Senior Designer Bruce Harlick has answered many questions from City of Heroes/Villains players in the latest installment of "Ask a Dev," and he focused mainly on intricacies of creating interesting story arcs and missions.

When asked about the future direction of the game from the point of view of a storyteller, Harlick said that he really wants to explore some of the back story of existing characters. "You’re going to see some missions from me that deal with that," he said. "I hope to get a chance to move between characters and get more of their stories into the game."

As far as the differences between player-created missions through the Mission Architect feature and developer-created missions, Harlick said that, " we’ll push the envelop as far as we can here and use the resources we have, and the new resources we can get, to create kicking new Story Arcs and missions that go beyond what you can do in Mission Architect."

The full "Ask a Dev" article can be found here or below. Also, submit your questions for the Oct. 21 article with Senior Animator/VFX Artist Chris Bruce here.

Bruce: I was asked a lot of questions about Mission Architect. They were a lot of good questions, but I don’t think it’s really appropriate for me to answer them, since Hero 1 has been doing the design work on that feature. So I’m going to concentrate on answering other things.


Question from Neuronia - When you script missions, is there a 'standard script' for various mission objectives that you can 'cut and paste' or does each mission require individual tweaking?

Bruce: We have standard mission objectives built into our mission template; we can select which of them (and how many of them) we want to use when designing a mission. We can also do quite a bit with custom spawn definitions and scripts to make interesting things happen. That takes more work than just using the stuff that’s in the template, but lets us really fiddle with the mission setup and design.


Question from Lady_Sadako - With the Mission Architect coming in Issue 13, the bar of player expectation from the Devs is going to be raised, because we'll be able to see how the basic missions are done. We won't be able to go into some of the old missions any more without thinking 'Map type: Warehouse, Enemy Group: Council, Mission Type: Boss Defeat... hey, I could have written this myself!'

So what new tricks and features are the incoming missions going to have, which players CAN'T access? In other words, how are you going to keep Dev-made mission content special, other than just through the quality of the writing and the canonicity?

Bruce: Well, the mission designers have access to a much larger set of tools then are included with the Mission Architect. While you’ll be able to do plenty of fun stuff with Mission Architect, we at NCNorCal have access to programmers and artists who can tell us if our really neat idea is worthy of having some custom programming or art done for it. Of course, all of those people aren’t at our exclusive beck and call, and have to balance the reasonableness of our requests with the demands of their other work. It’s all about tradeoffs. With that in mind, we’ll push the envelop as far as we can here and use the resources we have, and the new resources we can get, to create kicking new Story Arcs and missions that go beyond what you can do in Mission Architect.


Question from the EU: What missions /storyarcs already in the game are you responsible for?

Bruce: I wrote the new Cimerora Story Arcs for Issue 13. That will be the first of my work in the game.


Question from the EU: What do you mean by "systems to help support missions"?

Bruce: I probably should have said “…systems to help support stories.” Being a mission designer involves more than just writing missions; we work on the various game systems that go into making missions as well. One example of that would be something like the Mayhem missions. Those puppies are quite different than the normal mission, and required some new systems to support what they do, such as the side missions you get on them, the timing stuff, etc. A more extreme example is the Mission Architect. The way that system works was mainly designed by Hero 1 who worked with Pohsyb and others to get it implemented.

The systems design may include small enhancements to the way our mission encounters work to larger systems as mentioned above. I can’t talk specifically about the large systems I’m working on (as it hasn’t been announced), but it’s a combination of new systems and mission content to bring you all some fun new stuff.

Meanwhile, I’ll continue to find small stuff I want to do in missions, write up a design for it, and see if I can’t get code to implement it for me. For me it’s the perfect balance of content and systems creation. It’s all fun stuff and I’m glad I get a chance to do both.


Question from Cosmic_Herald - Bruce, where will City Of.. be going direction wise from a story writer point of view such as yourself?

Bruce: Well, one thing I really want to do is further explore some of the back story of existing characters. You’re going to see some missions from me that deal with that. I hope to get a chance to move between characters and get more of their stories into the game.

Speaking of stories, I’m a big sucker for classic superhero stories, of heroes facing overwhelming odds and being forced to make tough moral choices, and of villains being offered a chance to walk the path to redemption. I like to explore what makes good good, and what makes evil evil, and just how hard it is to walk the narrow line between the two. You’ll certainly be seeing stories about that kind of thing from me in the future.


Question from Lady_Athyna - If you can answer, is there any possibility of branching stories, where a different mission depending on the outcome of the previous mission is offered next?

Bruce: Oh, I’d love to see branching stories in the game, where the player choices dictated what came next in the story. It’s a thorny problem though. For one thing, it greatly magnifies the number of missions needed for any story arc. Any time you have a branch, you’re doubling (at the minimum) the amount of content you need to create and you end up creating content that only a fraction of the player base is going to see. There are also technical issues; for example, branching stories work well in single-player games, but can lead to trouble in a multi-player game. What happens if half the team goes down one branch and the other half down the other? Do you just let the team leader make the decision? What happens if the TL makes a decision that the rest of the team doesn’t agree with?

I think there is a way to solve some of the technical issues. It would be fun to write an arc that branches in the middle depending on the success or failure on a mission. (Of course, players understandably hate to fail, but it would probably be acceptable if the failure lead to something different and cool…) It’s all fuel for future missions.


Question from Storm_Revenant - The use of cut scenes in a very sparse number of missions is a shame, will this feature be supported for the Architect system for I13?

