Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

A lot of things we’re just doing in every element of the game design, the gameplay and mechanics, trying to make it feel like you’re really inside a comic book. I think that having a much more action-based comic book system helps with that too. So if you’re going to fight the minions of a bunch of , we want you to fight three, four, five of these guys at a time, because that’s what heroes do. They pull one minion at a time and fight them, Then when you go up against villains and supervillains, those are going to take you and maybe more people to help on.

Then we have things like world boss level guys, these big open mission guys you can find, that might take 10 or 20 people to take down. These are the big über baddies that are out there to fight - all built very much on those things that you see when you’re reading comics and the different threat levels that are there. And the fact that we like knocking guys back and seeing big explosions - really going over the top with combat and making it action-oriented.

I think really in every level of the game - even the music and audio - we’re really working hard to have that feeling and flavor of a comic book.

Jeff Woleslagle: As you mentioned, Champions, based on the HERO system, is definitely rich and vast. One feature of the lore that we’re really excited to see and hear more about is Millenium City, which I don’t believe has entered the beta yet?

Bill Roper: No, it hasn’t. A little thing we’re posting online for our beta players but I’ll post out there for them to know - we’re actually opening a new zone for them next week for beta, which is not Millenium City. But after that will be Millenium City. We’re spending a lot of time on Mil right now - Mil is our dev name for Millenium City because it’s shorter... you say Millenium City 18 times in a meeting and it takes forever. (laughter)

But we’re doing a lot of work on that right now, trying to make it feel live and big and exciting and fun. And making it this really cool area for people to adventure in and use as kind of like a hub for not only the content that’s in the game but also future-coming content. We want Millenium City to feel just like an amazing place when we launch it so we’re taking some extra time before we even put it out to beta so we can get the best feedback available from our players.

Jeff Woleslagle: I wanted to ask about one facet of the Millenium City experience, the Hero vs. Hero Arena concept, which you described as sort of a “fight club.” Will that be going hand-in-hand with some kind of scoreboarding system so that we (to use the fight club analogy) can determine who’s the real Tyler Durden?

Bill Roper: Yea, there definitely will be scoreboards involved, they’ll be posted to the web so you can see who’s the king of the ring and that kind of stuff. We’re working on trying to get more than one style of PvP in - it’s all about what we can get done in what amount of time.

There’s fiction for it built into the world, there’s actually fiction in the original IP (which is great) that we’re expanding on and using as to these hero games that people kind of get involved in - a reason why heroes actually battle against each other. That works within the fiction so it feels right. That’s a really important thing we definitely get from the beta boards - why would heroes do this? It’s a bit of a challenge when dealing with a genre as specific as superheroes and making this stuff all make sense. But yes, there will be leaderboards. there’ll be integration so players know who’s doing what to who and who’s best at what they do. And we know that’s really important for players to have.