Massively http://massively.joystiq.com Massively http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/http://massively.joystiq.com/media/feedlogo.gif Massively http://massively.joystiq.com en-us Copyright 2012 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/<![CDATA[Matt Miller reflects on eight years of City of Heroes, hands out free respecs]]>http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/04/26/matt-miller-reflects-on-eight-years-of-city-of-heroes-hands-out/http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/04/26/matt-miller-reflects-on-eight-years-of-city-of-heroes-hands-out/http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/04/26/matt-miller-reflects-on-eight-years-of-city-of-heroes-hands-out/#commentsFiled under: , , , ,

City of Heroes
Eight years is an eternity for an MMO, and Lead Designer Matt Miller is exceedingly proud that City of Heroes has flown the distance. "I love the community that City of Heroes has built, and watching it over eight years ebb and flow with new voices being added to replace departed ones, and those voices being welcomed with open arms instead of open hostility that they might find elsewhere," he writes in an anniversary address.

Miller reflects on a few of the highlights of the journey for him, from his getting hired on to the team in 2003 to the insanity of the head start to the beginning of a bug hunting tradition among the playerbase. He also uses this address to promote the near future of the game, including Issues 23 and 24.

As part of the anniversary celebration, Paragon Studios has handed out a free respec token to each character in the game (the tokens do not stack with other respec tokens, however). Don't miss out on our own Massively celebration of the milestone, as our own Eliot Lefebvre has shared his thoughts on what this anniversary means for the game.

MassivelyMatt Miller reflects on eight years of City of Heroes, hands out free respecs originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 26 Apr 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>8th-anniversaryanniversaryanniversary-addresscity-of-heroescity-of-villainscohcovcoxeighth-anniversaryf2pfree-respecfree-to-playfreedomissue-23issue-24matt-millerncsoftparagonparagon-studiosrespecrespec-tokensuperherosuperheroesThu, 26 Apr 2012 16:00:00 EST<![CDATA[City of Heroes rejoices in F2P success even as it mourns Statesman's passing]]>http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/01/25/city-of-heroes-rejoices-in-f2p-success-even-as-it-mourns-statesm/http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/01/25/city-of-heroes-rejoices-in-f2p-success-even-as-it-mourns-statesm/http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/01/25/city-of-heroes-rejoices-in-f2p-success-even-as-it-mourns-statesm/#commentsFiled under: , , , , ,

City of Heroes
While Paragon Studios is being tight-lipped about exact numbers since City of Heroes' free-to-play conversion, Lead Designer Matt "Positron" Miller has said that the company has been "blown away" by the results.

According to an interview at GameZone, City of Heroes has witnessed not only an "incredible number" of subscribers, but also a tidal wave of returning and first-time players curious about the new model. Miller cites the popularity of the Paragon Rewards program as a key factor in Freedom's success: "We've really broadened the idea of what a free game can be to a lot of people."

On a more somber note, Positron delivered a touching eulogy for the recently departed Statesman on the City of Heroes website. "Statesman's hand was a hand that lifted us up with inspiration," he wrote. "His back was the strong back of a sheltering protector. His wisdom, that of an insightful teacher and leader. His confidence, driven by a profound optimism about the human spirit."

Massively recently spoke with Paragon Studios about this momentous in-game event.

MassivelyCity of Heroes rejoices in F2P success even as it mourns Statesman's passing originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>city-of-heroescohdeath-of-statesmanf2pfree-to-playgamezonmatt-millerparagonparagon-rewardsparagon-studiospositronstatesmanWed, 25 Jan 2012 15:00:00 EST<![CDATA[City of Heroes' Matt Miller answers our questions about the death of Statesman]]>http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/01/23/matt-miller-answers-our-questions-about-the-death-of-statesman-i/http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/01/23/matt-miller-answers-our-questions-about-the-death-of-statesman-i/http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/01/23/matt-miller-answers-our-questions-about-the-death-of-statesman-i/#commentsFiled under: , , , , , ,

Alas, poor Marcus! I knew him, Manticore.
Statesman has been the face of City of Heroes since the game has launched. He's been the man at the forefront of the game's lore and the setting-defining hero for players. He earned a lot of ire from some players due to the designer who had chosen him as his avatar, but that didn't diminish his importance to the game as a whole. But after surviving war against the Rikti, the machinations of his rival Lord Arachnos, and the invasion of his alternate self from Praetoria... Statesman has finally fallen and is no more.

Of course, this brings up some pretty hefty questions about the future of the City of Heroes setting, since such a death is about as high-profile as in-game-deaths can be. We had the opportunity to ask Matt Miller a few questions about the ramifications of Statesman's death, the team's motivation, and what players can expect in the wake of his passing. After all, even though the hero is gone, the villain responsible is still out there...

Continue reading City of Heroes' Matt Miller answers our questions about the death of Statesman

MassivelyCity of Heroes' Matt Miller answers our questions about the death of Statesman originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 23 Jan 2012 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Lore nerds may note who's missing among the pallbearers and who's included.
He's been the face on the package, the man on the cover, the big guy above all other big guys. But today, he is no more. Statesman, the most iconic hero in the City of Heroes lore, is going to meet his end, and it's time for everyone to say goodbye. Episode 5 of the signature story arc is live today, and while the titular question "Who Will Die?" has been answered, it's time to see what happens when Statesman does meet his end.

There's more to do than just go play through the arc, however. A new issue of the Intrepid Informer is available in which Matt Miller discusses why the team decided that now is the right time to kill off the game's biggest hero. And if you need a little more help catching up with the story so far, the final vidoc on the arc is embedded just past the cut, giving players a recap of what the Freedom Phalanx is, what is represents, and what this death means for Paragon City.

Continue reading City of Heroes performs 'Death of a Statesman'

MassivelyCity of Heroes performs 'Death of a Statesman' originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>backstorycity-of-heroescity-of-heroes-freedomcity-of-villainscohcovcoxfreedom-phalanxintrepid-informerlorelore-characterslore-figuresmatt-millerncsoftnpcsparagonparagon-studiospatchesplotsignature-story-arcstatesmanupdateswho-will-dieTue, 17 Jan 2012 16:00:00 EST<![CDATA[Newest City of Heroes video documents the heroes of the Freedom Phalanx]]>http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/01/10/newest-city-of-heroes-video-documents-the-heroes-of-the-freedom/http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/01/10/newest-city-of-heroes-video-documents-the-heroes-of-the-freedom/http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/01/10/newest-city-of-heroes-video-documents-the-heroes-of-the-freedom/#commentsFiled under: , , , , , ,

We've got tons of heroes here. They're like rats, but bigger and half of them are on fire.
The Surviving Eight, the members of the Freedom Phalanx, are the most important heroes in the mythology of City of Heroes. But in the not-so-distant future, they're going to be down a member as the game's first signature arc reaches its conclusion. In case you're not totally familiar with the characters in question, however, you're in luck -- the latest video documentary shows off the big eight in all their glory, explaining how they got where they are and what the team hoped to explore with each character.

Narrated by Matt Miller and Sean McCann, the video goes into detail about the powers of the survivors and their roles in the game, from Positron to the now-marked Statesman. It's a useful refresher on the game's lore, so if you're looking forward to the remainder of the signature arc and want to get a refresher on some of the fine points of lore, jump past the break for the video.

Continue reading Newest City of Heroes video documents the heroes of the Freedom Phalanx

MassivelyNewest City of Heroes video documents the heroes of the Freedom Phalanx originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 10 Jan 2012 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>backstorycity-of-heroescity-of-villainscohcovcoxf2pfree-to-playlorematt-millerncsoftparagonparagon-studiossean-mccannsignature-arcsurviving-eightvideovideo-documentaryvideosvidocwho-will-dieTue, 10 Jan 2012 18:30:00 EST<![CDATA[City of Heroes explores the process of making missions]]>http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/08/09/city-of-heroes-explores-the-process-of-making-missions/http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/08/09/city-of-heroes-explores-the-process-of-making-missions/http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/08/09/city-of-heroes-explores-the-process-of-making-missions/#commentsFiled under: , , , , ,

Random City of Heroes screenshot
It's been a little while since the last installment of City of Heroes' developer dispatch newsletter, the Intrepid Informer, due in no small part to the upcoming hybrid business model domination the news sphere. But the second part of the series on designing missions for the games has just recently been posted, giving players a look behind the scenes at the process that goes into crafting compelling arcs for players to enjoy time and again.

Penned by Matt Miller, the installment explains some of the thought processes that go on during mission development. For example, as Miller explains, the main reason that level bands restrict available enemy groups is simply plausibility -- if you're still seeing Hellions at level 50, it implies that the Rikti are essentially equivalent to punks in red jackets. Miller also talks about the importance of finding little quirks to help the mission feel unique and memorable, an important element in a game that allows you to flash back to older missions at almost any time. It's sure to be an interesting read for longtime fans interested in seeing how the team goes about taking a broad concept and turns it into a playable arc.

MassivelyCity of Heroes explores the process of making missions originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 09 Aug 2011 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Whenever a subscription-based MMO announces its transition to a free-to-play model, players tend to worry. There are a number of aspects to the F2P model that can drastically change the game's dynamics. Will players who pay have an innate advantage over those who don't? What about rewards for the customers who have remained loyal subscribers over the years?

The folks at Paragon Studios understand these concerns, and Matt "Positron" Miller has posted up a short diary explaining the thought process behind the recently announced City of Heroes Freedom. Miller takes the time to assure players that the switch to a hybrid payment model is not a decision the team made lightly, and that the devs have plans set to ensure that the game remains enjoyable for long-time subscribers and new, non-paying players alike. It's a rather interesting and candid look into the philosophy behind the switch and is well worth the read for any CoH fan. You can check out the whole piece on the official site.

