Scarlet Shocker

Originally Posted by Dante

One of the things that alas, we often forget is that the Well being the source of all power is in canon and has been since the game started. But up until the Incarnate system started, it was wholly ignorable. A vague, barely even recognised artefact lost after Cole and Richter gained their powers. I liked it like that. Characters could be created, exist and never even need to acknowledge the Well as being the point of origin. We could maintain our own reasons for developing powers and not even nod in the direction of the Well.

When the Well suddenly came to the forefront, it vainly took all credit for our powers and was set up as the only way that we could advance ourselves. Add to the mix its obvious lunacy and god like tendencies and I just had to dismiss all of it. The only characters I have who would willingly devote themselves to a mad god's service are insane themselves. To this date, I have yet to meet a roleplayer who accepts the Incarnate story wholesale and doesn't discard it outright as the piece of god-modding tripe it is.

One of the wonderful things about CoX has always been the freedom of character creation. Unlike other, lesser MMOs I could mention, we're not forced into a backstory or reason for developing powers. We had absolute free reign to create what we wanted. With the fruit-loop Well now in the mix, that choice has been severely lessened.

And now there's hints of a third way to advance without the Well apparently. Is it just me or does that smell like a desperate retcon to try and address some of these issues that keep on coming up on the forum again and again?

Originally Posted by Golden Girl

The Well is being "directed"

Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex

I don't really agree. I think the current wave of developers are very passionate about the game. IMO what we're seeing is a clash of priorities, not passion.

I should also probably add that very few people go into video game design for the paycheck. It's an incredibly stressful job that often involves long hours, punishing schedules, and capricious clients (that is, the players ).

Although I have been very critical of some elements of the incarnate content, and think it needs improvements, some of the overall ideas are actually pretty good. My criticisms mainly have to do with how much of it there is--a glut of interesting ideas piled on top of each other. I feel that the concepts are interesting but don't always play out. Some of it also seems conflicted about what it is trying to be--mostly anonymous "invasion" content like a Rikti or Zombie event or organized raiding groups like seen in other games.

It's also obvious to me that whoever is designing the incarnate content has a pretty decent understanding of the core game and its issues. They've created content that changes some of those expectations. If they just wanted to collect a paycheck, they could have taken the same mechanics from the core game and extended them and the whole trial could be about watching an Illusion/Cold solo a boss to stupid to fight back. They didn't do that. They created something entirely new. That something isn't perfect, but they've at least given some indication that they are willing to work with us on it.

One thing I will say for City of Heroes as a game is that it has figured out something that every other MMO has fallen flat on their face trying to implement, and that is how to encourage players to team together as a regular activity at all. Most MMOs follow a model that works like this: spend hours and hours mostly soloing so you can reach the end game and start teaming regularly. CoH has a much more open model. If the incarnate content could capitalize on that strength I think it would be loads better than what other games offer. The same thing is true once you can do solo and small team incarnate content. It's appalling to me that with 2012 fast approaching, the MMO industry has still not caught on to the CoH team model and keeps regurgitating the outdated "individual quest" methods used by the 800 pound gorilla, but this is where we are.

Originally Posted by Coyote_Seven

It sounds like you guys are saying you feel the spirit of the game has gone?

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow

This is how I feel, as well. City of Heroes plays about as well as you can expect a game of this type to play, and it plays damn well better than most of its competitors. However, it's starting to skirt VERY close to the edge of becoming a pure arcade game. "Are you a bad enough dude to save the president?" is enough plot for a 1980s beat-em-up just because games of the time were physically incapable of being anything more, and it's something of the basis of inspiration for a story, but it is not, in itself, a story. And that's essentially what I'm seeing in City of Heroes right now. The story has BECOME the gameplay, in the sense that yes, spelling, grammar and writing style are improving, but I am continually left wanting for better ideas.

I bring up Rick Dakan a lot, but not because the original City of Heroes stories to which he set the stage are great. They're not. I bring him up because the man and his team had great ideas. Think about it for a moment, and remember who are the most prominent, most well-developed factions in this game with the most history, backstory and personality? The Rikti, the Nemesis Army, the 5th Column, the Circle of Thorns, the Freakshow, Crey Industries. These are all age-old creations that stem from a larger world and feed back into a larger world, their stories crossing over each other into the lattice of a persistent world.

