Melancton
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Posts
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Joined
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Quote:By "loose structure," do you mean the game as it was when I began, where you picked Magic, Science, etc. and made up your own origin story, or do you mean the game lore as it now is, in which all powers ultimately derive from the Well and the even more powerful heroes are "Incarnates" and thus servants of the Well (see interaction with Statesman sock puppet)?Originally Posted by Chase_Arcanum
The loose structure we have today only makes it easier to spin your own stories into the (chaotic) web the devs have woven.
The former was great and the latter is increasingly irksome. -
Quote:And don't forget, that automaton that fooled the Rikti was steam-powered!Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Nemesis' technology has always had that uncanny ability to do the impossible, which it is actually directly described as doing multiple times in even the oldest plotlines. And that's kind of why I love the guy. Most people would look at making a psychic alien robot and think it's ludicrous. A few would try to make one anyway, spend ten years and eleventy billion dollars and come up with crude, unconvincing prototypes. Nemesis, on the other hand, sits down and works on the thing for 50 years and before anyone even knew he was interested, he has an automaton that does the impossible.
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Quote:A VERY nice QOL improvement.Originally Posted by Bubbawheat
One thing I noticed which is awesome with the new costume creator - you can choose your name at or near the beginning of character creation, and it will reserve the name for you while you spend your time creating the rest of the character.
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Quote:No. New subscribers just want to be superheroes and the lore is neutral to them at first. Veteran subscribers will carry on enjoying being superheroes unless the lore reaches Critical Stupid Overload. For me, that would involve FORCING the players to go a certain way in situations and events that break the fourth wall.Originally Posted by Mr_Squid
1: Is the lore of this game significant enough to be a reason to subscribe?
In places, yes. In other places, it is really good. But see Q 3.Quote:2: Is the lore of this game fundamentally broken? That is to say, contradictary, messy, and poorly written?
No. The open-ended way in which you could roll your heroes and describe how they got powers has been shunted aside for "the Well" business and all of its problems (which have been described in great detail in other threads.) And as others have said, What could possibly go wrong?Quote:3: Do you like the current direction the lore is taking?
Personally, I do not want the fourth wall broken and cosmic existential questions answered hamhandedly and conclusively, closing all options for my heroes and myself. Where the lore has more or less gotten to is that all powers ultimately derive from the Well, and you have to engage in a bargain that may prove to be Faustian to get more. Why even go that route?
Well, I would want to be sure I knew what "fixing" meant, (which would be a thread itself,) but assuming that I would be pleased with the fixes, then yes, let's fix the lore.Quote:4: Would you like the development team to spend a significant amount of time fixing all the old lore, even if that meant spending an issue not moving the game's story forward and just patching things up? -
Huzzahs for your return, and congrats on the imminent Blessed Event. The world needs more gargoyles with hearts of gold.
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Quote:Originally Posted by Melancton
I concur that it is pretty sorry that we are continually being logged ouWell, the worst part is that it can happen so unexpecQuote:Originally Posted by Scythus
I hardly think that Candle Jack is the person to bl
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I concur that it is pretty sorry that we are continually being logged ou
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Quote:If they qualify for Beta, yes, even your staff can also test them.Originally Posted by Golden Girl
What about staffs?
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Oh, what sad times are these when passing ruffians can say "Pancake" at will to old ladies...
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Quote:Now that is funny. He isn't dead, he's just so reclusive no one has ever seen him again!Originally Posted by Shadow Wail
What if Lord Recluse in Praetoria isn't named after a spider but instead... he is a lord of recluses!
He is the president of a town of hermits in the far off DE jungles of subtropical praetorian Rhode Island...a city where everything is it's opposite!
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Quote:Originally Posted by Nylonus
Devs can we please get a contact to greet us this way?
NPC Contact: How the pancake you doing <$name>?Given how Null came into being, this seems completely appropriate and properly humorous. Indeed, I greatly applaud the Devs for taking a minor error *click* error *click* error *whack!* that made a seagull of all things appear in Pocket D and making Lemonade out of it.Quote:Originally Posted by bAss_ackwards
Null the Gull?
Ooooh, are we allowed to say "lemonade"??
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Quote:Originally Posted by Melancton
Impressive. Moooost impressive. But neither he nor the Old Spice Guy are as sexy as THIS GUY.Gotta be the blue fur.Quote:Originally Posted by Ironblade
OMG, that is BRILLIANT!
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Quote:Impressive. Moooost impressive. But neither he nor the Old Spice Guy are as sexy as THIS GUY.Originally Posted by Roderick
Hello, ladies.
Look at Marcus.
Now back to me.
Now back at Marcus.
Now back to me.
Sadly, he isnt me, but if he stopped using ladies' scented water from the Well of Furies and switched to Old Spice, he could smell like hes me.
