Lore AMA/Sorted

Overview

This page contains answers to the Lore AMA sorted by topic. Because some answers have multiple topics, they will appear more than once on this page.

Future Storylines

What's the farthest Issue that was planned for, and what are the story arcs for each of the future issues (starting with I24, since I wasn't on Beta much )?

MM: Issue 25: Battalion arrives, Issue 26: Fight Battalion, Issue 27: Get your ass kicked by Battalion. Issue 28: Beat Battalion (from the moon!)

Were there actual plans for a moonbase?

MM: I approved art dailies from it on the last day of the studio. :( Issue 28.

RG: The funny thing is, our database had a value called MOONBASE that basically represented a build that didn’t exist in the system yet. It was a running gag that we would always be planning a moonbase, but it would never actually come to fruition. The plan for Issues 25-28 were the moment we hunkered down and said, “We’re actually going to do it this time!” We were... wrong.

Were there any plans to reincarnate States/Psyche or have someone else take over their mantle?

MM: Of the two, she’s the one that we most want to “bring back”

RG: People had bandied around ideas that at the last moment, Psyche managed to mind-ride someone and she was still alive. We never fully fleshed it out though.

STM: I never wanted either of them to stay dead, and many times I weeped/Charlie brown walked back to my desk when people asked me to come up with ideas of how Psyche could come back.

RG: Really? I seem to remember someone adamantly insisting that States was dead for good... :P

JAH I think he meant he did want them to stay dead... he got mad at me for wanting to bring Brian Webb back from the dead...

STM: Someone edited my stern response, which was, “They’re both staying dead and I never wanted either of them to come back. Ever.” I’m a firm believer in people staying dead when they die. I guess that’s why I write a lot of villain content.

JHH: I had wanted Tyrant/Cole to don Statesman’s mantle and redeem himself in the fight against Battalion, but nobody had really seriously discussed or explored that storyline more than Vanguard using Cole’s experience as the champion of Earth’s Well to get some insight into how Battalion functioned with the myriad wells at their disposal.

Battle Maiden joining up with Malta. What were to happen next? Nanite powered Malta Ultra-Sappers Two Kronos Titans merged together?

STM: I joked that Battle Maiden looked at Malta’s line up and went, “Why don’t you just use all sappers? Or install their technology in everything?” But seriously, the idea was that Malta needed a method to become “super” in the Incarnate arms race that had begun - the idea started in my mind when people asked why Malta could go toe to toe with them in the Tin Mage TF, which was a very valid point. The idea was that we would eventually do a new 50+ version of them using Nanite technology with FX inspired by Battle Maiden’s. There probably would’ve been minimal character art revamp time - most likely re-texturing on the Titans and a new piece or two for the soldiers. That’s just me speculating, however, but it’s what I would’ve pushed for.

Arachnos. With Statesman dead, Lord Recluse reunited with the Red Widow, Scirocco flirting with the side of good, and Ghost Widow's loyalty to Arachnos itself, but not its leadership, something was brewing. What was going to happen?

RG: I know that Dr. Aeon was pretty set on having Scirocco set up to become a good guy. We even had an entire Sig Story planned around it at one point. We had shaken up the Freedom Phalanx, but Arachnos was still in the same state as it was when CoV launched... we definitely wanted to make things feel more dynamic on the red side of things.

STM: I had an entire personal story in a playable state that was Scirocco going good, it was awesome. There were 13-14 missions, all fairly quick (i.e. less than 5 minutes) where you played as Scirocco. Here’s the breakdown of it:

- Scirocco discovers Mu’Vorkan’s plans to assassinate him and Ice Mistral. Mu’Vorkan recruits Tyrka/Evil Aurora and Mortimer Kal to help; Tryka/Evil Aurora under the premise of power, and Mortimer Kal under the premise that he’ll use his new position to save Mortimer’s daughter from the villain. Scirocco offers Mu’Vorkan a chance to stop, but Mu’Vorkan refuses and Scirocco defeats him.

- Scirocco sends a message to the Vindicators stating that Red Widow is going to assassinate the heads of the FBSA at a meeting where the FBSA is officially promoting Matthew Habashy. In a gesture of good will, Scirocco goes to the FBSA meeting to ensure Red Widow is stopped. He speaks with Ghost Widow beforehand, telling her that she can change and that the secret is that she’s bound to Arachnos, not to Recluse. GW lets Scirocco go, saying that he has to decide for himself what’s best, but that she won’t follow him nor stop him. Scirocco and Ice Mistral go to the FBSA and stop Red Widow’s plot after she manages to defeat the Shining Stars who were assigned to defense duty.

- Scirocco and Ice Mistral temporarily join the Vindicators, but are split up in order to avoid them possibly plotting anything. Valkryie is assigned as Ice Mistral’s mentor, while Infernal is Scirocco’s. Infernal, Scirocco, and Ice Mistral spend two missions fighting crime in Paragon, which was supposed to have the context of spanning multiple weeks. It’s focused that people just plain don’t like the fact that a high-ranking member of Arachnos is just allowed to walk in the streets. Serafina also mentions that Scirocco’s actions are helping him to unlock the final true power of the former Scirocco.

- After weeks of crime fighting, Scirocco returned to the studio apartment he had in Steel Canyon. He reads mail that he has, which most of it is hate mail against him, and he starts to wonder if it’s all worth it. He then reads a letter from the uncle of a man he saved, thanking him from the bottom of his heart. Before he can have a nice tender moment, he hears a THUD from outside his door, which is Infernal being knocked out. Red Widow appears, informing Scirocco that Ice Mistral has returned to the Rogue Isles. She vanishes, and Serafina appears shortly afterwards, having tracked down Red Widow. Scirocco says he’s going to the Rogue Isles to get Ice Mistral back. Before he goes, Serafina helps Scirocco unlock his final power, which is the creation of a 2nd sword. With that, he becomes the true Scirocco and gains new dual blade powers in the next missions.

