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Doctor_Minerva

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  1. Doctor_Minerva
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Freitag View Post
    • Players can now earn two Empyrean merits a week by completing all Dark Astoria arcs every week. They can speak with Taskmaster Gabriel, who is outside of the Dark Astoria hospital, in order to claim these merits.
    • Taskmaster Gabriel will inform players on how long they have until they can earn their next Empyrean merit, along with which arcs they still need to complete for their next reward.
    • Adjusted the maximum merit reward in Dark Astoria's Repeatable Missions to 2 Reward Merits. This is attainable once per 20 hours. After that, each Repeatable mission will only offer one Merit.
    The only thing I don't like about this is that I usually run in a duo, and we tested Gabriel through Ouroboros after we had each completed the arc and only the mission leader got credit towards the merits. It might be fun to run the series of DA arcs over the course of a night or two with your buddies, but it's not so much fun running them three or 4 times to ensure that everyone gets the bonus.
  2. Doctor_Minerva
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Kheprera View Post
    I finally finished these arcs on my main last night, and it's very clear to me what everyone was referring to in this thread.

    I also believe there could have been an extremely simple way to make it all sensible...

    When I run an RP arc for my SG Coalition it is not just in-game RP or running a customized AE arc or three. I also write. Long posts that have become a running gag in my group that just happen to explain to those who read them the Other Stuff going on. Cut scenes, hints, clues, and dramatic rp that gets transcribed for others lets everyone else who, for some reason or another, were not originally privvy to the information can get it from a few of my postings. This helps the players get closer emotional ties to what is going on. If they want to respond they have a choice to post a reply or act on it in game.

    Just a narrative, posted for us to see and read, describing Wade and his motives... what drives him, or something to let us connect more with anyone on the Phalanx (is the marriage of Manticore/Psyche a happy one?) would help each of us have a better idea why the characters do what they do and be more dimensional.

    Just my personal feelings on it.
    I've had a chance to reflect on this, and I think this is a small change that would go a really long way towards getting everyone on the same page.The forums are, for better or for worse, a place where we come to discuss the game. It seems that theories have a way of reinforcing themselves as they are bandied back and forth until we forget what was actually in the game. "What has gone before" is as much a staple of the superhero genre as unstable molecules. This sounds like a really easy addition that would pay considerable dividends.
  3. Doctor_Minerva
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
    I don't consider it a rewrite because I'm not changing anything of consequence. The only reason we fight CoT in the final mission is because we're in a CoT cave. That's really not part of the plot, it's a gameplay element. The plot, when you boil it down to its points is: Learn about ritual -> Get specifics on ritual -> Perform ritual. The person you learn about the ritual from is meaningful - Vanessa is a powerful psychic. The person you get the specifics on the ritual from is also important - Akharist is a prominent Circle mage. But the specific NPCs populating the instances themselves really aren't terribly relevant to the plot.

    Let me put it this way - if I swapped Malta and the Nemesis army, such that Nemesis troops raid DeVore's loft and Malta attack Portal Corp, would any part of the actual plot be affected? Would it matter? These guys are really just thrown in as "enemy group A" and "enemy group B." And, really, so are the Circle. They're there because that's where they live. But swap them for anything else and the plot doesn't change.
    I don't mean it as a dig, and I apologize if I'm coming across as pugnacious. And certainly, moreso than most arcs, I agree that the enemies don't matter, because the fights struck me as filler. What I was saying is that the presence of Rikti in Orenbaga, while not without precedent, would add more complication to the story. All else being equal, I think it would serve to complicate rather than streamline. And the usual caveats apply, that a lot depends on execution and the explanations offered and personal opinion of the player.
  4. Doctor_Minerva
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
    about this is we're left to guess and assume why we had to go down there, and I could have guessed we did because Santa Claus bought a duck. Nothing is ever established and Akharist says nothing of the sort, aside from the suspect-grammar allusion of "I'll tell you where the ritual is." A ritual "is" nowhere, because a ritual isn't. .
    In his defense, English probably isn't Akarist's first language.


    ---
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
    The concept of the energy nexus is established in game canon. The concept of strange occurrences happening since the Statesman's death is established at the first mission in the arc, and it's easy enough to believe. Now we need a reason why the Circle didn't find Wade's hidden artefact, or why they didn't attempt to use the ritual and activate it before we got there. So how about this? We go to section of Oranbega where the Ritual site is to take place and find the corridors filled not with Circle mages, but rather with the Rikti, who've used the confusion of the Statesman's death, a death which must have affected mades greatly, to launch an attack.

