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[Interview] City of Heroes: Issue 24 with Matt Miller
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
City of Heroes is expanding again with Issue 24: Resurgence. We had the opportunity to chat with Senior Lead Designer Matt Miller about the expansion, what it brings to the game and much more. Check it out and then discuss the interview in the comments.
MMORPG: What are your favorite design concepts in Resurgence? Is making changes to the game more difficult because of its rich history?
Matt Miller:I love the fact that the overall meta story for the game is moving forward. We build upon the storylines of previous issues. For example, after Issue 23, Praetoria was devastated from the Magisterium Incarnate Trial. Much of Issue 24 deals with the repercussions of that as many signature Praetorians make a new home on Primal Earth. This kind of story telling happens “out of sync” with the normal timeline of things that happen to you in order of your leveling up, but we make it clear on the contact introduction that elements of the content that contact gives assume events from a previous issue have taken place, no matter what level you are.
Read more of Garrett Fuller's City of Heroes: Issue 24 with Matt Miller.
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Comments
Banegrivm
Leader of the 1st Fist of Light
www.1stfistoflight.com
Fixed!
Try to be excellent to everyone you meet. You never know what someone else has seen or endured.
My Review Manifesto
Follow me on Twitter if you dare.
Smash'n Bash if you're not reading the story or enjoying the mathematical playground that is the IO system. ( ' :
Thanks Bill, you the man!
Been playing this game off and on since beta. The graphics might be a bit outdated but the game is still fun as hell! Love this game! One of my favorite MMO's of all. One thing I love about it is the fact that it's not another cookie cutter WoW/EQ clone and that it plays different. Also gotta love the story! Story is pretty well done, and they did it long before SWTOR
Banegrivm
Leader of the 1st Fist of Light
www.1stfistoflight.com
Still debating whether I want to resubscribe for the new Martial powersets or just buy them outright. And a little disappointed to find out the Brickstown and Kings Row zone events, are not real zone events like Banners but start with a contact doing a story arc so sounds like an instanced zone event.
Can't wait for Utility Belt, Experimentation and Gadgetry power pools though.
This have been a good conversation
This game is absolutely dead.
It's a friday night, it's a double XP weekend (only the 2nd since the F2P switch, so in a year), and all the servers are green, save Virtue which is red, and two are yellow (justice and freedom).
Unless you play on one of those 3 servers, there's really no point in playing the game. It makes no sense to have what, 16 servers when 13 of them have less than 50 people playing on them
If they want to fix the game, they need to merge the servers. Or offer those of us on dead servers to have free transfers and move our slots to servers where people play.
R.I.P. City of Heroes and my 17 characters there
MA ruined the world gameplay.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
Yes... Should be reduced to 3 servers.
Also the costumes are many ... but the chances of making heroi tights are few.
Practically the same as seven years ago.
Too bad! many players like the style "hero golden age" but perhaps afraid NCsoft has a new lawsuit with Marvel
I havent played much since MA, does anyone actually create fun or interesting maps? or is it all just power leveling?
It's not dead. The only 2 servers ever worth playing on is Virtue and Freedom. It has always been like this so I don't know what you're talking about. And I'm glad they have more than just those 2 servers because I filled up all the character slots on them back when we didn't have all the extra character slots.
I've been playing this game from day one and I still play it as a subscriber. Some erroneous thoughts need to be addressed:
1. The game is not "smash n bash." If you don't want to run missions or TFs, you could work on your SG (supergroup) base. If you don't have that or don't feel like doing that, there's always gathering in Pocket D for some passive RP. If you don't want to do that, you can work on inventions. If that's not to your liking, you can go badge hunting, exploring all of Paragon City and beyond. If that doesn't tickle your fancy, you could create custom missions in Architect Entertainment. Then there's always player made events like costume contests and dance parties. There's always something to do even if you don't like to actually read and follow the storylines.
2. The game is not dead by any means. Ron is absolutely correct. It's been like that from the beginning. Freedom and Virtue have always been the servers that people flock to. Virtue is the unofficial RP server and Freedom is the gamers server per se. Justice is also a server that sees an uptick in activity as well. Better to have more than enough servers than to not have what's needed. People still play on all the servers.
