Secret identity: becoming a real civilian?

I went back to the University the other day to change from the valiant Firebrande back into plain old student Brande Richards, before logging out . . . And it occurred to me how nifty it would be if we could *really* turn into an ordinary citizen! That is, if you could make a change that would cause you to just show up as an NPC in the world (just "Brande" over your head, in white text), so you'd look no different from the other citizens wandering around. Right now, you can slot yourself a civilian "costume", but it's still obvious who is a player and who isn't, so you're never really in disguise.

Perhaps there could even be "secret identity" missions or badges you could get while in that mode ("Take the train to Steel Canyon and pick up X", "Visit the bank in Skyway City", ...)

And then you duck behind a bush or into a phone booth, and: TA-DA! This looks like a job for . . .

I'm just thinking that it would be neat to be able to move around Paragon in disguise, and it would add a lot of depth to the whole Day Jobs concept, especially if the secret identity missions (if any) were Day Job-specific. It would also be neat for fellow players not to be sure if a citizen on the street might secretly be a hero.

So, what do people think?

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Neat though it could be, and slightly useful for RP to stop people godmoding you when in 'disguise' (yes, despite the name and such still), actually implementing it would probably take some doing. And, really, for not much gain.

RP wise, if someone cannot recognise a disguise and deal with that, then, to me at leat, they are not the sort of person I would want to RP with anyway, and would find people who can. In game wise, not enough gain to actually justify it (yet) while there are still some rather nasty things that need fixing.

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... not enough gain to actually justify it (yet) while there are still some rather nasty things that need fixing.

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Well, there's no rush. They should certainly fix the other stuff first, this is more a "someday" sort of wish-list item.

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Aye, nothing wrong with suggesting it, after all. Its not a 'bad' idea. Just wont be high on the priority list, given some of the major things that need dealing with/are being implemented =]

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This would instantly give a huge input to the variation of the civileans out on the streets. Which would also make it more alive.

Would be incredibly busy in some area's though... where lots of people logg for the day job.

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If they were gonna actually let us design our online avatars wouldn't that just add to the potential for lag hardly worth it when people hardly look at the civs anyway

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If they were gonna actually let us design our online avatars wouldn't that just add to the potential for lag hardly worth it when people hardly look at the civs anyway

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But wouldn't you look at the civilians trying to figure out if you knew them?

Imagine walking past a civilian and having them say something really random to you as it was someone you teamed with last week?

I'm taking from the OP that you are able to enter civilian mode while online to do civilian missions.

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Well if they were in mayhems i may make even more effort to chuck them about the place but no not really.

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... not enough gain to actually justify it (yet) while there are still some rather nasty things that need fixing.

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Well, there's no rush. They should certainly fix the other stuff first, this is more a "someday" sort of wish-list item.

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Actually, it's a "suggested so often that it's boring" wish, combined with a "the developers have specifically said they will not do it" wish.

Really, we get this once a month. And, really, the developers have specifically stated that they will not implement such a system.

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Disclaimer: The above may be humerous, or at least may be an attempt at humour. Try reading it that way.
Posts are OOC unless noted to be IC, or in an IC thread.

Its funny isn't it!, you are a SuperHero with almost God-like powers, and what do people fantasise about?.... being a mere mortal! .

I must say I totally get it though, Its all about contrast in my opinion and anything that adds to RP In-game and enhances 'playing the hero/villain' will always get a big thumbs-up in my book. All we need know is transformation emotes and themetunes on said transformations!.

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To be honest, while I would like to see some mechanism for transforming into a normal person...

It doesn't enhance the roleplay. We can make level 1 alts, or just use a costume slot for a civilian costume. In plenty of cases, a hero/villain (especially villains) has no mundane identity, so this is just a waste.

It does not 'enhance playing the hero/villain' because it's actually not 'playing the hero/villain' it's playing a mundane character who may, actually, be nothing to do with your real character, seeing as your real character is a non-shapeshifting alien from the planet Blarg, not a guy who no one recognises when he puts a pair of glasses on.

So, this would really have to go so far down the priority list it's untrue.

(As a side point, interesting to see what CO does about this. Jack Emmett was massively against Secret IDs, but he's making a game based on an RPG which had specific rules for handling how your secret ID affected your heroic life. Personally, I suspect that's one of the aspects of the RPG that will be quietly dropped.)

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Disclaimer: The above may be humerous, or at least may be an attempt at humour. Try reading it that way.
Posts are OOC unless noted to be IC, or in an IC thread.