- Scirocco confronts Ice Mistral, who says that it’s too hard to stay in Paragon and easier to be in the Isles where they have respect, power, and freedom. Scirocco tells Ice Mistral she’s wrong about all of that, and eventually they would get all of that back in Paragon. Mako shows up revealing that Recluse knew Scirocco would be back to get Ice Mistral. He makes an offer, which is to rejoin Arachnos or watch everyone he loves get killed. Scirocco chooses option C, beat down Mako then make a statement to Recluse. He defeats Mako, then tells Ice Mistral that she can do whatever she wants; she can stay in Arachnos, go to Paragon, or even just flee and go somewhere else. However, he pleads with her to look into her heart and do what’s truly best for her. He then leaves, saying that he has business to finish.

- The incarnate powered and royally irked Scirocco marches on Grandville alone and fights a ton of Recluse’s forces that are led by Black Scorpion. He defeats Black Scorpion and enters Grandville tower, where Ghost Widow waits for him. Scirocco lets down his guard, thinking she might change, but instead Ghost Widow attacks and incapacitates Scirocco. He’s brought to Grandville tower, where Recluse and the remaining named characters of Arachnos surround him. Recluse explains that he let Scirocco go to Paragon in order to prove a point, which is that he can’t change, because no one wants him. He’s dismayed that Scirocco gained all of this power, yet hasn’t learned to truly use it. Scirocco pleads for Ghost Widow to switch sides and help him, but she refuses, saying that Scirocco is going against Arachnos, which makes him her enemy. Recluse orders Ghost Widow to kill Scirocco to make his death poetic. Scirocco is given his final words, where he quotes the final lines of the main character from Charles Dickens, “A Tale of Two Cities”. The cutscene was heavily implied that Scirocco dies.

- At the last moment, the Vindicators teleport into Grandville tower with the help of Ice Mistral, who brought them through the Grandville tunnels to end up right beneath Grandville tower. They tell Scirocco that they’re teleporting him to the tunnels to meet with Ice Mistral and get out of here. Scirocco and Ice Mistral flee through the tunnels, which are on fire from fighting between the Vindicators and Arachnos. They get to the rendevous-point, which is blocked by a wall of fire. Recluse emerges all evil-like from the fire and laughs at the idea that the “sidekick squad” could defeat him. Scirocco and Ice Mistral fight Recluse in a pretty cool boss battle that I had set up with LUA. In the end, Recluse is defeated and teleports away. Scirocco and Ice Mistral flee past the fire and meet up with none other than Matthew Habashy, who said he wanted to use all the resources that he could leverage from the FBSA to help support the Vindicators in rescuing Scirocco.

- Scirocco and Ice Mistral officially become heroes of Paragon without needing any guides from the Vindicators. They’re offered a position in the Vindicators, but the two refuse, saying they’d rather go on their own for now, fighting crime and Arachnos wherever they see them.

- Most of the cutscenes were in a pretty far along state for this before the studio shutdown.

Incarnates. Good old Prometheus seemed to get more and more annoyed with us. Were we going to be able Ascend as part as fighting the Battalion? Was that the going to be the Omega power?

TS: Prometheus was being set up to be the classic know-it-all figure which you surpass. He had an agenda which did not involve you becoming so strong, and he definitely wanted to keep you more in the dark about the actual operations of the Well and the other Well-level powers out there in the galaxy.

JAH: Prometheus was also planned as a boss for a trial for a long time. Probably post-Battalion, though maybe the penultimate challenge in the Battalion storyarc.

STM: Baryonx was really excited about eventually doing a trial where you kick the face in of that giant blue smurf.

Battalion

Can you show us any images of what the Battalion were going to look like?

MM: Sorry, art unreleased has to stay unreleased due to our contracts.

Can you publish the entire lore bible you apparently had for Kheldians, pretty please?

MM: Sorry no. Spoiler alert: They all end up as fuel for Battalion, except for one. The End.

STM: Matt has a grim ending but that probably would’ve been prevented. Look at me, the guy trying to not kill off people.

Mender Silos is Lord Nemesis. Where were you going with that story? A sinister plot spanning all of time, or was it a genuine redemption? Was Ouroboros really bad all along? Were they going to turn on us at any point?

MM: Genuine redemption, but given the reaction he got from everyone who learned his secret, he started thinking like the Old Nemesis again.

RG: We had a lot of meetings on just this topic. The angle I had been gunning for was that Mender Silos would be an ex-member of Battalion, who saw the end result of their empire and chose to use time travel to oppose them. Others suggested that he had become Time Incarnate itself. Whatever the end result was, he was definitely going to figure pretty heavily in the Battalion and post-Battalion storylines.

JH: The exciting thing about Silos is that he has seen every time stream that didn’t end up with Battalion defeated, so traveling down the time stream where they were defeated (i.e. the one players are playing in) would have been just as much an adventure to him as it was to the players. Once Battalion was defeated, however, who knows what Silos might do.

The Rikti. With two failed invasions and the knowledge that they were set up for the first one by Nemesis, what was going to happen? They beat their Battalion, if I remember right. Were they going to make a heroic entrance to help us fight off ours?

MM: Yes, the Rikti from their homeworld would have helped vs. Battalion.

TS: I had a pitch once to have the Rikti Homeworld be lost to a catastrophe caused by their internecine war and have the survivors be offered sanctuary on Primal Earth, possibly in a revamp of Crey’s Folly or some other neglected hazard zone. We would have also put Rikti Epic Archetypes in at the same time - with a mostly recovered Honoree as their iconic leader. Ultimately it was just too much work in retrofits for the value - but I thought it would be a fitting conclusion to the Rikti storyline. The “survivors” idea wound up being something we ran with for Praetorians instead.

JH: I had plans for the surprise arrival of a fleet of Rikti saucers to engage in an epic space battle with the Battalion armada in orbit over Earth. Additionally, the handful of survivors of Omega Team who were still on the Rikti Homeworld would return to Earth and reunite with their old comrades to fight the good fight.

