Is it time to move on from Recluse and Statesman? (non-doom post)
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Recluse and Statesman should both be more or less permanently disappeared if there's a CoH2, yes. Because neither of those devs even work on the game anymore. Statesman's disappearance would spur on new heroes to try to fill his vacancy, and Recluse is the essence of the bad villain game design (yay i get to be a lackey for a real global conquest supervillain instead of a being a supervillain myself!)
A future without Superman and without the monolithic 'villains r us' Arachnos organization, please. It could very, very easily be split into the technophiles under Black Scorpion, the murderous lunatics under Mako, the guerillas under Scirocco, and the 'True Arachnos' under Ghost Widow and the Arbiters. And no story arcs about how some stupid thug makes you run what's essentially a hero arc because OTHERWISE I'LL TATTLE ON YOU TO ARACHNOS....a real villain would've pounded that contact into the ground and laughed because why would Arachnos care? Nobody in power cares about the common people of the Rogue Isles--that's why they're a ruined 3rd world pit of a country for anybody who isn't rich or powerful. Seriously, must suck to get shaken down by thugs, villains and your friendly Arachnos army protectors every day.
Scirocco's arc would have been far better without Arbiter Daos leaving the sour aftertaste of Arachnos lackey all over it.
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I'd really like for the game to have that as a choice I can make in the game mechanics, instead of having to go around them to do it (I'm still sitting on the "Return to Contact" portion of that mission).
Absolutely Recluse should be largely ignored if not killed off. Either way, that story pretty much is done as of the patron arcs, so continuation would not involve him anyway. Future villain arcs should be more like the excellent i17 arcs, more self-focused without loyalty assumptions.
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A future without Superman and without the monolithic 'villains r us' Arachnos organization, please. It could very, very easily be split into the technophiles under Black Scorpion, the murderous lunatics under Mako, the guerillas under Scirocco, and the 'True Arachnos' under Ghost Widow and the Arbiters.
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The one thing that bugs me is that the "tech" patron is the stupidest one. Technology is arguably the best origin for a "supergenius" villain, and we get a stereotypical Brute as a patron for them. Dr. Aeon would make a much better Tech patron, maybe with Black Scorpion as his unwitting lackey.
Nobody in power cares about the common people of the Rogue Isles--that's why they're a ruined 3rd world pit of a country for anybody who isn't rich or powerful. Seriously, must suck to get shaken down by thugs, villains and your friendly Arachnos army protectors every day. |
I have a Magician character that is currently carrying around the Malleus Mundi because she'd far rather use its power for herself, rather than turn it over to Scirocco to do whatever stupid plot he has.
I'd really like for the game to have that as a choice I can make in the game mechanics, instead of having to go around them to do it (I'm still sitting on the "Return to Contact" portion of that mission). |
Now if they left the arc with a "you have the Malleus Mundi but you haven't figured out how to use it yet...to be continued" ending, it would be possible, although it would then lead to a flood of complaints about an unsatisfying ending.
Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper
Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
Arc ID#431270 Until the End of the World
The Malleus Mundi is too powerful to allow a player character to have. You can literally remake the world with it.
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We don't know that it can rewrite the world, because Scirocco never finishes his ritual. Maybe his research was just wrong.
Considering it causes a yearly zombie apocalypse and a month or two of permanent night, it probably was correct.
Dawncaller - The Circle of Dawn
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It's really great to come back to this thread I started and see such robust discussion going on. Thank you to all those who have posted so far!
The main thing I seem to be getting from the responses though is that it's not so much time to move on from Recluse and Statesman so much as it is to grow them up a bit and give them some moral complexity, which is interesting given both the T for Teen rating for the game and the upcoming release of Going Rogue. Is it just that this playerbase in particular or the broader audience have started to see beyond the black and white perception that used to linger about superhero themed stories? If so, I'd probably be pointing at Dark Knight as one of the major tipping points. Not only did it financially succeed, but it also scored an Oscar for the late Heath Ledger. And it was genuinely morally complex. A true grown up comic book story. |
The fiction that good is simple, evil is complex and the "real world" is rendered in shades of gray.
I tend to find that the opposite has more heft to it. Evil is, in fact, extraordinarily simple: It is simply selfishness writ large. I do what I do for my own ends, damn the world. The reason that villains often seem complex is that their rationalizations are often complex; as are most peoples' reasons for choosing to be selfish when they know they shouldn't.
Good, on the other hand, is complicated. It's why the world has many scoundrels and few saints, instead of the other way around. It's about choosing to pay a price to do something that you don't directly benefit from. When writers ignore this fact, the heroes are two-dimensional. When good writers explain it well, the heroes come alive.
Shades of gray are often writers' attempts to construct the plot in such a way as to preclude the heroes from making a clearly "good" choice so that they can create drama through conflicted morals. Will a good man steal to save his family is such a story. But IMO a better story is the lengths a good man will go to avoid stealing and still feed his family.
The very best Superman story I ever read was Elliot S! Maggin's novel Miracle Monday. Basic idea: A demon tries to tempt Superman into choosing the lesser of two evils by wrecking both Metropolis and his life as Clark Kent. All Superman has to do to stop it is to kill the innocent woman the demon possessed; one life for millions against his personal morality, the classic greater good choice. Superman chooses instead to sacrifice everything in his life to avoid choosing either evil. And Maggin makes it make sense. Epic.
EDIT -- Props to Eva for beating me to the "evil is selfish" premise.
I'm going to disagree with the basic premise. It reflects upon a couple of problems I've always had with analysis of heroic fiction of all stripes, though comics are simply the most obvious.
The fiction that good is simple, evil is complex and the "real world" is rendered in shades of gray. I tend to find that the opposite has more heft to it. Evil is, in fact, extraordinarily simple: It is simply selfishness writ large. I do what I do for my own ends, damn the world. The reason that villains often seem complex is that their rationalizations are often complex; as are most peoples' reasons for choosing to be selfish when they know they shouldn't. Good, on the other hand, is complicated. It's why the world has many scoundrels and few saints, instead of the other way around. It's about choosing to pay a price to do something that you don't directly benefit from. When writers ignore this fact, the heroes are two-dimensional. When good writers explain it well, the heroes come alive. Shades of gray are often writers' attempts to construct the plot in such a way as to preclude the heroes from making a clearly "good" choice so that they can create drama through conflicted morals. Will a good man steal to save his family is such a story. But IMO a better story is the lengths a good man will go to avoid stealing and still feed his family. The very best Superman story I ever read was Elliot S! Maggin's novel Miracle Monday. Basic idea: A demon tries to tempt Superman into choosing the lesser of two evils by wrecking both Metropolis and his life as Clark Kent. All Superman has to do to stop it is to kill the innocent woman the demon possessed; one life for millions against his personal morality, the classic greater good choice. Superman chooses instead to sacrifice everything in his life to avoid choosing either evil. And Maggin makes it make sense. Epic. EDIT -- Props to Eva for beating me to the "evil is selfish" premise. |
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He has a point, to a point. BLAHBLAH I'M EVIL is not a motivation, and is almost always a sign of terrible writing, if not total ignorance of writing. Lots of players do it, as did whoever wrote Arachnos, which is why they suck.
It can work as a joke or an homage to bad writing, but only works otherwise if the story has considerable advantages in other ways.
Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper
Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
Arc ID#431270 Until the End of the World