TrueGentleman

Fair enough. Just to give you the background, that's the final version of the announcer's introduction to the classic Superman radio program (which was later adapted for the TV show). When the show debuted, Superman was only a couple of years old, and the superhero phenomenon as we know it today was just taking off. That opener presented not merely the protagonist to a new audience as a novel kind of legendary hero, but also his alter ego as his inverse - which is what makes Superman a compelling character. That's the authoritative character sketch that essentially introduced Superman, and the whole concept of the superhero, to the mainstream.

The original version was a bit shorter.

Indeed - and I myself acknowledged this above.

Since everything in CoH Freedom has been monetized, the devs' determining if expanding the bio length is worth their time is fairly straightforward. First, get a data dump of VIP and Premium accounts' character bios and sort how many use 90% of the allotted space. From there, extrapolate the size of the target market. If it's not too small, get a cost/manpower estimate from the coders of how much effort developing a new feature like a "backstory tab" or enlarging the existing bio and editor would take. Finally, estimate how many players would actually buy the new feature and set a price accordingly, if it looks like the market will bear it.

Going back and forth about the pros and cons of long and short biographies on the forums is, of course, free with a VIP subscription.

What I quoted from the good professor and the best-selling author concerning concise and vigorous writing applies to any arbitrarily set length. They also were champions of brevity, so the supposition that they'd prefer a shorter option to a longer one isn't unreasonable. Besides, the ability to write to length, particularly in a professional setting, is a useful skill in life.

Incidentally, here's one of the most magnificent superhero biographies* of all time:

Faster than a speeding bullet! More powerful than a locomotive! Able to leap tall buildings at a single bound! Yes, it's Superman! Strange visitor from another planet who came to Earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men! Superman! Who can change the course of mighty rivers, bend steel in his bare hands, and who, disguised as Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper, fights a never-ending battle for truth, justice, and the American way!

It's gripping, informative, and not even 500 characters.


* There's no need to phrase it "piece of superheroic biography". Revising that accordingly saves more than 25% of the character count.

There's nothing wrong with an apposite rhetorical flourish, though as I said, the bios that avoid extraneous ones tend to meet with better reception. To pass on the Augustan advice Dr. Johnson passed on about revision, "Read over your compositions, and where ever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out."

There's no guarantee that 2048 characters would actually lead to better written character sketches, just longer ones. Parkinson's Law can be applied to data as easily prose: "{Data/Word count} expands to fill the space available for {storage/printing}." Obviously those who want to write more would have more space (although 4096 characters might start to look tempting, too).

This offer does make me wonder if Paragon is seriously considering how to re-balance the in-game economy with offering on the Market. If enough people buy these IOs and others, then that will presumably affect the demand for them at the consignment house, which in turn will lower the prices.

Of course, it's entirely possible that the Inf. supply has become so inflated, between power-levelling and farming, that no virtual monetary policy will be able to rectify the in-game economy.

In some respects, the long vs. short debate (or wordy vs. concise, or truncated vs. full) over CoH's bio length resembles the discussion over character name reservations and purges. For some, this is a quality of life issue that constrains their enjoyment of the game, for others, it's an arbitrary limitation that can be worked around with diligence and creativity.

(The idea of an additional backstory tab seems like the best solution here, but even expanding the bio character count will require work on the part of the devs.)

Indeed. But in making your point, you slanted your statement in the direction you preferred ("I'd sooner read two pages' worth of character background if it's actually good than read half a sentence trying to be witty." - the long bio succeeds, but the short "witty" one is only trying). Under such conditions, the quantitative issue naturally slips into subjectivity.

But nobody is drawn to a machine that's over-designed since those are always frustrating to work with. Strunk and White used two analogies because good writing must deal with function (communication) as well as form (style).

Similarly, CoH is not just a platform for creative expression in game play, but a social environment as well. The ideal biography must be both well written in terms of style and concisely composed in order to reach the widest audience. Some players may not care about bios at all and will read only the the barest amount to get a sense of the characters with whom they're interacting. Others may want miniature epics to read at their leisure. Maximalists will appeal only to the latter, to say nothing of the server space their works will consume. It's no wonder the devs haven't seen fit to increase the bio length since CoH's launch. They have to strike a balance too in terms of deciding which features will appeal best to the playerbase.

