MMORPG.com interview with Melissa War Witch Bianco
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2010-04-02 08:12 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
Thanks Orion, you pink and green troll, you. 
Rabbits & Hares:Blue (Mind/Emp Controller)Maroon (Rad/Thermal Corruptor)and one of each AT all at 50
MA Arcs: Apples of Contention - 3184; Zen & Relaxation - 35392; Tears of Leviathan - 121733 | All posts are rated "R" for "R-r-rrrrr, baby!"|Now, and this is very important... do you want a hug? COH Faces @Blue Rabbit
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There is content in Paretoria after 20 - but you'll have to go to Paragon City or the Rogue Isles first to level up past 20 to whatever level the second part of the GR storyline starts at - 1-20 is the first part, and then sometime before 50, the second part will start, and that will ksot likely involve a return to Praetoria|
Originally Posted by Perfect_Pain
I just thought, since they have split so much up that one of the big things they are keeping from us about GR, is the 21-50 content. And then we get new interviews that keep saying 1 to 20. I am not really ANGRY about it... I am just kinda like, oh, about it.
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The four new Paretorian zones only cover 1-20, so it'll be interesting to see how the second part of the storyline takes that into account.
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| And yes, I am saddend to see we are getting 2 new maps... I was hoping for maybe 20 new maps. |
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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As any avatar can beging to switch sides from 20+, I think there's a very good chance there'll be some 20-50 content in GR, either new moral missions in Paretoria, new moral missions in Paragon city and the Rogue isles, or revamps of some current blue and red content to add moral choices to them.|
Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
In that case I think you're going to be disappointed. it sounds like we're getting 1-20 and 50 content, there's been no word on 21-49 content.
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The important thing to remember is the GR is not a standalone game, and it does not have an alternative 1-50 leveling path -but that doesn't mean it won't have content that covers 1-50.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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I think the offices will look very familiar - but with purple or gray carpet |
Originally Posted by Orion_Star_EU
I think there's going to be a ton of unique maps too, and surely there's going to be another office tileset as well?!
 |
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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Also, as it's still Earth, then things like caves would look the same, even in an alternative universe - the geology of the planet wouldn't change just because Marcus Cole turned evil |
Originally Posted by Commander
Now, if everything from GoRo on is shiny and set for Ultra Mode, then two tilesets could be all that is needed. One tile set is what makes up the look of the underground; one tileset makes up the look of the Praetorian Tech Labs. Everything in CoH is reused. Sometimes sets are duplicated and have battle-damage added; some sets are duplicated and made to look weathered.
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@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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Bit confused how they can spread 20 levels over 2/3 zones [must presume the one zone is used for the high levels since in the DP video that high level character fighting the clockwork didnt take them down in one shot did he], since 1 - 20 is over in a flash really.| The four new Paretorian zones only cover 1-20, so it'll be interesting to see how the second part of the storyline takes that into account. |
The hollows is a 5 - 15 zone and can be done in a couple of hours. Cant be that many arcs in that level range since one arc can get you from say 5 - 10 in one go so two/three arcs and your there? Must create a new character/flashback to get the others?
WW said in an interview this year is all about content after GR is released and im sooooooo going to hold her to that word
I want more than a handfull of arcs!
@Damz Find me on the global channel Union Chat. One of the best "chat channels" ingame!
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That was a specially made preview |
Originally Posted by EU_Damz
[must presume the one zone is used for the high levels since in the DP video that high level character fighting the clockwork didnt take them down in one shot did he]
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As for the apread, I'd guess that 1-5, 6-10, 10-15 and 16-20 would be the ranges of the new zones, possibly with some overlapping.
Or, if the Underground is a Resistance-only zone, then I'd expect Nova Paretoria to be a loyalist-only zone to balance it out, with Neutropolis and Imeprial City being used by both sides.
So assuming the tutorial will end at level 2, and having made you choice who to support during it, you'd then exit to either Nova Praetoria of the Undergound, with both of them being 1-5, and Imperial City or Neutropolis covering 5-10 and the other covering 10-20.
