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.

ZAM: It's hard to believe that City of Heroes will be celebrating its seventh anniversary in April, and you've already announced the veteran's rewards for players. How do you feel City of Heroes has evolved since its original release back in 2004? What important lessons have you learned since then?

Nate: The biggest lesson we've learned is that we have a really unique game with its own identity. At Paragon Studios we constantly push the envelope as well as find new ways to reinforce what makes us unique. For example, in the early days of City of Heroes, Task Forces were designed to take hours to complete. Over time we have learned that players want to have fun, challenging encounters where they can feel heroic or villainous. An all-day mission isn't necessarily the best way to accomplish that. We've got nearly seven years' worth of content, and there is a whole lot for players to do with their time in-game.

In more recent issues we have moved towards making the Task and Strike Forces a more contained experience, with new challenges and unique gameplay, but at a more manageable length so people have time to do more. We even went so far as to split up the signature Positron Task Force into two parts and completely redesigned both of them last year. This experience has led us to design the Incarnate Trials in the same way.

ZAM: To move to general questions regarding the industry, when it comes to guiding the development of a superhero MMO versus, say, a fantasy MMORPG, have you noticed any challenges that you don't think other MMO developers really run into? What is really unique about creating a superhero MMO?

Nate: Obviously, some of the common MMO tropes such as gear are tougher to translate, as well as crafting systems used as a social experience and as a player identity. I think other superhero games have tried to mimic those mechanics more closely, to varying levels of success, but we instead have stayed closer to the core of the genre while still giving our own idiosyncratic nods to crafting, for example. Instead we focus on customization. We want our players to have a way to stand out in a world where everyone can fly or set things on fire or hurl refrigerators with the power of their minds.

I think the biggest challenge is to stay unique, to avoid saying that because another game has x, we need x. In fact, I'd say we've had our continued success due to the fact that we've defined our milieu and stayed true to it. The genre gives shape to the gameplay; turning that relationship around and letting the tail wag the dog instead may make sense in a meeting room, but at the keyboard it just feels wrong. 

ZAM: It's obvious that you can't ignore SOE's recently released DC Universe Online. Are you surprised that there is a total of three superhero MMOs in what some would consider to be a niche part of the MMO market? What's the appeal here?

Nate: I think it's a natural progression, especially since so many fantasy MMOs have had a hard time of it. Comic properties are really riding high right now - the comic book companies have done a great job of identifying the way their IP can stay strong in the modern world, and I think we're seeing that result in a booming comic book-inspired market.

I worked my way through college in a comic book and game store during the comics boom of the '90s; until recently, some of my old friends had felt the genre was doomed to be part of the pop culture background noise and had lost its relevancy. But many of these great characters have had forty, fifty, sixty, seventy years to weave their way into the (inter)national consciousness, and some very savvy custodians of these properties have figured out that if you treat superheroes in a grown-up way and via a variety of accessible formats, the public will respond to the truly dramatic stories that can be told, and I think it's not just natural but necessary to leverage interactive media to explore the genre.

The fortunate thing for City of Heroes is that we've always been a superhero game, not specifically a comic book game (though with roots in that medium), and we're able to leverage the same trends and build on a brimming well of content and IP of our own.

ZAM: These days it's impossible to be an MMO developer and not hear of the buzz word 'free-to-play' model being thrown around everywhere. What do you think of the F2P model in MMOs, and do you think City of Heroes would ever do something like that, or is subscription here to stay for you?

Nate: The market is growing and maturing; and as any high school choir teacher will tell you, that means change. We'd be foolish to ignore that fact, but at Paragon Studios the relationship we have with our customers is the most important thing to us, and we strive to reward their investment in us by continually delivering compelling and unique gameplay experiences. I think now that the first wave of free-to-play conversions has happened, we'll see some already successful games learning from the new model and develop complete experiences that brings new people into the game while adding value to existing customers as a viable business model, not just a backstop to their subsiding subscriber base.

ZAM: And that's all the questions we had for now! Thanks so much for answering and congratulations on both your new position and City of Heroes' seventh anniversary! Here's to many more!

Nate: Thanks for the questions and for the congratulations. I know both City of Heroes and I have more than a few good years ahead of us!