That's your personal preference, to which you're completely entitled, of course. Even so, it's expressed in no less subjectively than, say, "I'd sooner read read half a sentence if it were witty than two pages' worth of character background attempting to be epic."

(Incidentally, wittiness shouldn't define concision or directness. As Strunk and White write, "Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts." They'd probably approve of a 1024-character limit over a 2048 one.)

At this point, this thread seems to be separating into two camps: those who regard character bios as their personal story-journals and those who consider them as social self-expression. The suggestion of having two separate tabs, one for public bios and another for detailed backstory, is the most likely to please everyone, should the devs wish to allocate the resources to reworking the character database. As it is, the CoH character bio section apparently either works as they intended or ranks below bases, PVP, and AE on their to-do list.

While there might be some outliers who get lucky, a lot of people are in for a wait, and purchasing special items from the first weekly sale in the store with our monthly points can be written off for a while.

That's good composition in a nutshell.

On the contrary, character bios can make a first impression even before actual player interaction. While customized costumes may be a more obvious form of display, the written word has a central role in this genre of gaming. MMOs that offer them are far more likely to bring together like-minded players, fostering better communities overall, than those that do not.

It's a shame that the devs haven't seen fit to point out the existence of character bios to new players in the tutorial. Perhaps they could revisit it.

More is less, by which I mean to say, in all seriousness, it has not escaped my notice that among my numerous alts on various servers, while the more detailed biographic sketches may or may not elicit approving comments from the general populace, whether in pick-up groups, task forces, or simply the gatherings at the auction house, it is the pithier, more straightforward bios - written in direct language and without extraneous rhetorical flourishes, I should point out - that tend to receive the most unsolicited compliments, since these are the ones that evidently best convey not only the imaginative concept of the characters, but also the personal qualities of the player behind the avatars.

Also, breaking up bios into multiple paragraphs helps avoid the Wall of Text Effect.

You jest, but there are two fan-made MLPFIM MMORPGs in the works, My Little Pony Online and Equestria Online. If there's any mercy left in the gaming industry, Hasbro will C&D them into oblivion before they're completed. Otherwise, Bronies will be the new Horde.

I'll see your Jim Carey and raise you Nick Cage.

Vampire's Kiss

It'll probably get remade like George Romero's other early films lately before anyone has a chance to see it. (I know it only by reputation as a cult classic, and Romero's called it "my favorite film of mine".)

How about porting the Simpsons' arcade version of My Dinner With Andre to an MMO?

Players wouldn't have any quests as such, they'd just have to navigate endless NPC dialogue trees about avant-garde theater, eccentric artists, New Yorker lifestyles, etc., etc., etc.

Possibly because Langella played Dracula as a smooth seducer, including an interpolated romance between Dracula and Lucy Seward {Westenra in the novel}. Also, no fangs!

There's a number of Dracula adaptations that similarly are almost, but not quite right, despite the pedigree of their actors, e.g. Louis Jordan, Jack Palance, and Denholm Elliott.

How much time does it take to do all that vs. earn a buck and log in to the Paragon Market?

Purchasable combat pets are P2W, period. How much of a problem that will turn into for the overall game remains to be seen.

Now THAT would be tempting to buy on the Paragon Market. There are any number of recipes that I regularly stockpile with alts just to have on hand but that I'd definitely consider purchasing as a permanently memorized power.

This is something the devs ought to brainstorm to determine if they can make it feasible without running into game imbalances or play-to-win criticisms.

Memorably different in the case of Lifeforce , LotWW, and Blood: The Last Vampire (I haven't seen the Innocent Blood or Razor Blade Smile), but not in the "vein of Stoker's book" as the OP asked. LotWW is based, loosely, on another Stoker horror novel, but Ken Russell took more than a few liberties to make it into a quasi-vampire flick. It's definitely fun, though, especially Amanda Donohoe's performance as the villain.

As for Lifeforce, well, when Dan "Alien"/"Return of the Living Dead" O'Bannon adapted Colin "The Outsider" Wilson, nobody should have been surprised when the final product was basically a nudist version of a Hammer Quatermass movie.

Then again, had Paragon offered this in time for the Halloween event, they would have been open to the charge of "Pay to Win" sales.

Here's hoping they learn that consumable sales are ultimately not as good business as costume pieces (the special monster costumes were great).

Pilgrim hat? I'd buy that for a dollar! I'd love to make this character: