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==Overview==
 
==Overview==
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The '''Lore AMA''' ('''A'''sk '''M'''e '''A'''nything), or "Loregasm", is a series of documents created by [[Positron (Developer)|Positron]] to answer questions [[City of Heroes]] players had about the game's story following the [[Sunset]] announcement.
  
The '''Lore AMA''' ('''A'''sk '''M'''e '''A'''nything), or "Loregasm", is a series of documents document created by [[Positron (Developer)|Positron]] to answer questions [[City of Heroes]] players had about the game's story following the [[Sunset]] announcement. In the [https://web.archive.org/web/20120906033004/http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=296786 thread announcing its creation], Positron stated that anything it contains "SHOULD be considered canon when concerning anything to do with Issue 24 and previous. Anything after that is speculative and should be treated as such. We'll note in the answer if it's anything different." On September 18th, 2012, Positron posted a link to the first Lore AMA as a [https://docs.google.com/document/d/19qbHHrRmifxGPz60-_ApLNiwOmF5QVEMrXHgB1Nrd4o/edit?pli=1 Google Doc] in a [[Official Forums|City of Heroes forums]] [https://web.archive.org/web/20121107213509/http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=297476 thread].
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In the [https://web.archive.org/web/20120906033004/http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=296786 thread announcing its creation], Positron stated that anything it contains "SHOULD be considered canon when concerning anything to do with Issue 24 and previous. Anything after that is speculative and should be treated as such. We'll note in the answer if it's anything different." On September 18th, 2012, Positron posted a link to the first Lore AMA as a [https://docs.google.com/document/d/19qbHHrRmifxGPz60-_ApLNiwOmF5QVEMrXHgB1Nrd4o/edit?pli=1 Google Doc] in a [[Official Forums|City of Heroes forums]] [https://web.archive.org/web/20121107213509/http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=297476 thread].
  
In an [http://www.onrpg.com/articles/metas-verse-interview-with-melissa-bianco-and-matt-miller-on-city-of-heroes/ interview of Positron and War Witch at OnRPG] discussing the closure of the game, Positron stated that he would do yearly AMAs as long as people had questions:
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In a 2012 [http://www.onrpg.com/articles/metas-verse-interview-with-melissa-bianco-and-matt-miller-on-city-of-heroes/ interview] of Positron and [[War Witch (Developer)|War Witch]] at [http://www.onrpg.com OnRPG] discussing the closure of the game, Positron stated that he would do yearly AMAs as long as people had questions:
  
{{CutsceneText|Text='''MeticulousMeta:''' There are still a lot of questions after the Lore AMA. Is there any chance of getting another?
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{|style="background: #F4F4F4; border: 1px solid #4169E1; width:75%; text-align: left; margin: 0.5em;"
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|- align=left
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|style="width: 45px;" valign=top|[[Image:Balloon.png]]
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|'''MeticulousMeta:''' There are still a lot of questions after the Lore AMA. Is there any chance of getting another?
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'''Matt:''' I’ll make a deal: I’ll do AMA’s about CoH lore every April 28th until the questions stop coming in. I’ll give more details as we get closer to that date, and I can’t promise everyone who should be involved will be.
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|}
  
'''Matt:''' I’ll make a deal: I’ll do AMA’s about CoH lore every April 28th until the questions stop coming in. I’ll give more details as we get closer to that date, and I can’t promise everyone who should be involved will be.}}
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== AMA by Year ==
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{{EdNote|note=This page contains the text of the documents as they appeared at release. A list of the questions linked to by topic and developer can be found here: [[Lore AMA/Sorted]].}}
  
After taking questions in a now closed Google Doc, the first of the yearly AMAs was [http://www.onrpg.com/articles/editorial/city-of-heroes-9th-anniversary-loregasm/ announced at OnRPG] on May 3rd, 2013, and released as another [https://docs.google.com/document/d/11bjjR2rdP9Kbe8baODElUQGRxNTTlj_b5PVqCdNXJ8o/edit Google Doc].
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{{Spoiler}}
  
{{EdNote|note=This page contains the text of the documents as they appeared at release. A list of the questions linked to by topic and developer can be found here: [[Lore AMA/Sorted]].}}
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{{center|Be advised that there are spoilers for existing and future content contained within the AMA documents.}}
  
==City of Heroes AMA 1 (2012)==
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=== <div style="font-weight:bold;text-align:center;border-top:1px solid #5555FF;border-bottom:1px solid #5555FF;background-color:#ffffff;margin:1em;padding:0.2em;font-size:1.2em">'''AMA: 2012'''</div> ===
  
 
The first Lore AMA was linked in a forum post by Positron titled "Loregasm" and includes a key of the answering developers' initials:
 
The first Lore AMA was linked in a forum post by Positron titled "Loregasm" and includes a key of the answering developers' initials:
  
{{Quotebox|type=dev|name=Positron (Developer)|source=the initial post from the forum thread announcing the AMA|text=[https://docs.google.com/document/d/19qbHHrRmifxGPz60-_ApLNiwOmF5QVEMrXHgB1Nrd4o/edit?pli=1 City of Heroes AMA (part 1?)]
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{{Quotebox|type=dev|name=Positron (Developer)|source=the initial post from the forum thread announcing the AMA|text=[https://docs.google.com/document/d/19qbHHrRmifxGPz60-_ApLNiwOmF5QVEMrXHgB1Nrd4o/edit?pli=1 City of Heroes AMA 2012]
  
 
That's a link to the doc, in case these boards get shut down, and because I don't want to clean it up for our forum posting format (if someone ELSE does, feel free to pad your postcount).
 
That's a link to the doc, in case these boards get shut down, and because I don't want to clean it up for our forum posting format (if someone ELSE does, feel free to pad your postcount).
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Some answers are not satisfying. Some answers are made up, and that answer only exists in that doc. I tried to get everyone who was involved in the stuff at the end to answer the questions as best they could.
 
Some answers are not satisfying. Some answers are made up, and that answer only exists in that doc. I tried to get everyone who was involved in the stuff at the end to answer the questions as best they could.
  
MM: Matt Miller (Positron)<br>
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MM: Matt Miller ([[Positron (Developer)|Positron]])<br>
JH: John Hegner (Protean)<br>
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JH: John Hegner ([[Protean (Developer)|Protean]])<br>
JAH: Jeff Hamilton (Arbiter Hawk)<br>
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JAH: Jeff Hamilton ([[Arbiter Hawk (Developer)|Arbiter Hawk]])<br>
SM: Sean McCann (Dr. Aeon)<br>
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SM: Sean McCann ([[Dr. Aeon (Developer)|Dr. Aeon]])<br>
RG: Ryan Greene (Viridian)<br>
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RG: Ryan Greene ([[Viridian (Developer)|Viridian]])<br>
TS: Tim Sweeney (Black Scorpion)<br>
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TS: Tim Sweeney ([[Black Scorpion (Developer)|Black Scorpion]])<br>
  
 
If there is a miracle and somehow CoH is saved, we reserve the right to change any and all answers given in the doc, to maintain suspense and surprise.}}
 
If there is a miracle and somehow CoH is saved, we reserve the right to change any and all answers given in the doc, to maintain suspense and surprise.}}
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STM: This was one of the first stories I wrote after being hired. The idea was that the power of invulnerability is super powerful and has its own kind of will to choose its owner. The goal of the power was that the user of the power help save the world and themselves, so it had a knack for choosing people who were not so heroic. The previous Ajax had done all that he could for himself and the world. It was time for him to move on to the afterlife and help someone else change. He knew that going into the fight with the new Ajax. The invulnerability power left the original Ajax and granted themselves to our Ajax to help change his life and the people around him.|bg1=#ccccff}}
 
STM: This was one of the first stories I wrote after being hired. The idea was that the power of invulnerability is super powerful and has its own kind of will to choose its owner. The goal of the power was that the user of the power help save the world and themselves, so it had a knack for choosing people who were not so heroic. The previous Ajax had done all that he could for himself and the world. It was time for him to move on to the afterlife and help someone else change. He knew that going into the fight with the new Ajax. The invulnerability power left the original Ajax and granted themselves to our Ajax to help change his life and the people around him.|bg1=#ccccff}}
  
==City of Heroes AMA 2 (2013)==
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=== <div style="font-weight:bold;text-align:center;border-top:1px solid #5555FF;border-bottom:1px solid #5555FF;background-color:#ffffff;margin:1em;padding:0.2em;font-size:1.2em">'''AMA: 2013'''</div> ===
 
After taking questions in an open Google Doc, the first of the yearly AMAs was [http://www.onrpg.com/articles/editorial/city-of-heroes-9th-anniversary-loregasm/ announced at OnRPG] on May 3rd, 2013, and released as a closed [https://docs.google.com/document/d/11bjjR2rdP9Kbe8baODElUQGRxNTTlj_b5PVqCdNXJ8o/edit Google Doc]. In most cases, the name of the dev giving an answer is listed after the answer. The devs that answered are:
 
After taking questions in an open Google Doc, the first of the yearly AMAs was [http://www.onrpg.com/articles/editorial/city-of-heroes-9th-anniversary-loregasm/ announced at OnRPG] on May 3rd, 2013, and released as a closed [https://docs.google.com/document/d/11bjjR2rdP9Kbe8baODElUQGRxNTTlj_b5PVqCdNXJ8o/edit Google Doc]. In most cases, the name of the dev giving an answer is listed after the answer. The devs that answered are:
  
* Matt, a.k.a. [[Positron (Developer)|Positron ]]
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* Matt Miller, a.k.a. [[Positron (Developer)|Positron]]
* Hosun, a.k.a. [[Black Pebble]]
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* Hosun Lee, a.k.a. [[Black Pebble]]
* Tim, a.k.a. [[Black Scorpion (Developer)|Black Scorpion]]
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* Tim Sweeney, a.k.a. [[Black Scorpion (Developer)|Black Scorpion]]
* Sean, a.k.a. [[Dr. Aeon (Developer)|Dr. Aeon]]
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* Sean McCann, a.k.a. [[Dr. Aeon (Developer)|Dr. Aeon]]
* John, a.k.a. [[Protean (Developer)|Protean]]
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* John Hegner, a.k.a. [[Protean (Developer)|Protean]]
* Keetsie, a.k.a. [[Tunnel Rat (Developer)|Tunnel Rat]]
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* Keetsie Braz de Cunha (née Berbel), a.k.a. [[Tunnel Rat (Developer)|Tunnel Rat]]
* Vince, a.k.a. [[The Dark Watcher (Developer)|The Dark Watcher]]
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* Vince D'Amelio, a.k.a. [[The Dark Watcher (Developer)|The Dark Watcher]]
  
{{EdNote|note=This is the most likely list of developers who answered AMA 2, as there are multiple devs with some of those first names. Some questions do not have a dev name, and it can be assumed that they were answered by Positron unless the context indicates otherwise. Several questions were unable to be answered, and are marked as "Answer hazy, ask again later (Matt because he couldn’t find someone to answer this right now)." It is unknown if they will be answered in a future AMA, or if players will have to re-ask those questions.}}
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{{EdNote|note=This is the most likely list of developers who answered AMA 2, as there are multiple devs with some of those first names. Some questions do not have a dev name, and it can be assumed that they were answered by Positron unless the context indicates otherwise. Several questions were unable to be answered, and are marked as "Answer hazy, ask again later (Matt because he couldn’t find someone to answer this right now)."}}
  
