Questions about the Roy Cooling arc (spoilers)

Short of settling down with Paragon Wiki over a warm cup of cocoa, there's no getting at the writing without slogging through the content. Given how much of the conversation has been dominated by "I had to fight Castillo THREE times" and "There was a Zeus Titan my level 22 had to fight", I think it's fair to view them jointly.

Not that I think much of the old writing was any great shakes regardless. There's a reason I don't choose Paragon Wiki to read over my hot cocoa. Strip away the inane street hunts and Fed-Exs and 90% of the missions boil down to "Sorry, the princess is in another castle". Much of Cooling being no exception.

Nothing of the sort, Tech. I've been playing through the old arcs for some time now, and I can safely say that I cannot disagree with you more. Yes, some of them suck. Unai Kemen's "To Save a Thousand Worlds" sucks because it has no story and the "To Save a Soul" arc is terrible because it's hideously padded.

Those are two arcs out of a whole sea of them. I would take World Wide Red, the Eternal Nemesis, Division: Line and even Missing Melvin and the Mysterious Malta Alliteration over anything added pretty much since Faultline. In fact, I just redid Division: Line earlier today, and numerous times I caught myself saying "Yes! Yes! THIS is how I want content to be written!"

I don't give two rats about how the gameplay is in it. All gameplay in this game comes down to "kill stuff, click stuff" when you get down to it, and complicating it with ambushes, timed missions other such only serves to bog things down, if I have to be perfectly honest. Division: Line plays just fine, and I wish Rikti Magus bosses showed up outside of this arc, at least in the 45+ content. They're really cool enemies, and there are a might few of them.

I would take the writing of ANY Launch Day arc over Roy Cooling's, and that's including things like To Save a Thousand Worlds and the original Positron TF. They aren't good, no, but at least they aren't BAD. They're just boring. Roy Cooling's arc's plot is both boring and full of holes, and that's far, far worse. Bad enough that no amount of ambushes can fix.

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.

Alexander "The Great" Pavlidis' mission is not an arc, but rather a single multi-part mission. I'd appreciate it if we stop calling it an arc, lest we insist that Crimson gives out about 30 arcs, plus one really long arc.

What Roy's mission did to me was wish that we were able to abandon arcs in progress. The only reason I completed it was because otherwise I'd always have an open contact offering me missions right up to level 50 and into Incarnate-hood. I never intend to run it again... Well, beyond the one character whom I abandoned mid-way through his arc. I'll have to finish that arc on that character, but beyond that it just pisses me off too much to put myself through that again. If I want gameplay like his, there are plenty of missions which will throw ambushes at me until I die of old age.

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.

Meh. If that's the excuse for it being stupid as hell and God-awful asinine writing, I'm not sure how it's supposed to change anyone's opinion.

I don't really care if it had a merit at the end or whatever. What I care about is that I wasted a good chunk of my evening on it and thought the entire time "This is the stupidest thing I've had to do in this game that I can think of". Adding another two parts and throwing a book icon at it wouldn't have changed my opinion of the writing one way or the other. Hell, judging from the rest of the writing, the extra parts would have probably involved walking across the Shadow Shard to wash Alexander's car.

Bah, that's nowhere close to novel length... I should know.

Longer posts! WALLS OF TEXT TO KEEP OUT THE INFIDELS!

*****

And yes, the Alexander arc is meh. And one of only a bare handful of Warrior arcs. Can we do better than this, please? (Send THEM back in time to Cimerora!)

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

Dark_Respite's Farewell Video: "One Last Day"
THE COURSE OF SUPERHERO ROMANCE CONTINUES!
Book I: A Tale of Nerd Flirting! ~*~ Book II: Courtship and Crime Fighting - Chap Nine live!
MA Arcs - 3430: Hell Hath No Fury / 3515: Positron Gets Some / 6600: Dyne of the Times / 351572: For All the Wrong Reasons
378944: Too Clever by Half / 459581: Kill or Cure / 551680: Clerical Errors (NEW!)

This reminds me a joke: A young street tough decided to join the Warriors. After proving his mettle, time and time again, they told him he could officially become a true Warrior but would need take a new name. The young member replied: "I shall be, Spartacus!" the others then glared and corrected, "That's Roman, you fool!"
The young member threw up his arms in a sheepish shrug and explained, "It's all Greek to me!"

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.

