Venture

Hasn't stopped them yet, and isn't likely too in the future.

No, he's the old GIFT starting Contact in Atlas. His mutant power was the ability to solve any mathematical problem...which means he wouldn't be found orienting new superheroes, he'd be living in a room with no windows reading encrypted intercepts for the rest of his life, but whatever.

Cimerora pretty much trashed that arc when it was introduced; the (entirely gratuitous) use of Cimerora in the Dark Astoria material and the reference in SSA1 set fire to what was left.

No. That's not it.

It's a trick Architects have been using in MA practically since it was released; we quickly figured out that using up all the spawn points was a much better idea than forty guys pounding their fists in a warehouse.

Because this model is taken from the Mortimer Kal SF. Odysseus' name has been known for a while...since the first Top Cow storyline at least.

It is. Ph.D's get to use the "Dr." title; "Professor" is just the guy teaching your class, who may be a grad student.

Because by the time they actually spawn and enter the fight you might have killed everyone already and thus not had the chance to actually experience the awesomeness of having Penny Yin come to your rescue.

Six-slotting Epic Fail and gathering salvage for the Butt Monkey purple IO set to slot in it.

No, we don't. We don't need one more stinking arc about Praetoria, especially not anything to do with that particular Butt Pull. Tyrant is overthrown, Hamidon Wins, Fatality, survivors escaped, Mission Accomplished, The End, k thx bai.

Maybe that was what was meant but it was a world of black.

White is nowhere near redeemable. He's as much a murderer as the rest of Tyrant's stooges and he betrayed his own people to save his skin. In a way he's the worst of the bunch.

I would have shown Bane's guys clearing out Arkham, opening the Joker's cell, and then have the Joker effortlessly kill them and say "Join you? What, do you think I'm crazy?" before leaving Gotham.

There was no true objective in UO or SWG either.

It would mean a very different game design, and one that was almost certainly centered on PvP, but it could be done.

That's what she said. </giggity>

Fixed.

It's not a "concept", it's just a darling they refuse to kill.

Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies were both sandbox games. How well they implemented the concept is...open to criticism.

I can certainly imagine a sandbox format supers game. It's just not going to be this one.

Absolutely; "The Cult of the Shaper" has some very direct Lovecraft references in it.

At what, the horrible writing?

Try "Hecate". Likewise "Ermeeth", at least before Blueberry showed up in person, was an obvious reference to Prometheus. I was never able to find a fit for Tielekku. A friend's suggestion that it referred to Twi'lek BDSM didnt...seem useful.

This statement is nonsense. If "science and magic are two ways to manipulate power" then either science is really magic or magic is really science. There is no third way.

In any case, godlike beings are not gods.

You haven't thought through the ramifications of what you mean.

But then, one of the first things they teach you in software engineering is that you can't design software (or, I expect, anything else) by asking users what they want. They don't know what they want, only what they think they want.

No, they're not. This is the point. Your villain is not in charge in the Dean/Leonard arcs or in SSA2. You're still doing what NPCs want you to do. They're just phrased as obsequious toads, little Iagos whispering in your ear. In order for the player to "be in charge" he actually has to be the one making the decisions and calling the shots and the game's underlying structure doesn't allow for that.

It is what you're asking for, you just don't realize it.

This is how the game should have started, actually, with the old generation of heroes being too disabled/depowered/whatever from the Rikti War to do much more than advise the up and coming young turks, i.e. the PCs. In a way that's where we were at first.

I never asked them to "stop making me a lackey". I've argued all along that the game is predicated on the assumption that the PCs will be doing jobs for other characters and that can't be changed at this late date. The "proactive villain" faction of users is essentially arguing for a sandbox game which this is not and never will be.

Clap harder. Much, much harder.

False. Divine power is explicitly Magic origin; it says so right on the label.

Emphasis added. The idea that gods are somehow Natural origin is absurd beyond belief.

What I have been pointing out ever since we were saddled with the Well/Incarnate storyline is that when it comes to whether or not the Well is magical, it fails the duck test. It behaves in every meaningful way like an evil deity offering Faustian bargains. Slapping a Not Magic label on it doesn't make it so.

They are all magical because in every part of the game they are treated as magical. To the point where Apparitions in First Ward surprise everyone including the NPCs by being non-magical in nature. (And because they're not magical your GHOST-SLAYING AXE doesn't work on them.)

It makes you stronger than Statesman as long as Penny Yin is around to keep you from being vaporized several times. And as long as Wade doesn't happen to have your particular variety of kryptonite handy.

You can pretend your character is a magical pony who solves problems not with violence but by winning over the hearts of evildoers with his unique blend of family-oriented humor too, but gluing feathers on a rat doesn't make it a swan.

I've said since the Dean MacArthur arc, which started this miserable trend, that having the Contacts act like the PC's fluffer comes off like this. It has not improved with age.

The problem is people keep denying it's supernatural. The Well reduces all origins in City to "magic" but people keep trying to handwave that.

The Well storyline could not be saved with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, and Ascension as described is not something player-characters will ever get. It is essentially "game over, you win, roll up a new character".

If your game is Angry Birds, sure. If it's anything that looks like an RPG, not so much.

No one is arguing that a good story is sufficient to make a good MMO mission, but it is certainly necessary.