 
The second Lore AMA at its time of last revision (May 7, 2013) is as follows:
 
The second Lore AMA at its time of last revision (May 7, 2013) is as follows:
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A) We hadn’t gotten to that part of the story development yet, but 5th Column definitely had a foothold on the Moon. (Matt)|bg1=#ccccff}}
 
A) We hadn’t gotten to that part of the story development yet, but 5th Column definitely had a foothold on the Moon. (Matt)|bg1=#ccccff}}
  
==City of Heroes AMA 3 (2014)==
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=== <div style="font-weight:bold;text-align:center;border-top:1px solid #5555FF;border-bottom:1px solid #5555FF;background-color:#ffffff;margin:1em;padding:0.2em;font-size:1.2em">'''AMA: 2014'''</div> ===
 
+
 
An [http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php/topic,9602.0.html unofficial thread] was started on the Titan Network forums for gathering questions. Positron was contacted and said: "I plan on doing it a bit differently this year. Doc will only be up for a short window." On April 17, 2014, at 8:45 AM PDT, Positron posted [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ocOo69mXIQ8HthabNe1F4X1EcZcSDwZFEE9sT8WSBc4/edit# a Google Doc] that he left open for only 24 hours. Positron also put in some general rules for asking questions, largely prohibiting questions not related to the game's lore:
 
An [http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php/topic,9602.0.html unofficial thread] was started on the Titan Network forums for gathering questions. Positron was contacted and said: "I plan on doing it a bit differently this year. Doc will only be up for a short window." On April 17, 2014, at 8:45 AM PDT, Positron posted [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ocOo69mXIQ8HthabNe1F4X1EcZcSDwZFEE9sT8WSBc4/edit# a Google Doc] that he left open for only 24 hours. Positron also put in some general rules for asking questions, largely prohibiting questions not related to the game's lore:
  
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https://docs.google.com/document/d/19qbHHrRmifxGPz60-_ApLNiwOmF5QVEMrXHgB1Nrd4o/edit?usp=sharing}}|bg1=#ccccff}}
 
https://docs.google.com/document/d/19qbHHrRmifxGPz60-_ApLNiwOmF5QVEMrXHgB1Nrd4o/edit?usp=sharing}}|bg1=#ccccff}}
  
Following the initial 24 hour period, there were 76 questions. A copy of the document seven minutes before its takedown for answering can be found in a [https://docs.google.com/document/d/155aXZStUUjXxRfn_v5mMjjsh60Jdz-maIwmUct73LFY/edit Google Doc]. Positron noted in [https://twitter.com/MMODesigner/status/458994112230727680 a tweet] on April 23rd, 2104, that all question for the 2014 AMA had answers.
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Following the initial 24 hour period, there were 76 questions. A copy of the document seven minutes before its takedown for answering can be found in a [https://docs.google.com/document/d/155aXZStUUjXxRfn_v5mMjjsh60Jdz-maIwmUct73LFY/edit Google Doc]. Positron noted in [https://twitter.com/MMODesigner/status/458994112230727680 a tweet] on April 23rd, 2104, that all questions for the 2014 AMA had answers.
  
 
On April 28th, 2014, the tenth anniversary of City of Heroes, Positron released the answered questions as a [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ocOo69mXIQ8HthabNe1F4X1EcZcSDwZFEE9sT8WSBc4/edit Google doc]. The devs that answered are:
 
On April 28th, 2014, the tenth anniversary of City of Heroes, Positron released the answered questions as a [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ocOo69mXIQ8HthabNe1F4X1EcZcSDwZFEE9sT8WSBc4/edit Google doc]. The devs that answered are:
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I know we pitched having a “major player” switch sides, but then realized the headache of all the content that character was involved in and came up with two new characters to poster-child Going Rogue.
 
I know we pitched having a “major player” switch sides, but then realized the headache of all the content that character was involved in and came up with two new characters to poster-child Going Rogue.
  
'''Q) Was Mr. G always intended to be Praetorian Protean? (Liquid) '''
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'''Q) Was Mr. G always intended to be Praetorian Protean? (Liquid)'''
  
 
A) Sean McCann (Dr. Aeon) - Yes, John “Protean” Hegner had this planned from the get go.
 
A) Sean McCann (Dr. Aeon) - Yes, John “Protean” Hegner had this planned from the get go.
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I mean, they were our own versions with their own stories and uniqueness about them, but we wanted players to find familiar footing when they played CoH.
 
I mean, they were our own versions with their own stories and uniqueness about them, but we wanted players to find familiar footing when they played CoH.
  
'''Q) What were the ultimate Magic origin and Technology origin threats that were conceived of by time of the sunset announcement, and what made them scarier than what we’d fought before? (Tim Compton, AKA @Draeth Darkstar)'''
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'''Q) What were the ultimate Magic origin and Technology origin threats that were conceived of by time of the sunset announcement, and what made them scarier than what we’d fought before? (@Draeth Darkstar)'''
  
 
A) Chris Behrens (Baryonyx) - I don’t know that these were specific to an origin, but the “ultimate” threats included:
 
A) Chris Behrens (Baryonyx) - I don’t know that these were specific to an origin, but the “ultimate” threats included:
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But first you need to survive a civil war tearing the Dimensionless and their Primordial leadership apart, fraying the whole infrastructure keeping it all going.
 
But first you need to survive a civil war tearing the Dimensionless and their Primordial leadership apart, fraying the whole infrastructure keeping it all going.
  
'''Q) What tabletop RPG system do you feel best fits the power scale, game style, and themes of City of Heroes? Have any of the developers designed any unofficial homebrew City of Heroes pen and paper material? (Tim Compton, AKA @Draeth Darkstar)'''
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'''Q) What tabletop RPG system do you feel best fits the power scale, game style, and themes of City of Heroes? Have any of the developers designed any unofficial homebrew City of Heroes pen and paper material? (@Draeth Darkstar)'''
  
 
A) Matt Miller (Positron) Jeff Hamiliton and I were just talking about this the other day. IMO, the best “system” for conveying a comic-book game would be something akin to Fantasy Flight’s Star Wars RPG system. Extremely narrative storytelling, less emphasis on making numbers into bigger numbers.
 
A) Matt Miller (Positron) Jeff Hamiliton and I were just talking about this the other day. IMO, the best “system” for conveying a comic-book game would be something akin to Fantasy Flight’s Star Wars RPG system. Extremely narrative storytelling, less emphasis on making numbers into bigger numbers.
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A) Matt Miller (Positron) Weird, I don’t recall that. I mean, the 5th Column base was on the moon, why would they claim otherwise?}}
 
A) Matt Miller (Positron) Weird, I don’t recall that. I mean, the 5th Column base was on the moon, why would they claim otherwise?}}
  
== City of Heroes AMA 4 (2015) ==
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=== <div style="font-weight:bold;text-align:center;border-top:1px solid #5555FF;border-bottom:1px solid #5555FF;background-color:#ffffff;margin:1em;padding:0.2em;font-size:1.2em">'''AMA: 2015'''</div> ===
 +
On April 24th, 2015, Positron released a [https://twitter.com/MMODesigner/status/591725359634075648 tweet] with a link to a [http://goo.gl/forms/B3k5ebv5Zy Google Docs form] for submitting questions. The form was open until April 28th, and players were limited to one "lore related (not business, development, or systems / powers)" question. Upon submitting a question, the form noted that answers would be "made available sometime the week of May 3rd." After the form was closed, it told players that it was not accepting further submissions, but to "Try again next year!"
 +
 
 +
On May 17th, 2015 Positron released a [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IiWUZeUrkFkeTobtQpaRY2WONFdXvjlxjphs4eoG1ck/pub Google Doc] with the 2015 AMA answers. The devs that answered are:
 +
 
 +
* Matt Miller, a.k.a. [[Positron (Developer)|Positron]]
 +
* Sean McCann, a.k.a. [[Dr. Aeon (Developer)|Dr. Aeon]]
 +
* John Hegner, a.k.a. [[Protean (Developer)|Protean]]
 +
 
 +
The fourth Lore AMA at its time of release (May 17th, 2015) is as follows:
 +
 
 +
{{hidden|City of Heroes Loregasm 2015|bg1=#ccccff|content={{EdNote|note=This document is presented largely as it appeared at release. Minor changes to formatting have been included, and images are shown rather than text links where relevant.}}
 +
 
 +
'''Matsuri: Were any aspects of the comics that were released inspired by often unknown or not implemented lore or storylines?'''
 +
 
 +
Positron: Pretty much all of them, especially the Blue King comics written by Rick Dakan. He took the parts of the story bible that he wrote that might not have been in the game at the time and fleshed them out into comic book form. Sean "Manticore" Fish also continued this tradition while running the Top Cow run.
 +
 
 +
'''Samuraiko: Which story arcs are you a) most proud of, b) most ashamed of, and c) most wishing you had the chance to go back and revamp lorewise?'''
 +
 
 +
Dr. Aeon: Most Proud Of: Dark Astoria. I'm not really ashamed of any of them, but I do wish I could go back and tweak the Roy Cooling story.
 +
 
 +
'''Jargo: Is Mender Silos actually Lord Nemesis?'''
 +
 
 +
Positron: Yes. He's from 10,000 years in the future though, enough time to truly rehabilitate and see the results of his actions. Since he's just a consciousness in a robot body, he just kept transferring into new (older) versions of himself to get past his time-travel tether.
 +
 
 +
'''Blackout: Ok, this is gonna be kind of a long one, but what was up with Eisensturm?'''
 +
 
 +
'''He's described as being the leader of the Storm Korps (The sort of Nazi 5th column equivalent during WWII, the column, whilst German were involved more with the Italians than with the Nazi's back in the day). Furthermore, what little lore there is on them places them at Normandy on D-Day, and the Statesman is described as being injured during this battle to the point where he was unable to take part in the rest of the war; Did they do that? Did Eisensturm and the Storm Korps beat down the most powerful superhero on the planet so badly that he was hospitalized for months? That's kind of significant for such an overlooked character.'''
 +
 
 +
'''In addition to this they also kidnapped the King of England (again pretty significant) and nearly succeeded in escaping with him. Finally the last piece of lore regarding them describes all but five of them being killed by the First Hero Brigade in the Black forest of Germany at the very end of the war, but it doesn't actually specify who survived. Did Eisensturm survive? If so is he still alive in a prison somewhere?'''
 +
 
 +
Positron: Short answer to a long question: I had completely forgotten about Eisensturm until you brought it up, that’s how little effect his story had on the game as a whole. Sorry.
 +
 
 +
'''@Nyght Blade: What events would you make to celebrate the 11th Anniversary to City of Heroes if the game was still running?'''
 +
 
 +
Positron: Something we would have figured out about 3 months before the anniversary, probably. Maybe less.
 +
 
