BrandX

Originally Posted by Tenzhi

I'm sure that I *am* right, but unless my brain slipped its leash again that doesn't sound like it's related to something I said. Credit where it's due and all that.

Originally Posted by afocks

I remember getting kicked from a BAF trial just before NS and Seige went down just because some jerk disagreed with me, that changed the game for me - and my subscription.

Originally Posted by dugfromthearth

tanker and blaster are opposite ends of survivability and damage.
stalker and brute are just about opposite play styles.

How different are the characters you play?
Same AT, different sets?
Similar AT's (brute/scrapper, Blaster/Corruptor)?

I have several tankers, a scrapper, a few corruptors, doms, Crab and am now making a night widow (stealth=crit). The crab and corruptors play about the same - ranged damage. The tanker and scrapper play about the same. My biggest problem is the dom which feels like a melee so I tend to start thinking I'm a tank and faceplanting.

I'll have to see if I can stand the slower pace of the Night Widow.

Originally Posted by Eva Destruction

Actually, I've said this before, but I think they should be forced to use Architect to sketch out their arcs before they even start thinking about adding special mechanics and unique maps. This would force the writers to think of the story first and add mechanics to help tell it, rather than coming up with a cool new mechanic and shoehorning a story in around it.



Fusionette is an idiot. Her dialogue and story actions support this. When someone spouts lines like "quit looking down my dress or my boyfriend will beat you up" they will not be liked. Sefu Tendaji has annoying powers, and he gets captured twice in the RWZ storyline, and yet he manages to avoid being the butt of constant jokes.

Originally Posted by Talen Lee

You are aware of what 'hollywood' is code for, right?

Originally Posted by BlueBattler

Karate Kid's thing was that he was the best Martial Artist in the Galaxy ... not just Terran martial arts, but ALL martial arts. (And the man once held his own against Four of the Fatal Five using nothing but his wits and physical prowess.)

So, yeah. He should fully be capable of beating people who fight dirty.

Originally Posted by Schismatrix

To me this sums up the essentials of why the thread's premise is superficial, shortsighted and narrowminded. Later posts reinforced that studying history is useless if you refuse to allow it to broaden your perspective or even learn from studying history. (Or the present.) i really wish that had come as a surprise, but extolling jingoism as a virtue basically confirms that there is nothing useful there.

Some of the other posts are interesting, but i've come to realize that at least one poster has nothing to offer, except perhaps to serve as an object lesson: "Hey kids, this is ignorance by choice looks like. It's almost impossible to ameliorate and will happily advocate pain and suffering for anyone who differs with great pride and satisfaction. Try not to be like that."

Carry on.

Originally Posted by Golden Girl

Without the game world, it's not really City of Heores

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow

Of course they are, but that doesn't make the Statesman any better. He was written to be the bestest, greatest, heroiest of us all, the pinnacle of majesty we could never actually reach. He's been trashed, and big, in recent years, and to be honest... I feel it's made for a more compelling character. Seeing the Well of the Furies take over the Statesman and leave him wheezing actually made me interested in the character for the first time since... Ever! I had to wonder how that could have felt, I had to wonder what his reaction would be once he regained his senses. It got me to thinking that Marcus has been living with this parasite in the back of his mind for a hundred years, shaping his whole persona around it, striving for a virtuous, moderate life as his only real option.

Seeing the Statesman as a tragic but determined hero as opposed to a god-modding GM's avatar was, honestly, quite compelling. I'd have wanted to see more of this story. Hell, both Marcus and Stephen should have been a big part in the Incarnate storyline. A Mary Sue becomes compelling when the character stops being "above" all others and when other characters catch up to them and start assisting the Mary Sue with his or her own problems, as opposed to always being assisted by them. Just imagine a story that reads like the story arcs in Faultline, only instead of Jim Temblor, we're cooperating with the Statesman. That would have been awesome.

But, whatever. Why bother flesh him out as a character when we can just kill him and finally get rid of Jack Emmert once and for all. Meh.



That's a straw man and you know it. People care about NPCs in this game, and care greatly. I blew a gasket in my head when I saw how Katie Douglass was treated in First Ward and swore off the whole storyline just because of that. Or how about Vernon Von Gurn? People laugh at his antics, yes, but he's also one of the most memorable characters out there. Or, hell, Faultline himself actually counts. We see him grow up from an "angry young man" into freedom fighter and responsible adult. I just wish more of his War Zone appearances could have had story behind them, as opposed to "Oh, we're determined to put helpers in all missions, so why not toss Faultline out there?"

