Ask A Dev: Re-introducing Melissa Bianco!

Ask a Dev

For those of you who may not be familiar with the "Ask a Dev" article series, here is how it works: 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. Then a few weeks later we'll close the question thread and go through and pick out the best and most appropriate questions and the developer will provide the answers!

As part of our ongoing "Ask a Dev" article series, since we’ve had her on here before, we are proud to RE-introduce to you our next developer: Lead Designer Melissa “War Witch” Bianco!

City of Heroes "Ask a Dev" with Lead Designer Melissa “War Witch” Bianco


Introduction: (Bio)

Melissa “War Witch” Bianco was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

She graduated from Capilano College in 1991 with an Associate Arts and Sciences Diploma in Media Resources. Soon after graduating from college, Melissa worked as an Extras Casting Director for both commercials and television movies. She has also worked as a Talent Agent and a Production Assistant in Vancouver.

Melissa moved to California in 1999. She has been on the City of Heroes® team since February of 2002 and prior to assuming the “Lead Designer” role, she was in charge of the game’s “World Design” Team. She loves gaming, spending time with her friends and family, rides a motorcycle and is also the author of the chick lit novel, Real Life.

What Melissa does on the City of Heroes Team:

In a nutshell, the Lead Designer guides the Design team and steers the overall direction of its focus and the initiatives for the game. The Design Department conceives and spearheads the features and content that the Art and Programming teams help create, so there are a lot of creative and administrative challenges in this responsibility. The Lead Designer also evaluates risk vs. reward, cool vs. lame, and attempts to incorporate ongoing feedback from the players about what features they want and what we, as a studio, can do from a technical or scheduling standpoint.

Please use this thread to post your questions for Melissa!

Questions will be collected on Jan. 29, 2010 from the forums and not long after that, we'll post Melissa’s answers and introduce our next dev and ask for your questions for them.

Congrats War Witch. I'm sure you'll do a great job.

Are there any details about any upcoming changes/additions to PvP in this game that you can release?

Congrats, WW!!!!

You don't need to reveal any technical or plot detail--your answer doesn't need them. I'm asking about, as I felt was insinuated by your recent interview, what is sounding like an entirely new dynamic to CoX. And since it's never been part of the game before, at least as how we've experienced it up to this point...

What do you see as the true purpose of End Game for CoX?

I thought we had it before. I'm pleasantly surprised, and eager to know more. But I wonder, "Why now?"

Grats, My question is...

Tell me about the new zones.

I wanna know.

Congrats on your promotion.

But... Positron was Lead Designer. So, did you two have a duel for the title or did you alter his reservations to Seoul and arrange for him to wind up in a Siberian prison?


EDIT : Nevermind, just saw EMpulse's post explaining your promotion.

And your interview with MMORPG.com

Congratulations on your Promotion WW,

You've mentioned Both "Content" and "End Game" my question is:

What do you define as "content" and can you elaborate as well as offer examples?

What do you define and include in "end came" and can you elaborate/offer examples?

Congratulations and good luck!

How much of the design is already set and when can we really see your design vision in the game as a whole.

In other words, I assume that much of Going Rogue and the next issue or two have already been designed and are in the process of being programmed and polished. What issue do you think will be the first War Witch Design Vision Issue?

Congratulations!

My question: Why are you so awesome?

[ ProTip: The banner is a link to art refs!! | The Khellection | The HBAS Repository | Brute Guides (4/16/10) | How To Post An Image - A Quick Guide ]
Biggest Troll on the forums? I'll give you a hint:

First, Melissa, congratulations on your promotion.

My question deals with Architect. Being nearly nine months away from its initial release, it's accrued a lot of accolades and passionate critiques for its inherent open-ended design. Along the way, there have been a lot of "stumbles" with the core app as well, such as maps originally available having been removed due to bugs, but not being addressed; mob types that are available in one area, but not another; the general arc database being a clutter; etc.

What are the plans for an "Architect 2.0", where we see the next step in its evolution? Will broken maps and reported bugs be addressed? Will there be QoL improvements for arc management, story creation, display improvements for ease of editing (e.g., I recently suggested contrast improvements on the text fields)?

@TURGENEV - Freedom Server / IRON / B.A.N.E / HORDE

Turg Fiction: Ghost in the Machine Acts III & IV coming 2012!
Turg Fiction: IX is now LIVE on Architect Entertainment!

Grats on the new job Melissa..

what can you tell us about the graphics update to the game? any clues you can give us on I17?