 +
'''Zombie Fryer: What flavor jello is Hamidon?'''
 +
 
 +
Positron: None, since he's more of a celled organism than a by-product of animal bones.
 +
 
 +
'''Kheldarn: In the story arc, "The Cult Of The Shaper", from Diviner Maros, you encounter Barracuda trying to find out what happened to her. You end up having to fight, and defeat her, before she can find out. What happened to her that she's not supposed to discover, and why?'''
 +
 
 +
Positron: I must apologize, I don’t know the answer, and it looks like everyone who looked at these questions didn’t know either. This will have to go on as unanswered.
 +
 
 +
'''Blue Battler: Was there ever any thought given to introducing Professor Null and Revenant (Positron and Synapse's archenemies from the Freedom Phalanx novel) into the game?'''
 +
 
 +
Positron: I think there was plans for them for the unreleased "Rikti War" novel, but since that never materialized they were fair game for us to use, only no one on the team actually wanted to use them, so they went unused.
 +
 
 +
'''Felderburg: In the story for the Rikti invasion ([http://web.archive.org/web/20121025125040/http://na.cityofheroes.com/en/game_info/history/paragon_city_alien_invasion.php]) it notes that the entire world was affected. Right after the first Rikti invasion, what was the status of Rikti in the rest of the world? Do places like London and Tokyo have the same sort of Rikti infestation that Paragon does?'''
 +
 
 +
Positron: The Rikti were pushed back to the portals in Paragon City, so that's where the majority of them have been found. There might be a small "undiscovered tribes" of Rikti popping up from time to time in other parts of the world, but it's rare.
 +
 
 +
'''@duane: Many hero missions to kick COT butt had sewer or abandon mine entries.
 +
 
 +
'''Is Oranbega "under" Paragon City or just accessible by dimensional portals "under" Paragon City?'''
 +
 
 +
Positron: Orenbega is literally under Paragon City, no dimensional portals needed to access it.
 +
 
 +
'''Lord Epsilon: My question is this: What is it like in Paragon City these days, now that the BSHA (Bureau of Super-Human Affairs) has been defunded? Are Skulls and Hellions just sitting around, moping about a lack of thrill in doing heists, since there's no one there that can legally stop them anymore?'''
 +
 
 +
Positron: I am sure an alternate reality like the one you describe exists.
 +
 
 +
'''6X: Say two mid-game villain groups had to merge together to become big enough to survive into the late game, what two groups do you think would work lore wise, and also from a gameplay challenge perspective? Were there plans for anything like this?'''
 +
 
 +
Positron: We’d never thought about combining groups for late game. We had a zillion ideas for new groups for late game though.
 +
 
 +
'''Todogut: Matt, you tweeted, "When I went to Korea to pitch CoH2, I set my luggage combo to be the planned release date. My luggage combo is 914." Please tell more about the pitch for CoH2. What did the pitch consist of? How was it received? Would CoH2 have replaced CoH... or would they have coexisted? How would CoH2 have differed from CoH? I'm very intrigued about what might have been.'''
 +
 
 +
Positron: I've probably said too much already with just that tweet.
 +
 
 +
'''Zombie Hustler: During the revamped Dark Astoria story arcs, Battle Maiden is freed by and teams up with Malta. What was planned for the ultimate outcome of this pairing?'''
 +
 
 +
Dr. Aeon: The plan was that she would help give a major upgrade to all of Malta by giving them the secrets to her nanite tech. The set up was for Incarnate-Level Malta with new powers, in the future. Imagine that!
 +
 
 +
'''KelpPlankton: Portal Corp introduced us to the idea of a CoH multiverse, but outside of Praetoria we mostly just saw ones that were like "world where <enemy group> took over the planet" and not a lot of fully alternate Earths like the Praetorians.  Are there any other ones like that, drastically different Earths, that we never got to see?'''
 +
 
 +
Positron: Of course! However, the game wasn't a Sliders MMO, so visiting alternate dimensions was just one thing you could do, and Praetoria got the most amount of attention from us, so it's the most fully fleshed out. With Praetoria behind us we moved on to other classic tropey comic book stories, like the planned outer-space stuff and the moon base.
 +
 
 +
'''Black WildFire: You've said previously Lady Grey was being considered to be a sleeper agent for the Battalion. Does this mean she may not be human and instead be one of the many races absorbed into the Battalion? Was she planning on syphoning Darrin Wade's knowledge to use against Earth?'''
 +
 
 +
Protean: This story thread had a few iterations and some supporters of her being a double agent, while others wanted her to be loyal through and through.
 +
 
 +
Dr. Aeon: Adding to what Protean said, I think in the end we moved away from Lady Grey being a double agent and instead chose Steve Sheridan.
 +
 
 +
'''Czar Bal: I have always wonder who/what was Black Heart (Black Heart Memorial Hospital from many of the villain zones)?'''
 +
 
 +
{{EdNote|note=The question about Black Heart appeared after the Lady Grey question and before its answers in the original document, and went unanswered. However, information may be found at the [[Black Heart Memorial Hospital|Black Heart Memorial Hospital article]]. According to [[Manticore (Developer)|Manticore's]] Canon Q&A Thread: "Black Heart is an homage to Sacred Heart Hospital. If there is a Black Heart in the Rogue Isles, he or she has yet to make a move."}}
 +
 
 +
'''Mesmorizer: Ruladak, Faathim, and Lunaruu were all very interesting and distinct personalities in the Shadow Shard.  Did you ever plan to include Chularn the Slave Lord, Kuularth the Scavenger, Aloore'''
 +
 
 +
Positron: If the need arose to use more aspects, sure. But I don’t think we wanted to visit that well too often.
 +
 
 +
'''Zemo: Why was nessie such a weakling'''
 +
 
 +
Positron: That’s what she wanted you to believe.
 +
 
 +
'''Joosy aka Control Queen: What was the real secret (if any) behind Ouroboros? Where they recruiting us to save the future or actually destroy it?'''
 +
 
 +
Dr. Aeon: From my memory: Ouroboros's goal was to use the power of Rularuu to destroy Battalion. Mender Silos aka Nemesis witnessed Battallio's wiping the floor with Earth's heroes and villains, even after the whole world united to take them on. After centuries on the run and planning everything out, Nemesis realized the only way to defeat Battalion would be to unleash Rularuu upon the core structure of the group. So, Ouroboros wanted to save the timeline by using Rularuu as a nuclear option, while Dream Doctor and his team wanted to find a different solution. Internally, when we were planning it out, the idea was that when the time actually arrived, we'd show the core Battalion leadership to be someting like Incarnate Level 100, but that you could defeat them with the help of Rularuu.... which a whole other story!
 +
 
 +
'''Fescu: As far as I know there were never any actual retcons when Going Rogue went live, and the old lore states that Praetorian Earth did have a Rikti Invasion. A few of the new missions even have war walls in them. So how come the populace doesn't appear to know about the Rikti?'''
 +
 
 +
Positron: We retconned out the Rikti invasion of Praetoria and replaced it with the Hamidon-threat. Sorry to burst your bubble.
 +
 
 +
'''SaffyMcA: Was there a lore-specific reason why some NPC groups had access to power combinations that players couldn't, such as the Tsoo with their storm summoning martial artists?'''
 +
 
 +
Positron: Devs cheat.
 +
 
 +
'''@Artificial Intel: What exactly happened to Arachnos, Lord Recluse, and the four generals during the events of Going Rogue? It seemed like outside of a brief excursion into Praetoria and the Well, they completely took the backseat compared to the Freedom Phalanx and Longbow.'''
 +
 
 +
Dr. Aeon: If I remember, Arachnos was actually trying to support the Resistance in Praetoria to destabilize Cole's regime. Lord Recluse wanted Tyrant out of the picture, knowing that Tyrant killed Recluse in Praetoria's timeline.
 +
 
 +
'''NerfedAgain: Where did all the witches, werewolves, ghosts, zombies and other Halloween-specific monsters go after Halloween ended?  And was there anymore story behind the Deadly Apocalypse Halloween event beyond different groups showing up and summoning a giant monster that had to be stopped?  I always wanted to know what they were up to during the rest of the year.'''
 +
 
 +
Dr. Aeon: You thought they were monsters? My God.
 +
 
 +
'''E.Normus: What was the long-term story and details about the rest of the Incarnate Powers and the end of that storyline?'''
 +
 
 +
Dr. Aeon: i25 (I think?) was going to have Battalion's first invasion of Earth in Kallisti Wharf. We would have established 2 competing "time travel" groups; Dream Doctor's team and Ouroboros. Dream Doctor still would have been the, "we can defeat Battalion if we figure out something", while Mender Silos was in the camp of, "the only way to destroy Battalion is to unleash Rularuu upon them and then somehow destroy Rularuu." We had revealed that Rularuu being sealed in the Shadow Shard was not part of Dream Doctor's plan. The Dagger of Jocas was supposed to kill Rularuu, but someone had gone back in time to tamper with the ritual and instead created a container for Rularuu to be used in the future. There was going to be a lot of fighting with Battalion and eventually culminate in the two sides coming together to release Rularuu when it became obvious that there was no way to defeat Battalion. The players would've faced the leadership of Battalion, who were out of anyone's league, essentially fighting the end boss of a game, but you're only on hour 2. The goal of the fight would've been to release Rularuu. Dream Doctor would have sacrificed his life to bring Rularuu back into the world to destroy Battalion, but not blink all of the universe out of existence. That was going to be the end of the current Incarnate storyline, but we already had plans for what was after that. The leadership of Battalion were essentially Incarnate level 100; players would've been barely incarnate level 56. There would be a LOT of bad guys between 56 and 100 that now no longer had to fear Battalion's influence to deal with. Also, I think we had some vague ideas to do more with the Shadow Shard, assuming that Rularuu was now even further shattered than before. ... I think.
 +
 
 +
'''MechaCrash: One of the generic villains from bank robbery missions, Pyra, looked like she had cat ears. Was she a catgirl or what?'''
 +
 
 +
Positron: Yes.
 +
 
 +
'''Michiel: One of my favorite villain groups was the Vahzilok, and I was always hoping that there would eventually be higher level content for the good doctor. It just seemed like a natural progression for a man bent on immortality to show back up and be more powerful than when we lasts him. Were there any plans to have new Vahzilok content, or to create another higher level, horror themed villain group?'''
 +
 
 +
Dr. Aeon: No plans that I'm aware of, but it would've been cool to bring Dr. Vahzilok in as a support character.
 +
 
 +
'''Gaymer: Where there any future plans for Lusca (story arch development to further flesh her out)?'''
 +
 
 +
Positron: Not that I can recall.
 +
 
 +
'''Elindor: What was the source of Kheldian abilities? With Shapeshifting, Energy Projection, Flight, Healing and that Team Buff going on, the best I can come up with is a combination of being able to freely convert matter and energy and the Force.'''
 +
 
 +
Positron: [[File:Aliens LoreAMA2015.png|150px]]
 +
 
 +
'''Capt. Obvious: Do you think you would have added additional "media" contacts like Radio, and Television.'''
 +
 