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(As a side point, interesting to see what CO does about this. Jack Emmett was massively against Secret IDs, but he's making a game based on an RPG which had specific rules for handling how your secret ID affected your heroic life. Personally, I suspect that's one of the aspects of the RPG that will be quietly dropped.)

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I did fear about RP in Champions until I heard they have designed Millennium City to have specific places for Heroes to gather, RP and socialise, that was a quote not from Jack but from one of the Devs responsible for siad design who was and is a big-time fan of the boardgame. Damned if I can find the dev blog quote though.

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(As a side point, interesting to see what CO does about this. Jack Emmett was massively against Secret IDs, but he's making a game based on an RPG which had specific rules for handling how your secret ID affected your heroic life. Personally, I suspect that's one of the aspects of the RPG that will be quietly dropped.)

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I did fear about RP in Champions until I heard they have designed Millennium City to have specific places for Heroes to gather, RP and socialise, that was a quote not from Jack but from one of the Devs responsible for siad design who was and is a big-time fan of the boardgame. Damned if I can find the dev blog quote though.

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*cough* Yes... they thought that was what the PDP was there for in CoH. Don't get any hopes up until you see what's actually implemented. (WAR had several sections of it ripped out a week or two prior to release because they couldn't finish them. RP areas are likely to be very low priority, and so subject to removal if, as they now will, they come under pressure to release early.)

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Disclaimer: The above may be humerous, or at least may be an attempt at humour. Try reading it that way.
Posts are OOC unless noted to be IC, or in an IC thread.

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(As a side point, interesting to see what CO does about this. Jack Emmett was massively against Secret IDs, but he's making a game based on an RPG which had specific rules for handling how your secret ID affected your heroic life. Personally, I suspect that's one of the aspects of the RPG that will be quietly dropped.)

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I did fear about RP in Champions until I heard they have designed Millennium City to have specific places for Heroes to gather, RP and socialise, that was a quote not from Jack but from one of the Devs responsible for siad design who was and is a big-time fan of the boardgame. Damned if I can find the dev blog quote though.

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I'll believe that when I see it. Millennium City isn't even in the beta yet!

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@FloatingFatMan

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

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Actually, it's a "suggested so often that it's boring" wish, combined with a "the developers have specifically said they will not do it" wish. Really, we get this once a month. And, really, the developers have specifically stated that they will not implement such a system.

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Well, that's put me in my place, then. I must admit to lacking an encyclopedic knowledge of the history of the Suggestions thread, but my search for "secret identity" didn't show me constant discussions of this. At any rate, I'm sorry if it's come up so often before. I will refund the electrons it cost for you to read it.

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Indeed, but the majority of it must be finished as a map, the quote to come from the Dev Blogs was "We are building up until Christmas and then polishing until launch"... whatever that means.

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Actually, it's a "suggested so often that it's boring" wish, combined with a "the developers have specifically said they will not do it" wish. Really, we get this once a month. And, really, the developers have specifically stated that they will not implement such a system.

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Well, that's put me in my place, then. I must admit to lacking an encyclopedic knowledge of the history of the Suggestions thread, but my search for "secret identity" didn't show me constant discussions of this. At any rate, I'm sorry if it's come up so often before. I will refund the electrons it cost for you to read it.

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Now, now. No need for anyone to get shirty about this.

Birdy was employing some hyperbole when he stated that it got mentioned "once a month". But it does get suggested quite often, along with various ideas about implementation. My own idea is a sort of "inverse raid" technology, such that when you're wandering around in your "secret identity", you don't have access to any of your powers except brawl and the one to switch into your heroic identity (preferably this should have a longish, non-interuptable animation), you are automatically restricted to walking speed, and minions con orange, lieuts red and bosses purple, and they may spontaneously decide to "mug" you (at which point it's pretty much a case of switch to superhero mode, or die).

Further iterations of this idea would include a "well-known-o-meter" - every time you switch from civvy to super while enemies are aggroed on you, the bar fills up - after a certain point, your identity ceases to be "secret", and acts like a an aggro magnet while you're in civvy mode. The bar will naturally decay over time (as the villains forget about the link between your hero and civilian identities), and there may be some way to force it to drop (though that could be exploitable in some way).

The important features of this idea are that enemy groups don't automatically aggro on you, though the city is a dangerous place, and it may enable heroes to get around slightly more safely.

Just an idea.

