Evolving gangs, 2005 to 2010
By
AkuTenshiiZero,
Posted on: 2010-05-12 05:10 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Oh, yeah, definitely, but that falls more under "proofreading" than "storyline." You can swap out the exact years things happened and unless it specifically contradicts an important event, it wouldn't constitute a change in the actual plot. Changing whether the man whose grave you're robbing died in 2005 or 2010 really doesn't make too much of a difference, so that's a change I'd make in a heartbeat.|
Originally Posted by Felderburg
That's true. And your earlier point about each character being THE characters is also true... but years should still be updated in things like the newspaper missions. As the OP said, it's weird to find an obit for someone who died five years ago in today's paper.
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| I'm also not sure how to deal with the odd concept of doing, say, the RWZ arcs, which take place during/after the second Rikti invasion, and then doing a higher level Rikti arc, which happens to take place before the second invasion. The only good way to deal with that is suspend your disbelief and use Decorum's hand wave strategy (which I'm perfectly content with doing, since experiencing the story is more important to me than making sure it fits really well together, but others might have issues with it). |
Maria Jenkins is rather a lot harder. Her story relies on the fact that the Statesman wasn't actually present in the game. Players assumed he was just somewhere else in the city, but it turns out he was trapped in an alternate dimension. Now that he's in the city for all to see, her story makes no sense. This one would definitely need a re-write, or at the very least some kind of a fudge to explain why we're looking for the Statesman when we already know where he is. As Sppony says: "So I have to run away from the person that I'm chasing to find the elevator he used to escape from the sewer that he hasn't escaped form yet?"
What I am definitely AGAINST, however, is waking up one morning and seeing that the Hellions' long years of purse snatching have finally paid off and they've become a high-level demonic villain group while their old missions have been taken on by the Demonics, a group who look and act exactly like them but wear blue clothes and shoot blue fire, or that Malta have suddenly been exposed and broken up, removing Crimson and Indigo from the game who've moved on to other cases. These are the kind of large-scale storyline changes that do nothing but hurt the game.
*edit*
Speaking of change, why not abuse the level-centric timeline and do comebacks for old, defeated villains? For instance, Doc Vahzilok gets defeated 15-20, but why not have him make a comeback in the 40-50 range, using a new contingent of much more powerful, much less shambling zombies? You could easily borrow from games like Resident Evil and Parasite Eve to gather a good collection fast, hostile, deadly monsters for him to have stitched together and produced. Maybe even give him some cybernetics, too. No longer trying to just cure death, but also to improve on the human species, it'd be a cool storyline to have.
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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.
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I think that may already be in the works, although using Praetoria rather than Ouroboros.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
*edit*
Speaking of change, why not abuse the level-centric timeline and do comebacks for old, defeated villains? For instance, Doc Vahzilok gets defeated 15-20, but why not have him make a comeback in the 40-50 range, using a new contingent of much more powerful, much less shambling zombies? You could easily borrow from games like Resident Evil and Parasite Eve to gather a good collection fast, hostile, deadly monsters for him to have stitched together and produced. Maybe even give him some cybernetics, too. No longer trying to just cure death, but also to improve on the human species, it'd be a cool storyline to have. |
This is pure speculation, but I've talked to a few people who agree with me - Look at the new "undead" faction. They're obviously tech zombies, just like Doc Vahz's work. Just,with some of Praetoria's tech being more advanced than ours, they may be better, faster, and stronger than our Embalmed and Cadavers.
@Roderick
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But they are still low level... or we think. What Samuel_Tow was saying was have the Bad guys RETURN!|
Originally Posted by Roderick
I think that may already be in the works, although using Praetoria rather than Ouroboros.
This is pure speculation, but I've talked to a few people who agree with me - Look at the new "undead" faction. They're obviously tech zombies, just like Doc Vahz's work. Just,with some of Praetoria's tech being more advanced than ours, they may be better, faster, and stronger than our Embalmed and Cadavers. |
We do see this with The Clockwork King coming into play during the Lady Grey Task Force. But at the same time he's just for one mission at the end. Where is his "RETURN OF THE CLOCKWORK KING!" Arc.
>.> Hmm... that gives me an idea for an AE but that player made not Dev Content.
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Clockwork already come back a lot through their alternate universe counterparts, the Psychic Clockwork.|
Originally Posted by RottenLuck
But they are still low level... or we think. What Samuel_Tow was saying was have the Bad guys RETURN!
We do see this with The Clockwork King coming into play during the Lady Grey Task Force. But at the same time he's just for one mission at the end. Where is his "RETURN OF THE CLOCKWORK KING!" Arc. >.> Hmm... that gives me an idea for an AE but that player made not Dev Content. |
I definitely agree with more callbacks to the early game. A few missions in Grandville (as well as few blueside) do this, and it rocks. I also want to see more Diviner Maros-style missions, where it turns out that your character set off some of the events that show up on the opposite side of the game.
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I agree with that the older content needs to be tweaked. Not really removed but just gone over add a bit new models to the groups. A few stories edited or expanded and just some Dev loving.
Much like how the Hollows got a work over. It's still Hollows but has more interesting street spawns and missions flow with ease. It wasn't the completely redone like Faultline was.
I think that's what were talking about here not a "Throw all that old stuff out" but a more "Okay where are the winkles and lets give these Hellions and Skulls some new threads."
Maybe a zone event where you do have the "GANG" war active. hundreds of Hellions and Skulls fighting each other and your caught in the cross fire.
P.S. I don't count the alternate universe counterparts as comebacks. They are after all from another universe. Now here a question if Level is Time more or less then you capture some Big villains before the "ZIG brakeout" they logically could be back out in the streets rebuilding their armies. Hence the Pre Bricktown Zig brake out Villains could story wise be free again seeking revenge so story wise it's not impossible for them to return.
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I still want to see some all-out gang warfare in Perez Park.|
Originally Posted by RottenLuck
Maybe a zone event where you do have the "GANG" war active. hundreds of Hellions and Skulls fighting each other and your caught in the cross fire.
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Of course, I also want a Perez Park revamp, even if it's just a small one.
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Myeah, fair point.|
Originally Posted by IanTheM1
Revamp Calvin Scott? Now that is what I would quite honestly call a waste of resources.
They do look different. |
And how do they look different? They really don't. I've fought the, pardon the pun, damn things enough to know they are the exact same models, albeit with cheaty powers.
And yes, I do mean cheaty. The Hellions and Skull run as thus;
Minions: Run of the mill, suitable for levels 1-5
LTs: Single attack, higher damage, still suitable for 1-5
Bosses: Lol pwn u n00b. LOTS of attacks, all with high damage, fire and neg energy damage and DoT/other effects. A very steep upswing in the 'hard' factor for 1-5.
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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[QUOTE=Samuel_Tow;2860353]Look at how arcs are handled. Every character is a world unto itslef, with the only storyline that matters concerning this one specific character.
So when your wife makes a new character in Atlas Park, she very much is back in 2004, trying to sort out who the Hellions are and what makes the Clockwork tick. Even if you bring your level 50 hero to meet her, his story does not affect hers. QUOTE]
Every day is Launch Day.
When your wife makes a new level 1, she has just heard about Statesman's call for new heroes to come to Paragon. From her character's point of view, your character did a bunch of stuff 'in the past', but she (and therefore, both of you) predate events like Doctor Vahzilok or Countess Crey being defeated (especially since those events aren't tied to a specific year in-game).
Of course, the timeline could use some cleaning up, and if the Devs had the time it would be cool to see stuff continually moved to Ouroboros as the timeline is updated (as has already happened with the Positron TF).
But understandably new stuff will take priority, and as new things are put in the game, they are 'inserted' into the timeline 'seamlessly' (cough).
Gotta love those Menders, always busy...
Story Arcs I created:
Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!
Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!
Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!
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Oh, of course! The Elder Snakes! How didn't I think of that before? That's exactly what I was talking about. Have a low-level enemy group either die down or be defeated, wait 10, 20, 30 levels of nothing happening with them, then reintroduce them with new and frightening members. I really think that'd make for some cool returning villains, and not just Vhazilok. What happened to Lughebu?
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Originally Posted by IanTheM1
I definitely agree with more callbacks to the early game. A few missions in Grandville (as well as few blueside) do this, and it rocks. I also want to see more Diviner Maros-style missions, where it turns out that your character set off some of the events that show up on the opposite side of the game.
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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.
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Info on the leader of the Hellions is here.
