Samuel_Tow

You know what the really funny thing is? If "The other part of the Roman Pack" pack came out tomorrow, I'd buy not just that one, but this one, as well. Trouble is, if it came out next month, I won't be able to buy this one because this one will have dropped out of its promotion.

You know... I'm suddenly reminded of the old days of Cryptic. Back then, we could never have anything good unless there was a catch to it at some point, something to ruin most of the fun. You can have capes! But only at level 20. Why? Because Hero 1. We don't have a reason, they just need to be exclusive.

And now Ghost Falcon explains it's so the ITF still has exclusive rewards. Because we all know no-one would ever run that if it didn't have a sword and a shield attached to it, right? And because the ITF is what unlocks the Gladius and the various axes, right?

Why does this keep happening? I was under the impression that the point of Freedom was to give us the choice of buying what we wanted if we wanted it enough to pay for. Well, between "task exclusivity" and the damnable Super Packs... Whatever happened to that?

I do wish more people broadcasting they're looking for a team would set their damn flags already! And set a search comment, too! Then we'd have to educate team recruiters to actually use the tool, too...

That said, a dedicated, all-access, server-wide LFG channel would be a very nice thing to have, as well.

You know what MIGHT get me to buy this set, by the way? If it came with the shoulders Romulus has. You know what I'm talking about - the set of two shoulders like the larger one of the Gladiator shoulders set, with some fur trim on them. Sell me THOSE and I might consider getting the pack.

*edit*
I'm talking about these shoulders:



Why have these shoulders not shown up anywhere ever at all? Hell, why haven't we ever seen a set that's exactly like the Gladiator shoulder, but with two large ones instead of a large and a small shoulder? Sell me THAT and I'd buy it!

*edit*
And again, if it seems like there's too much stuff for just one set, then sell the armour pieces in one set, the the weapons and shields in another.

I've been so negative lately, so I might as well say something positive for a change. Plus the servers are down, so...

To me, City of Heroes is still the best MMO on both a thematic and technical level. For the sake of argument, let's look at those separately:

Thematically, City of Heroes gives me the ability to both create my own characters and tell my own stories. It is this level of implied ownership of ideas that makes me far, far, FAR more invested in this game on an emotional level than any other I can recall off memory. Because these characters aren't just "characters." I didn't pick them from a list somebody else made. I poured my heart and soul into making them look like I imagined them and giving them the kind of stories that made me excited to imagine when I was a kid.

City of Heroes is an outlet for the imagination that balances complexity and freedom in a way that I've seen literally no-one else. Sure, I can grab 3D Studio MAX and make my own 3D models with much greater freedom, but I'm not very good at 3DSM. I could grab a pen and paper and draw these characters, but I suck at drawing, too, as I proved when bored during our last faculty meeting. I could fire up Word and write my own stories... And I do, but they lack any sort of visual representations, and I'm not good at thinking with pictures.

City of Heroes is the only game I know of which gives me enough tools to be creative both visually and narratively, while at the same time managing those tools so I don't become overwhelmed or need extensive tutorials to know how to perform basic functions. The various storylines in the game, along with its basic setting, are flexible enough to represent just SOME of my characters' adventures, leaving the door to the broader world open for me to tell a multitude of stories that I want. Sure, sometimes canon stories and my own preference clash, but compared to other games, those "first world problems," as it were.

Mechanically, City of Heroes is a solid game which doesn't get in my way. I've heard people praise its complexity and flexibility, but you know what I care about the most? That I get to do what I want, when I wanna' do it, without the game making me jump through hoops for it and ESPECIALLY without the game requiring me to do analytical statistics to achieve it. Yeah, there's a learning curve, but beyond that initial phase, the basic systems are not that hard to figure out with the presence of Combat Attributes and Power Attributes.

One of the BIG things that spoiled me on City of Heroes was the lack of loot and power trees, and especially the separation of power from power boost. Single-aspect enhancements are the greatest idea in gaming, as far as I'm concerned. They give me complete control over which aspects of a power I want to enhance, how much I want to enhance them, and how I want to spread this around between my powers. If I want a power to do more damage, I add more damage. If I want a power to cost less, I reduce that cost. It's a balancing act, but it's a balancing act that's completely in my control.

One thing I've always hated about ye olde gear-driven RPGs is that I'd get an item which gives me something I want and a bunch of things I don't, but I can't swap out my old item which has lower stats, but gives me a bunch of things I want. It's a complex optimization problems where lots of stats are tied together. If I want attacking enemies to cause them Fear, I can't just add fear to my attacks. I have to find a sword that does fear, and I have to remove the one which does life steal.

