Samuel_Tow

I'm excited about the new costume options, hell yeah I am! However, I'm excited about Titanic Weapons many times more, and the character who's using many of the new costume pieces - Stardiver - needs a Titanic Weapon in order for me to play her

Obeying the law is more or less a prerequisite for being a hero, not a requirement for hero-side. If you don't want to obey the law, you become a vigilante or an outright villain. Complaining you can't be a hero AND a wanton lawbreaker is like complaining you can't be a Defender AND do amazing melee damage. If you want to do amazing melee damage, play a class that does this. If you want to disrespect the law, play a Vigilante or a Villain, or a rogue if you're feeling creative.

Being a super-villain's stooge is not a prerequisite for being a villain in the same way that respecting the law is for being a hero. In fact, a great many concepts exist in fiction already for whom the defining feature is that they don't serve anyone. You mentioned them yourself. And these are villains who easily fall square in the field of villainy and not in any of the other alignments.

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I honestly don't get why villains must always be seen controlled by someone else, and why the game is seen as impossible to function unless there is "a bigger fish." It's a question of writing and storytelling, and I can say this for a fact: There are better ways to explain a city of villains (if you really had to) than Arachnos.

He predicted the rise of the giant chicken! Wait, what were we talking about?

Right, new releases. Honestly, there isn't a whole lot I care about between here and Titanic Weapons. The closer this gets, the less interested I am about anything else. Street Justice, when that comes out, will go a great way towards holding my attention just because I have a very cool concept for it, but ultimately, I want my Titanic Weapons. And I hope there's a decent glowing and/or energy tech sword in there, like bAss made a while back. Fingers crossed.

I don't have a problem with Kathie being bitter and angry. I'd expect anyone living in the First Ward to be on edge. I have a problem with Kathie being sarcastic, condescending and bratty. There's a difference between an initially jovial child losing her positive outlook on the world and becoming disillusioned and possibly cynical... And a kind person turning into Black Scorpion.

Simply put, people don't change like that. That's not to say people don't change period, but when they do change, they change around the basis of their personality. Noble Savage is a good example. He starts out as a raging but honourable monster, he turns around to become a loyal and faithful ally to the Resistance and then turns around when spurned and descends back into monstrosity, with his dignity now reigned in to only apply to those close to him personally. Yet in all of this, Noble Savage is still Noble Savage.

Vasilokos, on the other hand, seems to have swapped actors. When first rescued, he's a calm, collected GHOUL who's willing to talk and who serves as the reason which keeps the other Ghouls' violence in check. Yet in First Ward, it seems like most of the Forlorn are level-headed, peaceful people trapped in a violent world while Vasilokos threatens to wear people's neck veins and just about orders the new Monarch to kill the Hetman. That's not character development, that's character replacement. This is no longer Vasilokos, as he appears to have been replaced by Angelo Vendetti.

And Kathie is even a more expressed example. She starts out acting like a little kind, and later matures to assume responsibility for the Seers she has rescued, recognising the hardships but accepting them as necessary. Then the first thing you hear from her is along the lines of "Hey! What are you waiting for! Give me a hand here!" This is a completely different person, and not in the slightest consistent with who and what Kathie was. She hasn't become disillusioned or angry, she has become ANNOYING. There's a difference. It's like having to deal with Mender Tesseract - constant sarcastic abuse even in the face of success.

In Going Rogue, Kathie Douglass was one of the coolest, most likeable characters in the whole game. I always did her arc in full because I simply liked working with her. First Ward has done the impossible by making me not give a crap about Kathie Douglass and her endless nagging, and I honestly don't care if she ever leaves the Seer network thereafter, because even if Vanessa says she'll take the blame, Kathie will still find SOME way to nag on me because I exist.

First Ward has an overall great storyline, even if it ends abruptly, but it also represents the death knell of one of the game's most interesting characters. In a sense, if Kathie had DIED somewhere along the way, she might have come out a lot better for it, even if it's an off-screen death like Vasilokos. Anything is better than that kind of character assassination.

What I'm saying is that if thou must, then OK, I get it. Some things players just can't be allowed to do (kill canon characters unless the story is built around it) and sometimes players simply have to do certain things (visit Brokers, as used to be the case CoV-side). Sometimes that just can't be avoided. But if I have to accept a specific narrow situation, then having a variety of responses to it that cover at least a somewhat reasonable spectrum of villains would be nice. These don't have to make a lick of difference so long as they allow me to ACT differently, even if the end goal is the same.

