Why can't I make characters in this universe?
By
Arilou,
Posted on: 2009-08-19 14:19 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
Quote:
Erm...|
Originally Posted by Nethergoat
Anyone not constrained by the mental straightjacket you insist on wearing can make anything they want using this game engine.
|
Those of us who didn't drink a glass of milpk this morning are going to skip past that bit and continue our conversation, yeah?
Quote:
Be my guest, I was responding to the OP not whatever sub-thread you've been cultivating.
|
Originally Posted by FunstuffofDoom
Erm...
Those of us who didn't drink a glass of milpk this morning are going to skip past that bit and continue our conversation, yeah? |
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
Quote:
Spidey pretty much fits the bill for that last one - ordinary Joe who accidentally got himself powered up, and while he may be able to stop subway trains and web up criminals, he's not emotionally prepared for the burden of greatness like Superman. (And even Supes isn't, every once in a while - while his body's from Krypton, his head's still from Smallville).|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
But I guess, for me, this is where the major disconnect happens. I don't LIKE the mundane. I have mundane out the wazoo just waking up every morning. I have mundane going to work, I have mundane going out with friends, I have mundane watching TV. I really don't find mundane, ordinary people interesting, and giving them super powers doesn't make it much better. I like the exciting, the extraordinary, the unusual. Blue alien people from across the stars? Sign me up! Red demons from the bows of the Earth? Pick me! Pick me! A self-sentient machine race which feels organic life is obsolete? Start with me, please! Dude who works 9 to 5 and has an average home in suburbia but fell over backwards into super powers? Ye... Wait, what? Err... OK, I guess.
But then, that's probably part of the answer in itself. |
As for other mundanes taking up heroism: in a word... Batman.
Our own dimensional worldspace (code ERT-326K for those of you using SDID) does not have, as far as we're aware, any superpowers on offer.
But Bruce Lee, Derren Brown and many others have shown that intense training and work can give you supernormal abilities. Bruce could literally move too fast for a standard 70s 24fps camera to track at some points. So someone with enough time and dedication, not to mention quite a bit of cash, could be easily become what the people of this benighted dimension would call a superhero.
Oddly, that's why I play Natural and Tech heroes a lot - ordinary people who were not blessed/cursed with superabilities and therefore predestined to greatness, but have taken up the mantle anyway.
I've also used the dimensional gating thing a lot to borrow ideas and toons I like from other places - a 16th century female ninja, a very Sparky female genius with a talent for technology, and a certain avian prince who revels in causing mayhem and TENDS TO SHOUT A LOT.
Is it time for the dance of joy yet?
Quote:
Wait, what? Why not? That sounds like a great starting point for a story. Explaining why it hasn't been found wouldn't be difficult or too credibility-straining. And why it being hidden is a problem, I'm not entirely clear.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
There's no chance of walking over a mountain and suddenly seeing a massive, continent-spanning alien empire that somehow no-one knew about. It'd have to be HIDDEN, which defeats the purpose.
|
Quote:
| But then what's the point of writing something if canon is going to contradict me? Because if I want to talk about the end of civilization as we know it, I either have re-write written canon (which I can't do) or use another world. I CAN make events that don't affect the world in any way that canon contradicts, yes. Invariably these are events on too small a scale to be interesting to me. |
Quote:
| And, at the end of the day, it's not about carving a niche for myself. I didn't buy a super hero game to be carving a niche for myself where I don't disturb anyone else. That's what I do in my real life. I bought a super hero game to be a cool, important, world-affecting hero. Granted, no MMO will ever allow me to do that in practice, but I can at least write about it. And it is simply not interesting to me to explain how these supposedly huge, large-scale events manage to happen without catching the notice of any country in the world. |
Never surrender! Never give up!
Help keep Paragon City alive with the unofficial City of Heroes Tabletop Role Playing Game!
Quote:
That same disconnect you talk about is the exact effect I'm going for with my in universe characters. But not because I want them to be part of a world, nah, CoH isn't made for that at all. CoH is a beat'em up, as an MMO, more or less. The are enemies and there are player characters. And then they fight! That's the core of CoH and it will always be the core of CoH|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Here's the big irony, though - I don't see Fantasy as a genre FOR the mundane. It's a fantasy, that's its thing. And that's where a lot of conventional MMOs go down a path I cannot stand, turning into not so much games about exciting adventure and high fantasy, but rather more some kind of domestic fantasy/medieval simulator. Granted, that's likely personal preference, and I've gone a few rounds with... Ugh, I don't remember who it was. One of the posters who have a tendency to put me in my place. I've already run a few rounds over whether a game that's more about adventuring, slaying monsters and fighting evil are more important than an expansive, mundane world that one can log into simply to exit. And, yes, I know there are people who like just that - another world to be part of.
