Samuel_Tow

Maybe I'm biassed from looking at stories from a storyteller's perspective, rather than a reader's perspective, but neither Radio nor Television are written as such. In fact, reading them as such reminds me of my time studying literature and reading the contemplation of great critics who had the uncanny ability to find hidden meaning that even the author never suspected.

From everything I've done for the Radio, it's written as a very bizarre radio show which ends up helping YOU. In fact, the DJ actually says one time "...broadcasting from our secret location. And boy, we better remain secret because..." Now, we can go the route of conjecture and start guessing whether it's a mind experiment, some kind of ancient spirit, or the God of Radio, but it's written as a bunch of guys broadcasting over the radio waves.

Television is HEAVILY implied to actually be a foreign intelligence behind the picture, as deduced from the narrator being less a real picture and sound and more a combination of odd static, like those ghost voices people hear on audio tapes of seances. If I had to put my writer's cap for a moment, I'd personally enjoy expanding this as a sort of "ghost in the machine" story where some entity is either trapped in the airwaves, or is able to abuse the airwaes to control people's minds, and it's there all the time, behind the the picture on the televisions screen, if only you know what to look for. Kind of like watching the Matrix screens. It looks like green symbols scrolling down, but once you get used to it, you see blonds, brunettes and red heads. Or... Something.

See, I like guesstimating about the implications of an unclear story as much as the next guy. But unless the story actually comes up with an answer, it's all idle speculation that has no actual meaning. As we've proven time and time again, RP can prove and disprove absolutely everything if you put your back into it, so guessing over a story with an open end is, really, only vaguely interesting, but not really meaningful. Unless a sequel comes out or a conclusion gives an explanation, or at least an allusion for an explanation, I might as well go off and write my own story from scratch.

Again, I enjoy stories wrapped up nice and tidy with little to no loose ends. I don't mind morality left in question, because there really is no one answer to any moral question. But FACTS shouldn't be left unanswered, because facts aren't a matter of belief and opinion. A story has to come to SOMETHING by the end, or it really IS meaningless.

I couldn't disagree more. When I finished the Television missions, I was left wondering why I did the things I did. Very much so. I was left wondering why I had wasted my time when absolutely NOTHING came of it. I was left wondering why such a unique opportunity to develop the concept into something so much more interesting than simply a gag was left leading to nothing. And the worst part of it is there ARE inklings of an interesting story in there, but they never amount to anything.

Frankly, I couldn't see the appeal of Television outside of laughing at the references for shows which never aired where I live and probably never will and the incredibly shallow themes about propaganda (read: overt mind control). It's all a big exercise of "Go there, do that, now go here, do this, FOR TELEVISION!" And it wouldn't be as bad if it didn't play ME for a fool, overwriting character concept completely and entirely. The Radio, at least, comes off as helping you, even if it's helping you help it. And the Radio, at least, does come off as someone using a magical radio to communicate, not something as cheap as "the spirit of radio." Television had the potential to become more than just more redundant social commentary, but apparently the gags were too good to ruin with actual plot.

I cannot describe how much I despise Television as a contact. If I could erase all the souvenirs it gave my lead villain, I would. I go as far as to not even bother with the Master of the Airwaves badge any more. It's not funny, and all it ends up doing is taunting me with the story which could have been.

Ugh!

Here's an interesting thought. Hmm... If we look at it from the perspective of me having done something to influence the story, I can't say I'm THAT much a fan of this. I don't dislike having interactive stories, mind you, but as long as the story is good and enjoyable, I don't mind it being railroading in the slightest. After all, I read and write stories first and play games second, so it kind of comes with the territory.

As for the original topic, I don't mind being dragged behind a story, led by a story or involved in a story, just as long as it comes to SOMETHING by the end. Stories that don't amount to anything or resolve themselves independent of the protagonists such that they could have simply been written out of the story (hello War of the Worlds!), that isn't exciting. It's a waste.

You know... That's part of the experience. I have one of the bigger egos around here, and even I can occasionally appreciate a little humility in how the game makes me play. In fact, I will miss the old SK leash mechanic, to a point. When I'm a sidekick, I like to get into the mentality of it. I like to view my mentor as the big, powerful, impressive hero that I am there to assist and whom I can rely on to take care of me. It's not exactly highly dignified, no, but not everything heroes do is always dignified. That's part of what it means to be a hero - do the things others wouldn't or couldn't do.

