Does anyone here even LIKE comic books?
By
Adelie,
Posted on: 2011-01-13 16:15 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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The WoD isn't a superpowered setting now? Marvel and DC doesen't have vampires? | To be sure, there are comic fans who play the game. No doubt. But the lion's share of people, in my observation, are mostly here because this is a straight-forward casual friendly game that's generic enough(and has a flexible enough costume editor) to accommodate their Night Elf Mohawk or character from the Matrix Online, Vampire the Masquerade or what have you. They couldn't care less about the 'super' in "the world's most popular superpowered MMO". |
Heck, VTM is, if anything, clearly an adaptation of a horror setting to superhero tropes ("secret identities", etc.)
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| -Not being able to create the kind of character they wanted. No good way to do swords + guns. Prior to custom animations, no power set for a hand to hand fighter that wasn't all flashy kicks. |
Which is not to say that there aren't combinations that couldn't/shouldn't be added.
"Men strunt �r strunt och snus �r snus
om ock i gyllne dosor.
Och rosor i ett sprucket krus
�r st�ndigt alltid rosor."
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Yup but they are far from Marvel's most popular or featured enemy group. The big players are often one or a small team of supers. They are often wearing some super cool costume and have the "looks cool" appeal. We don't have too much of that here.
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Originally Posted by Arilou
You mean like AIM? or HYDRA?
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Actually the only real "super team" enemies of any note would be the various Masters of Evil and Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Most others tends to be either "villain+goons" (eg. Flag-Smasher, Kingpin, Dr. Doom, Joker (occasionally) etc. etc.) and a couple of organizations with lieutenants. (Like g. Kingpin has his goons, and also Bullseye, who is a higher class of goon) |
Originally Posted by TheJazMan
Yup but they are far from Marvel's most popular or featured enemy group. The big players are often one or a small team of supers. They are often wearing some super cool costume and have the "looks cool" appeal. We don't have too much of that here.
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And the same is true in COH/V: We have our individual villains (Mangle, Shock Treatment, etc.) our Villains-with-bands-of-mooks thing (Vahzilok), and our big organizations. (Arachnos)
"Men strunt �r strunt och snus �r snus
om ock i gyllne dosor.
Och rosor i ett sprucket krus
�r st�ndigt alltid rosor."
Invented pronouns are silly. They are not widely used and therefor reduce understanding when they do appear.
The fact the OP has one post leads me to believe this was a fire and forget rant and therefor has no value in and of itself and the only value to be found here is that created by the side conversations.
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Originally Posted by Tenzhi
It's even easier to just use "he" which can also properly be used as a gender neutral pronoun without adding pointless words that look german or hungarian to the mix.
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Originally Posted by Obscure Blade
Using "he" as a gender neutral term is a good way to aggravate quite a few women. "His/her" or "their" can be awkward but is less likely to spark angry arguments than using "he" in reference to women or even worse "it" in reference to the transgendered (which, yes, I've seen; and no, it wasn't well received).
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Of course, if the speaker knows the correct gender, or is corrected on the gender, he should use the correct gender pronoun. (See what I did there?)
Slight tangent (...of a tangent): My second lv50 character (used in my avatar) is described as an 'it'. The character was mutated in the Terra Volta reactor and its gender is unknowable now. Of course, we don't have a 'genderless' model in this game, so it uses the female model with the scales set as close to "androgynous" as I could get it.
Asking it what gender it is doesn't help either. The super hero registrar asked for its name, and it replied with a noise. The registrar wrote down the closest approximation it could: Anscillect.
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
Silly english and your lack of neutral pronouns 
"Den som härigenom inträder låten hoppet fara..."
"Men strunt �r strunt och snus �r snus
om ock i gyllne dosor.
Och rosor i ett sprucket krus
�r st�ndigt alltid rosor."
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When's the last time the story in a task force changed?|
Originally Posted by TonyV
Oh, come on now, I think it's actually a fair criticism of the game. When was the last time you ran a task force where people actually read or talked about the missions? Almost all the conversation in every one I've been on anywhere close to what could be defined as "lately" has centered around the subject the OP is referring to, either getting stuff or getting done quickly so that they can get the end rewards and move on to getting more stuff.
