Melancton

What indeed?

"Godlike Power" is already a very odd conceit when many of my heroes can already shoot lightning bolts, fire and ice from their hands and cause instant thunderclouds, ice storms and tornadoes.

I am likewise baffled trying to figure out the usefulness of the "Nope, it was really the Well" approach. The open-ended origin template was great, because your origin story could be whatever you wanted. Now it turns out that the spider that bit you had actually first taken a drink from the Well of Furies... what?? That power ring and the green battery? Really takes its power from the Well... huh?? There is no need to provide the over-arching rationale, nor to wedge it into the game.

Once could come back and say, "Well, new powers are obtained through the "trainer" mechanism within the game, so we had to provide a trainer and a rationale." Okay, how about this: a man named Mender Rufus steps out of a phone booth and says he is from the future, and there is a plot to prevent you from becoming the fabled hero are destined to become. He will stay in the background, but he will make sure that you are in the right place at the right time to (do whatever it turns out you did to become more powerful: work all night at the lab, encounter the mystical being with the artifact, get hit by the gamma rays, whatever.) Voila. Open-ended and up to you. Mender Ramiel starts out very similarly to this anyway, but your rendezvous is with the Insane Sentient P-O'd Well of Furies. Huh? Oh, yes it is, pal.

Oh, and by the way, Statesman is a Well sockpuppet on demand. He forgot the First Rule of visiting a foreign locality: "Don't Drink The Water."

This is not good writing. Fire up the Troy Hickman signal.

Now, don't be dogging the residents of Virginia!




Oh, wait, dependant clause troubles. Never mind.

Even writing satirically, Troy Hickman smokes the writing in the Incarnate story and lore given in the game.

Sister Psyche's bathtub?



What?? Hey, the idea is to attract new players, right?

I did not do Ramiel's arc at all for quite a while for a variety of reasons having to do with disliking the writing and the implications. Then I saw a comment in a gaming mag article, or perhaps the Wiki, to the effect that Hero 1 had gotten his Uber Powers via Excalibur, "thus demonstrating that there was a path to such powers other than through the Well of Furies." Okay, if I could have the Uber Powers without having to be an Incarnate, then sign me up. So I got the Alpha slot on about 5 of my dozen-odd 50s, and I skipped some of the expository dialogue since I did not like its thesis and I was "actually" going the non-Well route.

Then I believe I happened to actually read what Lady Grey was saying, and I recall, it is to the effect that "oh yeah, there are people like Hero 1 who never officially contacted the Well, but it was actually the Well, baby. No matter how you did it, if you have any of the slots, you are the Well's; game, set and match." See, had they left the door open, I would not have to suppress my gag reflex about it all, but the Devs made sure that El Door was slammed in El Face. Then Lady Grey went on about, as you say, how to NOT have the Well control you, etc., but yeah, uh huh, kthxbai.

I am still here and still playing, but only one of my heroes has equipped the Alpha slot. Having to learn several new currencies and enhancements was not too appealing to me, but doable. Making the lore so wretched is the final turn-off, so I am taking a pass for now, and will see how things shake out later.

Ooooooh, afraid to mess with the Well of Furies, eh???

*still waiting for our British cousins to weigh in on that last one*

And don't forget the happy business of the Reactor Respecs. Read the badges you get awarded for doing a Respec and then think about Peter Parker sprouting four extra arms...

The Devs have many potential aces up their sleeve.

...and a legion of fanbois fervently pray that this WOULD happen to them.

Hamidon Enhancements were an early instance of LALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU for me. My fourth level 50 received 27 the moment he hit level 47 and could slot them.

And he was the last. IOs showed up and the raids changed. IOs seem a better deal overall.

Some of the descriptions for standard enhancements do not sound very appetizing, either. If there are Hami ramifications, there could conceivably be bad news there, too.

I did indeed LOL.

It seems that the thought was that the badges would piece together a lot of the history. I for one read the online history of Paragon City on the official site... then wondered why the noble and inspirational Statesman described there was portrayed in the Official Comic as a high-handed jackwagon with the social skills of an ax handle (except in the terrific "Smoke and Mirrors" arc by Troy Hickman.)

The game and its history has grown greatly more complex. A unified source for the lore would be helpful, and a museum is a fine idea. Unfortunately, any effort devoted there would have to be drawn from something else we would like.

Which is promptly followed by this exchange:

Q: Well, um, what is worn under the kilt?

A: Therrre's nothin' worrrn under the kilt, laddie, it's all in perrrfect worrrkin' orderrr!

A: Do you like Brooklyn?

C: I dunno, I've never Brookled.

Which is pretty much what the Incarnate lore requires. But I would rather actually HAVE the Saint Crispin's Day speech rather than pretend that is what the King is saying as opposed to the "Dudes, let's go kick 'em in the jimmies!!" that appears onscreen, if you follow my drift.

To me, pretending to have a motorcycle when none exists is one thing, but pretending to have a motorcycle while the game pronounces you a centaur with hair like My Little Pony is a grating exercise. There is no need for it.

Bless your heart, you seem to be able to create entertaining stories that cause emotional reactions with an economy of prose and space. A lot of us figure you could have worked out a storyline that advances the narrative and explains the new powers without triggering the barf emote. Now I realize that sounds like the bar is set pretty low, but given as so many people are gagging on the Incarnate lore, it is not as easy as one might think, so we would need the Derek Flint of comic scripters.

Alas, I realize that it is unlikely to happen again, but it DID happen once before, and man would it be great if lightning could strike again.

Hear, hear.

/DoctorMcCoy

Troy Hickman could cure this if they would JUST LET HIM OPERATE!!

/DoctorMcCoy

I do not see how one could come to another conclusion, given the lore and the common English understanding of "Incarnate."

