Samuel_Tow

I find myself having to praise the First Ward, at least as much of it as I've seen so far. For the first time in a VERY long while, I find writing that I honestly can't complain about, and which is both incredibly immersive AND very good in terms of personality characterisation. I've often found that writing which does not require description and is instead able to deliver all necessary subtext on the strength of its language is great writing of the highest level, and that's what I'm seeing in the First Ward. Even the quirky characters who I usually hate work very well. The zone is just the right mix of crazy and cool.

The visuals of the zone are also impressive. The shadow paths are very well done, even if the transition vortex that plays when you enter or exit one is usually delayed, especially if you cross a path too quickly. Good use of the phasing tech, I must say, and creepy, otherworldly feel when you're on one of these paths is really, really creepy, which is exactly as it should be. I also found a wall of posters while on a shadow path that suggested the whole place might not even exist, and instead be a collective dream of some sort, which would certainly explain a lot of the nonsense in there, though that's probably just someone's ramblings.

However, the zone also has a lot of bad to it, too.

The first thing I noticed when zoning in was that the giant vortex in the sky that's supposed to dominated the whole zone is VERY pixellated. It appears to be over the middle of the zone somewhere, but I could see the pixellisation from the edge where you enter near Jester. It's also very transparent and almost single-colour, which reduces what could have been one of the game's most impressive visual effects to a very obvious prop. I think this thing needs to be MUCH higher resolution, and possibly either not be one piece or have more going on there. Granted, I run the game at 1920x1080 and all of my loading screens are also highly pixellated, but the sky still looks way too flat and way too low-res.

There are also a couple of contacts I found around the survivor camp that I was never introduced to, and I'm not sure I ever will be. I asked around various globals and was told that these are repeatable mission contacts. So here's my question: Why are they not in the Find Contact list? I get not being introduced to them, fine, whatever, but why can I never know of their existence unless I trip over them or, in time, check the Wiki?

I also just defeated a DUST leader, who collapsed and wanted to talk to me. I'm starting to get more than a little tired of that "on hands and knees" pose that seemingly every single boss in new content assumes when defeated because every single boss wants to talk to me. Why does every boss want to talk to me? Additionally, this came with the "Alpha Protocol" problem of me picking a conversation line thinking it means one thing and my character actually meaning something completely different. I'd honestly appreciate some kind of tip as to what the option I'm picking actually means.

For instance, the DUST leader in question gave me two options, effectively "Stand down" and "I break your neck!" I presumed that threatening the man with breaking his neck would make him reluctant to answer my question, so I ordered him to stand down, whereupon he hopped up and said "So you're letting us go?" What? No! Well, apparently I am, because I had inadvertently chosen the mercy option. I never even suspect the choice was between murder and mercy, I just thought I'd get a little bit more flavour text if I treated him better, plus my villain is very polite, but the game interpreted my politeness as a desire to ally myself with the DUST leader, and I'm sure that'll come back to play a role later in the storyline. Why? I wanted to kill him, I just didn't want to be a dick about it.

None of these are big concerns, really, but the longer I play, the more I start to dislike how City of Heroes handles conversations. First Ward itself is still pretty cool, but correct me if I'm wrong: Why does it seem like the zone only has a heroic story arc with ******* cosmetic options thrown in there? I was invited to the First Ward by the Carnival of War, I presumed to aid them in whatever warfare they were rustling up, yet the first mission had me actually fight and thwart a Carnival of War operation and then proceed to help the Carnival of Light, instead. I don't really dislike the arc that's there, it's just a bit... Surprising that we're going back to the Rikti War Zone approach of having one heroic story arc in the zone that villains can just choose to participate in.

Overall, the new zone is made of awesome, but it still has these niggling problems which I highly suspect will come back to bug me some more as I proceed through the storyline.

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Before I forget - why are the First Ward abandoned office buildings using the Paragon City white office interior instead of the Praetorian yellow and orange veneer one?

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Aren't the buildings in the First Ward abandoned? Surely they can't have power. If so, then why do their windows light up and night? Also, when I approach any of the large air conditioning units on the roofs, all of them seem to be operating just fine. What am I missing?

