TrueGentleman

Gaiman and Card over any of Philip K. Dick's books on that list? Absurd.

EDIT: Oh come now, PKD couldn't even crack the top twenty? What is wrong with the world today? (Apart from being, you know, being under the control of the Black Iron Prison.)

In the first place, the Circle of Thorns is a mystical cult that is the secret front for a lost civilization, not a church, much less "the Church". In the second place, that kind of ecclesiastical regalia is typical for the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, not all denominations.

But the fact is, this is a case not of Tyrian Purple here but Power Ranger Pink.

Flamingoes are poisonous?

Seriously, CoT's motif is "ancient civilization", not "nature worshippers". They're not going to take their sartorial cues from flora and fauna in general, much less the most gaudy representatives. Similarly, it would be a terrible idea for their costumes to be themed around plants that have thorns.

Also, the revelation of Mender Silos' (obvious) identity was a terrible mishandling of a plot development. Sometimes it's better to let an open secret stay an open secret.

And the major comics publishers' various attempts hamhanded attempts to move their characters forward, then retcon them, and reboot them after that fails is the chief reason I've stopped buying their titles on a regular basis. If the Praetoria-Well-Storm turns into a Crisis-style "event", that would be worse than ED and i13 PVP changes put together.

I also like the design of the Nemesis Army, not only for its visual style, but also for its contextualization of Nemesis's backstory. Anachronism is a personal statement by the Prussian Prince of Automatons. His army looks out of place because it's invading from (metaphorically) the 19th century.

The Circle of Thorn's original design wasn't anachronistic so much as timeless. Were their robes fashioned after the Victorian-era Golden Dawn magik cultists, medieval "Dark Ages" sinister monks and clerics, Mesopotamian mystery religion worshippers, or, metatextually, a lost civilization from pulp thrillers? Likewise, the progress in costumes up the ranks reflected players' understanding of what the CoT was about, as the ordinary (for Paragon City) faceless minions in anonymous robes give way to mages in more ornate but unidentifiable vestments and finally high priests in strange garments last seen in ancient temple bas-reliefs and stele. The original redesign didn't make much effort to capture the CoT's backstory: The minions already showed off the hallmark motifs, and the lieutenants looked more baroque than the original bosses. The devs' revision to include "classic" elements, such as draped garments and concealing hoods and collars, has restored a fair bit of the CoT's sinister arcane presence, although the new bosses are rendered in especially lurid colors ,with more spikes and spines than the others put together.

As this redesign was conceived for primarily stylistic reasons, here's hoping that the art team will at minimum tone down the color palette, if not reconsider how spiky the CoT truly needs to be to appear menacing.

So is this truly Fansy the Famous Bard or merely a pretender to his title? (If this game were Twitter, there'd be a way to verify celebrity accounts.)

And it's precisely because the redesign breaks so sharply with the CoT backstory that a significant portion of the boards have complained about it. As for the aesthetic angle, unless we're talking about the old Dungeons & Dragons artwork, you're reading "goofy" into your ideas about mages. Ancient Sumerian costumes, with their tall headgear and flowing robes, might seem "goofy" to modern eyes, but there's nothing funny about their human sacrifices.

Thanks for the in-game screenshot. The new CoT definitely clashes with the environment more than the old design ever did - they look like invaders from another game entirely. The Circle of Thorns could give the Nemesis Army a run for its money in the "out of place" category the way things are going.

Warhammer pioneered the spiked 'n' staked pauldrons look. It's now become so common as to be generic, which makes it a shame to have this redesign dilute CoH's distinctive and creative art direction. By way of illustration, here are some examples from, variously, card games, RPGs, tabletop strategy, and tie-in movies. Although the CoT redesign is on the more elaborate end of this spectrum, they all have the same look and feel.








Despite the ostentatiousness of the CoT redesign, it still gets lost in the pack with all the other trend-followers of this style of fantasy art.

Since the Incarnate Trials are just a "raid 'n' upgrade" grind en masse, there's no way for the devs to incorporate the player choices that made the Going Rogue expansion so much more interesting than standard-issue CoH missions.

If the Trials were complemented by some single-player missions or arcs in which characters count make meaningful decisions, the Incarnate content would be much more attractive. Otherwise, the Incarnate path is merely riding a plot on a rail.

I believe you're thinking of Kulan Gath, the magic-using nemesis of Red Sonja, both of which were created for Marvel Comics's Conan series in the 70s (the cheesiest decade on record). He was later integrated into the regular Marvel superhero universe - and given a much spikier collar. The character design doesn't quite count as high fantasy so much as the comic book version of the sub-genre. There's nothing wrong with that as a template necessarily, but the new CoT redesign for the mages goes to extremes in adding spikes, spines, and random pointy bits.

Hot pink and violet are not part of the typical high fantasy magician's color scheme, so yes, definitely, "flamboyant pope" rather than ancient lost civilization wizard.

It's worth quoting that TV Tropes entry at length here as it's all too apposite:
As the CoH game engine doesn't allow players to change the environment or influence the world, this kind of stalemate shouldn't really surprise anyone. The best we can hope for is the territorial struggles in PVP zone and the chance to trigger zone events. Going Rogue's new morality choice system held out the hope for meangingful choices for players on a small scale, e.g. instanced NPC contacts, but shoehorning the Incarnate grind into the Praetoria-Primal Earth conflict evened out that slight gain.

Here's hoping that in some future issues the devs will consider allowing players the flexibility to hijack the narrative if they choose. Video games have a unique opportunity to make choice and consequence matter in terms of play style.

But to have read these straight off the newsstand when you were young, that's, well, fantastic.

Incidentally, here's a retrospective of the FF's origin story as reworked from the beginning (highlights include several versions by Jack Kirby and John Byrne).

Only rarely do I ROFL, but I assure you, I ROFL now.

While I wouldn't describe the CoT as "Lovecraftian" either, HPL certainly populated his stories with robed cultists, e.g. The Festival, Dreams the Witch-House, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, etc. It's a widely used and recognized trope (just as spiky armored spellcaster is for a certain variety of fantasy art).

No doubt Noble Savage and el Topo are sufficiently professional that they'll disregard the snark from the few but inevitable malcontents, just as they'll make sure that the perpetual and unreflective praise of the most vocal "team dev" cheerleaders doesn't go to their heads. Given the way most gaming forum discussions go, we should be glad we have so few on either side.

In the meantime, this thread is going encouragingly well for late-period beta.

I was also thinking about Ditko's idiosyncratic character designs, especially the baroque original designs for the collars and shouldergear for Dormammu and Nightmare. The big difference between them and the current CoT redesign is that the former fit perfectly with Ditko's proto-psychedelic mystic scenery and spell designs, while the latter is likely to clash with the art direction of the current CoH maps (unless those are going to receive a Chris Metzen-style redesign as well).