STM: The idea I had was that Rikti would help us fight Battalion. But when they saw our Battalion, they would essentially say (in equivalent Rikti speak), “Oh, THOSE guys are WAY different and WAY more powerful than the guys WE fought. Er, but we’ll do our best.”

Dimensionless

After the Battalion, what was the next "big idea" that was going to come down the road, if you had thought that far ahead?

MM: The Dimensionless are a race of beings superior to the Wells. Dealing with them once you became a well unto yourself was the next logical step.

STM: One of the ideas was that you kind of “cheat” to defeat Battalion, in essence doing something that should take you being level 50 ++++++++ and doing it at level 50, shattering the source of Battalion. However, this meant that a ton of things that were controlled by Battalion were now freed to do whatever they want, so the threats were unknown but out there, and now it was the responsibility of the players to go out there and handle them.

Existing Storylines

Why Statesman and Sister Psyche?

MM: Statesman because of all the reasons we gave in interviews. Sister Psyche because we wanted there to still be a surprise if Statesman’s death leaked out. We called it “Who will die” and not “One will die” for a reason, it was always planned to be two, but talked up to be just one, so that spoiled information always had an air of uncertainty about it.

Why was Weaver One never made a part of the game?

MM: Everyone invested in him moved off the project before they did anything good with him.

STM: I had some proposals to have him involved in the moon base.

Many Praetorian counterparts were never brought to life. Stephan Richter was killed off, Nemesis (as Posi mentioned at HeroCon) died as a clockmaker at an old age, etc. Why did you decide on killing some major characters off and making lesser characters more known?

MM: Praetoria wasn’t supposed to be a “mirror universe” where everyone existed only as opposites. It was supposed to be a universe where things were slightly different than ours, and how those slight differences ended up altering the world as it had. In Praetoria, someone might rise to station that never had that opportunity on Primal.

RG: Removing the ‘evil goatee’ aspect of Praetoria made it a more compelling story, I think. That said, I really wanted to make a Primal Reese, and have him be a mild-mannered and very polite civilian in Paragon City.

STM: It’s an interesting writing task to come up with alternate versions of characters, but it can start to get old fast, especially with plans to eventually merge Praetoria. A lot of the new characters we wrote were strong enough on their own without needing the extra weight of an alternate identity to be carried.

JH: We wanted Praetoria’s story to stand on its own rather than have it be nothing more than a mirror of Primal Earth. Also, it was a great opportunity to introduce brand new characters to fill the roles we needed rather than rehashes of existing ones.

Why did certain enemy groups get preferential treatment (meaning major story plots; Rikti, Praetorians, etc.) in storyarcs rather than expand others or create "new" enemies to face?

MM: Vs. expanding others? It’s what a writer wanted to write about. Vs. “new” enemies? New enemies take a lot more resources (art, powers).

RG: It’s hard sometimes to figure out what stories can be told about which villain groups. Often it’s dictated by level range. I managed to make a story about the Luddites, for instance, but that was only because I was assigned an appropriate level range for the group. If there’s one group I wish I’d managed to touch on more, I’d say probably the Goldbrickers. I hate to leave a villain group AV-less.

STM: New enemies were expensive to make. You need character art time, animation time, FX time, and sound time. The same talents are needed for creating new costume pieces and new powers, so we need to pick and choose very carefully how we make new enemies and if we’re going to be able to use them a lot down the road, and also if we can leverage the assets in other ways. However, we also weren’t above re-using existing assets to put in new villain groups, like the UPA in i24 or the Rogue PPD in i19.

Cancelled or Undeveloped Content

What piece of Lore did you really want to add early on that just didn't fit?

STM: I really really really wanted to add a different Ouroboros/team that was run by Dream Doctor’s team - Ajax, Protean, Keith Nance, Dean MacArthur, and a few others. The idea was sort of similar to your Loyalist/Resistance moments in Praetoria. It would be Midnighters vs. Ouroboros. Neither of them would be totally wrong, but neither of them would be completely right either in their methods, but both wanted to stop Battalion. However, the idea was scrapped due to the huge amount of time it would take to create content for both and the difficulty of having another Ouroboros up. That was all scrapped by me, that is, when I realized all that. I don’t think I ever really talked much about it, other than in my waking dreams.

What were the rocket launch pads going to be used for, and when were they officially abandoned by the Dev team?

MM: We planned a space station instead of Praetoria for Going Rogue at first. They were abandoned when the idea of going to the space station was.

What was the giant "parking garage" in Port Oakes (in early beta) meant to be for?

MM: It was put in for a mission where you had to meet with a mysterious contact who told you to drop what you were investigating. Since that mission got cut, we didn’t need the asset)

Why was Weaver One never made a part of the game?

MM: Everyone invested in him moved off the project before they did anything good with him.

STM: I had some proposals to have him involved in the moon base.

Was Grandville ever planned to be redone? In beta a couple of years ago, something was done where Recluse's tower, and inside the tower was all shiny and clean instead of the dingy grey/blue colors.

MM: Grandville was poorly made in the first place. I think someone touched it up when we did ultramode, but there was never a plan to completely redo it.

STM: One of our lead environment artists a while back did an investigation to figure out how to properly “fix” Grandville. Grandville’s problem was that it was hacked together with lots of old pieces. Where a geo piece should’ve just been 1 or 2 pieces, Grandville’s was 10 or 15 pieces hacked together, which is why framerate can drag. To fix the problem, an environment artist would have had to go in there, grab those pieces, make them 1 or 2 pieces in 3D Max, then put it into Grandville. It would’ve been, I believe, 2 solid months of an artists time to fix it; unfortunately, it was time we never had.

Under the Hood

Why did Kheldians never get power customisation; was it ever going to be on the cards?

TS: i24’s changes to power customization for pool powers would have given us the ability to revisit this, but to do both in one issue’s timeframe was too much. In fact, we had been waiting for the technical resources to free up to get pool customization in the first place.

