Shane Hensley: City of Villains
by Mike Thompson - 20th May 2005Xequted: For those of our readers who are unfamiliar with your work, could you please introduce yourself and give a brief summary of your involvement with the RPG community?
Shane: Sure! I'm Shane Hensley, and I'm best known for a pen and paper RPG I created called Deadlands, along with Weird Wars, Hell on Earth, and Lost Colony. More recently, I created a new game called Savage Worlds, which has numerous new settings, and will relaunch Deadlands in full color this fall.
Xequted: What is your involvement with NCsoft's City of Villains?
Shane: I'm the Lead Writer for City of Villains. My main job is to create the signature villains, zones, and backstory. I also get to create a lot of the feature missions, such as the trophy trials and respecs.
Xequted: A great deal of your experience is in the pen and paper form of role-playing games, which lets players and storytellers create their own adventures and realities. What's it like to be working on a MMORPG where there is a much more structured reality?
Shane: It's great! I like working with large teams, and MMOs require a lot of input. I fed my ego long ago, and now I really enjoy throwing out some idea and letting the incredibly creative folks at Cryptic run with it and make it far better.
Xequted: City of Heroes gave players the opportunity to play the Good Guy, that person who stands for Truth, Justice, and Other Stuff. In the terms of character identity, what do you hope City of Villains will let players do differently other than playing for those darker forces of Paragon City?
Shane: I think it's all about power and selfishness. Our evil is "grand evil," not mania and psycopathy. That's fun, because it lets you create doomsday devices, wipe the floor with goody-two-shoes heroes, and go after whatever goal you think will make your character more powerful. And all with a Teen rating. We don't kick puppies in CoV. But we might let you make a giant robot that does!
Xequted: Aside from having the player vs. player element in it, what other unique gameplay features will be brought to the City of Heroes universe in this expansion?
Shane: It's more proactive. Contacts work very differently, and I think are a lot more interesting. Too, the Player versus Player zones all have some kind of gameplay within them besides just PvP, which makes it far more interesting. There are also some late-game features people will be talking about for years to come, but I can't say much about those yet.
Xequted: Deadlands was pretty instrumental in bringing a truly sinister feel to the reality it creates. Will any storytelling methods (fear levels, etc) be mimicked/incorporated in immersing players in this new, darker side of Paragon City?
Shane: The environment is what creates the mood in the Rogue Isles. Our artists have done an awesome job of making the city feel dark and ominous. From the tall, gothic skyscrapers to the dirty industrial wasteland, you'll definitely feel like you're not in Kansas anymore.
Xequted: Since City of Heroes has a pretty visible group of major heroes (Statesman, Back Alley Brawler, Ms. Liberty, etc) who are used to help train fledgling heroes and provide missions, will City of Villains create a "mirror group" of major villains to help players out?
Shane: Our signature villain is Lord Recluse, who leads Arachnos. His lieutenants are Ghost Widow, Black Scorpion, Scirocco, and my alter-ego Captain Mako.
Xequted: Who is your favorite comic book villain and why?
Shane: I've answered this one before, and I guess my personal favorite is the Joker. He's just nuts, and that makes him fun. My favorite hero is Spidey, who I've been collecting for 30 years. I love all his villains as well, with a special place in my heart for the Goblin, Kraven, and even the Shocker.
My favorite villain of all is Stone, the undead hero-hunter of Deadlands. Keep your powder dry, partner. You never know where he'll show up...
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- 26th February 2004
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