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If they were going to do it there would need to be some missions for the secret ID's otherwise there would be very little point. And I think you should be hidden from other heroes as well, although if you choose to tell someone your secret ID then thats fine.

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Now, now. No need for anyone to get shirty about this.

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Yeah, I was thinking the same thing, after I posted, but it was too late, and I don't know how to withdraw a post. Anyway, consider the shirtiness (EDIT: shirtyness? dictionary.com disagrees, but all right) withdrawn.

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"We are building up until Christmas and then polishing until launch"... whatever that means.

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It means someone was dumb enough to set Christmas as a content completion deadline. This means various developers will be in on Christmas Eve at 7pm desperately wanting to go home, but also desperately needing to get that last little thing working. They will fail.

No one should ever set Christmas as any form of deadline, for anything. I should know, I have been the idiot setting the deadline, and the idiot trying to meet it, at the same time.

Anyway, don't go believing what developers say about roleplaying. Most of them don't get it. If the developer concerned had been a Live RPer and was saying that they were developing areas especially for roleplayers, then I'd have hope. An RPG roleplayer... less so.

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Disclaimer: The above may be humerous, or at least may be an attempt at humour. Try reading it that way.
Posts are OOC unless noted to be IC, or in an IC thread.

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Now, now. No need for anyone to get shirty about this.

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Yeah, I was thinking the same thing, after I posted, but it was too late, and I don't know how to withdraw a post. Anyway, consider the shirtiness withdrawn.

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Edit post - delete.... or in this case just an edit note added would suffice. Personally I didnt think it was a carnal crime, passion for all things 'City of' is what we all have in common on the forums.

eg:[EDIT]:Shirtyness withdrawn

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I like the idea about not having any powers until you blow your cover (which should be bad)

I like the idea of getting mugged (cost you a bit of inf in most cases)

I love the idea about secret missions though. That sounds like a good reason to do this.

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I like the idea about not having any powers until you blow your cover (which should be bad)

I like the idea of getting mugged (cost you a bit of inf in most cases)


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I like those ideas too... but not exclusively. The primary problem with systematising this kind of thing is it makes everyone the same and they aren't.

Let's take my current main, Nitoichi. Stick her in a dress and she's another civilian. Her 'powers' are training. If someone attacks her in the street, they got a horrible shock. War Crow was a magician steeped in magic designed to keep him alive in combat, he's never 'unpowered.' The current system doesn't really work for either of them, but systematising a mechanism which turns them into civilians to make mobs react differently isn't actually any better.

Some form of real mechanism to handle the variety of 'secret identities' the heroes of Paragon have would be enormously complex and take a lot of development. It probably isn't worth the time to develop, when it comes down to it. Not unless it were included in a game from scratch.

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Disclaimer: The above may be humerous, or at least may be an attempt at humour. Try reading it that way.
Posts are OOC unless noted to be IC, or in an IC thread.

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eg:[EDIT]:Shirtyness withdrawn

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All right, that's it, I'm shirty again!

EDIT: . . . But how can I stay mad at someone called Mother's Love?

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I like the idea about not having any powers until you blow your cover (which should be bad)

I like the idea of getting mugged (cost you a bit of inf in most cases)


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I like those ideas too... but not exclusively. The primary problem with systematising this kind of thing is it makes everyone the same and they aren't.

Let's take my current main, Nitoichi. Stick her in a dress and she's another civilian. Her 'powers' are training. If someone attacks her in the street, they got a horrible shock. War Crow was a magician steeped in magic designed to keep him alive in combat, he's never 'unpowered.' The current system doesn't really work for either of them, but systematising a mechanism which turns them into civilians to make mobs react differently isn't actually any better.

Some form of real mechanism to handle the variety of 'secret identities' the heroes of Paragon have would be enormously complex and take a lot of development. It probably isn't worth the time to develop, when it comes down to it. Not unless it were included in a game from scratch.

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Ever seen Peter Peter or Clark Kent clobber people who bother them when they are not spiderman or superman? No of course not. Because their heroic identity is a secret one and they write stories about what happens if they fail to keep their identity secret.

Sure, when some punk bothers my heroes most of them are well capable of dealing with the problem. However they wont because that would blow their cover. Blowing your cover is bad.

So the things you can do in your secret identity are limited. Sure you can hulk out but then you have to do damage control (ie it would cost you influence). So limiting people to brawl, a baseball bat or a revolver and normal walking/running sounds like normal useable powers. Plus of course the go hero button.

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