I think I know what bothers me about Tip writing

It's a lot of text, so please bear with me. I'll colour the corrections in yellow and give explanation for why I've made them where it isn't obvious. I may not resist and change grammar here and there, but I'll do my best to stick to the original text as close as I can. Here goes:

Every time it seems like Arachnos can't possibly sink any lower, they pull something like this. The heartless Westin Phipps really does show just how cutthroat they are. If Arachnos think this act will distract everyone _ from there kidnappings, they have another thing coming _. Someone needs to rescue Amanda Vines and the other captives, (people-people redundancy) who truthfully stand for the people.

However (word order and punctuation), Westin Phipps just might be the most evil man in all the Rogue Isles, purposefully earning the trust of the people _ (Isles-Isles redundancy), only to betray them. Just the thought of what he does is utterly disgusting. Phipps (man-man redundancy) has never truly paid for all the people he has betrayed (he-his-his redundancy). It's time for that to change - today.

Hero:

It looks like Arachnos will (simple tense instead of continuous) use every trick in the book to keep the people of the Isles oppressed and under their control - even going as far as to trick people into believing (this was a complete mess) in their pawn, Westin Phipps. If the people lose any more figures like Amanda Vines from WPSDR, those (people-people-people-people redundancy) who are truly looking out for them, all they'll have left is this puppet of Arachnos.

You need to make sure the people of the Rogue Isles still have someone they can trust! (that's actually pretty good)

You'll need to make use of one of the helicopters in Independence Port to get yourself into the Isles - then it's a matter of following the clues to find out where the captives (still more people redundancy) are being kept!

Vigilante

Westin Phipps is a man who goes beyond the very term 'evil'. His sick heart knows only pleasure from the suffering of others. He's probably even enjoying the beating _ (give-give redundancy), if only because it will give him even more opportunities to exploit others.

You should storm into the base where he's being held and give Phipps what he deserves (typo in the source text) - a beating that will last him a lifetime.

Even if it's caught on tape for all of the Isles to see... who cares? Phipps will live life looking over his shoulder, afraid that you're waiting for the chance to beat him to a pulp again and again.

You should snag a ride on board a helicopter and head off to the Rogue Isles. Phipps will never expect you. (He'll know what hit him. That's the point!)

*edit*
Let this be a lesson to you folks - if you ask me for feedback on your Architect arc, that's what I'll do to it

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 may be wrong, but I don't believe the "his" in this sentence was redundant. By removing it you're basically saying he has to pay for all crimes, not just ones he committed.

When I say "redundant," I don't mean that it serves no purpose but rather that it drags to repeat the same word multiple times in the same sentence. I'll review that bit to see if I can't come up with something better. That's what happens when I don't have an editor to proof-read my work

*edit*
I ended up touching a little more of the sentences, probably more than I should have, but it should make more sense now.

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.

Wasn't attempting a rewrite or to wow and astonish. Simply showing how the change of a few words could be less abrasive. Thank you, though.

Anyhoo, I'm out...

Hope this thread doesn't turn into a flame-war.

PEACE!

Speaking for myself, my animosity for Venture - and, as of late, you as well - does not stem from the fact that you are critical. I have no problem with people who have a high bar for what they find enjoyable, although I feel that having less exacting standards does make life a lot more amusing. What irritates me is that of late, neither of you can phrase your objections to what you find distasteful in a way that does not also implicitly insult everyone who doesn't find it all that bad. There is a world of difference between "I don't like this" and "This is objectively stupid and wrong," because, as I believe has already been pointed out, the latter implies that anyone who disagrees with you and finds it enjoyable or tolerable must therefore also be stupid and wrong. There are lots of occasions where I will say the former. The latter is a much stronger claim and I would not state it in any matter of taste, as it turns the debate from a disagreement over preference into a defense of one's own discernment.

You can claim I'm misquoting or misrepresenting you, but if that's not the impression you wanted to convey, then you failed to convey your sentiments effectively, at least to me.

Ironically, I actually agree with you and Venture on the substance of the issue. The game's writers lean heavily on second-person narration, it's been an ongoing complaint for years, and it's not difficult to avoid. But I've reached an understanding with them, and I think a lot of other players have as well: if they don't care enough to write well, then I don't care enough to read.

No, you're not misquoting me, that is how I come off. In my case, it's because I've been ragging on those issues very much since I6 came out and the Villain content ended up being largely insulting to any character concept that wanted to have a shred of dignity at the end of the day. My beef is that the narrative keeps getting worse and worse and no-one seems to care. We're inclined to let this slide and look past that problem and ignore that inconsistency and on and on and on. WE are to blame for the state of writing in general, because not only do we put up with it (what choice do we have?), but we do so quietly without so much as a whisper. Occasionally someone comes out and badmouths the writing, to the tune of a bunch of people reply with, effectively "Yeah? So what?"

