Interview, Part Two

City of Villains Designer David "Zeb" Cook comes back for part two

Here in the second of our three part Q&A with David "Zeb" Cook of Cryptic Studios, our writer Neil Thompson asks him five more questions.

There are hundreds of items you can use to trick out your base. Some provide special functions for your base, others are there so you can give it the look you want. There are few items that are hero/villain specific, first because we wanted all supergroups access to useful game items and second because there's no defining a hero or villain style. If your villains want to work out of a stylish headquarters or your heroes set up shop in a grungy dump, that should be your choice not ours.

First, within each game we're providing some long requested enhancements to supergroups -- more ranks, more controls over who can do what, etc. and some special supergroup-only content. We want supergroups to come into their own with distinct personalities and purpose. For the community as a whole, we're adding 3 crossover zones at launch where heroes and villains can both go and take part in PvP play. Nor are we forgetting the PvE players. CoV players will see missions set in special instances of Paragon City to bring home the rivalry between the worlds of heroes and villains. With time, new missions for heroes will expose them to parts of the Rogue Isles.

Of course. We're already at work in design on where we go next. There will be continued support for CoV and CoH.

Getting PvP where we want it to be is no small concern for us. We want to make sure it feels fun for all sides. We've taken what we've learned from building, playing and watching the Arenas and improved on it. The different PvP zones are set at different power levels, so players will be more or less equal. There are goals and objectives in the PvP zones that do and don't relate to PvP itself. And each zone has different gameplay so that players can engage in the kind of action they want.

In general the team limit is still there. However, who you can attack depends on the zone. Some zones are strict hero vs. villain; others are free-for-all team vs. team. It is easy to imagine (especially in the hero/villian zones) large scale efforts between supergroup coalitions especially since some rewards can affect all members of the same side in a zone.

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