Sharku
29th August 2004, 03:24
Inhibitor Interviews Statesman (Aug. 26, 2004)
[Inhibitor] In Paragon City, there are many names that are honored. Positron, Bastion, Ms. Liberty, Atlas. But even among this group, there is one name that is head and shoulders above all the rest. As far above them as they are above us. Statesman. Tonight, MMO Radio and Justice Radio have the extreme honor of a one on one sit down interview with the one, the only, Statesman, Jack Emmert, of Cryptic Studios. If you like City of Heroes, if you love Paragon City, you have one man to thank. It’s time for a one-on-one with the Statesman! On MMO Radio and Justice Radio!
[Inhibitor] It’s time to talk with the one and only Statesman, on MMO Radio. Ladies and gentlemen, we have on the phone with us, live now, the one and only Jack Emmert. Jack, thank you so much for joining us this evening.
[Statesman] Sure, good afternoon Paragon City citizens.
[Inhibitor] And, well, as it said in the info right there, there is only one person, really, that we need to thank and that we have to thank for having Paragon City to inhabit, and that’s you! So on behalf of everyone that’s not on the phone right now, thank you.
[Statesman] No, there have been ... Look, Paragon City is the work of many hard people, many people working hard here at Cryptic Studios, and at NCSoft, so really you’d have to take a look at all those great people in the credits in the manual, and they’re really the heroes, believe me. I just get to be the one guy doing all the interviews and all the fancy stuff, and I think, at best, I’m a conductor, just sort of helping keep things together. But really we had fantastic designers and artists and programmers that have just put together really a rock solid, great product.
[Inhibitor] Well, and I think that ... I know im a rabid reader of the gaming press, both online and in print, and I think it’s pretty much been a consensus that you guys really the best role-out and the smoothest roll-out of an MMORPG that we’ve seen so far. And you’re to be commended for that.
[Statesman] Yeah, certainly, compared to recent releases, definitely. We aspired to the success that Dark Age had with their launch and I think that we did an awesome job at setting the bar for future releases. And I think it kind of got lost in the shuffle, how solid the launch really was and how difficult that really is for an MMP, but I think that what will happen is that we now have expectations, and people who play City of Heroes ,or were there for launch, are going to go on to other games at some point and try them out, no doubt, and they’re going to be expecting the same great quality. And I don’t mind that, I mean, that’s terrific.
[Inhibitor] Well, that’s what you want to shoot for, of course. And talking about quality, and talking about setting the bar, I’ve heard that phrase used a lot in regards to the character creation system in the game, because it’s, I think, by far the best one that’s ever been implemented.
[Statesman] Well thank you. It’s certainly one of the things that both design and art have been working on for years. And it was something that we always wanted to make part of character creation. And really, I don’t know, there are a lot of people who play City of Heroes for their very first MMP, but this was a big risk we took. Traditionally, a person did not get visual differentiation until they start getting higher in level, it’s a reward, it’s a carrot. And even then, it’s a pretty limited amount of variation in order to save on our time. But in City of Heroes, we wanted every single hero to feel unique, just like in the comic books, from the very start. When you open the pages of a comic, almost every hero looks different, unless of course they are part of some super group.
[Inhibitor] Well, unless it’s Image.
[Statesman] *laughs* Or unless it’s Image And in our particular case, we just really wanted to make sure that we captured a unique feel. We also felt it just makes it for a more fun experience if you feel that you are an individual hero in a city that needs heroism, and that when you looked across at your friends, or your teammates, that they weren’t just mirror images of you. You have a greater identification with the hero that you’ve created, and if you did that, you’d be immersed in the game more, and if you did that, you would certainly enjoy the experience more.
[Inhibitor] And I think it definitely worked. And I want to get into a lot of the things about City of Heroes, and of course City of Villains, and Update 2, and some of the future things that we can expect from the game. But first, one thing that I want to do that I have yet to see anyone really do, is kind of get inside your head. Is there room in there? It seems to be pretty busy.
[Statesman] *laughs* Yeah, I dunno, I think according to some people at Cryptic and NCSoft it’s actually a pretty empty space, so feel free to rattle around.
[Inhibitor] *laughs* I have people tell me that all the time, and I just say “Honey, never mind.” First of all, you, from what I understand, speak five different languages?
[Statesman] Six
[Inhibitor] Six ... okay, I missed one. What six do you speak?
[Statesman] Well, I wouldn’t say speak as much as know. Italian, German, French, Latin, and Ancient Greek ... of course English ... supposedly at least English. Then smatterings of everything from Aramaic to Acadian, Canaanite, Middle Kingdom, Hieroglyphics, just a whole range of things.
[Inhibitor] I’m glad you mentioned that, I was going to hit that on the Hieroglyphics, because I knew you had some experience in reading and translating and interpreting Hieroglyphics. My question is, anywhere in Paragon City, in, say, some of the higher level CoT missions, or anywhere else, are there any little messages that you hid in there with Hieroglyphics?
[Statesman] No, no they’re not. The artists had pretty much free reign there. No easter eggs at that particular point. I didn’t want to be too obscure, you know, there are only, after all, probably, in the world a thousand people would appreciate them or something like that. So our easter eggs are a little bit more obvious than that.
[Inhibitor] Just a hair, and I want to talk about some of those as well, but obviously, this is your first online game, or even electronic game, really, that you’ve worked on, isn’t it?
[Statesman] Yeah, this is the first time that I’ve ever been in the gaming industry, was being lead designer on City of Heroes.
[Inhibitor] Now, of course, I have a broader definition of “gaming industry,” cause you’ve worked with Wizards of the Coast,.
[Statesman] Sure
[Inhibitor] You worked with White Wolf
[Statesman] Yes
[Inhibitor] For a while. So you do kind of have your toe dipped into the gaming experience before you got to this, but, the fact that you put so much passion into it is evident, and the reason why is, you are, and we’re gonna turn this into like a 12 step meeting all of a sudden, just go ahead right now and say “hi, my name is Jack Emmert, and I’m a comic book fan.”
[Statesman] Yeah, certainly I’m a comic book fan from a long, long, long time ago. Getting back to my previous experience, it certainly gave me a head start, working on role playing game products for FASA and Wizards and other things, but I think I overestimated how useful that would end up being. I was in, for pretty much a surprise, I mean, it was a huge learning experience, and thank goodness there were a lot of people who helped me grow into the role I have now, and could give me advice. Many people here at Cryptic were industry veterans, so they had a better idea of exactly how a game needs to be designed, and the demands that I needed to be able to fulfill, in terms of documentation and guidance and things like that.
[Inhibitor] Well let me ask you this. From the time ... let’s go back to the time when it became official, and they said “Ok, this project is a go. We’re going with this.” How long ago was that?
[Statesman] Well, Cryptic Studios was formed, really, to make City of Heroes, and that was back in July of 2000. At the time, there were 5 of us, and we slowly grew over time, but that at least gives you an idea, you know, it’s now 2004. Really, development time, about 3 years.
[Inhibitor] Is that average? Is that longer than usual?
[Statesman] That depends upon the game. Some games are done relative in a shorter window, some in a longer window. It goes really almost all over the map, but traditionally, MMPs fall somewhere between the two and five year range.
[Inhibitor] Well, you said that your previous experience, you really kind of overestimated your experience in pen and paper and card RPGs. In what way was it just radically different, just something that blind sided you, from coming up with something that really had never been done before or at least had never been done properly, which was a super hero MMP?
[Statesman] Well, some of the corner cases, it’s thinking out every particular step of the player experience, what a player could do or choose to do. And even then, we still made mistakes, but down to the subtlest thing of where do you place a spawn in a zone. That will effect player flow which then effects player load, which effects the number of special effects on the screen and any number of different issues, and that’s just placing a single spawn down. Every single element needs to be thought about, about how a player would do X, Y, Z, see, the difference is in a paper and pencil game, somebody can always just take out the rulebook. But nobody wants to open up their manual to figure out how to do something in an MMP. They want it to be intuitive and easy, because they are paying for that experience month after month after month. And so they really want the game to help them learn how to play the game, and that was something I needed to learn.
[Inhibitor] And I think you did an excellent job of learning it. It seems like, because it was, and I’ll be honest ... I’m going to make a confession here to everyone listening, City of Heroes is my first MMP that I’ve ever played or been a part of. And I’ve been a gamer for a long time, but I literally logged in, I was accepted into beta, back in March, actually, first week of March, logged in, and I think within about 15 minutes I was playing it like a pro. And I really think, from some of the stories I’ve heard, some of the horror stories I’ve heard, if I had logged into another game, and that had been my first experience, that might have also been my last experience. But the way it’s designed, it’s really kind of opened the door for a lot of people to this kind of thing. It’s also interesting, ok, let me ask you this, while we’re on the subject of the game, how many times a day do you have to stop and correct yourself or correct somebody and say, “No, it’s arresting them. You’re arresting them.”
[Statesman] *laughs* To tell you the truth, that’s actually not something that I’ve ever really tried to enforce one way or the other. We try to cloak everything in the grey area of defeat. You defeat villains. And it’s up to players to decide whether they are arresting them or killing them. After all, there are some vigilantes in the comic book world which are utterly ruthless and life or death just doesn’t matter to them when they are talking about criminals. And then there are others who are very protective of Human life. And so I’d like the players to make their own choice as to what they’re doing.
[Inhibitor] I have heard tell that, and there is not really a complete analog for this in City of Heroes right now, but, I have heard tell that one of your favorite comic book heroes is the Human Torch.
[Statesman] Yes, certainly, when I was a very young boy, the Human Torch was one of my favorites ... all the Fantastic Four, really, I loved the FF, but sure, yeah, the Human Torch.
[Inhibitor] And I have to ask you this, I had heard rumors that at some point, in the not too distant future, we may see some additional archetypes being introduced into the game.
[Statesman] Yeah, we are definitely going to be doing that, starting with expansion three. In fact, I was just writing up a bunch of stuff today on them, right before I talked to you. They are going to be ... we’re still toying around with the naming and terminology ... I have called them, in the past, prestige archetypes, or prestige origins, but I think but I think the best thing we’ve decided to call them are Epic archetypes. And the reason why is, not just because they open up at higher levels, but because they are related to the story of Paragon City. They are related to the mythology. It’s time that we started really exploring the universe that people are playing in. And hence, the word “epic,” who’s original meaning means story or tale, or saga.
[Inhibitor] So, now let me ask you this. With you saying that, is this going to be, are these going to be archetypes that anyone can choose in the character creation?
[Statesman] They will be archetypes that anyone can choose if they accomplish a certain goal. The first set of archetypes are going to be achievable if you can get a character up to level 50. Others might have other particular requirements. Whether it be badges or task forces or something along those lines.
[Inhibitor] So you are going to institute something like a badge or something along those lines then.
[Statesman] Yeah, yes, yes, that’s completely possible, although right now I’m only focusing on the first set of archetypes. The other ones are kind of ... pie in the sky right now.
[Inhibitor] Let me ask you this. How much, because there are glimmers of some very recognizable heroes in some of the power sets, and some of the things that you can choose. I mean, when you choose the scrapper archetype and you wind up popping three claws out of each hand, there is one character everyone thinks about, let’s be honest.
[Statesman] Really?
[Inhibitor] Yeah, I know that’s a shock to you, but they do. How much did you guys rely on comics and on source material, not to copy the characters necessarily, but to make sure that some of the favorite powers and abilities were going to be included?
[Statesman] Well, that was the expressed goal when I created the archetype system, was to capture the essence of comic book characters across a wide variety of mediums. I guess I should say super heroes really. Whether it be novels or comic books or movies, things which, or television shows, what were the powers and abilities that people could recognize and readily grasp hold of, so that when they got into our game everybody would have a certain set of expectations of what should be in a super hero game, and we really wanted to focus on those. And we’re going to be adding to those power sets, as I said before, there were some ones that were missing that are pretty important. Sonic powers, shield, bow, quarterstaff, they are some of the things we need to add in there.
[Inhibitor] Ok, and it’s so funny, cause at that point, everyone just thought of Banshee, Captain America, Green Arrow, you know, you run down the list in your mind. You can’t help it, because if you grow up like we did reading these things, you want to emulate them, you just do. And I think that’s great. But let me ask you something. Is there one particular power set, is there one particular that you really, really wanted to get into the game that didn’t make it for whatever reason?
[Statesman] Shape shifting. That was probably the number one thing, and we’re working on it. Just the ability to change into different shapes, that was kind of a big one. An under water world, really my favorite character of all time is Namor, so, being able to swim underwater, having the powers which made you better underwater, superhuman strength, that kind of thing. Those are probably the things I was most disappointed in.
[Inhibitor] Well, let me ask you this. Will we ever see maybe an underwater sector of the city?
[Statesman] Yeah, definitely. You might need a vehicle to get there, but sure.
[Inhibitor] And again, it depends on who you are and what your power set is. Now you said that Shape shifting was on the drawing board, was possibly in the works. Was that under the category of pie in the sky? Or was that under the category of “Yeah ...”?
[Statesman] It’s under the category of we’re working on it.
[Inhibitor] Ok. Well, and I think that will excite a lot of people. I’m looking at the IRC channel right now and a lot of people just immediately just went, “Ooo! Shape shifting!” Because that’s one of things that a lot of people have been wanting to see for a long while in there. Another thing that a lot of people have talked about is some of the community aspects of City of Heroes as far as making it easier to communicate. Now I understand, in the next update, there are some changes coming to the chat channels.
[Statesman] Yeah, we’re adding a brand new chat functionality where you can create your own chat channels, as many members as you’d like, so you could have several hundred people in it. That would be used for those super groups who want to create their own alliance. It will be across shards, it wont be limited to just the server that you’re on, but rather other servers. It’s a really great setup that was championed and designed by Brice Rogers of CTO and of course Mike Parent, one of our junior programmers, who did a terrific job working on the UI.
[Inhibitor] Ok, see, I’ve got to clarify this, cause you just tickled me to death. I am excited about this. So what you’re saying is ... is it going to be an unlimited number of people? Or is it going to be a definite number, just a very high number?
[Statesman] It’s going to be a very high number, no doubt there is a number in there. I’d have to actually look at the documentation, I don’t have it in front of me, to figure out what is the maximum number, but it’s a very high number.
[Inhibitor] Several hundred at least.
[Statesman] Yes, exactly.
[Inhibitor] And you say that it crosses servers ... in other words, if you have a super group on Pinnacle and you want to form an alliance with a super group on Virtue, you can create a channel and bring them all together.
[Statesman] Yes
[Inhibitor] Now that’s going to excite a lot of people.
[Statesman] Yeah. Anything that allows players to communicate more easily with one another should get focus right away. And it should get into the game as soon as we can get it, because that just makes the experience that much better.
[Inhibitor] Exactly. And speaking of the experience being that much better, I tell you what, let’s take a quick break for just a second and regroup. But when we come back, I want to talk to you ... we’re going to take some questions from the listeners, we’re going to do that in the IRC channel by the way, so if you’re not in our IRC channel, go ahead and get logged in right now. If you don’t the instructions, if you don’t know where the channel is, visit our website at MMORadio.com, we have the information on there as to how to join us in IRC. Please do, we’re going to be taking some of your questions in just a few moments for Jack Emmert, Statesman, from City of Heroes. And when we come back I want to talk to you about several things, including Update 2, that we’ve heard so much about but haven’t seen yet. Also the subject of super group headquarters we need to talk about as well. So hold on the line for just a second, you guys stick with us, we’re going to be right back with more, with Jack Emmert, Statesman, on MMO Radio, and also joining us on Justice Radio tonight for our simulcast interview with Statesman on Statesman Day here on MMO Radio. We’ll be right back.
[Inhibitor] Well I tell you what, you guys have done an excellent job as I've said many times before and I'm not going to say it again as I'm starting to turn into fanboy geek man. One thing I wanted to ask you about when we came back, you mentioned City of Villains, I wanted to get into that as well, but one thing everyone would be able to have is headquarters for the Supergroups, and that's been asked for for a long time, it's been rumoured, it's been talked about...all the way back in beta, that was talked about. What are the plans? Is that on the drawing board, so to speak? Is that in the works?
[Statesman] Yeah, we're working on that, and that will definitely be a feature in City of Villains, for both heroes and villain groups to create their own customized base, which will have lots of special features available, as well as there's going to be the base invasion game play, where both heroes and villains will be trying to possess items of power, which are essentially creations which are so powerful they could rock the very foundations of the cosmos, and in fact they kind of act like keys to the universe, and whoever possesses the most can end up controlling the fate of the world, and so naturally both heroes and villains have a vested interest in getting a hold of these items and storing them safely in their base, but of course then the base can be invaded and objects can be stolen and so forth.
[Inhibitor] So it's not just going to be a place to congregate and sit around and hit the boombox emote, it's actually going to be a very active part of the gameplay then.
[Statesman] Yes, definitely. I'm a big fan that every feature in the game has to have gameplay associated with it. I don't care what it is. Even social areas should have something for the player to do there. Because after all, there's already social areas in the game, in the safe areas of zones. So I'm a big fan of making sure that gameplay comes first. Nothing should be put in City of Heroes, or City of Villains for that matter, just 'cause. That's bad game design. Everything has to have a point, and all these points have to all link together. That's just a basic rule we have here.
[Inhibitor] And you're not fooling me, you just wanted to make sure the Infinity Gauntlet ended up in the game. But, and I've got a million questions coming in, but I do want to clarify something you just said there. You did say that starting with City of Villains, we would have the Supergroup headquarters, which sound like they're going to be a very integral part. Is that going to be specifically associated with City of Villains? In other words, are you going to have to buy the box in order to get an HQ?
[Statesman] That's kind of a business question, which I'm not sure I can answer at this moment. But certainly it's a feature that we know that we want in that box set. As for whether it would be available to heroes even if they never bought City of Villains, I couldn't tell you right now. I just don't know the answer to that.
[Inhibitor] So that's something that we'll address in the future. Just the fact that it's coming, I don't care. I'll be honest with you, it doesn't matter to me. I did see one question here, and let me see, because I just jumped from no private messages to about eight billion. That's what happens when you ask for questions. But JackofBlades just sent me a question, he wants to know, will the HQ's be customizable?
[Statesman] Oh, definitely. Exteriors, interiors, the layouts. Yeah, everything. Because...well frankly, that's what makes sense. And it also fits the feel we're trying to get. We like customizability a lot. And obviously it's held us in good stead so far, and I think we're gonna continue with that.
[Inhibitor] Well, before we go to the questions ? and I certainly have enough questions to go to ? lemme ask you one more thing, that I touched on very briefly, I mentioned it earlier, but I want to get a clarification if I can on this. Update 2 we've been hearing about, we've seen some awesome screenshots on the City of Heroes website of the Lava Monsters, basically is what everyone calls them, that are going to be in The Hollows. When are we going to see the second update on the test server, do you think?
[Statesman] I would guesstimate right now, early next week. Naturally, people have already been able to download it for a while, but we're going to put that switch on probably early next week. Assuming there are no bugs. You know, the crack QA staff at NCSoft is helping test test test and our software engineers have just been working extra hard to shake out all the bugs so we can get this baby live as soon as possible.
[Inhibitor] So about how long do these things ? and we've only had one experience so far ? so on average, how long do you see these things staying on the test server before they do actually go live?
[Statesman] A couple of weeks. I think that anywhere between 1 and 4 weeks. I think it's just going to depend on the number of bugs we get, the amount of people that get on the test server and just help put stress on any features. I think that, really, because we've only been through this one time, it's very difficult to say there's an average yet. I think this time next year we'll be in a better position to give more precise estimates.
[Inhibitor] In Paragon City, there are many names that are honored. Positron, Bastion, Ms. Liberty, Atlas. But even among this group, there is one name that is head and shoulders above all the rest. As far above them as they are above us. Statesman. Tonight, MMO Radio and Justice Radio have the extreme honor of a one on one sit down interview with the one, the only, Statesman, Jack Emmert, of Cryptic Studios. If you like City of Heroes, if you love Paragon City, you have one man to thank. It’s time for a one-on-one with the Statesman! On MMO Radio and Justice Radio!
[Inhibitor] It’s time to talk with the one and only Statesman, on MMO Radio. Ladies and gentlemen, we have on the phone with us, live now, the one and only Jack Emmert. Jack, thank you so much for joining us this evening.
[Statesman] Sure, good afternoon Paragon City citizens.
[Inhibitor] And, well, as it said in the info right there, there is only one person, really, that we need to thank and that we have to thank for having Paragon City to inhabit, and that’s you! So on behalf of everyone that’s not on the phone right now, thank you.
[Statesman] No, there have been ... Look, Paragon City is the work of many hard people, many people working hard here at Cryptic Studios, and at NCSoft, so really you’d have to take a look at all those great people in the credits in the manual, and they’re really the heroes, believe me. I just get to be the one guy doing all the interviews and all the fancy stuff, and I think, at best, I’m a conductor, just sort of helping keep things together. But really we had fantastic designers and artists and programmers that have just put together really a rock solid, great product.
[Inhibitor] Well, and I think that ... I know im a rabid reader of the gaming press, both online and in print, and I think it’s pretty much been a consensus that you guys really the best role-out and the smoothest roll-out of an MMORPG that we’ve seen so far. And you’re to be commended for that.
[Statesman] Yeah, certainly, compared to recent releases, definitely. We aspired to the success that Dark Age had with their launch and I think that we did an awesome job at setting the bar for future releases. And I think it kind of got lost in the shuffle, how solid the launch really was and how difficult that really is for an MMP, but I think that what will happen is that we now have expectations, and people who play City of Heroes ,or were there for launch, are going to go on to other games at some point and try them out, no doubt, and they’re going to be expecting the same great quality. And I don’t mind that, I mean, that’s terrific.
[Inhibitor] Well, that’s what you want to shoot for, of course. And talking about quality, and talking about setting the bar, I’ve heard that phrase used a lot in regards to the character creation system in the game, because it’s, I think, by far the best one that’s ever been implemented.
[Statesman] Well thank you. It’s certainly one of the things that both design and art have been working on for years. And it was something that we always wanted to make part of character creation. And really, I don’t know, there are a lot of people who play City of Heroes for their very first MMP, but this was a big risk we took. Traditionally, a person did not get visual differentiation until they start getting higher in level, it’s a reward, it’s a carrot. And even then, it’s a pretty limited amount of variation in order to save on our time. But in City of Heroes, we wanted every single hero to feel unique, just like in the comic books, from the very start. When you open the pages of a comic, almost every hero looks different, unless of course they are part of some super group.
[Inhibitor] Well, unless it’s Image.
[Statesman] *laughs* Or unless it’s Image And in our particular case, we just really wanted to make sure that we captured a unique feel. We also felt it just makes it for a more fun experience if you feel that you are an individual hero in a city that needs heroism, and that when you looked across at your friends, or your teammates, that they weren’t just mirror images of you. You have a greater identification with the hero that you’ve created, and if you did that, you’d be immersed in the game more, and if you did that, you would certainly enjoy the experience more.
[Inhibitor] And I think it definitely worked. And I want to get into a lot of the things about City of Heroes, and of course City of Villains, and Update 2, and some of the future things that we can expect from the game. But first, one thing that I want to do that I have yet to see anyone really do, is kind of get inside your head. Is there room in there? It seems to be pretty busy.
[Statesman] *laughs* Yeah, I dunno, I think according to some people at Cryptic and NCSoft it’s actually a pretty empty space, so feel free to rattle around.
[Inhibitor] *laughs* I have people tell me that all the time, and I just say “Honey, never mind.” First of all, you, from what I understand, speak five different languages?
[Statesman] Six
[Inhibitor] Six ... okay, I missed one. What six do you speak?
[Statesman] Well, I wouldn’t say speak as much as know. Italian, German, French, Latin, and Ancient Greek ... of course English ... supposedly at least English. Then smatterings of everything from Aramaic to Acadian, Canaanite, Middle Kingdom, Hieroglyphics, just a whole range of things.
[Inhibitor] I’m glad you mentioned that, I was going to hit that on the Hieroglyphics, because I knew you had some experience in reading and translating and interpreting Hieroglyphics. My question is, anywhere in Paragon City, in, say, some of the higher level CoT missions, or anywhere else, are there any little messages that you hid in there with Hieroglyphics?