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The story stays the same. The calculational challenges posed by team composition, enemy arrangement, and the crushing fist of the RNG vary.
It's also a lot easier to automatically generate varied calculational challenges. A procedurally generated story would like as not turn out to be Task Force Ten Radio Missions.
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That's true, but that doesn't mean we should keep masculine as the default gender. Other languages are moving away from it too, as evidenced by Germany's StudentInnen.
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Originally Posted by Fleeting Whisper
Masculine is the default gender in many languages, English included.
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[Deleted]
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I love you. Please stay with us. Please.
| * As others have already pointed out, sie and hir are gender-neutral pronouns. I think they make good sense, and I've used them for decades. I think "their" is ugly, and using male as the default is clearly sexist. I can't do much about the ingrained sexism of our culture, but I can at the very least make sure my own language isn't sexist. I don't know what the sex and/or gender of the person was to whom I was referring, so I decided to play it safe. |
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the problem is, V:tM doesn't fit with the CoH lore.|
Originally Posted by Arilou
The WoD isn't a superpowered setting now? Marvel and DC doesen't have vampires?
Heck, VTM is, if anything, clearly an adaptation of a horror setting to superhero tropes ("secret identities", etc.) That's... Really silly. You're NEVER going to be able to cater to every character. Heck, even PNP occasionally has trouble with that, and they don't have to bother with animating it. Really, anyone who came in and expected to be able to create EVERY possible kind of character is just, quite frankly, stupid. It's impossible to code a game that way, and I can't see ANYONE expecting it. Which is not to say that there aren't combinations that couldn't/shouldn't be added. |
Vampires in VtM would run away from any fire based toon. They'd be able to be staked. You don't think those Angels people play would burn a vampire on sight alone for the amount of faith they have?
I'm willing to go with the "well it's dark when I play" bit, but all that other stuff? :/
And would you really from an RP perspective, want to play a VtM vampire in this type of setting? They'd be dead.
And really, like anyone hasnt heard of vampires in Paragon. They walk around every where, they come out in Halloween.
So what's the point of the Masquerade?
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
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German doesen't really have a male default (and never really had) rather it has had a clearly gendered language. (as do most indo-european languages in fact) Lehrer/Lehrerin, Löwe/Löwin, etc. |
Originally Posted by MajorDecoy
That's true, but that doesn't mean we should keep masculine as the default gender. Other languages are moving away from it too, as evidenced by Germany's StudentInnen.
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Swedish has actually been moving in the opposite direction, dropping gendered constructions in favour of neutral ones. But then again, as mentioned, swedish has a neutral pronoun that can be used for persons in the first place.
EDIT: Also somewhat uniquely, "human" is a feminine noun in swedish.
"Men strunt �r strunt och snus �r snus
om ock i gyllne dosor.
Och rosor i ett sprucket krus
�r st�ndigt alltid rosor."
In German, if you have three male students and five female students, it's standard to address the group with the masculine form of student. But there's a movement to use the word "StudentInnen" instead.
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Point out the typos to the devs. They can decide.|
Originally Posted by PoisonPen
I hadn't expected quite so much in the way of response, so I'm not even going to try to multi-reply to all of you. Thank you to all of you who gave me advice, even the ones who think I'm a pretentious grammar-Nazi troll who should suck it up and stop flagging down the whaaahmbulance.
