Bored with the whole Praetoria schtick
By
Aliana Blue,
Posted on: 2011-03-22 06:12 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Only a crazed stiff-armer could claim that Tyrant's evil dictatorship was "not really all that bad" - calling mass-murder, slavery, torture and brain-washing evil isn't immature - and claiming that they're not evil isn't immature either - it's something else |
Originally Posted by NobleFox
The fact that you deciding Cole's regime is not really all that bad suddenly marks you as a villain was just another eyeroll-inducing reminder of the immature mindset.
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@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
Calvin Scott is Maximilien Robespierre. There's no doubt in my mind that he'd have his own Reign of Terror after deposing Emperor Cole. What Praetoria really needs is a George Washington.
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I clearly stated that your only choices are evil and evil. |
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
Only a crazed stiff-armer could claim that Tyrant's evil dictatorship was "not really all that bad" - calling mass-murder, slavery, torture and brain-washing evil isn't immature - and claiming that they're not evil isn't immature either - it's something else
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If you think trying to change a corrupt but semi-safe system from within is somehow worse than blowing up hospitals and telling everyone "might makes right"; then yes, you are immature. What is left if those people seized power would be worse than what was before, except louder and less safe for people who just want to go to work.
Oh, and don't forget and there's nothing the Resistance can do to keep Hamidon from making everyone dead. If Tyrant's not replaced with equal power, then all their revolution achieves was everyone's death. One way you have the chance of maybe talking Tyrant into being reasonable again.
The other way, everyone simply dies. In this choice between evil and evil, one is slightly less evil; and it's not the Resistance.
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To GG's credit she never did state that she was okay with Calvin Scott killing people in hospitals. She even has an amusing comic to that effect.
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Originally Posted by NobleFox
I clearly stated that your only choices are evil and evil.
If you think trying to change a corrupt but semi-safe system from within is somehow worse than blowing up hospitals and telling everyone "might makes right"; then yes, you are immature. What is left if those people seized power would be worse than what was before, except louder and less safe for people who just want to go to work. Oh, and don't forget and there's nothing the Resistance can do to keep Hamidon from making everyone dead. If Tyrant's not replaced with equal power, then all their revolution achieves was everyone's death. One way you have the chance of maybe talking Tyrant into being reasonable again. The other way, everyone simply dies. In this choice between evil and evil, one is slightly less evil; and it's not the Resistance. |
"Be a beacon?"
Blue Mourning: lvl. 50 Katana/DA
Bree the Barricade: lvl 50 Stone/Axe
Last Chance for Eden: lvl 50 Fire/Kin
Myra the Grey: lvl 50 Bots/Traps
1 Minute to Midnight lvl 50 Spines/DA
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Does the sonic barrier turn off if Tyrant dies?
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Originally Posted by NobleFox
Oh, and don't forget and there's nothing the Resistance can do to keep Hamidon from making everyone dead.
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@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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Why would the savior of humanity tie the continued survival of our species to his one specific life? Only a madman would do something like that! Our emperor is too kindhearted a soul to let that sort of thing happen!
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Originally Posted by Golden Girl
Does the sonic barrier turn off if Tyrant dies?
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No, but it's only a matter of time before Calvin Scott decides that the best way to show how evil Cole is would be to blow up the sonic barrier and leave a trail of kidnapped infants leading up to City Hall for Hamidon to follow.
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Originally Posted by Golden Girl
Does the sonic barrier turn off if Tyrant dies?
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I could totally see him doing that.
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Originally Posted by Jophiel
No, but it's only a matter of time before Calvin Scott decides that the best way to show how evil Cole is would be to blow up the sonic barrier and leave a trail of kidnapped infants leading up to City Hall for Hamidon to follow.
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Scott seems like the jealous Ex that is trying to get his girl back from the guy that stole her and doesn't care who gets in the way.
Scott: Cole is a wuss since he couldn't save a hospital. Dump him and come back to my place.
Mayhem: A hospital that you destroyed. My mother was in that hospital.
Scott: Um. Errr. Nice weather we are having.
Mayhem: This is the reason why I dumped you.