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Hey, do you know the dialogue between Anna and the Monarch? That went at about three times the speed with which I can read. I didn't catch a tenth of it, because by the time I was half-way through one text box, another two appeared. This needs to be slowed down significantly.

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Having the NPCs narrate dialogue text in their own NPC captions so that the whole team can hear the conversation is such a brilliant idea I don't know why it never occurred to me before. That alone is a GODSEND to merit of conversations on teams. I love it!

There is too much I want to reply to for MultiQuote to handle, so I'll just have to phrase my post in the form of a post

One thing I want to make clear is I don't really have an issue with communicating with other PLAYERS. I don't really do much RP personally as I'm both not very good at coming up with interesting in-character interactions on the fly and I don't like not having control of all actors. I've always seen communicating with other players as just that - one player chatting with another player while they play a game in the same way as two people watching a movie would.

As such, my mute character doesn't really hamper my ability as a player to chat with other players. That doesn't mean I won't use emotes to add Stardiver a bit of personal flair and, who knows? Maybe that will be my first real foray into RP. It depends on how much fun I have with the whole experience. I'm pretty good about remembering at least 3/4 of all emotes by heart, so I shouldn't need to do complex binds, and there's always the fallback of thought bubbles for everything else. I already wrote a story about Stardiver (which I can repost here if anyone cares) where I did a fairly good job at having her communicate without actually speaking a word, so I know it's possible.

My real, pressing concerns (aside from not having Titanic Weapons with which to make her) is how Stardiver will communicate with contacts based on how their reactions are written and how she'll handle dialogue trees.

The former isn't actually that problematic. So long as the briefing doesn't actually feature dialogue, like "OK, so where do you need me to go?" as the mission accept text, this should be easily doable. If I go to a mission and find an unexpected Moment masquerading as a Rikti and then Crimson says "Wait, you met Moment in there?" that's really not that hard to explain. I either brought back a piece of his costume, his arrest warrant or Crimson simply checked with the PPD to figure out who got arrested. I don't remember them all off-hand, but I'm pretty sure every story arc made prior to I17 and Dean McArthur should be plainly easy to work with and reinterpret as the character never saying anything.

The latter is a considerably bigger problem. Every dialogue tree I'm aware of expects actual dialogue, and none of them feature a "say nothing" option. Dealing with these will be extremely hard, to the point where I'm probably going to want to skip them if I can. I'll have to figure out what to do with the Ramiel arc to unlock Incarnate status, but I'm thinking "put a bucket over my head and bang on it with a spoon" might be my only option.

There's also a very important follow-up question: If my character is so reclusive, why is she even working with contacts at all? Well, for one, because I can't play the game otherwise, since almost no story arc in the game is ever self-initiated. Secondly, you have to understand that despite being ancient, Stardiver is still largely like a child - as she has never had the opportunity to communicate with anyone her entire life, she never learned how to do it, and eventually began to stray from personal contact which made her feel awkward and uncomfortable. As her character develops and she makes friends here on Earth, she will open up ever so slightly and accept the need to work with others. At the same time, her shyness will never wane and actually getting her to so much as even acknowledge your presence beyond the immediately relevant matters will still be like pulling teeth, figuratively speaking.

Essentially, she's someone who's learned that she is more or less required to work with other people, but really, really, REALLY doesn't want to, and so she does what she can to keep contact with people she hasn't known for years to a minimum. Her friends more or less understand what she's saying just from simple nods and gestures through the magic of "because I said so," and it's only strangers that I have to worry about having her communicate with.

I realise that this isn't an ideal concept for a character in this particular game, and I don't fault the game for it. On the flip side, though, I consider it a challenge. It's something brand new for me that I haven't done, and I'm all about trying new concepts and expanding my own horizons. If I can pull it off - and I think I can - this should be a very exciting adventure.

This might seem like a silly question, but hear me out.

For a while now, I've been developing a character I really like. She's called Stardiver, and she looks a little something like this (and is slowly becoming one of my most-posted costumes ). The driving force behind her creation was making something "very weird and unusual." Her look, I think, achieves that. Her story kind of does, as well: She's an ancient automaton from the beginning of time who dives into the hearts of stars to absorb energy and forge the materials she needs.

