Paragon Studios

Overview

Paragon Studios was NCsoft's North California studio, located in Mountain View, CA; it was also referred to as NorCal Studios, Mountain View, NC NorCal, and NCNC/NC².

Paragon Studios formed from NCsoft purchasing Cryptic Studios' half of the "City Of" franchise's Intellectual Property (I.P.). The purchase was announced on November 6, 2007. At the time of the purchase, "City Of" was developed by a mere fifteen people (the Freem Fifteen); most of those developers for the game left Cryptic and moved over to the new studio (15 miles from Cryptic Studios). They completed moving to the new studio on December 18, 2007.

Previously most often called NorCal Studios, they adopted the Paragon Studios name on April 14, 2009. Paragon Studios was officially closed when NCsoft announced the sunsetting of City of Heroes on August 31, 2012, with just a skeleton crew remaining to monitor the servers and community presence until the final shutdown on November 30, 2012. Paragon Studios employed a maximum of roughly 80 people at the end.

Former Staff

Paragon Studios – April 10, 2009 [1]

Paragon Studios - August 17, 2010

Management Team

Brian Clayton (General Manager/Executive Producer), Melissa Bianco (Lead Designer)

Design Department

Chris Behrens (Senior Designer), Melissa Bianco (Lead Designer), Black Scorpion, Jonathan Courney (Powers), Sean Michael Fish (Writer/Consultant), John Hegner (Lore/Writer), Chris Hockabout (World Designer), Sean McCann (Mission Architect/Writer), Matt Miller (Systems Design), Joe Morrissey (Writer/Bible), Ray Snyder (Design Support), Phil Zeleski (Powers/Designer)

Programming Department

C.W. Bennett, Aaron Brady (Lead Software Engineer), Mike Chock (Graphics), Vince D'Amelio, Garth Gillespie, Scott Nelson, Matt Stults, Ghost Widow, Dave G

Art Department

Cheryl Austin (Character Artist), Keetsie Braz da Cunha (FX Artist), Leo Braz da Cunha (FX Artist), Colin Brown (Character Animator), Jay Doherty (Character/Costume), Ken Morse (Previously Lead Artist), David Nakayama (Art Lead), Jason Olmstead (UI), Don Pham (Environmental/3D Artist), Ryan Roth (Environmental Artist), Carolina Tello Alvarado (Concept Artist)

Production Department

Avatea (Assistant Community Manager), C. Bales, Beastyle (Community Moderator), Andy Belford (Community Manager), Nate Birkholz (Associate Producer), Ross Borden (Dir. Business & Marketing), Theresa Bottenhorn (HR/Office Mom), Rachel Bristol, Jesse Caceres (Development Producer), Kevin Callanan (Moderator 13) (Community Moderator), Arbiter Curry (Bugs), Richard Higbee (AP/Build Engineer), Eric Johnsen (Associate Producer), Arbiter Kim (Lead Bug Guy), Arbiter Oates (Bugs)

Quality Assurance (QA)

Please note that the QA department is from NCsoft, though they may or may not assist Paragon Studios directly.
Red Skeleton (CoH QA Lead)

Sound and Music Department

Adam Kay (Sound Engineer)

Please note that the sound/music department is from NCsoft, though they may or may not assist Paragon Studios directly.
Michael Henry, Joe Lyford

Former Staff Prior to Shut Down

Christopher Bruce (Animation/FX), Eric Cleaver (Moderator 08) (Moderator), EMpulse (Moderator/Community Lead), Ron Friedman (Animation), Floyd Grubb (Powers Lead), Bruce Harlick (Story/Mission Writer), Jill Henderson (Community Coord.), Koschej (Moderator419) (Moderator/Community Dev), Niviene (Moderator11) (Community Specialist), Nate Van Dyke (Concept Artist), Alex Von Minden (Community Mgr.)

See Also

• Cryptic Studios
• NCsoft Europe

Links

• Paragon Studios Home Page
• NCsoft Announces New Studio Press Release on ncsoft.net
• Google Docs - devs by Zombie_Man