 +
Protean: We had HD in Praetoria and had talked at length about Internet
 +
 
 +
'''Mentalshock: What would the next step have been if Nemesis had succeeded in uploading himself into the Rikti Hive Mind?  I find it hard to believe that that was a final goal - obviously the greatest mastermind in the world would have had plans to use such an asset.'''
 +
 
 +
Dr. Aeon: Go.Hunt.Kill.Heroes
 +
 
 +
'''Mr. Titan: Was "Hero 1" originally a placeholder name for the cape mission that just stuck?'''
 +
 
 +
Positron: Hero 1 was in the backstory for years before we decided to put a cape mission in. His concept art was the most “capey” so we drummed up the idea that you had to honor his memory in order to get a cape.
 +
 
 +
{{EdNote|note=[[File:Hero1WP1600B.jpg|center|200px]]{{center|The concept art as seen in the [[City of Heroes Fansite Kit]].}}}}
 +
 
 +
'''Pogoman: Were there any easter eggs you guys put into the game for the players to find and the players never did? If so what were they?'''
 +
 
 +
Positron: We get this question every year, and every year it’s harder and harder to remember what you guys did and did not find. Probably at this point just in-jokes and names based on people we know.
 +
 
 +
'''HarvesterOfEyes: Whatever happened to Tabitha Fabish?
 +
 
 +
She was the original owner of the magic-origin shops in Talos and IP. One day her signage was replaced with that of a Mexican restaurant, and when those were removed the shops were taken over by Pandora's Box.
 +
 
 +
As Frida Lyngstad would say, "there's something going on."'''
 +
 
 +
Positron: She slipped dimensions trying a new spell. Lost forever.
 +
 
 +
'''Rise of Heroes: Hey, i'm kinda wanna know when does the City of Heroes return, i actually getting each tears when i see it's gone, Please return :_: When??'''
 +
 
 +
Positron: Not something I can answer, sadly.
 +
 
 +
'''Venture: Excalibur as seen on Ms Liberty's belt does not match Excalibur as seen wielded by Hero 1.
 +
 
 +
{{center|<gallery heights=200px caption="Images linked in AMA question (Click for full size images)">
 +
File:20120825164449!Ms. Liberty.jpg|Miss Liberty in game
 +
File:Hero1Glory.jpg|An unused model of Hero 1
 +
</gallery>}}
 +
 
 +
'''Is there a lore reason for this or is it more a design issue due to the size of Ms Lib's character in game?'''
 +
 
 +
Positron: Artistic license. That and Excalibur can morph itself into whatever shape it (i.e. the artist drawing it) desires.
 +
 
 +
'''Arkasas: What was the story rationale going to be behind opening Kallisti Wharf?'''
 +
 
 +
Dr. Aeon: Kallisti Wharf was one of the "in between" neighborhoods that was decimated in the Rikti War. The opening was to commemorate the rebuilding of the wharf and also Paragon City's continued recovery. It was going to be marked by the opening of Statesman One Plaza in honor of Statesman, which would be a huge tower dedicated to the pursuit of technology and science. It was going to be previously named after a brilliant scientist, Emil Christie, but he offered instead to name it after Statesman after the events in Who Will Die. Emil Christie was a pupil of Steven Sheridan, and the two worked hard to build the infrastructure of the tower.
 +
 
 +
The storyline of Kallisti Wharf was going to be seen on two sides - heroes and villains. Heroes would be working to help secure Kallisti Wharf in the final days before its release, while villains were working towards establishing their own villain base in the heart of Kallisti Wharf with the aim of taking over Statesman One Plaza. The villain storyline was going to be the culmination of several story previous story arcs, where the villain had gathered their own villainous inner circle of previous contacts - evil Penelope Yin, Transmutor, Agent G (if he was still alive), Leonard, Dean MacArthur, to name a few.
 +
 
 +
Both storylines led up to the opening of Statesman One Plaza; the villain was going to ambush the opening, use a device to knock out the huge amount of heroes present, and take the Plaza for themselves. The heroes just finished foiling a plot from a smaller group of villains to do the same and was attending the opening. As Emil Christie was giving his speech, a member of Battalion appears, tells everyone in Paragon to bow, then unleashes the first wave of Battalion to attack and take Statesman One Plaza. The villain and hero storylines would have converged here to fight off Battalion's first attack, but were forced to retreat when a Battalion ship appeared and turned the tables. Battalion would have also kidnapped Steven Sheridan.
 +
 
 +
There were going to be a lot of cool things after this that may or may not have worked since we were still testing them. I had set up a castle defense mission where Battalion discovered the villain's base and was sending soldiers to destroy it. As the villain for the first part of the mission, you could fly around and place your lackeys around the area to defend against Battalion, while also dropping down turrets etc. to help them. After the first few waves were defeated, you'd jump back down and fight the mission's boss yourself.
 +
 
 +
This is getting kind of long without me even getting into the meat of the story, so I'll wrap it up. Statesman One Plaza eventually opens up a gigantic portal into the Shadow Shard, with Rularuu trying to escape. A genetically modified Shiva, controlleed by Battalion, appears near Earth and begins to bombard the portal with meteors. Battalion had figured out that the only way Earth could kill them was by using Rularuu, so they were going to use Shiva to destroy it from far away. Players would eventually close the portal and discover that Steven Sheridan was an agent of Battalion.
 +
 
 +
The final act of the storyline was going to be a showdown against Shiva. Battalion was going to order Shiva to bombard the planet and be done with it. Emil Christie concocts a device to drain Shiva of her powers. If you were the hero, Emil Christie was willingly working with you. If you were the villain, you kidnapped Emil Christie and forced him to make the device in order to transfer Shiva's power to you.
 +
 
 +
The last mission was going to be a showdown in space on top of Shiva (which we had already built before the closure). You'd fight waves of Shivans while Emil Christie's device went to work. At a certain point, Steve Sheridan appears to fight you as a representative of a "higher" member of Battalion. The heroes and villains get infused with the power of Shiva and go toe to toe with Sheridan, eventually knocking him down back to Earth. The player chases after Sheridan to a small crater his impact made. The fight continues for a while before Sheridan retreats, admitting that more care would have to be taken when fighting the players.
 +
 
 +
The player's Shiva power would be depleted after that, and the arc would be complete. Shiva would remain de-powered near Earth, and the initial Battalion attack would have been deflected, but now Earth would know that it was "on" - Battalion had arrived and had no intention of stopping until Earth submitted or was destroyed.
 +
 
 +
So yeah, the Kallisti Wharf arc was going to be pretty small.
 +
 
 +
'''Sam T (@Psyte): If you fast-forwarded the game's story by 10 years, which of the low-level enemy factions would have "graduated" to the big leagues (level 40-50 and/or Incarnate content)? The Tsoo? Legacy Chain? Wyvern?'''
 +
 
 +
Dr. Aeon: Tsoo - Incarnate-level ink, we hinted at that in Dark Astoria.
 +
 
 +
'''Demon Cat: How were Portal Corp dimensions designated? For example you had: Upsilon Beta 9-6 (Praetoria) and Omicron Zeta 12-20 (Freakshow world). Was there a method to the madness or was it simply random?'''
 +
 
 +
Positron: Whatever the writer needed at the time, so... random.
 +
 
 +
'''MattBold: I NEED more information and Lore about the Kheldians. Please tell me everything.'''
 +
 
 +
Positron: [[File:Aliens LoreAMA2015.png|150px]]
 +
 
 +
'''Exclius: What lore did you have regarding the Star Sentinels. Were they just a Green Lantern analogue or where they something more specific? I heard about them in some of the Battalion lore and they instantly caught my attention.'''
 +
 
 +
Positron: They were Green Lantern/Alien Legion analogues that didn’t get fleshed out greater than that.
 +
 
 +
'''Tataku: So one thing missing from the comic book experience of CoH was the uber-powerful alien warlord, ala Darksied or Thanos.  Were there any plans to implement such an AV?  Perhaps the head of Battalion?'''
 +
 
 +
Protean: Battalion was run by a war council of galactic warlords, each one being immensely powerful and leading vast armies of subjugated alien races.
 +
 
 +
'''General X: What would COH2 entail? Lore-wise, how power sets and archetypes would work, whether it was a new engine, or anything you can openly share about it?'''
 +
 
 +
Positron: Well, you see... waitaminute, this isn’t a CoH question, this is a question about CoH2! Nice try!
 +
 
 +
'''Nightsjester: Was there ever any plans or ideas to redeem Lord Recluse?'''
 +
 
 +
Dr. Aeon: I don't think we planned to ever fully redeem him, but there were plans to make him a more relatable super-villain. We had him try to go after Tyrant in Praetoria with the full might of Arachnos in order to stop Tyrant's further attacks on Primal Earth. Lord Recluse would have been researching how to empower Arachnos to Incarnate-levels in order to fight of Battalion.
 +
 
 +
We wanted to make it a big deal that Lord Recluse was one of the few super villains in charge of both an army and an entire nation, the Rogue Isles. That makes him a villain with something to defend and something to lose, and he would behave in that way. Since we were dealing with lots of inter-galactic threats, Recluse would, of course, be mobilizing his army to deal with it and making deals not to get in anyone's way, because why would Arachnos be fighting Longbow when Battalion is attacking?
 +
 
 +
However, we also wanted to make it abundantly clear that Recluse is still the bad guy. Even if Arachnos was working together with other groups, they would still be stealing information on them, making plans to deal with them when the bigger threat was over, and other nefarious things.
 +
 
 +
'''Firemoth: Why did Statesman never take his wife to the Well of the Furies?  Did he not know he was immortal at the time?'''
 +
 
 +
Positron: Recluse destroyed the Well, there were no more waters running to take her to.
 +
 
 +
'''Phoxx: Are you happy with the direction the new Super Hero MMO's are going considering a lot of them seem to borrow ideas from COH/COV i.e. Champions Online, DC Universe Online, etc'''
 +
 
 +
Positron: Honestly, I haven’t really been paying attention to the other Superhero MMOs. Obviously if they are borrowing ideas they A) want old CoH players and B) We were probably doing something right.
 +
 
 +
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 +
 
 +
'''Oak: How exactly did the Praetorian war get started? What catalyzed Cole's interest in Primal Earth to the point of full-on invasion and war?'''
 +
 
 +
Protean: Cole's primary interest in Primal Earth was as an escape plan from Hamidon.
 +
 
 +
'''Overclock: With all the time travel that happened after Issue 11 and the release of Ouroboros, were there ever thoughts about retconning out some bit of established game lore? Bonus points if there were and the reason was that what had been established in-game and was a pain for the new content writers to deal with (aka the reason most retcons seem to happen in comics).'''
 +
 
 +
Positron: We retconned stuff out all the time. Players hated it whenever we did it though.}}
 +
 
 +
=== <div style="font-weight:bold;text-align:center;border-top:1px solid #5555FF;border-bottom:1px solid #5555FF;background-color:#ffffff;margin:1em;padding:0.2em;font-size:1.2em">'''AMA: 2016'''</div> ===
 +
Positron posted a [http://goo.gl/forms/PrD6STRXIA Google Doc form] in an [http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php?topic=11829 unofficial thread] on the Titan Network forums.
 +
 