JAH: There are two huge problems with Kheldian FX Customization - a.) They use Inherent Powers a lot, which even after i24 couldn’t be customized. b.) Their powers used about 15 FX scripts per power, whereas a modern powerset uses one or two per power. This means both code and FX artist time was required in large measures to allow Khelds to customize their powers - and one can’t just do Kheld FX without doing VEAT FX out of fairness, etc., etc.

Specific Zones

Was there anything planned for a Boomtown remake?

MM: Not to my knowledge.

What were the rocket launch pads going to be used for, and when were they officially abandoned by the Dev team?

MM: We planned a space station instead of Praetoria for Going Rogue at first. They were abandoned when the idea of going to the space station was.

Were there actual plans for a moonbase?

MM: I approved art dailies from it on the last day of the studio. :( Issue 28.

RG: The funny thing is, our database had a value called MOONBASE that basically represented a build that didn’t exist in the system yet. It was a running gag that we would always be planning a moonbase, but it would never actually come to fruition. The plan for Issues 25-28 were the moment we hunkered down and said, “We’re actually going to do it this time!” We were... wrong.

Why redo Dark Astoria and not the Shadow Shard?

RG: I get the feeling our environment artists would have staged an insurrection if we’d asked them to remake the Shadow Shard zones. That said, we had some stuff planned for Rularuu in Issue 25. While not a full zone remake, it would have made those zones slightly more relevant to the current storyline.

STM: Dark Astoria was 1 zone where we could make a solid revamp of part of the zone without over-tasking our environment artists and deliver it in a timely schedule and without any giant new programming time. Shadow Shard is 4 zones that, to do correctly, would’ve needed proper tech to do things like fight a giant Rularuu, etc. It would’ve also involved trying to take 4 zones and make it into 1, or revamping 4 zones, which would take forever. Lastly, the Rularuu storyline is pretty cosmically powered and would’ve been too high of a bar to start at for Incarnate content. Destroying a god of death is pretty high, but taking down a being that can destroy dimensions in the blink of an eye would be hard to top afterwards with, “Take down this dude called Cole”

JAH: Our first brainstorm meeting for i22, we actually did settle on revamping the Shadow Shard. However, I think the strongest advocates for doing the Shard instead of DA were not on the team that was actually tasked with i22’s creation, and thus the plan changed to DA - both because it made sense as a zone to revamp, and because it’s important for the creators of a feature to be passionate and empowered about it.

What was the giant "parking garage" in Port Oakes (in early beta) meant to be for?

MM: It was put in for a mission where you had to meet with a mysterious contact who told you to drop what you were investigating. Since that mission got cut, we didn’t need the asset)

Was Croatoa actually planned as a halloween zone then kept permanently or was that just a rumor?

MM: Rumor. Croatoa was put in to break up the monotony of “city city city city”.

Was Grandville ever planned to be redone? In beta a couple of years ago, something was done where Recluse's tower, and inside the tower was all shiny and clean instead of the dingy grey/blue colors.

MM: Grandville was poorly made in the first place. I think someone touched it up when we did ultramode, but there was never a plan to completely redo it.

STM: One of our lead environment artists a while back did an investigation to figure out how to properly “fix” Grandville. Grandville’s problem was that it was hacked together with lots of old pieces. Where a geo piece should’ve just been 1 or 2 pieces, Grandville’s was 10 or 15 pieces hacked together, which is why framerate can drag. To fix the problem, an environment artist would have had to go in there, grab those pieces, make them 1 or 2 pieces in 3D Max, then put it into Grandville. It would’ve been, I believe, 2 solid months of an artists time to fix it; unfortunately, it was time we never had.

Nemesis

Mender Silos is Lord Nemesis. Where were you going with that story? A sinister plot spanning all of time, or was it a genuine redemption? Was Ouroboros really bad all along? Were they going to turn on us at any point?

MM: Genuine redemption, but given the reaction he got from everyone who learned his secret, he started thinking like the Old Nemesis again.

RG: We had a lot of meetings on just this topic. The angle I had been gunning for was that Mender Silos would be an ex-member of Battalion, who saw the end result of their empire and chose to use time travel to oppose them. Others suggested that he had become Time Incarnate itself. Whatever the end result was, he was definitely going to figure pretty heavily in the Battalion and post-Battalion storylines.

JH: The exciting thing about Silos is that he has seen every time stream that didn’t end up with Battalion defeated, so traveling down the time stream where they were defeated (i.e. the one players are playing in) would have been just as much an adventure to him as it was to the players. Once Battalion was defeated, however, who knows what Silos might do.

Rikti

The Rikti. With two failed invasions and the knowledge that they were set up for the first one by Nemesis, what was going to happen? They beat their Battalion, if I remember right. Were they going to make a heroic entrance to help us fight off ours?

MM: Yes, the Rikti from their homeworld would have helped vs. Battalion.

TS: I had a pitch once to have the Rikti Homeworld be lost to a catastrophe caused by their internecine war and have the survivors be offered sanctuary on Primal Earth, possibly in a revamp of Crey’s Folly or some other neglected hazard zone. We would have also put Rikti Epic Archetypes in at the same time - with a mostly recovered Honoree as their iconic leader. Ultimately it was just too much work in retrofits for the value - but I thought it would be a fitting conclusion to the Rikti storyline. The “survivors” idea wound up being something we ran with for Praetorians instead.

JH: I had plans for the surprise arrival of a fleet of Rikti saucers to engage in an epic space battle with the Battalion armada in orbit over Earth. Additionally, the handful of survivors of Omega Team who were still on the Rikti Homeworld would return to Earth and reunite with their old comrades to fight the good fight.

STM: The idea I had was that Rikti would help us fight Battalion. But when they saw our Battalion, they would essentially say (in equivalent Rikti speak), “Oh, THOSE guys are WAY different and WAY more powerful than the guys WE fought. Er, but we’ll do our best.”