But I guess, for me, this is where the major disconnect happens. I don't LIKE the mundane. I have mundane out the wazoo just waking up every morning. I have mundane going to work, I have mundane going out with friends, I have mundane watching TV. I really don't find mundane, ordinary people interesting, and giving them super powers doesn't make it much better. I like the exciting, the extraordinary, the unusual. Blue alien people from across the stars? Sign me up! Red demons from the bows of the Earth? Pick me! Pick me! A self-sentient machine race which feels organic life is obsolete? Start with me, please! Dude who works 9 to 5 and has an average home in suburbia but fell over backwards into super powers? Ye... Wait, what? Err... OK, I guess. But then, that's probably part of the answer in itself. |
The reason I like to combine mundane with fantastic is rather simple. I've done Fantasy. I've read Fantasy books, played Fantasy games on PC and consoles, played D&D, been Dungeon Master in D&D. I'm done. Been there, done that, got the +4 Vorpal Sword. But I never really done the superhero thing, so to speak. Sure, I've seen some Batman and Spider-man on TV, and they're pretty good, but CoH was really the first superhero experience for me. With Spider-man, Batman and some scattered anime as my template, I like to make something where the mundane suddenly becomes twisted into who knows what by the fantastic. It's also what keeps my rampant Mary-Sue tendencies in check.
I could easily make the most perfect superhero ever. With an awesome costume, perfect teeth, great hair, more muscles than actually exist, and a stoic heroic attitude. I call him Superman. But seriously, I don't want to play Superman. Superman is a great plot device, but a boring character. No to have a fun character to play, there needs to be some kind of struggle, not just as in fight bad guys, but a way to develop the character.
That actually is a part of how I like to play most of my games. I want the struggle. Losing with no chance to win is boring, but it's equally boring to just win just as easily. The good fight ends as close to a draw as possible, I don't really care who wins at that point, as long as the fight is hard and even. It's probably why I find FOTMs so dreadfully dull.
Same thing goes with my characters. They're fantastic and mundane. And in that disconnect, there is a conflict. That is what makes my characters tick and work in the setting. Because CoH itself is full of this fantastic/mundane struggle. There's a mugging, and the thief can breathe fire. The Tsoo are worshiping ghosts in the docks, alien invaders roam freely in the high-class neighborhood, and time travel is done casually as a shortcut through town. The town still looks like an ordinary city, with the exception of those gigantic forcefield generators. They're an eyesore, too fantastic to the mundane city, they wouldn't look out of place in a Sci-Fi MMO on the Moon, but in Paragon City, they do.
I suppose this is a roundabout way of saying this, but to me CoH is all about twisting the mundane with a silly amount of fantastic. The degree of mundane and fantastic varies, but in everything native to the CoH world, both parts exist. That might be what's missing from your characters if you want them to match the CoH world.
Also this thread is giving me all sorts of new character ideas. Bad altitis! Bad!
Aegis Rose, Forcefield/Energy Defender - Freedom
"Bubble up for safety!"
Quote:
Your snark is appreciated, Goat, but the thread never had anything to do with "this game's engine" or a physical impossibility, and all to do with style, taste, preference and tendency. Do try to read the thread, please.
|
Originally Posted by Nethergoat
Anyone not constrained by the mental straightjacket you insist on wearing can make anything they want using this game engine.
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
|
Quote:
I'm inclined to take it a step further and say that you probably can't make a character concept that you can accurately model with existing powersets and yet not be able to include within the CoH universe. Between Alternate Dimensions, Time Travel, SCIENCE! and Magic... Is there really anything that can't be done?| My point was actually something like that: The COH universe is big enough that you can fit just about anything into it comfortable, so only really very specific setups would actually be incompatible, and if you have such a really incompatible idea of a story, something so specific you couldn't fit it in an alternate dimension or paralell earth or other planet or whatever... Then why play CoH? |
*tink* *tchink*
There go my two cents.
