Lead Designer Jack Emmert continues his discussion of the revised character creation system in Cryptic’s game.
September 17, 2003 – Now the greatest metropolis in America, Paragon City began in the 18th century as a quiet group of colonial coastal villages. By the time of the bloody Civil War, its location had helped it become a major port. After that conflict came decades of prosperity and continued expansion as a center for industry, science and commerce, which left it particularly vulnerable to the stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression that followed. The collapse of the economic order brought both social and political chaos. Various criminal elements, both organized and random, quickly moved in to take advantage. Through bribery, intimidation and murder, the mobs seized control. Corruption became ubiquitous. With every politician and cop seemingly on the take, there was no one to stand for the ordinary citizens and the cause of justice – until The Statesman.
Over the ensuing decades, Paragon City attracted more super-powered heroes than anywhere else on the planet, but even their combined efforts proved unable to eliminate crime completely. As a result, when Cryptic Studios’ City of Heroes launches next year, players will take up the cause of good. Using a system that allows nearly countless variations, they will create avatars that will then set forth to fight evil and to keep the citizenry safe. This will be no easy task, for the city’s prosperity has drawn a number of formidable villain organizations. These groups will offer up a diverse range of nefarious and powerful adversaries including super-villains, aliens, madmen, underground monsters, gangsters and more. Following a revision of the design that began late last year, Lead Designer Jack Emmert continues his series of diaries on this intriguing project.
You can Read the Dev Diary at ign.com RPG Vault.
