imported_FaeryFire

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Actually, no it doesn't. It means that you do not accept the canon as existing, and therefore you hold a contradictory viewpoint to people that do follow it.

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Ok, I think all is said.
Discussion closed for me.

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So, you agree then that it's not always possible to reconcile conflicting views?

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Well, if you are using examples that are out of the frame of cooperation I've set, yes, things can't always be conciled.
Asking how you can concile views of people who refuse to concile can't really have many answers.
But people who refuse to concile are not exactly the ones I'm mixing ideas with.

Pretty much like I wouldn't stand for long beside an intrusive god-moder.

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Am example:

Game canon says Rikti are mutated humans from another dimension.
Player A says Rikti are actual alien invaders from another galaxy; and not humans
Player B says Rikti are from the far future and are evolved humans.
Player C says Rikti don't exist in the game.

All players present well reasoned arguments for their views.

How do you reconcile such contradicting views to your OWN view of what Rikti are?

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You might have missed the part when I said "well thought ideas" and "conciliating player".
If those conditions are existing, I doubt your exercice would stay the same for long and stances will evolve.

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many of us are interested in RPing within a consistent game-world. Not one that changes every time someone comes up with an idea and doesn't like that the previously accepted knowledge of the way the world works doesn't let them. The world of CoH has certain features, and they exist for a reason. The story of the world progresses as a result of that history and events that people (and the devs) put into play.

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Not feeling bound to established canon doesn't mean someone is going to come with a funky idea every day that is mandatorily conflicting with everyone else views, you know.

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By ignoring the events of the world and the features of the world, we end up with a situation that practically begs for god-modding to take place.

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Yes. Save "god-moding" problems are rare around me. I can, possibly, see one and I'm not sure everyone in the gaming group I play with would agree on it.

God-moding is a different beast than canon respect or not.
It is more about player responsability, abuse and personnal ego.

You can perfectly ignore bits of the canon, create even conflicting elements, without falling into god-mode and earth-shaking conclusions.

Mind you, not following the canon source also mean to me I accept others are following it.
So I generally put a precautional, conditionnal and subjective conclusion on my views.
So if I have to express them "publicly", there are enough escape routes in them to allow someone else to disagree with them, without forcing me to either back them up at all cost, either abandon them.

On the other hand, to be sincere, I had and have much much MUCH more trouble with people "following canon" than people who are occasionnaly diverting from it.
So while not respecting it should logically trigger an mess and anarchic, inconsistent world, me and people I play with are smoothly accomodating our views, always managing to allow breathing room for others views.

I still have to find the breathing room from people following canon. I might find it one day.

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That's not quite what I asked. It's easy enough to reconcile one persons view with your own. I asked what do you do when you have TWO (or more even), totally conflicting views, in addition to your own. At some point, you can't continue to add other views together because they conflict too much.

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To be sincere, I have yet to end in a situation where views about the game world cannot be conciliated.
So I simply don't share your views about the impossibility to mix ideas.
If you have as a basis a well thought idea and a conciliating player, how can you fail ?

FFM :You never said someone HAVE to know the setting before playing...
Now show me where I said I DISLIKE the setting.

And even...
Why would I play if I disliked the setting ?
Obviously because it's a nice game about super heroes ? It's not as if I had other options anyway.

You may enjoy the game because you like both the gameplay and the setting, you might accept it's not the general rule for everyone.

About badges, it's only you who is assuming people "should be familiar with the part of the game story connected to them".

Apparently, on the opposite of your views, I am never assuming a player I don't know has the slightest knowledge about the setting. He can even have a tons of badges, it doesn't mean he found the stories interesting, or have read them.

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If you want to ignore that part of the story, that's perfectly fine by me. But it's up to you to communicate that to other players or the majority WILL assume you know and accept it.

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Save it's only your way to assume people badges and knowledge are connected.
Actually, about majority, you're the only person I know from those boards who claim assuming setting knowledge is connected to badges collection.
Not saying you're alone but I'm not sure about the "majority" there.