Signature characters become interesting when you involve them in storylines. When we can actually see these characters first hand, when we can see them act, hear them speak, observe how they act and react to circumstances, then we begin to know them as people, rather than as mugshot icons. I recall someone's story - I think it was Samuraiko - which had Positron become embarrassed at a meeting by something Synapse said, then storm off and rush for home, only to discover Synapse sitting on his couch, grinning and asking for details. That genuinely made me laugh out loud, and it put their relationship in perspective. It made me care for baldy, and it made me care for Synapse, and that's saying something considering I HAAATE Synapse the way he's written in-game.

Familiarity breeds comfort. We know these characters, we know what to expect from them, and we're interested in them. When we expect these characters to save the day, we're excited. When we expect these characters to mess up big, we're concerned. We have accepted these characters into our world, and when something happens to them, we care. Whether we like or despise the characters isn't really important. If a character I care for is hurt - like Katie Douglass - I feel bad about it. If a character I hate gets hurt - like Malaise - I prance around my room singing "Ding dong! The witch is dead!" In either care, I care.

---

I don't get the feeling that the writers really care about the characters they toss around in their stories, to be honest. Not the villains, not the heroes. I can get a sense from the way a story is written that the writer really cared about the characters in that story. And when the writer cares, I care. When a character's actions or fate get an emotional rise out of me, be it one of happiness or sadness, then the story has done its job. It has made me care.

But this manipulative, shallow, sensationalist approach to throwing in a shock death with the mistaken belief that it's the death and the shock which sells just bugs me. That's not what makes for a good, memorable story. OK, it makes for a "memorable" story, in the sense of One More Day, but that's not something to shoot for. What makes a good story is a narrative which makes us care enough to consider certain things unthinkable, because when that story finally does force us to face the unthinkable, the effect is significant.

When we barely know these characters and barely care about them at all, that just doesn't work.

*edit*
Something just occurred to me. For the longest time, I've had a problem with the game's writing, and I think the problem is that whoever is "writing" the story is actually thinking more in terms of how to make a decent Architect arc rather than how to make a good story. The encounters in the missions work, the story is written around them well and it makes for decent action. But there doesn't seem to have been any actual STORY written down as such, just an Architect user writing an Architect arc focused on gameplay and not story.

Originally Posted by Mr_Morbid

I miss the Apex/War Witch comics. I liked their 'working class' hero stories and lifestyle a lot more than the Freedom Phalanx comics.

Fruit Stripe Forever!

Originally Posted by Mad_Scientist_JC

I've seen missions backing this up too. I wouldn't be surprised if some of them were just mutants too though. Lord knows what's in the water in Paragon that makes so many people get superpowers.

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow

Ironically enough, killing off the Statesman might be the smart move here, because he's pretty much the epitome of everything that's wrong with the Freedom Phalanx in general. The Statesman is the Mary Sue of City of Heroes. He's the greatest that ever was, the greatest there ever will be, he's the one that shows up as a level 54 AV when you rescue them, he's the one we'll never be greater than... And yet he has all of ONE appearance in the entire game.

Well, that's how he used to be. He's showed up a few more times and been brought down a bit, but the point is that these characters are the development team's babies. Almost every Lead Something has a red name named after one of them. Matt Miller created Positron himself, I believe. These guys are favoured, but like the Statesman, they never get any characterisation, and when they do, it's pretty much the worst comic book angle of a group of jerkasses who can't stand each other and have more character flaws than a parody of the game would.

We don't know much about these characters, and what we know about them is not endearing. Manticore kidnapped his future wife naked out of her bath tub and handed her over to Arachnos as part of some ridiculous Batman gambit. And yet we're supposed to care that these people could die? Meh. Kill 'em all. Get them out of the game and replace them with someone who has background to him in the actual game. Alexis was probably the best example of why this is a problem. Prior to her getting killed, I didn't even know she existed.

I don't like emotionally manipulative sensationalist storylines to begin with, yet it's somehow even worse when they involve characters that players have had no reason to care about.

Originally Posted by Daimyo_Shi

Is there any point to do these mission any more?

Originally Posted by BlueBattler

Karate Kid should have kicked his butt. And Captain America in the DC Vs. Marvel Who'd Win(tm) miniseries.

Originally Posted by VoodooGirl

The only redeeming part of Superman Returns: Parker Posey.

Kitty
Wow Lex; that's really something.

Lex
Wait for it.

Pause

Nothing happens

Kitty
Wow Lex, that's really something.

She was also the only highlight of Scream 3 & Blade: Trinity

Originally Posted by RosaQuartz

It wasn't clear to you that the villain was insane? He wasn't behaving rationally because he was irrational. As a History Major, you should know that not all historical figures proceed on a rational course of action, so why would you expect fictional characters to behave the same way?

I have my problems with nuTrek, but the villain's motivations is way low on the list.


