Nate Birkholz recently took the helm as City of Heroes' new producer. Chris Tom sat down with him to discuss his new position and his vision for the game, which is celebrating its seventh anniversary this year.

Paragon Studios recently announced that City of Heroes Producer Jesse "Ghost Falcon" Caceres would be moving to a different position at the studio, and with that announcement also came the introduction of the game's new producer, Nate "Second Measure" Birkholz. Immediately following the introduction, Birkholz came busting out the door with some of his plans for the future of City of Heroes.

Now, with DC Universe Online already out on the market and tons of new MMOs on the way, Senior Staff Writer Chris "Pwyff" Tom decided to sit down with Birkholz to talk about how City of Heroes plans to compete in the market, as well as some of his views on the MMO industry in general. The new producer also reflects on the game's seventh anniversary, which will be celebrated in April.

Check out the interview after the jump, and keep an eye out for Pwyff's adventures in City of Heroes later this week!

ZAM: Hi Nate! Thanks for taking the time to talk with us as the new producer for City of Heroes!

Nate Birkholz: Thanks to you!

ZAM: Being a producer for City of Heroes isn't a giant step for you by any means, as you were previously the associate producer for the game. The move up, however, must certainly come with a new set of challenges and goals. Is there anything you're excited to do in your new position that you weren't quite able to do before, or is this simply a matter of taking on more responsibility?

Nate: I've been in production at several other places before Paragon Studios, and some of the details change based on where I find myself. In general, however, the role is always at its heart about ensuring good decisions are made and that people have everything they need to follow through on those decisions - whether it's information, tools, coordination, or just an understanding of what needs to be done and why.

I'd say the thing I'm most excited about with this adjustment in role is moving more into working with the team to focus on decisions and follow-through for our long term goals. I've been at Paragon for over a year now including working on Going Rogue, and I know that the Paragon Studios development team can accomplish things today that might have been impossible in the past. I just can't wait to show our players what we are going to accomplish this year and beyond.

ZAM: You refer to the Incarnate Trials in your producer's letter. While I have a basic understanding of the Incarnate system as being a way of "powering up" players beyond the level cap with these new paths of progression, what are your future plans for the system? Can players expect to be hearing of incarnate boosts for a long time coming?

Nate: The signature characters in our game such as Statesman and Lord Recluse are "Incarnates," taking the living form of an ancient and mysterious power. Incarnate Trials let players become Incarnates themselves, with challenging high-level content and access to spectacular new levels of might, as well as exciting reasons to use their newfound abilities.

The Incarnate System will be a major feature of our game going forward: some of this will be by telling surprising stories throughout the game about what it means to be "Incarnate," some of it will be in ongoing expansions of the accessible challenges posed by the Incarnate Trials that make up our end-game, and some will be in delivering new ways to experience the raw power of being Incarnate, with new abilities and new ways to use your existing powers.

ZAM: Your latest expansion, Going Rogue, was met with a fairly positive reaction from the community, especially with your decision to explore the fascinating grey area that separates a superhero from a vigilante. What is it that you can do with an expansion that you can't do with multiple issues released in sequence? Can we expect to see another expansion in the future?

Nate: At Paragon Studios we are always looking to find new ways to get City of Heroes on people's hard drives. We've always provided a lot of content and new systems with every free issue release, but a major expansion is a great way to help that along, as well as a perfect point to make dramatic changes to the playing field. After nearly seven years we have built up an identity that people recognize and value, and we wouldn't be spending that investment wisely if we didn't take advantage of that investment by getting in front of more people. We also want to make it easier to get into the game for our customers, and that is a focus for our team this year.

ZAM: It seems that for the PvP crowd in City of Heroes, development hasn't been exactly at the level of what they've wanted. Are there any future developments coming along for die-hard PvPers?

Nate: We always fix bugs that come up with the current PvP system, and a couple of years ago we made it possible to balance PvP separately from PvE. The challenge is that it is very difficult to balance PvP in a game with over a thousand powers in hundreds of potential combinations, and we have made some changes in the past that didn't end up the way we wanted them to. "Just doing something else" isn't going to make anyone happy, least of all us. The community has given us great PVP feedback over the years and we have had some sound ideas internally, but we also want to find the right solution.

We get a lot of feedback about many aspects of the game from our current players as well as our former players. We have addressed a great number of player requests with Going Rogue, Issue 19, and Issue 20 by adding new zones and significant storylines, adding alignment switching, merging markets, and crafting a real endgame.

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