As the example went, if I HAVE to agree, then give me a choice to like it, hate it or make fun of it, just off the top of my head.

What I meant was that AS AN EXCEPTION, I can see this arc treating us like puppy-eyed (or in this case snake-eyed) newbies, because if I'm a brand new player, I kind of am. Of course, this goes a bit contrary to one of the things many brand new players praised about City of Heroes back in the day: Other MMOs start you fighting rants and wearing rags. City of Heroes starts you fighting genuine human enemies and wearing a cool costume. Many people have, over the years, have talked about being impressed at how the game is actually fun right from the start. It doesn't start you as scum, it starts you as a legitimate hero doing legitimate hero stuff, even if they're on the lower end of the power scale.

Obviously, that was before CoV, but it's always bugged me that villains never really enjoyed the same privilege. Heroes start out being cool, saving people and being praised for it. Villains start out like dogs, being lead around on a leash and occasionally smacked with a rolled-up newspaper, and the best they can do is bark at other dogs from across a bar fence, if the analogy isn't too convoluted.

It all goes back to the same thing - heroes get to start out feeling good, but villains have to start out feeling bad, and I don't know why that is. Because crime doesn't pay?

How about I just give your editing rights to my post?

That's kind of why I wish there WERE some of these things at character creation. Even something as simple as two extra options: Aggression and Intelligence. More intelligent characters would end up with smarter lines, more aggressive characters would end up with more opportunities to kill their conversation partners.

Or, you know, dispense with the whole perquisites idea and just add more options to conversations. When Scirocco makes his threat, let me reply "Kill me and you have to find yourself another mole." And use that as leverage to get something more out of the deal than "I don't bash your head with this rock." It's not based around threatening Scirocco or beating him so much as just playing up my own usefulness.

Let me put it this way - Mass Effect is not a branching story in the slightest. It's an almost entirely railroading storyline that nevertheless makes you feel like you have a shot by giving you the illusion of choice and changing minor details about how the story plays out mechanically. Dialogue trees are the perfect opportunity to do this. Picture me being offered a deal and having three options:

A. Agree emphatically.
B. Agree reluctantly.
C. Argue about the terms and agree.

In every case you agree, but they differ in how you go about them, and how you go about a villain matters. Rather a lot, actually.

Heh, well, we kind of do sound like him And don't get me wrong, I'm not ragging on the guy or his writing. That sort of character has his place in decent fiction. It's just... If I had to choose my demeanour, I wouldn't choose Black Scorpion Jr. Maybe Ghost Widow Jr. or possibly Nemesis Jr., but that's just why I feel we need more choice in dialogues.

Hmm... OK, when you put it like that, I can see what you mean. When I see railroading writing, I have the tendency to perceive it as one manifestation of a much bigger problem, as I've had that same complaint across the board for years. However, you have a point - this arc can be forgiven for assuming we're complete rookies in both skill and mind since it's aimed at rookie players. I'm not sure if all rookie players will be this small-time and how many will bring established characters from other games they've played or stories they've written, but even so, it's an argument that I can buy.

Let's just hope that this railroading doesn't spread. Dialogue trees were invented to give players a choice. To make dialogue trees with no choices in them is just bad design.

Doh! B before C, I will remember this!

I should hope so. The minute the thought crossed my mind that we might actually be written as having the Blue Spectre's powers, a chill ran down my spine because I honestly wouldn't put that past the game's writing. We already got a slightly less specific version of this with the Origin of Powers, so seeing this taken even further would have been disappointing, but not surprising.

I suppose in the cold light of day, it makes no sense since heroes don't steal his power, but I clearly didn't think that far ahead

On a tangent, giving and taking "power" really isn't something I'm fond of for pretty much the same reasons I don't like power suppression fields for no reason - not everyone is "powered" by some kind of "power" which could be given or taken. Actually, the character I ran the hero-side arc with the first time was a very tough school girl whose "power" was superior strength and speed. Not really something you can syphon.

Here's the thing - if the Blue Spectre were described as someone whose own powers revolve around manipulating energy, then this would make more sense. If he has the ability to draw generic-term energy (that's "energy," not "power") out of others, then allowing him to drain us of a little as heroes would make sense even if our abilities aren't the result of having "power." At that point, even a basic ordinary human could have helped him because anything alive needs some form of energy to live. Similarly, villains could drain the Blue Spectre of his energy to supercharge their own bodies.