 +
On April 28th, 2016, Positron released a [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YjnwmdqnU-W5neQ-JGrfPtX9pysGZuetyvmHtdSbjs0/edit Google Doc] with the 2016 AMA answers. The devs that answered are:
 +
 
 +
* Matt Miller, a.k.a. [[Positron (Developer)|Positron]]
 +
* Sean McCann, a.k.a. [[Dr. Aeon (Developer)|Dr. Aeon]]
 +
 
 +
The fifth Lore AMA at its time of release (April 28th, 2016) is as follows:
 +
 
 +
{{hidden|City of Heroes Loregasm 2016|bg1=#ccccff|content=
 +
 
 +
'''''I'd like to take a moment to thank Sean "Dr. Aeon" McCann, without whom this Loregasm would not have been possible (or very much more boring at any rate). Honestly I'd forgotten pretty much everything Sean added to this Q&A until he wrote it down. My old age and distance from the project has forced me to make room in my head for other stuff. While I'd like to keep doing these, I will tell you that if Sean's not here to save my bacon next year, these are going to get a lot more boring.'''''
 +
 
 +
'''Samuraiko: What, if any, was your favorite 'lore conspiracy theory' that the playerbase had going? Something that the players were going nuts trying to figure out, and were probably WAY off base. ("Such-and-such is a spy," "this is a Nemesis plot," that kind of thing.)'''
 +
 
 +
Dr. Aeon: The really annoying thing was when the lore conspiracy theories were true. I think people had mentioned before Dark Astoria that they thought the Dream Doctor was the Letter Writer, and I remember thinking, "How the heck would you think that?" We also used to joke that anyone could tell what we were planning if they knew the IP of the studio, because then they could see all the pages we were looking at on paragonwiki for reference, since it had all the details of everything we ever did in the game more than we did.
 +
 
 +
Positron: Most players were really good about just enjoying the game we served them, but a few players (even some devs in the studio) never really could accept a GOOD version of Nemesis, Mender Silos, and kept picking at and digging for a future betrayal that would never come.
 +
 
 +
I like to believe that people can change, and that a version of Nemesis forced to live and see the world he tried to conquer, conquered by someone else due to his actions, and forced to work for those new conquerors... he had to change. Silos would never go against the modern version of himself (Paradox and all that), but Ouroboros had no ulterior motives. The Letter Writer's warnings were just that, cautions against what COULD be, not what was GOING to be.
 +
 
 +
'''@Placta: Which Council AVs returned to the 5th Column when it resurfaced?'''
 +
 
 +
Dr. Aeon: If I recall correctly, Arakhn and Nosferatu rejoined Requiem, who had also recruited Reichsman during the events of Dark Astoria. I think Vandal was sticking with the Council due to their technology, and Archon Burkholder would've flipped at the moment it looked like the 5th Column was winning... but of course Requiem wouldn't have allowed him back. Protean is Protean, and was loyal to no one. Maestro continued to serve with the Council.
 +
 
 +
'''Fink: Is it all a Nemesis plot?'''
 +
 
 +
Positron: People ask us all the time "why did you never finish x or y plotline?" Well, the answer is two-fold. First, player fatigue. Praetorian Earth was SUPER fun to visit, but after a while, the players wanted something NEW. We still had a ton of stories to tell there, but we made the decision to leave it alone and move along the main (Coming Storm) storyline of the game.
 +
 
 +
Second, that plotline was likely shepherded and nurtured through to life by a designer that no longer worked on the game. Just like plotlines in comic books, writers aren't (and frankly shouldn't) be asked to pick up and finish something started by someone else. Hopefully then have their OWN ideas and can take a plot from start to fruition, and leave just enough lore and plot hooks for another writer to, ''if they wanted'', pick up and make their own.
 +
 
 +
'''AJ: What are other "Elseworlds" you could have envisioned exploring eventually?'''
 +
 
 +
Positron: All the different Statesmen/Stateswomen from the various universes was something I really wanted to see happen. Also exploring what happened to the Omega Team on the Rikti Homeworld (and Ruin's takeover of their version of Australia) was something I was super into.
 +
 
 +
'''Not the Gamester: Did the Gamester have an actual identity and backstory or was he just an excuse to have a winter holiday event?'''
 +
 
 +
Positron: He absolutely did. Manticore (Sean Dornan-Fish) did a backstory for him. He was basically the City of Heroes version of Arcade/The Trickster, and a convenient go-to for holiday events in-game. What it was, I have no idea.
 +
 
 +
'''Cobalt Azurean: Would Statesman ever have returned?'''
 +
 
 +
Dr. Aeon: After I went through all the trouble of killing him, someone in the studio mentioned they wanted to bring him back eventually. I don't know if they were serious or trying to get a rise out of me, but I always got really angry because I worked so hard to kill him in the first place.
 +
 
 +
Positron: As you can see Sean never liked the idea of him returning, but he was 100% coming back (on my watch anyway). First let's make something super clear: Primal Statesman was dead-dead. Sean did go through a ton of work to kill him, and he did successfully do so.
 +
 
 +
But there is more than one Statesman in the multiverse, and you end up capturing one in an Incarnate Trial: Tyrant. The plan was, in a couple years, have Statesman "mysteriously return," but in reality it was Marcus Cole from Praetoria, now reformed (for now anyway). The Phalanx would know the truth, but the general populace would see it as a miracle in a time of desperate need.
 +
 
 +
'''Felderburg: What ideas for Signature Story Arcs beyond the two that were released were being floated around?'''
 +
 
 +
Dr. Aeon: I was working on a 3rd sig arc when we shut down. It was going to be a combo of a personal story and a sig story where the player played from the POV of Scirocco defecting to Paragon w/Ice Mistral, trying to become a hero with Serafina guiding him. He'd unlock his Incarnate powers, which was become a dual-wielder (because it's awesome) and earning the mantle of Scirocco. Ice Mistral would defect back to Arachnos because being the good guy was too hard. Scirocco would go back to try to rescue her, facing Mako in the Golden Giza and Black Scorpion in Grandville square. He'd be defeated by Ghost Widow, and in that moment he'd realize for everything he felt about Ghost Widow, she'd never betray Arachnos, not even for him. Lord Recluse orders Ghost Widow to finish him off, but Ms. Liberty and her team breaks in to save Scirocco. He and Ice Mistral escape through the tunnels beneath Grandville, where they'd have a final showdown with Lord Recluse. They beat him and retreat back to Paragon. The plan was an issue later to replace Scirocco with the Mu we introduced in Dark Astoria.
 +
 
 +
'''Blue Battler: In the Freedom Phalanx Novel, Positron and Synapse are long time friends before they got their powers and Synapse is an accountant. I remember an in-game plaque that implied Synapse was also a scientist like Positron and they don't get along very well. What was game canon? Was Synapse a scientist or accountant? Were he and Posi childhood friends who just liked to give each other a hard time?'''
 +
 
 +
Positron: Ah, the backstory paradox. I wrote the plaque based on what Sean Dornan-Fish and I came up with for Synapse and Positron's backstories when we launched City of Heroes.
 +
 
 +
Then we work-for-hired out the novel and Sean forgot all about that dumb plaque when giving the writer the backstories to work into the story.
 +
 
 +
Game canon was that Synapse was a scientist, not an accountant. While we usually tried to come up with some cockamamie answer to smooth over canon mistakes like this without dreadedly "ret-conning" stuff, some stuff is just too contradictory. Terrible answer I know, but you get what you pay for.}}
 +
 