    Why would the Rikti attack the Circle? They fear magic because the Rikti have no magic on their homeworld. They killed all mages and destroyed all gods by killing their worshippers. The animosity between the Rikti and the Circle is longstanding and bitter. With all the other weird stuff happening - Malta attacking the Carnival, Nemesis attacking Portal Corp - would it really be THAT surprising to see the Rikti attack the Circle? Because the Rikti are not magically-inclined, they're unlikely to spot Wade's ambush, they're unlikely to try the ritual and even if they found the artefact he hid, they'd have no way to know it was important. What this means is we, as players, would have no reason to question why a CoT cave is filled with Rikti and the Rikti would have no way to upset Wade's trap.
    I'm wary of these kind of solutions because it seems less a fix and more of a rewrite. Could it work? Maybe. I don't really think it's any better or worse than what we got. It might solve a problem but introduce another one.
  5. Doctor_Minerva
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post

    We know Wade has a spare Obelisk. We know it takes that Obelisk to syphon power. So why not have the altar show up half-way through the mission, then we're asked to go forward to deal with the woman in the skirt, then in the room where she is... BAM! There's the obelisk! Uh, oh! If this is here, then this could only mean Wade planned ahead! I mean, yeah, it's still a big surprise, but at least it's a cool surprise and I'm much less likely to question those. The way it happens, I was all like "The hell?!?" and then I come out and I'm told that, well, a wizard did it.
    That sounds very appealing actually. Things happen much the same way, but they have a little more emotional heft and they seem to be a consequence of each other, rather than "First it started to fall over. Then it fell over"

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
    Or how about this? We know that since Wade killed the Statesman, strange things have been happening. The contact says so, and I can buy that. We're talking about the power of the gods. So why not have Akharist explain that this ritual has to be conducted over an energy nexus, but with the Statesman's death, most of those have been disrupted, but a few are still usable. One is even nearby, and we need to hurry because Psyche is getting worse. So we go there, we find the Obelisk, and only THEN does it become apparent why this particular nexus is still active - Wade made sure it would be, so that he knew where to lay his ambush.
    Again, that sounds pretty good. That's pretty similar to how I read the mission itself. I don't go into Orebaga unless I have to, and I imagine that would be a common sentiment and if they could have conducted the ritual in Atlas Park city hall, they would have done so. So something must have brought them into that wretched place. If this is the correct interpretation, it wouldn't hurt to have made it explicit, though.

    We did click on three obelisks going in. They didn't look like the ones in the first arc, but now I'm wondering if one of them was doing double duty as Wade's power siphon.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
    I'm compelled to talk sideways for a little bit and explain two of my more recent cases of fridge logic.

    One comes from Rapunzel, the movie, and shows up right at the very end. There, the hero is trapped in a dungeon on another island and about to be executed, but escapes and rushes over to Rapunzel to explain a misunderstanding, while at the same time her evil stepmother has her in chains and is dragging her outside the tower. The hero yells for Rapunzel to let down her hair, waits a while, hair drops down, he climbs up to see her tied up and her evil stepmother stabs him from behind. It's a good scene and a good way to show she doesn't have magic powers.

    But as the credits roll, I turn to my friend and ask "Wait... How did the evil stepmother know to set up an ambush? She thought he was on another island and probably dead." My friend things for a few seconds and replies "Well, he yelled, didn't he?" And... Yeah, he did. He yelled, waited around a minute, THEN got hair to climb up. At the time, the stepmother already had Rapunzel in chains, so improvising an ambush by gagging her and hiding next to the window shouldn't take long. That made sense to me, and it left me with no reason to question.
    Is this the movie that was called Tangled in the US? If so, another thing to consider that the tower is a spire in the middle of a valley and Gothel's going to have great line of sight on someone who has no idea that he'll want to hide his approach, so she has even more time than that.

    I think the real question is how an old woman came into possession of a tower like that.