Look down, back up, where are you?
Youre in the Underground with the man your man could smell like.
Whats in your hand, back at me. I have it, its an oyster with two tickets to that thing you love. Look again, the tickets are now purples.
Anything is possible when your man smells like Old Spice and not a lady.
Im on a Nemesis Pony. -
Quote:Originally Posted by Rajani Isa
Hickman set the precedent of using he rule of three. For example, to summon Hickman usually requires writing Hickman three times in the post.
Of course, you clould also try posting terms like "Defense Mechanics" or "Has Accuracy been Nerfed (Again)?"Old Jungle Saying: You never find Troy Hickman, he finds you.Quote:Originally Posted by TroyHickman
Sorry, but I'm in Vancouver at the moment, and with the exchange rate, it's four times. On the plus side, the baked goods are quite tasty here.
...or was that the Phantom? I keep confusing the two, but dang, they both can sure sneak up on you!
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I have my 75 month badge and I am not near as funny as Steelclaw nor creative as Samuraiko.
But I DO have excellent taste in the posters I enjoy!
Grats on the ding, Steelclaw!
Now, when is that bus gonna get here... -
Quote:Originally Posted by Verene
I honestly could not imagine caring about my characters' fingers - unless it leads to the long awaited Stooges melee - in which case /signed.Well, the pool better have their signature nuke, "Rain of Pies"!Quote:Originally Posted by Chase_Arcanum
Make it a pool power set. I don't want to be rerolling all my characters.
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Good to see Zwillinger lurking about and responding.
The whole CoT costume issue was actually pretty unique. There have been any number of adversary groups added to the game, and while each may have a percentage of players who do not like how they look, most players are fine to happy with nearly all the groups.
In the past, when previews, etc., occurred, I do not recall ever witnessing a backlash like happened with the CoT revamp. Groups would come out, like the Midnighters or the Fir Bolg, and most folks responded favorably.
Even in this case, the proposed CoT costumes are great, well-done costumes. A good number of players have said they will use them for their own creations. As appropriate costumes for the Circle of Thorns, nearly everyone who commented said "Blecch."
That is not to say that costumes can never be updated. The Green Arrow had a very simple-looking green outfit in the early '60s, but had moved to the more elaborate rig (with stylish facial hair) by the dawn of the next decade, and the change met with hearty approval. Of course, if they had changed the costume's primary colors to blue and red, or given him a bazooka, I imagine the uproar would be the same: No matter how great the new costume looked, it stands the iconic concept of The Green Arrow on its head and does not "look right" for HIM.
I would not want to "give a veto" to the players in advance, but all the same, it sure would have been nice to have headed the wholesale changes to the CoT off at the pass. It is the exception to the fine blend of concept and great graphics that usually we enjoy, but boy, WHAT an exception! The first chance the players had to see what was coming triggered a spontaneous and huge reaction. I am just sorry that it looks like "things are too far gone; sorry, can't maintain the old look or much change the new look" will be how this plays out.
I would have hoped that there would have been a mechanism for gauging player response before things get to the Point of No Return. Does Beta happen far enough in advance for that sort of feedback?
I would simply assert that if the next version of Star Trek puts the Klingons in leotards, well, no matter how fine the leotards look, the fanbase is likely going to be Highly Agitated that there was such a radical shift in the look of a faction they are so familiar with as opposed to delighted. -
Quote:Are you pondering what I am pondering?Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
Maurice LaMarche could handle voicing Rularuu to your satisfaction, I think
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Ha ha, I only READ #13, and I did not ANSWER it, so I am the only one here NOT in a Nemesis plot! *click* plot *click* plot *click* plot
*blue screen of death* -
Quote:Ooooooh, they tag you with theirs and port YOU out to save you while the enemies overrun them... very nice touch! I like it!Originally Posted by Zenyth
What he said...
Expect it to happen because someone is blocking/rerouting the teleport, you're someplace where you're outside the Port grid, or perhaps more likely, someone gets a damaged mediporter and someone else gives theirs up in a last act of selflessness. Heck id be willing to bet they port "you" out...definitely impacts the player that way...
Also makes the "death" ambiguous enough to bring them back later in true comic book fashion.
And yeah, I expect some variations on the things suggested as to how to get the medical transporter explained away. The second question about how lame it will be came out of experiencing the near routine hijackings of Star Fleet vessels, and the increasingly silly explanations as to how it could have happened Yet Again.
If there is a compelling and well-written narrative, the mandatory winking at the medical transporter will not be as problematic, that is for sure. -
Thankfully, Paragon City has a medical teleporter so that when you are Mostly Dead, you get teleported to the hospital for a Miracle Pill and are back in action, albeit with some debt once you hit level 10. We are told that the medical teleporter is "the only reason this city is not overrun." Well, with as often as I faceplant, I can see the point. But supposedly, all heroes are on this system, to prevent anyone from becoming Totally Dead.
