I10 Dev Diary Turning Literature into Content
By
0zymandous,
Posted on: 2007-07-30 14:45 in News, Events and Announcement Discussion
Wow, these dev diaries are awesomely insightful! Hope to see more of them in the future.
Phantom Rose: Ill / Kin / Psi
Soleau: Ice / Icy / Ice / Core: Ice / Fire / Pyre / Wind / Eclipse / Flare / Corona
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Solo Space
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While bringing such a popular hero back as an unredeemable bad-guy may seem like a bad idea to some, we stand by the decision and when this Rikti war moves into its final stages in the years to come we hope to give some really good closure to the character and the storyline
the end of the Task Force is not necessarily the end of the story.
[/ QUOTE ] This make me hopeful about poor "Honoree".
In the Arena of Logic, I fight unarmed.
I love the idea of the "source material".
Nitpick time:
You have four riders called: Death, Famine, Pestilance, and War. And that isn't "blatant"?
Sorry to disagree, but that *is* blatant. Not being blatant would have them named: Destruction, Hunger, Disease, and Battle.
Anyway, this just proves what I've always said: Positron is St. John the Divine and Lady Grey is Jesus.
(Fun TF!)
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I thought bringing back Honoree was a brilliant idea, and I loved the TF. I did feel sorry for him, so I'm glad to hear that his story isn't finished.
Hmm. I will say this, though. One of the reasons I didn't pick up on this is that Dra'Gon and his fight were completely unmemorable. I remembered Ga'Memnon and Hro'dotozh (or however they're spelled), but Dra'Gon? When somebody mentioned him to me the day after I did that mission, I could barely remember that there had been a Rikti by that name.
That those are ancient Hellenic references (Agamemnon and Herodotus, respectively), plus that there are at least a couple of anime references I gather (I didn't get those, had to have them explained to me) mixed in with the Biblical references rather obscured the main point here. That's why I thought of the Four Horseman Rikti hard suits the same way I thought of it when I saw the Four Riders of the Apocalypse in NCsoft's Auto Assault, as an obvious homage (and one that everybody and his dog uses) but not necessarily as part of a bigger story.
Still, it's very nice to hear what the designer was thinking, thanks Positron! I'm especially relieved to hear that this is the end of the story arc but not the end of the plot line. I don't see how you're going to advance the plot line in issue 11 and still have time to catch up all 2,000+ missions in the game so that they reflect the current plot line instead of being stuck back in 2003's plot line, but I'm really rooting for you to be able to do it.
Now that I know the background also being able to have heoes/villains team up really does make I10 feel like a really important story update.
As a Christian it's really cool to see the stories in the bible interpreted in this way. I never felt that the bible was a word for word account of history but more like insperational stories to teach you lessons. Your retelling of the story really works for me. Well done.
I find it funny that Positron relied on Wikipedia for background information. Wikipedia.. where it was one posted that Al Capone died in prison from a roundhouse kick to the head.
You don't hit smiling monsters - Sister Flame
SPOILER
I really love the way the story fits in with the CoX universe but why are the bad guys alway British? lol
Infamy, infamy, they've all got it infamy!!!
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SPOILER
I really love the way the story fits in with the CoX universe but why are the bad guys alway British? lol
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They aren't always British. :P Hero 1 was one of the most respected and trusted hero's on the planet before he disappeared during the invasion. If you mean the Vanguard mission arc, well... He was probably picked because any French character would be a stereotype (at least here in the US) and the British don't seem to find offense at being the "bad guys" much like if the villian had been from the US. *shrugs*
Positron makes me weep with pride for this game. Really.
Well done Pos, well done.
I'm just alittle buit depressed, why are there no acual Aliens, always Alternet humans... the only ONLY aliens we have are the Keldians, and the use humans as hosts, so with a merger they are techniclly just modified humans.. it's just not fair ... humans suck =-)
It's really just an allegory for the Republican party; that's all.
j/k
Dude. Freaking awesome. Thanks for the insight. This sort of content is why CoX still, IMO, ranks as the MMO with the best PvE content out there. Deep, consistent story line bar none.
Please DO continue to move the story forward with future updates.
You guys rock.
SPOILER
Well, once you know the original reason for the Rikti invasion, Hero One doesn't really come off as 'the unredeemable bad guy' anymore. After all, the Rikti were convinced enough that the Freedom Phalanx attacked their world to start an all-out war. No hero who they managed to convince of this wouldn't give his very best to help them whipe out such powerful and utterly ruthless slaughterers of their people. 
"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi
Characters
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I'm just alittle buit depressed, why are there no acual Aliens, always Alternet humans... the only ONLY aliens we have are the Keldians, and the use humans as hosts, so with a merger they are techniclly just modified humans.. it's just not fair ... humans suck =-)
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You forgot the Rularuu?
Having a bachelor of religious education, I've become rather... adamant that all religious texts and traditions be treated with respect. It's very nice to see that the biblical source material transferred while still maintaining the proper sense.
It's quite obvious Anarchy Online was more of a source for this content than the little bible references. The Rikti Invasion events are basically pulled directly from the Alien Invasion events when that AO expansion went live. Rikti Warzone with vanguard merits to unlock new armors and powers = Alien Playfields/Missions from AO with victory points used to unlock new armors and powers.
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Aliens that aren't aliens but evolved humans from another dimension? Redeemed/Unredeemed from Shadowlands in AO.
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I don't mean to rain on your parade, it's fun stuff and all, but credit where credit is due. I just found it kind of strange you'd make a news article about using the bible as source when all you did was rename a few NPCs, the real content is all from AO.
Yes, but where did the people from AO get their inspiration?
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You have four riders called: Death, Famine, Pestilance, and War. And that isn't "blatant"?
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Not really, no. Video games use those four together all the time; they're pretty generic as "cool sounding group of 4 villain bosses."
Also, as for "real aliens" other than Rikti, Khelds, and Rularuu, there's a lot of PC's who are allegedly aliens...
Possibly books or movies, but not other games.
These forums really aren't about discussing other games, so I'm not going to go into details (I could go on for pages). I'll just say that AO has done nothing but innovate since it's launch. Pretty much every game out there has drawn from it. Veteran rewards and private zone instancing (inc missions) are other features in CoH that were first introduced in AO. I suppose even the super group bases in CoH are just a combination of the player cities and notum installations in AO. Though I'm not sure on that last one since I don't have much experience with super group bases.
An ancient Hebrew wise man once said that there is nothing new under the sun. You've admitted that AO draws their inspiration from books and/or movies.
That's not innovation, that's adaptation. Innovation means bringing into existance something that's never been accomplished before.
So does this mean I11's story will be based on the rig veda? Or will it be the epic of gilgamesh?
Us Brits aren't really evil, honest.
He had the coolest cape of all, and I even heard a rumour(YES THAT'S HOW IT'S SPELT!!) that he had a dental plan.
Were pleased to bring you the latest City of Heroes developer diary by lead designer, Matt Positron Miller. Matt discusses the inspirations for Issue 10: Invasion, and some of the processes behind the story.
From the diary:
With the decision made to use the Rikti for Issue 10, and bring Vanguard into the limelight, we knew it was the perfect opportunity to bring Hero 1 back from the Rikti homeworld, albeit a little changed.
NOTE: The diary contains spoilers for both older City of Heroes high-end content and for the new issue.
Read the dev diary here.