    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
    Now, I know both of these feel like they have nothing to do with City of Heroes, and as movies, they really don't. But it's the concept of "fridge logic" that brings them closer to home. To be perfectly honest, a lot of City of Heroes is built on plot points that don't seem remarkable when you first run across them. But when you're up in the middle of the night fixing something to eat, that's when questions like these strike me. How DID Darrin syphon psyche's powers without the Obelisk? Don't those explode after you use them? How did the circle not detect his artefact? Did they not use the altar at all? How did he get past them to put the artefact there in the first place? I had to fight through an army of 'em.
    Those are legitimate questions, but I think it's perfectly okay to answer them with "We don't know, yet." (Except for the "How did he place the artifact question?" I think he would have just stealthed his way through the Thorns, seeing as he wasn't saddled with escorting two brain-dead superheroes.) I think they're in large part incidental to the story. Wade somehow managed to do the things he did. Since we only learn about them at the very end and knowing how he did these things isn't something that our characters would know and this knowledge wouldn't affect the outcome of the story, so not knowing the specifics of how he go here from there isn't a dealbreaker for me. (Not that I wouldn't mind learning details from a Dev when things wrap up, mind you.)
  6. Doctor_Minerva
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
    I'm sure there are ways to back-track and explain the chain of events (even if hiding a dangerous artefact that dooms a ritual on a place where rituals are conducted seems like a shot in the dark), but what I really dislike is HOW it's handled. This single event cemented in my mind a notion that's been forming for some time: It's Thunderdome! In today's story writing, anything can happen. There doesn't have to be any build, there doesn't have to be any foreshadowing, it doesn't have to make sense and it doesn't even have to be consistent with established canon. There are no rules any more. The writers wanted Psyche dead, so they said "Wade left some artefact that made her dead." Period.
    Did he put it in Manticore's quiver?

    I know what you mean, though. I was reading my GM's guide for Mutants & Masterminds and it had this to say about villainous plots

    Quote:
    It is often all too easy to give villains airtight schemes and such realistic expectations and reactions that the heroes simply don’t stand a chance. After all, realistically speaking, a truly good evil scheme would not even become known to the heroes until it was far too late for anyone to do anything about it. The first warning they would get about the villain’s plan to destroy the world would be the Earth cracking in half.
    I really think that there was no way for the writers to win, at least among the segments of fans who come to forum to discuss these things. If they play fair and drops hints a hundred smart people with half a year to dissect a story are going to figure it out no matter how brilliant the writer.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
    This pisses me off on two separate levels. On the one hand, it's just lazy, like they wrote the story up all the way through to the ritual without planning an end, then decided to have a twist ending, but didn't bother retro-fitting clues to it throughout the narrative leading up to that.
    What would you have liked to have seen? Within a given arc, I could certainly go for this, but between arcs, it get tricky, because we do have month or more to chew it over and go back and forth with smart, passionate people.
  7. Doctor_Minerva
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
    Well, I think I found my new all-time least favourite plot point in the entire game at the end of this story arc. Darrin Wade left an artefact that caused Sister Psyche's powers to go out of control. No build, no background, no real explanation. No real reason why Wade knew I'd ask the Carnival who'd tell me to ask the Circle, who'd send me to that precise spot despite Akharist never mentioning one specific spot is important and Wade having no way to know if someone else wouldn't be using it before I got to it. No, we needed Sister Psyche to die in a horrible fashion and hurt Manticore even more, so we tossed in the Wand of Plot Device.

    I'll agree that the big problem with the story is that it's unclear how Psyche's powers were transferred and how we know this, but I don't the other parts are problematic. Akarist never mentions that a specific spot is important, but I think it's a bigger stretch to assume that there were many possible locations for the ritual and Wade happened to pick the right than it is to conclude that there was one site or few possible sites for the ritual.

    I figure that Darren Wade was working backwards. He wanted Psyche's powers, so he looked to afflict her with something that only had one possible cure. It would actually make sense to sabotage the cure first, so there is less chance for someone to mess up his timeline. Likewise, there's no reason to assume that he knew that we'd follow any particular chain of evidence (Carnies to Akarist to site) to find the ritual site, only that we'd get there eventually.
  8. Doctor_Minerva
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AzureSkyCiel View Post
    Y
    BOOM!
    Stripped of his powers and forced to retake his stock on life, you can do a lot with his character, making him mortal and stripped of the Well's power after having it for so long justifies him sending others out, and by having him be a low level contact who has a reoccurring function, it helps better establish his new personality and gives him value to the players.