MassivelyMatt "Positron" Miller discusses designing City of Heroes Freedom originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 24 Jun 2011 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>city-of-heroescity-of-heroes-freedomcity-of-villainscohcoh-freedomcovcoxf2pfree-to-playfreedommatt-millermatt-positron-millerncsoftparagonparagon-studiospositronFri, 24 Jun 2011 13:00:00 EST<![CDATA[A Mild-Mannered Reporter: Between the lines of PAX]]>http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/03/16/a-mild-mannered-reporter-between-the-lines-of-pax/http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/03/16/a-mild-mannered-reporter-between-the-lines-of-pax/http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/03/16/a-mild-mannered-reporter-between-the-lines-of-pax/#commentsFiled under: , , , , ,

I think that the first year of PAX East spoiled me for any and all future City of Heroes panels. At the time Paragon Studios held that panel, there was a new expansion due out in that marvelous sweet spot when it's just far enough away that a lot of questions are unanswered but not so far away that we can't be told all of the cool parts. Every panel since then has had a bit less to share, but really, that's kind of the nature of the beast. Until we get expansion number three on deck, we aren't going to have another panel with that much information and that many surprises unloaded all at once.

Still, another part of my brain can't help but feel as if the most interesting part of this year's presence for City of Heroes wasn't the panel itself but the other elements surrounding the panel. (Considering that I already wrote up what happened there, this may also serve a stunningly convenient purpose for writing a column about the convention.) There's certainly no hints of a big revelation around the corner, but there were little elements hither and yon that piqued my interest for various reasons.

Continue reading A Mild-Mannered Reporter: Between the lines of PAX

MassivelyA Mild-Mannered Reporter: Between the lines of PAX originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 16 Mar 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>a-mild-mannered-reportercity-of-heroescity-of-villainscohcolumnsconventioncovcoxeventfeaturedinformationissue-20jesse-caceresmatt-millermelissa-bianconate-birkholzncsoftopinionparagonparagon-studiospartiespatchespaxpax-2011pax-eastpax-east-2011real-world-eventrevealsWed, 16 Mar 2011 19:00:00 EST<![CDATA[A Mild-Mannered Reporter: 2010's roguish review]]>http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/12/22/a-mild-mannered-reporter-2010s-roguish-review/http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/12/22/a-mild-mannered-reporter-2010s-roguish-review/http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/12/22/a-mild-mannered-reporter-2010s-roguish-review/#commentsFiled under: , , , , , , , ,

I joked once, long ago, that I should never answer WRUP truthfully, because it will invariably result in a total lack of doing what I announced. Lo and behold, I had the time to play through a single Mission Architect mission amidst an intensely obnoxious virus (just at that level where you're sick enough to know it but not sick enough to avoid work) and the preparation needed to get my house ready for hosting an entire family.

For the record? Never agree to do that for your family, no matter who your family is.

So instead, we're going to take a look through the big news of the year, the five biggest stories that have affected City of Heroes in the past 12 months. I had originally planned to save this one for next week, but I doubt that we'll get an enormous piece of news between now and next week. It's been an interesting year for the game as a whole, so between an expansion, major updates, and tumultuous times in the larger MMO world, let's look at the five biggest stories pertaining to the city.

Continue reading A Mild-Mannered Reporter: 2010's roguish review

MassivelyA Mild-Mannered Reporter: 2010's roguish review originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 22 Dec 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>a-mild-mannered-reportercity-of-heroescity-of-heroes-going-roguecity-of-villainscohcovcoxdevelopersdevelopment-teamend-of-the-year-2010expansionexpansionsfeaturedgoing-roguegrissue-17issue-18issue-19issue-20matt-millermelissa-bianconcsoftparagonparagon-studiospositronwar-witchWed, 22 Dec 2010 17:00:00 EST<![CDATA[A Mild-Mannered Reporter: All the news that's fit from PAX]]>http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/09/08/a-mild-mannered-reporter-all-the-news-thats-fit-from-pax/http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/09/08/a-mild-mannered-reporter-all-the-news-thats-fit-from-pax/http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/09/08/a-mild-mannered-reporter-all-the-news-thats-fit-from-pax/#commentsFiled under: , , , , , , ,

The revelations at PAX East were pretty darn big for City of Heroes, but they had a big advantage over PAX Prime. At the time we sat down in Boston, Going Rogue was months away, and we knew almost nothing about what it would bring us. This time around, it's been out for a couple of weeks, and most of the fancy pieces of knowledge are pretty well established. It would be hard, if not impossible, for the development team to hit us with the same one-two punch.

I wouldn't argue that the team quite managed that -- there's no comparison to revealing two new power sets, the endgame system, and video demonstrations of much-awaited sets -- but Paragon Studios sure did manage to drop quite a bomb on us. As I've done frequently in the past, we're going to take this point by point, with a full collection of neat pieces of news that leave me wondering just how much interesting stuff is yet to come from the development team.

Continue reading A Mild-Mannered Reporter: All the news that's fit from PAX

MassivelyA Mild-Mannered Reporter: All the news that's fit from PAX originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 08 Sep 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>city-of-heroescity-of-heroes-going-roguecity-of-villainscohcontentcovcoxdevelopmentdevelopment-teamendgameendgame-mechanicsfeaturedgame-mechanicsgoing-roguegrincarnateincarnate-systemissue-19issue-20matt-millermelissa-bianconcsoftnews-analysisopinionparagonparagon-studiospax-2010positronsystemsupcoming-patcheswar-witchWed, 08 Sep 2010 15:00:00 EST<![CDATA[Reminder: City of Heroes developer chat today]]>http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/04/23/reminder-city-of-heroes-developer-chat-today/http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/04/23/reminder-city-of-heroes-developer-chat-today/http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/04/23/reminder-city-of-heroes-developer-chat-today/#commentsFiled under: , , , ,

They've got an anniversary coming up, but no one can accuse the team over at Paragon Studios of resting on their laurels. The studio responsible for City of Heroes is hard at work on the next major content update, several anniversary celebrations, and they're still stopping to reach out to their fans.

In not very much time at all, it will be time for a live chat with the development team of City of Heroes via their forumspring.me page. A few fans submitted questions to us, and we passed along three of them to the development team -- but that doesn't mean that there's no chance of getting other questions to reach their ears.

So hurry on over to the City of Heroes question submission page, fire off the best question you can think of (after enabling JavaScript if you've got it turned off), and keep your eyes peeled for all of the answers. With Melissa Bianco, Matt Miller, Jesse Caceres, and David Nakayama all fielding the questions, there's sure to be some interesting information to be had.

MassivelyReminder: City of Heroes developer chat today originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 23 Apr 2010 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>city-of-heroescity-of-villainscohcovcoxDavid-Nakayamaforumspring.mejesse-caceresmatt-millermelissa-biancoopen-submissionparagonparagon-cohparagon-studioesq-and-aquestion-and-answerreminderFri, 23 Apr 2010 18:30:00 EST<![CDATA[City of Heroes hosting a live Q&A with developers]]>http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/04/18/city-of-heroes-hosting-a-live-qanda-with-developers/http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/04/18/city-of-heroes-hosting-a-live-qanda-with-developers/http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/04/18/city-of-heroes-hosting-a-live-qanda-with-developers/#commentsFiled under: , , , ,

If you missed out on PAX East, you missed the chance to twist the ear of the development team for City of Heroes. (And other things, probably.) Or, at least, you missed your chance for a little while. Because the team is giving the fans another shot at connecting with them live, even if it's not in person. Using the forumspring.me tool, which has been steadily growing in popularity over the past several months, players will be able to ask questions of the development team and have them answered in more-or-less real time.

The actual session will take place on April 23rd between 4 and 5 PM PST (7-8 PM EST). Melissa Bianco, Matt Miller, David Nakayama, and Jesse Caceres will all be in attendance, the same team from the PAX East panel and the brain trust behind the newest content additions. If you can't or don't want to take part in the actual questioning, the highlights will be addressed on the game's official Facebook fan page. It's an excellent chance for City of Heroes players to get answers to their most urgent questions, so mark the date on your calendar.

MassivelyCity of Heroes hosting a live Q&A with developers originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 18 Apr 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>city-of-heroescity-of-villainscohcovcoxdavid-nakayamajesse-caceresmatt-millermelissa-biancoparagonparagon-cohparagon-studioespax-eastpax-east-2010Sun, 18 Apr 2010 20:00:00 EST<![CDATA[A Mild-Mannered Reporter: Question and answers go retro]]>http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/04/07/a-mild-mannered-reporter-question-and-answers-go-retro/http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/04/07/a-mild-mannered-reporter-question-and-answers-go-retro/http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/04/07/a-mild-mannered-reporter-question-and-answers-go-retro/#commentsFiled under: , , , , , , ,

It's time to head back in time, back through the many views and opinion of the past month, and see where we've gone with questions from far and wide. And as long as we're going back in time, why can't City of Heroes go back with us? Seriously, where's the time-travel arc where everyone has to team up with their Silver Age counterpart in bell-bottoms and bad hair? We've long been missing that from the game, and now that I have the time to think clearly it's a problem which should be immediately addressed.

Of course, we do have that new Doppleganger system coming up. It could happen. Also, questions should probably be answered before I deviate too far.

Zsazsa piped up with an obvious question about the PAX information:
"Was anything said about new maps located in space for level 50 characters?"

Possibly? When talking with the inimitable Miss Bianco, she mentioned that there were new maps we haven't yet seen... emphasis on those of us in the playerbase. It's very possible that there are, in fact, maps set in space which will be used for the Incarnate system (which requires level 50 and Going Rogue to be playable, so there you go). But as it's implied here that they already exist, wouldn't we have seen them by now?

Continue reading A Mild-Mannered Reporter: Question and answers go retro

MassivelyA Mild-Mannered Reporter: Question and answers go retro originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 07 Apr 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>archetypescity-of-heroescity-of-heroes-going-roguecity-of-villainscohcovcoxdual-pistolselectrical-controlfeaturedgoing-rogueincarnatekinetic-meleematt-millermelissa-biancoparagonparagon-cohparagon-studioespax-eastpax-east-2010praetoriaWed, 07 Apr 2010 13:00:00 EST<![CDATA[A Mild-Mannered Reporter: Death to the warehouse map!]]>http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/02/03/a-mild-mannered-reporter-death-to-the-warehouse-map/http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/02/03/a-mild-mannered-reporter-death-to-the-warehouse-map/http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/02/03/a-mild-mannered-reporter-death-to-the-warehouse-map/#commentsFiled under: , , , , , , ,

If you've played City of Heroes from levels 1 to anything, you already know the map I'm talking about. The more levels you've been through, the more you've seen it. Heck, you probably knew exactly what map I was talking about just from the subject line, because... well, it's the warehouse map.