Since you're just assuming I should know things connected to badges, why not you assuming I don't know instead ?
Wouldn't it be simplier that you stop looking at others badges collection to determine what their character should IC'ly know ?
Just talking and discovering it through interaction is perfectly fine to me.

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But then what do you do if a different person comes along with contradicting story bits about Rikti, but which equally serves a story purpose and is done in a well thought out manner?

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If it's done in a well thought manner, i'll look for a way to conciliate his vision to mine.

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Do you accept both and therefore break your own immersion

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Accepting others ideas and trying to find ways to mix them with mines isn't breaking my immersion.
I don't think I ever rejected anyone idea that was conflicting at first with one of my views.

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Far easier to stick to the official canon. At least then you know where things stand.

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Save there isn't much info about what is canon anyway and all arguments about it are coming from the lack of detailed informations, never from the Paragon City Gazeeter.

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If you want to play a hero in Paragon City, a basic knowledge of the city history is generally going to be presumed by most people. Things like the citizen crime fighting act should be known to ALL, as it's the very basis of your hero license.

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I don't recall there is an exam about canon before you can start playing.

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Other canon I tend to treat as badge related. If a person has badge A, then I expect them to know the canon related to badge A; just like if a person is playing epic AT B, I expect them to be familiar with the basic canon related to epic AT B. If they choose to ignore said canon, but fail to communication that to players X, Y and Z; then they only have themselves to blame when their character gets treated as a nut.

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Because you simply assume that badges are necessarily tied to knowledge.
Breaking news : I don't collect badges but, now and then, sometimes just while moving, I get one. Exploration ones for example are tied to history.
Does it mean I care about the whys ? No.
It's only your assumption that I should pay attention to the whys of the badges.

Same for missions. I am using missions my own way. I don't care about the briefing. I am using the map as a physical setting and the mobs as physical enemies. But the story behind is mine.
Save... sometimes, because I don't have a mission generator at will, I pick what I can. And sometimes completing the mission gives you a badge.
And you are going to assume I was an interest in the mission story ? It wasn't my goal at all.

Now you are going to start treating my characters as nuts just because I have that or that badge even if I wasn't interested in getting it ?
You are actually assuming the way I should play ???

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Canon forms the very basis of the world we play in; and ignoring it is a terribly short sighted thing to do. Work around it sure; as long as you let people know, but IGNORING it? Not a good idea, IMO.

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In your opinion, exactly. It's your gaming style.

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I'm a little bothered by the fact that you say that you ignore "canon" in CoH. Well, okay, but you're saying that... Statesman is not the most powerful hero in the world, the Rikti never invaded (twice), Nemesis is not behind everything, Kheldians don't exist and therefore there are no Peacebringers, Warshades or Nictus, Paragon does not rest on the remains of an ancient city called Oranbega, Rikti (if they actually exist) are not humans from another dimension. That's just off the top of my head.

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It might be wording. "Ignoring" doesn't mean necessarily going to oppose it and looking for conflicting theme.

I meant "ignoring" as "if someone comes with a concept that is conflicting the canon but has sense in the RP'ed story, I'm going to have the player ideas prevail over canon sources"

In other words, if you're coming with a character pretending to be the stronger of the world, I am not going to browse the websites and various wiki and fan production to search something to oppose you.
Admitting such a claim or not isn't going to be related to canon source. I will accept it or not depending on how you present the information and how you handle that claim.

So, I am ignoring the canon because I don't consider it binding and will not have it stand in the way of something interesting, I don't mean I play in my own little version of CoH.

This also works mainly because when/should it happens, it comes from players who are not mixing "twisting canon to their own story/concept purpose" with "twisting the canon to start god-moding everything and everywhere".

I won't rule out Rikti invasions just for the sake of doing it. But I might accept some story bits contradicting with canon, about Riktis, if it serves a story purpose and is done in a well thought manner.

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as you said earlier. there isn't a huge amount of Cannon, what there is available on the Main game site for free, and really shouldn't take more than a hour to get though.

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About Paragon City locations, about very general knowledge on the famous heroes, a timline... yes.
But generally, arguments about being "true to canon" are often not about that kind of info.