Her personality and character, however, haven't been as easy to work with. One easy way to make her feel more alien and outwardly weird has been to simply not give her any means of speaking or communication, short of nodding her head. She has no mouth, she has no vocal apparatus, she has never had the need to communicate with another living being until now. I'm writing a proto-story for her now, which kind of hinges on her inability to speak hampering her ability to integrate herself with the hero society on Earth, leading to her being treated as an outcast by most as she develops a fondness for the company of others.

The problem, however, comes from the fact that so much of the game's newer content has my character speak. Now, you'd think that "can speak" is an obvious trait of any playable character, but this kind of isn't always the case. It assumes every character can speak ENGLISH, has or can mimic a human voice (something my alien swarm queen shouldn't be able to do - she communicates in insect clicks, but that's besides the point) and actually has the desire to speak in full sentences. I've toyed with the concept for quite a while, but always ended up inventing some way for my characters to speak normally at the end of the day.

With Stardiver, I don't want to do that. Come hell or high water, Stardiver WILL NOT speak. Ever. So here's my question - what would I have to do to make this make sense? Which contacts would I need to choose? Is there any way I can re-interpret dialogue trees to account for her not being able to speak? I mean, it's pretty obvious that a game very much CAN play out with a mute protagonist. Gordon Freeman has managed four games without saying a single word so far. I guess my question is what do I need to do in THIS game to replicate Gordon's success?

If everything's going to be "put on hold," can we while longer? After a year of everything else being put on hold to pamper Incarnates, I can use a little content I have at least a passing interest in, like what's in I21.

Remember those patch notes where it said:

My first impressions of the villain-side "Who will die?" arc are mixed.

On the one hand, I like the settings of the first mission. The lava is very pretty and though it does a bit too little damage, it's cool to have such a unique map, and on too floors no less. The spare door right next to the entrance kind of telegraphed that I'd use it, though.

On the other hand, I think the written text needed to pass by an editor a couple more times. I spotted at least two instances of suspect grammar that just jar me out of the experience.

I like that I'm able to speak with the mage at the end, though I wonder why he's so polite. Being able to get on his bad side and fight him anyway was a nice benefit, though I wonder why his companion spawn disappears when he dies. Is this some kind of spawn replacement to accommodate the Igneous? Still, I liked it.

Alistor is odd as a character, though. He looks like a CoT Spectral and sounds like one, too, but I don't think he's supposed to be one. He's just supposed to be dead. Also, he contradicts himself. On the debriefing of the first mission, he talks about "unseating the gods from their thrones" and then on the briefing for the second one he makes fun of Skyway City because it constitutes some kind of hubris. Hello, pot. Meet kettle. I guess maybe that's the point?

Why did this "arc" have to be a TF, though? So we could exemplar down to it even if we're level 50? Can't say it's a big problem once you actually know where the contact is, but it was hard to get to that point in the first place. Alistor introduced himself to me in the middle of another arc, and by the time I was finished I no longer remembered where he was. Some helpful people pointed me in the right direction, though.

If I have one thing to complain about, it's this: You can't sap me with a 2 minute timer and then throw three paragraphs of text at me at the same time. I can't read this much text on a good day, and you're asking me to read it as I'm rushing to escape a collapsing cave? Not cool, guys. Not cool.

After all of one mission, I'm hopeful. There are gimmicks in the "arc," but there aren't too many and there's still a good deal of fighting to be had. Typos notwithstanding, the story appears to be solid. It somewhat lacks context, but I assume that will get filled in on later stages. At least I know what I'm after in this one, which I didn't really appreciate until I lost it. Having a non-nebulous goal is always a good thing.

We'll see how my opinion develops with the following missions, which I may end up doing tomorrow.

MASSIVE bonus points for using the word "abscond." Nicely done!

The Minions of Igneous still have their index fingers extended in their idle stance. How many times do I have to /bug this?

The second mission captions fly by far too fast for me to read them AND I have to read about five paragraphs of captions while fighting waves of PPD. The only way to tell what's being said is to watch the Captions channel, but that doesn't have names on it so it's very hard to tell who's supposed to be talking.