To respond to a few of the specific points: * Thanks to those who recommended Virtue as a good roleplaying server. I plunked my ten bucks down and transferred my main character there. Time will tell, but already I'm seeing a lot more people who have characters with backgrounds, which is a good sign. (Sometimes I like to just stand near the subway and read people's backgrounds as they pass. This game really needs a spectator mode.) For the record, the servers I tried previous to this were Liberty, Victory, and Protector. * As others have already pointed out, sie and hir are gender-neutral pronouns. I think they make good sense, and I've used them for decades. I think "their" is ugly, and using male as the default is clearly sexist. I can't do much about the ingrained sexism of our culture, but I can at the very least make sure my own language isn't sexist. I don't know what the sex and/or gender of the person was to whom I was referring, so I decided to play it safe. * To those who have expressed preferences for alternative comics outside the capes and leotards variety, I like those too: Sandman, Maus, the Invisibles, anything by Robert Crumb, the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, Promethea, and so on. It's just that, like a lot of folks in the alternative and independent comics scene whose work I respect, like Grant Morrison and and Alan Moore, I also have a nostalgic love/hate relationship with the Golden and Silver ages of comics -- Superman + red kryptonite = Ant-head Superman! (Read Grant Morrison's brilliant Flex Mentallo for his psychological explanation for the weird, psychedelic nature of that Red Superman/Blue Superman stuff from the Silver Age.) Morrison in particular loves to deconstruct the Golden and Silver Ages, but always with respect. * I didn't realize it was against etiquette to point out typos for people. In most contexts people regard it as a courtesy. I know I do. I had no idea that it was verboten here, and I'll certainly stop doing it. I've been filing bug reports on typos and grammatical errors in the game text too; should I stop doing that? Am I annoying the devs? * A lot of my disappointment, I think, comes from what I realize now were unrealistic expectations. I've played all kinds of pen and paper superhero RPGs over the years (including GURPS, Champions, TMNT, DC Heroes, and -- my favourite -- Villains and Vigilantes), and I guess I thought CoX would be like a computerized version of that. I had also tried Champions Online before I decided on CoX instead, which has a much more Silver Age feel to it, so I assumed CoX would be more of the same. I think what I expected was a multi-player version of Freedom Force (since that's what CoX resembles on the surface if you have only gameplay videos by which to go). Collecting "treasure" and backpack management weren't what I had in mind when I joined. After all those complaints, I think I should also list some of the things that I think CoX does right. Top of the list, absolute bloody first, is flying. The sense of flying in CoX is utterly thrilling and feels exactly the way it does in dreams. Sometimes I just fly around the skyscrapers in Steel Canyon and feel mellow. I think if the game consisted of nothing but that, I might still pay money to play it. Also on the list of top things (which is odd, since it's also on my list of complaints) is the costume system. I'd really like to see more body types (where are the Blobs, where are the Gigantas, where are the Doll Mans, where are the She-Hulks?), vehicles, a lot more hats, better conforming for chest props, and, and, and... but I suspect I could (and would) do that no matter how many options that gave. The variety is pretty impressive, and I'm sorely tempted to purchase some of those expansion packs. I'd also like to say that while some of the missions are annoying and frustrating. the vast majority are fun, and there are a small group which are so absolutely delightful to play that I'd tip the designer if I could. In particular, one mission where I got to say, "Ah, screw it" and burn an organized crime kingpin alive instead of saving his sorry *** made me laugh with enjoyment. The whole Protean storyline on both the Hero and Villain side is a lot of fun too, even if Protean himself is a little cheesy without exploiting the elevators. PS: If any of y'all are on Virtue, say hello to Union Power, the One-Man Picket Line, when you see me. |
Some people like the typos cleared up, some dont.
Personally, when I reference ANY toon in game, I say HE or SHE for the player based solely on the gender of the avatar. Which means, even though I know the person behind a male character is female, I still call them he. Same in reverse with male players with female toons. It's just easier.
I see your disappointment. This is also why I ignore some in game canon. Those enhancements? Yup. Don't exist when I RP.
But even on Virtue, know that the RP styles will VARY!
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
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Using "he" as the default means that a man will never have to experience being referred to with a pronoun he is uncomfortable with, while a woman who is referred to as "he" has to choose between shouldering the discomfort or go "actually, I'm not a 'he' " and risk the discussion being derailed.|
Originally Posted by Fleeting Whisper
Masculine is the default gender in many languages, English included. Just because some women get offended that the writer/speaker does not have full information (or the phrase is set in the abstract), does not make the use of 'he' any less correct.