It only depends on you. It isn't mandatory.
You can perfectly find a "common ground", things on which players can agree without being obliged to use "canon".
And it's only "easier" if you suppose everyone is having an extended knowledge of "canon". I'm not certain it's the case.

I rarely go into IC conflict since I tend to play with players who share, more or less, my views about handling canon. It's far from being a general rule that people follow it, or even know it.
Actually, I don't recall ever having a single canon issue.

Every interaction in game relying on abilities, history or whatever that isn't supported directly by the game engine can trigger problems.
Finding a common ground and passing info is the key.

For the record and despite my late and little participation to this discussion, I just want to say I usually ignore "canon" in CoH.
Because when I had a vague interest about reading it, it was (still is ?) spread a bit there and there.
Because, once "true to canon" starts to be important in your gaming, you generally get arguments over interpretation.

About the specific example mentionned, it's probably just bad but understandable miscommunication.
Other than that, i'm not particularly shocked at seeing a character claiming to be this or that, despite what game information tells me.
Certainly, it's better when your visual matches your concept or, at least, don't visually contradict blatantly the concept.
But there are many characters wielding various powers totally unrelated to the archetype.
And I don't see why claiming a character is a Nictus when not actually being that AT is really different than claiming to be a vampire (even if not burning under the sun), having magic powers (say, divination and various treatment, despite being a scrapper or a defender).
Or playing two characters at once whose AT are sometimes completely unrelated if not thematically opposed, because the goal is to play a dual personnality, or a possessed hero.
There are also the X versions of the same character but with different ATs, which suppose others must forget what your character is currently, technically speaking, and remember instead what is your IC story.

So... really... Nictus in scrapper clothes... why not.
As soon as you drift from the CoH character frame, you should find a way to let other players know about your concept. That's all.

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The one that spawned it all was an idea for an all archer team, ARch/*, TA/* and */ARch chars only.

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Me and some friends had done that a moment ago. It was called the Apache Longbow.
It was only ,TA/Archery defenders, Archery/Devices blasters. Now for controllers, it was a bit awkward since while they could be */TA, their main powers are completely unrelated to archery (the only controller was Mind Control/Trick Arrow actually).
And it was deemed to be a natural team.
Oh and... no travel powers...
It died because the SG was mostly made of tertiary characters.
Yet, Diurne is still in the SG and still wears the Apache Longbow colours.

I was close to order Capes several times (and might still finally do one day). It is certainly an innovative way to roleplay. And at the same time, might be a bit confusing for players used to "regular roleplaying" as the main strength of the game is to focus on the story more than the character, to the point you can't exactly say you are "roleplaying a character".
You can play more than one character and even "change side" during a game (like playing what would be "normally" the villain, the confrontation, etc, of the story, or side characters).

f my memory is good enough, the purpose of the system is to "take/keep control of the Conflict", ie : being the narrator for the time being.
It then involves and uses dices to determine who is in "control".
You are also encouraged to plan to "control" the future scenes. Kinda like "lose now but get the spotlight later".

At times, while reading on Capes, I thought it was using some boardgame aspects, mixing them to common roleplay tropes.
I also thought there is an implied competitive aspect for the best of this game be shown.
("competitive" here in the best meaning : not opposing for the sake of victory but being active at unfolding a good story the way you see it).

And yes, it can be a bit difficult to import the Capes ideas into the online environment of CoX (there is a bit of ressource management, bids, debts and story tokens, decisions to make about all your characters)

Something you might give a look at is Universalis, which is a game based on some similar concepts than Capes (the fact you're focusing on the story and not playing a single character) but might be a bit simplier to import in CoX since you only have one ressource (story tokens, used to describe scenes, bid on outcome etc). Now the system uses d10s so no direct emote for it in CoX. In few words, Universalis is giving you a frame for freeform-like gaming.
(While I didn't play Capes, I played Universalis)

On sundays and thursdays, the Silent Tempest team will be on patrol duty, using Pocket D as a meeting point, starting at 8pm and making itself as available as possible to support and help heroes of Paragon City.