Quote:
It's quite easy to create ultra-powerful characters and still have them be in the game as it exists. It's all in the writer. My name namesake character was a human boy from Paragon which was a class Omega mutant, but he hard a slight flaw in mutant powers (energy Maniipulator) in that he had no control. As his powers manifested, he begain to radiant energy. Small at first, but gradually increasing over time. Crey volunteers to help study his problem and research a cure. They call in favors by calling in heros with Energy powers to help wiht the problem and buy Crey more time. Crey being who they are did research Fuzun's problem, but they actually developed a treatment that would increase Fuzun's powers. (This was pre-Rikti War and pre-Paragon Proctector but Fuzun was the genesis for their creation. |
Originally Posted by TheDeepBlue
In my opinion, the resentment towards these characters' creators stems from the perception that they make one or both of these rationalizations in their creation process:
A) "This character is not from this world, therefore they must be very powerful!" or even worse: B) "This character is very powerful, therefore they can't possibly be from this world!" combined with the usual perceived intent to create a Mary Sue. I haven't seen a lot of extraplanetary/extradimensional/extraplanar/extratemporal player characters ingame that may possibly follow A or B and aren't also a Mary Sue. Then again, I haven't seen many extra- based bios, or many Mary Sues, for that matter. |
). Crey applied the treatment and Fuzun's power out increase exponetially. Instead of a Paraon Creator being created, Fuzun just vanished in flash if intense light. Fuzun was transported to a dimension of energy being. Fuzun didn't explode he just evolved into the ultimate expression of his powers. He changed into an energy being himself. It took hundreds of thousand of yets to mostly master his form and powers. Fuzun did want to return to his Primal Earth, but his present would destroy much of the arm of the Mily Way Galaxy, So he turns his powers inward and creates a new human shell for himself, and returned to Primary Earth and Paragon City about 5 years after he vanished. Day -3 of Live server. And he has to master the ability to release small amouts of his energies (Energy Melee) with release his concentration on maintaining his invulnerable body (Invulnerabilty). With his family dead or mission after the Rikti War, Fuzun help to rebuild Paragon City. Thus you have a god-level of power existing with the limits of the game world. And as for his Praetorian counterpart Lord Fuzun, Lord Fuzun wound up in a similar dimension, but with no energy beings, he was left totally along for that period of time. He's stark raving mad. The only reason for rebuilding a body was to have some fun with his play thing:, the entire planet. When he goes bored, he'll just go find another play thing. And from an published MA arc I created, the reason for Fuzun and Lord Fuzun being rivals is Fuzun is using his abilities to make sure Lord Fuzun's energies stay bottled up. (i.e. no more powerful then any other thread on the planet).
Quote:
Interesting. I've gone the opposite route and have embraced this aspect of the City Universe in multiple ways...|
Originally Posted by Chase_Arcanum
I downplay the frequent use of teleport in the game (teleport travel, medical teleport, arrest teleport, teleport-to-base) in my stories. I like the mortal danger element, so I usually tell stories that ignore medical teleports and insta-heals, for that matter. My supergroup bases have a distinct geographic location that's usually traveled to.
With a few exceptions, I largely ignore the existence of "Portal corp." |
* The nonprofit humanitarian organization that backs my supergroup is trying to build a global teleportation matrix for the purpose of immediate disaster response. This project has run into all sorts of snafus, some involving limitations of the technology.
* One of my characters believes that all this teleportation, plane-hopping, and dimensional tunneling is damaging the fabric of reality. When he first proposed this theory, organizations like Portal Corp and even Longbow took various steps to discredit his theory... and him.
* Another character is from an alternate reality. In her reality, portals, plane-hopping, and teleportation have all been around for a long, long time (lots of magic), and they've had a cumulative effect that would seem to verify the above character's theory. Due to the barriers between worlds being so riddled with holes, they're falling apart. Her reality is dying, collapsing in on itself.
* Another character comes from that same alternate reality and uses an "eco-friendly" means to get around. Does he continue to keep this knowledge to himself, knowing that this reality seems to be on track to suffer the same fate as his own? His mentality and worldview makes this much more of a conundrum than it would initially appear to be.
* Another character believes that a collapsing reality will be the starting point for the End Times. She has aspects of herself stationed in the most likely realities to host this event... including this one (as well as the dying reality mentioned above and also Praetoria).
* Having two alternate reality analogues in the same reality has started causing problems for those characters. Neither of them has noticed it yet, but the situation will worsen over time. Reality is essentially saying: both of you can't be here. One of you has to leave. GR may provide an unexpected solution to this problem.
I like exploring settings, and I've found the City universe to be full of all sorts of interesting possibilities involving concepts you don't often get to play with elsewhere. The uncharted frontiers are inward, not outward. That's usually not the case. And there's ample opportunity to contrast the mundane with the fantastic, which, to me, just makes the fantastic more pronounced.
The Cape Radio: You're not super until you put on the Cape!
DJ Enigma's Puzzle Factory: Co* Parody Commercials
Quote:
If it hasn't been found, it is "hidden" by definition. Something big enough to be seen from space, which as not been seen from space despite the entire world having been photographed may times over is hidden. There is no other way to describe it. It is possible to explain all sorts of things away. That doesn't mean I have to like working with them.|
Originally Posted by IanTheM1
Wait, what? Why not? That sounds like a great starting point for a story. Explaining why it hasn't been found wouldn't be difficult or too credibility-straining. And why it being hidden is a problem, I'm not entirely clear.
|
Quote:
| This definitely paints a clearer picture. I'm a little stunned that anything other than world-shattering events are uninteresting to you, though. Honestly I'm finding myself agreeing with Nethergoat, which is somewhat concerning. |
Why is it such a problem if I don't enjoy building characters and stories originating from this world? I COULD, but I DON'T WANT TO. That's right there in the original post.
Quote:
| Half the fun I've had with constructing a worldwide conspiratorial organization is showing how it doesn't go unnoticed. They've had scuff-ups with Crey, Malta, and Arachnos, among others. But then, they do try to be relatively covert, aside from nearly taking over the world through military force last week. *shrug* |
Considering this whole thing keeps coming down to taste, I prefer overt warfare over cover cold wars without question. I don't want a world of hidden intrigue, I want a world of open action. And since this game allows me to tailor my experience to my preference, that's what I go for. I don't want to have to explain why an alien city hasn't been found despite it being in plain sight where many people have looked. I want it to be in a place where people HAVEN'T looked. On another planet, in another dimension, in the future, in the past, in the Twilight Zone or even inside the Hollow Earth, anywhere but where people would have looked before.
