Party_Kake

Can't kill off Westin Phipps. He's the reason most of us look good.

To build a better dialogue system you need a better framework.

I've written a "choose your own adventure" style game. IT SUCKS TO DO THAT. AND THE STORY SUCKS TOO!

want something closer to this?
http://samizdat.cc/cyoa/

be amazed at the potential of a choose your own adventure story!

Then be depressed at the fact that years of effort went into something that most people would put down after only a few minutes. Sadface.

The mechanic's been tested before. It isn't built for the audiences of today, and more importantly, the audiences of today aren't built for it.

It's not a bad thing, it just doesn't belong.

It's extra appropriate for those of us in Dallas, because Winter is still "on its way"... :P

Aww... little bomb.


oh well. It's still cool. But there goes that idea.

I see no problem with John Henry bashing a railroad sign into a God's face and hurting them.

Especially if he's on a team.

It's very "comic book logic."

Cat in hat! <3 your avatar.

5 packs per token I believe.

What in the world is all this arguing about?

Origins are supposed to be just another line of text in your bio, they don't dictate anything serious about your character other than "does the Nemesis Staff do extra damage in your hands."

You're SUPPOSED to interpret them as you see fit.

Is your character a NATURAL because you're just some random dude, or is he a TECH origin character because he has a TALKING CAR? Both answers are acceptable and dictate HOW YOU SEE YOUR CHARACTER. They don't change the character into something else and they have no bearing on mechanics. That's A GOOD THING(tm).

You can look at a character with a high-tech rifle and say "this character is a natural because it's the gun that's high tech, not the character." Or you can say "This character is a tech origin character, because without the gun the character would be powerless." And there are stories to be told from both perspectives.
In the case of the first point-of-view, if you were writing stories and wanted to emphasize that, you'd have the character fight crime (pssh) without the gun in some cases, even if it's just because they got disarmed and had to punch a few people in the face.
Meanwhile if you wanted to approach the story as if it's the story of the gun being the source of the power, then someone else getting the gun would give them the same power. You could have someone (probably a friend of the first protagonist) pick up the gun and go into battle, either to continue the legacy of the first character or to avenge them, etc.

If it's any consolation, most people wouldn't be able to tell the difference between those characters' origins, because they deliberately play with the borderline between them.

I personally feel that the characters' origin is intended to reveal only the beginning of the character's story, so the arachnos archetypes are correct and the power origin should not change. They didn't become villains as a tech character they became natural origin villains and only use arachnos tech because it's around.

I would say Batman is a tech character due to his gadgets, not a natural character (though this depends on the age of the story/the writer/the storyline, etc) and not a science character because the scientific method is not a power origin.

I'd say that Superman is a natural character because he's "normal" for his species. It just happens to be that he's supercharged by our sun.

I'd say that "Magic" doesn't just revolve around the stage magician trope, and that anyone with a cursed or magically empowered object that they use for their crimes or crime-fighting qualifies, as well as one of my faves, a magically animated statue.

Science and Mutant can cross over at times. Some of you may be aware that Daredevil and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have the same origin. Not simply the same kind of origin, but the exact same car crash, broken can of mutagen falling into the sewer incident. It's the kind of thing that would land someone into legal trouble today but it's worth asking: Where does the "science" end and the "mutant created by science" begin?

Sure it would be cooler if you could choose to simply toggle the origins on and off at a whim so you could be "Regular average everyday guy turned into a mutant via science, using technology enhanced by magical power," But how do you balance that in-game, mechanics wise? I mean if that was all it took to make your character capable of using every SO without caring about what kind it is, sure, go for it!
...but that's boring.


edit:
pssh, I forgot why I came in here.

Not too long ago when Titan Weapons came out I saw someone create a variant of John Henry using the railroad sign as his titan weapon. It was beautiful. I'd definitely consider that a Natural Legend.

With regards to the ones you can't wrap your head around,
Legendary Mutant - Godzilla?
Legendary Science - Tesla
Legendary Tech - Mechs? Heck if I stumbled across one I'd be all "Holy crap it's the MadCat of Legend! Let's use it to rob a hotdog stand!"
Legendary Magic - Hell, almost every magical object is legendary so this is odd only because "legend" is probably the most common word amongst magic origins. "It's the sword of legend, excalibur!" "It's the Magical Scarab of Legend!" "It's the Angelic Mithril Chainmail of Legend +3" "It's the Legendary Corset of Whatsername"

I agree that it needs to be fixed.

It'll take a lot of work but Ouroboros is a huge deal and it keeps getting bigger with every patch that adds missions.

Leaving it as-is is like fixing something in your car with duct tape. It may work, and nobody might notice it now, but when they do notice it, it really breaks immersion.

The worst is when you try to get into a cross-alignment group through Ouroboros not realizing that it's a faction-specific zone. There's NOTHING IN GAME TO SUGGEST THAT! Not even a loading screen tip! The zone appears the same across factions (which is a huge mistake btw, it doesn't matter if it's supposed to be super-neutral ground, there should be something to show you that it's different, even if all it does is enhance the "heroic" nature of the ui when you're blue). Even if all you do is have random heroic or villainous dudes and chicks standing around drinking tea, it'd go a long way to illustrating that the zones are different (which you need to do).

I think that it would be really really awesome if there was a "fogged up" version of the helmet, or a "broken" helmet (as in oh my gosh what broke into the spaceman's helmet and turned him into a zombie/reptile/alien hybrid/other thing), but yeah, I'll settle down and accept this.

Oh absolutely. a well-built character is good independently of class.
But there's a lot more potential for building a dud when your character archetype was built for teaming, not soloing.

YAAAAAAY I get a BOMB BACKPACK!


WOOOO

/fireworks

If you're playing a Defender, you're playing the game in 'too-hard-to-solo' mode.

There are going to be a few people who object to that statement. They're not casual players and they look for a challenge.

I have a defender I like. In fact I liked her so much I re-made her with a different primary because empathy sucks (for what I wanted out of the character) and I'm much happier with Dark Miasma. I still have the older one around collecting dust. And the cool thing is, she gets badges for doing that! /easilyamused

But I'll be the first to tell you, don't play a defender as your only character.

Statesman: "This mission is a deathtrap, and if I send anyone else in my place I will be committing murder."

Would that line of dialogue have changed the situation? Probably.

With regards to the tvtropes discussion above...

Tropes are not cliches. They are not meant to be avoided, but understanding them is a good part of building a better story.

That being said, I'm not even going to ATTEMPT to defend the writing. I can only imagine the frustration of writing stories when you can't possibly remember everything that every character can do, or wouldn't do, or couldn't do, or could do if...

I mean really you kinda have to cut them some slack, this is probably as close to impossible as you can get.