Of course, if the speaker knows the correct gender, or is corrected on the gender, he should use the correct gender pronoun. (See what I did there?) |
Using "he" as the default, you're not using "a gender neutral 'he' ", you're assuming everyone to be male unless they say otherwise.
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OOOR! People are looking WAY to much into something over internet medium and really really REALLY need to get over themselves.
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Originally Posted by Silver Gale
Using "he" as the default means that a man will never have to experience being referred to with a pronoun he is uncomfortable with, while a woman who is referred to as "he" has to choose between shouldering the discomfort or go "actually, I'm not a 'he' " and risk the discussion being derailed.
Using "he" as the default, you're not using "a gender neutral 'he' ", you're assuming everyone to be male unless they say otherwise. |
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
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QFT|
Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
I simply assumed the OP misspelled "she" and "her" and was totally baffled by "iggy". Which had me thinking that the OP had a lot of nerve to correct someone elses spelling when the OP can't spell simple pronouns.
It wasn't until others mentioned those pronouns origins that I realized they weren't misspelled. But I must be honest, in my 40+ years I have never seen nor heard of them being used before today. |
The same here, Forbin.
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Eh, it was used to much to look like a typo.|
Originally Posted by Red Valkyrja
QFT
The same here, Forbin. |
The first time, yeah, but after that, I thought it was a foreign language they just wanted to use.
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
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This is a good thing and you should feel good.|
Originally Posted by PoisonPen
* As others have already pointed out, sie and hir are gender-neutral pronouns. I think they make good sense, and I've used them for decades. I think "their" is ugly, and using male as the default is clearly sexist. I can't do much about the ingrained sexism of our culture, but I can at the very least make sure my own language isn't sexist. I don't know what the sex and/or gender of the person was to whom I was referring, so I decided to play it safe.
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Back on topic, and to reply to your title:
My first contact with American comics was leafing through a volume of Watchmen in a comic shop when I was fourteen or so. I formed the general opinion that American comic books are all grim and gritty murder-filled blood-fests, and filed them under "not my cup of tea". I've only recently started to discover they can be fun, mostly thanks to Chris Sims. Most of my comics consumption is in the form of online, Japanese, and Franco-Belgian.
And yes, I've made a half-elf archer, because I make a half-elven archer in every RPG that I play and I'm not going to break the tradition just because this one happens to be in a modern setting.
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You need Warren Ellis in there to complete the set. The Chair Leg of Truth commands it.
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Originally Posted by PoisonPen
* To those who have expressed preferences for alternative comics outside the capes and leotards variety, I like those too: Sandman, Maus, the Invisibles, anything by Robert Crumb, the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, Promethea, and so on. It's just that, like a lot of folks in the alternative and independent comics scene whose work I respect, like Grant Morrison and and Alan Moore, I also have a nostalgic love/hate relationship with the Golden and Silver ages of comics -- Superman + red kryptonite = Ant-head Superman! (Read Grant Morrison's brilliant Flex Mentallo for his psychological explanation for the weird, psychedelic nature of that Red Superman/Blue Superman stuff from the Silver Age.) Morrison in particular loves to deconstruct the Golden and Silver Ages, but always with respect.
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Originally Posted by MajorDecoy
Because PoisonPen isn't assuming anything about the gender of the person she/he was talking to. And it's a lot easier to type sie and hir than she/he and his/her.
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Originally Posted by warden_de_dios
Are these pronouns used in RL at all? I had never seen them used.
I agree the English language needs some genderless pronouns. |
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Originally Posted by all_hell
I actually IS okay to use they and their in these situations.
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OOOR, it's much easier to go "I don't think of myself as sexist, so nothing I do or say can possibly be sexist in any way and anyone who thinks so is oversensitive" than sit down and examine what deeply-rooted assumptions might be hiding behind the way you communicate in any medium.
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Originally Posted by BrandX
OOOR! People are looking WAY to much into something over internet medium and really really REALLY need to get over themselves.
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[Deleted]
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Actually they/their doesen't work quite that. Either it's used of an indeterminate number (which defaults to plural grammatically) or it's used as possessive (IE: the student picked up their bag) |
Originally Posted by Blue Rabbit
OMG, if only there was a gender neutral pronoun...
