Samuel_Tow

Meh, Facebook. One day they'll force me to make an account there at gunpoint and under threat of death, but until then I'm not interested.

Personally, I dislike the story of the Well of the Furries for the same reason as I dislike the story behind the Origin of Popcorn - it tries to write the story of my characters for me and take narrative control out of my hands... And for absolutely no reason. City of Heroes has always been, above and beyond everything else, a game about freedom of expression, at least in my eyes. Way back in 2004, the game really didn't try to give you a reason for why you're playing or put some kind of ultimate objective in your head. You a re a hero, this is a city, go ahead and protect it. Why? You decide. How? You pick your methods. Origin? You pick it, you describe it, you define it.

I honestly don't feel like there's anything to gain by writing our own heroes into the story. If it's to make us feel more immersed in the experience, it isn't working, at least for me. Every time the game slaps me across the pen hand and tells me "No! You're writing it wrong! THIS is how your character is!" my immersion goes out the window. Things like "You crack your knickes and slick back your hair. Time to be the bad guy" just baffle me, when I don't have hair and my knuckles are made of cast iron. Every time the game assumes something about my characters, it's usually wrong and it takes me out of the experience.

What, I ask you, was wrong with telling us that, as Lord Recluse keeps saying: "You must work hard to achieve your goals!" and through working really, really hard, we just naturally become stronger? It worked for Son Goku, after all, so why can't it work for us? What was wrong with simply having become so powerful and experienced that we can actually overcome our limitations and gain godlike power by our own devices? Why couldn't the system be more open to interpretation? What is the benefit of making it effectively a plot railroad?

It's what's known as "inspiration," I'd say, and I find that to be pretty normal for any creative process. I know movies and some authors have made inspiration out to be like some kind of divine providence and clairvoyance, but to me, inspiration in writing is simply the state in which are able to come up with great idea on the spot, which are in actual fact much better than what you had before. It's that "Yes. Yes, I love! I can do so much with this!" moment, in essence.

Moreover, writing is a constant creative process. Even if you sit down and write a detailed plan of how the story will go, that's still only a guideline because you can't account for every little detail you'll run across while writing and every idea you'll come up with along the way. People often speak about "how a story wants to be told," and that's less some kind of quirky zen thing and more just the pragmatism in that the way you tell one part of a story tends to define how you need to tell the subsequent parts.

It could be something as simple as needing the hero to escape the planet in a space ship, but in the heat of the moment you write that taking an artillery shell through the cockpit because the drama of the moment was more important. Suddenly, you have to roll your chair back and try to figure out how to rewrite the plot so the hero can still escape and make sense... And then you wonder: "Well, suppose he COULDN'T escape? Then what? Maybe he'll have to survive and grow as a person. Maybe there are other survivors on the planet who can help him? Maybe... Maybe..." and the thing rolls downhill from there and all of a sudden you're telling a completely different story that feels much better than the one you'd planned to tell before. And the best part is you can still pick up the other story at a later time.

Sometimes, though, it's something much smaller. For instance, you had originally intended for the villain to be defeated by missing an important detail of the hero's plan, and it seemed like a good ending - villain loses because he's too self-assured. But then, to add drama to a previous situation, you made the villain very meticulous and attentive, enough to spot a very minor clue that gives the hero away in a previous scene where you'd planned for the detail to be a lot less minor. Suddenly, it kind of doesn't make sense for this sharp-eyed, quick-thinking villain to be blindsided in such a silly manner, so other things have to happen for him to be defeated. Or maybe he isn't defeated at all and the story has to continue for a few more chapters?

Most of the time, I'd expect a story to run away from a writer at least once along the way, simply because that's a sign of flexible writing which specifically writes subsequent events to make sense given previous events. Consistency and interesting events are all too often more important than sticking to a specific plan.

I find myself in something of a tizzy. Once upon a time, I used to make characters in-game based pretty much on whatever was available at the time and whatever I hadn't played until then, and as a result, I have a roster that's pretty much half filled with characters that... Aren't exactly true to their concepts. Add to this the fact that I didn't exactly think all of them through, and we have a slight problem on our hands. Now Freedom is promising the ability to make every (non-Epic AT) on either side of the moral divide right from the start, as well as to pretty much play any AT with any powerset that makes sense. I think it's high time I fixed all of those slighted characters and rerolled a whole bunch of them into ATs and powersets more appropriate to them.

This is where this thread comes in. I'd like to solicit your help in deciding what AT and powersets to pick for an existing concept, based purely on what the concept would work well with. Before we begin, the only ATs I really want to play are Scrappers, Brutes, Stalkers and Masterminds, in no particular order. Anything else I'm genuinely not interested in touching. Also, don't worry that I'll name-drop 50+ characters. I wouldn't do that to you I'll stick to just the ones where I'm not sure if I should reroll them, or where I don't know what to reroll them into. Keep in mind, as well, that I'm not just looking for AT and Powerset combos, but actual justifications for why I'll be picking those.

All of that out of the way, let's begin:

The Herald of Light is the soul of a dead soldier which was bound to his sword at the moment of heroic self-sacrifice, and now inhabits a suit of decorative medieval armour. The Herald was made back in 2004, so all I could do was Sword/Regen Scrapper, the idea being that the ghost could simply fix the armour when it broke. I'm reconsidering that right now. My options as it stands are either to wait for Freedom and remake him as a Sword/Shield Brute (though I didn't exactly find a good shield), or to wait even more and remake him as a Titanic Weapons/Regeneration Scrapper or Brute. The reason I want to reroll him is for the simple fact that I don't really like fighters with a single one-handed weapon, aesthetically speaking, but should I really bother rerolling a level 42 Scrapper, and if so, into what?