Let me put it this way - why would I want to bother explaining away the things I don't like when I can switch worlds and not have to?
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
|
Quote:
Good point Peter Parker, aka Spider-Man is indeed an interesting character. I guess you could drive an argument that he really is just mundane AND with super powers, but it's the whole world he exists in that sort of goes against that. Granted, all I've seen from him is the Fox cartoons and the various movies, but in just about every story I know about him, he's a super genius kid who almost never gets a break from crime fighting and has only a forced, through-the-motions civilian life. That, and the authors keep putting him against the weirdest of stuff, like space aliens, gods, beings from other dimensions, nazi and so forth.|
Originally Posted by DreamWeaver
Spidey pretty much fits the bill for that last one - ordinary Joe who accidentally got himself powered up, and while he may be able to stop subway trains and web up criminals, he's not emotionally prepared for the burden of greatness like Superman. (And even Supes isn't, every once in a while - while his body's from Krypton, his head's still from Smallville).
|
He is mundane in theory, but not so much in execution.
There is, however, one problem - while Spider-Man is interesting, I get kind of bored with him after a while unless the story ramps up and dumps the Beyonder, Dormamu, an Elder of the Universe, Galactus or some such on his doorstep. I was never a fan of long, drawn out, episodic stories of super heroes living out their lives over 50 years of comic book issues. I'm a fan of short, powerful stories. It's true, those can be made with even the most mundane of people, and despite all the crap it incurred, I was very pleased with Transformers 2 and Sam Withwicky's role in it. So I can appreciate the heroes who come out of humble beginning. But keep in mind, by the end of the story, these humble heroes are STILL engaged in rumbles of galactic proportions, and then following that event, these galactic events become part of their backstory.
To some extent, that's what I like putting in my own backstories. Not necessarily characters who SAPWN uber-powerful amidst exploding worlds, but rather such who, by the end of their biographies, HAVE gone through such uber-powerful, world-exploding events. I can make such characters here on Primal Earth, yes. However, what's the biggest event I can write into my characters' backstories? Probably the Rikti War, but this is both boring in a world where EVERYTHING is the result of that same Rikti War, and at the same time not on as high a level of magnitude as it could be. After all, everybody's constantly whining about "Boo hoo! The Rikti destroyed our cities! We are rebuilding!" but the city still stands in large part and even just a couple of years after the event, people were walking about their business.
Mundane beginnings are commonplace, and I cannot deny them. But these mundane beginnings still need to add up to something, and sometimes it's just nice to have something bigger than just this world of Paragon City and the Etoile Islands.
Quote:
| As for other mundanes taking up heroism: in a word... Batman. |
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
|
Quote:
Okay?|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Considering this whole thing keeps coming down to taste, I prefer overt warfare over cover cold wars without question. I don't want a world of hidden intrigue, I want a world of open action. And since this game allows me to tailor my experience to my preference, that's what I go for.
|
Haven't you now answered your own question?
It seems to be more than just a matter of taste, but a matter of strong preference. You enjoy broad strokes, epic notes of story, thunderous chords of action... but to the point where you've developed a strong distaste for more nuanced setting intricacies and delicate shades of gray in story (intrigue, etc.).
Nothing wrong with that, but yah, you'd have to go off the well-trodden path to get to it in the City universe.
The Cape Radio: You're not super until you put on the Cape!
DJ Enigma's Puzzle Factory: Co* Parody Commercials
Quote:
I don't have anything intelligent to contribute to this thread, really. However, this comment did make me wonder how many extra-dimensional characters I have. I also wonder how many characters I have from another time? How many are aliens?|
Originally Posted by Dispari
I have over 25 characters, and none of them are from another dimension.
|
(numbers include the ones I'll make for I16, their backgrounds are already known in my head)
Total Number of Villains: 45
Extra-Dimensional Villains: 0
Future/Past Villains: 1
Alien Villains: 2
Notes: One of the Alien villains is also the one from the Future.
Total Number of Heroes: 56
Extra-Dimensional Heroes: 2
Future/Past Heroes: 2
Alien Heroes: 5
I do have a few beings of magic or non-human races from earth (Witches, Elves), as well as some sentient constructs (magical or technological) but I'm too lazy to list them separately.
Of course, it is a bit blurry. Do characters from other planes, that are somewhat attached to the "main" dimension, count as extradimensional? For example: Does a fey creature, from a dimension that exists alongside a magic wood in the Rogue Isles, count as truly extra-dimensional? I decided to not count them that way, since those are almost like sub-planes or "genre planes" or whatever.. I limited extra-dimensional to things that are entire universes (though the Fey plane could be a whole universe, maybe I'm thinking small). I didn't count my one or two pixie/fey creatures as extra-dimensional. I have a couple that might bump up my extra-dimensional numbers if they count.