The only - ONLY - other faction system that reaches anywhere near the same level of depth and complexity is Going Rogue era Praetorian Earth, and even then it still comes off shallow and simplistic. I don't say this to dis Praetoria, but I say this to express that on Praetorian Earth, there is only as much plot and depth as players can run across in-game and not a smidgen more. There is nothing to write Paragon Articles about, nothing to write character biographies about, nothing to really tell. There are a few diaries, yes, but again - those are still style over substance.

Look at the history of Paragon City. It goes as far back as the 1800s, it contains tons and tons of events that happened long before the game - the story behind Superadine, the foundation of Portal Corp, the history of Hero Corps (remember them?) and so many other different events that aren't part of the running story, but nevertheless serve as the backbone of a persistent world from which to draw inspiration and on which to build stories thereafter.

Once upon a time, I fell in love with City of Heroes because the game inspired me. It showed consistent, believable fictional world packed full of great and innovative ideas. It filled my mind with possibilities that I was compelled to explore. The alien race of invaders trapped on our world and really victims just as much as we are, the ancient race of evil sorcerers whom history has wronged so much that they have to ask: "...after all that has been done to us, is such evil not our right?" the timeless villainous genius for whom every defeat just works into another concurrent plot... Yes, some of these may have been ciche and some of them might have been done before, but they were still good ideas.

And I just don't see that now. I don't see the same kind of amazing ideas I could pull out of the narrative, point to and go "Yes! This is amazing! I want to write a story of my own about this!" I see complexity, I see plot twists, I see an engineered story to drive the action, but it has been a very long time since I saw a great idea which impressed me on its own merits. It's all ret-cons that twist existing stories to match ever more convoluted changes to game systems, I've seen plot Gordian knots where stories become so complex you need a graph to explain them, and I've seen writers trying so damn hard to make something so twisted and mangled that it's lost all sense of inspiration.

It doesn't have to be this hard. It doesn't have to be this complex. It doesn't have to be so elaborate and pre-planned and twisted and meandering. A good story can be very simple and straightforward. It doesn't even have to be told all that well, so long as there's a genuine good idea at the base of it. And yet the last good idea which impressed me greatly that I can recall was the notion of the Shadow Shard as the mind of a god, where Lanaru - the madness - literally broke the world. It really was just as simple as a single phrase: "the madness broke the world." That was all it took to impress me, because that is a good idea... And it's an idea I'm not sure is even official, and an idea which hasn't been followed up on in seven years.

Originally Posted by Kitsune9tails

I disagree.

I am under the impression that Statesman is dying because he is the Superman of our game. He is the one that walked off a Nuke to the back of the head. He is the one that gets to pose in midair with the cape fluttering and the City of Heroes theme in the background. He is the guy whose appearance on the game box instantly lets us know what game it is.

I agree with your subsequent point that we are probably not feeling the way we 'should' about his impending doom.

I however disagree that the writing per se is the problem: I feel that it is the presentation, and not the plot or dialogue itself that is at issue.

Before we lost Statesman, we needed an SSA and perhaps several missions of various types that gave him a chance to shine as an inspiring and admirable, if flawed, character. Something that cemented in our minds and hearts exactly why he comes off as arrogant and intolerant from time to time, yet gave a reason to feel sympathy.

Maybe the next SSA will make up for lost time and opportunities.

If we, as rumored, are to lose Recluse as well, I'll feel similarly. Recluse has a certain generic style and coolness, but far too little of the backstory and development of his rivalry/antagonism/previous friendship with Statesman has been developed for my taste.

I always thought there was plenty of time to get around to it. But death happens, it would seem.

Originally Posted by Melancton

WotF: /JessicaRabbit

I'm not insane, sentient, controlling and bad... I'm just written that way.

/JessicaRabbit

************************

Incarnate Spiderman getting defeated by lunchladies with rolls, indeed.

The Incarnate lore was already wretched in its premise, and now it appears to have taken a huge turn to the utterly laughably silly in its execution.