Kheldians

Can you publish the entire lore bible you apparently had for Kheldians, pretty please?

MM: Sorry no. Spoiler alert: They all end up as fuel for Battalion, except for one. The End.

STM: Matt has a grim ending but that probably would’ve been prevented. Look at me, the guy trying to not kill off people.

Why did Kheldians never get power customisation; was it ever going to be on the cards?

TS: i24’s changes to power customization for pool powers would have given us the ability to revisit this, but to do both in one issue’s timeframe was too much. In fact, we had been waiting for the technical resources to free up to get pool customization in the first place.

JAH: There are two huge problems with Kheldian FX Customization - a.) They use Inherent Powers a lot, which even after i24 couldn’t be customized. b.) Their powers used about 15 FX scripts per power, whereas a modern powerset uses one or two per power. This means both code and FX artist time was required in large measures to allow Khelds to customize their powers - and one can’t just do Kheld FX without doing VEAT FX out of fairness, etc., etc.

Incarnate Content

What were the next few incarnate slots going to be?

JAH: Genesis was coming next, and the basic concept for the slot was creating “patches” or fields that buffed allies and debuffed foes. The Core branches of Genesis powers would get larger areas of effect, while the Radius branches would let you make up to 4 small patches at once at the very rare level. Imagine Sleet or Tar Patch + Accelerate Metabolism or Regeneration Aura + Incarnate-worthy, and you’re on the right track.

Incarnates. Good old Prometheus seemed to get more and more annoyed with us. Were we going to be able Ascend as part as fighting the Battalion? Was that the going to be the Omega power?

TS: Prometheus was being set up to be the classic know-it-all figure which you surpass. He had an agenda which did not involve you becoming so strong, and he definitely wanted to keep you more in the dark about the actual operations of the Well and the other Well-level powers out there in the galaxy.

JAH: Prometheus was also planned as a boss for a trial for a long time. Probably post-Battalion, though maybe the penultimate challenge in the Battalion storyarc.

STM: Baryonx was really excited about eventually doing a trial where you kick the face in of that giant blue smurf.

Praetorian Content

Many Praetorian counterparts were never brought to life. Stephan Richter was killed off, Nemesis (as Posi mentioned at HeroCon) died as a clockmaker at an old age, etc. Why did you decide on killing some major characters off and making lesser characters more known?

MM: Praetoria wasn’t supposed to be a “mirror universe” where everyone existed only as opposites. It was supposed to be a universe where things were slightly different than ours, and how those slight differences ended up altering the world as it had. In Praetoria, someone might rise to station that never had that opportunity on Primal.

RG: Removing the ‘evil goatee’ aspect of Praetoria made it a more compelling story, I think. That said, I really wanted to make a Primal Reese, and have him be a mild-mannered and very polite civilian in Paragon City.

STM: It’s an interesting writing task to come up with alternate versions of characters, but it can start to get old fast, especially with plans to eventually merge Praetoria. A lot of the new characters we wrote were strong enough on their own without needing the extra weight of an alternate identity to be carried.

JH: We wanted Praetoria’s story to stand on its own rather than have it be nothing more than a mirror of Primal Earth. Also, it was a great opportunity to introduce brand new characters to fill the roles we needed rather than rehashes of existing ones.

Battle Maiden joining up with Malta. What were to happen next? Nanite powered Malta Ultra-Sappers Two Kronos Titans merged together?

STM: I joked that Battle Maiden looked at Malta’s line up and went, “Why don’t you just use all sappers? Or install their technology in everything?” But seriously, the idea was that Malta needed a method to become “super” in the Incarnate arms race that had begun - the idea started in my mind when people asked why Malta could go toe to toe with them in the Tin Mage TF, which was a very valid point. The idea was that we would eventually do a new 50+ version of them using Nanite technology with FX inspired by Battle Maiden’s. There probably would’ve been minimal character art revamp time - most likely re-texturing on the Titans and a new piece or two for the soldiers. That’s just me speculating, however, but it’s what I would’ve pushed for.

Ouroborous

Mender Silos is Lord Nemesis. Where were you going with that story? A sinister plot spanning all of time, or was it a genuine redemption? Was Ouroboros really bad all along? Were they going to turn on us at any point?

MM: Genuine redemption, but given the reaction he got from everyone who learned his secret, he started thinking like the Old Nemesis again.

RG: We had a lot of meetings on just this topic. The angle I had been gunning for was that Mender Silos would be an ex-member of Battalion, who saw the end result of their empire and chose to use time travel to oppose them. Others suggested that he had become Time Incarnate itself. Whatever the end result was, he was definitely going to figure pretty heavily in the Battalion and post-Battalion storylines.

JH: The exciting thing about Silos is that he has seen every time stream that didn’t end up with Battalion defeated, so traveling down the time stream where they were defeated (i.e. the one players are playing in) would have been just as much an adventure to him as it was to the players. Once Battalion was defeated, however, who knows what Silos might do.

Arachnos

Arachnos. With Statesman dead, Lord Recluse reunited with the Red Widow, Scirocco flirting with the side of good, and Ghost Widow's loyalty to Arachnos itself, but not its leadership, something was brewing. What was going to happen?

RG: I know that Dr. Aeon was pretty set on having Scirocco set up to become a good guy. We even had an entire Sig Story planned around it at one point. We had shaken up the Freedom Phalanx, but Arachnos was still in the same state as it was when CoV launched... we definitely wanted to make things feel more dynamic on the red side of things.

STM: I had an entire personal story in a playable state that was Scirocco going good, it was awesome. There were 13-14 missions, all fairly quick (i.e. less than 5 minutes) where you played as Scirocco. Here’s the breakdown of it:

- Scirocco discovers Mu’Vorkan’s plans to assassinate him and Ice Mistral. Mu’Vorkan recruits Tyrka/Evil Aurora and Mortimer Kal to help; Tryka/Evil Aurora under the premise of power, and Mortimer Kal under the premise that he’ll use his new position to save Mortimer’s daughter from the villain. Scirocco offers Mu’Vorkan a chance to stop, but Mu’Vorkan refuses and Scirocco defeats him.