This is more than just swapping "power" for "energy." It's about specifically defining the Blue Spectre's powers as based around syphoning and channelling energy. Because right now, we don't know who that guy is and what he can do. He could be a martial artist, for all we know. Defining him as an energy manipulator would give context to the "power transfer" we're expected to make. Same story, same actions, more context, is all.

Which would work if you weren't left with a souvenir where you wonder what just happened. You'd think that intentionally failing the last mission might serve as a rudimentary way to introduce choice and spite her, but no. If you let the last mission fail, you end up looking even dumber, because you're outright said to suspect something might be wrong, but unaware of what that might be. SHE'S A RIKTI SPY! That's what's wrong!

Wait, wait, wait... Are you saying I got my powers by stealing them from the Blue Spectrum? That can't be right. That's Origin of Powers levels of wrong here.

Beyond that, a collection of people here don't seem to "get" what I'm talking about. Everyone keeps telling me "You're a rookie!" Yeah, all that means is my character is weak. It doesn't mean that my character is dump, EXPRESSLY when said character's super power is intelligence. Let me put it this way: Do you think at any point in his career, it would have made sense for Bastion to run around screaming "Dude! Help! I, like, have a mental time bomb thing in my head!" Of course not. He's a logic-driven machine who started life as a logic-driven machine. Even ignoring the fact that he's a machine, at no point did it make sense for Bastion to act like Black Scorpion.

...

OK, I think I just realised what the Dr. Graves arc makes my character sound like - it makes me sound like Black Scorpion. Ignore all the descriptors like "stupid" and "crude" and such. It makes me sound like Black Scorpion, the guy who answers his phone with "FEAR ME!!!" That's not what I had in mind when I wrote my character. CharacterS, actually, sine I don't really want to play his character type.

Obviously, the story can't predict everything I could create, but there's a LOT of room left in there to be a LOT more inclusive. In fact, Dr. Graves succeeds in at least one part where it says my character's biology has not yet been determined, which is pretty much the best way to go about it. There's a difference from the game having to assume SOMETHING so as not to be completely abstract and the game giving me essentially someone else's role in someone else's plot.

Why, indeed, am I asked to select an origin and write a description if the game will assume those for me? If my origin is "some arrogant, power-hungry human who stole the Blue Spectrum's power and now wants to make it big in Arachnos," then why even let me pretend I could be anything else?

Personally, I find that the broader the game's pool of applicable concepts is, the more fun it is in the long run. And honestly, I don't see anything to be gained from restricting storylines down to a very specific concept of who the protagonist is.

Right, if that's how you intend to behave, then you're not worth my time.

How do you define "death?"

I think that depends on how you define "rookie," though. If we're talking strictly power and skill, then sure, I'll buy that. We're supposed to be weak at the start. If you're talking in terms of personal intelligence, though, I don't agree. Not everyone starts a hero's career at 18, so not everyone is "young and inexperienced." Inexperienced in throwing fire out of his hands though he may be, Black Lung still spent 30 years busting his back in coal mines around the world, living in shanty towns and sleeping with one eye open before he dug up that magic rock which gave him super powers. Sure, he's a rookie villain in that he's still trying to keep from setting his own eyebrows on fire, but he's no gullible young fool. You don't lose your last penny and the last of your real teeth getting scammed and not learn a thing or two.

And, yes, I did make "Black Lung" up on the spot just to serve as an example. I don't actually have such a character.

My point is that while a game can treat our characters as rookie SUPERS, it shouldn't really treat them as rookie VILLAINS. I mean, look at established canon - Johnny Sonata was, what? 30 by the time he made his deal with the devil? The Magic Man was how old when he got the Magic Watch? Just because our villains may have only recently gained their powers doesn't mean they didn't have a life of crime beforehand. In fact, the old Breakout tutorial pretty much TOLD us we had a life of crime before the game started because we have to have done SOMETHING to end up in the Zig.

And that doesn't account for villains who were actually incredibly powerful in the past, but who subsequently lost their powers. Both the Transmuter and Kara the Scorpion come to mind just off the top of my head.Hell, you know better than I do what sealed evil in a can is, and how one key aspect of these stories is that said evil was incredibly powerful when it was sealed, but how it now takes time before it returns to its full power. That in itself is a great plot to make a villain after - he used to have godlike powers, but now he has no powers at all. But give him time, it'll come back to him.