Originally Posted by MaestroMavius

To achieve the desired storytelling effect, without the need to have players be killed, is tricky.

I can see what they wanted to do. Get the notion of the populace being against us to be more than just a meter but I think the insta-death rocks, even when explained as being buffed with psionics, are just to jarring.

Perhaps instead of killing the players, the rocks lay on a 'only affecting self' that hits you briefly. Simulating the step back, having to think about the situation. As these rocks pelt harmlessly off you, the civi's don't care that they can't hurt you, they hate you...

Make the debuff stack, so the more rocks hit, the longer the only affecting self lasts.

We aren't plastered by a mere mortal chunking a pebble but are instead shaken by their emotional resonance.

Originally Posted by Golden Girl

We're not halfway through the story - we're only on the first chapter

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow

The Well of the Furies, the Origin of Powers and all of that is immaterial. What we were promised was "the power of the gods." That's what's in Ramiel's original arc, which is where we're supposed to be hearing about Incarnates for the first time. What people asked wasn't something something to DO, it was some way to PROGRESS, and going from being able to take on whole squads of enemy robots to getting stoned to death is not progression. It is, as a point of fact, a regression.

As to "human" characters, it's not a matter of origin. It's a matter of power level. The Incarnate system is supposed to make us like unto gods. It's supposed to make us overpowered. If you can explain why your street-level hero is able to catch tank shells in his teeth or why your street-level hero is able crane-kick through thick armour plate, then you are more than welcome to do so and no-one will hold it against you. But if you CAN'T justify why your street-level hero is suddenly godlike, then the system simply doesn't fit you. That's not a good argument for why our characters should be losers in these stories.

There is no reason to have an Incarnate STORYLINE if we're just going to slide around sideways until we eventually tumble over backwards into being rookies all over again, with insulting justifications like that we're starting over, as though the last 50 levels didn't matter. The story should grow bigger, grander and more cosmic, not shrink down in size to brawling with civilians.

This is literally the same as that one Malta plot to discredit a certain heroine by knocking her out, then making it seem like she screwed up, got the building blown up, a whole bunch of civilians killed and all of it because she lost to the Skulls. The two level 15 Skulls in a level 40+ mission, clearly out of their depth judging by their conversation, are an amusing addition. But that's exactly what this is - it's one step removed from a smear campaign. Incarnates should not be fighting civilians, and if they did have to fight them for some contrived reason, then they should absolutely NOT lose to civilians. Someone who took down a Kronos titan by himself (many of my heroes have) should not go down from a rock. Not even a green rock.

Originally Posted by Wing_Leader

I agree that on some level this is a failure of presentation, but that isn't the same as believing that the problem is merely one of insufficient explanation. Some here seem to feel that the Rock Problem would be simply solved with a clearer explanation of what's happening (with the Telepathists).

Well, count me among those who feel that there is no amount of explanatory text or dialog that makes civilian-thrown rocks an acceptible method for bringing down an Incarnate. And I don't care how you couch the Incarnate's Journey, crawl-before-you-walk or we-are-all-goliaths-to-someone's-david or we-all-have-mental-debuffing-as-our-Kryptonite, the degree of disatisfaction it engenders can't just be handwaved away as "Well, superhero comics are full of such dumb, assinine disbelief-suspending nonsense, so what are you complaining about?" The truth is there is a lot of brain-dead plotting to be found in comics and I don't exactly endorse that either.

Originally Posted by Yogi_Bare

You don't honestly believe that do you? I can point out at least two industries that say otherwise.

The argument here is the same as it was when the content first came out, "My toon is too uber to be taken down by anyone unless its the Lord Savior JC himself (or acceptable equivalent).

Blaming the story is a strawman in itself being that most of the writing is a rehash of a rehash based in flights of nonsensical fancy and limited by mechanics, game balance and having to be merely satisfactory to tens of thousands of players at once.

Unless the Devs are able to update, progress and publish both current and future canon to satisfy mechanics, balance, gameplay and player aesthetics on a daily (or even a weekly) basis (while doing coding, design, promotions, PR, etc) don't expect literature level work.