- Scirocco sends a message to the Vindicators stating that Red Widow is going to assassinate the heads of the FBSA at a meeting where the FBSA is officially promoting Matthew Habashy. In a gesture of good will, Scirocco goes to the FBSA meeting to ensure Red Widow is stopped. He speaks with Ghost Widow beforehand, telling her that she can change and that the secret is that she’s bound to Arachnos, not to Recluse. GW lets Scirocco go, saying that he has to decide for himself what’s best, but that she won’t follow him nor stop him. Scirocco and Ice Mistral go to the FBSA and stop Red Widow’s plot after she manages to defeat the Shining Stars who were assigned to defense duty.

- Scirocco and Ice Mistral temporarily join the Vindicators, but are split up in order to avoid them possibly plotting anything. Valkryie is assigned as Ice Mistral’s mentor, while Infernal is Scirocco’s. Infernal, Scirocco, and Ice Mistral spend two missions fighting crime in Paragon, which was supposed to have the context of spanning multiple weeks. It’s focused that people just plain don’t like the fact that a high-ranking member of Arachnos is just allowed to walk in the streets. Serafina also mentions that Scirocco’s actions are helping him to unlock the final true power of the former Scirocco.

- After weeks of crime fighting, Scirocco returned to the studio apartment he had in Steel Canyon. He reads mail that he has, which most of it is hate mail against him, and he starts to wonder if it’s all worth it. He then reads a letter from the uncle of a man he saved, thanking him from the bottom of his heart. Before he can have a nice tender moment, he hears a THUD from outside his door, which is Infernal being knocked out. Red Widow appears, informing Scirocco that Ice Mistral has returned to the Rogue Isles. She vanishes, and Serafina appears shortly afterwards, having tracked down Red Widow. Scirocco says he’s going to the Rogue Isles to get Ice Mistral back. Before he goes, Serafina helps Scirocco unlock his final power, which is the creation of a 2nd sword. With that, he becomes the true Scirocco and gains new dual blade powers in the next missions.

- Scirocco confronts Ice Mistral, who says that it’s too hard to stay in Paragon and easier to be in the Isles where they have respect, power, and freedom. Scirocco tells Ice Mistral she’s wrong about all of that, and eventually they would get all of that back in Paragon. Mako shows up revealing that Recluse knew Scirocco would be back to get Ice Mistral. He makes an offer, which is to rejoin Arachnos or watch everyone he loves get killed. Scirocco chooses option C, beat down Mako then make a statement to Recluse. He defeats Mako, then tells Ice Mistral that she can do whatever she wants; she can stay in Arachnos, go to Paragon, or even just flee and go somewhere else. However, he pleads with her to look into her heart and do what’s truly best for her. He then leaves, saying that he has business to finish.

- The incarnate powered and royally irked Scirocco marches on Grandville alone and fights a ton of Recluse’s forces that are led by Black Scorpion. He defeats Black Scorpion and enters Grandville tower, where Ghost Widow waits for him. Scirocco lets down his guard, thinking she might change, but instead Ghost Widow attacks and incapacitates Scirocco. He’s brought to Grandville tower, where Recluse and the remaining named characters of Arachnos surround him. Recluse explains that he let Scirocco go to Paragon in order to prove a point, which is that he can’t change, because no one wants him. He’s dismayed that Scirocco gained all of this power, yet hasn’t learned to truly use it. Scirocco pleads for Ghost Widow to switch sides and help him, but she refuses, saying that Scirocco is going against Arachnos, which makes him her enemy. Recluse orders Ghost Widow to kill Scirocco to make his death poetic. Scirocco is given his final words, where he quotes the final lines of the main character from Charles Dickens, “A Tale of Two Cities”. The cutscene was heavily implied that Scirocco dies.

- At the last moment, the Vindicators teleport into Grandville tower with the help of Ice Mistral, who brought them through the Grandville tunnels to end up right beneath Grandville tower. They tell Scirocco that they’re teleporting him to the tunnels to meet with Ice Mistral and get out of here. Scirocco and Ice Mistral flee through the tunnels, which are on fire from fighting between the Vindicators and Arachnos. They get to the rendevous-point, which is blocked by a wall of fire. Recluse emerges all evil-like from the fire and laughs at the idea that the “sidekick squad” could defeat him. Scirocco and Ice Mistral fight Recluse in a pretty cool boss battle that I had set up with LUA. In the end, Recluse is defeated and teleports away. Scirocco and Ice Mistral flee past the fire and meet up with none other than Matthew Habashy, who said he wanted to use all the resources that he could leverage from the FBSA to help support the Vindicators in rescuing Scirocco.

- Scirocco and Ice Mistral officially become heroes of Paragon without needing any guides from the Vindicators. They’re offered a position in the Vindicators, but the two refuse, saying they’d rather go on their own for now, fighting crime and Arachnos wherever they see them.

- Most of the cutscenes were in a pretty far along state for this before the studio shutdown.

The Malta Group

Battle Maiden joining up with Malta. What were to happen next? Nanite powered Malta Ultra-Sappers Two Kronos Titans merged together?

STM: I joked that Battle Maiden looked at Malta’s line up and went, “Why don’t you just use all sappers? Or install their technology in everything?” But seriously, the idea was that Malta needed a method to become “super” in the Incarnate arms race that had begun - the idea started in my mind when people asked why Malta could go toe to toe with them in the Tin Mage TF, which was a very valid point. The idea was that we would eventually do a new 50+ version of them using Nanite technology with FX inspired by Battle Maiden’s. There probably would’ve been minimal character art revamp time - most likely re-texturing on the Titans and a new piece or two for the soldiers. That’s just me speculating, however, but it’s what I would’ve pushed for.

Specific NPCs

Why Statesman and Sister Psyche?

MM: Statesman because of all the reasons we gave in interviews. Sister Psyche because we wanted there to still be a surprise if Statesman’s death leaked out. We called it “Who will die” and not “One will die” for a reason, it was always planned to be two, but talked up to be just one, so that spoiled information always had an air of uncertainty about it.

Were there any plans to reincarnate States/Psyche or have someone else take over their mantle?

MM: Of the two, she’s the one that we most want to “bring back”

RG: People had bandied around ideas that at the last moment, Psyche managed to mind-ride someone and she was still alive. We never fully fleshed it out though.

STM: I never wanted either of them to stay dead, and many times I weeped/Charlie brown walked back to my desk when people asked me to come up with ideas of how Psyche could come back.

RG: Really? I seem to remember someone adamantly insisting that States was dead for good... :P

JAH I think he meant he did want them to stay dead... he got mad at me for wanting to bring Brian Webb back from the dead...

STM: Someone edited my stern response, which was, “They’re both staying dead and I never wanted either of them to come back. Ever.” I’m a firm believer in people staying dead when they die. I guess that’s why I write a lot of villain content.

JHH: I had wanted Tyrant/Cole to don Statesman’s mantle and redeem himself in the fight against Battalion, but nobody had really seriously discussed or explored that storyline more than Vanguard using Cole’s experience as the champion of Earth’s Well to get some insight into how Battalion functioned with the myriad wells at their disposal.

When Lusca and Kraken names were implemented on the wrong characters, why were those not retconned?

MM: Lusca came LONG after Kraken, I don’t understand why anyone would think we mixed up those names.

JAH: Also, tangentially, the Kraken was actually related to a giant tentacled monster when it was first implemented - the Hydra down at the bottom of the Abandoned Sewer Trial. I wasn’t part of the company back then, but I always thought that connection was kind of cool.

Why was Weaver One never made a part of the game?

MM: Everyone invested in him moved off the project before they did anything good with him.

STM: I had some proposals to have him involved in the moon base.

Many Praetorian counterparts were never brought to life. Stephan Richter was killed off, Nemesis (as Posi mentioned at HeroCon) died as a clockmaker at an old age, etc. Why did you decide on killing some major characters off and making lesser characters more known?

MM: Praetoria wasn’t supposed to be a “mirror universe” where everyone existed only as opposites. It was supposed to be a universe where things were slightly different than ours, and how those slight differences ended up altering the world as it had. In Praetoria, someone might rise to station that never had that opportunity on Primal.

RG: Removing the ‘evil goatee’ aspect of Praetoria made it a more compelling story, I think. That said, I really wanted to make a Primal Reese, and have him be a mild-mannered and very polite civilian in Paragon City.

STM: It’s an interesting writing task to come up with alternate versions of characters, but it can start to get old fast, especially with plans to eventually merge Praetoria. A lot of the new characters we wrote were strong enough on their own without needing the extra weight of an alternate identity to be carried.

JH: We wanted Praetoria’s story to stand on its own rather than have it be nothing more than a mirror of Primal Earth. Also, it was a great opportunity to introduce brand new characters to fill the roles we needed rather than rehashes of existing ones.

Why did certain enemy groups get preferential treatment (meaning major story plots; Rikti, Praetorians, etc.) in storyarcs rather than expand others or create "new" enemies to face?

MM: Vs. expanding others? It’s what a writer wanted to write about. Vs. “new” enemies? New enemies take a lot more resources (art, powers).

RG: It’s hard sometimes to figure out what stories can be told about which villain groups. Often it’s dictated by level range. I managed to make a story about the Luddites, for instance, but that was only because I was assigned an appropriate level range for the group. If there’s one group I wish I’d managed to touch on more, I’d say probably the Goldbrickers. I hate to leave a villain group AV-less.

STM: New enemies were expensive to make. You need character art time, animation time, FX time, and sound time. The same talents are needed for creating new costume pieces and new powers, so we need to pick and choose very carefully how we make new enemies and if we’re going to be able to use them a lot down the road, and also if we can leverage the assets in other ways. However, we also weren’t above re-using existing assets to put in new villain groups, like the UPA in i24 or the Rogue PPD in i19.

Arachnos. With Statesman dead, Lord Recluse reunited with the Red Widow, Scirocco flirting with the side of good, and Ghost Widow's loyalty to Arachnos itself, but not its leadership, something was brewing. What was going to happen?

RG: I know that Dr. Aeon was pretty set on having Scirocco set up to become a good guy. We even had an entire Sig Story planned around it at one point. We had shaken up the Freedom Phalanx, but Arachnos was still in the same state as it was when CoV launched... we definitely wanted to make things feel more dynamic on the red side of things.

STM: I had an entire personal story in a playable state that was Scirocco going good, it was awesome. There were 13-14 missions, all fairly quick (i.e. less than 5 minutes) where you played as Scirocco. Here’s the breakdown of it:

- Scirocco discovers Mu’Vorkan’s plans to assassinate him and Ice Mistral. Mu’Vorkan recruits Tyrka/Evil Aurora and Mortimer Kal to help; Tryka/Evil Aurora under the premise of power, and Mortimer Kal under the premise that he’ll use his new position to save Mortimer’s daughter from the villain. Scirocco offers Mu’Vorkan a chance to stop, but Mu’Vorkan refuses and Scirocco defeats him.

- Scirocco sends a message to the Vindicators stating that Red Widow is going to assassinate the heads of the FBSA at a meeting where the FBSA is officially promoting Matthew Habashy. In a gesture of good will, Scirocco goes to the FBSA meeting to ensure Red Widow is stopped. He speaks with Ghost Widow beforehand, telling her that she can change and that the secret is that she’s bound to Arachnos, not to Recluse. GW lets Scirocco go, saying that he has to decide for himself what’s best, but that she won’t follow him nor stop him. Scirocco and Ice Mistral go to the FBSA and stop Red Widow’s plot after she manages to defeat the Shining Stars who were assigned to defense duty.

