Interview with Matthew Miller. Items of note:
Well, first off, we did a major overhaul to the City of Heroes zone Faultline. It includes new contacts and missions, as well as a better street-hunting experience. We also have brought the randomly generated missions that we had in City of Villains (which villain characters got from the newspapers and brokers) to hero characters. The City of Heroes version is called “police band missions,” and these can lead players into safeguard missions where they must protect Paragon City
from vandals and stop major crimes in progress.Next, we have the “veteran rewards” program, which gives perks and thank-you gifts to players for their characters based on how long they’ve been playing the game. There is a new set of rewards every three months. Finally, we added arena kiosks to the Pocket D area, so heroes and villains can more easily challenge one another in the arenas.
All sounds good, aside from the (ho-hum) arena kiosks. Though, frankly, I “defend” missions sound a lot less fun than “kick the snot out of everything” mayhem missions. And you could make them heroic (“Raid this Arachnos base! Destroy as much of their invasion fleet as you can!”). Evidently that doesn’t sway the Devs:
Safeguard missions are not mayhem missions, and we never tried to make them that. Heroes don’t go around destroying property, but rather, their job is to protect it and to stop crime. Villains are proactive, and Heroes are reactive. In the end, they both have something similar to do (accomplish an objective while on a very tight clock), but the games play differently, which we like.
As for Faultline:
For one, the construction in the zone has uncovered a lot of the old hero bases from before the Rikti War. These bases were home to the supergroups of old, and it’s where they housed dangerous technology. After the Rikti war, these bases were simply forgotten about, but Lord Recluse has sent Arachnos troops into Paragon City to scavenge these bases for hidden treasures. The rebuilding of Faultline has kind of kicked over the anthill…there have been Arachnos forces in Paragon City for a while now, but only now
can the Heroes do something about them.
Coolness.
Let’s hope the Defend missions are set up better than some of the extant “Defend the widgets” missions.
Heroes are reactive? Fine. Let’s get a tip about a fortcoming rain, and our mission will be to go in and disable the transports before they can launch.
Defend the reactor core? Not bad.
Defend the Hero1 time capsule? Okay.
Other defends have been like Croatoa missions with worse graphics. When you enter this area, the villians will ignore you and blitz their target. Good luck. *Rude Noise*
“Rain”? Sorry, I meant to type “raid”. Damn cold ib by nobe.
🙂
Yeah, I tend to really dislike “defend” missions — especially when it’s the “defend the desk you see way ahead of you that’s surrounded by Paragon Protectors who will ignore you and demolish it at the first hint of trouble.”
It’s a good idea — but the aggro hold is way too difficult.
When they come to you — e.g., the Reactor Core — it’s not bad. Though the Croatoa mish is a lot more annoying (maybe because it’s an instant loss if they get past you, vs. the reactor core which can be both buffed and which takes a while to take down — if the reactor core was simply a big red button that a bad guy needed to push, we’d be in trouble).
I also object to “heroes are reactive” in principle — but, then, I’m rereading my Ellis “Stormwatch” and “Authority” TPBs these days.