Samuel_Tow

This is something people need to remember. "Teaming preference" is not a binary thing, either WILL DO or WON'T DO. It's usually a case of "might do, sometimes, for some tasks, with some people if I'm in the mood." I haven't undergone psychological evaluation and I don't know what I'm talking about, so I can't say whether I'm an introvert or an extrovert, but I know that playing with other people - even when it's fun - taxes me, and greatly, meaning I either need to leave the team and do something on my own where no-one will bother me, or otherwise log out of the game and do something else entirely.

Also, for lack of ability to carry over nested quotes, there's something I want to say on the subject of "teaming vs. interacting." At some point along the way, I described worries of teaming becoming nothing more than a means to an end that people engage in not because they want to, but because they feel they have to, leading to communal play, but VERY cold, basic interaction which leaves one feeling even less a part of the community. It's pretty evident when a person teaming with you doesn't really want you on his team, but knows he NEEDS you on the team nevertheless, and will tolerate you through grit teeth out of sheer necessity. That's generally not a good situation.

I've teamed a lot over the years, and I can say one thing for a fact - the level of actual player-to-player interaction, to say nothing of social interaction, is rock bottom for the most part. You exchange some curt communication with the team leader, are placed on the roster, and proceed to solo alongside what may as well be 7 bots, for all the humanity they display. No-one says a word, no-one cares about a word that is said, no-one wants to acknowledge that there are human beings behind the characters on screen. On the subject of bolded MMO, this is not better than solo play in any way. It IS solo play in everything but game mechanics.

In short, being within a certain proximity of other human beings is not the same as socialising with other people. And that's not a fine line, either.

Your definition of "optional" baffles me, in that it seems to define a difference between two categories of content I see no clear distinction between in that context. Allow me to ask the following question:

What is "optional" in the Incarnate system that cannot be argued to be optional in the 1-50 game? Specifically, absent a definition of what "just playing the game" constitutes, vs. whatever it is one does to earn Incarnate progress is, which you do not appear to define as part of "just playing the game."

In simple terms: If the Incarnate system is defined as optional, is the 1-50 journey not just as optional? Is logging into the game at all not just as optional? How do we define the difference?

I, on the other hand, feel we have far too many of those fights. Not only are they irritatingly and unnecessarily difficult, throwing them around for no reason takes away from the supposedly RARE occasions when an enemy is exceptionally strong.

*poof*

Huh? What? What am I doing here? I was just... And then... What did you do!?!

I agree with this idea wholeheartedly. The "robotic arm" tech has the potential to be so much more than just robotics. I'd rename the category to "different arm" and include things like mutated monster arms (like what the T-Virus produces), giant hairy animal arms, arms made of rock and granite, arms made of crystal, arms made of tree limbs, arms made of fire, arms made of ice, arms with bones sticking out and, hell, even just basic human arms, both ordinary, more skinny and gaunt, and more bulky and muscular. This could be the easy solution to giving females more muscular arms without redoing the whole model.

There's no reason why "robotic arms" have to be restricted to being only robotic any more than there's a reason to restrict hats to just cloth hats (and we already have Enforcer, Cyborg and Alpha metal helmets in there). This has the possibility to allow a LOT of new possibilities for not that much of an investment.

I suggest you actually read the original post.

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I agree completely. This is such a cool idea that I'll be kicking myself for not thinking of it, myself. Combat Auras were a great addition to auras, making for far more customization and much more appropriate auras, such as allowing my character's eyes to burn with righteous fire only when she enters combat, but that won't burn when she's just idling about. "Activate when attacked" shield auras would be an addition equally as great, allowing our characters to retain their costumes unchanged for the most part, but displaying toggle effects when attacked nevertheless. In essence, this would simulate the character only turning the toggles on immediately before an attack.

I love it! Please make it so!

I have to agree here. For years I wanted to make an Axe/Shield Scrapper, and had to eventually make do with an Axe/Shield Brute on the hero-side, which really isn't the same thing. I've been waiting for Scrappers and Stalkers to get ice powers, and really - isn't ice just perfect for Stalkers? Debilitating effects out the wazoo, the ability to make bladed weapons out of ice, and even probably the ability to turn into clear ice or coat yourself in light-refracting ice gives you a stealth/hiding skill.

There is still so much left to proliferate, and when was the last time we proliferated anything?

