MMORPG.com: With the many villains-sometimes-heroes in the Marvel universe, what was it about the Juggernaut that made him a perfect fit for playable in Marvel Heroes?
Ryan Collins: Aside from being a personal favorite - Juggernaut is such an iconic villain in the Marvel Universe that it's hard to think of a Marvel game with so many playable characters NOT including him. In addition, thanks to his stints on the X-Men and Thunderbolts, he makes the perfect fit to our little roster of "heroes + sometimes heroes". We'll actually be addressing his, Venom's, and Magneto's heroic ways in an upcoming motion comic I can't fully spoil yet.
MMORPG.com: What were your design goals in bringing Juggernaut to life in the game? Did you run into any noteworthy challenges?
Ryan Collins: Our number one pillar of design for Juggernaut was that he needs to feel unstoppable. To us, that didn't just mean incredibly durable or hard to CC - we wanted to represent it in a variety of ways (although those are true as well). First and foremost - Juggernaut's Momentum resource encourages players to stay moving as much as possible, whether that's through big Lariats, charging, or his amazing movement power Stride (in which he runs in a full sprint, ignoring enemies and destroying environment objects), Juggernaut can ALWAYS be on the move. In addition to that, most of his powers don't require Momentum to be used but are instead enhanced by it, allowing him to use his powers at any time (though they may do less damage). You really get the feeling that you're not hindered by your resource like other heroes are.
As far as challenges go - the biggest challenge so far is balance! The Momentum resource doesn't function anything like our other resources such as Spirit or Fury, so making sure that all of his builds and powers are both fun/powerful and not completely insane is a very interesting balance. Though, I won't complain if he's a little too good. (Sorry, tuning team.)
MMORPG.com: Did fan feedback prior to Juggernaut’s appearance on Test Center change the design of the character in any way? Can you share any examples?
Ryan Collins: There were definitely some great ideas in our original pre-Test Center Juggernaut feedback thread - we make a feedback thread for every upcoming playable hero, so players can tell us what they'd like to see a hero do/say/look like. I really feel like our Juggernaut encompasses a lot of that feedback and a lot of what people could ever imagine for Juggernaut, along with our own spin. Things we made sure to include based on community feedback are his Ultimate (Trion Juggernaut which features him growing to immense size and busting holes in the dimension), and we made sure to get some iconic takes on his various punches, headbutts and handclaps (the aptly named Round of Applause).
MMORPG.com: Can you give us some examples of the fun builds you’ve found so far for Juggernaut?
Ryan Collins: My favorite build is a movement one - I use his Lariat Basic Power which is similar to other hero's dashes to move around enemies dealing damage and then I use my various layered powers such as Headbutt and Enter the Fray to apply DoTs before dropping all of my Momentum for a Big Elbow Drop. I'm also experimenting with his other 'finisher', Sunday Punch for a less movement focused build. Watching players stream him on Test Center was a pretty amazing experience, we've been theorycrafting all kinds of builds internally and it's awesome to see them in the wild being thought up by players.
MMORPG.com: Who is the voice actor for the Juggernaut? And did you take any inspiration from the infamous fan video released years ago for his lines?
Ryan Collins: Fred Tatasciore plays our Juggernaut, reprising his role from his boss fight from our story mode (and other game modes). As for those videos - we definitely make a few references towards those videos, nothing too over the top or offensive of course, but that's a pretty big part of Juggy's identity in pop culture, so I think fans would be pretty disappointed if we didn't allude to it in some way.
MMORPG.com: Will both player and enemy Juggernauts ask each other what invulnerable means when fighting?
Ryan Collins: Ha! You bet!
MMORPG.com: Which costumes will Juggernaut launch with? Can you discuss some costumes you’re looking to add for him down the line?
Ryan Collins: He will launch with his 'Unstoppable' costume as his default look, which is a Gazillion-created version of his modern costumes. It takes a lot from his more recent Thunderbolts and New Excalibur versions of his costumes, but with our own, more detailed spin. His other costume at launch is his 'Classic' costume, which is the crimson version of the costume you've come to know and love from comics, cartoons, and our boss in-game.
Down the line, we have his X-Men costume (grey + gold), and plans for his Fear Itself look as Kuurth.
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