As I was thinking about this week's column, I was trying to figure out why it is that City of Heroes gets criticized as often as it does for being "repetitive." I'd gladly concede the point, but the follow-up question becomes, well, what's so inherently different between the gameplay here as opposed to World of Warcraft, or EverQuest II, or Lord of the Rings Online, or even Dungeons and Dragons Online? How is killing X of critter Y for questgiver Z in any way less repetitive than punching the Fifth Column around for the hundredth time?

But with the recent addition of Melissa "War Witch" Bianco as lead designer, with her promises of "more content," I formed at least part of an idea of why that pointless accusation will not go away. And I believe the blame can be laid squarely at the feet of that stupid warehouse map.

Continue reading A Mild-Mannered Reporter: Death to the warehouse map!

MassivelyA Mild-Mannered Reporter: Death to the warehouse map! originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 03 Feb 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It's been a quiet week on Lake Salamanca... well, actually, all across City of Heroes, when you get right down to it. For those of us not on the inside, it looked as if nothing of interest was happening with the game. But that's apparently quite far from the truth, since it appears there have been quite a few internal shakeups over the holiday season and most of the month.

Matt Miller, longtime lead designer of City of Heroes, has passed the mantle on to Melissa Bianco. Miller is continuing to work on the game, but will be involved in rather vaguely-described endgame systems as well as some undisclosed projects. Bianco (also known as "War Witch" in keeping with the developer nicknaming scheme) has already given an interview on her plans and the state of CoH, with promises of new content before and after Going Rogue goes live.

And speaking of Going Rogue, we're promised more frequent pieces of information on the expansion, which has seen very little revealed since its announcement. There's also an opportunity to take part in a community Q&A with Bianco. The quiet week seems to be over... which is really for the best, when you get right down to it.

MassivelyCity of Heroes unveils new lead designer originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 21 Jan 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>city-of-heroescity-of-heroes-going-roguecity-of-villainscohcovcoxgoing-roguelake-salamancamatt-millermatt-positron-millermelissa-biancomelissa-war-witch-biancoparagonparagon-cityparagon-studiospositronwar-witchThu, 21 Jan 2010 18:00:00 EST<![CDATA[The community of architects in City of Heroes]]>http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/01/10/the-community-of-architects-in-city-of-heroes/http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/01/10/the-community-of-architects-in-city-of-heroes/http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/01/10/the-community-of-architects-in-city-of-heroes/#commentsFiled under: , , , , ,

If there's one thing that City of Heroes has become known for, it's the Mission Architect system. The player-generated content spans a huge number of adventures, ranging from the silly to the sublime. It's also robust enough in its search function that it's essentially added another venue of content into the game. The official site recently highlighted a feature in The Escapist, interviewing a number of community members and acclaimed users of the system about its ups, downs, and the overall experience.

The system has faced a few problems -- abuse of it early on led to bans and some content removal, since it's easy when creating content to be too generous with the rewards and too light with the difficulty. There's also the issue of inappropriate content, and of course the possibility that a large portion of what's available just isn't all that good. The full piece highlights some of the better arcs available (including more than a few Developer's Choice missions, which were selected as being good enough to qualify as official content), as well as the efforts and reasoning behind the more popular creators and what they've built. Matt Miller was quoted as saying that players did in one day with the system what it took the developers five years to accomplish. Quite an argument in favor of player-created content, that.

MassivelyThe community of architects in City of Heroes originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 10 Jan 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>city-of-heroescity-of-villainscohcontent-abusecovcoxdevelopers-choicematt-millermatt-positron-millermission-architectparagon-studiosplayer-generated-contentpositronSun, 10 Jan 2010 16:00:00 EST<![CDATA[NCsoft and Paragon Studios announce HeroCon 2009 for October]]>http://massively.joystiq.com/2009/08/12/ncsoft-and-paragon-studios-announce-herocon-2009-for-october/http://massively.joystiq.com/2009/08/12/ncsoft-and-paragon-studios-announce-herocon-2009-for-october/http://massively.joystiq.com/2009/08/12/ncsoft-and-paragon-studios-announce-herocon-2009-for-october/#commentsFiled under: , , , , ,

Paragon Studios and NCsoft today announced that HeroCon has been expanded to a two-day convention and will be taking place on 24th- 25th October. This year's event, which is taking place in San Jose, California, is the 2nd HeroCon and offers a chance for fans of City of Heroes to meet up and share their passion for the game. As if you needed anything else to tempt you into attending, the tickets cost $79.99 and there's even a goody bag which includes a special con t-shirt and an exclusive in-game item.

The event promises pre-con activities on the Friday night as well as developer panel discussions, live mission event and contests, social events with the development team and there's even a rather posh-sounding banquet dinner with live entertainment and an awards ceremony. As usual Matt "Positron" Miller and Paragon Studios head, Brian Clayton, will be doing a community address as well as the usual round of interesting announcements - hopefully including something about the Going Rogue expansion.

For more information on the event and where to stay, check out the official site.

MassivelyNCsoft and Paragon Studios announce HeroCon 2009 for October originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 12 Aug 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>brian-claytoncity-of-heroescity-of-heroes-going-roguecity-of-villainsheroconherocon-09herocon-2009matt-millermatt-positron-millerncsoftparagon-studiosWed, 12 Aug 2009 17:00:00 EST<![CDATA[SDCC 09: City of Heroes devs on the future of player-created content]]>http://massively.joystiq.com/2009/07/26/sdcc-09-city-of-heroes-devs-on-the-future-of-player-created-con/http://massively.joystiq.com/2009/07/26/sdcc-09-city-of-heroes-devs-on-the-future-of-player-created-con/http://massively.joystiq.com/2009/07/26/sdcc-09-city-of-heroes-devs-on-the-future-of-player-created-con/#commentsFiled under: , , , , ,


This week marked the annual pilgrimage to Comic-Con International in San Diego for the comics and gaming faithful, and a number of superhero MMO developers were there as well to whip the fanboys (and girls) into a frenzy. When you think about it, comic conventions are as big for superhero games as other events like E3 and PAX. Massively was on the ground at SDCC this year and among the games we took a look at was, not surprisingly, City of Heroes.

We caught up with City of Heroes game designers Joe Morrissey and Matt "Positron" Miller who shared with us a bit about how things have changed in the game in recent months, and gave us some info about the content and features on the way in Issue 16: Power Spectrum.

Gallery: SDCC09: City of Heroes

Continue reading SDCC 09: City of Heroes devs on the future of player-created content

MassivelySDCC 09: City of Heroes devs on the future of player-created content originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 26 Jul 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We've always operated under the assumption that City of Heroes was designed in such a way that power customization would be very difficult. So a recent forum post hinting by lead designer Matt "Positron" Miller showing that it's apparently happening makes this news all the more interesting.

Of course, all we get are a couple screenshots of purple and blue imps to tease us, but then again what else do you really need to know right now? Well okay, we suppose you could know how colorization works and if it's something that's done only during character creation or at any time while playing. It would also be nice to know the extent that powers could be customized, too.

We'll just have to wait until July to hear more about Issue 16. So until then, dream about City of Heroes in whatever color you like -- even made up ones!

MassivelyPower customization teased at for City of Heroes originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 23 Jun 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>city-of-heroescohcoh-issue-16coxmatt-millerncsoftparagon-studiospositronpower-customizationTue, 23 Jun 2009 17:00:00 EST<![CDATA[Matt "Positron" Miller prepares his radioactive banhammer against mission architect abusers]]>http://massively.joystiq.com/2009/05/05/matt-positron-miller-prepares-his-radioactive-banhammer-agains/http://massively.joystiq.com/2009/05/05/matt-positron-miller-prepares-his-radioactive-banhammer-agains/http://massively.joystiq.com/2009/05/05/matt-positron-miller-prepares-his-radioactive-banhammer-agains/#commentsFiled under: , , , , , , , , ,


Mission architect -- an amazing system that allows a very creative player-base to finally take the reigns of creation and make amazing in-game arcs that feature personalized stories, personalized characters, farming, well made.... wait, what?

Yes, you heard that right, people have already began to leverage City of Heroes's architect system into nothing more than powerleveling tool, and the community doesn't find that to be too enjoyable. Luckily, Matt "Positron" Miller, the lead designer, has already stepped up with a post to the community on the City of Heroes message board about how they plan on dealing with these problems.

The team wishes to remove the rewards some characters may have gained through powerleveling, all the way up to removing access to characters that were solely leveled up via mission architect exploits. Past working on a player by player bases, some badges will be changed while others may be removed entirely due to the exploiting groups surrounding them. Lastly, but certainly not least, the team will be proactively banning missions that are created to exploit the system.

For Matt's full plan, check out his post over on the City of Heroes message board.

MassivelyMatt "Positron" Miller prepares his radioactive banhammer against mission architect abusers originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 05 May 2009 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Unless you've been hiding under a rock, you undoubtedly know that today is the 5th anniversary since the launch of City of Heroes - an MMO giving players the chance to don tights and fight for truth, justice, and the fun of it. Recently, we had the chance to catch up with Matt "Positron" Miller, Senior Lead Designer for Paragon Studios, who gave us some of his personal insights into what the last five years have been like - and a bit about what players can expect in the next five. Be sure and join us after the break to read more about what's planned for Paragon City and the Rogue Isles!

Massively: You've got five great years of City of Heroes under your belt. What's it been like watching your MMO grow and develop over that time? How about staying together through everything your team has been through, to finally becoming Paragon Studios?

Matt "Positron" Miller: I think that it's a testament to the game that so many of us who were here at the launch are still on the project. Watching CoH grow up year after year is awesome. I look back to what CoH shipped with compared to where it is today and I am blown away by how much quality free content we have added and given back to our players over the last five years.

Continue reading Massively Exclusive: An anniversary chat with Matt Miller

MassivelyMassively Exclusive: An anniversary chat with Matt Miller originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 28 Apr 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Yesterday brought us the launch of City of Heroes Issue 13: Power and Responsibility. This is arguably the third major launch in the last month. So the question on Jason Dobson's mind is how is CoH keeping pace with the the largest games on the market? And Positron (a.k.a. Matt Miller, Senior Designer at NCSoft) answers. He sounds proud of the separatist nature CoH seems to enjoy in comparison to what he dubs the monotonous "sword and sorcery" games. Even now, four years in, they have one of the most complex and thoroughly enjoyable character creators around, a loyal player base, and plans for future releases. There's even a Mac version of the game in beta right now, with future boxed releases in the works for 2009.