Anyway, of my 2 extra-dimensional characters, one is simply an old D&D sorceress I wanted to port over. The other is from a parallel Tom Strong / Retro Future / Golden Age kind of superhero universe, and she popped over to this universe after her husband died in an epic battle saving their world.
Mostly, though, all my characters are snuggled in bed nicely with the COH/V lore. However, most of them are simple enough that they could fit in any universe. Some of them may have got their powers in a Portal Corporation accident, or may have been affiliated with some COH universe group like the Circle of Thorns. However, these characters could easily be transplanted. I dont think I have ANY heroes or villains that are inseparably linked to or strongly bonded with any COX lore.
I guess you could say I wallow in the mundane, at least from Sam's perspective.
Let me think about characters I have that I consider non-mundane. Is someone with an unusual existence considered mundane? In other words, is it only normal 9-to-5ers that you'd consider mundane? I saw someone else mention that Batman was mundane, but in a way I dont consider him mundane because the events that happened in the life made even his pre-Batman stages of his life non-mundane. Or do you have to be Fire Queen of the Universe to qualify? What about artificially created beings whose lives aren't otherwise exciting?
Anyway, being conservative/cautious about it, I'd say I could count all my non-mundane characters on one hand.
I'm not sure what that says about me.
Lewis
Random AT Generation!
"I remember... the Alamo." -- Pee-wee Herman
"Oh don't worry. I always leave things to the last moment." -- The Doctor
"Telescopes are time machines." -- Carl Sagan
Quote:
Well, I actually did answer my own questions, one by one. I don't think I could have answered them by myself, though. Even if I didn't credit anyone with the answer, that sort of discussion is really what I enjoy the most. I don't always get to find the right answer, but there's almost always someone who manages to ask the right questions.|
Originally Posted by Hydrophidian
Okay?
Haven't you now answered your own question? It seems to be more than just a matter of taste, but a matter of strong preference. You enjoy broad strokes, epic notes of story, thunderous chords of action... but to the point where you've developed a strong distaste for more nuanced setting intricacies and delicate shades of gray in story (intrigue, etc.). Nothing wrong with that, but yah, you'd have to go off the well-trodden path to get to it in the City universe. |
And, yes, it does take some lateral thinking to keep going off-universe, but then for the themes I like, it takes some lateral thinking even if I want to work in-universe. As long as it'll be a lot of work, it may as well be in the direction I like
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
|
Quote:
Well, that's semantics, but it's still interesting. Personally, I would very much consider another plane of existence to be an "elsewhere" origin. Creatures that originate from heaven, hell, the spirit realm, the netherworld, the Twilight zone and basically any other realm of existence that is still part of our world, but not really. I would most definitely count demons, ghosts and fey creatures as elsewhere characters, though ghosts can be debatable, being that they leave THIS world first.|
Originally Posted by UnicyclePeon
Of course, it is a bit blurry. Do characters from other planes, that are somewhat attached to the "main" dimension, count as extradimensional? For example: Does a fey creature, from a dimension that exists alongside a magic wood in the Rogue Isles, count as truly extra-dimensional? I decided to not count them that way, since those are almost like sub-planes or "genre planes" or whatever.. I limited extra-dimensional to things that are entire universes (though the Fey plane could be a whole universe, maybe I'm thinking small). I didn't count my one or two pixie/fey creatures as extra-dimensional. I have a couple that might bump up my extra-dimensional numbers if they count.
|
For all intents and purposes, the fey world isn't comprised of democratic nations which have spread their territories over all of its land area... Unless you want it to be
Quote:
|
Let me think about characters I have that I consider non-mundane. Is someone with an unusual existence considered mundane? In other words, is it only normal 9-to-5ers that you'd consider mundane? I saw someone else mention that Batman was mundane, but in a way I dont consider him mundane because the events that happened in the life made even his pre-Batman stages of his life non-mundane. Or do you have to be Fire Queen of the Universe to qualify? What about artificially created beings whose lives aren't otherwise exciting?
|
In fact, you can be someone as overdone as the Statesman and still have stories about you that are completely mundane. Pretty much all the stories I've read in the Top Cow comic book (all of two) are very much so, especially that confounded "girl party" in pocket D. Ugh... Talk about dull and boring. I'd take Troy Hickman's Smoke and Mirrors (I think also Top Cow) over most of the others any day, because it is a strong adventure, not "who do we beat up today?"
Quote:
|
I'm not sure what that says about me.
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
|
(I may be misunderstanding the point here.) I find it difficult to play "super"heroes, and really get into them. Oh, I have a few, but don't really think about them much outside the game. The ones I do think about the most, are all pretty natural, not necessarily in specified origin, I mean that they conceivably could exist out here, albeit with less flash.