Bruce: There’s a reason why cut scenes are sparse; they are extremely time intensive. They require the use of specific maps, access to the map editor to set up the cameras, and a lot of scripting work. So you won’t be seeing cut scenes supported in the initial release of the Mission Architect.

We’re looking to streamline the process and make it easier for us to create cut scenes, so we can use them more effectively to help tell fun stories in the future.


Question from Obsidius - As a formerly avid P&P fan, often characters and themes from my P&P sessions have inspired me in CoX, even though the genres between my P&P games and CoX are completely different.

As a creative thinker, does this happen to you? From what kind of P&P ideas have you drawn inspiration? Do you find yourself using elements from P&P sessions in your storylines, missions or writing? Do you find yourself taking some old P&P ideas and turning them on their edge to give them a new spin?

Bruce: Oh, definitely. One of the beautiful things about computer RPGs is that they are not pen and paper RPGs. That means you can take a great idea from a pen and paper game and figure out a way to use it again in a computer game. It might be a story, scenario, or character – whatever. Its fun to run into characters you gamed with in a computer game. I remember playing the campaigns that spawned Positron, Synapse, Infernal, and some other characters now in CoH.

Of course, you likely won’t be seeing some of my classic characters in CoH; they were created during my days working for Hero Games and I no longer have the rights to any of them. But I have plenty of characters and stories left to draw from, and I can’t wait to begin to start infusing them into CoH.


Question from MentalMaden - What is your forum persona going to be?

Bruce: Well, I want to find a Red name that’s personal to me. So I’ll wait until I need to post on the forums to choose my Red name, and it will likely be some character I’ve created.


Question from the EU Do you play any other pen & paper RPG like DD4?

Bruce: I’m a big fan of pen and paper RPGs and still actively play them. These days, our games fall more into the once every two weeks to once a month schedule as opposed to the once a week (or more!) schedule we used to have. I’m currently playing Dungeons & Dragons (both 3.5 and 4th), Amber Diceless Roleplaying, a World of Darkness game, and a few others. I also run a couple of D&D games, one a long-running 3.5 campaign and one a new 4th edition game for some of my co-workers here at NCNorCal.


Question from Hellsminion_CoH - The picture on your cube wall looks like you had a rockin' fu manchu/pornstache! What happened to it? Or is that not you?

Bruce: Yeah, about that... so when I was at LucasArts working on the upcoming Indiana Jones game, one of the other designers was challenged to grow a “Sonny Bono” mustache. This lead to a lot of speculation on what various people would look like with mustaches and other facial hair. This lead to a lot of Photoshop pranking. I foolishly mentioned that I had had a mustache when I was 18, which prompted Rob Clarke, our lead environment artist, to create that little art piece you see in my picture. It’s a souvenir of my time with the Indy team.


Question from Star_Sentinel - Which summer super-hero movie was your favorite?

Bruce: I loved both Iron Man and Dark Knight this summer. Two excellent superhero movies. We’re really in a place where they are making some great superhero movies. I think Dark Knight was probably the better movie, but I found Iron Man to be more fun. So, my nod goes to Iron Man.


Question from Ozmosis - If you could have a super power in real life, what would it be?

Bruce: I love to travel, so I’d like to be able to teleport. I want that awesome long-distance teleport; the kind where you can just think yourself from San Francisco to Rome in a heartbeat. That would be awesome. If I could do that, I’d be eating a lot of meals in Rome and Florence...

The other super power I want is super-wealth!


Question: Blue or Red?

Bruce: Blue. I’m a hero at heart.


Question from Definitive - Who is your fav character in comics, ever, from the beginning of comic books?

Bruce: I have two, Spider-man and Batman. I’m a huge fan of the Dark Knight and I love the soap opera of the Spider-man saga (at least, I did before that One More Day stuff.) Spider-man feels like the most real superhero to me; he’s an everyman given great powers... and great responsibility. The concept of Batman, the highly trained guy looking for revenge on the faceless forces of crime that killed his parents is also very cool, and I really enjoy the well-written Batman stuff.


Question from Manbearpig - It seems that all past pictures of the team are taken from the knees up. Is this an attempt to hide the ball and chain or shackles?

Bruce: Feet are boring.


Question from EternalGreen - your desk is WAY too neat! Did you clean it up just for the photo?

Bruce: Nope. That’s just the way it is. It gets messier at times, and neater at times. Right now it’s covered with papers, comic books, a D&D book, and a cookbook.


Question from Arcanine - I wanted to ask what advice you have for those of us who want to spend our careers creating market quality stories and adventures such as those that appear as COH story arcs and task forces (or just make extremely good story threads using the coming COH mission creator). In short, how do you develop and enhance the skills necessary to create compelling and driven plots for the COH missions?

Bruce: I’ll give you the same advice I give to everyone who asks me that question: just do it. Writers write and designers design. It’s the only way to get practice. It doesn’t matter if you don’t do anything with your writing or your design. The more you do it, the better you’ll get. Your first stuff will likely be horrible; that doesn’t matter. In the act of creating something, you’ll learn a lot. And you’ll get better and better.


In Closing:

Thanks to everyone for the excellent questions; I had a blast answering them. It’s great to be working with such a great dev team and on a game with such a fantastic player community. It’s a real privilege and pleasure to have this opportunity to work on City of Heroes/City of Villains; it’s wonderful to be back working with super hero (and super villain) games (my favorite type of game) and to be working on such an excellent project. I can’t wait to hear what you all think of my missions.

Fight the good fight, and if you don’t want to do that, make sure you don’t cut those do-gooders an even break.