    I'm reluctant to get behind this kind of thing fully, because it seems like a lot of the complaints about the SSAs grow out of the place of "They're a failure because I would have done things differently." And I want to stress that's not how your suggestion strikes me. Somebody said not that long ago that they should have consolidated contacts, so rather than having three or four plucky investigative journalists, we just have one with whom we can have a meaningful relationship, rather than the horde of interchangeable ones that basically fill the same role. Perhaps the technology wasn't available at launch, but I wouldn't mind seeing something like that.

    But since so much depends on execution, I don't think the concept is inherently any better or worse than what was done. Given good writing, it could be great, and given bad writing, it could be like that decade when Wonder Woman lost her powers and fought crime as a kung fu mama.
  9. Doctor_Minerva
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by BellaStrega View Post
    Not going to lie, that pissed me off. ED didn't piss me off, and I found (as I suspected at the time) that ED didn't severely nerf most characters or most powers (it did impact some rather disproportionately, such as nukes and snipes, plus the way it impacted defenses). But the sense of being misled like that was one of the reasons my interest in the game tapered off before issue 7. If he hadn't said that, or if he'd at least been honest about further changes possibly in the pipeline, I would not have been fussed.
    Yeah. I was steamed at the time, but much like you, I got over it. I remember when I heard about it. I was playing a scrapper that I really liked at the time. I was thinking "All right! Now that I have focused accuracy, I can slot everything for straight damage now!" and then someone broke the news over the server channels. Heh.
  10. Doctor_Minerva

    Obligatory

    POST-ACTION

    Only if dual staffs is compatible with dual shields as a secondary.
  11. Doctor_Minerva
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Melancton View Post
    I think the problem is having Matt Miller phrase things as he did. At that point, if this were "Castle" or "The Mentalist," the fact that Statesman and Psyche were both creations of Jack Emmert and are now dead would be linchpin motive that has Our Heroes exclaim, "Aha!"
    I had most of a long reply saying the same thing typed out, but then my daughter woke up and I couldn't get back to the computer until now. You've said what I was going to, so rather than post my original reply, I'll just say this.

    I think that if you're going to kill off one character, doing it to Statesman is going to have the maximum impact. There are several good reasons for the choice, but the quote at the end of the interview gives the decision the impression of pettiness. "Yeah, nothing burns like an effigy."

    I never had a huge problem with him. I've been playing since a week after launch, though the last time I was really an active poster on these forums was around when someone had leaked the details of ED. (My signature is a bit of snark about ED. I suppose I should change that, as it's no longer really topical.) I never hated him like a lot of people did, but the whole we’ve finished making large changes to the power sets was stunningly tone deaf, and I can understand the animosity that followed.
  12. Doctor_Minerva
    I saw the thread title and my mind immediately flashed to General Aarons. it's not enough that he's a fragile pet who runs up through three groups of to pistol whip a mob in the corner, it's that he's a fragile pet who runs up through three groups of to pistol whip a mob in the corner that explodes when it dies!

    I used to rescue him last, but lately I just let him get killed so I can move on to missions I actually enjoy.
  13. Doctor_Minerva
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SlickRiptide View Post
    " Veterans of the game know that the character [Statesman] was the namesake of Jack Emmert, who was the lead designer who originally launched City of Heroes in 2004. Jack posted as Statesman in the forums, came up with his backstory, and was instrumental in the character becoming the original poster-boy for the game's marketing. Killing off the character meant a lot of things to a lot of people, but for me it was the ultimate declaration that City of Heroes has grown up and left the nest from which it was born." -- Matt Miller, Intrepid Informer Issue 17.

    Draw what conclusions from it that you will.
    That's...legitimately disappointing. It's hard to view that in a good light.
  14. Doctor_Minerva
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Mr. DJ View Post
    from SSA6, her bio says she's one of the most powerful psychics in the world, as does part of Agent G's text you quoted, while also saying Yin's and CK's psychic powers are greater than Sister Psyche's...

    Sister Psyche's bio implies her abilities are the best to ever exist.



    so uh...yay inconsistency?
    The way I read it is that Penny has more raw potential, but SP has more experience using her powers and more versatility.
  15. Doctor_Minerva
    You want to know my big objection to high level Crey? It's their speed power. Paragonwiki calls it Power Jumping, but all I know is that if somebody damages a group of these guys below a certain threshold without first locking them down, all of a sudden the lab turns into the opening of an episode of Benny Hill, with these power-armored idiots running and jumping all over the place.

