20th Anniversary Q&A - Question Submission Thread

[twozerofoxtrot]

For Melissa "War Witch" Bianco: what were some of the biggest leadership challenges you faced as the game transitioned through management (and revenue generation phases), and what strategies did you adopt to help overcome them? This includes but isn't limited to how sunset was announced.

[ScarredSilencer]

To the general design team:

1: Was there anything specific you really wanted to add to the game that never got greenlit/was turned down as an idea?
2: Was there anything specific you really wanted to add/change/get to work on just prior to the shutdown of CoH?
3: Who's your favorite superhero, if at all?

[twozerofoxtrot]

For Christopher "Back Alley Brawler" Bruce: should Kick have a lower animation time that makes it as viable as Punch? Also, shouldn't Kick's animation not force a weapon or shield to be put away, since the alternative animation for Brawl that looks identical does not force this behavior?

[Alchemystic]

Nearing the closure of the game, we saw a large shift towards more traditional MMO models; the inclusion of subscription reward tiers, a more prominent cash store, and a focus on endgame content. What prompted the change in direction to follow after competitors like World of Warcraft and Star Wars: The Old Republic, and was there any apprehension about making such large scale changes to the game after so long?

 

Edited April 24 by Alchemystic

[blazearmor22]

For Synapse, if you were to add some more powersets, what would you add? Stretching? Webslinging? etc? 

[Night]

Question for everyone:

 

How difficult was it working with the spaghetti code that is City of Heroes and what were some unusual ways you overcame those difficulties to make it do what you wanted?

 

Question for Melissa "War Witch" Bianco, John "Protean" Hegner, Hero 1 and Manticore:

 

Regarding the incarnate lore and plans for future character development, from other AMAs it seems the idea was that after defeating Battalion our characters would become an Ascended in a way, take in those stolen Wells of other species to become one themselves. I was always curious, how would that have been balanced in story? Would the character be bound to watch over their chosen species as a Well, offering most of that Ascended power back to the people of their chosen planet while retaining only a fraction for themselves for gameplay balance? Visiting and influencing a world your character would be the guardian of would've been all kinds of cool. How far was the cosmic story set up to go?

 

Bonus question for everyone: Would it be possible to get the most recent up-to-date version of the CoH lore bible? It would be amazing to have a look into all the lore ever as it was at the time of the game's sunset!

 

Edited April 29 by Night

[Trike]

What were you planning on adding to the game before shut-down?

[Hatty_Cattington]

For Christopher "Back Alley Brawler" Bruce

 

I heard that you fine folks did animation work for the game in 3DS max. If true, why was 3DS max chosen and how was it working in it? With my limited experience in it i can't imagine it was pleasant.

[Glacier Peak]

Anyone with knowledge of this, tell me about the....

 

Moon Base 

🌚🏰

[Eldos]

First and foremost, I want to thank everyone. It was thanks to this game that inspired my creative journey in writing and recently game writing and narrative design. Back during launch, I spent some days just writing bios for players and integrating them into the world you guys build. Wherever it is my creative career leads, I will always be thankful to this game and its developers. Thanks, everyone!

With that being said, this is probably for the writers/designers. As far as the comic book runs, did you guys have any input on those? or the TCG/CCG?
 

secondly,  When I first learned about CoV, I thought about a Raid or SF/TF where a team of CoH players would have to deal with certain objectives that would culminate into say breaking into Arachnos Lair with the aid of Manticore, Stateman, etc... All the while there would be CoV players who would be trying to stop the heroes from completing the objectives and ultimately if they failed to do so, it would lead to defending the lair with Arachnos and his team of villains. Think Conquest mode in the Battlefield franchise.  Did you all have any planned content where CoH and CoV players were pinned against each other outside of just PVP zones?

 

lastly, to the powers team. What is the one powerset you guys were mostly against adding but the powers that be pushed it or your least favorite? Which is a powerset that was in the works and you all would have loved to have seen? Lastly, why did you all not consider adding Swinging as a travel power or tunneling?

Bonus question if time permits, as an avid fan of DC's Green Arrow, To Manticore, what led you to his design and backstory? 

[Tag365]

What do you all think of skunks? They're pretty nice animals.

More importantly, were there other animal heads, like the monster ones and the piranha/bull/eagle ones, planned for the game? If so then which one was next to be added before the shutdown occurred, and what were long term planned additions?

[Echo13]

Origin of Power/Well of Furies questions, to whomever can remember enough to answer them!

