ZAM Q&A With Nate "Second Measure Birkholz"!

Recently the kind folks over at ZAM! sat down with Nate "Second Measure" Birkholz to talk about the day to production of City of Heroes and what's coming up in Issue 20.

Be sure to check it out here!

All that stood out to me was the massive dodge of a "What do you plan to do for the PvP crowd?" question.

Nate...how much of that was you, and how much of that was forced marketting spiel?

Because my GOD I could vomit at how many buzzwords and marketting terms were thrown in there! Seriously? Do people EVER talk like humans anymore in these damn things?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

ill go along with the rest of these posts...very typical answers and a major dodge to the pvp question.

boy i can only imagine what would have happened if he mentioned bases* shudders to think*

I was genuinely hoping he'd address PvP... I don't pvp anymore but I used to do it very casually before i13.

Sigh.

Thank goodness they let him do that monthly letter, where he has been a little lower on the producer-speak. Blech. I had to re-read that response to the F2P about three times to realize that yes, he was just saying that companies need to learn from the F2P model, but in a way that is more than just trying to get a little more money from a game that is shrinking.

It's pretty clear that they need to do something on the PvP front, too. I'm more for the endgame and content than PvP, but what he said is the best that can be said of what they have been doing for PvP... as in nothing for a couple years.

Subjective feedback: this sucked balls.

I was kind of... "eh!?" when new i19 zones were mentioned, unless thats slippage of confirmed i20 zones *cough cough something with battleships perhaps?*

This bit makes it sound like there might be some Incarnate story arcs too:

I certainly hope so. Trying to tell a story through large-scale trials and events is...difficult, to put it mildly.

I am actually suprised they asked a PvP related question. The fact it was dodged is not a suprise sadly.

Let's keep the conversation constructive please .

Something to keep in mind when reading articles such as this. Yea though we link to it in the forums and on Facebook, the target audience for "gaming media articles" isn't always the active Community. Media outlets such as ZAM!, MMORPG.com or Massively give us a platform to reach a much broader range of readers who might be lapsed/former players of CoH or have never even picked up the game before.

Because we value direct and candid conversation with our active Community, we utilize venues such as the Producers Letter and direct communication through the forums to give the level of detail that the Community at large generally desires.

All that being said, we are certainly taking note of your concerns regarding the tone and content of this interview and will convey this feedback to Nate and "Slightly-Evil" Marketing (aka: Black Pebble).

Thanks!

- Z

That's just it. City of Heroes is practially unique among MMORPGs for the way the developers actually talk to and engage the community about several different topics.

The way the game works behind the scenes. The philosophy and direction of game design, particularly with this game. These are two subjects most dev teams on most MMORPGs will NEVER talk to the community about, because they don't care.

You guys care, or you used to. Castle, Back Alley Brawler, others, all used to come to the forums and answer questions when they could. And in the process of researching some of those questions, they delved into the code and learned things about City of Heroes that had NOT been documented, which made the game a better game overall.

Please avoid pure fluff marketing pieces that just reiterate things that can be found on the main page of City of Heroes or Going Rogue. Provide little sneak peeks about what's coming up, about the direction of the game in future issues, and you'll be doing things that other MMORPGs avoid like the plague, thus distinguishing City of Heroes from them.