The first step in being sane is to admit that you are insane.
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This is pretty much what ruins the morality system for me - that they've tied so many consequences to it to the point where our choice of morality is driven more by the consequences than by our (chatacters') moral standing.|
Originally Posted by NobleFox
The fact that you deciding Cole's regime is not really all that bad suddenly marks you as a villain was just another eyeroll-inducing reminder of the immature mindset.
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It's interesting if you want to challenge the player to make tough decisions, but that's exactly the WRONG approach to make. In a game so heavily based on "alts" and with such great customization, the challenge should be aimed at the characters, with the player free to make a no-consequence choice.
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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.
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Erm. |
Originally Posted by starphoenix
Scott seems like the jealous Ex that is trying to get his girl back from the guy that stole her and doesn't care who gets in the way.
Scott: Cole is a wuss since he couldn't save a hospital. Dump him and come back to my place. Mayhem: A hospital that you destroyed. My mother was in that hospital. Scott: Um. Errr. Nice weather we are having. Mayhem: This is the reason why I dumped you. |
Okay, you know that on Primal Earth Sister Psyche was inhabiting Aurora Borealis' body for a while, right?
Well, on Praetorian Earth, the same thing happened, only Sister Psyche's original body died and she refuses to give Aurora's back now.
Mother Mayhem is not actually his wife. Mother Mayhem is the mind that stole his wife's body. I gathered from the backstory that he didn't start blowing stuff up until that happened.
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
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Like I said, I'm just playing a game. My nicey-nice characters work Warden/Responsibility. My mean ones work Crusader/Power. I don't feel bad as a player about feeding PPD to ghouls or Seer bombs. And, ultimately, every path leads to the same portal to Primal Earth anyway so there's no consequence except in your mind.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
It's interesting if you want to challenge the player to make tough decisions, but that's exactly the WRONG approach to make. In a game so heavily based on "alts" and with such great customization, the challenge should be aimed at the characters, with the player free to make a no-consequence choice.
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I STILL haven't experienced all the arcs in Praetoria, but it seems that the devs may have been trying to MAKE you come to pretty much that conclusion-- that NEITHER side in this conflict deserves the allegiance of a "GOOD" character. Even within the Warden arc, there are moral choices where the best "good" path lies in taking the one that leads you back to loyalist... and in the "Responsibility" arcs, many... if not most... would send you betraying the loyalist agenda. |
Originally Posted by NobleFox
I got bored with Praetoria the instant I realized it wasn't at all shades of grey, it was semi-safe evil vs not even remotely safe evil posing as good. The Resistance is willing to unleash ghouls and kill innocent people just to "prove" Cole is not a "god", and Cole acts like a maniacal supervillain who couldn't possibly have made the society he did. I got to around level 12 before I said to my friends "Cole needs to be stopped, but not like that, not by them" and proceeded to be loyalist for a few more missions and then just started begging for groups so I could get to level 20 and get out of that snoozefest.
The fact that you deciding Cole's regime is not really all that bad suddenly marks you as a villain was just another eyeroll-inducing reminder of the immature mindset. I got tired of the whole "anarchy good authority bad" message in college; there's no complexity or depth to Praetoria. It's all style over substance and I simply sigh and pretend my Incarnate powers are coming from something else. |
I've been focusing on going through the 4 factions arcs as full linear paths just so I don't miss anything, but once I'm done, I'll probably experiment and see where a character would go if he fully rejected the " little evil now for the greater good in the future" mentality that plagues both sides.
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This. Sorry to have to emphasize the criticism, but this purty much outlines my feelings on all of this Praetorian stuff. Sure, at first, it was a cool 'side' issue---but no longer.|
Originally Posted by Venture
Yeah, as it turns out, stories that are centered around one of the most trite, cliched, overdone hackneyed plot devices in history actually aren't all that interesting in the long term. Go figure.
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Orders of magnitude of dislike, here.
Cal
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And this reaction is precisely why that design is wrong. In order for morality to be grey, you need to present the player with a non-trivial choice. Not "if I want to be good, I go where the good guys are." That's a problem, not a choice.|
Originally Posted by Jophiel
Like I said, I'm just playing a game. My nicey-nice characters work Warden/Responsibility.
