Dev Diary - Signature Rogues - By Positron

Signature Rogues

By: Matt “Positron” Miller, Senior Lead Designer, Paragon Studios

When Going Rogue was in the planning stages, we knew that we would need a couple “poster-children” to encompass what “Going Rogue” meant. We needed a Hero and a Villain to cross over to the other side and show to the world, and our players, that yes, this can and will be possible for your character too.

We originally thought that we would take existing Signature characters and migrate them to the other side, but since we did the “Trading Places” storyline in the comic (where Manticore joins up with Arachnos), it seemed we couldn’t do that without someone tying it back to that comic storyline where (spoilers ahead!) Manticore was only faking and was actually a Hero the entire time.

So that meant we needed a Hero-gone-bad and a Villain-gone-good. Looking back into my stable of old RPG super-heroes I remembered a gun wielding vigilante I used to play called Maelstrom. Since we really wanted to get a dual pistols Powerset into Going Rogue I thought that he would be a great guy to dust off and bring to life in the City of Heroes universe. Like all creations, he went through many iterations before the final look and style was settled for him. The Going Rogue version and the RPG version from years ago are pretty much two distinct entities now, and I just love what our concept team was able to do to modernize him.

That took care of our vigilante Hero, but I still needed a redeeming Villain. I looked to the other powerset we wanted to put into Going Rogue, Demon Summoning. This was a Mastermind set, so it was already exclusive to villains, making it obvious that whoever we came up with was going to be a demon summoner.

Desdemona was the hardest to nail down a name for. We had gone through many iterations of her name, everything from Pandora to Eve to Demonatrix to Parable. We were never happy with any of them, until Melissa Bianco (War Witch, our Senior world designer) came up with Desdemona. It fit the character perfectly and instantly became her name in the story bible. We loved that she had such an “evil” powerset, but found herself in a situation where she wanted to use her powers for good.

Personally I love the way both characters turned out. During the concepting phase Desdemona had a lot of skin showing around the neck so we were trying out various jewelry and collars to break things up. Then Carolina Tello Alvarado, who did the concept art for her, realized if this girl was summoning demons, she’d probably want something mystical to keep them from controlling her. That’s when Carolina came up with the idea of a tattooed “circle of protection” encompassing her mind, that demons couldn’t penetrate and was permanently part of her body.

Maelstrom’s power source was also a great idea. Ken Morse, the Lead Artist, wanted something that evoked “Maelstrom” more than just the name, and so his idea was to having this glowing, swirling, energy source in his chest. I think the end result was awesome.

Sharp-eyed fans will note that we’ve been working on these two characters for a while, as they had their “birthdays” listed in the online calendar we released for the fourth anniversary of City of Heroes, over a year ago. Although Desdemona was listed as Pandora on that calendar, it just shows how fluid, and long, some of these ideas take to come to fruition.

For the next Dev Diary, Joe “Hero 1” Morrissey will detail new information on Tyrant, err, I mean Emperor Cole, and the world of Praetoria where he and his Praetorian Guard hail from.

Sounds amazing. I love the back stories on these two and can't wait to hear Emperor Cole's background!

Oh and... don't do it - don't do -- FIRST AFTER REDNAME! *disgusted with myself*

Gah! Would have loved Parable as a name

Thank you, Champion.

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Gah! Would have loved Parable as a name

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Would have been much better, especially considering there's already a Desdemona in the game.

*sighs*

Something tells me that I will be coming out of retirement long enough to make a trailer for GOING ROGUE. This really is shaping up too damn cool not to...

*glares at Matt and the other devs*

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

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Gah! Would have loved Parable as a name

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Would have been much better, especially considering there's already a Desdemona in the game.

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"Desdemona" does suit her better than the others. And it's not like it's unprecedented in comics for two characters to use the same name, even at the same time.

Demon Master Minds
Duel Pistols!!

Dual pistols and Demon Summoning. Plus I think this is the first time it's actually been confirmed that they are allowing Side Switching.

More input.

Sounds like Desdemona, has a little of "The Darkness"...

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"Desdemona" does suit her better than the others. And it's not like it's unprecedented in comics for two characters to use the same name, even at the same time.

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As Paolo Tirelli and Paolo Marino will tell you, it's not unprecented in CoX either. ;p

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Plus I think this is the first time it's actually been confirmed that they are allowing Side Switching.

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And here I thought it was confirmed with the title of the big, paid, boxed expansion being Going Rogue...

Desdemona is sexy. She is now my wallpaper! <3 <3 <3

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Plus I think this is the first time it's actually been confirmed that they are allowing Side Switching.

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And here I thought it was confirmed with the title of the big, paid, boxed expansion being Going Rogue...

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The Title itself was not an admission of Content. It is just reasonable to assume that was going to be part of it.

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Plus I think this is the first time it's actually been confirmed that they are allowing Side Switching.

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And here I thought it was confirmed with the title of the big, paid, boxed expansion being Going Rogue...

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The Title itself was not an admission of Content. It is just reasonable to assume that was going to be part of it.

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They confirmed it in the press release that NCsoft put out when they announced it

Positron's dev diary and the updated GR web site are great, but I'd like a little more info, like the targeted release time frame. Not a date. Just a year.

This year? Next year? 2020?

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Positron's dev diary and the updated GR web site are great, but I'd like a little more info, like the targeted release time frame. Not a date. Just a year.

This year? Next year? 2020?

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I doubt they have one

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This year? Next year? 2020?

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Yes. It's 2020.

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Positron's dev diary and the updated GR web site are great, but I'd like a little more info, like the targeted release time frame. Not a date. Just a year.

This year? Next year? 2020?

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I doubt they have one

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Sure they do. They just haven't announced it yet.

Whenever I saw Demon Summoning as a power suggestion for masterminds in the power suggestion thread I always thought it wouldn't really be worth it.

It was the same problem I had with the suggestion of a playing card themed henchmen set, how many villains could you make with that set? like 10?
Mastermind powersets cover every genera of villain without being specific enough to be limiting.

For the evil mystic kind of villain we already have the necromancy set! Demons AND undead too now eh? Do we need another evil mystic villain set?

When the Ringmaster like Circus powerset was talked about by developers it sounded so much cooler and filled an actual gap of the goofy villain or the dark prankster villain who wasn't really represented by the other sets.

All in all I'm still happy about it because diversity is good and really I'd like there to be just a gazillion powersets so meh, I'm sure it'll be cool.

Its about the same as taking the time to release another labcoat or another Einstein crazy hairstyle, we already have things close enough to that but its still neat.

Very interesting Dev Diary and character bios. I love reading about this game's lore.

I'm excited to get the next Dev Diary to learn more about Praetoria.

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Demon Master Minds
Duel Pistols!!

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datass.jpg

Where's the I16 update?

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Where's the I16 update?

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Yeah, we were supposed to get.... did he say Dual Pistols for blasters? JOYGASM!

Positron suggested on his Twitter feed that Thursday is the 16th....if we are good..there may be something new..

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Where's the I16 update?

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Tomorrow maybe?

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If you all are nice, I might have even more info to share tomorrow. (That's the 16th right? I need to check my calendar).

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^ That's what Posi said on Twitter .

UPDATE: Old_Gray, I'd curse you for beating me to the punch, but I should actually curse Issue 12 for giving Brutes like you Super Reflexes.