Origins Pack - Natural Auras and Capes

Oh... And as for a Natural Aura...

Besides the obvious jokes, hehe...

I actually have two characters that use this (Which could be worked out better and made into a "Natural" aura):
I only have pics of the one (and first) character that I use this idea for:




The Smoke Head aura, colored well enough, works pretty well in combination with the cigar.
It looks best when moving the head around a bit.




P.S. Smoking is bad and stupid and only supers can do it.

In regard to the "Dragonball-like" thing, it's a bit narrow of a descriptor. It's more like the general anime or eastern style of Natural where, with enough training, you can learn to jump on fragile fronds and do battle, or leap high enough to clear the trees, or be Just That Good as someone invoked earlier. And we can't forget that CoH is based on a comic book superhero world, where a "natural" person can do a lot more than in real life.

But yeah, this pack uses what seems like a different interpretation of the word. Natural as in "of nature" and not... inherent or non-powered. Not that I'm complaining. The cape and auras look pretty cool. Only thing stopping me from buying this so far is that most of my characters don't tend to use capes or auras. That'll probably change soon.

I think DR said it best...

Ewww.

This origin pack finally got me off my lazy butt and made me actually play my Spines/Regen, Epicflora. I was kind of camping the name hoping to get the desire to play her someday.

Might I say that despite being level 2 at the moment, the leaves cape and aura goes nicely with the gigantic tree-thorns of DOOM.

Maybe I'm misremembering the video...

But isn't the Natural set for the origins pack, labeled as the Nature set?

It is, yes. And I don't blame them. It'd have been very hard to come up with other types of auras for natural characters, so the 'nature' theme was a worthy pick.

For what it's worth, my natural characters have the following.

Jonathan Wong (Kin/WP Scrapper, has Combat Atomic Fists/Eye aura, for spiritual energy glow/orbs. Powers and aura are blue.)
Amanda Wong (MA/Nin Stalker, has Combat Alpha Fists in blue, to go with her MA Powers as a chi attack effect.)
Alraune (Plant/Thorn Dominator, has Combat Leaves Body. She gained her power through a rare plant symbiont, so she's natural.)
Sin Widow (Night Widow, has the Arachnos Alpha aura in purple for her psi-ability aura.)

3 of my natural characters have still yet to get auras, and one of the Nature auras has been used on my Mutant Mercs/Storm Mastermind. Gail's Force.

In the original trailer for the booster pack the leaf cape and aura were originally under the Nature banner until players pointed out this game has no Nature origin, but a Natural origin.

This might be super-unlikely, but I kinda got the impression someone said, "hey guys, it's time to make another booster pack let's make an origins-themed one" and someone else somehow misread Natural as Nature and it all spiraled down from there. By the time marketing or whatever other higher ups decide when something gets advertised and released said it's time to tell people about this new pack, there was no time to change the Natural costumes anymore.

Of course there's a lot of intentional vagueness regarding the origins to give players a lot of thematic play-room when thinking up characters, but human plants don't tend to a very natural occurence, more of a scientific freak-accident or mutation. Not that you need a plant-person to wear a cape made from leaves, but still.

I suppose it's also difficult to design flashy costume pieces for an origin that's not as immediately-suited for flashiness, but you know what? In the end all I said is bovine excrement really when it comes down to creatively using these pieces. Maybe my mutant would be complete with the translucent science cape or my scientist needs that magic cape. The origins in these games are little more than suggestions and when you decide to limit your costume choices based on how some packs are labelled, chances are you'll never have particularly stellar costumes.

Looks like I didn't even have to bait people this time.

The whole "Natural hero" debate always comes down to two points that I think a lot of people... I dunno... Either don't see or choose to ignore out of dislike.

1. Natural does not mean Natural HUMAN, and the classing of Peacebringers as Natural characters pretty much makes that provable fact. As such, what the origin can be extended to include is almost boundless, limited only by RP spin. Demons, robots, ghosts, aliens, even things like zombies and skeletons can be drawn up as Natural with the right amount and kind of spin.

2. City of Heroes is not a good environment for Natural Human characters. I won't go as far as to say they don't belong (even if that's how I feel), but the context of the game really doesn't do a good job to support it. In a game that revolves around and is defined by combat, a character becomes a sum total of his powers and abilities in combat. There is no "I will talk my way out of this fight" option. There is no "I will lure him into a trap, jump on his back and pull out his fuse box" option. There is no "I will get the army to help" option. Almost every climactic battle comes down to your character punching or shooting the enemy until one of you falls down. And when the enemy can be a tower-block-sized giant robot, eyebrows begin getting raised.

What the above two points assert is that what Natural "means" in City of Heroes is widely open to interpretation, and Paragon Studios have been doing a good job of exploring many of those possible meanings. They gave us casual clothes, they gave us ninja attire, our Natural SOs are named after training and gadgets, they gave us a Natural Alien AT, and now they're giving us Natural nature. Disappointment in that particular interpretation of "Natural" not being what a particular player was looking for is understandable, but complaints that this is the "wrong" kind of Natural thematic are unfounded.

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.

Here is my question: given the huge range of characters that could be filed under the "natural" banner, I would like to know exactly what ONE aura and cape the developers could think up that would be appropriate for ALL of the following types of natural people:

*Ninja
*all soldiers
*aliens such as Superman
*other aliens
*Boxers/other melee-type fighters
*people actually born with paranormal powers, such as many witches/warlocks
*acrobats

.... and the list goes on. NO ONE CAPE AND AURA CAN FIT ALL OF THESE TYPES. In my opinion it is silly to come to the table with such an expectation.... with that said, I do think there should be an Alien Origin in the game.

I'd say that Ninja's are just as likely to be magic origin as natural. Depends where you draw the line between mysticism and mystic.

A new ninja scarf would be awesome.