The way the medical transporter system is described, it sets up problems for the notion of anyone actually dying and staying dead. There have already been such problems, as I shall describe in the following two spoilers, and then I shall pose my questions:
***SPOILERS START****
In one of the arcs, a transdimensional visitor never bothers to hook up with this system so that they are able to expire heroically and dramatically, but no explanation is given for why they failed to do so.
In the last issue of the CoH comic, most of the Freedom Phalanx finds that they, ahem, need a rez, which conveniently arrives, but nobody triggers the medical teleporter. No explanation is given that I recall, but a lot of characters have a lot of bad dialogue, the FP decides it stinks at fighting Rikti but are still a Swell Team and Synapse gets the Top Dog badge. It was a Very Special Episode. Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.
****SPOILERS END*****
So the questions are:
1) What explanation will be given for whoever of the Surviving Eight loses the adjective "Surviving" as to why they did not get medically teleported?
2) Will the explanation be, to use the most delicate term possible, "problematic with its credibility within CoH lore"?
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Quote:/existentialangstOriginally Posted by Laevateinn
Last week I also had a concept for a girl who gets her powers from an antique pocketwatch. Watchgirl was available.
But who watches the Watchgirls??
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Quote:It was only about a year ago that we paid for GR, and from that standpoint, yeah, it WOULD be nice to get tossed a bone for it. On the other hand, anyone that did not pay for it had no access to it during that period of time, and I did. AND I got those VERY NICE GameStop lvl 1 enhancements that my subsequent alts have enjoyed tremendously.Originally Posted by Johnny_Butane
-Additionally, giving all VIPs Going Rogue for free doesn't feel fair to those of us who paid for it still fairly recently. At the very least, giving VIPs who owned GR prior to i21 something for it in the way of Paragon Points or a discount in the store is in order, IMO.
It is tough to wrap my head around the notion that CoH is actually a "service" like cable TV or internet: you pay your monthly fee, you have access. So for it to suddenly be announced that it will be "free" sits a bit badly. Yet it is a Free Enterprise business, not a Public Service. It has to turn a profit or it goes away, like Borders.
I am not emotionally invested in my cable TV service, and should it ever go away, I will not think back on all the great times I had because whatever movies, etc. I watched will likely be available in another venue. But when CoH is gone, my adventures with my heroes in Paragon City will be gone, and that will be very sad. So if F2P keeps the doors open, and I don't get a bone for my GR purchase, so be it. There are baddies to bring to justice. -
Quote:Slick, comic book writers reserve the right to have ANYONE "get better" a la Monty Python, even after DECADES of "being dead." What is even more aggravating is when it is another writer down the road that pulls the stunt. If it isn't some ridiculous explanation of how it only "appeared" that they died, it is a Deus Ex Machina miracle resurrection. Of course, in the comics, "miracles" happen so often that they should be called "regulars."Originally Posted by SlickRiptide
I'd say that nobody is immune, but I'll also say that, given how many supporting characters die the True Death in the story of Paragon City, that I'll be very disappointed if a signature character of any sort dies a "comic book death" instead of a True Death.
As I have noted elsewhere, Captain America's sidekick Bucky died during WWII, but has reappeared. Abin Sur died in the late '50s and has shown up again. They were dead as parrots, so we thought.
And while we are on the topic, Ghost Widow and Numina are dead and it does not slow them down a whit. Meh, it's a living.
CoH is a fantastic game, but again, when it comes to writing stories, the Devs can be fantastically ham-handed. Hey, they already killed just about everyone in FP in the comic using for the most part just ordinary Rikti and *poof!* just as quickly got them all better again. Dead, shmead.
Whoever dies, the likelihood is that it will only be "for a season." I shant point out any examples in-game of the dead not staying dead, but just postulate that whoever wins the Dead Pool will be someone not likely to remain dead for the duration.
My worst fear? They kill off Positron, Numina "ghostifies" him and they incorporally "go on patrol together" *snigger snigger* for the duration, *hee-hee*. What a revoltin' development. -
Quote:I think you have a fine point about Epic Pool Powers--- that was the way to go. Powers show up and you explain them.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Yeah, it's similar to what Mender Ramiel's story constitutes, but without the Well of the Furies, without the mind control and the moral ambiguity and the evil omniscient entity and, most importantly, without the game giving you an overt explanation of WHY you have the powers you do.
Once heroes go beyond "Level 50," I think the Devs felt they needed a "rationale" as well as the "trainer mechanism" to award the powers and slot them up, since previously the in-game lore had said "50 is it." Our "Mender Rufus" plot device leaves the rationale up to the player, and avoids what we dislike about Ye Olde Welle. Problem solved!
So when do we get a check??