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Again - even for lack of the appropriate tech, City of Villains still got moral choices right in spirit way back when. You are told to either kidnap an innocent school teacher and have her tortured and "broken," or you can sit on your hands and let her escape. Period. Why? I don't know. Why DID you choose whatever it was you chose? The game doesn't know, and the game doesn't care, because the game isn't going to hold your hand and tell you which choice means what. You decide whether what you did was good or bad, and you decide why you did it.
Dividing Praetoria's morality into clearly-defined factions was a mistake at inception. Nothing good ever comes out of binary conflict. And while the developers may or may not have tried to present each faction as more good or less evil, you still end up with clear labels of who is good and who is bad. "The Resistance" may not be good or bad, but the Wardens are good and the Crusaders are bad, which is still not grey.
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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.
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Ehh, in my experience the closest you can get to a good option is to play contrarian -- following a given faction through its arc and then betraying or disobeying when the game allows you to do so.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
And this reaction is precisely why that design is wrong. In order for morality to be grey, you need to present the player with a non-trivial choice. Not "if I want to be good, I go where the good guys are." That's a problem, not a choice.
[snip for brevity] Dividing Praetoria's morality into clearly-defined factions was a mistake at inception. Nothing good ever comes out of binary conflict. And while the developers may or may not have tried to present each faction as more good or less evil, you still end up with clear labels of who is good and who is bad. "The Resistance" may not be good or bad, but the Wardens are good and the Crusaders are bad, which is still not grey. |
All of the factions are morally problematic. Praetoria is shades of black.
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Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze
Nice build
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I do, however, think that the shades of grey happen at the more naunced of the two factions. Power Loyalists and Resistance Crusaders are both fairly selfish/bad people. The moral choices provided in them are given in those terms. However, the Warden and Responsibility paths are the ones that the moral choices are usually real choices. The bad guys in those arcs are usually likable, or at least understandable. The syndicate in the IC Responsibility arc has more honor among each other than anyone except maybe Kang during that whole arc. I thought it was a great choice at the end. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but the interesting questions take place then and not at the more extreme positions.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
And this reaction is precisely why that design is wrong. In order for morality to be grey, you need to present the player with a non-trivial choice. Not "if I want to be good, I go where the good guys are." That's a problem, not a choice.
Again - even for lack of the appropriate tech, City of Villains still got moral choices right in spirit way back when. You are told to either kidnap an innocent school teacher and have her tortured and "broken," or you can sit on your hands and let her escape. Period. Why? I don't know. Why DID you choose whatever it was you chose? The game doesn't know, and the game doesn't care, because the game isn't going to hold your hand and tell you which choice means what. You decide whether what you did was good or bad, and you decide why you did it. Dividing Praetoria's morality into clearly-defined factions was a mistake at inception. Nothing good ever comes out of binary conflict. And while the developers may or may not have tried to present each faction as more good or less evil, you still end up with clear labels of who is good and who is bad. "The Resistance" may not be good or bad, but the Wardens are good and the Crusaders are bad, which is still not grey. |
"Be a beacon?"
Blue Mourning: lvl. 50 Katana/DA
Bree the Barricade: lvl 50 Stone/Axe
Last Chance for Eden: lvl 50 Fire/Kin
Myra the Grey: lvl 50 Bots/Traps
1 Minute to Midnight lvl 50 Spines/DA
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Nope. I'm right there with ya.
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Originally Posted by SpyralPegacyon
And am I the only one around who hasn't rolled a Praetorian who couldn't escape Tyrant fast enough? Even my duty-bound police officer loyalist said 'what the heck am I doing' after Mother Mayhem's arc.
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Doesn't really have to. We don't have any serious proof it stops anything except civilians from leaving the city. (Actually civvies walk through it just fine. It only stops us metahumans.) If Cole goes down, I expect Praetorian Hamidon to erupt our of whatever hole it has been kept in, and roll over the city like an urban remake of Destroy All Monsters.