I also have to say, you are pretty much the first person I have ever encountered first hand who thought The Patroit was anything but a bowl of excrement. Your whole War Movie rant reeked of jingoism.

Originally Posted by Angry_Citizen

It's really not. Steamroller groups consist of just about any slapped-together pick up group in existence these days. And frankly, any group can be made into a steamroller group with the presence of an effective AoE damage dealer and something to keep the AoE damage dealer alive. When in any group situation, the presence of an AoE damage dealer is always better than a single target damage dealer. I'm not saying single target damage is worthless. I'm just saying that any person which focuses entirely on single target damage, or even primarily on single target damage, is going to be less worthy to be on a team than an AoE damage dealer - by a wide margin.



So, fellow advocates of stalker buffing, do you run around in teams whining about how weak you are to the point where your functionality begins to suffer? No? Didn't think so. Guess that makes the person I'm quoting.. well, it certainly makes him something.



So what's my MA or DM stalker supposed to do, curl up and weep?

Originally Posted by CaptainFoamerang

Yes he is. But with Wonder Woman's physical abilities she's basically the most dangerous fighter.

Originally Posted by TeChameleon

... am I parsing the OP correctly if I paraphrase their original post as 'I don't mind the villains winning, just please don't make my character a dumb*** so that can happen'? Frankly, the heroes grabbed the idiot ball with both fists in the last couple of SSAs, and have been busily beating their own brains out with it ever since. Manticore especially. The last couple of SSAs make him look like he's got such a raging inferiority complex that he shouldn't be allowed to own a capgun, much less a massive arsenal of superhero gear.

Then again, the writing for the last couple has been... odd. It's like our characters have suddenly popped out of the game and into the comics, where the Phalanx are the last, desperate bastion against evil, not just the tip-top of a massive heap. There's a couple of lines to the effect of them 'not being the only ones any more', but the words ring a bit hollow when compared to their actions. I doubt Malaise could have done much if he had been locked down by a dozen psi-cops, for example, or if the Midnighters had been on hand to magically defuse him and had been able to block the Dirge of Chaos... They had options, they simply didn't explore them the way they should have, perhaps out of a misguided feel that this was 'family'.

I don't know. I don't dislike the SSAs, at least not the way some posters seem to, but I really do feel like a guest star in them- like Aurora Borealis just kind of said 'hey, I know a guy...' when the problem came up.

Also, let me comment that I'm squarely in the 'self-defense' camp for Sister Psyche. Malaise might not have been trying to inflict physical harm on her (iffy, given that Aurora Borealis flat-out says that if her evil twin/fragment would attempt to murder Psyche if she couldn't take full control- and quite bluntly, if you're going to play that card, you'd better let it swing both ways- Psyche didn't lay a finger on Malaise, she just erased the part of him that had been projected into her mind), the destruction of her original personality is just as much murdering her as if he'd stuck a knife into her. Read the souvenir- Malaise says that he's planning to 'remake her as a completely different person'. If that had worked, it would mean that Tilman wasn't coming back. As in 'She's dead, Jim.' Given that Psyche wound up in a coma after killing Malaise off, it sure sounds like it was supposed to be a last-ditch desperation thing, not something done in cold blood.

And really, until we can get Sister Psyche out of a coma, she's not going to be undergoing an inquiry, given that she's, well, comatose. I'm hoping that the devs have the stones to show her undergoing some consequences for killing Jean off, even if it was self-defense. Of course, given how... irregular... her dealings with him always were, it might get a bit weird. Some of that was just sloppy writing, mind- I could swear I remember reading some bits that said that Malaise actually suffered dissociative identity disorder, and Sister Psyche was forcing the 'good' identity into dominance, while other times it just says that Sister Psyche healed the damage that his own powers had done to his mind. *shrug*

EDIT- and as to the 'all the co-op content is heroically flavoured'... I hate to be so gauche as to bring numbers into things, but the fact remains that hero-side is where the vast majority of the money is coming from. The bean-counters would probably beat the devs to death with filing cabinets if they tried to make villainous-flavoured content that made the heroes into suckers, for fear of alienating the significantly more profitable blueside players. At least 'saving your own butt' is a more villainous motivation than 'haha, sucker' is a heroic one.

Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle

I'm trying to remember when it became totally intolerable to about 50% of posters (or at least those who produce 50% of posts) to play any meleer that doesn't have a taunt aura. It's a relatively recent development, because it used to be the case that brutes didn't exist at all and three quarters of scrapper sets lacked taunt auras. Plenty of people played scrappers back then! Indeed, in the game today there seems to be no special bias among the unwashed masses against tauntless sets. Why, then, the guaranteed hostility to the concept on the forums?