My MA/Regen doesn't do anything particularly supernatural besides heal quickly, and frankly that's just really enhanced for the sake of convenience. With some unfortunate exceptions, people can heal a lot of injuries. I think of my main like Jackie Chan, who you'll note in a lot of his movies makes a point of saying essentially "OW!"
My Archery/Energy, who'd be Archery/MA if I could help it, has precisely one out-there power, Rain of Arrows. /Energy is a substitute for "punches your face if you get close", not ideal but all we have. Sadly, we do not have "powersets" like "Aim for the head, fire, take cover, toss grenade if necessary".
Etc. I do mainly Heroes (and Villains) that are military, police, assassins, natural types. Frankly when people talk about cosmic encounters and huge events, I lose interest. Large-scale stuff just leaves me cold, I just don't make characters that can contribute much. I guess some would think I'm unimaginative and small-minded, but "big" just loses its impact quickly. It's part of why I've never bothered with fighting Hamidon, for instance.
Quote:
Yes, the "natural human" concept. I'm familiar with this, and I know a lot of debate has been had about them. I don't really want to recap and I don't want to pass absolute judgement, because I know there's no one true way, so let me instead address this with my own position on the matter:|
Originally Posted by Primal
(I may be misunderstanding the point here.) I find it difficult to play "super"heroes, and really get into them. Oh, I have a few, but don't really think about them much outside the game. The ones I do think about the most, are all pretty natural, not necessarily in specified origin, I mean that they conceivably could exist out here, albeit with less flash.
|
I tried to make natural human characters way back in 2004. Getting my first 50, however, convinced me that they simply do not fit the actual game to a point that I am comfortable with. One overriding question I ask myself about every new character is: "How would this character fight the Kronos Titan alone and win?" I don't know why I picked the Kronos Titan, maybe because I once wrote a crossover story with a friend of mine's character where one of mine and one of his took down a Kronos, but that's my yard stick. You can do that in the game right now - the Kronos in the final mission of World Wide Red is an elite boss and very beatable.
The question, however, isn't one about game mechanics. It's one of conceptual choreography. If I were making a movie, drawing a comic book or writing a story about the fight between my character and the Kronos Titan and I assume my character wins, HOW would he win? This is the question which caused me to delete no less than three characters, because while they were good enough against street thugs, the scale of events they would eventually reach simply didn't fit them. To this day, I can't think of a good way for a natural human to fight that thing with just the powers available to him, because I tend to be quite unforgiving in terms of luck. I can't really stand for an unprotected human running through a hail of gunfire and miraculously not getting hit, for instance.
It's a bit like the old DND thought experiment - monsters guard a locked gate with a locked treasure chest behind it. How would a warrior, a wizard and a thief get to the treasure? Well, in this case it's giant superweapon robot in need of destruction. How would a powerhouse space alien, an incredibly fast swordsman and an undestructible, super strong cyborg woman destroy it? It's not anything like a rite of passage, but the Kronos Titan is a good representation of the scale of enemy power in the late game, and any character that I hope to take through this late game (read: every single one) has got to be able to handle it.
Keep in mind I'm biased - I design characters based on personal performance and require them to be able to either deal with or avoid all situations they are likely to encounter. I also DO want my characters to be on top of things to a certain extent, obviously facing mortal danger from the really scary stuff, but not being completely and totally exposed to even lesser threats. In a sense, the characters have to have powers they can rely on with confidence.
This is, of course, only my view on the subject and not in any way a mandate on how things should be or what counts as acceptable.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
|
In truth, I agree with you, and like I said, it's part of the reason I don't go up against large-scale enemies. The concept of a martial artist, as practiced and hardened as she is, going up against a robot 20 feet tall and just exchanging blows is patently ridiculous. She wouldn't, no one would. But in this game, the only alternative is...getting someone else to do it with her. Lord, it gets ludicrous once you start thinking of it like that.
So don't. The game as designed is not a simulator, a what would you do scenario. An action-RPG like this that's concerned about making sense would give you the temporary firepower to take it down, or a trapped room, or give you a hint about the antenna on its head that's receiving commands and if you wait on a certain rooftop til it passes by just under you.... We do get some temp powers here, occasionally they're even tailored to the threat you were just assigned to go after, but it's relatively rare.
This game is simple, and pretty simple-minded: damage things til they fall over. Personally I stretch my imagination past the breaking point to play Naturals. You let it stop you or you just grit your teeth and overlook it. Lord knows you're not the only one thinking how stupid it sometimes gets.
Quote:
I tried to pick a choice quote, but I couldn't decide, so here's the whole post.|
Originally Posted by Primal
In truth, I agree with you, and like I said, it's part of the reason I don't go up against large-scale enemies. The concept of a martial artist, as practiced and hardened as she is, going up against a robot 20 feet tall and just exchanging blows is patently ridiculous. She wouldn't, no one would. But in this game, the only alternative is...getting someone else to do it with her. Lord, it gets ludicrous once you start thinking of it like that.