The waves of PPD every 30 seconds regardless of how many I kill are a good idea. Normally, they'd be a horrible idea if I could only stop them by activating the glowies, but since they time out after five minutes even without me, that's a BIG saving grace. As is my style, I chose to hold my ground and last 5 minutes, fighting 10 ambushes of 5 PPD each, overlapping a lot of the time. That was fun fight Of course, I expect I could have simply walked out of the mission and let the 5 minutes count down without me, but that ain't my style.

The second mission instance map is kind of bugged. A lot of the rooms aren't shown and you can get "Map unavailable" in a lot of places.

Why is it that every time I travel to Paragon City, I must use a different vessel around the dock? How is Alistor chartering these vessels? Or am I supposed to be handling this on my own?

The final instance is REALLY cool. I love the pathways of lava. They kind of remind me of the demonic structures from Darksiders, particularly Smael's prison. Having such a large area filled with lava is also very impressive. I have to ask, though - if I run this mission, swap sides and head to the follows, will I see Grendel's Gulch still clear of lava and with all the buildings and roads and water intact? Because molten lava isn't one of the easiest things to just clean up, especially after it hardens into solid rock.

I agree that the Obelisk needs to be visible from ANYWHERE on the map. This is the centrepiece to the whole arc. I need to enter the mission and go "Holy hell! Is that thing in the distance what I've been after? It's huge! And awesome!" Instead, between having to stare at my feet to make the jumps across lava pits and the enemies I have to fight, I almost bumped into the thing without even knowing it's there and I didn't realise it was supposed to be tall until way too late.

Also, Lepkin or whatever his name is has the opposite problem of the first boss - I have to defeat him AND his entire spawn to proceed, only his spawn appears all around the obelisk and doesn't aggro when I fight the boss. As such, I beat the boss but didn't advance the objective. Turns out there was an Anathema on the other end of the Obelisk I just hadn't seen. Also, why are elite bosses in newer arcs conning purple? Or is that a con change across the board? They're not any harder than they used to be, so I'm not really complaining, and I guess it was a bit odd to have an elite boss con the same as a boss, but... Is that how it's going to be from here on out?

The fight with the heroes was fun. I'm really happy to see bosses spawn in the mission even though I had bosses turned off. It makes sense, when I have the power of Synapse. I think I fought some costumed heroes whom I hadn't seen before, meaning they weren't just pulled out of the Mayhem Mission roster, and that's a good thing. I spurned the CoT so I fought some of them. It was cool to fight them all, but them coming in alternating waves was a bit cheap.

Synapse's power doesn't have graphics for its icon under my health bar. It showed up a small white square. This needs to be fixed.

Having the Freedom Phalanx show up at the end of the mission was really cool. Totally makes sense they'd do that. I'm not sure why they're level 35, but that's sufficiently higher than my level 20 to be dangerous, and it seems they're all AV/Hero arc. Beating them down should be next to impossible. I'm also glad they don't show up as an ambush to chase me, but instead show up where Synapse is. It makes sense - they want to save Synapse, so they wouldn't just abandon his side to chase some fleeing villain. Plus, it let me had a look at them, which I like.

But again - I'm given a rather lengthy clue and 60 seconds to read it as a one-minute timer starts counting down. Stop it, guys! I can't read that fast, and I DON'T WANT to read that fast.

Someone mentioned this being the first time when a cutscene was use right, and I agree. All the game's other cutscenes are very irritating, but this one was very well done and very cinematic. Alistor did mention multiple Obelisks, and the hidden guy was just sufficiently mysterious. My guess is the letter writer, but we'll see. Be kind of daft to have two shadowy figures operating in the game at the same time.

Overall, the arc impressed me, mostly with its visuals. All of the instances are unique, all of them have a cool lava motif and I LOOOVE the huge obelisk. The writing was kind of hit and miss. I really liked Alistor's antics, as I could imagine him stomping on his hat in frustration. "At... every... step! Must we be interrupted!" Love it. You can just tell the guy is just almost out of his skin with every word he says

The actual plot left me a bit cold, though. Find the obelisk, then find the obelisk, then kill a Pariah and find the obelisk, then fade to black. Few things irritate me more than missions where I go to do something and I completely fail do it. The second mission, in particular, feels like a wasted trip. Alistor can track the Obelisk himself, so all I learned is that someone will be using it to draw someone else's powers. Considering that's why the thing was made, this didn't really need me to discover it.