Coming soon-ish will be the magic Super-Booster pack and Issue 14: Architect. You may recall that Architect was originally going to be Issue 13, but it was pushed back in September to allow more time for development. Last we heard Issue 14 will be released in Q1 2009 and it seems Issue 15 will be released shortly thereafter, in time for the fifth anniversary of the game (April 2009). Or was that a reference to the Fifth Column we spotted...?

MassivelyJoystiq asks Positron about keeping City of Heroes competitive originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 03 Dec 2008 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Matt "Positron" Miller, NCsoft's NorCal Senior Designer, was snatched and grilled by the gang at Ten Ton Hammer just recently. Among the topics touched on were speculations about the impact of upcoming costumed nemeses in the super-hero-themed MMOG genre.

City of Heroes/Villains was, back in the day, something of a dark horse. While Cryptic Studios and NCsoft were working on the game, there was intense speculation and skepticism about the material. How could it even work?

Well, work it did, and very well. Miller is confident that it will continue to do so.

Miller acknowledges that it's hard to predict what impact the new games will have on CoX's player numbers. We wouldn't be putting any money down on predictions ourselves, but it's going to be interesting.

Continue reading Matt "Positron" Miller confident in the face of costumed nemeses

MassivelyMatt "Positron" Miller confident in the face of costumed nemeses originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 26 Nov 2008 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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City of Heroes Issue 13 is enormous. Even with the Mission Architect pushed out to early next year, the next big patch coming to City of Heroes has enough content to satisfy a small army of players. We've talked previously about the upcoming PvP changes, the Day Job system, and we had the chance for extensive conversations with the developers back when the Issue was first announced. That said, there's still a lot of ground to cover.

That's why we were thrilled when designer Phil Zeleski and the infamous Matt 'Positron' Miller reached out to us to clarify what's coming down the pipe with game rewards. We chatted with the gents extensively about the new and improved meta-currency coming to City of Heroes. It's going to make Task Forces and Story Arcs far more rewarding for the average player, and the background behind their design is fascinating. Join us below the cut for discussions about how they chose what rewards to give out, trends along these lines in the indstry, and much more.

Gallery: CoH Merit System Walkthrough

Continue reading The City of Heroes devs explain the new Merit Reward system

MassivelyThe City of Heroes devs explain the new Merit Reward system originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 14 Nov 2008 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Massively recently had the chance to talk with City of Heroes executive producer Brian Clayton and Lead Designer Matt Miller about a multitude of CoX topics. One of the points we covered was the downloadable optional content, such as the recent Cyborg Pack.

Massively: The recent changes in the studio, the additional bandwidth you were talking about: would you connect those to the changes you've made in pricing, with the additional purchaseable content? Or is that more a direct result of NC NorCal coming into its own?

Brian Clayton: It's a little bit of both, to be perfectly honest. We certainly have huge plans, plans that go over the next five to ten years, for the City of Heroes franchise. So we certainly need to ramp up for that. But we also feel that by providing the Super Booster packs and things like that, it's a win-win in that it helps grow the studio internally to provide more things for our community, but it also helps us to justify those costs and build for the future. I think that's certainly a part of it, but there are larger initiatives again that we can't fully go into detail about, for the future of the franchise.

Continue reading Super Boosters and beyond in City of Heroes

MassivelySuper Boosters and beyond in City of Heroes originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 25 Sep 2008 13:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>brian-claytoncity-of-heroescity-of-villainscohcovcoxcox-issue-13cyborg-packfeaturedmatt-millermicrotransactionsnc-norcalnc-westncsoftpositronsuper-boosterThu, 25 Sep 2008 13:45:00 EST<![CDATA[A new era for PvP in City of Heroes]]>http://massively.joystiq.com/2008/09/25/a-new-era-for-pvp-in-city-of-heroes/http://massively.joystiq.com/2008/09/25/a-new-era-for-pvp-in-city-of-heroes/http://massively.joystiq.com/2008/09/25/a-new-era-for-pvp-in-city-of-heroes/#commentsFiled under: , , , , , ,


Massively recently had the chance to talk with City of Heroes executive producer Brian Clayton and Lead Designer Matt Miller about a multitude of CoX topics. It was clear to us that some major PvP changes were afoot, so we picked up the topic and ran with it.

Massively: So the 'multi build' feature sounds incredible for PvP, and it sounds like you're going to be doing some PvP rebalancing, which I know can get into fiddly details, but can you talk generally about what sort of rebalancing you guys are doing for PvP combat?

Matt Miller: We're basically trying to balance it out and make it a lot more fun, not make it so one-sided where certain archetypes and certain powersets completely dominate the PvP game.

Continue reading A new era for PvP in City of Heroes

MassivelyA new era for PvP in City of Heroes originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 25 Sep 2008 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Alternate Builds

Massively:There's a ton of new features that you guys are putting in here to go along with the leveling pact and to make up for Architect being moved over a little bit. Can you talk about multi-builds a little bit? Is there going to be a minimum level after which the feature's going to become available?

Matt Miller: Yeah, I believe it's level 10. We're going to be experimenting with it in Closed Beta and seeing where's a good point to introduce this concept. Because it is a fairly complex concept and we don't want the new players to have to deal with it right away, at level 1! It's around 10 or 15, when you pretty much know how your character's playing, and an alternate build would probably be of actual benefit to you.

Basically, what it is is you get to create a new character, the same level and archetype and powersets as your other character, and you can switch between them. You get a respec that doesn't actually change your main set of powers, but you level up that character, you pick where the slots go, you pick what powers you want, you slot those with Enhancements, and that's your alternate build.

Massively: So basically you create the character, and he has the archetype and he has the power selections that he has when you make the character, but then you can switch what powers you have selected over the course of your career at a specific NPC, right?

Matt Miller: Yep!


Base Changes

Massively: You mention that base items will be seeing a change. We're wondering if any of that is going to come through with Issue 13. There were rumors that Issue 13 would be seeing a lot of base changes, and we're wondering if any of those are going to make it through, with this change to Issue 14.

Matt Miller: One of the first things coming for base changes is going to be in Issue 13, and that is a repricing for a lot of things that supergroups can purchase for their bases. We're lowering a lot of the Prestige costs on not only rooms and base plot sizes, but for items as well, to make them more affordable. We have a lot of datamining now. We know exactly what plot sizes and rooms supergroups can afford. And so we're going through and we're making sure that more supergroups can afford those cooler rooms and those cooler base items, and things like that.

"...we're getting rid of the Base Salvage out of the game, because a lot of the players were getting confused with the Invention Salvage, since they both get the same kind of message."
And in addition, one of the things we're doing is we're getting rid of the Base Salvage out of the game, because a lot of the players were getting confused with the Invention Salvage, since they both get the same kind of message. Players get excited when they get Invention Salvage, and then they get disappointed when they find out it was only Base Salvage, especially if they don't have a supergroup or their supergroup doesn't really need the Base Salvage any more. So what we're going to do is we're going to get rid of the Base Salvage, and just make everything that's currently craftable in the bases from salvage, craftable through that Invention Salvage as well.

Massively: So is that going to make turrets and other raid items for bases easier to get?

Matt Miller: Oh yeah. Absolutely.


The Ongoing Story

Massively: So there are some really great ongoing story arcs in the game, including the Rikti War and the Coming Storm, and there hasn't been a ton of information previously about whether there's going to be anything like that in Issue 13. Is there going to be a strong story component in Issue 13, or is that getting moved off to Issue 14 along with the Mission Architect?

Matt Miller: The real big storyline stuff is coming in Issue 15!

Massively: Any hints at all about what that would be touching on?

Matt Miller: It's hopefully going to tie up a lot of loose ends that we've had hanging out there for a while now, while at the same time creating a lot more.

Brian Clayton: Like any good superhero story.

Matt Miller: Like any good superhero story, or episode of LOST.


Side switching in the future?

Massively: So one last question for Brian: we know there was a marketing survey that went out to players not too long ago, and there were a number of different questions, but one that we think players really attached to was the idea of players being able to switch sides. We wanted to know if this is something that's been taken up and noticed by the folks at NC Norcal, and whether or not you think that's something from your perspective that you guys might be able to address some time down the line?

Brian Clayton: We're going to be doing more and more in-depth focus groups and research, and things like that, going forward, so eventually I think this is going to become more noise for the community than it is groundbreaking news! But what I can say is that having players go from hero to villain, and villain to hero, would nicely tie together what we've already done to date with City of Heroes and City of Villains. We certainly like the concept and the idea, but we're just not ready to talk about the details yet.


Massively would like to extend our sincere thanks to Brian Clayton and Matt Miller for giving up so much of their time to answer our questions! Read what Brian and Matt had to say on PvP changes, and on the Super Booster packs.

MassivelyBrian Clayton and Matt Miller: Page 3 originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 25 Sep 2008 13:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>brian-claytoncity-of-heroescity-of-villainscohcovcoxcox-issue-13matt-millernc-norcalnc-westncsoftpositronThu, 25 Sep 2008 13:15:00 EST<![CDATA[Brian Clayton and Matt Miller: Page 2]]>http://massively.joystiq.com/2008/09/25/brian-clayton-and-matt-miller-page-2/http://massively.joystiq.com/2008/09/25/brian-clayton-and-matt-miller-page-2/http://massively.joystiq.com/2008/09/25/brian-clayton-and-matt-miller-page-2/#commentsFiled under: , , , ,


The Leveling Pact

Massively: Brian, you talked about how day jobs are part of NC Norcal's idea of involving players in the game even when they're not necessarily playing, and it seems like the Leveling Pact is obviously a tie-in to that. Can you talk a little bit about that, from a philosophical perspective?

Brian Clayton: I'll talk about it from a philosophical perspective and then let Matt follow up with the nuts and bolts of it. The one thing that we continue to strive for with City of Heroes is to pick areas where the MMO genre could use some innovation. We certainly have the best character creation system, and I would argue that sidekicking was very innovative, at the time when that was released. Even the further iterations, like our base creation system, were still very innovative.

So we looked at another area of innovation with the Mission Architect system, and now the Leveling Pact. These are things that had been begging to be done in the MMO space for so long. Again, while sidekicking and exemplaring accommodate a number of player types, we feel that the leveling pact now accomodates another type of player. These things not only benefit City of Heroes, they push the genre forward.