So don't. The game as designed is not a simulator, a what would you do scenario. An action-RPG like this that's concerned about making sense would give you the temporary firepower to take it down, or a trapped room, or give you a hint about the antenna on its head that's receiving commands and if you wait on a certain rooftop til it passes by just under you.... We do get some temp powers here, occasionally they're even tailored to the threat you were just assigned to go after, but it's relatively rare. This game is simple, and pretty simple-minded: damage things til they fall over. Personally I stretch my imagination past the breaking point to play Naturals. You let it stop you or you just grit your teeth and overlook it. Lord knows you're not the only one thinking how stupid it sometimes gets. |
It's not just the Kronos Titan, though. Greater Devoured are approximately 15 feet tall, invulnerable and super strong. The Rikti are covered from head to toe in unbreakable armour, shoot plasma weapons and wield swords that can cut metal like butter. The Nemesis Army employ automatons purportedly almost as hardy as the armour of Nemesis, himself, which in turn is said to be an amazing machine of destruction. The Council have 10 feet tall, invulnerable werewolves and giant robots. The Carnival of Shadows have so much psychic energy they can fry an egg on your head. The Soldiers of Rularuu... Do I even need to comment on them?
Post 40, and especially post 45, EVERYTHING is a large-scale threat, even down to minion level. And, as you said, the game is so simple that working AROUND those obstacles simply isn't an option. Granted, if I really wanted to, I could pretend-write away why I don't have to fight them this or that time, but they are so common in the material that I end up pretend-writing the entire game away. At this point, I may as well write the character from scratch and simply not attempt to put him into the game. I don't shoehorn every idea I have into City of Heroes. Some characters either aren't important enough to kludge, or simply don't fit the settings well enough. Them I just keep away from the game.
And, really, it isn't about game mechanics, either. I couldn't and wouldn't play a character if I couldn't paint a mental picture of this character fighting in my head. As I've said before, I don't exactly play City of Heroes for the gameplay, rather sticking to it for the characters. I see combat in City of Heroes more the game's closest approximation to real combat. But what, exactly, is it an approximation of? If I were making a movie of a character fighting, what would the choreography be like? If I can't picture that, the character doesn't get made. Why would I bother?
*edit*
And again, that's just how I view things. I'm not against people using whatever works for them, even if I couldn't use it personally.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
|
Quote:
While I can almost see where you're coming from in regards to the Kronos Class Titan (which I do think would be surmountable by a "Natural" hero with enough strategy/firepower/creativity), I find this list a bit nonsensical. Invulnerable werewolves? Since when? (Especially since the bulk of their resistance is a pure anti-farming conceit.) And considering that the military is perfectly capable of fending off the Soldiers of Rularuu, they're clearly not all-powerful.
|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
It's not just the Kronos Titan, though. Greater Devoured are approximately 15 feet tall, invulnerable and super strong. The Rikti are covered from head to toe in unbreakable armour, shoot plasma weapons and wield swords that can cut metal like butter. The Nemesis Army employ automatons purportedly almost as hardy as the armour of Nemesis, himself, which in turn is said to be an amazing machine of destruction. The Council have 10 feet tall, invulnerable werewolves and giant robots. The Carnival of Shadows have so much psychic energy they can fry an egg on your head. The Soldiers of Rularuu... Do I even need to comment on them?
|
Never surrender! Never give up!
Help keep Paragon City alive with the unofficial City of Heroes Tabletop Role Playing Game!
Quote:
Neat. I'm going to approach this a different way. I'd be interested to see other people give the same sort of breakdown:|
Originally Posted by UnicyclePeon
I don't have anything intelligent to contribute to this thread, really. However, this comment did make me wonder how many extra-dimensional characters I have. I also wonder how many characters I have from another time? How many are aliens?
(numbers include the ones I'll make for I16, their backgrounds are already known in my head) Total Number of Villains: 45 Extra-Dimensional Villains: 0 Future/Past Villains: 1 Alien Villains: 2 Notes: One of the Alien villains is also the one from the Future. Total Number of Heroes: 56 Extra-Dimensional Heroes: 2 Future/Past Heroes: 2 Alien Heroes: 5 |
Total Number of Heroes: 14
Originating from...
...Paragon: 2
...Immediate Environs (New England): 2
...Elsewhere in North America: 3
...Elsewhere in the World: 3 (Wales, Egypt, Ukraine)
...An Alternate Reality: 1 (Connecticut)
...Someplace Else (another plane, planet, time, etc.) but still in the City universe: 3
...Another setting entirely: 0
Total Number of Villains: 6
Originating from...
...The Isles: 1
...Paragon: 1
...North America: 1
...Elsewhere in the World: 1 (Britain)
...An Alternate Reality: 1 (West Africa)
...Someplace Else in the City Universe: 1
...Another setting entirely: 0
What's everyone else got?
The Cape Radio: You're not super until you put on the Cape!