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Originally Posted by Golden Girl
Does the sonic barrier turn off if Tyrant dies?
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What I'm saying is that those choices would feel poignant if they didn't come with consequences attached. When you put specific consequences to specific choices, the player then picks which consequence they want and only then works back which action to take. A friend of mine recently complained about a choice in Dragon Age 2. You're given a choice between two options, but one option results in a member of your party being horribly executed. This is not a choice between right and wrong, faction 1 or faction 2, it's a choice between "Do I want to let my party member die or not?" This is no longer a lore-relevant moral choice, because it doesn't concern the character's morality so much as the character's pragmatism.
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Originally Posted by Blue_Mourning
I do, however, think that the shades of grey happen at the more naunced of the two factions. Power Loyalists and Resistance Crusaders are both fairly selfish/bad people. The moral choices provided in them are given in those terms. However, the Warden and Responsibility paths are the ones that the moral choices are usually real choices. The bad guys in those arcs are usually likable, or at least understandable. The syndicate in the IC Responsibility arc has more honor among each other than anyone except maybe Kang during that whole arc. I thought it was a great choice at the end. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but the interesting questions take place then and not at the more extreme positions.
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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.
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So then do you just divorce choice from consequence? Choice without consequence feels hollow and absolutely useless. Knowing the outcome and making the decision based on outcome isn't making a true choice, but that's up to the player and not the maker of the game.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
What I'm saying is that those choices would feel poignant if they didn't come with consequences attached. When you put specific consequences to specific choices, the player then picks which consequence they want and only then works back which action to take. A friend of mine recently complained about a choice in Dragon Age 2. You're given a choice between two options, but one option results in a member of your party being horribly executed. This is not a choice between right and wrong, faction 1 or faction 2, it's a choice between "Do I want to let my party member die or not?" This is no longer a lore-relevant moral choice, because it doesn't concern the character's morality so much as the character's pragmatism.
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For me completely divorcing moral choice from tangible outcomes makes absolutely no kind of sense whatsoever. And to your friend in DA2, I would make the arguement that they should have to live with the consequences of their actions. Otherwise why make the decision in the first place?
"Be a beacon?"
Blue Mourning: lvl. 50 Katana/DA
Bree the Barricade: lvl 50 Stone/Axe
Last Chance for Eden: lvl 50 Fire/Kin
Myra the Grey: lvl 50 Bots/Traps
1 Minute to Midnight lvl 50 Spines/DA
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I refuse to show my Moff in public!
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Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
Would really like to step up the quality of these pieces, someday. Maybe get the Grand Moff Hickman himself in to fix it...  |
Troy Hickman - So proud to have contributed to and played in this wonderful CoH universe
I like the Praetorian War and I think the devs are brave to pursue it to its logical conclusion. Besides, they had to tie Incarnates to Going Rogue securely enough to justify making it part of the expansion as opposed to making it free content. Making all the Incarnate stuff so far be related to Praetoria only makes business sense.
But I'm thinking they will tie it up in issue 21, hopefully with something satisfyingly epic. One thing seems certain - there will be non-Praetorian things for Incarnates eventually.
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That's not what the tabloids say! |
Originally Posted by TroyHickman
I refuse to show my Moff in public!
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I hear there's a bidding war on the pics too, the lowest bidder is being forced to print them.
I got bored with Praetoria the instant I realized it wasn't at all shades of grey, it was semi-safe evil vs not even remotely safe evil posing as good. The Resistance is willing to unleash ghouls and kill innocent people just to "prove" Cole is not a "god", and Cole acts like a maniacal supervillain who couldn't possibly have made the society he did. I got to around level 12 before I said to my friends "Cole needs to be stopped, but not like that, not by them" and proceeded to be loyalist for a few more missions and then just started begging for groups so I could get to level 20 and get out of that snoozefest.
The fact that you deciding Cole's regime is not really all that bad suddenly marks you as a villain was just another eyeroll-inducing reminder of the immature mindset. I got tired of the whole "anarchy good authority bad" message in college; there's no complexity or depth to Praetoria. It's all style over substance and I simply sigh and pretend my Incarnate powers are coming from something else.