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Originally Posted by NightErrant
They don't even tell us who leads the Hellions, but at least they've got two unique bosses. The Skulls don't have a single one.
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61866 - A Series of Unfortunate Kidnappings - More than a coincidence?
2260 - The Burning of Hearts - A green-eyed monster holds the match.
379248 - The Spider Without Fangs - NEW - Some lessons learned (more or less.)
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On the second point, funny you should mention that, I've been working on an AE arc featuring a level 30-34 (custom) version of the skulls who are trying to make a comeback in a rather grim and dangerous way.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
What I am definitely AGAINST, however, is waking up one morning and seeing that the Hellions' long years of purse snatching have finally paid off and they've become a high-level demonic villain group while their old missions have been taken on by the Demonics, a group who look and act exactly like them but wear blue clothes and shoot blue fire, or that Malta have suddenly been exposed and broken up, removing Crimson and Indigo from the game who've moved on to other cases. These are the kind of large-scale storyline changes that do nothing but hurt the game.
*edit* Speaking of change, why not abuse the level-centric timeline and do comebacks for old, defeated villains? For instance, Doc Vahzilok gets defeated 15-20, but why not have him make a comeback in the 40-50 range, using a new contingent of much more powerful, much less shambling zombies? You could easily borrow from games like Resident Evil and Parasite Eve to gather a good collection fast, hostile, deadly monsters for him to have stitched together and produced. Maybe even give him some cybernetics, too. No longer trying to just cure death, but also to improve on the human species, it'd be a cool storyline to have. |
On the first point though, no I don't think that should happen either, though I would still like to see factions updated and expanded a little. Like Techbot points out here:
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Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
And yes, I do mean cheaty. The Hellions and Skull run as thus;
Minions: Run of the mill, suitable for levels 1-5 LTs: Single attack, higher damage, still suitable for 1-5 Bosses: Lol pwn u n00b. LOTS of attacks, all with high damage, fire and neg energy damage and DoT/other effects. A very steep upswing in the 'hard' factor for 1-5. |
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.
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Perhaps a burned-out Perez Park map, where the buildings are replaced with Boomtown-style wreckage, and the woods are replaced with the smoldering trees that we see in several of the portal missions from Unai Kemen and others. It would be easy to whip together an explanation of why the zone is so blasted, and it could be set up as an alternate version of Perez for either portal or Ouroboros missions.
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Originally Posted by IanTheM1
I still want to see some all-out gang warfare in Perez Park.
Of course, I also want a Perez Park revamp, even if it's just a small one. |
"But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed, analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses."
-- Bruce Leverett, Register Allocation in Optimizing Compilers
...Actually.
You know what they could do?
Give some of the lower level gangs the Snake treatment.
The Snakes, as I'm sure most of you know, are a low level enemy group found on Mercy Island and Port Oakes.
But, what a lot of people don't know, is that they're actually a 1-50 Enemy Group. You revisit the Snakes through Operative Grillo's Story Arc in Grandville, where not only are they revealed to be far more powerful, they've also got an Incarnate as their leader.
The lower level content is untouched, but the Snakes are able to simultaneously be a low level and high level enemy group. Giving the Skulls and Hellions a similar treatment would be cool, I think.
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Blood Brother versus Damned|
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
And how do they look different? They really don't. I've fought the, pardon the pun, damn things enough to know they are the exact same models, albeit with cheaty powers.
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This is about as close as they get. The trick with both the Hellions and Skulls is that their members are made up of a small pool of respective components, but each rank is slightly differentiated, primarily through color, but occasional through other accoutrements, such as the masks worn by lieutenant and boss class Hellions.
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And yes, I do mean cheaty. The Hellions and Skull run as thus; Minions: Run of the mill, suitable for levels 1-5 LTs: Single attack, higher damage, still suitable for 1-5 Bosses: Lol pwn u n00b. LOTS of attacks, all with high damage, fire and neg energy damage and DoT/other effects. A very steep upswing in the 'hard' factor for 1-5. |
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This is what i'm talking about. With all the technical inovation that's come along... Why haven't we gotten a few more flavourful enemies like a Hellion firebomber Liuetenant or something? Blueside is horribly delivered, but great storylines... Stuff like the Vahzilok plague are great arcs to do, but lack some dialog soul shown by the new I17 arcs. |
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I agree up to a point. I believe low-level content needs a "re-write" in the sense of technical upgrades. Mission structure, mission objectives, mission locations, briefing quality (both in terms of narrative and proofreading) are all badly lacking and in need of some TLC. I don't believe low-level content needs a "re-write" in the sense of changing or updating the storyline. The actual stories are great as they are, and I'd be really sad to see them go. The stories are good. They're just delivered poorly.