DJ Enigma's Puzzle Factory: Co* Parody Commercials
Quote:
Oh, come on, Ian, that's semantics. Exactly how strong any particular faction is isn't the point. They're strong enough to where writing a completely powerless character fighting them openly simply isn't interesting to me. And since the game has nothing BUT fighting openly, trying to write away open fights isn't interesting because it misses the point.|
Originally Posted by IanTheM1
While I can almost see where you're coming from in regards to the Kronos Class Titan (which I do think would be surmountable by a "Natural" hero with enough strategy/firepower/creativity), I find this list a bit nonsensical. Invulnerable werewolves? Since when? (Especially since the bulk of their resistance is a pure anti-farming conceit.) And considering that the military is perfectly capable of fending off the Soldiers of Rularuu, they're clearly not all-powerful.
|
You keep telling me how these things can be explained. YES THEY CAN! But just because they can be doesn't mean doing so is good. HAVING to explain them away ruins what's cool about the characters. Having to explain them away creates characters that, to me, do not fit into this world in a way I like. It's not good enough.
And again, this is MY take on what's good, what's bad and what's worth it.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
|
Quote:
Interesting. Personally, I have absolutely no problem running my all-natural Stalker against all and any threats in the Isles. I think it is because I consider that what the upper limit of human potential in the CoHverse is much greater than it is in the real world. For me it's no problem the think that my stalker can dodge a Carnies mental assault because she's just that damn good at evading attacks, or slicing through a Rikti's armor by exploiting microscopic imperfections on it's surface, or kill Nemesis automata through increadibly precise strikes that send resonant vibrations throughout the robot's body, interfering with the delicate clockwork deep inside them (which tends to make them explode violently). Yes this is strictly superhuman behaviour, but I have no trouble believing that an ordinary human, with sufficient dedication and talent could do these things, because the breadth and depth of human potential is simply that much greater.| In truth, I agree with you, and like I said, it's part of the reason I don't go up against large-scale enemies. The concept of a martial artist, as practiced and hardened as she is, going up against a robot 20 feet tall and just exchanging blows is patently ridiculous. She wouldn't, no one would. But in this game, the only alternative is...getting someone else to do it with her. Lord, it gets ludicrous once you start thinking of it like that. |
Anyhoo, let's see a breakdown of my toons:
Heroes:
From Paragon City: 1
From Planet Earth: 2
From Prime Universe: 1
From Different Reality: 2-ish. One is a Portal Corp Scientist who suffered an accident that collapsed all his alternate versions into one body.
The other one is the corporeal manifestation of a Hindu Goddess that melded PB-style with a citizen of Paragon.
Villains:
From the Isles: 4
From Planet Earth: 3
From The Prime Reality: 0
From Different Reality: 0
Looks like my villains tend to be a lot more mundane than my heroes. I'd never noticed that.
I've made a ton of alts I don't really play, but I think all or most of those I DO play have been relatively "classic" superheroes (it does help that I love the clasic superhero "look") I suspect my "most powerful" in terms of backstory would be Erynies (who is literally a manifestation of the concept of Divine Vengeance sent to punish lawbreakers) and Sovietman (who I visualize as essentially soviet Superman)
And as for the "natural" thing... It depends. I tend to extend "natural" up to and including "action hero" levels. So a natural hero can get shot multiple times in the chest and still keep on fighting, can occasionally dodge bullets and has improbable aiming or fighting skills. "Natural" extends as far as Lucky Luke.
EDIT: Heroes
From Paragon City: 3
From Planet Earth: Around 5-ish that I play.
From another dimension: 0
From another time: 1 (he's an ancient egyptian robot who fights crime in the 21st century...)
Villains:
From the Rogue Isles: 2
From Planet Earth: 4
From another dimension/planet: 1 (classic "alien scout sent to prepare for invasion" story)
From another time: 0
Note that these are those I've actually made backstories for, I have tons of those who are just concepts whose story I haven't fleshed out yet.
"Men strunt �r strunt och snus �r snus
om ock i gyllne dosor.
Och rosor i ett sprucket krus
�r st�ndigt alltid rosor."
I have an interesting problem, that I don't think anyone else has mentioned.
I love the mechanics of this game. I love how it's built, and I love how much customization you can put into a character. Everything is, by and large, unique, and that's a good feeling.
However, there are times when I can't help but hate the world we're in, because it's just a city. Super-powered stuff goes on in it, but at the end of the day, it's just a city, in a state, on the coast. I could Mapquest that ****.
What I miss in CoX is the feeling of exploration. Sam mentioned it earlier when he said most MMOs go for a Mideval Simulator approach, and that he wanted some High Fantasy goodness. I agree. I miss that feeling of wandering through the wilderness of Gods Know Wherever, searching a world that felt massive. For example, back in the day, if you wanted to get from one side of Norrath to the other, you were going to spend several hours doing it, and it was quite dangerous. And you walked the entire distance.
Because I miss that feeling, my characters largely reflect characters you'd find in a fantasy setting. Oh, they may be modernized in some way, or interact with the lore a little bit, so they've got a reason to hang around, but if you pulled my characters out of this game, and through them into Ye Olde Adventure Land, they'd fit in just as well.