Sixth Anniversary Meet and Greet (North Am.) Part 1

Here's part 5, the finale, which was roughly the 10:30pm - 11:30pm Eastern time slot. Dark Watcher was still around, but this was almost all Christopher "Back Alley Brawler" Bruce, who stuck around a whole hour and a half extra answering some really good questions.

LOTS of signal to noise on this one, probably more than any other time slot. I was especially surprised and impressed by his candor. Undoubtedly, some of this stuff will be used as argument quote fodder, so you don't want to miss this one.

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Dark Watcher: I think he's borrowing pohsyb's box. [Not sure what he's talking about.]
Electrical Forestes: BAB's is in the sky, for he is god!
Dark Watcher: I thought he was basement-dev?
Back Alley Brawler: Colin worked very hard on the whip animations [Colin Brown, a member of Christopher's animation team. --Wiki Guy]
Back Alley Brawler: Nelson just kind of busted out the Dual Pistol animations in a week. That stuff's in his blood [Nelson Tam, another member of Christopher's animation team. --Wiki Guy]
Dark Watcher: Nelson is an animation machine!
Green Taipan: Very impressive!
Back Alley Brawler: not literally a week
Dark Watcher: Oddly, SQL is not usually the problem. [Not sure what he's referring to, probably a /tell regarding development.]
Madam Enigma: What's the biggest reason why you devs don't want to merge hero and villain markets?
Back Alley Brawler: I think the biggest reason why is because you can't go back once you do that
Back Alley Brawler: I believe the plan is to try and address the problems with them seperately before pulling the trigger on merging them and hoping that it fixes all the problems
Madam Enigma: Are there any technical issues with the merger that would make it hard?
Back Alley Brawler: there might be tech issues as well...I know they're completely seperate databases and executables
Redios: HEY Dark Watcher, I am told you are the person to thank for the Ski Chalet, first, TYVM! Second, what do I have to do to get a Halloween Zone with a Haunted House?
HellFriar: Redios: We. Have. Croatoa. ;] Now a 'haunted house' mission in croatoa I would support!
Dark Watcher: I saw some people making some GREAT halloween haunted houses.
Electrical Forestes: Can I has kitten summoning?
Telestra: is it a dead kitten, at least?
Dark Watcher: Undead Kitten Summoning?
Burton Ernie: Was there much watching of the movie WANTED while making the DP powerset?
Back Alley Brawler: we drew inspiration from John Woo, Equilebriaum, and Wanted
Green Scare: never saw equalibrium. Worth renting?
Bike Thief: I saw Equilibrium in the theater when it came out, it was kind of hard to find it playing anywhere
Back Alley Brawler: I never heard of it until about a year ago
Daranable: Random question for the devs. Have the Devs ever grabbed there "signature" Hero and grouped up and done any of the TFs?
Back Alley Brawler: we can't play with Posi, he doesn't like big teams, he gets bored quickly, and he cheats
Dark Watcher: It's good to be a dev.
Back Alley Brawler: liberal use of the "I win button" power
Back Alley Brawler: we don't really do a lot of playtesting with the sig characters, but we do use our live characters
IndigoWulf: question: are you guys in on the D&D games posi and castle mentioned ealier, if so, what do you play?
Dark Watcher: Yes, I enjoy D&D, but haven't played much.
Dark Watcher: Much lately.
Dark Watcher: I just need to find a regular group.
Madam Enigma: Do either of you play a superhero pen and pencil rpg? ANd if so, which one?
Back Alley Brawler: does Heroes Unlimted count?
Back Alley Brawler: although I didn't really play that as much as just made a bunch of characters
Dark Watcher: But we do have a regular gaming night on Tuesday.
Back Alley Brawler: I've bought and read a lot of game books, but only actually played a handful of times
IndigoWulf: who's the GM of your tues group?
Dark Watcher: Nah, on Tuesday we tend to play board or card games.
Dark Watcher: I used to play play by email Diplomacy.
Dual Mind: I know this doesn't fit into your area of expertise, but "Is there a plan to bring back the Cathedral of Pain?"