*Groooooaaan*

Now THAT was bad writing

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.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Back at the start of the game, I rather liked that storyline. Stood out for me in the 20s (don't think I ran into the Freaklympics with my first character). I know it's dated now, but... I rather liked the idea of redeeming someone from a bad life. Oh well.

That's not an "excuse," you simply don't judge single missions against story arcs. That's like saying "I hate the Rescue 21 Mystics in Oranbega!" arc or the "I hate the Assist Sewers Security Chief" arc or the "Speak with Warburg PvP Liaison" arc. They're not arcs. They're missions, and as such cannot be judged by the same standards, because they weren't intended to conform to the same standards.

I will admit that I personally like the Alexander mission for its writing and character, but I will admit that the actual gameplay is beyond annoying. It combines some of the game's most egregious mechanics, those being emergency phone patrol and street hunting. I typically "don't give two rats about how the gameplay," but there are exceptions where gameplay is bad enough to sour me on a good story, and Alexander's mission is one such. It's essentially one instance, but gated behind a patrol and a hunt. Were it three door missions, I would be more forgiving, but it isn't.

The story in that mission, however, is one I like. I've always been a fan of the concept "honour among thieves," so having Alexander give himself up willingly because he's disillusioned with where the gang is going is actually a very powerful theme, and one we really ought to explore more in the game. Going Rogue's "grey-and-grey" morality always seems to manifest as making the good guys bad and the bad guys worse, but almost never does the reverse by making the good guys better. In fact, I suspect this is the single biggest gripe I have with the game's take on the middle ground between good and evil - it's ALL EVIL.

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 meant to say in missions. There's one in Aeon's PTS, but beyond that...

I don't know... The Red and The Black is an interesting arc which is completely soured for me because the writer decided to steal all of his named characters from Oban: Star Racers, both in name and personality. Reference is good. Blatantly taking every name of every character who ever showed up in an entire 26-episode series is annoying, and capable of completely ruining an experience, especially when most of those guys don't make sense if you haven't seen the show.

The Thief of Midnight is a good story, though, for the most part. I like Darryn Wayde in terms of how he's written, because he's written in such a way to make me hate him, and he does that very well. The final robbery of the Midnight Club is particularly well done, even if I feel the Living Armour suits are cheating. There's some kind of bug that makes them targetable and moving before they awaken which ruins the illusion, though. About the only problem I have with the story is it's comprised of largely unrelated events. Beat up on the Midnighters, now go find out who killed my friend, now go steal from the Midnighters! If I were judging JUST the two missions regarding the theft, I'd give it a very high score, but the other stuff just brings it down.

Dean/Leonard's episodic storyline is definitely good, I agree. It does at times make our characters look like fools temporarily, but it's all set right by the end, so I don't hold grudges. Leonard's writing is quite a bit less interesting than Dean's, but both are written well, and Dean has character like no other contact The plot itself is nothing too special, but it's just good enough to be interesting, with the occasional plot twist thrown in for good measure, and the writing for the whole arc is superb, in my eyes speaking to either a professional writer or a damn good amateur.

When it comes to Praetoria, I'll agree with hating Bobcat's arc because it's just stupid, and I'll add Penelope Pitstop's arc because it's just damn annoying with bolded pink text essays of irritating nonsense. I know they were trying to make it sound crazy, but they succeeded so well it's physically irritating. I have quite a few problems with the game's take on morality, but that's more a general direction thing than a problem with any particular story arc, so I'll agree that what story arcs are in Praetoria are VERY good. Quite a few of them put a smile on my face for various reasons, and that counts for a lot.

I still like Division: Line, however, because in addition to being a good story, it actually delves very deep into canon and goes very far in its revelations. Of course, those are revelations the developers saw fit to shift about 10 levels earlier, making the story pointless in context, but I like to look at it like it's still 2004, back when the Rikti didn't speak unfunny one-liners and we still took them seriously.

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.

If doing 40-45 content after 35-40 one is out of order, there's something wrong with the order.

There's something wrong with the order, for the simple fact that whoever is in charge of keeping canon consistent doesn't give a fish fin about doing a good job. Every new arc added destroys about as much old content by virtue of making it not make any sense as it actually adds in its own content, and this is not a new thing. Random examples that I ran into recently.