 +
=== <div style="font-weight:bold;text-align:center;border-top:1px solid #5555FF;border-bottom:1px solid #5555FF;background-color:#ffffff;margin:1em;padding:0.2em;font-size:1.2em">'''Back Alley Brawler reddit AMA'''</div> ===
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On 2016-04-29 [[Back Alley Brawler (Developer)|Back Alley Brawler]] began [http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/4gv8xl/final_moments_before_city_of_heroes_shut_down_for/d2lkkqd answering questions about City of Heroes in an informal AMA]. Although he framed it as an AMA, some of the responses are more conversational in nature, but still reveal interesting information about the game and the culture of Paragon Studio. {{EdNote|note=When looking at the original reddit thread, the answers may sometimes be hard to find when the threads grow larger. CTRL+F (and keep tapping F3 thereafter) to find the phrase "load more comments" and click those to view his answers; you can also F3 cycle through the phrase "CBruce" once all comments are loaded.}}
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The questions he has answered as of August 8, 2018 are:
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{{hidden|Back Alley Brawler AMA (2016)|bg1=#ccccff|content={{EdNote|note=Due to differences in reddit's threaded format and wiki presentability, there have been changes to the original formatting. The intent is to transform the reddit thread into a more traditional "Q&A" like the other Lore AMAs with as little loss of content as possible. Where relevant, threads are indented to indicate that they originated from the answer immediately above them; otherwise, replies have been broken out into their own Q&A portion. Because reddit easily allows direct quotes in its comments, those are indicated by an indented blue square, in both questions and answers - all bold text is a direct question or quote from a player; all non-bolded text is an answer from BAB. There have also been minor typo corrections when the typo was clearly obvious.}}{{EdNote|note=The current state of the AMA includes the entirety of comments; it is possible that they will be trimmed for only the context important to the actual question in the future.}}
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Back Alley Brawler here, AMA?
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'''Q) Wretschko'''
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'''Holy shit, it IS you.
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'''First, I hope you're actively employed, heh.
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'''Second, do YOU believe the chatter that there are STILL on-going negotiations from a group of folks willing to license/buy the CoH IP from NCSoft or do you think it's just wishful thinking/unrealistic hype?
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'''Third, do you think the current efforts are viable? (City of Titans, Atlas Park Revisited, etc.)
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'''And lastly, is there a private server running CoH and if so, can you please tell me who to contact to gain access to it? ;)
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'''I mean, I know the game engine is now absolutely ancient but I think a few thousand people would still cough up a monthly sub to bring back their heroes/villains. I know I would. It wasn't so much as the graphics that made CoH/CoV great, it was the atmosphere and friendships made. For some reason, no other MMO could live up to what CoH was for me.'''
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A) BABs
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*'''First, I hope you're actively employed, heh.
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I am, thank you. After being laid off from Paragon, I almost immediately went back to work at Cryptic Studios. There, I helped launch Neverwinter and got to work on a couple of other unrealized projects. About a year ago, I relocated to Champaign, IL to work for Deep Silver Volition, where I am now.
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*'''Second, do YOU believe the chatter that there are STILL on-going negotiations from a group of folks willing to license/buy the CoH IP from NCSoft or do you think it's just wishful thinking/unrealistic hype?
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 +
Honestly, I haven't followed it that much. I've no idea what kind of negotiations any third party has had with NCSoft. I know that Matt Miller once confided that Paragon tried to acquire the franchise from NCSoft and go at it on their own, but the big hangup was the liability of active accounts and how all of that got transferred from one owner to another. Like acquiring CoH a year after it had shut down would have been more likely, but by then it would be too late to matter. Pretty sure Cryptic approached NCSoft about re-acquiring City of Heroes when they shuttered Paragon as well. I have no specifics about it, but clearly nothing came of that.
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This was the second MMO I worked on that was shut down by NCSoft, and NetDevil did a similiar thing where they tried to assume all operational costs in order to keep Auto Assault live. At the time, NCSoft seemed to have this 'go big, or go home' attitude about their franchises. They would have rather completely shut down prematurely than let it linger on, even it if was profitable.
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In my experience, every publisher will always talk as if they're on the verge of signing a deal even if there's zero chance of that ever happening. It costs them nothing to say that. But when it comes time to writing up contracts and signing paperwork, that's where the process stalls out.
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*'''Third, do you think the current efforts are viable? (City of Titans, Atlas Park Revisited, etc.)
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Again, not really familiar with any of these projects or their status. I can say that making an MMO is a massive venture and for any small group to pull it off without a major source of funding is almost insurmountable. If one of these projects manages to make it, it'll be a real testament to the dedication and talent of their team. Even if they flounder, it's still an impressive thing for anyone to attempt.
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It's interesting, because it seems to me that the environment right now with the wildly popular Marvel/DC film franchises is far more ripe for a 'super hero' themed MMO. But I don't know if anyone's willing to take the risk with the genre and tone that fans probably really want.
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*'''And lastly, is there a private server running CoH and if so, can you please tell me who to contact to gain access to it? ;)
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Legitimately no idea. There were illegal servers supposedly going while the game was live, so seems likely someone somewhere might have something. There's a Paragon Chat application that seems pretty interesting.
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*'''I mean, I know the game engine is now absolutely ancient but I think a few thousand people would still cough up a monthly sub to bring back their heroes/villains. I know I would. It wasn't so much as the graphics that made CoH/CoV great, it was the atmosphere and friendships made. For some reason, no other MMO could live up to what CoH was for me.
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I hear you. City of Heroes is a significant part of my life. I was a player long before I started at Cryptic. I invested thousands and thousands of my free time into playing the game and years of my career working on it. Both of my sons were born while it was live. And while I couldn't bear to play again after Paragon, seeing it shut down and knowing that it's gone forever has left an aching hole in me. I've never connected with an online community the same way since.
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:'''Q) NondeterministSystem
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:*I've never connected with an online community the same way since.
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:'''We still love you, BABs. As I've said elsewhere in this thread, I'm still in touch with a lot of my Super Group. We're having a get together later this month.
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:'''If we're doing questions, though... What were the remaining Incarnate Slots conceptualized to do?
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:A) BABs
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:*'''We still love you, BABs. As I've said elsewhere in this thread, I'm still in touch with a lot of my Super Group. We're having a get together later this month.
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:Awesome.
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:*'''If we're doing questions, though... What were the remaining Incarnate Slots conceptualized to do?
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:See my answer here: {{EdNote|note=The linked answer has been copy / pasted for convenience; this may change as this AMA is finalized}}
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:Incarnate system came online right after I was laid off from Paragon and I was really to burnt out and heartbroken to log in to the game from that point on.
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:Matt would undoubtedly know. In fact, it seems like he's talked about that topic before. Definitely laid out some things about mysteries and where they were going in with the lore.
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'''Q) HighPiracy
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'''Hey! Loved the game and appreciate all the work you did on it. I was a day 1 player, one of the first regen scrappers (dark melee was the other half). Have great memories of flying around and just perching of rooftops in a heroic manner. Built so many alts, and loved City of Villains. Any mechanic you wish you could have added or done to the game?
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A) BABs
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*'''Loved the game and appreciate all the work you did on it.
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Me too. Thanks.
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*'''Any mechanic you wish you could have added or done to the game?
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I got to implement power customization and weapon customization. Those were big things for me.
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I always wanted a way to make flight faster. It was gated as a travel power because of the soft limit on super-speed, and the need to balance super-speed's 2D limitation against super-jumping and fully 3D freedom of flight. But man, it would have been great to really tear across the skies of Paragon City.
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And of course, one of the reasons I left Cryptic to join Paragon (apart from the weird contractual business of 'no longer having a job') was the promise of doing City of Heroes 2. Really sad the day that fell through. More sad when the other MMO we were working on didn't pay out because that was--in my opinion--a better tonal fit for the modern audience.
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:'''Q) implicitlyimplying
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:'''I was so impressed with power customization when it launched. I remember the feature's announcement on the forums (I think it was a post by Positron). People went wild about it because it had been requested for so long. I was glad you guys took the time to get it right. I literally played around with that feature almost everyday after it launched.
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:A) BABs
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:Was a huge endeavor. One of the biggest things I've ever tackled in my career. Were it not for Mike Chock's help with Python scripting and on the implementation side, it would have never happened. Keetsie also put in a ton of work with me on converting something like 4,000 VFX scripts by hand to support it.
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:In retrospect, I kind of regret not pushing back harder at those wanting to limit the creative options. But some were really worried about having yellow ice controllers and whatnot. I let myself get convinced it was the right decision and a few players got locked out of making character concepts they had in their head because we didn't want to have 'Captain Yellow Snow' running around in game.
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'''Q) Wretschko
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'''Remember the first time you flew up to the top of the world on Atlas' shoulder?
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A) BABs
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I think you mean slowly hovered.
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:'''Q) implicitlyimplying
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:'''Wow, I don't think I've ever felt this level of nostalgia. CoH was a major part of my adolescence. I started playing on the Justice server in 2004 when I was 12 years old. As someone who had a difficult time making friends as a child, CoH was a game changer. The game was so user-friendly and had so many community-building tools that made it so easy to build long-lasting friendships. I played the game for countless hours and I've never felt that connected with any game since.
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:A) BABs
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:What was your character name on Justice? I played mainly as Tic-Toc.
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:Justice was a sort of unofficial dev server. There were a number of us hiding out there.
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:What was really interesting is when I started at Cryptic, I was cautioned to not let other players find out who I was. If it ever became common knowledge, I was at risk of having my personal accounts locked. So there was an element of having a real secret identity that I had to deal with and protect while playing a super-hero in a game.
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:Always thought that added another level to the game for me and wondered how we could do something similar for everyone else.
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'''Q) Hephoran
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'''How did you feel about having your character stuck in "2nd rate Atlas city"? :P
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'''As for a more serious question, what were your ideas about where the whole Incarnate system was going? It really sucked that one week we got the announcement of a new Issue with a new tier of Incarnate powers, and the next week we heard the servers would shut down...
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'''Thanks for all the work you and the rest of the team put into this game. It still stands as my best gaming experience ever.
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A) BABs
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*'''How did you feel about having your character stuck in "2nd rate Atlas city"? :P
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To be fair, BABs was never really my character. I only adopted that identity so that when we did dev-run events, I'd have control over a character that I actually know how to play (INV/SS tank).
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*'''As for a more serious question, what were your ideas about where the whole Incarnate system was going? It really sucked that one week we got the announcement of a new Issue with a new tier of Incarnate powers, and the next week we heard the servers would shut down...
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Incarnate system cam online right after I was laid off from Paragon and I was really to burnt out and heartbroken to log in to the game from that point on.
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Matt would undoubtedly know. In fact, it seems like he's talked about that topic before. Definitely laid out some things about mysteries and where they were going in with the lore.
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'''Q) philosoblanka
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'''No questions, just want to say that my time playing CoH/CoV was, to date, my best gaming experience. Addictive and fun, with frequent quality updates. The level of communication between the development team and the players should be used as the best example for game developers today. Great stuff.
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A) BABs
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*'''No questions, just want to say that my time playing CoH/CoV was, to date, my best gaming experience.
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Me too.
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*'''The level of communication between the development team and the players should be used as the best example for game developers today.
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I don't know if you meant me personally, but I got into so much trouble for various forum posts. I was probably personally responsible for the implementation of a whole suite of formalized rules and procedures for even getting to post to the forums.
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Kind of sad, because as a player I really enjoyed the casual interaction between players and developers in game and on the forums. By the time I was working there, and managed to weasel my way into a redname account, that culture was starting to go down a different path. Partially because of the whole Cryptic/Marvel deal.
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I never intentionally set out to rock the boat, but there's 3 or 4 instances I can remember where I got called into someone's office or taken for a walk by Ken and told to watch what I was saying. I think ultimately, I got written up, had to sign an agreement to pass every post through CMs for approval, and that was when I stopped participating on the forums quite as much. It stopped being organic and genuine to me.
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Completely understandable why NCSoft/Paragon did what they did--they're looking to protect their investment--but as a fan, player, and member of the community it just didn't sit right with me.
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Was fun while it lasted. I really enjoyed giving other players insight into the inner workings that I'd managed infiltrate myself.
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:'''Q) Noodlespanker
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:'''I remember having quite a few arguements in IM with Statesman, chatted up Posi a few times. Always amazed me that I could reach out and yell at the developers. Even if they probably saw me as a buzzing gnat, they responded. I think the best part was seeing the devs in game. I think it was end of beta where I met most of you guys and could chat at you while the world was invaded.
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:'''Write ups be damned. There's something in being able to interact with the development of the game like that that is another great element of old mmo's that is now lost to time.
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:A) BABs
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:*'''Write ups be damned. There's something in being able to interact with the development of the game like that that is another great element of old mmo's that is now lost to time.
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:I agree. As a player and developer, it was a very rewarding experience.
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'''Q) Rienuaa
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'''Thanks for helping make my time with CoH so amazing. Thanks to my dedication to the game, it inspired a love of online games in me. Now I work for Turbine Inc. on DDO :D
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A) BABs
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*'''Thanks for helping make my time with CoH so amazing. Thanks to my dedication to the game, it inspired a love of online games in me. Now I work for Turbine Inc. on DDO :D
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Awesome. Players often make the best devs.
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'''Q) ChanThe4th
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'''This is crazy! Thank you for helping make literally my favorite game of all time better on a consistent basis. You and the other developers were a massive part of my teenage life and I cannot thank you guys enough for doing such a great job.
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'''I played on Virtue because the roleplaying community was so immersive and honestly a great group of people. However I noticed as time went on the "big name" roleplayers started mingling with the developing team regularly, or so they claimed, these people include Golden Girl and Captain Valor. Is there any truth to this? If this is true, did they have any influence on decisions for patches? Such as costumes or even gameplay?
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'''Arcana is a huge part of the titan network and was apparently involved with the developer team quite heavily. Her knowledge of the game and the coding seems to be larger than any other player I'm aware of. I suppose my question is that similar to the big name roleplayers, how much influence did she have (if any) on how the game conitinued its development? Did you personally ever interact with her?
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 +
'''Lastly, and I realize this has been asked by so many people most likely, but if you have any information regarding private servers or who to talk to join a private server I would love you like a brother. I miss this game more than anything in my life. It was such a huge part of me to have it taken away was literally like losing a close family member or friend.
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A) BABs
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 +
*'''This is crazy! Thank you for helping make literally my favorite game of all time better on a consistent basis. You and the other developers were a massive part of my teenage life and I cannot thank you guys enough for doing such a great job.
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Thank you for helping enrich my playtime and providing a living for all those years.
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 +
*'''I played on Virtue because the roleplaying community was so immersive and honestly a great group of people. However I noticed as time went on the "big name" roleplayers started mingling with the developing team regularly, or so they claimed, these people include Golden Girl and Captain Valor. Is there any truth to this? If this is true, did they have any influence on decisions for patches? Such as costumes or even gameplay?
 +
 