- Scirocco and Ice Mistral temporarily join the Vindicators, but are split up in order to avoid them possibly plotting anything. Valkryie is assigned as Ice Mistral’s mentor, while Infernal is Scirocco’s. Infernal, Scirocco, and Ice Mistral spend two missions fighting crime in Paragon, which was supposed to have the context of spanning multiple weeks. It’s focused that people just plain don’t like the fact that a high-ranking member of Arachnos is just allowed to walk in the streets. Serafina also mentions that Scirocco’s actions are helping him to unlock the final true power of the former Scirocco.

- After weeks of crime fighting, Scirocco returned to the studio apartment he had in Steel Canyon. He reads mail that he has, which most of it is hate mail against him, and he starts to wonder if it’s all worth it. He then reads a letter from the uncle of a man he saved, thanking him from the bottom of his heart. Before he can have a nice tender moment, he hears a THUD from outside his door, which is Infernal being knocked out. Red Widow appears, informing Scirocco that Ice Mistral has returned to the Rogue Isles. She vanishes, and Serafina appears shortly afterwards, having tracked down Red Widow. Scirocco says he’s going to the Rogue Isles to get Ice Mistral back. Before he goes, Serafina helps Scirocco unlock his final power, which is the creation of a 2nd sword. With that, he becomes the true Scirocco and gains new dual blade powers in the next missions.

- Scirocco confronts Ice Mistral, who says that it’s too hard to stay in Paragon and easier to be in the Isles where they have respect, power, and freedom. Scirocco tells Ice Mistral she’s wrong about all of that, and eventually they would get all of that back in Paragon. Mako shows up revealing that Recluse knew Scirocco would be back to get Ice Mistral. He makes an offer, which is to rejoin Arachnos or watch everyone he loves get killed. Scirocco chooses option C, beat down Mako then make a statement to Recluse. He defeats Mako, then tells Ice Mistral that she can do whatever she wants; she can stay in Arachnos, go to Paragon, or even just flee and go somewhere else. However, he pleads with her to look into her heart and do what’s truly best for her. He then leaves, saying that he has business to finish.

- The incarnate powered and royally irked Scirocco marches on Grandville alone and fights a ton of Recluse’s forces that are led by Black Scorpion. He defeats Black Scorpion and enters Grandville tower, where Ghost Widow waits for him. Scirocco lets down his guard, thinking she might change, but instead Ghost Widow attacks and incapacitates Scirocco. He’s brought to Grandville tower, where Recluse and the remaining named characters of Arachnos surround him. Recluse explains that he let Scirocco go to Paragon in order to prove a point, which is that he can’t change, because no one wants him. He’s dismayed that Scirocco gained all of this power, yet hasn’t learned to truly use it. Scirocco pleads for Ghost Widow to switch sides and help him, but she refuses, saying that Scirocco is going against Arachnos, which makes him her enemy. Recluse orders Ghost Widow to kill Scirocco to make his death poetic. Scirocco is given his final words, where he quotes the final lines of the main character from Charles Dickens, “A Tale of Two Cities”. The cutscene was heavily implied that Scirocco dies.

- At the last moment, the Vindicators teleport into Grandville tower with the help of Ice Mistral, who brought them through the Grandville tunnels to end up right beneath Grandville tower. They tell Scirocco that they’re teleporting him to the tunnels to meet with Ice Mistral and get out of here. Scirocco and Ice Mistral flee through the tunnels, which are on fire from fighting between the Vindicators and Arachnos. They get to the rendevous-point, which is blocked by a wall of fire. Recluse emerges all evil-like from the fire and laughs at the idea that the “sidekick squad” could defeat him. Scirocco and Ice Mistral fight Recluse in a pretty cool boss battle that I had set up with LUA. In the end, Recluse is defeated and teleports away. Scirocco and Ice Mistral flee past the fire and meet up with none other than Matthew Habashy, who said he wanted to use all the resources that he could leverage from the FBSA to help support the Vindicators in rescuing Scirocco.

- Scirocco and Ice Mistral officially become heroes of Paragon without needing any guides from the Vindicators. They’re offered a position in the Vindicators, but the two refuse, saying they’d rather go on their own for now, fighting crime and Arachnos wherever they see them.

- Most of the cutscenes were in a pretty far along state for this before the studio shutdown.

Dev Opinion / Favorites

What piece of Lore did you really want to add early on that just didn't fit?

STM: I really really really wanted to add a different Ouroboros/team that was run by Dream Doctor’s team - Ajax, Protean, Keith Nance, Dean MacArthur, and a few others. The idea was sort of similar to your Loyalist/Resistance moments in Praetoria. It would be Midnighters vs. Ouroboros. Neither of them would be totally wrong, but neither of them would be completely right either in their methods, but both wanted to stop Battalion. However, the idea was scrapped due to the huge amount of time it would take to create content for both and the difficulty of having another Ouroboros up. That was all scrapped by me, that is, when I realized all that. I don’t think I ever really talked much about it, other than in my waking dreams.

Miscellaneous

Who was the Toymaker (as he was hinted as someone from the heroes past but never expanded on) ?

MM: Not sure, probably Lord Nemesis.

Was there any plans to make seasonal weather changes in-game? (In Port Oakes, if you got under the map, there was another set of mountains/hills under the visible ones that had snow covering them.)

MM: No plans that I was made aware of.

Was there anything in the Lore that Jack Emmert wanted but after NCsoft took over and he left, were they scrapped?

MM: Jack detached himself when Cryptic started working on Marvel. He had nothing further to add to CoH and handed the reins completely over to me.

Silly Answers

Why was Back Street Brawler's name changed to Back Alley Brawler?

MM: Blame the Back Street Boys.

JAH: Black Street’s Back, alright - the follow up arc to the i24 Personal Story mission in Kings Row. *ducks*