Thanks

First, congratulations!

My question: will we be seeing more zone revamps as we did with Faultline and the Hollows? There's a lot of "dead space" IMO, especially blue side. While brand new content is nice, giving me to a reason to actually go and explore ( as opposed to 'run to the door and Ouro out now that I've gotten that out of the way' ) a zone is good too.

My 2nd question... Apples to Apples again at this year's Herocon?

Again, congratulations!

First, congrats on the promotion.

My question:

Hazard Zone revamping. Ever since Faultline, the Hollows, and the Rikti War Zone got revamped, players have been hoping for more. So are there any plans to re-do any of the other Hazard Zones? If so, which ones are you planning to do first?

The eternally asked question:

Revamp the original Freedom Phalanx TF's. Yay or Nay ?

Gratz on the promotion, Melissa! I think other players will cover the spectrum of asking about GR goodies, so I'll ask about my particular pet issues: is the Search window going to be revamped, and is a Team Looking For More function going to be added? (For particulars on my suggestions check with Synapse and Pohsyb; I've sent them both detailed PMs ).

Also, are some of the more awkward aspects of using AE going to get looked at? I'm talking simple things like showing what zone the mission entrance is in under the compass, like in normal door missions. Or change AE to work like a train mission where it doesn't matter what zone you're in. And let us switch to a different AE mission without being forced to disband the team! How about sunsetting (auto-unpublishing) AE arcs that haven't gotten more than a few ratings after a year? It'd help clear out the glut of crap. Authors really interested in keeping rarely played missions alive will republish them.

Edit: just remembered one more! Any plans to add Bank Safeguard/Mayhem missions to the Ouro flashback system? Those are really a pain to get if you outlevel them.

Congratulations!!

Hey she's Canadian. Obviously this game just got that much better. [Fellow Canuck here]

My question...

Do the other devs ever make fun of you for being Canadian or are they too afraid of your mighty Canadian archtype powers [Like the ability to cut down a tree with one chop of an ax while eating a donut]?

Congrats again on the promotion!

My question:

What are the chances we'll be seeing new Epic ATs in the near future?

Congratulations on the promotion, War Witch! I know we've never met, but it really makes me happy to see you move up like this. I found this quote from the last time you were featured in "Ask a Dev":

Quote:

I was the luckiest of the lucky. I came in with NO design experience back when Cryptic was a very small start-up company. It was through sheer need that I got a crack at design. My first job was working in the editor placing beacons. Place, move, paste. Place, move, paste. Hours and hours a day.

And now look at you!

On to the questions...

Originally, the city was divided into City Zones, Hazard Zones, and Trial Zones. These designations don't seem to fit the current game environment. Please tell us a little about your philosophy when it comes to creating new zones. Do you think you will make time to update the older zones to fit in with your philosophy?

The in-game economy has grown to be an important part of the game since the addition of Inventions and the Markets in Issue 9. Are you happy with the prices and the supply of goods in the Markets?

The new missions in the game are so wonderful that a lot of the older missions are looking a little shabby. Has there been any thought given to updating or replacing those missions, especially since Ouroboros and Architect Entertainment provide ways to keep the missions in the game?

I've always found it very difficult to read any of the mission briefings and pay attention to the story when I'm on a task force, but much of the game's story is contained in those task forces. It's much easier to really appreciate the story when I'm solo, but task forces aren't designed to be done solo. What are your thoughts on the conflict between teaming and storytelling?

Ooh, one more blast from the past, from that previous interview:

Quote:

I feel so confident that ONE DAY someone will realize my brilliance, that I am going to paste a snippet of suggestions for your enjoyment. (That is, when you stop laughing.) So welcome to November 14th, 2002: Ex-Superhero Zone Ex-superheroes retired/injured community. Almost everyone you talk to has seen "some" kind of action and has a story to tell -- maybe could even help players with their more lengthy quests. Plus you could do kind of an "irony" twist on some well-known superheroes -- but not, of course. [This is more of a ‘theme’ than a zone. A whole zone dedicated to old geezers sitting on their front porches talking about the glory days? What do I fight?! Boredom?] Hollywood Zone Everyone's got a cell phone, every car is a BMW, every street has a tourist taking pictures of particular spots that look eerily familiar (but not, of course, exact). Maybe a few NPCs walking down Rondeno Drive (as opposed to Rodeo Drive) look or dress suspiciously familiar. Plus shopkeepers could be especially rude as they look the superhero up and down (kind of like the Pretty Woman thing with Julia Roberts). Villains? Everyone could be an Agent, Lawyer, or Publicist. [Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! *cough* I stand by this one.]