• Since Wells are species/planet based, how does it work for aliens? If an alien character comes to Earth, do they switch to drawing from Humanity's well, or do they still draw from their own? What about Kheldians? Do they draw from humanity's, the kheldian one, or both?
• There was mention about how the idea was the Battalion would go around hijacking other planets Wells. What'd happen to the species they took it from? Would their tech/powers/etc still function, or would stuff start shutting off?
• If all of humanity were to suddenly die off, what'd happen to its Well? Would it still be there, or would it peter off with them gone?

[_hush_]

My question to the team :

What was to come after defeating Tyrant? 

Was there ever plans for Infernal Trial? (We never fought him at all)

What was your best accomplishment while working on COH?

What games do you play in your free time?

Marvel or DC fan?

Do you help the homecoming team with any advice .. etc?

 

Finally , thank you for such a great game. Through the good and bad times.  You are appreciated by us all.

[High_Beam]

Hi.  Lot of great questions.

 

My question is; How are you all doing?  Happy with your current work?  Family life good.  Health good?  I hope yes to all but that's why I asked 🙂

 

Thanks.

[Emperor Cole]

Love that we got the opportunity to ask some questions, some that I had have already been asked but to the ones I didn't see:

 

1. What's the deal with the Angels of Mercy in Night Ward (I'll attach some photos) are they agents of the Well, low ranking members of Dimensionless, or maybe something else entirely?
2. Were their any plans for Black Swan? She was one of the last Praetorians remaining who hadn't had her story closed. I'm aware that Praetorian Fatigue caused a lot of plans being canceled or postponed but if there was anything in the works for that I'd love to know.
3. Why was Reichsman not given for the position of Champion by the Well of Furies? He seemed to fit the description pretty well.
4. What was the deal with Praetorian Hamidon being so much more of a threat than the Primal version? Was he stronger or just more driven or both?

I'll post some more if I think of any.

Edited April 26 by Emperor Cole

[AustinSmith]

This question goes out to any of the developers that want to answer:

* Having worked with City of Heroes as part of a professional company/business, there's obviously design decisions that get made to focus on making money for the company and its shareholders, and certain things can/can't be done as part of that. If you were in a position where you could make any change to the game you wanted, regardless of whether it would make money for the company or be popular or not, total creative freedom, what would that be?

[Starforge]

To whomever would actually have the answer to this:

"Was there ever any plans to include Horus as an in-game NPC? If so, why did it never come to pass?"

[McSpazz]

To Hero 1, Dark Watcher, and Proteon or anyone from the original dev team that wants to say something!

1. In the final year or so of the game's original life, the story really seemed to escalate in terms of scale. The stakes were ramping up as was the potential power of characters (both in lore and mechanically). How visible was the sword of Damocles over your heads in terms of awareness of the game's closure? Did it play any part in your decision making for where the game's story was heading?
2. If you could go back and expand on any group that you feel didn't have much content made about them, who, why, and what would you want to do?

For anyone on the original team!
What was your reaction after hearing that Homecoming had finally gotten officially licensed?

[ZamuelNow]

To whoever would like to answer:

1. Since the Blood of the Black Stream has already been asked about I'll instead ask, were there more plans for doing things in the Shadow Shard?
2. I remember it being noted once that costume pieces connect to a limited number of nodes but a few were empty and reserved for future additions.  What update to the costume system do you most wish could have been added to the game?
3. Which zone do you most wish got a chance to be revamped and why?
4. What feature seemed cool but due to code/complexity didn't get added to Mission Architect?

[KingCeddd03]

Players have been wanting an arcane/ mystic powerset for a while now. Did you have any plans on making or had planned on making a full magic-themed powerset to accompany the sorcery power pool?

 

Also, where you going to add the awakened power for the player to use or a version of it?

Edited April 25 by KingCeddd03

[skoryy]

This one's for everyone who wants to answer:

 

When you first heard of Homecoming and the other private servers, what were your thoughts and feelings about your work here in City of Heroes coming back?  And what were your thoughts and feelings when Homecoming received its official license?  Here we are, twenty years on, and there's a whole lot of us still playing and enjoying your game, what are your thoughts and feelings on that?

[starro]

What are you reading? 

[JayboH]

Are any of you helping in the development of CoH Homecoming?

 

Do any of you play Homecoming?

 

What powerset would you wish you could add to Homecoming?

 

What powerset do you think could use an overhaul?

[Subber]

I'm not sure this knowledge would've survived with the time, but what was the content of the pitch for CoH2 that got shot down by NCSoft?

[Nerio72]

Who hated and rejected BRB (Big Red Ball)? It would have been glorious!

 

Did you also tear up when you heard the music for the first time logging back in?