Gordon Bower, mayor of Salmacia, still insists that "this happened overnight" after Banished Pantheon allowed the Fir Bolg to exist in the world "last year." This refers back to the first Halloween even we had back in 2004 or 2005 where Eochai and the Fir bolg first showed up as pumpking head Razorvines - what I assume was a quick fix for a Halloween-themed enemy group - and they decided to make the whole zone about that in I5. That was right around five or six years ago, yet the guy still says "last year."

The 35-40 Council contact (I forget her name) says that it looks like the Council might have a connection with a "mysterious group called Arachnos." This in the same level range where "the Arachnos" are all over the papers, calling heroes out to a duel. At least it no longer says "S.P.I.D.E.R." (and boy am I glad they didn't go with that!) like it did back at Launch, but this is clearly an arc which hasn't been touched since City of Villains made Arachnos not-mysterious.

The 20-25 Agent G mission to defeat Captain Castillo (again) to prevent him from interfering presents the player with a memo between Castillo and Virgil Duray, "the leader of the Sky Raiders." This comes in the same level range as The Sky Raider Secret story arc, where much is made of the true nature of the Sky Raiders and only at the end is it revealed that Colonel Virgil Duray is their leader, and that the Sky Raiders themselves are ex US military soldiers using equipment embezzled from the military. Typically, you want to put a statement of a fact in the level range AFTER that fact is revealed to ensure players do them in order.

Levantera's arc The Stange Case of Benjamin A. Decker ends up with the Dark Watcher revealing the true nature of the Rikti to the player, something which normally takes place during The Rikti Plague in the same 35-40 level range. Following this, Serpent Drummer's arc begins with a peace conference between humans and Rikti, with C'Khelkah leading the way and a long "On Rikti Factions" briefing given out right at the start. That in the same 40-45 range that Division: Line takes place where C'Khelkah is originally introduced, the concept of Rikti factions and what they stand for is first explored and the nature of Rikti society first opened up to the player. Logically, this would have to happen BEFORE people start negotiating peace with the Rikti, meaning that that arc would probably have to take place AFTER Angus McQueen's, but the way they are placed, this won't happen.

The new Tina McIntyre' 40-45 arc has the player go into a warehouse and meet the mistress of the Carnival of Shadows - Vanessa DeVore, and have a completely unnecessary conversation with her. The 45-50 arc To Save a Soul is preceded by the revelation that Vanessa DeVore is the leader of the Carnival of Shadows, a completely pointless act given that the game treats it as common knowledge beforehand.

In the 15-20 Synapse TF, the Clockwork Kind is supposed to have been destroyed, hence why Clockwork stop spawning post level 20. One can excuse Penelope's Clockwork guardians as taking place before this event, as her arc is also in the 15-20 range, but it does not explain the Clockwork King's appearance in the Lady Grey TF in the 45-50 range when he's supposed to have been long since taken out. In fact, when sending you to her first mission on the world of the Psychic Clockwork, Tina McIntyre says: "The Clockwork King? I haven't thought about him in the longest time." This implies that he has indeed been defeated for all this time.

Furthermore, in the LGTF, the Clockwork King shows up escorted by Psychic Clockwork. The same Psychic Clockwork as in that alternate dimension, in fact. It's almost as if they couldn't be arsed to make electric versions of his old minions in the 40s. The problem with that is the Clockwork King of that destroyed world destroyed it because he realised his psychic potential, making him unstoppable. The only thing keeping ours from destroying the world is his madness preventing him from knowing he's psychic. If he's using Psychic Clockwork, then this assumes he's healed from his madness and knows his powers, either making the alternate dimension pointless, or putting a large plot hole in the story.

And that's just off memory. Paragon Studios are in serious need of an editor, and maybe a story bible, because this Neuron approach to story writing is really turning what used to be cool and exciting fictional universe into a right mess.

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.

It's worth quoting in full because it's all true.
The last part bolded for emphasis. I really wish I could PM one of the Devs with this bolted to the front. As a writer myself it really grates to see this sort of thing happening. It just...eesh. It's sloppy, halfarsed. I can't stand that.

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.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Of course I can. It still has multiple components, it still takes up a chunk of time to run and it still had dialogue and text throughout including between each section. Writing is writing and dialogue is dialogue regardless of the game mechanics behind it. Giving me a spat of xp at the end of each section of the mission and putting a book icon on it wouldn't change the writing. That's purely a game mechanic which, according to you, doesn't really matter. It was worth putting a badge at the end so it was presumably intended to be memorable.