[Statesman] No, no they’re not. The artists had pretty much free reign there. No easter eggs at that particular point. I didn’t want to be too obscure, you know, there are only, after all, probably, in the world a thousand people would appreciate them or something like that. So our easter eggs are a little bit more obvious than that.
[Inhibitor] Just a hair, and I want to talk about some of those as well, but obviously, this is your first online game, or even electronic game, really, that you’ve worked on, isn’t it?
[Statesman] Yeah, this is the first time that I’ve ever been in the gaming industry, was being lead designer on City of Heroes.
[Inhibitor] Now, of course, I have a broader definition of “gaming industry,” cause you’ve worked with Wizards of the Coast,.
[Statesman] Sure
[Inhibitor] You worked with White Wolf
[Statesman] Yes
[Inhibitor] For a while. So you do kind of have your toe dipped into the gaming experience before you got to this, but, the fact that you put so much passion into it is evident, and the reason why is, you are, and we’re gonna turn this into like a 12 step meeting all of a sudden, just go ahead right now and say “hi, my name is Jack Emmert, and I’m a comic book fan.”
[Statesman] Yeah, certainly I’m a comic book fan from a long, long, long time ago. Getting back to my previous experience, it certainly gave me a head start, working on role playing game products for FASA and Wizards and other things, but I think I overestimated how useful that would end up being. I was in, for pretty much a surprise, I mean, it was a huge learning experience, and thank goodness there were a lot of people who helped me grow into the role I have now, and could give me advice. Many people here at Cryptic were industry veterans, so they had a better idea of exactly how a game needs to be designed, and the demands that I needed to be able to fulfill, in terms of documentation and guidance and things like that.
[Inhibitor] Well let me ask you this. From the time ... let’s go back to the time when it became official, and they said “Ok, this project is a go. We’re going with this.” How long ago was that?
[Statesman] Well, Cryptic Studios was formed, really, to make City of Heroes, and that was back in July of 2000. At the time, there were 5 of us, and we slowly grew over time, but that at least gives you an idea, you know, it’s now 2004. Really, development time, about 3 years.
[Inhibitor] Is that average? Is that longer than usual?
[Statesman] That depends upon the game. Some games are done relative in a shorter window, some in a longer window. It goes really almost all over the map, but traditionally, MMPs fall somewhere between the two and five year range.
[Inhibitor] Well, you said that your previous experience, you really kind of overestimated your experience in pen and paper and card RPGs. In what way was it just radically different, just something that blind sided you, from coming up with something that really had never been done before or at least had never been done properly, which was a super hero MMP?
[Statesman] Well, some of the corner cases, it’s thinking out every particular step of the player experience, what a player could do or choose to do. And even then, we still made mistakes, but down to the subtlest thing of where do you place a spawn in a zone. That will effect player flow which then effects player load, which effects the number of special effects on the screen and any number of different issues, and that’s just placing a single spawn down. Every single element needs to be thought about, about how a player would do X, Y, Z, see, the difference is in a paper and pencil game, somebody can always just take out the rulebook. But nobody wants to open up their manual to figure out how to do something in an MMP. They want it to be intuitive and easy, because they are paying for that experience month after month after month. And so they really want the game to help them learn how to play the game, and that was something I needed to learn.
[Inhibitor] And I think you did an excellent job of learning it. It seems like, because it was, and I’ll be honest ... I’m going to make a confession here to everyone listening, City of Heroes is my first MMP that I’ve ever played or been a part of. And I’ve been a gamer for a long time, but I literally logged in, I was accepted into beta, back in March, actually, first week of March, logged in, and I think within about 15 minutes I was playing it like a pro. And I really think, from some of the stories I’ve heard, some of the horror stories I’ve heard, if I had logged into another game, and that had been my first experience, that might have also been my last experience. But the way it’s designed, it’s really kind of opened the door for a lot of people to this kind of thing. It’s also interesting, ok, let me ask you this, while we’re on the subject of the game, how many times a day do you have to stop and correct yourself or correct somebody and say, “No, it’s arresting them. You’re arresting them.”
[Statesman] *laughs* To tell you the truth, that’s actually not something that I’ve ever really tried to enforce one way or the other. We try to cloak everything in the grey area of defeat. You defeat villains. And it’s up to players to decide whether they are arresting them or killing them. After all, there are some vigilantes in the comic book world which are utterly ruthless and life or death just doesn’t matter to them when they are talking about criminals. And then there are others who are very protective of Human life. And so I’d like the players to make their own choice as to what they’re doing.
[Inhibitor] I have heard tell that, and there is not really a complete analog for this in City of Heroes right now, but, I have heard tell that one of your favorite comic book heroes is the Human Torch.
[Statesman] Yes, certainly, when I was a very young boy, the Human Torch was one of my favorites ... all the Fantastic Four, really, I loved the FF, but sure, yeah, the Human Torch.
[Inhibitor] And I have to ask you this, I had heard rumors that at some point, in the not too distant future, we may see some additional archetypes being introduced into the game.