Matt Miller: It's definitely one of those features that came to us based on a lot of feedback we had from our players, and especially our friends who are playing the game. They came to us and said 'You know, I like playing the game, and I like the sidekicking system, but I'm getting to a point where my friends are so far outleveling me that they don't want to exemplar down and do my stuff because they've already done it before. Is there any way that we can stay more in synch?'

"So we had this idea for the Leveling Pact: essentially splitting each character's XP gain directly in half and just distributing it across two characters whether they're offline or online."
So we had this idea for the Leveling Pact: essentially splitting each character's XP gain directly in half and just distributing it across two characters whether they're offline or online. And we said: 'You know what? There's a system here. This is a workable system. This is really innovative, and this is taking a new step in sidekicking, making sure that you and your friend are always able to play the game together, and will always be the same level.'

Massively: So basically the main character's XP gain is halved, and the other part is given to the buddy?

Matt Miller: Yeah, basically both characters when they earn XP, they go through all the calculations for earning XP - how much they're supposed to get, based on their team size, what they defeated - every calculation possible in the game, and at the very end it's divided in two and each person in the pact gets their share.

Massively: So the obvious question there, and Brian, this might be more to you, is from a business standpoint, this seems like it might be a dangerous ground to walk for powerleveling services. Because there's some obvious ways that this could be taken advantage of by those kinds of guys. Is that a concern for the company?

Brian Clayton: Sure. I mean, it's absolutely a concern. It's a concern that we deal with today, without the system. Really, what we're trying to do is build opportunities for our players to play the games in the way they want to. We'll continue to enforce our policies, and do everything we can to mitigate powerleveling services and things like that. But more importantly, this is a feature that our customers have been asking for, and it's a feature that we want to provide them with. Arguably, you could say we're making it easier for some of these powerleveling services, but at the same time we're probably improving the grouping experience for a substantial amount of our customers.

Matt Miller: There's actually less incentive now to use a powerleveling service, because now instead of paying someone to powerlevel my guy, I can actually have my friend play... and I'm not giving up my play time to some other service. I actually get to play whenever I want to on my character. And my friend gets to play whenever he wants to on his character, and we're both leveling at the same rate.


New Story Arcs

Massively: So for both of you: Issue 13 had already announced that you were going to do more Cimerora mission arcs, and now we hear there will be more Midnight Squad arcs too. Can you talk about where those are coming from as far as the overall story is concerned, and what you guys are hoping to get across for players on the mission content front?

Matt Miller: Sure. On the overall story, we always had more story to tell in Issue 12, with both the Midnight Squad and with Cimerora. We just didn't have time to get it all in. When we hired on - we just hired on a couple of new mission writers, and we wanted to make sure that their training didn't go to waste. We wanted to make sure that they understood the systems they were going to be dealing with.

And so we had a bunch of these leftover stories from Issue 12, and said 'Okay, let's get these in. Let's train you, and at the same time, get content in the game.' It's a win for us in training, and it's a win for the players in that they get some content. So that's basically what we did, and the story arcs are really fun. They give you more of the background to Cimerora, and more of the characters of the area, and more of the characters in the Midnight Squad, and more of the background on who they are. So it's a lot of cool stuff for the people who are really into the storylines.

MassivelyBrian Clayton and Matt Miller: Page 2 originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 25 Sep 2008 13:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>brian-claytoncity-of-heroescity-of-villainscohcovcoxcox-issue-13matt-millernc-norcalnc-westncsoftpositronThu, 25 Sep 2008 13:15:00 EST<![CDATA[Brian Clayton and Matt Miller on Power and Responsibility in City of Heroes]]>http://massively.joystiq.com/2008/09/25/brian-clayton-and-matt-miller-on-power-and-responsibility-in-cit/http://massively.joystiq.com/2008/09/25/brian-clayton-and-matt-miller-on-power-and-responsibility-in-cit/http://massively.joystiq.com/2008/09/25/brian-clayton-and-matt-miller-on-power-and-responsibility-in-cit/#commentsFiled under: , , , ,


Right now the news is breaking about a major change to the City of Heroes issue release schedule. The Mission Architect feature is being moved to Issue 14, because overwhelming player response convinced the developers not to release the feature until it contained a key element the players wanted: the ability to include customized allies and opponents. Issue 13, now titled Power and Responsibility, will include a whole lot more cool content and reach the player base that much sooner.

City of Heroes executive producer Brian Clayton and lead designer Matt Miller were extremely generous with their time yesterday and gave us a lengthy interview, in which they covered a whole host of details about the improvements coming in Issue 13, the changes to the studio, and the future of the City of Heroes franchise.

Matt Miller: So the title for Issue 13, Power and Responsibility, that has a lot of meanings. We picked it very specifically to make sure that not only were we conveying the fact that we're adding more powersets and giving players more power in what they're able to choose for rewards and things like that, but then the responsibility nature takes on the day jobs, that offline character advancement system, the responsibilities your character has when you're not playing.

Continue reading Brian Clayton and Matt Miller on Power and Responsibility in City of Heroes

MassivelyBrian Clayton and Matt Miller on Power and Responsibility in City of Heroes originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 25 Sep 2008 13:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>brian-claytoncity-of-heroescity-of-villainscohcovcoxcox-issue-13cox-issue-14featuredmatt-millernc-norcalnc-westncsoftpositronThu, 25 Sep 2008 13:15:00 EST<![CDATA['Reveal's on Tuesday,' enigmatic CoX developer declares in haiku]]>http://massively.joystiq.com/2008/08/22/reveals-on-tuesday-enigmatic-cox-developer-declares-in-haiku/http://massively.joystiq.com/2008/08/22/reveals-on-tuesday-enigmatic-cox-developer-declares-in-haiku/http://massively.joystiq.com/2008/08/22/reveals-on-tuesday-enigmatic-cox-developer-declares-in-haiku/#commentsFiled under: , ,

Confused? Stay with us. Matt 'Positron' Miller, lead developer of City of Heroes, loves to drop hints to the player base about coming content. Sometimes these hints come in the forums, and sometimes they get fed through the much-loved fan-made publication The City Scoop.

Back in Issue 11, a cryptic message from 'Silos' turned out to be a clue to Ouroboros content, while a hint for Issue 12 was in cipher form and had the forum uniting to try to crack it. We've also had anagrams that hinted at additional power trays. The guy puts the Riddler to shame.

Continue reading 'Reveal's on Tuesday,' enigmatic CoX developer declares in haiku

Massively'Reveal's on Tuesday,' enigmatic CoX developer declares in haiku originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 22 Aug 2008 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>city-of-heroescity-of-villainscohcovcoxmatt-millerncsoftpositronFri, 22 Aug 2008 16:00:00 EST<![CDATA[CoX Issue 13: All your base are belong to us?]]>http://massively.joystiq.com/2008/06/05/cox-issue-13-all-your-base-are-belong-to-us/http://massively.joystiq.com/2008/06/05/cox-issue-13-all-your-base-are-belong-to-us/http://massively.joystiq.com/2008/06/05/cox-issue-13-all-your-base-are-belong-to-us/#commentsFiled under: , , , ,


Bizarre as it may sound, that's the title by which the NCSoft developers have taken to calling City of Heroes Issue 13. Or so players learned while listening in to the Dyyno test over on mmorpg.com, in which lead developer Matt 'Positron' Miller took viewers on a tour of Cimerora and talked them through the highlights of Issue 12: Midnight Hour. Players are always eager for snippets of information on new issues, however trivial, and when Matt let slip the in-house joke title for Issue 13 along with the reason for it, it was quickly noted.

Matt's comment allegedly reflected the huge number of base changes and fixes that will be coming in the next Issue. Well, it's not as if there isn't plenty to fix. The base raid system has never worked properly, the Cathedral of Pain trial proved broken and had to be put on indefinite hold, and despite all the excitement building up to their initial release, bases themselves have not seen much use beyond acting as a teleport hub, crafting spot and resource storage area for supergroups, with temporary buffs available from Empowerment Stations if you own any; convenient, but falling short of their potential. Jack 'Statesman' Emmert, former lead developer for CoX, even said of the base design system that '... players hated it. It's the most underused facet of the game.'

Continue reading CoX Issue 13: All your base are belong to us?

MassivelyCoX Issue 13: All your base are belong to us? originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 05 Jun 2008 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>all-your-base-are-belong-to-usbasebasescity-of-heroescity-of-villainscohcovcoxcox-issue-13featuredjoystiqfeaturesmatt-millerncsoftThu, 05 Jun 2008 13:30:00 EST<![CDATA[City of Heroes broadcasting live from Cimerora]]>http://massively.joystiq.com/2008/05/28/city-of-heroes-broadcasting-live-from-cimerora/http://massively.joystiq.com/2008/05/28/city-of-heroes-broadcasting-live-from-cimerora/http://massively.joystiq.com/2008/05/28/city-of-heroes-broadcasting-live-from-cimerora/#commentsFiled under: , , ,

Our friends at mmorpg.com have reported a groundbreaking event taking place this Thursday. In a field test of the new Dyyno streaming technology, Matt 'Positron' Miller of NCSoft will be giving a live demonstration of some of the new City of Heroes Issue 12: Midnight Hour content. This includes a scenic tour of the new high-level zone, Cimerora. Matt will do his best to answer questions arising during the exposition.

Dyyno is a new high-quality streaming system that allows one-click broadcast of gameplay (or any other window) to an online audience. It's still being worked on, and we're warned that technical issues might complicate Thursday's broadcast, but it looks like an exciting new piece of tech. Visit the mmorpg.com Dyyno Room on Thursday evening at 5pm PST / 8pm EST to watch the tour, put questions to Matt and join in the test.

MassivelyCity of Heroes broadcasting live from Cimerora originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 28 May 2008 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>city-of-heroescity-of-villainscohcovcoxcox-issue-12dyynoissue-12-midnight-hourmatt-millerncsoftWed, 28 May 2008 16:30:00 EST<![CDATA[City of Heroes lead developer Matt Miller interviewed]]>http://massively.joystiq.com/2008/05/21/city-of-heroes-lead-developer-matt-miller-interviewed/http://massively.joystiq.com/2008/05/21/city-of-heroes-lead-developer-matt-miller-interviewed/http://massively.joystiq.com/2008/05/21/city-of-heroes-lead-developer-matt-miller-interviewed/#commentsFiled under: , , ,

Our friends over at rpg.boomtown.net have posted a lengthy interview with Matt 'Positron' Miller, lead developer for City of Heroes and City of Villains. This comes just in time for the live launch of Issue 12: Midnight Hour.

