Discussion: Ten Ton Hammer Q&A With Matt Miller


all_hell

 

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Ten Ton Hammer recently sat down with Lead Designer Matt "Positron" Miller to dig deep into what it takes to keep an online MMO going strong for seven years and counting. Among other things, they discuss the hurdles and design decisions that have shaped City of Heroes, including the challenge of making a superhero MMO relevant in a genre dominated by fantasy and sci-fi. Head on over to Ten Ton Hammer to check out the piece, entitled "Looking Back and Forging Ahead."


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Why are all the dev posts being sent to various gaming sites?



Breakdown of Alignments 51% Hero 26% Villain 10% Vigilante 13% Rogue

So overall some statistics.. some stuff we've seen a dozen times and umm... No carrots? No hints about the future?

C'mon Positron is in charge of the End Game surely he's the one to release a carrot or two...


 

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Originally Posted by Golden Girl View Post
Well, something happened today, which might be a reason
??????????


 

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Originally Posted by Chaos Creator View Post
Why are all the dev posts being sent to various gaming sites?



Breakdown of Alignments 51% Hero 26% Villain 10% Vigilante 13% Rogue

So overall some statistics.. some stuff we've seen a dozen times and umm... No carrots? No hints about the future?

C'mon Positron is in charge of the End Game surely he's the one to release a carrot or two...
He's probably not allowed to release anything yet.


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Quote:
Originally Posted by all_hell View Post
??????????
Hint: another superhero MMO just launched.


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Nice article. I particularly liked the following part:

Quote:
We’re going to have the best character customization out there in any superhero MMOG or any MMOG that’s out there right now.


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Originally Posted by Nebulhym View Post
Nice article. I particularly liked the following part:
I like that line too except I've seen some so customizable it'd take hours to make a character. So I disagree


 

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Golden Girl View Post
Well, something happened today, which might be a reason
more reason why we should have received a carrot by now. Granted I enjoyed Second Measure's post yesterday, but he barely hinted at i20 and just said how great it will be and how great i21 is going to be, and how great i19 was...
i always want MOAR! :P


 

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nebulhym View Post
Nice article. I particularly liked the following part:
Seeing as how one of the other superhero MOGs is lacking in any real customization, and another makes your toons look like absolute plasticky garbage, I'd say that part of the interview was spot on.


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Ten Ton Hammer: Matt, you’ve been around since the beginning of City of Heroes and have seen the ups and the downs with the game. Is there one thing that you can point to as your biggest success? And also one thing that was your biggest failure or challenge in that time?

Matt Miller: As for our biggest failure…if I have to point at anything, it’s ages and ages old: the Gladiator system,


I beg to differ.

TTH is asking the right questions to the wrong person.

If TTH really wants to know the biggest failure<s> I believe the playerbase is better suited, better equipped and won't fabricate tailored answers to downplay bad decisions.

Learn from mistakes.

As for what the biggest boo-boo's are, I'm going with the changes made to PVP, which also includes lack of intuitive and integrated Supergroup functions- including raids, Items of Power, and base editing features.

Basically, this all boils down to resources, or should I say....LACK of resources...

so, the biggest failure isn't on Matt's Shoulders, it's on NCSOFT. They need to dump as much money and resources into this game as they possibly can.

In other words: CITY OF DEVS NEED A RAISE.


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Originally Posted by Teeko View Post
more reason why we should have received a carrot by now. Granted I enjoyed Second Measure's post yesterday, but he barely hinted at i20 and just said how great it will be and how great i21 is going to be, and how great i19 was...
i always want MOAR! :P
And dropping carrots before they were ready worked out so well for Going Rogue's January Beta, it's planned April Release, it's announced July Release, and then it's actual release in August. Then there was the Loyalty program announced in 2009.

I suspect that Second Measure, Posi, and War Witch are going to be real careful about announcing or promoting actual content that isn't already in their git repository and ready for deployment to the actual servers for testing.


 

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Golden Girl View Post
You don't need to be the world's greatest detective to find out what it was
Danger Mouse?


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Quote:
Originally Posted by Golden Girl View Post
You don't need to be the world's greatest detective to find out what it was
L isn't here right now, but if you leave your name and a picture of yourself I'll be sure to write you in my deathnote and get back to you as soon as pobbisle.


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Quote:
Originally Posted by MrHassenpheffer View Post
L isn't here right now, but if you leave your name and a picture of yourself I'll be sure to write you in my deathnote and get back to you as soon as pobbisle.
What does Yagami Light have to do with what GG said :-/


 

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Chaos Creator View Post
Why are all the dev posts being sent to various gaming sites?



Breakdown of Alignments 51% Hero 26% Villain 10% Vigilante 13% Rogue

So overall some statistics.. some stuff we've seen a dozen times and umm... No carrots? No hints about the future?

C'mon Positron is in charge of the End Game surely he's the one to release a carrot or two...
26% villain? teaming makes it feel a lot lower than that. hmm



Does not always detect CoH

 

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The mission architect system lent itself back to the old adventure construction set days where you would sit down and make adventures on your old Commodore 64 using the Bard’s Tale engine.
Those were good times...


 

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Quote:
Originally Posted by MrHassenpheffer View Post
If TTH really wants to know the biggest failure<s> I believe the playerbase is better suited, better equipped and won't fabricate tailored answers to downplay bad decisions.
If you ask the playerbase "what was the biggest failure in CoH?" the answer you'll get is "ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING EVER".




Character index

 

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Silver Gale View Post
If you ask the playerbase "what was the biggest failure in CoH?" the answer you'll get is "ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING EVER".
I disagree. On the BOARDS, perhaps, but not the actual player base. I would have liked to have seen a # like this...

Active (3-4X a week in game) players total = ???
% of Active Players who use the CoX Boards (3-4X a week) = %???

Thats a number I would like to see. MANY people here have speculated that it is QUITE less than a 3rd.


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The best thing about these parades of PR is that some actual awesome news is close to dropping! Well to be fair, we did get some tidbits, and those statistical breakdowns of alignments are pretty interesting. I'm thinking the I20 announcement page is coming soon.

IMO the biggest failure in this game is PVP. Gladiator battles are a little side thing. Not popular. Not great. But not broken. PVP is broken, and there are actual people playing the game who still care enough to complain about it.


 

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Neogumbercules View Post
I'm thinking the I20 announcement page is coming soon.
Well, we need 19.5 first


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well fluff piece, i hope ncsoft has a good health plan, as posi must have sprain his arm patting himself on the back


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