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| The hollows is a 5 - 15 zone and can be done in a couple of hours. Cant be that many arcs in that level range since one arc can get you from say 5 - 10 in one go so two/three arcs and your there? Must create a new character/flashback to get the others? |
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WW said in an interview this year is all about content after GR is released and im sooooooo going to hold her to that word I want more than a handfull of arcs!
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@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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Originally Posted by Golden Girl
GR is more than a handful or arcs |
I hope your right about that
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I am |
Originally Posted by Lucky
I hope your right about that
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@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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You know, it's not actually physically *possible* for Devs to produce new zones faster than you can get bored of them.
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Originally Posted by Perfect_Pain
Theres nothing on Earth that would make me wanna play through Sharkhead, Nerva, St. Martial, or Grandville ever again. Same for Heroes, Not much in the world would make me wanna hit Indy Port, Bricks, Talos, Striga, DA, or even PI... but I dunno, I dont get bored with behemoths in PI -much-.
I havent even log on to play this game for more than 6 hours for the entire last year just about. |
Character index
By the way, going by those interviews, staying in the gray area as a Vigilante/Rogue will be rather lonely, as you'll not have any SG access at all - so if you want to stay gray, then you'll need to be very selective about what you keep in your inventory
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
Biggest thing I got out of this is that there are undiscovered portions of RWZ out there.
Other than that, little new.
(Oh, and some ppl are never happy. but I should have known that, I guess.)
City of Heroes was my first MMO, & my favorite computer game.
R.I.P.
Chyll - Bydand - Violynce - Enyrgos - Rylle - Nephryte - Solyd - Fettyr - Hyposhock - Styrling - Beryllos - Rosyc
Horryd - Myriam - Dysquiet - Ghyr
Vanysh - Eldrytch
Inflyct - Mysron - Orphyn - Dysmay - Reapyr - - Wyldeman - Hydeous
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not arguing the point, and different playstyles are different, but it always strikes me as funny when people indicate they can barely log on for 6-12 hour sessions when i have not played over 4 hours a session in about 6 years. different mindsets, of course, but when the upset person plays more in a day than i(content person) play in an entire month, it just is a funny perspective.|
Originally Posted by Perfect_Pain
I havent even log on to play this game for more than 6 hours for the entire last year just about. |
EDIT: ok, maybe i did once do a over 4 hour session, was playing a sarah moore tf, i cant say that i really enjoyed playing that long. i prefer to play in smaller bites interspersed through other activities.
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Or just mail what you need to/from the character in question.
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Originally Posted by Golden Girl
By the way, going by those interviews, staying in the gray area as a Vigilante/Rogue will be rather lonely, as you'll not have any SG access at all - so if you want to stay gray, then you'll need to be very selective about what you keep in your inventory
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Arc #40529 : The Furies of the Earth
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Like you said, "going by those interviews" (Really just that one)|
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
By the way, going by those interviews, staying in the gray area as a Vigilante/Rogue will be rather lonely, as you'll not have any SG access at all - so if you want to stay gray, then you'll need to be very selective about what you keep in your inventory
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Just to remind everyone though, the Devs said that the whole SG/VG mechanics were still a bit uncertain... plus, everything is subject to change.
That being said... I thought that those "in the grey" were basically within the group they were still shifting away from... Will be interesting to see if it is actually different than that.
Just didn't want to see any hysteria arise from the bit you're saying there, GG
Of course, I know you're just trying to scare everyone out of lingering in the grey area! You and your golden virtues and all!
@Zethustra
"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
I'm kind of worried about the scope of content in GR myself.
Ok...so we implement side switching. That's great and has some great story elements that can be done with it.
My issue is that mostly I'm seeing people talking about moving characters from red to blue. Pretty much every poll response in the Going Rogue Side Switching Poll thread was about people moving from red to blue.