Matt gives us the rundown of Midnight Hour, hinting at future storylines and assuring players that there's a very long game being played here. The seeds of future adventures are being planted right now. There's even a hint that the task force recipe drop award system, currently causing some dissatisfaction, is to be revamped. Quite right, too - who wants to undergo a whole Task Force just to get a measly Trap of the Hunter recipe instead of an endurance and health-boosting Numina's Convalescence?

Continue reading City of Heroes lead developer Matt Miller interviewed

MassivelyCity of Heroes lead developer Matt Miller interviewed originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 21 May 2008 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>city-of-heroescity-of-villainscohcovcoxcox-issue-12interviewissue-12-midnight-hourmatt-millermidnight-hourpositronWed, 21 May 2008 16:30:00 EST<![CDATA[City of Heroes lead designer announces player-generated content system]]>http://massively.joystiq.com/2008/04/28/city-of-heroes-lead-designer-announces-player-generated-content/http://massively.joystiq.com/2008/04/28/city-of-heroes-lead-designer-announces-player-generated-content/http://massively.joystiq.com/2008/04/28/city-of-heroes-lead-designer-announces-player-generated-content/#commentsFiled under: , , ,

In an announcement coinciding with the game's fourth anniversary, City of Heroes Lead Designer Matt Miller has announced a bold new feature. Coming in a future update, players will be able to craft their own missions, objectives, and story arcs. The system, which sounds very similar to Nevrax's experimental Ryzom Ring project, will give players the tools they need to make their own City of Heroes adventures. Once they're completed, players can upload the scenarios to NCsoft's service, where they can be played by other players. Afterwards, participants will be able to rate their experiences with the content.

Miller gave no timeframe on the addition, but his letter to the players seems incredibly enthusiastic about the future of the title. Reminiscing about the last four years of content and feature updates, Positron (as he's known on the forums) noted all the features that have been added to game since the CoX franchise went live. Basic components of the modern game, such as Badges, epic archetypes, and even levels 41-50, were only added after the title went live. We're pretty much consistently impressed by the quality level of CoX's new content, and we'll make sure to keep you posted as more details on this system become available.

For Miller's full letter, click on through below the break.

Continue reading City of Heroes lead designer announces player-generated content system

MassivelyCity of Heroes lead designer announces player-generated content system originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 28 Apr 2008 12:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>breakingcity-of-heroescity-of-villainscoxfourth-anniversarymatt-millerncsoftMon, 28 Apr 2008 12:45:00 EST<![CDATA[The City of Heroes team settles into their new offices]]>http://massively.joystiq.com/2008/04/22/the-city-of-heroes-team-settles-into-their-new-offices/http://massively.joystiq.com/2008/04/22/the-city-of-heroes-team-settles-into-their-new-offices/http://massively.joystiq.com/2008/04/22/the-city-of-heroes-team-settles-into-their-new-offices/#commentsFiled under: , , , , ,

WarCry had the chance to sit down with Matt Miller & Floyd Grubb, the chief minds behind NCsoft's City of Heroes/City of Villains franchise, to see how they're settling into their new Northern California offices. Very well, it turns out, and they're entirely focused now on bringing CoX players the joy and love that is Issue 12. The two developers discuss many of the tantalizing elements we saw in the Epic Villain Archetypes video, and generally about the team's development philosophy now that they're in their new digs.

Fans of the Epic Archetypes have one thing to thank for them: the Wedding Accessories pack released to honor the marriage of Sister Psyche to Manticore. According to Miller they're using that money and the funds from the upcoming in-game advertising to really step up what they can offer to players. Of the non-epic features coming in the next Issue, Miller and Grubb are most excited by the 'branching dialogue' tree addition to the game. It's going to allow players elements of choice that haven't been seen in the game to date, and (theoretically) could let them develop missions that offer players "situations like which wire to cut when diffusing a bomb." They refused to say if they'd be going back and adding that kind of choice to older content ... but we can hope, right?

MassivelyThe City of Heroes team settles into their new offices originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 22 Apr 2008 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>city-of-heroescity-of-villainscohcovcoxcox-issue-12floyd-grubbmatt-millerncsoftTue, 22 Apr 2008 15:30:00 EST<![CDATA[CoX In-game Ads: How to make 'em, where to see 'em]]>http://massively.joystiq.com/2008/04/08/cox-in-game-ads-how-to-make-em-where-to-see-em/http://massively.joystiq.com/2008/04/08/cox-in-game-ads-how-to-make-em-where-to-see-em/http://massively.joystiq.com/2008/04/08/cox-in-game-ads-how-to-make-em-where-to-see-em/#commentsFiled under: , , ,

DJ Shecky: Alright. And as a followup to that, I had a couple of people -- namely one of our other DJs -- had come up with the thought of "is there going to be a separate little piece of software that's going to be installed for targeting the advertisements?"

Brian: There is an SDK installed, but it's not gathering any personal info. It's really just there to serve the ads, to cache the ads, so that it has little to no impact on the bandwidth that's being used, and that's really all that package does.

DJ Shecky: Excellent. Templar, why don't you go ahead and ask your questions.

DJ Templar: Kind of in line with the data collection question, how is this being tracked in terms of ... is it literally like a billboard in real life, where someone who pays for space really doesn't have a clear idea of how many people who're seeing it, or is there going to be something in place that indicates how much traffic, like nearby traffic, a particular advertisement gets?

Brian: Well certainly it's handled differently by different advertisers, and with different products. Certainly, in the MMO space, we have a few more advantages to sort-of real-time track who's viewing billboards than we do in offline packages, so we will look at how much of the ad is shown on a screen, how long it's looked at, those sorts of things. But again, that's sort of looked at as an aggregate number, not necessarily on a per-customer number.

DJ Templar: Okay. Shecky, what do you have?

DJ Shecky: Alright. I've seen this mentioned on just about every forum on the City of Heroes site, and on our own forums, and that's with the idea of player advertisements for player supergroups and etcetera. What's the cost going to be, and how would people go about sending you guys doing it ... how would they get their ads placed onto these billboards?

Positron: So the players will be able to make their own ads and send them to us, and in the beta test we're going to be using a lot of player-generated ads that we get. And then, as we move out of beta and move into the live stuff, we'll most likely have contests where players can submit ads, so we'll definitely pick winners from that and get their stuff. And I believe on our forums is a link to the size and color limitations that we have for the advertisements.

DJ Templar: Yeah, I saw that.

Lighthouse: On the player submissions form, there's the details, the specifications and the ratios for the pieces that can be submitted, as well as the submission address to send them in.

DJ Templar: I've been trying my best to follow the main thread on the official boards discussing this announcement, and one of the issues that's been brought up is ... if it starts with the in-game billboards, where might it go from there? And some people have mentioned the slippery slope concept that this is simply the beginning of a much greater ad presence in the game. What sort of plans are there to expand beyond using current billboards?

Brian: I wish I knew the answer to that question. The truth is that we're just looking at swapping out the current ad placements -- our fictitious ad placements with real-world ads -- certainly we could look at other opportunities and find other interesting ways to make the game a little more fun through advertising, but really that's not where our heads are right now. We want to take step 1, we want to look at how this is received by the community. We want to make sure that we can make good, and that we can ensure this is immersive, and not intrusive, and I think once we have a stable platform for that, we'll open up some ideas to the community to what else they might be interested in. But right now, the model that's proven is just flat-texture billboards working in online immersive worlds, and that's where we'll start. I certainly am very open to the fact that that concern would be out there within the community, but I hope that we're continuning to build trust with the community in the fact that we're really up front with our business initiatives. When we comment about features that are going into the game they actually do make it into the game. A lot of times that may be received as not giving out enough information, but we really want to be up-front with our community, be as honest and transparent as we possibly can, and hopefully continue to win their trust and confidence in the way that we want to grow the game.

Positron: I think that our players have a valid concern with where we're going to go with this, but they also should look to us to ... trust us, because we want to make the game immersive, and not exploitive. We don't want the players to be bombarded by ads every which way they turn. We want it to be a nice experience for them, not a turn-off.

Brian: And I should also say that going forward, we expect that anything that we implement with advertising revenue attached to it we fully expect to be an opt-in or an opt-out situation. So players will have the ability to pick and choose what level they want to participate in with these initatives.

DJ Templar: Would any game content be linked to any of the advertisements, in the sense that -- if they did opt out of seeing the ads -- they would miss out on any part of the game experience?

Positron: No. We don't have any plans for that.

DJ Templar: Okay. What about the zones that lack billboards? I think ... I'm pretty sure that Croatoa, for instance, doesn't have any billboards, but I could be wrong. Is that simply going to be an ad-free zone, or are there going to be some modifications made to accomodate, or how is that going to work?

Positron: Initially it's going to be an ad-free zone, but we'll see how things are going, and if the players seem to like the way the ads are working, and it's not really immersion-breaking, and they're working for players, then we can start adding some billboards in logical places in the zones that don't have them.

DJ Shecky: Something I saw a lot of people mentioning throughout the day today is on the opting out. There were a lot of questions about opting out, from whether you can opt out and opt in at will -- say you want to try them, then you decide you don't want them, then you decide you do want them -- are you going to be able to switch in and out with that, and when you do opt out, does it just prevent the ads from being seen, or does it stop everything from downloading to the actual game client?

Brian: So the current plan right now is to let people opt-in and opt-out at will. And if you're not opted in for the in-game advertising, you'll currently see the same fictitious billboards that you currently experience in the game.

Lighthouse: And I can comment further on that. I was talking with our tech lead about that and actually answered this question on our forums earlier today, in that when you opt out, it actually is bypassing all of the ... the game client is not using the Double Fusion code and technology, so ... really, and they're very conscious about bandwidth and performance usages, so from that standpoint, there wouldn't be any extra bandwidth going on, because it's not even going through that code path.