If you need a hand to fight crime, come at Pocket D at those times, we are there to Protect and Serve !

-Sword

((starting at 8 pm UK time, sundays and thursdays, we plan to be present at Pocket D if you want to do IC missions.
We don't mind being exemplared, SK'ed, etc...
From 8pm to 9, our goal will be to propose ourselves for IC missions.
Which doesn't mean we would leave IC missions at 9pm, it is just the time when we might move out of Pocket D if no IC action started))

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And of course the counter side .. will the golden haired paragon of goodness save the world by killing 20 people if there is no other way to do it ?

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That's a good question but I believe it happens far less often hero-side than when playing a villain. Also, the ultimate purpose is still to help/brighter/more valuating, despite the dire choice.
But there also comes the gaming style. Being a hero or a villain doesn't suppose the same thing depending which of the "eras" you have in mind.
And this, alone, adds another layer of possible conflict between players (not necessarily heroes vs villains, each side can have its own conflicts about gaming styles)

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Now this isn't where people take offence and say "I'm not like that!" - we've all seen this sort of thing and I think for the most part, we can agree there are people out there who don't like their worlds to be interfered with. At which point playing a villain around them is rather pointless. They take it as a personal affront that ANYONE they don't know is trying to rp with them though, and it may not be villain-biased. So if I were a villain character and someone told me to sod off rather nastily in tells, I would just chalk it up to someone who doesn't want their glass menagerie broken down.

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Well, that's the problem of not choosing your gaming partners in MMOGs.
And sometimes, the result (avoiding players you don't know) can come not from a pedantic behaviour but from bad previous experiences.
So, after a time, you're fed up and decide to completely avoid people you don't know, simply because you ceased to trust unknown players.

I, for example, stopped going to Pocket D because I was tired of the almost constant string of villains provocations.

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because he follows a script, and we put ourselves in the mind of the villain


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Incorrect. That is EXACTLY what an actor must do. Put themselves into the minds of their characters.

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An actor never ruin the fun of other actors by playing his or her role.
A roleplayer can ruin others' fun when playing his or her role.

Not because there is a technical difference between an actor and a roleplayer (both play a role) but because actors are all led by a plot, in the same direction, when roleplayers are, at best, sharing a common storyline and, at worst, are interpreting their roles independantly one from the other if not acting in opposite directions with conflicting views on how the story must unfold.

So, Hopkins probably never ruined any other actor fun and desire to play a role by interpreting his. Because they all came for the same storyline (and they actually even know what is going to happen).
But roleplayers not only don't know what is going to happen but are not even aware from the start if any other player is going to influence, interfere, enhance or totally ruin their fun.

I think the best is : "what will make a good story/plot for the characters of *you and your friends* ?"

If you want to change the present by modifying the past, go for it.
If you want to say it's impossible to change the present, that's also nice.

Now, just be careful to not force, even indirectly, your views on others who are not sharing the same paradigm on time than you.
Probe, ask, see and avoid problems.

The question about time travel is to me absolutely no different than the question about magic, the nature and existence of god, angels and demons when I am regularly confronted to players who have definite stances on those topics which aren't allowing much room for other views to exist. Something that annoy me to no end.

Whatever your views on time travel and the way you would like to play it, try to find room to conciliate different views without IC clashes.


For the record, I don't believe modifying the past is possible.
Now, I wouldn't let that stand in the way of a good story.

I'd prefer them in a menu on the left but certainly not under the banner.

I previewed the Equilibrium skin and, can come from my screen, but links in light blue over white background are not exactly super readable.

None of my 12 characters are linked and they don't interact with each other expect for the rare plot necessity. And even, it was on a very limited manner.

Some times later, holding the flag, she was seen patrolling the streets of Paragon City.
Until she faced apparently a known criminal.
A witness says she ordered the man to surrender and he was under arrest.
A brief comment was made by the man who then fled. Some said they recognized Big Game.

Sword of Truth was seen escalading the town hall of Paragon City. She removed the US flag from the rooftop and left with it.

*someone level*
-spammer : Gratz !
*spammer eat dirt while typing*