Dark Watcher: the Cathedral of Pain is aptly named
Back Alley Brawler: I think a more apt name would have been "The Cathedral of Dear God Who Came Up with this and what were they thinking!"
Dark Watcher: See! That's a case of not telling the designers they're crazy.
Green Scare: What is the cathedral of pain?
Feral Storm: Cathedral of Pain basically was equivalent to letting 8-32 people stick you in the eye with a spork.
Dark Watcher: Spork!
Proto-Zone: Cathedral of Pain used to be a Supergroup only Task Force.
Green Scare: oh..why was it removed?
Back Alley Brawler: it was removed because of PvP
Back Alley Brawler: thats what we're supposed to say when we remove stuff, right...PvP
Spam Elemental: I knew it! PvP is the cause of all evils in all MMOs! :P
Dark Watcher: No, PvP actually had nothign to do with it.
Back Alley Brawler: it was removed so that we'd always have something to talk about in Q&A sessions
Back Alley Brawler: pretty good, but we screwed up the whole Posi TF thing [Probably in response to a /tell or local question; I'm pretty sure he's referring to the old Positron task force, not the new one.]
Dark Watcher: Ah, the new one, I hear, is great!
Back Alley Brawler: so now we gotta get a new fallback question
Dark Watcher: I thought Hammi was our fallback question
Dark Watcher: Hammi's too easy.
Back Alley Brawler: it's one of them
Back Alley Brawler: plans to fix hami. 1) Get rid of EOEs, 2) Bring back DE Monsters. 3) Put call for help power on Hami 4) Turn Hive into PvP zone
Madam Enigma: Yeah, the original posi was a pain in the rear. What went wrong when designing it?
Dark Watcher: Design and Tech didn't quite match up in the original Posi.
Dark Watcher: They really wanted it to be two different TFs. At the time, we didn't have the tech for that.
Dark Watcher: Gosh, how things have changed.
Dark Watcher: It should be fun to see what GR does to team makeups.
Madam Enigma: BaB or DW, what's your favorate AE arc?
Back Alley Brawler: I liked the "meow" and "jelly bean" arcs [For those not in the know, this refers to two high-profile Mission Architect exploit arc types that were heavily exploited and subsequently heavily nerfed. He's kidding here. Or maybe not; maybe he took great delight in nerfing him. I'll let you interpret what he meant for yourself. ]
Dark Watcher: Ok, I have to head out for a bit. Thanks everyone for a great 6 years!
Dark Watcher: Night all.
Madam Enigma: BaB, you may have missed it, but what power set so far did you have the most fun animating? And which future sets on the board would you enjoy animating most?
Back Alley Brawler: really, about the only powers I've animate has been Dual Blades
Back Alley Brawler: everythign else has been stuff like emotes, NPC animations, stupid doors, and tons and tons of work in text files making everything work
Laughing Guns: Now, when you say you animated them, do you mean character actions, special effects, or both?
Back Alley Brawler: For DB I did everything. I did the VFX for Dual Pistols, but not the animations
Back Alley Brawler: Colin and Keetsie did Demon Summoning, with some additional help from Nelson on some of the Demon animations [Colin Brown, Keetsie Berbel, and Nelson Tam, members of Christopher's animation team. --Wiki Guy]
Green Scare: I don't even know what vfx are.
Back Alley Brawler: VFX is Visual Effects
Madam Enigma: What sort of reference material did they use for the demons?
Back Alley Brawler: we summoned some demons and took pictures
Roulette: Oooo if you're summoning bad things can we get a cthulhu summoning set next?
Back Alley Brawler: we're not doing any more summoning sets until after we replace the roof
Green Scare: The roof?
Back Alley Brawler: the one the demons took out in a rage of hellish fury and violence
Proto-Zone: BABs, would you mind giving us a background on your fellow animators? When did they join and what have they done? I'm sure some of us would love to give them some forum props!
Back Alley Brawler: I'm terrible with dates, but Colin came on board first. Trying to remember what was the first things he worked on
Back Alley Brawler: may have been some of the first costume change emote animations. Science Super Booster pack I beleive
Back Alley Brawler: Keetsie was here before him actually. She's the VFX artist on the team and she's worked on practially everytrhing
Green Scare: Babs, what were you originally hired to do? Seems like a bunch of you guys have taken on roles you previously never thought you'd be doing.
Back Alley Brawler: I was hired to do both animation and VFX for CoH. I was a one man team
Back Alley Brawler: I did that from Issue 8 until Issue 13 or so?
Back Alley Brawler: what issue was Cimerora? [Issue 12, for the record. --Wiki Guy]
Back Alley Brawler: so around issue 12 Ron came on as an animator and dit a lot of the work on shields [Ron Friedman, former animator no longer with Paragon Studios. --Wiki Guy]
Proto-Zone: Ron? That name came out of nowhere... =P
Back Alley Brawler: Ron was an animator who is no longer with us. He was at Hero-Con two years ago
Madam Enigma: Really BaB, how much did you celibrate when your animation staff was increased?
Back Alley Brawler: not a lot, becasue I still had to pretty much do everything I was doing AND train new people
Madam Enigma: But it has clearly lowered your peronal work load. Were you one of the original team, or did you come in after launch?
Back Alley Brawler: I started working on this game right after Issue 7 launched [Destiny Manifest, the issue that raised the villain cap to 50 and introduced Grandville, Recluse's Victory, and mayhem missions. --Wiki Guy]
Back Alley Brawler: but I've played since early May, 2004
Back Alley Brawler: It's all a blur
Bike Thief: I'm wondering, who's most responsible for the invention system and the consignment houses?
Back Alley Brawler: Posi had a big part in the invention system.
Back Alley Brawler: consignment house was a group effort with a lot of people
Bike Thief: did you have to adjust anything for ultra-mode?
Back Alley Brawler: I tweaked a few weapons and shields to make them work with cubemaps
Amy Amazing: The animated tail clips on my cape, so I can only use it on my capeless costumes
Back Alley Brawler: Yeah, sorry...there's only so much we can do with stuff like that
Madam Enigma: I know a lot of us have stories to tell of our best (and worst) moments in game. Do you have any such stories?
Back Alley Brawler: I have a few war stories, but I can't talk about them because it might clue people in on who my personal characters are
Feral Storm: Forget animated tails, I'm happy for the dedicated slot for the tails!
Mikuruneko: Yes, that too. I'm curious, what technical voodoo did you have to do to accomplish the belt/tail seperation, BABs?
Back Alley Brawler: not complicated, we just had to use one of our few remaining costume nodes
Golden-Girl: was the separaation of the belt and tail into separate nodes something that could eb used for single and separate arm and leg pieces?
Back Alley Brawler: it theoretically could, but we've only got like 2 or 3 left and adding more is apparently a huge undertaking
DarkSabyr: anything that you specificaly would like to see added as a costume option?
Back Alley Brawler: I keep hoping for robotic legs, like the hydrolic arms
Lady Warsprite: is there any chance you guys might consider opening the pvp recipes up for an itme that could be purchased with merits?
DJ Pheonyx: Will there ever be a way to send ideas for chest logos?
Back Alley Brawler: I wouldn't think so [STRONG disclaimer: The questions above appeared in the midst of lots of chatter about farming. I think one of these is what he was answering, but I can't tell for sure or which one.]
Madam Enigma: Is it true you devs sometimes slip in a npc exclusive costume piece into your outfits? There's long been rumors that Positron for example uses the posi shoulders on his costumes
Back Alley Brawler: absolutely not. Our player characters are just like all of yours
Back Alley Brawler: no special costume pieces, powers, nada
Back Alley Brawler: we follow the rules better than most of you
Madam Enigma: Hey! I take pride in my 'no farming' stance
Psicotic Bat: yes anti-farm here
Green Scare: Madam, if you've done a tf more than one time..you're a farmer. :P
Back Alley Brawler: 'farming' is a very loose term
Back Alley Brawler: it means different things for different people, and unfortunately gets used too often to mean 'power leveling' or 'exploiting'
Back Alley Brawler: when inventions were added, and certain enemy groups drop certain typs of salvage...going out and specfiically looking for those particular groups is a type of farming.
Back Alley Brawler: I think the type of things we're most worried about are when people find some unexpected way to gain rewards much quicker than anything else...and seeing too many players get funneled into doing that same thing as well
Lady Warsprite: I think any farm that can get you a toon from lvl 1 to 50 in a day would be considered an exploite
Back Alley Brawler: I would too
Green Scare: BaB's will there be any system in the near future that would allow played to auto-level to 50 for PvP purposes and those toons would only be able to be used in PvP zones and arena matches? Because PvP is the biggest reason why I would want to level a toon quickly.
Back Alley Brawler: I'ts been brought up before, but I'm nto sure if there's a way to do something like that
Back Alley Brawler: I've even suggested we maybe do it as an arena game, where you pilot specfiic AT/Powerset characters and it's all player skill versus player skill
Back Alley Brawler: bottom line, we don't want people to get bored or burnt out on the game and stop playing
Back Alley Brawler: and some of the exploits have the potential to completely change perceptions about what's normal in game
Back Alley Brawler: unfortuantely, we'll always have conflicting motivations. You guys want what's most fun for yourselves, and we have to do what we think is best for as many people as possible
Back Alley Brawler: cause end of the day if we screw up, we lose our jobs, have to uproot our families and move...we're taking all the risks here
Back Alley Brawler: you guys get bummed and save $15/mo
Hyperstrike: And you're hated until the end of the universe
Hyperstrike: Like John Romero "Make you my *****"
Back Alley Brawler: I actually worked with Romero for a little while
Back Alley Brawler: he's a nice guy
Feral Storm: BaBs, with the engine 6 years old, going forward is there still a lot of push to not exceed the original minimum requirements?
Back Alley Brawler: there's really only so much we can do with the engine. It's more limited by having to redo all of the assets in the game at this point
Back Alley Brawler: getting a deluge of PMs here
TonyV: Heh, turn those things off. :P
Back Alley Brawler: I would, but then peopel get all grumpy that I'm ignoring them
Green Scare: Can't please everyone.
Back Alley Brawler: nope, we can't
Back Alley Brawler: I'm gonna have to head out. Happy 6 years everyone, hopeyou enjoyg I17 and Going Rogue, please spread the word and get people to come take another look at the game when GR goes live
Back Alley Brawler: Sorry if I didn't get to address your questions
[Lots of hearty thank-yous ensued]

This needs a screenshot - when BAB first showed up, he appeared in the form of a burning bush, and spoke to us from on high:

HAHA!
Thanks for that pic and info, GG... BABs is great

Thanks SO MUCH TonyV for taking the time to edit and post this.
Much appreciated!

And thank you to our great team of devs for coming out and having some fun and insightful conversation with the community!

Sorry for the mini necro, for some reason I'd forgotten about this post...

Anyways, thanks for posting this!

I laughed: "I'm sure Dual Pistols is a more than adequate set for anyone who plays the game outside of spreadsheets." Back Alley Brawler

"This needs a screenshot - when BAB first showed up, he appeared in the form of a burning bush, and spoke to us from on high" <-- Now that's awesome

Love the picture of BAB as the burning bush. Wish I could have demo-recorded that, though, I'm curious how he did it.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

In the background for the CoX site, you can see what looks like an atlas globe on the right hand side. It's pretty clearly not where it is in game: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/style...background.jpg