    I could go either way. I think the OP has merit, and I wouldn't mind seeing more variety, but I find my opinions of humans in the high level game aligning with Samuel_Tow and I think he makes a good case.
  16. Doctor_Minerva
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Melancton View Post
    Doctor Minerva, I think you and a number of other folks have provided very plausible scenarios regarding any number of the questions left open in "Who Will Die?".

    The problem for me is that the Devs should have been the ones doing the plausible explanations. As you note, "we don't know."

    Was Statesman 1) grieving 2) over-confident 3) complacent or 4) a total idiot? We don't know. We can infer what we will, for good or ill, but the Devs have simply left the door open and departed.

    Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, as they say. Some folks will, as you have, fill in the blanks so that the story does not shut down the suspension of disbelief. Others will point out the holes and cry foul over any number of problems the holes raise. Both sides are "right" in their reaction.

    For me, it just never comes to this when a piece is well-written.
    I can buy that. It's not something that bothers me personally, but it seems that the complaint that things haven't been explained sufficiently is very common, so hopefully the writers will see that it's an area of concern and address it with the next round.
  17. Doctor_Minerva
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Ogi View Post
    Tease is right, there's no response to or interaction with Penny. You get there, Malta shows up, DeVore ports out (no matter how you "choose" to end it).

    Just a your-ritual-is-in-another-castle mission.

    I almost heard a "HA HA! Fooled you!".
    The role of Vanessa DeVore will be played by Nelson Muntz?
  18. Doctor_Minerva
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by A Musing Mage View Post

    In addition to what others have already said there's also no evidence that I can find that we should know Wade has Psyche's powers. The mission text just says that we do know somehow.
    The first time I ran it, I heard it from the contact when I went over to complete the mission and he says something to that effect, and I assumed that we knew that Wade had Psyche's powers because someone had observed him using them. However, I ran it again since then, and I think that it pops up even before then, when you click on Manticore. (I missed it the first time, because the stupid rewards window blocked my view.) Yeah, it really seemed like something important was left out.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Steele_Magnolia View Post
    This is how I felt. Hero lore is loaded with magic origin characters who might have been able to advise and help, from Azuria to the genie in Brickstown. And yet Akarist and DeVore are to be trusted?