All of this is to say that while I completely get being beaten by clearly superior foes when I'm level 10, I don't really feel it's as justified to be painted as a stooge just because I'm level 10. For instance, raiding Anti-Matter's lab in Praetoria as level 15 character and having Anti-Matter show up as a level 40 AV to essentially one-shot you is precisely what I would have expected to happen. He's a frikkin' super villain! But having my villain walk up to someone and yell "I have a mental time bomb!" isn't even remotely the same thing.

A "rookie" villain can be week, that much I get, and that much has never been my complaint. That doesn't mean he's stupid, is all I'm saying.

This what? Do you perhaps have something to add?

I like the gameplay in City of Heroes, whereas I didn't like the gameplay of Halo. At least the original is one of the blandest shooter experiences I can recall even at the time, comparable to games like Serious Sam. City of Heroes, by contrast, has gameplay that is ostensibly fun in and of itself. Perhaps not "great," but then what MMO is? However, compared to pretty much every other MMO I've ever played, City of Heroes is leaps and bounds better and more fun. Actually sitting back and watching a CoH fight is cool and fun, and participating in one is even more so. I can literally never have enough of just going into an instance and killing things. I can't say the same for Halo. I was bored of that game's actual gameplay within half an hour of starting it, though regenerating health and that particular art design has a lot to do with it.

I don't really ask for anything out of City of Heroes beyond more stuff to kill and a framing device to explain why I'm killing stuff. If story needs to happen, it needs to happen where gameplay isn't going to be interrupted by it. I like both the story AND the gameplay of City of Heroes, just not at the same time, just as I like both the story AND the gameplay of Half-Life, but lengthy "cutscenes" where I'm confined to an area until they play out do drag after the third or fourth time I play through them.

That, really, is where story begins to drag - not the first time or the second time, but when you play through a game many times over. And our MMO in particular is virtually designed to be played over and over again, whereas Halo is not. It's a self-contained story, like a movie that you go through from beginning to end. I enjoy a dialogue tree the first time I see it. I enjoyed the Dean McArthur dialogue trees greatly back in I17. After running no less than 12 characters through his arcs, I enjoy them rather a lot less now.

And that's just an excuse for poor writing. There's nothing preventing a writer from writing a level 1 arc that has the player feeling good about himself at the end and that demonstrates the player villain as being somehow special and better than the others of his rank.

They didn't do that. Consciously. Not because they couldn't, not because it doesn't make sense, but because they chose to. And I don't agree with that choice, on account of "my villain is a stooge" being pretty much the running complaint of villain-side complaint since 2005.

They're the spirits of the living, I know. I get that it doesn't work on the Vahzilok, but exactly what kind of particular spirit something is is just too fine a hair to split, I think.

No, no, I mean I'd like to know what this power constitutes. What is this "power?" Will it work with my power armour? Will it consume my soul? These are all pertinent questions. I don't expect contacts to tell me why I want to work for them any more so than I would want anyone to try to sell me an opportunity by telling me why I really want it. I don't trust used car salesmen

However, Alistor does a very poor job of offering a tempting opportunity. "Power" isn't an opportunity. It's a word that, absent of any context, has no meaning. "An obelisk that can draw power from others and give it to you that I want you to use because I can't" on the other hand, is a tempting offer. The logistics of how the thing works aren't important so long as I know three things:

1. What am I after?
2. How do I use it?
3. Why do I care?

"Power" is about a third of the way to answering the first question and doesn't even begin to touch on the other two. More context is needed, and such context can easily be given without putting motivations into people's heads. If, for instance, someone offered me "lots and lots of money," then context follows the offer. I wouldn't refuse money, I know how to spend money and I care about money because it can buy me things. Not all characters are motivated by money, obviously, at which point not all characters will take an offer for lots and lots of money.

But "power" isn't really as defined and specific a concept as money. It's like a contact offering me "right" or "privilege." I need to know a bit more than just that, dude!

There's really only one word that I think is really crucial in this: "trade." To avoid running afoul of the forum rules (again) let me just say it's a new system that allows trade of in-game items between various games.

And, no, I don't know who the MS Paint characters are. I'm not sure they're actually FROM something.

I finally get what this reminded me of and why I liked the idea so much! Has anyone seen this promotional banner:



That's almost exactly what popped into my mind when I read the above post, I just couldn't put my finger on it. I don't know why I find that exchange so adorable, or the little Spiral Knight so cute, but I love this mental image, and that's a big part of what I was shooting for. Bonus points to the pic for telling a complete story without needing to use a word of text