Typically, I play Scrappers and Brutes, and I typically play with sidekicks of my own. I've developed a mentality of the tough guy that other people can rely on (for the most part) and I always feel like I should take care of my sidekick, keep him from getting in over his head and such forth. I also like to expect my sidekick to be a little responsible for himself and not run off on his own or pick impossible fights, and I'm not above letting a sidekick stew in his own mock occasionally.

The point, though, is that most of the time I feel like people are relying on me and I'm struggling to perform because my position demands I perform. To me, it's occasionally relaxing to be follower for a change and rely on someone else to look after you.

Macho is good, but humility is good, as well, at least from time to time.

The original Requiem uses DARK powers, not NICTUS powers, however. The Nictus are an inky purple, whereas last time I saw 5th Column Requiem, he was using the greyish black tendrils of Dark Armour/Dark Melee/Dark Blast/Dark Miasma.

Allow me to express my state of understanding in a single smilie:

Still, thank you for your help If I know that Grant Cover's defence debuff resistance is not slottable for, then I'm afraid my team-mates are going to have to go to hell, because I am NOT devoting slots to this power if it's not going to do anything for me. And I would have, otherwise.

Pity.

Oh, well. More slots for other stuff!

Crap! OK, then does does slotting Battle Agility for defence increase the amount of my defence debuff resistance? It's listed it does, and from what I've seen of Super Reflexes, the toggles' defence debuff resistance is slottable, as well. Or seems to be, anyway.

This, to me, is the crux of the problem. How did it come to this point? Why did we get things that, in order for us to have them, we would have to grind and farm? Did players seriously ask for that? I mean, I know they did, but are there really that many people out there who actually like this stuff?

Either way, I agree with your general premise - whether we have farm bait or not, the point remains that if we are so inclined, we can just ignore the existence of these things and play as we always had. This, to me, is the single most compelling reason (in terms of pure gameplay) to pick City of Heroes over any other MMO, and indeed over most RPGs.

This, children, is what we call a self-fulfilling prophecy.

"Hey, look at that guy! He's so mean! If I go call him every nasty word, he'll punch me in the face! See, I'll go prove it!"

You proved nothing, Tank. You make an empty point with the easiest of passive-aggressive baits and just sit and wait for someone to point that out, then you spring into action proclaiming an empty victory.

And you still fail to make an actual point. If you meant to say that I was one of your supposed Illuminati, then then you fail, because I my disagreement with your post is based in fact, not subject to mental conditioning. If you want to claim I got some of my facts wrong or misrepresented something, then make a case and I will listen. If you feel I am somehow at fault, accuse me of something a little more concrete and meaningful than being a fanboy by another name.

You trade reason for empty sentiment and then you are surprised when people who don't feel as scorned don't share your sentiment? What is your POINT, other than "woe is me?"

*edit*
I should point out that I welcome playing the bad guy. You want to demonise someone, demonise me. Go right ahead. I'll even play into your awkward vision of what your enemy should be like, if that's what it'll take to point out how ludicrous it is. Go ahead. Give me a list of faults and I'll try to see how many of them I can hit. Then you get to point at me and proclaim moral superiority. I'll go with that.

A man with a crowbar and a PHD in theoretical physics. Don't sell Gordon short, please.

Weren't we just talking about straw men? You just invented an entire hidden conspiracy of mindless, self-destructive Illuminati who come to the forums with the sole purpose of defending positions they disagree with for no reason other than because they were made by the developers. And you think you proved something by telling these imaginary, easily-defeatable people off? This is the Internet equivalent of shouting at your shadow.

It is also getting embarrassing how a lot of people who cry "fan boys" never seem to be able to put forth anything actually convincing, restricting themselves to unfounded conspiracy theories and groundless propaganda, never being able to say "I" or "my," but rather always "we" and "ours." Why is it that I am perfectly capable of standing on my own position and opinion without claiming to speak for an overwhelming, yet silent majority, yet you can't seem to speak for yourself without insinuating some self-righteous justification why your actions and opinions are somehow more valid?

Shotgunning character assassination into the aether and patting yourself on the back serves no purpose whatsoever. If there are issues to be addressed, address them. But for Pete's sake, stop preaching.

This echoes my own stance on the matter. All those other games that consist of grinds and farms and the sort can go to hell for all I care. I've tried a lot of them, and I've always left with a sour taste in my mouth when it finally dawned in me how much WORK I had to put in my GAME after a certain point, because the game was designed to expect that I would.