[Statesman] Yeah, we are definitely going to be doing that, starting with expansion three. In fact, I was just writing up a bunch of stuff today on them, right before I talked to you. They are going to be ... we’re still toying around with the naming and terminology ... I have called them, in the past, prestige archetypes, or prestige origins, but I think but I think the best thing we’ve decided to call them are Epic archetypes. And the reason why is, not just because they open up at higher levels, but because they are related to the story of Paragon City. They are related to the mythology. It’s time that we started really exploring the universe that people are playing in. And hence, the word “epic,” who’s original meaning means story or tale, or saga.
[Inhibitor] So, now let me ask you this. With you saying that, is this going to be, are these going to be archetypes that anyone can choose in the character creation?
[Statesman] They will be archetypes that anyone can choose if they accomplish a certain goal. The first set of archetypes are going to be achievable if you can get a character up to level 50. Others might have other particular requirements. Whether it be badges or task forces or something along those lines.
[Inhibitor] So you are going to institute something like a badge or something along those lines then.
[Statesman] Yeah, yes, yes, that’s completely possible, although right now I’m only focusing on the first set of archetypes. The other ones are kind of ... pie in the sky right now.
[Inhibitor] Let me ask you this. How much, because there are glimmers of some very recognizable heroes in some of the power sets, and some of the things that you can choose. I mean, when you choose the scrapper archetype and you wind up popping three claws out of each hand, there is one character everyone thinks about, let’s be honest.
[Statesman] Really?
[Inhibitor] Yeah, I know that’s a shock to you, but they do. How much did you guys rely on comics and on source material, not to copy the characters necessarily, but to make sure that some of the favorite powers and abilities were going to be included?
[Statesman] Well, that was the expressed goal when I created the archetype system, was to capture the essence of comic book characters across a wide variety of mediums. I guess I should say super heroes really. Whether it be novels or comic books or movies, things which, or television shows, what were the powers and abilities that people could recognize and readily grasp hold of, so that when they got into our game everybody would have a certain set of expectations of what should be in a super hero game, and we really wanted to focus on those. And we’re going to be adding to those power sets, as I said before, there were some ones that were missing that are pretty important. Sonic powers, shield, bow, quarterstaff, they are some of the things we need to add in there.
[Inhibitor] Ok, and it’s so funny, cause at that point, everyone just thought of Banshee, Captain America, Green Arrow, you know, you run down the list in your mind. You can’t help it, because if you grow up like we did reading these things, you want to emulate them, you just do. And I think that’s great. But let me ask you something. Is there one particular power set, is there one particular that you really, really wanted to get into the game that didn’t make it for whatever reason?
[Statesman] Shape shifting. That was probably the number one thing, and we’re working on it. Just the ability to change into different shapes, that was kind of a big one. An under water world, really my favorite character of all time is Namor, so, being able to swim underwater, having the powers which made you better underwater, superhuman strength, that kind of thing. Those are probably the things I was most disappointed in.
[Inhibitor] Well, let me ask you this. Will we ever see maybe an underwater sector of the city?
[Statesman] Yeah, definitely. You might need a vehicle to get there, but sure.
[Inhibitor] And again, it depends on who you are and what your power set is. Now you said that Shape shifting was on the drawing board, was possibly in the works. Was that under the category of pie in the sky? Or was that under the category of “Yeah ...”?
[Statesman] It’s under the category of we’re working on it.
[Inhibitor] Ok. Well, and I think that will excite a lot of people. I’m looking at the IRC channel right now and a lot of people just immediately just went, “Ooo! Shape shifting!” Because that’s one of things that a lot of people have been wanting to see for a long while in there. Another thing that a lot of people have talked about is some of the community aspects of City of Heroes as far as making it easier to communicate. Now I understand, in the next update, there are some changes coming to the chat channels.
[Statesman] Yeah, we’re adding a brand new chat functionality where you can create your own chat channels, as many members as you’d like, so you could have several hundred people in it. That would be used for those super groups who want to create their own alliance. It will be across shards, it wont be limited to just the server that you’re on, but rather other servers. It’s a really great setup that was championed and designed by Brice Rogers of CTO and of course Mike Parent, one of our junior programmers, who did a terrific job working on the UI.
[Inhibitor] Ok, see, I’ve got to clarify this, cause you just tickled me to death. I am excited about this. So what you’re saying is ... is it going to be an unlimited number of people? Or is it going to be a definite number, just a very high number?
[Statesman] It’s going to be a very high number, no doubt there is a number in there. I’d have to actually look at the documentation, I don’t have it in front of me, to figure out what is the maximum number, but it’s a very high number.
[Inhibitor] Several hundred at least.
[Statesman] Yes, exactly.
[Inhibitor] And you say that it crosses servers ... in other words, if you have a super group on Pinnacle and you want to form an alliance with a super group on Virtue, you can create a channel and bring them all together.
[Statesman] Yes
[Inhibitor] Now that’s going to excite a lot of people.
[Statesman] Yeah. Anything that allows players to communicate more easily with one another should get focus right away. And it should get into the game as soon as we can get it, because that just makes the experience that much better.