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Giving the groups a fresh makeover, adding in one or two new enemies for diversity cant hurt the game at all.
Granted. We've been promised something like this in I19 with the high end praetorian arcs heroside, the groups getting their GR makeovers added into the (brilliant, but with a creepy lack of goatee) Praetorian invasion of Paragon storyline.
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That's a very good point. The Vahzilok Plague is an excellent story that is just insufficiently well delivered. "Say, go kill zombies that are infected with a disease. Oops, you're infected with a disease! How could this have happened?" Really, this is just begging for a re-write.|
Originally Posted by gigas
This is what I'm talking about. With all the technical innovation that's come along... Why haven't we gotten a few more flavourful enemies like a Hellion firebomber Lieutenant or something? Blueside is horribly delivered, but great storylines... Stuff like the Vahzilok plague are great arcs to do, but lack some dialog soul shown by the new I17 arcs.
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If I were doing it, I'd start it out much more innocently with a regular raid on a Vahzilok sewer, only later on revealing that I might have just walked in on a bio hazard, dismissing that fear, only for it to later crop up as real. And that's just off the top of my head.
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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.
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On the random note of expanding on existing factions, shouldn't Crey have something like Bioshock Splicers in their ranks or something? I mean their a biotech company, it makes more sense than powered armors and such, right?
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.
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I don't think they're a biotechnics company. They have a Crey Biotechnics branch, but I believe the company itself is called just Crey Industries, or possibly just Crey. Most of their research actually goes into technology, with the entirety of their generics research programme probably devoted to the Paragon Protectors via Project Revenant Hero.|
Originally Posted by AzureSkyCiel
On the random note of expanding on existing factions, shouldn't Crey have something like Bioshock Splicers in their ranks or something? I mean their a biotech company, it makes more sense than powered armors and such, right?
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On the flip side, "splicers" is pretty much what Paragon Protectors are, so I guess my argument is kind of moot.
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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.
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Nah, I'd say they're more like [WARNING! WARNING! MAJOR SPOILER AHEAD!] Jack.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I don't think they're a biotechnics company. They have a Crey Biotechnics branch, but I believe the company itself is called just Crey Industries, or possibly just Crey. Most of their research actually goes into technology, with the entirety of their generics research programme probably devoted to the Paragon Protectors via Project Revenant Hero.
On the flip side, "splicers" is pretty much what Paragon Protectors are, so I guess my argument is kind of moot. |
Now, Paragon Protector Elite 308, would you kindly kill those heroes?
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.
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Well, most of their stuff is still comprised of people in power armours with ray guns and cryo guns, they keep developing new computer systems, new cybernetics and so forth. I'm not saying they don't have a bio-engineering programme, I'm just saying that's not all they're "about."
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Originally Posted by AzureSkyCiel
Nah, I'd say they're more like [WARNING! WARNING! MAJOR SPOILER AHEAD!] Jack.
Now, Paragon Protector Elite 308, would you kindly kill those heroes? |
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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.
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A good case in point for the evolving gangs is Crey. Black Scorpion's patron arc introduces Scorpinoid tanks, a logical technological step... Stealing tech from Black Scorpion's armour to enhance their own.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Well, most of their stuff is still comprised of people in power armours with ray guns and cryo guns, they keep developing new computer systems, new cybernetics and so forth. I'm not saying they don't have a bio-engineering programme, I'm just saying that's not all they're "about."
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I'm sure even though some things go down (Spoiler free!) that Crey would probably have back ups of the information gathered, even if only in part.
However, all this goes way against Ouro policy...So maybe an Ouro renegade could set up another time travel hub.
The off-beat space pirate...Capt. Stormrider (50+3 Elec/Storm Science Corruptor)
The mysterious Djinn...Emerald Dervish (50+1 DB/DA Magic Stalker)
The psychotic inventor...Dollmaster (50 Bot/FF Tech Mastermind)
Virtue Forever.