My question:

When you took your first position at Cryptic Studios back in February of 2002 (archive.org says you were the Office Manager in August, is that what you started as?), did you have any ambitions to work directly on the game itself at all, let alone become the Lead Designer? Do you have any thoughts and/or feelings to share about the changes you (position and skill-wise) and the game have gone through between then and now?

Any stories about the path you took from being a non-developer to lead designer on the same game that we all love would be fascinating! Congratulations again on the well deserved promotion!

Once GR has gone live, would any of the post-GR content for 2010 involve revamping any of the less-visited older zones such as Boomtown or Dark Astoria in a similar way to the revamps that were given to Faultline and the RWZ?
These little-used zones already have a framing story/background lore, and would seem to be ideal places to fill up with new content.

When I bought into this franchise, it was with City of Villains, and just City of Villains. I no longer think of City of Heroes as junk code wasting my harddrive space, but I still identify overwhelmingly as a CoV player. Are we ever going to see any substantial development of Villain content in Regular Issues that adresses some of the gaps that have been in place since City of Villains was first released? For example:

- Strike Forces covering all level ranges, and Silver Mantis made accessable without a base computer.

- More zone contacts who will just introduce themselves (or be introduced by the previous level range's contacts), rather than requiring us to go back to Newspapers and Mayhem Missions every five levels.

- Any non-respec Villlain trials.

- New Villain zones offering alternatives to some of the more often repeated content (especially in lower levels).

- New Patrons with a wider range of power themes for their pools.

- Zone Events. Currently we only have global ones like Rikti and Zombie invasions and seasonal events. Also, more Giant Monsters. I am genuinely shocked that "Son of Atlas" or somebody like that isn't hanging around outside Grandville 24/7 hammering on the walls with fists the size of dumptrucks, or that the Devil His Own Bad Self has never gone marching through the streets of St. Martial howling for Johnny Sonata's soul and looking for bumpkins to challenge to fiddle contests.

- Cooperative content with a villainous bias, much as Cimerora and the RWZ have clear heroic bias. Stuff where the heroes who show up to help wind up with some ugly decisions to struggle through for "the greater good".

- More story content featuring our Villains fighting against actual Heroes (who aren't Longbow).

- Entirely New NPC Hero Factions.

I accept that CoV has always been the lesser draw for most players, and I don't expect development to shift overwhelmingly to the red side. I'd just like to see more Villain content that wasn't developed first for Heroes and then shared with the other side as an afterthought. Since the comparison has often been made that CoV content is frequently better written but lower in quantity, I'd suggest that any additions to Villain content be matched by revisions of existing Hero content for fairness (and to keep the much larger part of the customers happy).

OK, War Witch, sorry to do this, but this one's a hard ball...

Now that the Mission Architect interface is in place, we players see how atrociously difficult it used to be to write arcs, but how relatively easy it is now that we have the MA.

When we asked for the legacy Task Forces to be updated (and devs and players agree which ones are sorely lacking), the old response was "it would be too much time taken away from writing new content." And we see that was true.... but not any more.

With the MA tool, we see how relatively easy it would be to tweak existing TFs to make the long ones shorter and the 'speed TFs' longer (e.g., with Katie Hannon we can add ambushes to the save the hostage or create a custom Katie who doesn't fly in the last mission). Or to change Viridian's arc into a Strike Force to give villains parity.

So, with the MA now in place, why can't this be done? Especially with Dr. Aeon being such an expert on arc mechanics?


(And know this...

.>.>

<.<.

I've always supported your policies, My Lady.)

Lookin' good Melissa, have you lost weight?

No- wait! That wasn't my question...I wanted to know if Going Rogue will have any updates to Mission Architect, ie. new enemy groups, new maps, new powersets for custom enemy groups, etc.

Congrats on your promotion.

What I'm interested in is whether or not Dark Armor for tanks, and Fire Aura for Tanks and Scrappers are on the list of power-sets to re-examine and rebalance. While I think that the problems with these sets have been well documented in the forums beforehand, the quick run down is that power-sets have counter-intuitive powers.

I've mentioned some of these problems on the forums here: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...75&postcount=5

and gone into greater detail outside of the forums: http://zerias.blogspot.com/2009/09/c...-and-fire.html

Are there any plans to rebalance these sets into something that actually makes sense?