It just hammers home to me that they are continuing to neglect elements on redside that would make it more appealing. Maybe I'm completely wrong and there will, in fact, be a mass exodus from blue to red...but it's not looking like that will be the case at all. And if that's true at all, then what is the point of counting to have a redside if you're going to neglect it?
They aren't revamping the new user experience for blue or red. So now every toon I create that I want to not have to suffer through tired/bad content for the first 20 levels will have to be a Praetorian? I had originally thought that along with the 1-20 GR levels...that we would also get some kind of redone starting levels for both blue and red. Apparently not.
Along with that, all the complaints about redside(and yes...a lot of them are valid even though I love playing on red more than blue) go unaddressed and we still have the same game we had before apart from Preatoria.
In the end, my biggest gripe with side switching is that there isn't parity between the two sides. People already try to avoid redside and now they can happily do that, making COV what? Irrelevant?
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I havent logged onto the game more than 6 hours for the entire last year... Not play session.. I mean play period. 365 days in a year, means 8760 hours... and only 6 were used playing CoX. 8754 hours I was playing or doing something else. |
Originally Posted by rian_frostdrake
not arguing the point, and different playstyles are different, but it always strikes me as funny when people indicate they can barely log on for 6-12 hour sessions when i have not played over 4 hours a session in about 6 years. different mindsets, of course, but when the upset person plays more in a day than i(content person) play in an entire month, it just is a funny perspective.
EDIT: ok, maybe i did once do a over 4 hour session, was playing a sarah moore tf, i cant say that i really enjoyed playing that long. i prefer to play in smaller bites interspersed through other activities. |
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It's got nothing to do with that |
Originally Posted by Electric-Knight
Like you said, "going by those interviews" (Really just that one)
Just to remind everyone though, the Devs said that the whole SG/VG mechanics were still a bit uncertain... plus, everything is subject to change. That being said... I thought that those "in the grey" were basically within the group they were still shifting away from... Will be interesting to see if it is actually different than that. Just didn't want to see any hysteria arise from the bit you're saying there, GG Of course, I know you're just trying to scare everyone out of lingering in the grey area! You and your golden virtues and all! |
It's all about managing expectations - and you only need to look at some of the posts in this thread to see how over the top some of those are/have been
Better to get the hysteria out of the way now, rather than when the GR features list is revealed
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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Evil is alive and kicking over on the red side, and GR won't change that |
Originally Posted by Slashman
I'm kind of worried about the scope of content in GR myself.
Ok...so we implement side switching. That's great and has some great story elements that can be done with it. My issue is that mostly I'm seeing people talking about moving characters from red to blue. Pretty much every poll response in the Going Rogue Side Switching Poll thread was about people moving from red to blue. It just hammers home to me that they are continuing to neglect elements on redside that would make it more appealing. Maybe I'm completely wrong and there will, in fact, be a mass exodus from blue to red...but it's not looking like that will be the case at all. And if that's true at all, then what is the point of counting to have a redside if you're going to neglect it? They aren't revamping the new user experience for blue or red. So now every toon I create that I want to not have to suffer through tired/bad content for the first 20 levels will have to be a Praetorian? I had originally thought that along with the 1-20 GR levels...that we would also get some kind of redone starting levels for both blue and red. Apparently not. Along with that, all the complaints about redside(and yes...a lot of them are valid even though I love playing on red more than blue) go unaddressed and we still have the same game we had before apart from Preatoria. In the end, my biggest gripe with side switching is that there isn't parity between the two sides. People already try to avoid redside and now they can happily do that, making COV what? Irrelevant? |
The side switching will balance out - for evey Villain who turns good to get lower prices, there'll be a Hero who turns bad to take advantage of what quite a few players seem to think is better content and less zoning during arcs and so on.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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That would be a nice statistic...if it were true. There are a lot of people who play villains because you can't play those ATs on blue. If that restriction is removed and nothing is done to address the shortcomings of redside, why would those people continue to play there?|
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
Evil is alive and kicking over on the red side, and GR won't change that
The side switching will balance out - for evey Villain who turns good to get lower prices, there'll be a Hero who turns bad to take advantage of what quite a few players seem to think is better content and less zoning during arcs and so on. |
People complain about redside market. I think it's fine but there are apparently lots of market-focused players out there who can't stand waiting for a bid to come through.