Oh. |
"Hir/Sie" can be used in cases where this is not the case. "Sie picked up hir bag." If you wanted to use "They" you'd have to write around it, "They picked up their bag" would be clearly plural.
"Men strunt �r strunt och snus �r snus
om ock i gyllne dosor.
Och rosor i ett sprucket krus
�r st�ndigt alltid rosor."
The first disappointment is that the game feels like a ghost town. I will see a handful of people occasionally, but what few people are around all tend to be level 50s -- and this brings me to the part which annoys me most. The vast majority of the level 50s I've encountered seem to treat this game as just another kill-the-monster, get-the-treasure MMO where the idea is to min/max your power potential. They create stupid or boring names (some of them don't even bother to think of superhero names, they use what appears to be a name chosen randomly from a phone book), and can't be bothered to create even the most basic background. Reading through the various fora here, people seem to be interested solely in obsessing over "toons" and "shards" and "IO builds" and which "AV" slots out best and other arcane trivia. You could replace the supervillains with orcs or Imperial stormtroopers and I doubt they would even notice the difference -- or care if they did.
I tried three or four different servers, just to make sure it wasn't a local phenomenon, and I've experienced the same thing on each one. I'm not a fanatical roleplayer, but I'm frankly baffled that on a game which is supposed to be about comic books, no one seems to have any interest in comic books. It's not helped that the costume creation system appears to be geared toward awful 90s "Dark Age" comics; you can get 200 different types of ugly spiky things for your shoulders, but try getting tassles on your cape or a swashbuckling tabard or animal heads other than "snarling death monster" -- Mr. Talky Tawny is not welcome here.
The final straw for me may have been the exchange I had last night with a "50" where I sent hir a message that sie had a few typos in hir background, and helpfully provided the corrections. Sie replied that if sie wanted someone to edit hir background text sie would ask over Global, and that I was now welcomed to (and I quote) "iggy." I was taken aback by the sheer sour rudeness, and it ruined all my sense of enjoyment for the evening.
This is only my second month playing, but I'm already questioning whether I want to continue.
At various points the devs made the conscious decision to try and force super hero sensibilities, tropes and into conforming to mechanics and conventions that come largely from fantasy MMOs and PnP games. Rather than create or try and adapt mechanics and design to suit the world of a comic book, they tend to try and force comics to conform to things like the Class Trinity, loot and standard MMO mission design.
In my opinion, this has resulted in a rather curious phenomenon; a 'super hero' MMO that doesn't really attract super hero fans.
To be sure, there are comic fans who play the game. No doubt. But the lion's share of people, in my observation, are mostly here because this is a straight-forward casual friendly game that's generic enough(and has a flexible enough costume editor) to accommodate their Night Elf Mohawk or character from the Matrix Online, Vampire the Masquerade or what have you. They couldn't care less about the 'super' in "the world's most popular superpowered MMO".
It's been my first hand experience that the design of this game tends to drive away, or at least discourage, comic fans I've tried to get playing. Just off the top of my head:
-More than a couple thought not getting their travel power for 14 levels was really silly. After all, by the time Supes or Spidey put on the tights, they could already fly/jump/run respectively.
-Related to the first, I've had a lot of people tell me the game didn't allow them to flesh out their characters soon enough. What's the point of a speedster who can't run fast after all? I have to agree with this personally. There's not a lot of sets that have powers that grab you right off the bat. The first hour of gameplay is critical.
-Something extremely trivial, not being able to create a character with a cape right away. This was a deal breaker for a close friend of mine, and she wasn't about to buy one of the costume packs when I was trying to sell her on even playing the game.
-Not being able to create the kind of character they wanted. No good way to do swords + guns. Prior to custom animations, no power set for a hand to hand fighter that wasn't all flashy kicks.
That's my take on why what you're seeing happened. Watered-down, generic design and gameplay attracts generic fans. Most, but not all, of their potential players who come from a strong super hero centric view have been driven away over the years or gave up on this game a long time ago.
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