[Inhibitor] Exactly. And speaking of the experience being that much better, I tell you what, let’s take a quick break for just a second and regroup. But when we come back, I want to talk to you ... we’re going to take some questions from the listeners, we’re going to do that in the IRC channel by the way, so if you’re not in our IRC channel, go ahead and get logged in right now. If you don’t the instructions, if you don’t know where the channel is, visit our website at MMORadio.com, we have the information on there as to how to join us in IRC. Please do, we’re going to be taking some of your questions in just a few moments for Jack Emmert, Statesman, from City of Heroes. And when we come back I want to talk to you about several things, including Update 2, that we’ve heard so much about but haven’t seen yet. Also the subject of super group headquarters we need to talk about as well. So hold on the line for just a second, you guys stick with us, we’re going to be right back with more, with Jack Emmert, Statesman, on MMO Radio, and also joining us on Justice Radio tonight for our simulcast interview with Statesman on Statesman Day here on MMO Radio. We’ll be right back.
[Inhibitor] Well I tell you what, you guys have done an excellent job as I've said many times before and I'm not going to say it again as I'm starting to turn into fanboy geek man. One thing I wanted to ask you about when we came back, you mentioned City of Villains, I wanted to get into that as well, but one thing everyone would be able to have is headquarters for the Supergroups, and that's been asked for for a long time, it's been rumoured, it's been talked about...all the way back in beta, that was talked about. What are the plans? Is that on the drawing board, so to speak? Is that in the works?
[Statesman] Yeah, we're working on that, and that will definitely be a feature in City of Villains, for both heroes and villain groups to create their own customized base, which will have lots of special features available, as well as there's going to be the base invasion game play, where both heroes and villains will be trying to possess items of power, which are essentially creations which are so powerful they could rock the very foundations of the cosmos, and in fact they kind of act like keys to the universe, and whoever possesses the most can end up controlling the fate of the world, and so naturally both heroes and villains have a vested interest in getting a hold of these items and storing them safely in their base, but of course then the base can be invaded and objects can be stolen and so forth.
[Inhibitor] So it's not just going to be a place to congregate and sit around and hit the boombox emote, it's actually going to be a very active part of the gameplay then.
[Statesman] Yes, definitely. I'm a big fan that every feature in the game has to have gameplay associated with it. I don't care what it is. Even social areas should have something for the player to do there. Because after all, there's already social areas in the game, in the safe areas of zones. So I'm a big fan of making sure that gameplay comes first. Nothing should be put in City of Heroes, or City of Villains for that matter, just 'cause. That's bad game design. Everything has to have a point, and all these points have to all link together. That's just a basic rule we have here.
[Inhibitor] And you're not fooling me, you just wanted to make sure the Infinity Gauntlet ended up in the game. But, and I've got a million questions coming in, but I do want to clarify something you just said there. You did say that starting with City of Villains, we would have the Supergroup headquarters, which sound like they're going to be a very integral part. Is that going to be specifically associated with City of Villains? In other words, are you going to have to buy the box in order to get an HQ?
[Statesman] That's kind of a business question, which I'm not sure I can answer at this moment. But certainly it's a feature that we know that we want in that box set. As for whether it would be available to heroes even if they never bought City of Villains, I couldn't tell you right now. I just don't know the answer to that.
[Inhibitor] So that's something that we'll address in the future. Just the fact that it's coming, I don't care. I'll be honest with you, it doesn't matter to me. I did see one question here, and let me see, because I just jumped from no private messages to about eight billion. That's what happens when you ask for questions. But JackofBlades just sent me a question, he wants to know, will the HQ's be customizable?
[Statesman] Oh, definitely. Exteriors, interiors, the layouts. Yeah, everything. Because...well frankly, that's what makes sense. And it also fits the feel we're trying to get. We like customizability a lot. And obviously it's held us in good stead so far, and I think we're gonna continue with that.
[Inhibitor] Well, before we go to the questions ? and I certainly have enough questions to go to ? lemme ask you one more thing, that I touched on very briefly, I mentioned it earlier, but I want to get a clarification if I can on this. Update 2 we've been hearing about, we've seen some awesome screenshots on the City of Heroes website of the Lava Monsters, basically is what everyone calls them, that are going to be in The Hollows. When are we going to see the second update on the test server, do you think?
[Statesman] I would guesstimate right now, early next week. Naturally, people have already been able to download it for a while, but we're going to put that switch on probably early next week. Assuming there are no bugs. You know, the crack QA staff at NCSoft is helping test test test and our software engineers have just been working extra hard to shake out all the bugs so we can get this baby live as soon as possible.
[Inhibitor] So about how long do these things ? and we've only had one experience so far ? so on average, how long do you see these things staying on the test server before they do actually go live?
[Statesman] A couple of weeks. I think that anywhere between 1 and 4 weeks. I think it's just going to depend on the number of bugs we get, the amount of people that get on the test server and just help put stress on any features. I think that, really, because we've only been through this one time, it's very difficult to say there's an average yet. I think this time next year we'll be in a better position to give more precise estimates.
