It isn't often that we, the fans, get the opportunity to interact with an MMO developer on a nearly one-on-one basis. MMORPG.com is proud to provide our readers with exactly that with today's debut of the Matt Miller column. Yes, -that- Matt Miller. See what he's got to say with his unique perspective on the industry and then say hello in the comments!

Hello readers of MMORPG.com! Some of you may know who I am, and a lot of you may not. My name is Matt Miller, and for the past 9 years, I have gone by the pseudonym of Positron while working on the game “City of Heroes” for both Cryptic Studios and Paragon Studios. I was Lead Designer for the game for almost 5 years, and before that I worked both on Systems for the game as well as creating missions and story arcs for players to participate in.

Read more Matt Miller: Greetings and Salutations.

Hi, enjoyed CoH a lot back in the day.  I've got a question since you asked, a general one, your thoughts on the direction MMO's are taking, and what you feel the next evolution needs to be?  

The answer to your first question seems simple, if you know what you are getting you will only buy it once. 

hi Matt.  are you planning on getting back into mmo development?  Are you able to give us exact reasons why NCsoft shut down COH.  Do you and the rest of the team have a plan for a coh 2 and looking for investors or is it just move on time. 

My mmo question is why do devs keep copying a 8 year old game when they try to make a mmo despite how many wow clones have failed over the years?  Do you think we will see a company that is willing to break the mold and try something different and give us a triple a game that isnt wow, something back along the lines of uo, eq, ac, swg, daoc, a true mmo instead of a single player game?

Originally posted by hardicon

My mmo question is why do devs keep copying a 8 year old game when they try to make a mmo despite how many wow clones have failed over the years?  Do you think we will see a company that is willing to break the mold and try something different and give us a triple a game that isnt wow, something back along the lines of uo, eq, ac, swg, daoc, a true mmo instead of a single player game?

 

Well met Matt!

Hardicon beat me to my original question, so i'll have to fall back on question #2 :)

Neverwinetr Online is launching with user created content right out of the shoot.  The idea (at least to me) seems brillant from a developement point of view.  It allows the developers to put out a decent game (least i hope it's decent) and then have the players continually create new content for that game a little or no charge to the company.  This should also allow the developement team to work on fixing bugs and concentrate on the next actual game expansion.

My question(s) is do you see this as a future trend in gaming developement for more games in the future, and are there any other trends in the mmo developement community that have you excited as well?

Matt I truly miss cox, from farming randomly with a friend to doing the raids to hunting badges and doing trials, who can ever forget costume's and their contests!

Regarding unlockable containers and stores:  Curiosity killed the cat, we are an intelligent species we like to treasure hunt and find out whats inside the magic box.  Gambling can also be attributed to these items, ie we gamble with our money in order to gain a reward and adrenaline rush to receieve an item greater than the cost.

This new way to sell to us is not something I will ever enjoy, while sure I enjoy recieving a nice purple IO recipie drop I can sell on the market or make for myself, I would not invest money into unlocking an item or purchase something that I did not know what was in the bag. On the same subject I would not purchase a "key" to unlock something which I knew what was inside.

To quote "its a trap" , it is a bonefide money sink trap.

Is there any hope for an MMO museum some day?  A sort of "netflicks of MMOs" for old games?  Or are the business, licensing, technical and security issues simply too complex to hope for  retired games to ever be packagable in a way that would leave them accessable to future generations of gamers seeking to explore the history of the genre hands-on.

Welcome to MMORPG.com Matt. It's always cool when someone from the "inside" posts articles here.

So, off to the question. Super hero MMOs don't seem to fare especially well. They also seem to be very bright and colorful, kind of like an 80s comic book. Do you think these two things are related? Do you think a super hero MMO would fare better if it went through a "gritty reboot"?

Alrighty, here's one from me;

Why do so many MMOs' activities pivot around random drop collections, and how did City of Heroes manage to avoid that?

Originally posted by lizardbones

Welcome to MMORPG.com Matt. It's always cool when someone from the "inside" posts articles here.

So, off to the question. Super hero MMOs don't seem to fare especially well. They also seem to be very bright and colorful, kind of like an 80s comic book. Do you think these two things are related? Do you think a super hero MMO would fare better if it went through a "gritty reboot"?

I'm tempted to try and offer my opinion on that, but I'm worried that I might end up threadjacking. Would anyone object the attempt?

Originally posted by TheQuinch

Originally posted by lizardbones

Welcome to MMORPG.com Matt. It's always cool when someone from the "inside" posts articles here.

So, off to the question. Super hero MMOs don't seem to fare especially well. They also seem to be very bright and colorful, kind of like an 80s comic book. Do you think these two things are related? Do you think a super hero MMO would fare better if it went through a "gritty reboot"?

I'm tempted to try and offer my opinion on that, but I'm worried that I might end up threadjacking. Would anyone object the attempt?

It would probably thread jack

Finally somebody who can actually speak about games, having actually beein in the dev process.   I look forward to what all you can say.

So here is my question for you.  

Why do developers try to cut and paste so much.  Say for instance we had swtor who took 5 years in development, who gave us a game that was already based on another games model. EQ, and EQ2.   Why do developers try to always try to base there games on this concept. 

After all you see the threads, it is wow with a swtor wrapper so forth and so on. 

I have many other questions but honestly I don't have time to write a 30 page document filled with questions. 

     Hi Positron and welcome to the site.  So my question:

  My 2007 Hyndai Accent GLS has this awful shudder  when ever I get it above 3k rpm.  Checking the tranny fluid..no metal shards and no shards in the filter.  What should be my next area to check?  :)

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Originally posted by steelheartx

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Originally posted by TheQuinch

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Originally posted by lizardbones Welcome to MMORPG.com Matt. It's always cool when someone from the "inside" posts articles here. So, off to the question. Super hero MMOs don't seem to fare especially well. They also seem to be very bright and colorful, kind of like an 80s comic book. Do you think these two things are related? Do you think a super hero MMO would fare better if it went through a "gritty reboot"?

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I'm tempted to try and offer my opinion on that, but I'm worried that I might end up threadjacking. Would anyone object the attempt?

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It would probably thread jack

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I got a laugh at this quote: " that the end result of almost all business ventures (including games) is to make money".

It seems that is the first thing people forget whether they be developers or fans.  Even happens in the business world quite regularly.

I would think a big problem for any development staff is convincing investors their ideas and designs will make money.  That is an area where a lot of indie game designers fail at.  Of course all the investors can see is the 800 pound gorilla in the genre and they want a game to copy that success.  Being innovative is not at the top of their list.

Hi Matt. How is hardware effecting what and how designers are allowed to do in game. With Moores law in full effect the bottom of the barrel machines of today are many many times better than even the top end when CoH launched, combined with general increases in engine and software capabilities how is it effecting your design process? PhysX has been around for a couple years, and by extension things like Apex, yet we are just now seeing them making the barest of peeks into the mmo genre. Why are these not utilized more? Is it truly that expensive or even time consuming to try to future proof games just a tad when generally you are looking at a 5 year development cycle, and atleast 5 years of being "live"? Many games like Eq and WoW have went out of their way to try to utilize some techniques to keep the games looking atleast somewhat fresh along the way but many do not.