City of Heroes wasn't like that, and even today still isn't like that. Oh, sure, we have fat loot for those who can't live without it, but from where I stand, all it's good for is chest-beating. Since I don't care about being the best or even more powerful than I need to, I have the very real option to NOT get locked into the rat race, ignore the whole thing and play the game like it was 2004.

And while I'm certainly not going to go out of my way to tell people how to play or not to farm and so forth, I am NOT a fan of this need to farm and level quickly becoming the overriding theme of the game, and I'm certainly not going to shed any tears if anti-farming changes are being instituted, so long as they're not stupid and heavy-handed (like the Freakshow experience reduction - WAY too low). Let people farm as much as they can, but this shouldn't be a game ABOUT farming, and so really shouldn't be instituting its changes AROUND farming.

Plain and simple.

Care to take part in discussing it, then? What did you find interesting about it?

It has been commented on before, but not much. Personally, I despise the female running animation with a passion and I am VERY happy that shields cause them to run in a more respectable way. I'm not opposed to optionally picking different stances, but I do NOT want to lose the ability for my shielders and weapon users to not jiggle their butts when they run.

I'll be the first to say that dropping Freakshow experience THAT low was stupid. Freaks may not be that threatening or difficult, but they are certainly not any LESS threatening than the Council, and those still get the baseline 1.0 experience. To me, it's just a silly overbalance reflecting an even sillier overreaction. Make them baseline, by all means. But don't make them a waste of time compared to the much easier Council.

To be fair, the "floating islands" concept isn't that novel in itself. Tomb Raider 2 used that as one of its last stages, and though it used a matte black sky (such were things at the time), the concept was very much similar, and the look wasn't that far off.

Existentialist nonsense. I am not "afraid" you may be right. I am "afraid" your argument is completely groundless, and I'm tired of people inventing arguments to preach doom, which they turns around and feeds their own argument. Yours is a malicious argument backed up by circular logic. THAT is what bugs me the most.

I misunderstand nothing. You are presenting these problems as "CoX's problem" when they are quite evidently YOUR problems which you are projecting over the entire game. In fact, it contradicts your very point. "This is my opinion" doesn't work when you claim your opinion is fact. This is a problem for the entire game? Really? Prove it. Because from where I'm sitting, I'm not seeing any of it. I'm quite simply not going to take your word for it, especially when it contradicts my experience.

See, this is what bugs me. People keep stating their experiences and then basing global conclusions on them, conclusions which could simply never be justifiable in the absence of data that the people making these claims clearly lack. There are only 4-5 people in Peregrine Island than there were back when Peregrine Island was THE ONLY ONE, SINGLE ZONE WITH ANYTHING FOR LEVEL 50S TO DO? You don't say!

Stop grasping onto the one explanation you want to believe and approach this a bit more objectively, please. I'm as worried as anyone about the game bleeding population, but I'm not about to jump into panic because I didn't see many people on once in a while.

And one more thing: please stay away from the embarrassing straw men. Trying to invent alternate agendas for your opponents and paint them as small, deluded minds so that you can then patronise them in an insultingly passive-aggressive tone does not help your argument. Facts do. Have any?

That's an empty guess. I know at least a dozen people who left the game, NOT A SINGLE ONE OF WHOM LEFT BECAUSE OF NERFS. Every single person I have known who left the game did so because of burnout or because they found something new to play.

To quote Ceiling Cat: anecdotal evidence is anecdotal. And I am sick and tired of people overblowing their own problems and projecting their discontent over "a sizeable number" of other people with no evidence but a dozen of their friends. That's a dozen, maybe two, out of over a hundred thousand. And not a fair cross-section, either. People in-game naturally gravitate towards forming friendships with people similar to them. It is therefore very likely that what outrages one will outrage a good portion of them. Other, different people forming friendships with like-minded folk may ignore these "nerfs" altogether as a group.

This goes further into the forum population. It is an outright farce to believe that the forum population is either representative of the game's population as a whole, or even a valid cross-section of it. It's only a representation of both a small number of people and a small subset of mindsets. Most of us here are loudmouths who come to make our opinion known, and we are NOT representative of all kinds of people. "Outrage" on the forums, therefore, is nothing more than a tempest in a teapot. Subscription numbers are the only valid metric, and I don't believe we have access to those right now.