I think what disappoints me the most is the arc is so, so short, though. Three missions is all there is to it. I know this may be an unpopular opinion, but I would have loved to have a few defeat-alls or kill-boss missions throw in there to give the story a bit of room to develop, and to introduce a bit more complexity to the plot. Right now, I'm reminded of Yahtzee's description of Infamous' story: "Magic ball give super powers, everyone want magic ball, psychic trash robots..." I assume this will come off like a much less of an eclectic experience once all parts are in there, but on its own, it's just three missions with a very basic plot to string them along, selling themselves on a total of ONE very good character and on unique maps. It's definitely great to play through as part of my VIP subscription, but I don't think I'd want to pay for it if I were a Premium player. Unique maps on their own aren't enough to justify three missions. Well, that depends on what it actually costs, of course.

Just checked: 400 Paragon Points, or $5. Yeah, definitely not something I want to buy for $5. I'll pay $10 for a full costume set, but $5 for three missions is just too much. Good thing I'm staying VIP

Why do I always miss the Ustreams? I've been trying to get a specific question answered - whether we'll ever get to buy currently unlockable costumes - but that one always seems to fall through the cracks. I'm not really complaining, since I got quite a few others answered overall, but missing Ustreams and thus opportunities to ask makes me a sad panda

Wait, so you're the @Hamster? OK, that's one mystery solved.

I really don't get this, honestly. I remember a time when the servers went down every day and stayed down for the full 2-hour window, except on weekends. The first day I logged into the game, I got booted from the servers within half an hour by daily maintenance. Two hours a day, five days a week and no-one complained.

And yet now if the servers go down for extended maintenance once a week, everyone is up in arms. I just don't get it.

Compensation for things like this sets up a bad example. It tells people that they'll be compensated for any little thing they don't like. Dual Pistols has a couple of powers with bugged graphics, I can't play Dual Pistols, I only have one character and it's Dual Pistols, it's been bugged for two weeks now, compensate me.

Sure, it's absurd and stupid and no-one would take that seriously, but I've heard dumber requests. Recently someone talked about a criminal trial against Paragon Studios for theft because of something equally as stupid, like they promised Signature Story Arcs and they didn't deliver them, or they promised "you keep what you've bought" but veteran Premium players lose access to Inventions anyway. I forget what, but it happened.

**** happens. Losing access to City of Heroes for a day isn't like losing power or losing water, because there exist other games in the world that I can still play while the servers are down, whereas I can't just plug my house in the other socket and get power from another power company when that goes down.

As far as I'm concerned, compensating people are a response to angry demands is an extremely bad practice, because it breeds entitlement where it really isn't due. I won't exactly rise up in arms if it happened, but I won't support it by the same token. And on my side, the servers are down until 11 PM at night.

I, personally, would love to see some form of recurring arch-rival, let's call it that. We already have doppelgänger tech, so we know that the combat side of things is easily workable. The game can use either a copy of our current character or one from our list, or even one made in the Architect's interface, possibly even other people's characters, and that should be easy to achieve.

The bigger problem lies in personality and storyline. If I were using an arch-rival to one of my heroes, I wouldn't want him to be the lackey of a canon villain, as I simply don't write or like villains like this. I'd want said villain to be the master of his own destiny, and probably the master of his own evil group. I'd also want to pick how this villain sounded - do I want him to be stupid and brutish, clever and arrogant, alien and incomprehensible or smooth and suave? This matters.

In fact, speaking of pie in the sky ideas, I'd like to pick a whole rogues' gallery for my existing heroes. I have a few villain groups of my own who usually share the same SG, and most of the time I'd pit my heroes against the entire villain group, so against four or five named, costumed villains.

I'm really not sure how that might happen mechanically, and my head's all over the place right now, but yeah - I'd like to see that