3. By MA I assume you mean AE which didn't ruin world gameplay. There are people who use it for it's original intent of creating alternate storylines and having other content for their SGs specifically. Some use it to farm (something I personally abhor...but I digress). But it ruined nothing. It expanded it.
Though I believe the switch to F2P has made the community somewhat weak from an RP perspective since most don't even have a clue what it is, you can always try it out since it is free. It's the only game I pay any money for period because it's worth it.
CoH Supergroup: The Millennium Paladins
I loved COH/COV long ago and played the F2P. The F2P options are way to restrictive. You really cant be an effective contributor without paying 15$ per month.
I would pick it back up if i could buy a 1 time access to various components without having to think about a sub. Totally over sub's. In world of tanks, league of legends, D3, GW2, LOTRO, im not gimped without a sub.
Let's be honest COH/COV's F2P is more of an enhanced demo before you have to pay a sub and subs kill (most) games.
In case you don't understand, dead doesn't mean closed down. Dead is low population. For those of us who were there at the start, it is dead populationwise. NOTE again in case you don't understand. Dead populationwise doesn't mean zero players. Hope you understand what that means. If not, just ask what you don't get about it.
MA killed the game world. I didn't say game play. Is that unclear? It shouldn't be.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
I have to say, I play on one of the lowest population servers and even then I've never had trouble getting a team when I want one. The colors of the dots next to the server don't indicate population, they show server latency, which is part population and part how many instance maps are currently running, so it's not the best way to measure. Also, ever since they did their last big hardware upgrade it's pretty rare to see the servers go into the red, even on double xp weekend.
That's all well and good but I match your anecdotal data with my own. For at least two years(and that is being generous), I've played on Liberty, Triumph, Protector and Pinnacle. All except Pinnacle were mostly villain side but I've definitely had issues finding teams. When you do a search and see 17 people on, and unless you are indicating 200 are on /hide, I don't care what time of day it is because that is pathetic. Pinnacle, even on hero-side, you are lucky to see over 100 at peak times. Keep in mind this is barring the occasional spike immediately after a new release where I even saw Infinity go yellow for a short time.
Continuing anecdotal data, and looking at the newest channel, Looking for Group, again it is pathetic to see only 3 or 4 people begging for a team. On Virtue, it's a beehive of activity. To me that is the largest indicator and something you cannot fake.
And before you assume anything, I make my own teams. And lastly, you know when all my teaming problems went away despite everyone's insistence those 'bare' servers were just fine, suggestions that I was not playing at peak times but was, using global channels, starting my own teams, posting on the forums, etc? When I moved to Virtue, that's when and no one's suggestion, comment or belief that the population was fine on those servers EVER helped me get a team any easier.
Not to point at you directly, but I can't say stuff like this on the official forums, I'm tired of hearing teaming is fine on all the other servers except Virtue and Freedom. imo, it is not and has not been for a lonnng time. I'm also a long time player(nearly the whole 8 years) Unfortunately, server mergers are a horrible sign of weakness in an MMO product and is generally accepted as a signal to jump ship in all but the most rare of cases so it is unlikely we will see them ever execute it.
I hope that cross-server teaming rumor was more than that and someday becomes a reality.
Couple of those games you listed aren't MMO's. You may as well point out Counter-Strike, Orcs Must Die, Battlefield, Call of Duty and many others if a few players makes a gaem an MMO for you.
However, because of you I am going to look into World of Tanks! I shy away from F2P games as they are so much more expensive in general (and have WAY to many ads). Lotro isn't bad though.
meet my maker
meet my maker
You started to have a point, but then you mentioned LotRO as an example of an MMO that doesn't gimp you. And that's just plain wrong. In LotRO, you can play up to around level 30, but once you're done with the Lone-lands you're locked out of almost all content unless you pony up the cash or spend forever grinding out deeds and tasks. That's incredibly restrictive compared to CoH.