questions will be collected on Monday, September 22nd from both the North American and European forums.
When will the questions be answered? Shortly after they are collected we'll post up Bruce's replies.
Not long after that, we'll introduce our next dev and ask for your questions for them.
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Do BaBs next!
How long to publish a single mission using the MA assuming...
- the user has a story prepared
- the user has a reasonable amount of experience with the MA
I'm just wondering if we will need 1 hour to make a mish, or something a long the lines of 20 hours.
Also, Will testing of our missions be done in game or not?
The Hero Simulator, Chapter 1, The Beta Tester
The Hero Simulator, Chapter 2, The Robot Mystery
More Info at....
https://boards.cityofheroes.com/show...0#Post13494207
I13 will have big base changes right? Because after 6 issues, alot of base builders are feeling pretty screwed over. Not just a question for Bruce, but for the whole dev team. Plus the issue is named, Architect, it should have alot of base changes.
My Lego Models http://www.flickr.com/photos/30369639@N07/ lemur lad: God you can't be that stupid... I'm on at the same time as you for once, and not 20 minutes into it you give me something worth petitioning?Lady-Dee: Hey my fat keeps me warm in the winter and shady in the summer.
Hi Bruce,
I was wondering about the feasibility of a mission (i.e. last SF mission) having a variable end boss. Let's say a random member of the Freedom Phalanx? If a Dev or Player wanted to create your basic "who done it" does the tech exist to do that and have the correct text?
Poison Pill
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Ask a Dev
Periodically, we'll introduce a member of the City of Heroes Development Team and open a reply forum thread where fans can pose their questions for that developer.
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Hi Bruce,
Did you really know what you were getting into when Lighthouse conned you into doing this forum? :-)
***
Lumin (D4,50), Caelestes Lux (PB,50), Corpus Operandi (MM,50)
4th edition DnD? Aww .... dude, HERO System!