Balancing CoS increases with QoS needs ==>>

MassivelyCoX In-game Ads: How to make 'em, where to see 'em originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 08 Apr 2008 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>Brian-ClaytonCity-of-HeroesCity-of-VillainsCoHCoVCoXCoX-Issue-12Double-FusionLighthouseMatt-MillerNCsoftNCsoft-NorCalPositronThe-Cape-RadioTue, 08 Apr 2008 13:30:00 EST<![CDATA[CoX In-game Ads: The bandwidth/revenue equation]]>http://massively.joystiq.com/2008/04/08/cox-in-game-ads-the-bandwidth-revenue-equation/http://massively.joystiq.com/2008/04/08/cox-in-game-ads-the-bandwidth-revenue-equation/http://massively.joystiq.com/2008/04/08/cox-in-game-ads-the-bandwidth-revenue-equation/#commentsFiled under: , , ,

DJ Shecky: Do you guys have an idea yet of what sort of bandwidth consumption this is all going to wind up taking?

Brian: So we're still running tests, but everything we've seen so far is that it's negligible. You really cannot see the difference. We've run tests on dial-up connections, we've run them on DSL connections, cable modems, and so right now, everything looks really positive, but again, that's where the opt-out comes in handy, that if -- in some rare circumstance -- there is some sort of bandwidth hit, they can opt-out, but I really do not forsee that being a problem whatsoever.

DJ Shecky: Templar, I'm sure you have another question for them.

DJ Templar: Yeah. If we could get back to the community-generated content for a sec, Tony V. from Infinity posted on our forums to ask about if it would be possible for you to go into some more detail about how it will be used compared to the revenue-generating content, if there is going to be like a set amount of space set aside for community content, or if it's going to vary depending upon demand from actual paid content, and whether you guys have worked on any ratios, or how that's going to work.

Positron: Well, as far as I know, we haven't actually set any sort of ratios for that ... all of the community-generated stuff. We definitely want to put it in the rotation of the ads that are presented to the players, but I don't know what the ratio of what it's going to be is.

Brian: And I expect actually that ratio will be changing. Depending on where our official ad pipeline is at, at times you'll see a lot more community stuff being run, and other times you'll probably see more paid for being run, but you'll always see community ads being run in some capacity.

DJ Templar: Okay. Are the existing in-game ads -- the Chris Jenkins, the City of Gyros, and that sort of thing -- are those going to be going away if you're opted into the new initiative?

Positron: No, they'll be put in the rotation with everything else.

DJ Templar: Oh, okay. One of the questions that I've been asked a lot -- especially with regard to the community content -- is "oh my God, how much is this going to cost?" Is there going to be a different price structure for player content as opposed to corporate content, or is that a yet-to-be-determined sort of thing?

Brian: So we're still working all these things out. My intention is not to charge from a community perspective for those sorts of things. But I can certainly see where people want to post anniversaries or things like that, and certainly you need a barrier to entry to do some things like that. We'll look at it, but certainly the intention here with in-game advertising is we'll make some revenue here from the advertisers, we'll put it directly into the development team to further improve the product, and all the community fun things that we have planned will just sort of be additive fun things at the end of the day.

Lighthouse: And I think one other thing to mention with anything that's coming in through the community is going to go through the same review process that the regular ads are going to be going through the team here and making sure that everybody has buyoff that this is an immersive thing that looks good in the game, it's appropriate for what we want to have out there on these billboards, so it'll always fit.

DJ Shecky: How often will the ads be rotating? If you zone out, and then zone back in two minutes later, are they going to be different? Or if you turn around, are you going to see a different ad? Or are two people going to look at the same billboard and see two different ads?

Positron: I'm actually not exactly sure on how that works. I can grab a programmer here in a minute -- probably in the next break -- and get you a better answer on that one. But I believe it's served per-client, so different clients will possibly see different ads, and we also ... Double Fusion makes sure that you don't see the same ad over and over and over and over again, so there will be a variety so you won't just see the same single ad on every billboard in the zone.

DJ Templar: Speaking about revenue, the initial announcement states that all the all the revenue generated by ad sales in this program go towards City of Heroes development, City of Villains development, and there's been some people that say "well sure it is, it's being used for all sorts of that we have no way of knowing." So if you could, just reiterate for us where this money is going and how it's being used.

Brian: I'd be happy to. So, we certainly don't want ads in our game for the sake of just having ads, right? And so it was very important that we were able to sort of work with the executive management within NCsoft to ensure that every dollar that is coming from in-game advertising be contributed directly back to the development team. And what I like about this is that this is really one of the few -- maybe the only -- opportunity for players to directly contribute to the development team's budget without actually having to open their wallet. And so, if we do everything right, and we implement things in a way that is seamless and immersive and additive to the overall feel of our current zones, then I think this is going to be a big win for the community and for the dev team, and we're going to have a lot more resources to work with, hopefully, and bring you guys cooler and more content.

Positron: Yeah, I would love to do like I did with the wedding pack and be able to point out features that the advertising revenue has bought you guys. And we'll see exactly how that is going to work out in the future.

DJ Templar: I think there was something on the forums about how revenue from the wedding pack helped make the VEATs a reality. Is that accurate?

Positron: Accurately, what happened was we had originally scheduled them for Issue 13, but because of the wedding pack sales, we were able to fast-track them, and put some more resources into them, and get them into Issue 12.

Breaking down the revenue equation ==>>

MassivelyCoX In-game Ads: The bandwidth/revenue equation originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 08 Apr 2008 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>Brian-ClaytonCity-of-HeroesCity-of-VillainsCoHCoVCoXCoX-Issue-12Double-FusionLighthouseMatt-MillerNCsoftNCsoft-NorCalPositronThe-Cape-RadioTue, 08 Apr 2008 13:30:00 EST<![CDATA[CoX In-game Ads: Opting in for reinvestment]]>http://massively.joystiq.com/2008/04/08/cox-in-game-ads-opting-in-for-reinvestment/http://massively.joystiq.com/2008/04/08/cox-in-game-ads-opting-in-for-reinvestment/http://massively.joystiq.com/2008/04/08/cox-in-game-ads-opting-in-for-reinvestment/#commentsFiled under: , , ,

DJ Templar: Gotcha. One of the pastimes with some of the people on the forums has been taking the monthly fee that each person pays, the current total subscriber count that's been reported, multiply that, and say "okay, NCsoft has got (x) amount of money. Why on Earth do they need more?"

Brian: So more money equals more reinvestment, right? For anybody that's taken any Business 101, you take a set percentage of what your revenue is and you reinvest it into the product. The great thing about in-game advertising is we're not just taking that percentage and putting it back into the product, we're taking the entirety of what in-game advertising generates and putting it directly back into the dev team. And that's why it's such a huge win. So of all the math that you work out, I would say that most companies probably only put 15 or so percent, but NCsoft invests well above that into all their products, and to have 100% of the in-game advertising come back into the development team is really a huge win.

DJ Shecky: We'll go along that same line. First off, if we opt out, do you guys lose that ad revenue entirely?

Brian: We absolutely do. But at the end of the day, it's more important for us to have our players have an experience that they enjoy and they're comfortable with. And if that means that they don't like the way that we've implemented in-game advertising, more power to them. They should feel comfortable to turn that off. And for those that are comfortable with it, like I said, it'll be a win for all of us, and we'll be able to grow the game more quickly and reinvest in the game more quickly. And I'm really not trying to make anyone feel guilty. This is their decision: we're 100% comfortable. We're not going to encourage customers to do this in-game advertising. This is just a decision that they need to make on their own. And like I said, if we do this right, I feel that we're going to bring a little more life to the city, and make the world feel a little more dynamic than it currently does.

Positron: And I think that reiterates our statement on why we want to do it. Obviously, if we do this really well, and the ads are immersive and add to the gameplay experience, then people don't have that reason to turn it off, so that onus is back on us to make it work out really well for everybody involved.

DJ Shecky: Excellent. And also, somewhat along the same lines, when you see the ads -- and if you put your mouse over them -- are they going to be clickable, or is it just an ad that's just going to be there and static, or is it going to pop up a web address for you to go and visit that company's product?

Positron: No, the ads are not clickable. We're only measuring impressions, which is the view time, and how much of the ad you're seeing.

Lighthouse: So that ads should work just like they do now, it's a texture: you'll see it as you go flying on by, and it won't have any ... if you're teleporting, or something, and you click on an ad, it's going to act just like it would now, and not change any of your mouse functionality or anything like that.

DJ Shecky: Alright. One more followup on that same sort of thought. Knowing that it's going to be a viewable item. I know myself that I've got a number of friends that have to lower the actual graphics settings, and a lot of the ads turn out rather blurry, and we can't tell what they are, etcetera. Until I got a new card, I didn't know what half the billboards said in there. Nowadays I get a good chuckle out of them. How is that going to affect everything if somebody opts in?

Positron: I'm not exactly sure. Again, I can grab a programmer on that one. But I believe we do the same sort of draw distance thing, so if it's beyond a certain distance, and it's an illegible ad, then it basically doesn't count.

DJ Shecky: Okay. That makes sense to me. Templar?

DJ Templar: Speaking of the opting in and opting out, right now it's basically up to the player to decide whether they want to see them or not. And this actually did come up in the forum discussions today. Is there going to come a point where -- if the program is so successful -- that you're going to say, "you know what, the vast majority of players are opted in, there's really no need to have this toggle anymore, so we're just going to make this the default, and there won't be any more option."

Positron: I've always been a proponent of the opt-out feature. I really strongly feel the opt-out feature needs to be there for our players to have the experience that they want. And this feature is not just for us, it's for our players, as well. They want an immersive game, we can give them ads. If they don't want advertising -- and there's a lot of players out there who just refuse to cater to advertisers -- that is what this feature is for. We don't want to lose them as a player.

DJ Templar: Okay, so the opt-in feature is going to remain, regardless of how successful the program is?

Brian: Yeah, that's correct. And I think Matt and I on that question were both looking at each other because we both 100% agree that this always should be an opt-in opportunity. And we're very comfortable with that from a business perspective.

Lighthouse: I was going to jump on there to reiterate what Brian and Positron are saying there, that in the original statements -- if you go back and read through what we were talking about in the text stuff -- that's part of the reason why this took the time that it did, was to find the partner that would allow us to do the opt-in/opt-out solution, so that's a pretty central piece in the whole thing in making it optional. And when you hear it from them that it's not going away, you can feel good that it's not going away.