Apart from that, there is the issue of redside not having gotten any new exclusive zones in forever. The issue of overuse of Longbow as the main enemy in too many of the story arcs and not enough use or background of other interesting enemy groups like Legacy Chain or the GoldBrickers.
There is the issue of not feeling like you, as a villain, are progressing in any way that does not involve Arachnos granting you your status. The issue of always being a lackey in just about every arc.
Add to all that the fact that a lot of people don't think that villains team and that people have problems with Grandville's graphical stress etc.
For a lot of people, choosing to be a hero is about blue side being more complete and convenient than red, as well as feeling like being a hero is more suitable for how this game is played. It's not about just choosing to play a good guy over a bad guy.
In my own SG we had to implement alternate days for red and blue side play because everyone just wanted to default to blue all the time because the opinion is that everything is just better on blue. Since COV came out, the devs have done nothing to continue to improve redside apart from access to co-op zones(which are equally available on blue) and AT tweaks(I do appreciate the fixes for stalkers and dominators).
This just seems like something that will push redside even further into the realm of being second place to blue.
I was hoping that as we neared GR release we would hear that they have been working on improving the new user experience for red and blue sides as well as doing things to bring more equality to the experiences on red and blue. Guess I was expecting too much.
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6 hours played in the past year. And yet, somehow, you know exactly how many additional missions, custom maps and new map layouts were added in that time, and based on your complaints it was none at all.|
Originally Posted by Perfect_Pain
I havent logged onto the game more than 6 hours for the entire last year... Not play session.. I mean play period. 365 days in a year, means 8760 hours... and only 6 were used playing CoX. 8754 hours I was playing or doing something else.
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If only new story arcs, Task and Strike Forces had been added in the previous 12 months. Then i'm sure there would have been something new for you. Well at least there will be in GR.
Personally i don't care that much if they continue to reuse most of the tilesets as long as they add some new sections to the tilesets and make more maps from each tileset.
Dr. Todt's theme.
i make stuff...
I'd be interested to know if the devs consider reskinning a tile set as a new one - if they don't, then that could mean we're getting new skins for current tile sets in GR - like Praetorian warehouses could be made of clean metal, rather than dirty metal and wood.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
From one of the interviews, we haven't seen the new tilesets for the Praetorian content "yet." So there are more on the way than the two mentioned for GR, too.
Guide: Tanking, Wall of Fire Style (Updated for I19!), and the Four Rules of Tanking
Story Arc: Belated Justice, #88003
Synopsis: Explore the fine line between justice and vengeance as you help a hero of Talos Island bring his friend's murderer to justice.
Grey Pilgrim: Fire/Fire Tanker (50), Victory
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Originally Posted by EU_Damz
Bit confused how they can spread 20 levels over 2/3 zones [must presume the one zone is used for the high levels since in the DP video that high level character fighting the clockwork didnt take them down in one shot did he], since 1 - 20 is over in a flash really.
The hollows is a 5 - 15 zone and can be done in a couple of hours. Cant be that many arcs in that level range since one arc can get you from say 5 - 10 in one go so two/three arcs and your there? Must create a new character/flashback to get the others? WW said in an interview this year is all about content after GR is released and im sooooooo going to hold her to that word I want more than a handfull of arcs! |
I guess that it gives you a different route from 1-20 per character.
You may well be able to get from 1-20 in one or two zones... but I think the Devs learned from the Hollows which for a long time was almost mandatory - by the time we got the Police Band missions it killed the Hollows dead because everyone was sick of it - and it took revamping it to get it back.
Now it's rightfully back to its place as one of the best combination of zone & arcs in the game and is very enjoyable - but doesn't have to be done all the time by every toon.
Thelonious Monk
All "warehouses" use the same set but only for the functional, clean warehouses.