City of Heroes’ Interview
GameZone Online have an interview with Michael Lewis, CEO of Cryptic Studios:
Q: Players will be allowed to create their own superheroes, but obviously, these characters won’t be all powerful. Will the characters have weaknesses akin to Superman and kryptonite, or will they basically be mortals endowed with limited powers in certain areas?
Michael: We made a conscious decision to leave out explicit weaknesses a la kryptonite, but characters do have limitations. Because a large part of the fun in an on-line game is playing with other people, we’ve tried to ensure with our Archetype system that every character is not only powerful on his own, but can also make a unique contribution as part of a super team.
Q: On the same note, how in depth is the customization of the characters?
Michael: City of Heroes has the most versatile character creation system in any MMP to date. I don’t mean silly things like lots of attributes and numbers to optimize - we’ve left that out. If you play a close-combat guy, there’s only one best way to spend your points, so why make a player figure that out? I mean the important stuff, like what makes you different. What powers do you want, and what does your character look like? Unless you try, you’ll probably not run across someone with the same or even similar costume, and there’s so many ways to pick different powers that it will be rare to stumble across someone who shares your exact powers as well.
Q: What is the overriding storyline to this game and will players actually have any effect on that storyline, or does the game follow rinse-and-repeat brand of missions and quests used by other MMPs?
Michael: The Rikti invasion storyline (you can check it out on the game Web site) is just the beginning. As players progress through the missions, they will uncover and thwart the plots and schemes of various villains and their organizations … the idea is that it’s like playing through a comic book, but you get to choose which plots you want to be involved in. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to play through all of the plot lines simultaneously … you’ll have to choose your fights.