This is even worse with conventional power trees, where "enhancing" a power just means taking it for a second time, with a power boost entirely dependent on what the developers thought meant "better." This lead to the infamous example where putting too many points in Zeal would cause your character to get stuck in a 21-hit combo, unable to move, and die because you couldn't react, whereas a low-level Zeal only did a few hits. So if I want a power that puts a protective shield around me and then explodes 3 seconds later to protect me more, what do I do? Take the next level of the power? But that doesn't have more protection, it has more damage on the explosion. And if I want my power to do more damage? Well, the next level does more damage, but it also costs more. Great, now my powers cost so much I can't use them.

And, finally, items. I HATE scavenger hunts and I HATE not having access to the items I want. To me, how I build my character should be a question of choice and decision, not random crapshot luck. If I want my powers to do more damage at the cost of having weaker secondary effects, I can. If I want my character to have more accuracy at the expense of running an extra toggle, I can. The benefits of a decision balance off against the benefits that decision denies, and each decision is a self-contained choice.

All of this just means that City of Heroes is a game I can eventually figure out, and a game where I can get the things I want without having to do unfun things. And all of THAT just means the game lets me spend much more time flipping out and killing stuff and much less time staring at an Excel spreadsheet and crunching numbers.

As I said right at the start, I play City of Heroes because it's a visually-intensive virtual action figure that happens to allow me to play out my own story. Anything that gets in the way of that is a bad thing, and in City of Heroes, very, very, VERY few things get in the way of that.

Personal note time, ignore if you don't care about my mentality behind this.

I may have made the situation worse for myself for one simple reason - I just got done writing "The Rise of a Hero," a story arc about Jun, the little girl that could which I'm playing right now, which both depicts her rise to prominence and sets her character up a one of the most dedicated, stubborn, uncompromising heroes I have ever made.

Jun is the girl I wanted to have hit Aaron Thiery in the mouth when he started talking about how the city had to be hurt for heroes to wake up, because she would never put people in danger under any circumstances. She's the one who shut down the Centre's "radio" mid-sentence because she doesn't care how much he does to reign Requiem in when his soldiers are still murdering people. She's the one who takes the Hero option at every opportunity without a second thought because that's the right thing to do.

Unwittingly, I wrote Jun to be the Naruto of my character roster. That is to say, she's the loud, brash kid who yells at adults having a crisis of conscience and punches people who try to argue for a grey-and-grey morality. She's the one always goes on about how heroes have a responsibility to the people, about how they literally and physically have no choice but to be heroes because lives depend on them. She's the one getting knocked down and then getting back up, and will keep doing so until the day she dies.

I say Paragon City has no ideals, because it is ideals I built Jun on. The great heroes of the past were her inspiration, and she will do everything she can to be an inspiration to others, even if she's probably younger than Penelope Yin. And that's how it should be. When people see a little girl bleeding from gunshot wounds, beaten and broken stand up and keep fighting, then they SHOULD be inspired to do the same. They SHOULD be inspired to put their differences aside, they SHOULD be inspired to put their personal tragedies on hold and do the right thing. Because no-one else could. The job of a hero isn't easy, but that's exactly why the people who do it are heroes. Because they take on this job that's full of pain, heartache and horror, and they do it anyway, so that others who are less capable of protecting themselves don't have to.

In an idealistic world, Jun would be an amazing hero worthy of admiration and praise. The trouble is that with every new Issue, the world of City of Heroes becomes less and less idealistic, turning more and more grim and gritty. For now, that sort of passion for the calling of the hero still works, but how long will it be before a hero like Jun will be expected to get shot and bleed out in a gutter when it's proven that enthusiasm for the right thing just gets you killed? How long before our heroes start realising that idealism is an outdated tradition in a world where nice guys finish last?

City of Heroes used to be a good world. Not ideal, obviously. Crime, drama, tragedy and more still took place. But at the end of the day, the world always gave me the sense that if you just do your best, if you're just a really nice person, if you fight hard enough and your ideals are good enough, you will eventually succeed and everything will be OK. It was an uplifting place I came to when I felt the real world wasn't fair, or when it felt like no good deed goes unpunished in my day-to-day life.

City of Heroes used to have morals I could aspire to even outside of the game. It taught me that being a nice, dedicated person was a good thing. It taught me that even one person doing his best can make a difference. I want those days back. I want to get back the days when a hero with nothing more than the guts to do what's right and a good attitude was already well on the way to success.

I want the happy City of Heroes back, and it's only getting sadder and more depressing, instead.

Sweet! I've been waiting for the Roman pack for a long time. I don't necessarily want the clothes, but the weapons and shields are definite must-haves. Maybe now the Spirit of Light will be more fun to play when he has a better sword.