Here are the notes I typed down as the interview was happening. Pardon any typos.

Matt happy with how Halloween event is going right now...

Matt introducing himself as lead designer, makes decisions, makes sure stuff is designed correctly.

Favorite aspects: ability to be creative, to create storylines that players experience.

Original idea for Positron: character from a High School Champs campaign.

Gone through many iterations.

Brought him to Cryptic Studios to add him to the IP.

Kind of unique, some unique powers just for him--overload power fits in with origin & the way he uses his power suit to utilize the antimatter that he has. He kind of transcends a little bit over normal limits of game (like other signature characters).

Was brought in by Sean "Manticore" Fish. Was excited, had always been big MMO player.

Had been producer for EIDOS Interactive.

Think fast paced combat makes game unique, prided themselves on making game where you didn't fight one thing at once all the time. Happy that could make 3 minions challenge 1 hero.

Wanted to make travel as easy as possible...

Favorite villain group: "...huh. Probably...oh man. Blanking out. ... I can't even think of one right now."

Least favorite villain group would be Malta "for the same reason everybody else hates them--the sappers. Everyone can blame me for the Sappers."

Felt that since End was a non-issue after L35, he wanted End to become an issue again.

Least favorite and most favorite, since do offer different playstyle in combat, you actually have to think about them when you're fighting them.

Added end drain to Longbow for same reason.

If he could take one power out of game into RL, it would be teleport, because he lives 30 miles away from work.

Explaining how GVE pack works...

Vet rewards: for a long time, had wanted to do something to thank long-time players for loyalty. Wanted to to let players know very thankful for subscription time; came up with the idea of veteran rewards. "We actually went a little bit crazy," made sure rewards every 3 mo. Original plan was every 6 mo.

Had so many ideas, were enough they could do every 3 mo. Some players think some rewards are worse than others, but we're happy with way it worked out, something every 3 months, and they're pretty cool.

Wanted trenchcoats in right away so players would have something really cool at 3 months.

Issue 8 = lots of herocentric stuff, equivalent of newspaper missions as police band, random missions/maps/groups across all levels

Some complaints of having to cross zones for radio missions...

"One big item" coming up in issue 9, invention system: can't talk a lot now, but you will use a new form of salvage to create enhancements, costume pieces, and temporary powers.

Plans for more SG task forces (like Cathedral).

I9 Statesman Task Force

Would love to do "mini-games" like making pool tables in Pocket D works, but it's a matter of finding programming time because so much is eaten up by bug-killing.

I8 allows choosing dance moves; have a new animator who's looking at adding more dance moves, like ones where you actually move your feet.

Original animator did all dance moves himself, and was a horrible dancer; that's why all the dances in CoH are really bad dances.

New sit moves originally for NPCs, but "we made them put them in for players too."

Another reworked zone on the schedule, not at liberty to say what it is yet, but it's going to be a cooperative hero/villain zone.

Forum poll a few months back asking where players wanted next new setting; we have the results, and we have on the schedule a new zone that basically is the result of that poll, which we're not at liberty to say what that is yet, but we are definitely laying hints toward it.

How is bandwidth going to change MMOs? Probably more console MMOs.

Does CoH adapt to available bandwidth? Posi thinks so but isn't a programmer.

"Do you see CoH going beyond L50?" Not anytime soon, if we raise it again, we just get asked when it's going to be raised again after that. Wants to add endgame content, stuff that makes you a "better" level 50. Invention system is what's going to be doing for that. Lots of enh that will make you "better level 50s". More variety, more diverse sets of enhancements so characters are different.

No plans for new signature character contests, would love to have player-created contest prizes to make it in. Player-created badges, for instance. Still working on logistics of that. Would like to see that be prize for upcoming contest.

Villain Kheldians? Not in Issue 8. Haven't decided what issue they'll be in yet, still trying to figure out how much work it will be to make them work on villain side. Just had discussion about it on Thurs again to figure out what it will take.

Ballista acts like Bubble energy tank. Any plans on getting something like that for Tanks or Brutes? We have plans on moving a lot of power sets around, getting them to classes that don't have them, probably in mid-2007.

Why werewolves but no werewolf tails? "Will have to get onto art dept about that one."

5th Column coming back? Do have plans for 5thC returning, want to make sure their re-emergence is a spectacular one, don't want to have them just "show up."

Statesman (RL) doing great, his kid is awesome, comes by the office all the time, brightens up the office every time he shows up. Jack's taking on creative director role, wearing a lot of hats, coordinating between departments. Have more than just the 2 products cooking right now.