1) Statesman has been held out as "The Incarnate of Zeus" ALL ALONG, lightning bolts and all, not "The Incarnate of the Well" or some other generalized concept. Zeus was specified. The Well now is "incarnating" others, but there are no gods involved?

2) Looking at the definitions of Incarnate, the following are the most common:

Adjective: (esp. of a deity or spirit) Embodied in flesh; in human form: "God incarnate".
Verb: Embody or represent (a deity or spirit) in human form.

SOMEBODY is getting "put into human flesh" when you become an Incarnate, and it is not the same deal as a Kheldian. If the Devs did not mean what "incarnate" means, they should have called it something different. As it stands, it is the equivalent of using the word "diseased" and insisting it means "happy" or something. Put another way, the parrot is DEAD, he is NOT "pining for the fjords!"

There is only "room to explain it as whatever you want" if you ignore the lore about Statesmand and the plain meaning of the words used and go "LALALALA I'm not listening to you" to the lore (which I personally am ) because there isn't any leeway otherwise.

3) The Well, as has been said by Slick Riptide, makes Statesman into a sockpuppet and speaks through him. In fact, Slick's description of the plot involving the sentient Well is pretty apt. And it is craptacular writing. (The lore by the Devs, not Slick's, heh )

My appeal to Doctor Hickman was that he has worked within the CoH lore and created compelling, enjoyable and dare I say it, INSPIRING fiction using the cast that he was handed. With some subtle changes in emphasis, Troy had Statesman, usually depicted as a ham-handed dictator, cast in a favorable and even sympathetic light.

Dr. Hickman is amazing, and he could cure the Well/Incarnate business, sick as it currently is. I wish the Devs would make it so and bring him on board again. And pay him lavishly to save this. But I suppose that while I am wishing, I ought to toss world peace in there, too...

Such as the Doppleganger arcs. But they will also tack on dreck such as the very poorly-written postscript to Jenny Adair's arc. And the foundation of the Incarnate system is just awful; anything built onto that foundation will be unstable and collapse as a result.

There will be good stuff in the future, but the Incarnate lore is, to quote J. Jonah Jameson, "Crap... crap... Megacrap."

I recognize the merit in what you are saying here, especially since I grapple with how to address the Insane Well Making Folks Immortal bit that, as you say, has landed on our toes.

(I have said that I am adopting the MST3K position of "It is just a show, I should really just relax," but someone pointed out that a more accurate description of my approach is that I am covering my ears and shouting "LALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" So it is surely a mess for a lot of folks.)

But I view the Incarnate lore less as the Devs overstepping their jobs and more as doing their jobs poorly here. Example: There should be a unified, coherent explanation for why Dark Astoria is the way it is. Not only is there not (Has Astoria been restored at some point? If not, why are there Vanguard billboards there? Etc.) but the Devs wrote into canon that the city leaders and the heroes, upon realizing the BP could not be expelled, put up War Walls, which prevented any escape by Astoria's residents, and they were all slaughtered and now their spirits roam about. That just reeks. I had always understood it to be that the residents were slaughtered and the War Walls went up afterward, but I was referred to the canon that said differently. Bad form and bad writing.

The Incarnate lore likewise should have been as open-ended as the Magic origin was when the game launched. Instead, to draw the parallel, if Tony Stark wants to boost his Iron Man armor's performance, he has to become the Incarnate of a diety... what??? He can't, oh, I don't know, develop a better reactor power plant for the suit like he did in the second movie? NOPE. HE IS AN INCARNATE *clik* INCARNATE *clik* INCARNATE *clik* INCARNATE *clik* INCARNATE.

What a mess.

Some things can be attributed to typos and the like. It seems pretty clear to me that all of the references in Eden to "Ms. Liberty" should actually be references to her mother, MISS Liberty, since they refer to her fighting alongside Galaxy Girl, who was a contemporary and friend to MISS Liberty. That can be tidied up. But what do you do with the Incarnate lore, which is frankly both stupid and by its inferences, an unnecessary breaking of the fourth wall?

The Devs just are not doing the job properly, and there are too many examples of how it can be done, and done EXCELLENTLY. And I shall bang the drum again: PAGING DOCTOR TROY HICKMAN! DOCTOR HICKMAN TO THE EMERGENCY ROOM, STAT! PAGING DOCTOR TROY HICKMAN...

...and Praetorian Lucy has the same success Primal Lucy had being the spokesperson for Meatavitavegamin, and the Cole Regime promptly collapses.

And Nemesis chortles.

Your overall thesis is good, SlickRiptide. Your posts are typically thoughtful and once again, I am in the "What he said" camp.

There is a reason that so many folks want to join the Green Lantern Corps: there is a backstory and an ethos with which they identify. (I cannot say how many folks just got tired of the endless retcons and Hal Jordan insanities/murders and just quit following it as I did, but I digress.) Likewise, many, many players have particular villain groups that they consider arch-enemies because of their backstories. The Circle of Thorns is not just a pack of glowie-eyed robed dudes, they kidnap and murder children in the service of Hell. They were initially thwarted by the Dream Doctor and the Midnight Squad, but lately they are back to their body-snatching ways to the point of snagging anyone they can grab.

It is irksome when there are backstory conflicts or glaring omissions. Your example of Dark Astoria is one of the most obvious.

As far as I knew. Baumtown was devastated in the first Rikti war, and a number of my characters hail from there... their desire to help being fueled in a major part by being witness to the wholesale slaughter that went on there. As far as I knew, the "accident" was in Sirens Call. I have not had a chance to look where you indicated, but it will be a bummer if the Baumtown story is all over the park as well.

Good stories and lore are an inspiration to run certain arcs. Bad lore is a turn-off. The utter silliness about the Well is severely taxing...