"Mistakes were made" is probably the vaguest, least informative statement I have heard in my life, right up there with "Things are improving." Yes, I'm saying mistakes were made. When? By whom? In what? To what effect?

Another Brute. At least that's what I'd do.

Incidentally, Brute Fury no longer decays as fast as it used to. It now takes five seconds for it to even start dropping after a fight, and it builds up much faster, as well. You can't get it much about 75 points, though.

As for a Demon/Thermal Mastermind... What's stopping you from keeping up? There ought to be few things that can phase a Mastermind.

Inventions I personally literally couldn't care less about, but I'll agree with you on Powerset Proliferation. In essence, "or that." The developers left so many additions hanging that I'd be happy if they finished up at least ONE of them.

That's actually one of my fears for the Incarnate system - it's their new shiny now, and it has the very strong prospect of butting everything else out of the picture for at least a calendar year in the future.

I'm pretty sure that happened in Planescape Torment at some point.

Then I direct you to Mirror's Edge (which has an achievement for just that), Amnesia: The Dark Descent (which has no actual weapons) and, lest we forget, Portal (the Portal "gun" is not a gun). It's not as ludicrous as you make it out to be.

What, then, is the point of the forums if not for people to come and voice their concerns? To play Forum Games and pat each other on the back about how much we love the game? The sad truth is that it is not very productive, but that's not the fault of the posters laying out their concerns, but more that of people seeking to shut them up.

I don't know where you're getting this, but you are provably wrong. My Natural Brute became an Incarnate and I have solid evidence that she is still Natural by the fact that her Origin remained unchanged and she will still call up Natural events and dialogue options were I to go through any. Your claim that the Well changes your origin is unsupported by either lore or game mechanics.

That is incorrect. We don't "define" magic colloquially, because "magic" is an abstract concept in colloquial language, describing most anything mystic and unexplainable, up to an including alien encounters, if the History channel is to be believed. I said this multiple times - City of Heroes has a far stricter definition of what magic is, and it does not include "everything that doesn't fall in one of the other categories."

Magic, for the most part, is defined as spellcasting, or the result thereof. Magic users are either casters, or have had a spell cast on them or an object they possess, and when I say "on them," I include a spell having been cast on the bloodline that they are born into. Tielekku may or may not have invented magic, but that just goes to show you that magic is inventable, in the same sense as writing was inventable. Yes, writing is one form of expression of human thought, but it does not alter the origin of "spoken" language into a subset of written language. In the same way, Tielekku having invented magic and used it does not alter her Origin, which may well have been Natural, into Magic, because it does not alter the fundamental nature of her powers ASIDE from magic.

"Taught," not given. Ermeeth - who is a clear analogue to Greek mythology's Prometheus - taught humans how to use magic. I forget which arc this is in, or if it's in the lore section of the site, but magic was taught to humans, not given to them. Magic is not an object or a specific type of power. Magic is the skill and knowledge of how to affect the world through the strength of your will, I believes Virgil Tarikoss describes it as.

Again, you infer cause by observing effect. Hero-1 (stupid numbers in names!) was given the sword and displayed magical powers. This does not mean he had no inherent magical affinity before that fact. Again I direct you to the Blood Tome, and how the Circle of Thorns use it to abduct descendants of the Mu bloodline who have strong magical affinity without ever realising it or displaying any magical talents whatsoever. If all Hero "ones" are descendants of the same bloodline, then I can bet you dollars to doughnuts that this bloodline is magic-inherent, and that this will be revealed at some point in the future.

Again - no, it does not. You say the Statesman was initially said to be Natural. One can assume he had the potential to develop natural skill and that was what the well enhanced to its ultimate level, or at least to a very high level. This is what I call reasonable doubt.

As for "every other thing" the well does - what other things does it do that are overtly magic-defined? Why be vague like this?

Define "everything." Rather, explain it.

You have infinite universes, infinite worlds, infinite realities, and you draw three examples out of that. What are the chances of those three examples being representative of the entire set. Coincidental? Possibly. Convincing? Not in the slightest. Hell, we have no real understanding of how the well operates and what it chooses to present to the different people it chooses. If I had to make a guess, I could guess that Kheldians themselves may turn out to be Incarnate somehow - alien beings given the power of the Well and transformed into pure energy with divine-seeming powers.

You do realise this is not an argument, right? It amounts to "I'm rubber and you're glue. Whatever you say bounces off me and sticks back to you."

And that is your prerogative. From where I'm standing, Ramiel is the only person who actually knows what he's talking about and everyone else is wrong and mistaken. After all, everything we know about the Well of the Furies outside of Ramiel comes from legends, hearsay, folklore and the secretive hints from both Statesman and Recluse. To be blunt - we don't have idea one what the well might be, because no-one alive really has a clue, and because the actual well is nowhere to be found. Ramiel is the only one who has done research, come into contact with the Well and seen its effects first-hand. In fact, Ramiel is the first one to suggest that the "well" is more than just that one well on that one island.

But again, that assumes that the Well's influence is magical in nature, which in turn assumes that anything not defined as Science, Technology, Natural or Science must therefore be magic, and I don't buy that. Specifically, I don't buy it since Natural hasn't been adequately discounted.

Did you also read the part where Merulia is described as an alien, that she is remade into the Leviathan, making its powers alien, and that the Red/Blood coral are pieces of the Leviathan? Because you seem to continually ignore this. "The gods are magic," you say, conveniently sidestepping that one god who is actually alien, without even the courtesy of suggesting she may have been a magical space alien, or acknowledging the fact that ALL of the gods may actually be aliens. Or, hell, Kheldians, for all we know.

Your assertion that the Well is magic hinges, in large part, on the inference that the gods' power is magical in nature, a fact which is contradicted by the alien origin of one literal god.

So why do the Midnight Club get involved? Because the Legacy Chain are involved, and because the Leviathan is largely considered to be magical in nature. And, indeed, why would magic NOT work to affect alien powers? The Rikti are a pretty good example of magic and technology coexisting, and the 5th Column used to be another. How do we know the Leviathan is magical? Because the Circle of Thorns seem to believe so. But they are wrong. Why? Because I trust what I see from the Leviathan itself more than I trust the Circle's Research when they came to the island long after the fact.

So, if I become the avatar of Merulia - an alien being - will I still be magic?

According to War Witch. Virgil Tarikoss disagrees.

As a fine connoisseur of all things American cartoon, anime, "furry" artword and concept drawings, I will say that "human anatomy" isn't always the holy grail of artistry that people present it as. In fact, I've found myself the most bored with characters who are the most realistically presented and proportioned. That's part of the reason why I only have a mere handful of ordinary-looking humans in my character roster, and most of mine are aliens, robots, animals, mystical creatures, inanimate constructs, abstract apparitions or generally anything that has a humanoid body, but is not a literal human.

That's not to say I enjoy Rob Leifeld's artowrk, in whole or on part (that instance when one guy hits another WITH HIS CROTCH comes to mind) I nevertheless enjoy some of his designs, anatomical incorrectness and all. I take my fiction as a form of escapism, and if it gives me cool themes and images, I'm more than willing to overlook its lack of realism.

Rob Leifeld is as famous and influential because - whether some want to admit it or not - people liked what he made and sought to copy it. You can condemn society, tastes or judgement if you choose to do so, but you cannot argue with history. Even if no-one will admit to liking his artwork now, enough liked it to make the man part of popular culture in the past, and that counts for something.

Statesman has been cited as being an Incarnate since I started playing somewhere in May of 2004. If that changed happened before then, then I missed it, but I've been listening about Incarnates since I've been with the game. Once upon a time, it was the excuse for why he's so much more powerful than us. There's been talk about an Incarnate AT as far back as 2005, as well.

Suggested? Yes. Proven? Not that I know of, not within any particular, applicable context and defined boundaries. Can people be scared of too many options? Of course. Once you have more options than you can feasibly even look through, you pick the first thing you like and go with that. How many is "too many," however, within this context?

I've never seen people ask for "more options" phrased as such in situations where these options actually exist. In such situations, people tend to ask for SPECIFIC options. If we picked our costume editor as the most expansive, diverse system in City of Heroes, people rarely ask for "more costume pieces" without making any specifications as to exactly what costume pieces they want, and when they do ask for such, they tend to ask for costume pieces which are somehow absent from the game, in part or in whole. I have seen a few people suggest "just more costumes," but by and large people want specific things.

If you catch anyone asking for "more options," that's usually someone who feels he is in a position where has NO options whatsoever, or that the options he has are unacceptable. In such a position, there can be no talk of having "too many options."