Who changes the marquees in Dark Astoria? ==>>

MassivelyCoX In-game Ads: Opting in for reinvestment originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 08 Apr 2008 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>Brian-ClaytonCity-of-HeroesCity-of-VillainsCoHCoVCoXCoX-Issue-12Double-FusionLighthouseMatt-MillerNCsoftNCsoft-NorCalPositronThe-Cape-RadioTue, 08 Apr 2008 13:30:00 EST<![CDATA[CoX In-game Ads: Selective placement, self-promotion]]>http://massively.joystiq.com/2008/04/08/cox-in-game-ads-selective-placement-self-promotion/http://massively.joystiq.com/2008/04/08/cox-in-game-ads-selective-placement-self-promotion/http://massively.joystiq.com/2008/04/08/cox-in-game-ads-selective-placement-self-promotion/#commentsFiled under: , , ,

DJ Shecky: Somebody posted this one up on the Cape forums. Obviously there's a limited amount of places that ads can be placed in the Rogue Isles, etcetera. Are you going to be adding in more billboards? For instance, one of our DJs actually mentioned in our private chat, and I saw mentioned it out on the board, Steel Canyon you can see with a lot more billboards put in it, whereas some place like Croatoa doesn't really have space for billboards, etcetera. Is there an idea to go ahead and make more ad space?

Positron: As we see how the revenues coming in from this, if we need to add more ad space, we will add billboard space, but we will only add it in logical places. It's not like you're going to be right in front of City Hall, on either side of the entrance door will be 90 foot high billboards. That's not going to happen. We may add billboards to the tram stations, because there currently is no real advertising space in the tram area, so if we're going to add stuff, it's going to be in a logical place, and it's not going to be obtrusive. The whole thing with the ads is immersive and unobtrusive.

DJ Templar: As far as the ad placement goes, are we going to see ads displayed during the loading and splash screen?

Brian: We have no plans to do that right now.

DJ Templar: Okay. And also, kind of along the lines of placement -- and this kind of dovetails into the immersion aspect, as well -- City of Villains, the Rogue Isles, is in some places, a very dilapidated, rather dingy, darker feel, and it was designed deliberately so, so it has more of a decay going on in the environment, and some people are wondering, "well, this is also supposed to be like a dictatorial zone, this isn't really a place of freedom and expression and that sort of thing." What kind of adjustments are going to be made as far as the placement of certain ads to retain that overall feel of the Rogue Isles?

Positron: So I know that Ken Morse, our Art Director, really has strong feelings on this, in that he wants the ads to match the zone that they're in. And if we need to dirty up an ad texture in order for it to match an area, that's something that we will bring to the advertiser and say, "you want to advertise, but we need to do this to your ad. Are you okay with that?" We don't want a nice big bright ad in run-down parts of Mercy. That breaks immersion, it becomes obtrusive, it goes outside the realm of what we're trying to do.

DJ Templar: This is kind of an aside, but are you going to allow currency sales and gold farming companies to advertise?

Positron: I have sign-off on the ads, as does Ken, as does Brian, and Ross, and I say no to any sort of real-money transaction companies right off the bat.

Brian: I agree.

DJ Templar: We'd asked some technical issues, and I believed it was Matt -- if I'm not mistaken -- who went to hunt down a programmer there to get some answers. And I think it was about some texture-related things, as well as how frequently or how often the ads would refresh. Were you able to get some answers on that?

Positron: Yeah. Basically, the answer to the texture question was correct that I gave. It does affect the ads, so if you lower your texture quality, you will see lower quality texture on the ads, so you don't need to worry about performance hit because of that. The other question was who sees what and when, and whether players will see different ads, different players. Since it's all client-side, yes ... depending on how we're serving the ads, it is possible that players will see different ads in the same ad space on different computers. It's all being served by the Double Fusion servers, and so they just basically make sure you're seeing a fresh ad, and getting you that. And we do load the ads on zone loads, so once an ad is an ad, it's an ad for the entire time that you're in the zone. But upon rezoning -- you know, going into the mission, exiting out, reloading the zone -- it may change.

Lighthouse: One thing to kind of add on that in talking with the tech guys earlier, we were talking about bandwidth issues and performance issues, anybody who's listening to what Matt was just saying might think "oh, I'm going to have to do more stuff when I'm loading in a zone." One thing to reiterate is that the textures of the ad are cached on your machine, so you're not going to have to reload them, per se, or use more bandwidth, or download them.

DJ Templar: I think you said that if people are opted out, then that download does not occur, period. Is that correct?

Positron: Correct.

Lighthouse: Yeah.

DJ Shecky: Okay. We actually got a question in here, and I'm going to paraphrase it so it makes a little bit more sense for the general public. We know that we've got a large user base, especially age-wise. Some of the older people might own their own business, etcetera. Would they be contacting you guys, or Double Fusion, if they wanted to actually opt-in their companies, their actual, physical companies, for marketing in-game.

Brian: Double Fusion handles all of that, and I believe that, in the press release, their contact info is right on that press release, so they can talk to them directly and see if they can work something out with them.

Quis custodiat ipsos custodes Who's keeping an eye on the content? ==>>

MassivelyCoX In-game Ads: Selective placement, self-promotion originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 08 Apr 2008 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>Brian-ClaytonCity-of-HeroesCity-of-VillainsCoHCoVCoXCoX-Issue-12Double-FusionLighthouseMatt-MillerNCsoftNCsoft-NorCalPositronThe-Cape-RadioTue, 08 Apr 2008 13:30:00 EST<![CDATA[CoX In-game Ads: Content control]]>http://massively.joystiq.com/2008/04/08/cox-in-game-ads-content-control/http://massively.joystiq.com/2008/04/08/cox-in-game-ads-content-control/http://massively.joystiq.com/2008/04/08/cox-in-game-ads-content-control/#commentsFiled under: , , ,

DJ Templar: One of the concerns that some people have whenever advertisers have a financial stake into a particular company or a particular venture is how much control they can exercise with their wallet, basically. And some people on the forums have expressed concerns that, in a way, we would be giving some of these advertisers power over the game. That if there was some particular content that they didn't like, or if they objected to something, that they would be able to basically wield their stick and affect change in the game world. And I was just wondering how you guys would address that if advertisers did object to a particular piece of game content.

Brian: No. They have no say in any of these ads. And, frankly, if they're not happy with the way something is performing, we're happy to work with them -- they are a partner in this opportunity -- but at the end of the game, the most important thing is immersion. And I think you'll just hear that over and over again, and you guys will see it once we get all this plugged into the game and you can see it for real. But in no way can they have any impact on our players' game experience, or really the overall immersion and feel of the game.

Lighthouse: And I think, just to pile on with that, there is also the creative control, and what's going in to the game, because I've seen that question tied in here, as well. And I think to reiterate what Brian is saying, they're not going to be ... no advertiser is going to be saying "oh, well, you can't put Psi Blasters in, why would you ever do that?" So no worries on that side.

DJ Templar: Speaking of advertisers, you did mention that -- because City of Heroes/City of Villains carries a Teen Rating by the ESRB -- certain more mature advertisers such as tobacco companies and alcohol and that sort of thing wouldn't be included. Do you have -- I know this is early days, yet -- but do you have any ideas about what sort of companies you would be especially interested in having in the game, or is that not something that you guys have really touched on yet?

Positron: It's not really something that we've touched on yet. We want to see what advertisers are brought to us by Double Fusion, so that we can basically choose what's going into the game.

Brian: As far as preference, I'm less worried about the preference about the actual advertisers than I am about the content that they provide us to show in the game. Again, our focus is making sure we don't break immersion, and that we really support the look and feel that we currently have going on in the game.

DJ Templar: So -- and this is certainly speculation at this point -- is it conceivable to see advertisements for movies, or even for other games, for other computer games?

Brian: So again, we control that content. I don't have interest, really, in promoting any games outside of the NCsoft family, but certainly we would consider movies and some of those opportunities. I can go down the list: cars, automobiles, beverages, you know, those sorts of things. We'll see what we're presented with, and I think -- when we get a good sense of the types of advertisers that are interested -- we'll be more than open in sharing with the community the options that we're looking at. And, of course, they'll see them in-game, and we'll learn sort of through who's opting in and who's opting out what's working and what's not. But like I said, I think is pretty much a situation of either you're not bothered by in-game ads, or you are. And ... I have enough confidence in Matt, and Ken, and the team here to really ensure that we're keeping to the integrity of what City of Heroes has been up to this point. And we're not going to do anything to push people from the creative perspective into opting out. This is just really a personal preference, and we're happy to allow our customers to make this decision.

DJ Shecky: We know that it's going to opt-out, that we have to go in and turn off the option. Is this going to be ... I'm assuming, initially, it's going to be on a per-character basis. And if it is, is there going to be any way down the line to make it on a per-account basis.

Positron: So one of the Quality of Life features that we're trying to get in for Issue 12 is to give you the ability to save all of your preferences locally, onto your hard drive, and then reload them per-character. And, of course, your opt-in/opt-out would be one of those preferences. We're trying very hard to make sure that this makes it into Issue 12, but I can't guarantee anything. So there, I gave you my little Issue 12 tidbit.

Lighthouse: So I'm writing that down as "future promises we must keep."

Brian: Whoops!

Lighthouse: But of course Matt already has that.

Lighthouse: There was a question earlier that we were talking about, during the break, about animated ads. Whether or not they were static or ... yeah.

DJ Templar: Yeah, is there going to be a possiblity of having animated ads: either in the form of rotating billboards that you see nowadays, or even, say, something along the lines of a movie marquee, or something like that?

Positron: So initially we're just going to do the static image ads, and the animated texture stuff is actually very difficult for us to do. Not going to say impossible, and I'm not going to say that it's worth it or not for us to do. It's something we're going to look at in the future if we need to go there.

Do the developers have any final thoughts? Stay tuned ==>>

MassivelyCoX In-game Ads: Content control originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 08 Apr 2008 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>Brian-ClaytonCity-of-HeroesCity-of-VillainsCoHCoVCoXCoX-Issue-12Double-FusionLighthouseMatt-MillerNCsoftNCsoft-NorCalPositronThe-Cape-RadioTue, 08 Apr 2008 13:30:00 EST