Morten is a bit... Weird. She started off as sort of a spirit of desire who prayed on vulnerable people, but turned over a new lief when she developed feelings for one of her victims and realised she wanted to help people rather than feed on them. She still steals the essence off her enemies, of course, but this time around only from evil people who deserve it. Morten's entire shtick is that she looks like a pretty, sexy lady... Until you look a little closer and notice the hoofed feet, scaly horned wings carapace tail swinging behind, yet because of her charms, most people DON'T look closer. Right now, Morten is an Ice/Ice Blaster... Which makes no sense and I've wanted to reroll her into something more logical for a long time. The question is WHAT? I was thinking Stalker, since being seen but ignored is part of her powers, but what kind of Stalker? Dark/Dark for her draining powers? Energy/Energy for... Her draining powers? Dark/Energy? Should I even go Stalker or stick with Scrapper or Brute for the kind of powerful ancient creature that she is? This one is the most difficult for me.

Hatarla is something of a fallen angel. She fell from grace at an early age and spent most of her life as mercenary, doing pretty unpleasant things and losing her innocence. These days she's missing one whole arm, both legs below the knee, one eye and most of her wings, but after saving a child who was about to fall as she had, she saw the error of her ways and is now hoping to redeem her sins by doing good, or dying in the attempt. Right now, she's a Katana/Will Scrapper. Willpower symbolises, counter-intuitively, her disgust with her past self and complete disregard for her own life and well-being, in that she is already broken and there's really very little her enemies can do to hurt her any more. The Katana, on the other hand... Symbolises nothing at all, other than that I want a weapon of some sort. I'm not sure I want to reroll Hatarla, but if I were to do so, what AT and Powersets should I pick to fit that?

Bodyshop baffles me. It's not a person, but rather a mass of sentient cancerous tissue given intelligence through the soul of a long-dead hero and the AI inside the helmet of a dead villain. He's sort of an amalgam of hero, villain and monster, but still a hero. Right now, he's a Rad/Rad Blaster for... Absolutely no reason at all. And for the life of me, I have not the slightest bit of clue what to remake him as. Any ideas here are appreciated.

Cecity (obscure term for "blindness") is pretty much what her name suggests. When she was a little girl, Cecity lost all five of her sense, leaving her stuck in a horrible, maddening sensory void for years, until she developed a sort of sixth sense. She couldn't see or hear or touch, but instead just sort of "knew" where things were, what people were saying and what was happening around her. And this sixth sense was so fast and accurate it gave her super-human reflexes. Right now, she is a Claws/SR Scrapper. Super Reflexes is obvious, but I honestly don't like running her with Claws. At the time, I picked the set because I hadn't played it, but right now I have about a dozen Claws characters (though no Stalkers) so I want to do SOMETHING more interesting with Cecity. A weapon of some sort may not be a bad idea. Any ideas as to what I should reroll her as?

Stardiver is a new concept I haven't yet made real. Basically, the Stardivers are an enigmatic species who use eldritch technology to dive into the cores of stars and use the heat, pressure and radiation in there to both build up their energy and craft the alien materials that make up their tech. I have a costume and a name, but no build, so really, almost anything goes for this one. I still want to have her using a weapon of some sort, but I don't know what weapon to pick, what AT to use or what secondary to choose.

Valeena is a creature from an alternate dimension where humans never evolved and other animals evolved to sentience in their place. Her kind was the first to succeed not through feral brute strength, but rather through cunning and ingenuity. Her kind is also that of a pink bunny girl with giant purple wings. Right now, she is an Archery/Devices Blaster because I wanted to emphasise her choice of skill and technology over strength, but I was never able to demonstrate her dexterity, which I want to do when I reroll her. I'm really not sure what to make her, though. Scrapper or Stalker, definitely, but what powersets? All I know is I want to keep her using some kind of Vanguard weapon.

Finally, Artegor is a somewhat eccentric vampire. A bit of a cross between Vampire Hunter D and Castlevania's Alucard, he is a hero simply because he has a kind heart and was tricked into accepting his vampiric powers in the first place. Right now, he's a Sword/Dark Scrapper with Rularuu's Bane. The sword is sort of big enough to look right as a single weapon, but my biggest concern with Artegor is whether I shouldn't just turn him into a Titanic Weapons Scrapper... Or even a brute. And I'm honestly not sure what to do about that.

I apologise for the tl;dr post. Any help on any of these characters will be very much appreciated, especially if they get rerolled into using new sets. Thank you for your time.

I'm seeing some very interesting replies so far, and it's confirming what I suspected - most people integrate their characters into the story to a greater extent than I do. It's a bit surprising that so many make standalone characters that don't directly relate to City of Heroes, though. That I hadn't expected.

Let's see if I can't refine the question a tad:

If you completely ignored the game's plot, would your characters and their actions still make sense in the game's existing setting?

If a piece of story required your character to feel a certain way or perform a certain action that goes against their concept, what would you do about it?

Street Justice seems like an odd choice for a new powerset, considering the power customization options on both Martial Arts and Super Strength were supposed to do just that, but I won't turn down a new set. Now the only question is whether I want to make a new character or reroll an old one into using this set. I have a level 30-ish MA/SR school girl who might look better with a more brawl-like set.

Huh... OK, that answers my question. I'll have to see about checking the website when I have more time and more inclination. Seems like most of the affection for Galaxy Girl comes from "expanded universe" stuff, though, at least from what I can gather.

Off-topic, but:

Vanden, I like your Avatar a lot better than the custom animations we got for Super Strength way back when

Where do you people get all this benevolent info on Galaxy Girl from? All I know of her in-game is her name because it comes up a few times and what Protean has to say about her sidekick.