    That's where it jumped the shark for me.
    Akarist is probably the go-to guy for Circle lore and he's been more or less on the side of the angels since launch, so if you have a question about a CoT ritual, he'd be high on the list. DeVore is more problematic. Like the Nemesis attack in the second mission, she really didn't seem necessary to the arc, and there were probably better ways of getting this information across.
  19. Doctor_Minerva
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by EU_Damz View Post
    Aye the tip missions are especially great if you are able to run them from 20 - 50
    I'm not always thrilled with the mechanics of the tip missions (objectives that spawn only when the previous objectives are completed drive me nuts and requires a lot of backtracking), but the writing has been really pretty great.
  20. Doctor_Minerva
    I think the mission that made me feel most like a hero is the low level morality mission where you have to overcome Blast Furnace, and then fight off the incoming ambushes, while talking with Blast Furnace between each wave. I also like the changes undergone by these characters. It makes me feel like I'm in a living world where things happen even when I'm not around to see them.
  21. Doctor_Minerva
    With my criticism of Batman/Superman fight in DKR, I was giving an exaggerated example of what the criticisms leveled against the SSAs would look like if applied to a good story. I happen to like DKR a lot, and I think it depicts a reasonable example of what such a fight would be like. Batman takes logical precaution and makes use of all the resources he's got. The series has both my favorite Batman quote ("You sold us out, Clark. You gave them the power that should have been ours. Just like your parents taught you to. My parents taught me a different lesson... lying on the street, shaking in deep shock, dying for no reason at all. They showed me that the world only makes sense when you force it to.") and my favorite Superman quote ("Twenty million die by fire if I am weak.") And yup, I just checked, three helicopters, you're right about that.
    • Time Travel: This was a bit of snark. I would have though the whole thing was pretty obviously sarcastic, based on the tone and the hyperbole involved. Obviously, Superman doesn't have an Ouroboros portal (though his weekend getaways in the 30th Century with the Legion of Super-Heroes were a pretty fundamental part of the character for a fair portion of his history.)
    • Superman would have waited a couple weeks to regenerate: Again, the "couple of weeks" was sarcastic, but it underscores an important point, that those involved in the SSAs are dealing with a pretty serious time pressure. If Superman can't spend a weekend on a beach in Hawaii, then don't complain that Manticore and Sister Psyche didn't wait six hours until the ritual site could be secured, when the theme that time was running out was stressed from the beginning and throughout the arc.
    • Friends till the end: I would absolutely dispute the claim that "Batman is Superman's best friend." Not in DKR. Maybe you could get away with "former friends" or something like that, but Batman holds him in naked contempt. It was so influential, that this characterization of Superman and Batman as at-best uneasy allies gradually transitioned to the mainstream DU Universe Post-Crisis. You asked "Can you honestly say that Superman would risk letting government stooges with guns go in and try to apprehend his friend?" and I'm saying that the Dark Knight Returns, Superman is a government stooge. (But not as much as he was in DKSA. What a piece of garbage that was.)
    • Code Against Killing: I don't think it's relevant. Does it matter if Superman thinks that Batman killed the Joker or merely that the death happened in such a way that the public believes he killed the Joker? Batman is a smart and ruthless adversary who is going to resist arrest to the best of his ability either way. The only difference would be what he would do should he win and have Superman at his mercy.
    • Fighting Fair: You said "You might be right and I won't debate the point if you meant to say "out of all the comic book HEROES in the DC UNIVERSE..." I think we're in agreement here; we're just using different definitions for a fair fight. Batman knows his capabilities, and he knows that he's not going to beat even a C-List Super-Being if they just start punching each other in an empty room. When I say he's the least likely to give you a fair fight, I don't mean that he'll blow up a bus to throw you off your game, but rather, he'll do everything he can to minimize his opponent's advantages and maximize his own, in order to ensure that he wins. Batman has the combination of smarts, resources and ruthlessness to pull it off.

    DKR as Compared to SS5:
    • Investigation:
      Quote:
      Originally Posted by Cathulhu View Post
      You say "His investigations would probably take him to the Rogue Isles and Wade has probably left clues pointing to where he could be found." You mean like the evidence we found? Like the clues we found detailing his plan to use a ritual to steal Statesmans powers and that it would take place at the temple? Like the Rularu we found? Are you sugesting Statesman found all this and could't see this was a trap? Or will you now try to reweave the tapestry that the worlds greatest hero with 80 years more experience fail to find and notice what us 5 year veteran heroes saw? How does Statesman, who has access at the snap of his fingers to intelligence sources, brainpower and detection devices both technological and magical that we can only dream of, fail to do what little old us can? Give me a break. His hide out was at a location that Wade and Malaise met at. If we can find this out why can't Statesman?

      Can you answer these questions using the information given in the story?
      Glacia didn't find out about the bar until Issue 6. Nothing in the story suggests Statesman ever found it. Those things you mentioned would obviously be a tip off. So rather than assuming he found them then assuming he ignored them, I think it makes more sense to say that he located Wade through other channels. This is speculation, but so is finding the bar, finding the clues, and then just going on as if he hadn't.


    • Statesman thought Wade would try to kill him: You know what one of my favorite scenes in Superman the Animated Series was? It was the one where this one goon is charging up this big laser rifle, "It's a G-40 blue laser, alien. One shot can penetrate five feet of tempered steel in point-three seconds. I don't think even-" and then Superman zips around and crushes it before he can use it. Anybody who has spent five minutes running the Praetorian content expects ambushes when going to the bathroom. People have been trying to kill Statesman for a long time. They hadn't done it yet. It's reasonable to assume that he thought Wade would fight back, but it's also reasonable to assume that like those thugs who always threw their guns at George Reeve, that it would just be delaying the inevitable.
    • Waiting for backup: There are plenty of explanations for this (Villains teleporting away when given the opportunity is not exactly unheard of in this game (and in fact, Wade teleports away from you a few minutes later), backup might require several hours to get there ("Quick, Manticore! To the Arrow Plane!"), Statesman can't get any signal there) but I think the best one is that he didn't think he needed it.