 +
I know the names, but I don't know of anyone like that having a direct influence on decisions. Generally, they were things we wanted to do anyway, like costume change emotes, power customization, etc.
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*'''Arcana is a huge part of the titan network and was apparently involved with the developer team quite heavily. Her knowledge of the game and the coding seems to be larger than any other player I'm aware of. I suppose my question is that similar to the big name roleplayers, how much influence did she have (if any) on how the game conitinued its development? Did you personally ever interact with her?
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We communicated a lot with Arcana. Really sharp player. I pinged her a lot for basic math help for all sorts of things.
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I think we even contracted with her to design a whole procedural rewards system for...shit, what was it...architect missions maybe? That was kind of done hush hush. Dunno if it was ever made public knowledge. So as far as players having a direct influence on the game...yeah, she definitely did.
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Fun Arcana story. After I got laid off, I sent her a signed box copy of Going Rogue. She sent me a bunch of goodies from Hawaii. Koana cofee is delicious. SPAM flavored peanuts, not so much.
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*'''Lastly, and I realize this has been asked by so many people most likely, but if you have any information regarding private servers or who to talk to join a private server I would love you like a brother. I miss this game more than anything in my life. It was such a huge part of me to have it taken away was literally like losing a close family member or friend.
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I have no information about private servers. Honestly.
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To be frank, if I had any way to liberate the code for the game servers and release it into the wild, I would be sorely tempted to do so right now. It's a damn shame that people can invest so much time, money, and passion into a game only to see it permanently locked out of ever playing it again. Companies could totally figure out some way to keep minimal servers operational for players. From what I understand, even City of Heroes was eeking out a tiny profit up until the day it was shut down.
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:'''Q) ChanThe4th
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:'''First of all thank you for the answers! Still helping the CoH community all these years later :P If you don't mind I just have a couple more questions for you, if you don't have the time I'll completely understand!
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:'''Was there any other player outside of Arcana that was helping out development that more or less went un-noticed? Or perhaps somebody that played a major role from the shadows sort of thing?
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:'''Were there ever any major arguements between developers that lead to something either being intergrated or not? I realize saying who they were might be frowned upon professionally but if you don't mind I'd love to know who! Or maybe even who the hardest to work with was?
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:'''What was the biggest difference between the early stages of CoH compared to when you left?
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:'''If you remember early on when Jack was running the game, what was he actually like? I vaguely remember him having the opinion that releasing the numbers for powers and what have you would turn the game into just another cookie cutter, do you believe that or no?
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:*Companies could totally figure out some way to keep minimal servers operational for players. From what I understand, even City of Heroes was eeking out a tiny profit up until the day it was shut down.
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:'''I figure if companies had a license that was purchased by server owners to allow them to legally run the game it would solve so much issues, but companies like NCsoft seem like having any sort of legacy servers are a sin.
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:'''Once again just want to say thank you so much, honestly if the game somehow released again I'd break down in tears of joy. I really wish that was an overstatment. However reliving the old memories is all we got and I appreciate you helping me do so!
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:A) BABs
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:*'''Was there any other player outside of Arcana that was helping out development that more or less went un-noticed? Or perhaps somebody that played a major role from the shadows sort of thing?
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:Apart from other devs who were players, not that I'm personally aware of.
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:I mean, all of the players who were active on the forums helped shape the game through bug reports, feedbacks, suggestions, and general morale.
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:*'''Were there ever any major arguements between developers that lead to something either being intergrated or not?
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:Arguments? Not exactly. Certainly passionate disagreements about things, but I don't remember any really heated 'arguments' about any topic. I'm sure there's plenty of instances of things that got integrated that not everyone was on board with. Either because it was done in lieu of something else or because it was not the direction some thought we should go.
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:That's just inherent any any collaborative effort. Floyd and I used to get into conversations about nuances of powers all the time, but I always deferred to his decisions.
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:Now that I think about it, I guess there were a couple of people that I found occasionally challenging. But I'd rather not get into specifics. Professional thing. Sorry about that. Probably not anyone you'd suspect if that helps.
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:*'''Or maybe even who the hardest to work with was?
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:When I came on at Cryptic it was shortly after Issue 7 launched, and a good portion of the team was already being shifted over to Fight Club. I was part of the small, dedicated team for City of Heroes/City of Villains and later became one of the founding members of Paragon Studios.
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:In all of that time, I don't recall anyone being 'difficult' to work with. Everyone was generally open to feedback from players and especially the other members of the development team. Again, there'd be disagreements and someone like Matt or Ken would have to just make the call they felt was best, but I never felt undervalued or like I had no voice in the project.
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 +
:*'''What was the biggest difference between the early stages of CoH compared to when you left?
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:Difficult to say, as I was a player in the early stages of CoH (working at 2015 and later NetDevil) and only became a developer after City of Villains. So the game had already taken a pretty many significant departure long before I started working on it.
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:The game, like all games, developed fairly organically to try and appease the existing player base and/or attract new players.
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 +
:*'''If you remember early on when Jack was running the game, what was he actually like?
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 +
:I think overall people greatly overestimate how much direct influence Jack had in City of Heroes way after it initially launched. He was involved for some key discussions (I specifically remember his involvement during design meetings for inventions and the auction house), but was otherwise largely hands off up until NCSoft acquired the franchise and our team. I didn't work directly with Jack all that much. At either time.
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 +
:From my perspective, Jack has changed a lot over the years. Particularly after moving up into more studio-wide leadership positions at Cryptic. Was always impressed with his competency in that area and Cryptic has managed to weather many shaky moments that I've seen destroy plenty of other studios.
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 +
:I do remember him once getting an intern to make photocopies of some Warhammer maps and Ken getting really pissed when he found out about it. We were eeking by with a tiny crew and could have totally used the extra hand.
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'''Q) Tony_Vz
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'''Ooh, I have a bunch! I was going to ask what you're up to these days, but you answered that above. Congrats on being picked up by Deep Silver Volition! I haven't played Saints Row, but I've had several people tell me it's awesome.
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 +
'''I know several other folks whose names were very familiar have scattered. Do you guys still keep in touch with each other beyond a "I might need them for networking in case I need another job" capacity, even though everyone has gone in different directions, many literally? How gruesome is that, being in an industry where you typically get laid off every year or two, and knowing that you might have to pick up and move a couple thousand miles for your next job?
 +
 
 +
'''Paragon Studios always struck me as a particularly tight-knit crew, more than just a group of developers who happened to work with each other. Not being a member of the game developer community and myself having worked for megacorporations for the past couple of decades, is that kind of thing the norm or the exception in the game development industry? Or is that just a misperception, was working for Paragon Studios fun with some folks you liked, but at the end of the day, still just a job?
 +
 
 +
'''Also, how does the City of Heroes community compare to others you've dealt with? I mean, I know you probably won't say any bad things about us (at least, I hope not...), but in terms of things like how forgiving we were of mistakes, how influential we were in game development decisions, how demanding we were of new content and mechanics, how interactive we were with developers, how supportive we were of not just the game, but the developers and publisher, that kind of thing? After all these years, what still sticks out to you as, "Man, those City of Heroes folks, they were really different because of that"?
 +
 
 +
'''As for the game itself, can you ever remember a time when something was unpopular, but you knew in your heart that it was what had to be for the long-term health of the game? Was there ever a time when you just had to dig in and refuse to change something, or change something that was broken, because you genuinely felt you knew better than the community? Was there ever a time when you did something that was unpopular that later reflecting on it, you thought, "I was wrong," and wished you could go back and undo?
 +
 
 +
'''Thanks again a ton for your work on the game and support of the community, and we wish you nothing but the best at DSV and in the future!
 +
 
 +
A) BABs
 +
 
 +
*'''I know several other folks whose names were very familiar have scattered. Do you guys still keep in touch with each other beyond a "I might need them for networking in case I need another job" capacity, even though everyone has gone in different directions, many literally? How gruesome is that, being in an industry where you typically get laid off every year or two, and knowing that you might have to pick up and move a couple thousand miles for your next job?
 +
 
 +
Wish I could say yes, but I've never been good at this. We moved around a lot when I was a kid and I never developed the ability to maintain friendships over long distances.
 +
 
 +
Honestly, I'm not that good at maintaining friendships over short distances. Large part of why I got married, so I'd always have at least one friend no matter what... :P
 +
 
 +
*'''Paragon Studios always struck me as a particularly tight-knit crew, more than just a group of developers who happened to work with each other. Not being a member of the game developer community and myself having worked for megacorporations for the past couple of decades, is that kind of thing the norm or the exception in the game development industry? Or is that just a misperception, was working for Paragon Studios fun with some folks you liked, but at the end of the day, still just a job?
 +
 
 +
It depends. Some small studios are really tight-knit. Some large studios manage it. Some small studios rarely interact with each other outside of work.
 +
 
 +
It's really difficult for a company to feel that way when there are over 50 people working there. At it's peak, Paragon got big enough that I no longer knew everyone's name, and my circle of people that I considered to be more than 'workplace proximity acquaintances' become more cliquish. But I always felt Paragon felt more like a family than a corporation. I remember the shock I felt when Rachel was let go. Even screwed up and sent a 'WTH?!' email to the whole company rather than just Ken like I intended.
 +
 
 +
*'''Also, how does the City of Heroes community compare to others you've dealt with?
 +
 
 +
Amazing, imo.
 +
 
 +
*'''I mean, I know you probably won't say any bad things about us (at least, I hope not...),
 +
 
 +
The hell I wouldn't. You guys could be a right bunch of assholes at times. But I always tried to remember that people who don't give a shit about the game aren't complaining about it on the forums.
 +
 
 +
*'''After all these years, what still sticks out to you as, "Man, those City of Heroes folks, they were really different because of that"?
 +
 
 +
I admired how hard they fought to keep the game alive and preserve it's memory even today.
 +
 
 +
*'''As for the game itself, can you ever remember a time when something was unpopular, but you knew in your heart that it was what had to be for the long-term health of the game?
 +
 
 +
*'''Was there ever a time when you just had to dig in and refuse to change something
 +
 
 +
No. But I do have a story related to this. Shortly after I started at Cryptic, they decided to add cat ears as a costume accessory. Jay made some cat ears, for female models. We said cool, now we need to port them over for male costumes.
 +
 
 +
Jay planted his heels and refused. For him, cat ears on male characters was a bad idea. What ensued was a lengthy argument over email about this, with Jay posting pictures of effeminate men and crossdressers wearing cutesy cat ears. The debate started to heat up.
 +
 
 +
Then someone posted a number of examples of bad ass characters with 'cat ears', like Black Panther.
 +
 
 +
That ended the debate, and the ears got ported over. After that, Jay never argued against porting things over between genders.
 +
 
 +
*'''change something that was broken, because you genuinely felt you knew better than the community?
 +
 