I think you're working too hard at justifying a terrible piece of writing by trying to exclude it from the conversation.

...after you run errands for him and do his dirty work by beating up piles of people he has a personal vendetta against. Not because you've caught them doing something wrong but because a villain demands it of you before he'll turn himself in. Like I said, it's the same thing as the red side writing (arc or mission or multi-mission or whatever). It's a terrible piece of writing and it's stupid that your hero has no option except to do a villain's dirty work for him. It's not even presented as a moral dilemma, it's just "Hey, go get this guy to turn himself in" followed be "Ok, I'll turn myself in, aaafftterrrr....."

I'm trying to keep the discussion to the field of story arcs, thus relevant. By redefining what "story arc" means, you put words in my mouth by making it seem like I said every MISSION in the old content is good, when this is nowhere near true, not anything I would ever say in my right mind. I am discussing solely story arcs when I say I would sooner play "Launch story arcs" over newer stories. And I would. I would not, however, play Luanch single missions, because those are very, VERY rarely good.

The Alexander MISSION is not good, and for a variety of reasons, but I never claimed it was.

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.

What sours me on the Darrin Wade arc is that after you find out what he's up to, the arc is over. Full stop. He's essentially used you to further a plan nobody in their right mind would go along with and you now can't do anything about it because he never shows up again.

It makes us look like fools temporarily? I'd say agreeing to allow clones of my badass evil self to exist makes me look like a fool permanently. Granted, you can let the clone die, but then what was the point of taking over the cloning facility in the first place? This is assuming your character can even BE cloned with all their powers intact, which really only makes sense for Mutant, some Science and "not human" Natural origin characters.

I started off reading her text as crazy, but as the arc went on I realized the "crazy" was too coherent. I chose to read it as her speaking to you in code, pretending to be crazy so Mother wouldn't catch on.

At least Dark Watcher acknowledges that he's not supposed to be telling you this. So you could read the Rikti Plague arc as you just playing along. Also, I believe villains find out about the Rikti from Timothy Raymond, who is a level 30-35 contact.

The problem is that Angus McQueen's arc has been rendered completely obsolete by the second Rikti invasion. The level range doesn't matter. Even at level 1, you can see that the second Rikti invasion IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW.

It could be explained as an act of desperation since his princess is in danger. He has the power, he just doesn't know he can use it. So when it really matters, he can call up ALL his power, even the part he doesn't know he has. Or seeing Penny in danger prompted a moment of lucidity, in which he could tap into his full power. Since he's still crazy, these moments are few and far between, keeping him from taking over the world.

I'm not agreeing with his inclusion in the task force, as I feel it was pretty much a gratuitous cameo, just trying to offer up a possible explanation for his new power level.

Agreed.

Also, back to the topic of this thread: Roy Cooling's arc has now invalidated half of what Indigo says. All her allusions to mysterious "friends" that you gradually investigate can now be dismissed with "Yeah yeah, Malta. I know about them already. Here's a cell phone, call me when you've got something good."

People read this any other way? I thought it was plainly obvious that this is what it was from the start... Or am I actually in the minority on this one?

The Dark Watcher out-and-out says that she's pretending, and she all but admits it. However, knowing it's all an act doesn't make her text any less pink, any less bolded or any less annoying. I know that you can just word-swap, say, "teddy bears" with "Clockwork" and "dark knights" with "Syndicate" and so forth and it will end up resembling coherent human speech, but it's a lot like Resistance linguo - just because it makes sense doesn't make it any less annoying.

At least with the Resistance, the in-game reality agrees with us that it's stupid, with comments like "Who wrote these orders? A four-year-old?" and "I can see your mouth moving, but all I hear is 'punch me.'" from various sources. All we get for Penelope is an admission that, yes, it's intentional but never an admission that, yes, it's really stupid.

To be honest, I've never been a fan of "Hollywood Madness" where characters just babble incoherently, but that's just me.

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.

okay, I'll give you on the 'pink, bolded, and annoying' part, but you do remember she's in the same building as PRAETOR 'MINDRAPE' TILMAN?!

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.

To be honest, Tillman is far more crazy than Penelope, far more annoying, but at the same time much more bearable because she's so well-written. When it comes to Penny, it feels like a writer trying too hard (and forgetting that I don't know what a "Metronome" is, or that you can't see picture of him), whereas Tillman sounds like a real person. A guano-crazy, horrible person, but a real crazy horrible person just the same.

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.