      You've made a great deal of the that I'm trying to approach this in a measured fashion, using words like maybe and perhaps to show when I'm inferring something. We go from Statesman looking for Wade to Statesman finding Wade. I provided the chain of events that I think would best reconcile why an experienced hero didn't suspect a trap, but I was making clear through the use the qualifiers that I chose that it is only speculation and we don't know one way or the other. I'm an analytical chemist by training and a technical writer by profession, and when I see something that doesn't make sense, I try to come up with explanation for it, and I refine and revise my hypothesis as it's tested and new information comes in.

      We don't know if Statesman thought Wade had power coming out the eyeballs or if he thought that was the 1-hp end boss that you take down with a single attack when you've destroyed his doomsday machine. We don't know a lot of things. We know that when Statesman confronted Wade, he was insufficiently prepared for the attack. You have speculated that he knew or should have known that he was walking into a trap, and I think the explanation that best fits the facts is that whatever information he had was insufficient to let him draw this conclusion.

      I happen to like this kind of ambiguity, SuperOz doesn't and we went back and forth over it at length, but ultimately, it comes down to what one wants out of a story. We're left to fill in the blanks as best we can, and I think my theory that Statesman didn't know that Wade had that kind of power makes more sense than knowing that he did and walking into the trap anyway.

    In your defense of DKR, you've raised some of the issues I have with critiques of the SSAs.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Cathulhu View Post
    You also say that it is a noob move for Superman to use X-Ray vision to scan, but in the very same panel Batman implies that these are rare custom devices. Superman may never have encountered this tactic before.
    And that's what I was saying about the ritual. It's even rarer, and Statesman has absolutely never encountered this tactic before, so he has even less reason to anticipate it.

    (The X-Ray vision is probably my favorite bit of strategy in the fight. It's a sensible thing for Superman to do, it's reasonably anticipated by Batman and it's handled well.)

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Cathulhu View Post
    We have Batman jamming non super human means of locating him, and giving a plausible reason for even Superman to not keep trying to find something he doesn't know exists.
    Same deal with Statesman and Manticore and Psyche. Is it reasonable to search for a hidden artifact that you have no reason to suspect is hidden there?

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Cathulhu View Post
    IS DKR perfect? No. But WWD is far beneath DKR quality.
    I personally consider one of the best comics of all time. I would have been rather amazed if we got something half as good.
  • Doctor_Minerva
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Ogi View Post
    Wade has been stealing from the Midnighters. He may not have nukes but he does have artifacts (and we all know the Midnighters only keep party favor items around). We *KNOW* (yes, even blueside, shocking) he stole a new batch in #2.
    I guess the reference was too obscure (and a little googling shows that it was), but "Jumped Up Nobody" is villain archetype from Mutants & Masterminds. Basically, an idiot with a powerful magical artifact.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Ogi View Post
    The big question is does States know how Imperious went down? If he does, he's every bit the chump the writers turned him into.
    Even I would have to agree with that.
  • Doctor_Minerva
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SuperOz View Post
    No problem. I hope the next SSA raises the bar from where we are now because even with you disagreeing with me, you're picking out a lot of problems yourself in this story.

    S.
    Yeah, I do think that the arcs have some serious problems, but I also think that some of the points raised against them have been inaccurate or unfair, so that's what I was trying to address with my posts. For all my time defending them, I still think they're deeply (though not terminally) flawed .
  • Doctor_Minerva
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Cathulhu View Post
    Actually Dark Knight does not fall into those same traps.

    Simply put.

    In Dark Knight Superman is the only one who can do the mission (Bring a friend to justice alive), has little reason to suspect a death trap (Friend has code against killing) and no evidence that the showdown will result in anything worse then a nose bleed no matter what scans or investigations are done.
    I think you're ignoring some important factors.

    And let me be clear where I'm coming from. I'm not saying that I accept the Statesman encounter and reject the Batman one. I'm just saying that I think a much higher standard is being applied to the SSAs than to the Batman fight and anything involving superheroes is going to come apart when faced with sufficient scrutiny. We come to the boards with the virtue of time, emotional distance, knowledge of OOC cut scenes, and awareness that we're playing an arc titled WHO WILL DIE?

    So, what happens if we come at DKR looking at it as critically as WWD5?

