Origins!

When I say origins I mean... It would be great if we could somehow get specialized "origin" mission and things for a our character...

But i don't know how much over stepping the player created story this would be able to go.

I was thinking something like...when you create your character you are asked a number of questions like "what was your past like?" "Where did your name come from?" "are you rich?" And from those questions create a mission or set of missions that show you go from being a normal person to deciding to get your license or going into the line of crime.

This would then set up a
Personal archvillain
Personal Base (based on richness etc: if you're rich you get option of mansion or something.. or if your poor you might get an apartment like in spiderman and his amazing friends or like the clocktower)

Obviously with the above there needs to be an offset of some sort for those who just are min maxers and all go with rich... Maybe have something to do with inf/prestige or other various stats or powers.

Seems like too much work for a regular booster but not enough to base a whole issue around on it's own... and has a bunch of how to balance and how far to push it. Though i think the basic idea if the questions to create the mission were good enough it wouldn't over step the boundary the devs have implied they don't want to cross.

What is your name?

What is your quest?

What is your favorite color?

I like the idea. People have said one of the best parts of this game was the costume creator, which gives your character individuality. It would be cool to see an ingame way to expand on your characters background. They could ask a question and then have a section for people to explain why the chose that option. This would allow for your characters background to have more effect in game without stepping on roleplayers toes.

Hmm. maybe add a game option where you can create your own personal Nemesis (literal nemesis, not the villain group), and have a missions based of of what origin you chose featuring that villain? That I think might be rather interesting.

Part of me leans toward the idea, however altering... well, *anything* to "make origin really mean something" now, after all these years, is probably not a good idea unless it's 100% optional.

I'm definitely not fond of the idea of being "given an origin mission." For instance, a quick sampling of my magic-based characters gives:
- Someone whose family was initially dedicated as priestesses/protectors of a forgotten goddess, who still empowers them when need arises.
- Grabbing a magic artifact (sword.)
- Someone created by the Circle of Thorns specifically to try to make a hero that had been giving them trouble look bad (sort of duplicated, now, in the doppelganger arcs.)
- Someone who gained powers by a forgotten book.
- Someone in the wrong place at the wrong time getting hit by the "backlash" of two spells.

I'll write those out, thanks, not have something handed to me. TBH, I'm not that fond of the villainside tutorial and will skip it, since some (most) of my villains are redside natives or showed up on their own, not ex-cons broken out of prison by Arachnos (which IMHO is downright silly. It's shown to happen multiple times. The Isles would be a literal warzone in response.)

Plus, you bring up a personal base. People have asked for apartments (same thing, really) for years. Great place for personalization. Again, not something I'd want the game making assumptions about for where it is/how it looks/how it starts off. Give me some patterns or premade templates to start with - with *no* affect on, say, INF earning, etc? Fine.

Last, frankly, some people aren't going to be interested and are just going to want to jump right in, not answer a bunch of questions. Again - optional system, fine.

Basically, no, at this point (six years and millions of characters in) we shouldn't have origin "matter." And I can't agree with having my backstory handed to me - even EATs, which have storyarcs set for them, give me a lot of flexibility for my own character's backstory.

See my Guides and Tutorials

Unsurprisingly I find myself agreeing with Bill again.

In fact, I'd go further to say that "Origin" needs to be completely removed from the game. Villain side all it does is determine which origin power you start with and which of the BlackWand/Nemisis staff powers gives you a bonus. Hero side it determines your starting contact/arc. From there, it means essentially nothing. All of those things should be unrelated to some "Origin" you choose anyway. The "origin" power should be selected on character creation as should the starting contact blue-side, just as it is now red-side. The first of the vet reward powers you pick should give you the damange bonus regardless of which one it is.

"Origin" should be completely story-line. One should be able to explain their power-source anyway they want independent of starting contact or origin power. If I want a spell-slinging wizard (magic) who starts off with throwing knives (natural) fighting the council (tech), I should be able to do that. There's really no reason, given the current systems in place, why it shouldn't be possible. Note that I said "possible" and not "easy". I have no idea how intertwined the origin assignment is with how the game sets those things in code and I don't care. All the parts already exist.

Red-side toons already select their starting contact.

Vets rewards already allow the player to choose between dynamic lists of powers.

There is no reason for "Origin" to be something that is set in stone. It serves no purpose other than for the character's story line and that should be entirely up to the player.

I'll get down off my soapbox now. This is just a peeve of mine I've kept as a pet since before I even started playing the game. When the guy who first introduced me to it showed me the character creator (still my favorite part of the game) my first question was "what does origin do for you?" When I got my answer my response was "that's stupid."

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Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha ...I have the patience of a coffee-fueled flea...