Thanks for interview, been honor speaking with you, yatta yatta, interview over.

It seems likely to me, after some conversation with friends, that the revamped cooperative zone Posi talks about will be none other than the Rikti crash site. This seems to make sense, given that we already heard them talking about the possibility of revamping it, with missions inside the Rikti saucer.

Also nice to see confirmation of the stuff that was posted here about the Invention system a few days back.

Apart from that, not a whole lot that we hadn't already heard before. Wish the interview had been a bit more than 20 minutes long. Oh well, we takes what we gets!

Awesome. Thanks for posting this for those of us that missed it.

I bet you're right about RCS, and I'm pretty confident that the Moon is the poll-winning zone he talked about. That and/or Rikti homeworld.

with the "seismic activity on the moon" in the Faultline storyline, I'm pretty sure that either Arachnos or the Fifth Column (or both) are up to something there, and that it will be the poll-driven zone we see in an upcoming issue.

I'm thinking Fifth Column as well. Given the construction going on in PO and Steel Canyon in I8, it's pretty safe to say heroes and villains alike will have access... I'm hoping that it will be cooperative, as well as the revamped zone, but who knows.

I'm kind of doubting it's the Fifth Column, mainly because I have no clue what they would be doing on the moon, or how they would get there. Surely they have other more cost-effective plans to carry out?

Arachnos, though, I can believe, because to them a moon base may be a cost-effective plan.

Maybe they are up there hiding from the Council takeover?

Could be some ancient WWII-era base. The Germans *DID* have the first rocketry program. ;)

"Felt that since End was a non-issue after L35, he wanted End to become an issue again."

Wait, WHAT?! My blaster, who has stamina, STILL has end issues. ALL THE TIME. She's not even running that many toggles. She just eats through end, especially when in large groups. And she's level 40! What insanity is he speaking?!

For most of my heroes (except Kheldians, which I'll get to in a moment), endurance does cease to be a major issue by the 30s. Of course, this is because I frequently go out of my way to make endurance not be a major issue (Stamina, slotting end redux in attacks, etc). Also, I may be taking sets that don't have that many inherent end problems. My scrapper would probably be complaining a lot more if she were Broadsword/DA instead of Katana/Regen.

Endurance is technically still an issue, all the way to 50 (without interference from Sappers and the like), especially in prolonged battles. My build goal with regards to endurance (or health, for that matter) is to either kill all the enemies possible quickly enough that endurance doesn't become an issue, or be able to survive indefinitely against enemies while having a net positive endurance/health gain. Therefore, I could run out of endurance in the middle of battle, with barely enough to keep toggles running, but after that I aim to be able to sit there and weather the enemy's attacks until I recover enough to start attacking again. If I'm out of endurance after the battle, no worries, Stamina makes sure I've got enough by the time I get to the next group.

Kheldians have it a little differently, in that I get endurance issues plenty of times entirely because I haven't yet had the slots to devote to end redux.

Back to the original topic about Sappers, I do think that if he wanted to make players think about endurance again, the -end (and -recovery) powers may be a bit of overkill.

True on the builds. My main use of Hami-Os on my broadsword/invuln is just getting a way to fit in more endreds. Without them it is not really a significant problem in normal situations, but in extended battles it is definitely be an issue. Doing the Eden Trial was "the straw that broke the camel's back" on that one. :)

Back to the original topic about Sappers, I do think that if he wanted to make players think about endurance again, the -end (and -recovery) powers may be a bit of overkill.

I think Sappers are fine, gamedesignwise. The "bringing back end as an issue" justification seems lame, though. If he managed to bring back the frequent, team-wide "wait for end" pausing you can get in the teen levels he would need to be strung up. :) Standing around between battles isn't "challenging".

My ex and I had created our team based on our friend's power sets- an invuln axe tank and an invuln broadsword scrapper teamed up with a kinetics psychic defender. When our friend stopped playing, we had to respec into more endurance friendly builds. Poor Mike couldnt even attack a minion without draining herself of endurance. And my tank, while seems to do alright on endurance, will just completely die in any group of maltas with more than one sapper.

That comment boggles me, too. Maybe he's talking pre-ED. Ever since the idea of "six-slotted stamina FTW" became obsolete, I've had endurance reduction slotted across the board for my Claws/SR. Can't keep all those toggles running otherwise. And thank goodness for Hami-Os.

Maybe he means that after 35 you have the spare slots to slot endrdx across the board? In most of my characters, that's around the time when I start having 'spare slots', anyway.

Many of my characters are also from my High-School Champions campaigns. Any other Hero system fans out there in LJ land playing CoH/V?