    "Superman would have seen that coming. He would have gone back in time with his Ouroboros portal and saved Batman's parents. If that didn't work, he would have waited for a couple weeks for his powers to regenerate, been sure to cut the power to the surrounding block (standing next to that light pole? Obvious trap!) and he wouldn't have gotten in range. He would have blasted the gun and the suit off of Batman from half a mile in the air and he certainly would have known better than to scan the area with X-Rays (Rookie mistake!), which activated those missiles that any hero with his 30 years of experience would have anticipated. He also would have heard and dealt with the Batmobile and Ollie long before they got on the field."

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Cathulhu View Post
    In DK Superman goes into the showdown to try to talk to and take in alive one of his best friends Batman. He is probably the only person who can do so. Likewise the enemy has a code against and avoided killing. The only exception might be the joker but even if Supes believes Batman killed him he can also see that the Joker is the worst killer in history and the killing took place only after an extraordinary circumstances.
    Superman is literally at the weakest he's ever been in his adult life, he might be the only active Superhero, but he's certainly not the only person on the payroll of the US Government capable of bringing down a single 50 year old man who is waiting in a single, open location. Batman might have had a code against killing, but by all accounts he seems to have violated it (the death of the Joker is why Superman is finally ordered to bring him in), but he certainly doesn't have a code against [i]fighting back.[i/]

    Also, the worst killer in history? The Joker's an amateur.


    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Cathulhu View Post
    By comparison Statesman goes after a villain who he knows is underhanded, has killed daughter, has Allies, access to nuclear weapons and is not above kidnapping family and friends and holding them hostage. This is the sort of scum that is willing to do anything and may well have hostages, death traps, innocent bystanders, and who knows what else at his disposal. His goal is to talk to such scum and take him in alive because killing scum is bad.
    Are you saying that Batman is not underhanded? You might characterize it another way, but out of all the comic book characters out there, Batman is the least likely to give you a fair fight.

    What are Stateman's sources of information on Wade? Possibly an account from Blitz and Malaise after they were captured. Blitz calls him Wade at one point in the redside arc, so he knows his name. However, at the end of SSA 4, Numina says that Statesman will go after Wade once he learns he was behind, implying that they did not yet learn this from Blitz. We don't know what Statesman knows. The truth is that we don't know how Statesman gets from looking for Wade to finding him. His investigations would probably take him to the Rogue Isles and Wade has probably left clues pointing to where he could be found. And if he's leaving those clues, he might as well leave some that play down his true strength.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Cathulhu View Post
    Backup.
    In Dark Knight it is clear that there are no Supers left to back up Superman. He does how ever bring in literally a small army as backup just in case things go real bad, cant be much more prepared then that.
    I count two (2) helicopters. That's an extremely small army. (My reading of the situation was that the army was just there to keep people away from the fight, and they only got involved when Ollie started something with them.)


    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Cathulhu View Post
    Statesman brings in nobody as backup even though Wade has shown every indication that he is not above using hostages, nuclear weapons and forced choice plots (Arrest me or save the hostage) where a bit of backup would help. Likewise Statesman having a friend along to talk him out of killing Wade if he says the wrong thing would be good. He apparently fails to bring anybody because he's emo and incompetent.
    I really don't think there's any support for the theory that anyone would have any reason to believe that Wade is anything greater than a jumped-up nobody. Sure, he was present at some momentous occasions, but that doesn't translate to personal power. He was hanging out with Blitz, who had access to nukes, but I doubt Statesman thought he took any with him when he left.

    Statesman is one of the most powerful beings in the world. He can probably count on one hand the beings that he fears. I'm not even sure how much he knows about his own connection to Cimerora. It might have looked like some random mountaintop to him. Probably the ideal place to arrest Wade. No nukes, no hostages, just the two of them. It might have occurred to him that Wade that thought that he had something that would work against him, but not something that actually would. But I don't think we even need to go that far. Wade could have fled to where the encounter took place, left clues that he was there and just waited. The detractors say that he was goading Statesman into a confrontation, but I don't see any specific support for that. Far better to conceal his true strength and pretend to flee. It would make more sense and it would explain why Statesman didn't think he walking into a trap.
  • Doctor_Minerva
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SuperOz View Post
    So that's where I come from. I'm going to take things at face value and rightly so. If you're going to sell me a story, sell me a story. And with one chapter to go, it's leaving a lot to try and reconcile and explain, in my mind.



    S.
    Cool. Thanks for explaining that to me. I don't think we'll ever have a meeting of the minds on this, but at least I understand where you're coming from now.