 +
Not me personally, but we certainly made changes like that all the time. The community, for all their passion, just didn't have the same access to the big picture and data that we had. They weren't as personally vested in the success of the game. If CoH shut down, they'd be sad...but life would go on. We'd be out of work. Literally looking for a new paycheck.
 +
 
 +
Two very different mindsets there. Hopefully, if things go right, we're in agreement the vast majority of the time. But while many people might think they really wanted to be completely omnipotent, when given absolute power and no challenge, the game becomes boring, pointless, and you walk away from it. So we were always trying to find ways to give large moments of gameplay that involved a lot of cannon fodder and made you feel unstoppable, balanced against different levels of challenge for people to overcome.
 +
 
 +
*'''Was there ever a time when you did something that was unpopular that later reflecting on it, you thought, "I was wrong," and wished you could go back and undo?
 +
 
 +
I think I mentioned limiting the color palette for some of the power customization. I'm sure we got a bit to zealous with trying to make very fine balance adjustments to random powers. The later was really done with the intention of avoiding the 'City of X' builds that so many complained about.
 +
 
 +
It's a tough place to be. The game hinges around creating a personal super hero. People need to feel more powerful than everyone else, that's part of the fantasy. But when your choices are overshadowed by someone else who's tapped into an imbalance in design, that cheapens the gratification. Then when you try and balance the power, the people who've built up an identity centered around those powers/powersets without regard for their balance feel like they're being singled out.
 +
 
 +
Really no way to win...
 +
 
 +
*'''Thanks again a ton for your work on the game and support of the community, and we wish you nothing but the best at DSV and in the future!
 +
 
 +
Thank you.
 +
 
 +
'''Q) Sin_Stalker
 +
 
 +
'''Hey BABs, Maybe you recognize my name, or perhaps I wasn't even a blimp on your radar but I wanted to say Hi. You were my favorite dev, ever since I found out you played on Justice and that it was you who RP'ed as Manticore on Xmas with my friend Biosphere and myself. That interaction inspired my first story idea for my comic (that used coh screen shots). I remember very much wanting you of all people to read it. Of course the story sucks and I'm (slow goings) trying to remake it into something better that I can be more proud of. Its a fun hobby and good practice for if I ever write comics (the dream). So I was wondering if you ever ended up reading that little comic of mine? Not an issue if you didn't. In fact I kind of hope you didn't, so I can show you the better version I come out with. That's scheduled to be released around... december 2042. Give or take a decade... (RL can be a drain). :) Anyways, thanks again for being the coolest and best dev I've ever had in any game!
 +
 
 +
A) BABs
 +
 
 +
*'''Hey BABs, Maybe you recognize my name, or perhaps I wasn't even a blimp on your radar but I wanted to say Hi.
 +
 
 +
Of course I remember you.
 +
 
 +
*'''That interaction inspired my first story idea for my comic (that used coh screen shots). I remember very much wanting you of all people to read it.
 +
 
 +
And I remember the comic as well. Not any of the specifics, just that you spent the time to make it and send us a copy.
 +
 
 +
'''Q) slickriptide
 +
 
 +
'''Hi, Chris.
 +
 
 +
'''Dunno if you're still taking questions, but I thought I'd mention that I really appreciated your work and your willingness to engage with the player community. Sorry to hear you were called on the carpet about it. The day I wrote you with a suggestion that, "Wouldn't it be easy to just do X?" and you not only replied but you wrote back, "No, because our server works like this:" and you gave me some technical insight into how the game actually operated, that pretty much spoiled me for interacting with the devs of every game I've played since then.
  
On April 24th, 2015, Positron released a [https://twitter.com/MMODesigner/status/591725359634075648 tweet] with a link to a [http://goo.gl/forms/B3k5ebv5Zy Google Docs form] for submitting questions. The form was open until April 28th, and players were limited to one "lore related (not business, development, or systems / powers)" question. Upon submitting a question, the form noted that answers would be "made available sometime the week of May 3rd."
+
'''What was your favorite powerset or costume set to work on or the one you felt the most attachment to?
  
On May X, Positron released a DOC with the 2015 AMA. The devs that answered are:
+
A) BABs
  
* Matt, a.k.a. [[Positron (Developer)|Positron ]]
+
*'''What was your favorite powerset or costume set to work on or the one you felt the most attachment to?
* probably others
+
  
The fourth Lore AMA at its time of release (May Xth, 2015) is as follows:
+
As a player, I'll always feel an attachment to Inv/SS because that was my main character.
  
{{hidden|Title of AMA 2015|bg1=#ccccff|content=LORE AMA TO BE INSERTED HERE - GO ASK YOUR QUESTION NOW!!!}}
+
Professionally, I touched just about every powerset. Dealt with every animation, every visual effect. I worked on player powers, enemy powers, emotes. It's impossible for me to single one out as memorable.
  
==See Also==
+
I really liked doing things no one else had figured out. Weapon customization, power customization, costume change emotes/FX...that sort of thing. I remember animating a sail on a ship one of the ancient wood ships because that was something I'd never done before.}}
  
 +
== See Also ==
 
* [[Canon Fodder]]
 
* [[Canon Fodder]]
 
* [[Story Bible]]
 
* [[Story Bible]]
* The apparent first recorded use of the term "Loregasm" in the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWBDKYq1VZw Signature Story Arc ViDoc Outtakes (YouTube link - full video)] or [https://youtu.be/bWBDKYq1VZw?t=199 Signature Story Arc ViDoc Outtakes (YouTube link - Loregasm part of video)]
 
  
 +
== External Links ==
 +
* The apparent first recorded use of the term "Loregasm" in the [http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x31reb2 Signature Story Arc ViDoc Outtakes] (The "loregasm" section is at 3:19)
 +
* [http://mcdesignertales.blogspot.com/ Dr. Aeon's blog] detailing game industry stories, including City of Heroes behind the scenes insight.
 
[[Category:Lore]]
 
[[Category:Lore]]

Latest revision as of 02:52, 25 April 2019

Overview

The Lore AMA (Ask Me Anything), or "Loregasm", is a series of documents created by Positron to answer questions City of Heroes players had about the game's story following the Sunset announcement.

In the thread announcing its creation, Positron stated that anything it contains "SHOULD be considered canon when concerning anything to do with Issue 24 and previous. Anything after that is speculative and should be treated as such. We'll note in the answer if it's anything different." On September 18th, 2012, Positron posted a link to the first Lore AMA as a Google Doc in a City of Heroes forums thread.

In a 2012 interview of Positron and War Witch at OnRPG discussing the closure of the game, Positron stated that he would do yearly AMAs as long as people had questions:

Balloon.png MeticulousMeta: There are still a lot of questions after the Lore AMA. Is there any chance of getting another?

Matt: I’ll make a deal: I’ll do AMA’s about CoH lore every April 28th until the questions stop coming in. I’ll give more details as we get closer to that date, and I can’t promise everyone who should be involved will be.

AMA by Year

EdLetter.png Editor's Note:

This page contains the text of the documents as they appeared at release. A list of the questions linked to by topic and developer can be found here: Lore AMA/Sorted.

Be advised that there are spoilers for existing and future content contained within the AMA documents.

AMA: 2012

The first Lore AMA was linked in a forum post by Positron titled "Loregasm" and includes a key of the answering developers' initials:

Chatballoon-Dev.png
Positron (Developer) (From the initial post from the forum thread announcing the AMA)
City of Heroes AMA 2012

That's a link to the doc, in case these boards get shut down, and because I don't want to clean it up for our forum posting format (if someone ELSE does, feel free to pad your postcount).

Some answers are not satisfying. Some answers are made up, and that answer only exists in that doc. I tried to get everyone who was involved in the stuff at the end to answer the questions as best they could.

MM: Matt Miller (Positron)
JH: John Hegner (Protean)
JAH: Jeff Hamilton (Arbiter Hawk)
SM: Sean McCann (Dr. Aeon)
RG: Ryan Greene (Viridian)
TS: Tim Sweeney (Black Scorpion)

If there is a miracle and somehow CoH is saved, we reserve the right to change any and all answers given in the doc, to maintain suspense and surprise.

The Lore AMA itself at its time of release (September 18th, 2012) is as follows:

AMA: 2013

After taking questions in an open Google Doc, the first of the yearly AMAs was announced at OnRPG on May 3rd, 2013, and released as a closed Google Doc. In most cases, the name of the dev giving an answer is listed after the answer. The devs that answered are:

EdLetter.png Editor's Note:

This is the most likely list of developers who answered AMA 2, as there are multiple devs with some of those first names. Some questions do not have a dev name, and it can be assumed that they were answered by Positron unless the context indicates otherwise. Several questions were unable to be answered, and are marked as "Answer hazy, ask again later (Matt because he couldn’t find someone to answer this right now)."

The second Lore AMA at its time of last revision (May 7, 2013) is as follows:

AMA: 2014

An unofficial thread was started on the Titan Network forums for gathering questions. Positron was contacted and said: "I plan on doing it a bit differently this year. Doc will only be up for a short window." On April 17, 2014, at 8:45 AM PDT, Positron posted a Google Doc that he left open for only 24 hours. Positron also put in some general rules for asking questions, largely prohibiting questions not related to the game's lore:

Following the initial 24 hour period, there were 76 questions. A copy of the document seven minutes before its takedown for answering can be found in a Google Doc. Positron noted in a tweet on April 23rd, 2104, that all questions for the 2014 AMA had answers.

On April 28th, 2014, the tenth anniversary of City of Heroes, Positron released the answered questions as a Google doc. The devs that answered are:


The third Lore AMA at its time of last revision (April 28th, 2014) is as follows:

AMA: 2015

On April 24th, 2015, Positron released a tweet with a link to a Google Docs form for submitting questions. The form was open until April 28th, and players were limited to one "lore related (not business, development, or systems / powers)" question. Upon submitting a question, the form noted that answers would be "made available sometime the week of May 3rd." After the form was closed, it told players that it was not accepting further submissions, but to "Try again next year!"

On May 17th, 2015 Positron released a Google Doc with the 2015 AMA answers. The devs that answered are:

The fourth Lore AMA at its time of release (May 17th, 2015) is as follows:

AMA: 2016

Positron posted a Google Doc form in an unofficial thread on the Titan Network forums.

On April 28th, 2016, Positron released a Google Doc with the 2016 AMA answers. The devs that answered are:

The fifth Lore AMA at its time of release (April 28th, 2016) is as follows:

Back Alley Brawler reddit AMA

On 2016-04-29 Back Alley Brawler began answering questions about City of Heroes in an informal AMA. Although he framed it as an AMA, some of the responses are more conversational in nature, but still reveal interesting information about the game and the culture of Paragon Studio.

EdLetter.png Editor's Note:

When looking at the original reddit thread, the answers may sometimes be hard to find when the threads grow larger. CTRL+F (and keep tapping F3 thereafter) to find the phrase "load more comments" and click those to view his answers; you can also F3 cycle through the phrase "CBruce" once all comments are loaded.

The questions he has answered as of August 8, 2018 are:

See Also

External Links