A poster here once said that the developers gave us the Architect expecting that we'll show them the kind of great stories we wanted to see in the game. Well, we sure showed them! We showed them that we don't care about plot, story or writing. We showed them that if we were given the chance to farm for crap until we died of old age, we would. We showed them that they could fire all their writers and half-*** all their future storyline content and we wouldn't care, because we would keep grinding for them shinies and we would not give a crap about all that text we skip past anyway.

Venture's managed to turn himself into a pariah that people have taken to dismissing even when he's right, and I have nothing but sympathy for the guy. But sometimes it feels like he and I and a couple of other people are the only ones left who actually care about the quality of the game's writing, and that bothers me. It bothers me because it's pretty simple for a casual observer to see one of these threads and go "Huh... What is that idiot blathering on about? It's clear no-one cares about his pet peeves!" and keep churning out mediocre storylines because those don't require any actual artistic effort, and... Well, people don't care about stories anyway.

I don't want to stamp on anyone's taste or preference for story or narrative. To each his own. What I DO want to stamp out is this culture of "don't know, don't care." OF COURSE we'll never get good storylines if we don't care about story to begin with. Why would a development team waste time and money on something that people will just ignore anyway? I want to show that we still care. I want to show that we still want decent content. I want to show that we do see the declining quality of storytelling and aren't just looking the other way in disinterest.

And, yes, I even do want to put the writers who write the kind of dreck (yes, dreck) to shame and make them realise that they can do better. They can do better, because they HAVE done better. And not six or seven years ago. Even now, from time to time, we get a piece of writing which seems positively inspired, so I KNOW they can do better. AND THEY SHOULD!

---

I've tried to keep this thread in particular as clear of specific bias and criticism as I could. I've even tried to look past the merit of second-person narrative in itself by phrasing my concerns as to how appropriate it is and what its effects are. I apologise if I've come off as offensive. I just really like the good bits of City of Heroes, and I fully believe that the game deserves better. I fully believe the game CAN get better.

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.

Exactly. That's effective communication. Thus endeth the lesson.

I did this in a similar thread some months ago and got mocked for my trouble by trolls who are fine with low-grade writing.

One that I changed was something like, "You crack your knuckles and slick back your hair. Time to be the bad guy." No I don't and no I'm not. I'm a robot without knuckles or hair. Plus, I'm not a villain, I'm a rogue who is forced into doing this. So I changed it to, "They asked for a fight and it's time to deliver. This is going to be hard on the scenery." It captures the same irreverent tenor without hijacking your own personal motivation or describing your character.

As for SpittingTrashcan's contention that Sam's tone makes it seem like he's insulting everyone who disagrees with him, well... sometimes things *are* objectively wrong, even in art, including literature and game writing. The lazy over-reliance on telling us how we think in some missions is just dumb, and people who excuse it do come across as lackadaisical in their approach to entertainment. That outlook is why we have so much bottom-of-the-barrel junk on TV and in cinema: people don't demand better, so they get worse.

The writers here have done better -- we've all seen it. I think most of us who are asking for changes going forward just want the top-drawer stuff. And it's not like it's crushingly difficult to swap out motivations for facts and leave out the character details which may or may not fit the character.

Normally I'd disagree with this approach, but considering there are a grand total of 10 Tip missions per level range (or thereabout) and you need 10 to get an alignment mission and at least two alignment missions before you can earn a single Hero Merit, yeah, I've been skipping past a few briefings, at least the third time they show up.

I will say one thing, though - there are quite a few interesting, well-written tip missions, and not all of them actually assume or mandate. Take this one I just got right now, for instance - The Unstable Trigger:

Perfect! Really, that's all that needs to be said. The mission presents you with a moral choice and explains what you're supposed to do and why that's desirable, but at no point assumes to tell you why you want to do things that way. "This is what things are, these are the consequences, this is what you need to do. Are you a bad enough dude to save the president?" Simple, direct and effective. I couldn't ask for more.

Oh, sure, the mission's actual plot is a bit of a mess, but I can forgive that as long as the mission is well-written, and this one is. This is what I'm talking about. This is a respectful mission which manages to handle morality without foisting morality onto our established concepts and gives us paths without telling us why we're picking them. I couldn't be happier. Not by much, anyway.

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.

Was this written by a Rikti spy? I find typos or spelling or usage errors or mangled sentence structure like this in a lot of newer writing. When I first did a Lambda run on test, there was a typo in one of the giant in-your-face pop-ups...how does this not get caught?

And another thing, why is it so crucial that we stop to talk to Maelstrom? We're on at least the third iteration of this particular tip mission, all to make that conversation work properly...and it still can bug out, last I checked. In the time they've spent fixing this mission so we can essentially have Maelstrom call us stupid right before we beat the tar out of him, they probably could have created another tip mission.

I'll agree with you on the briefing though Sam. It's informative without infringing on anything.

This is his purpose in life - a signature character so feeble that you hardly notice he's any tougher than a normal minion
He's been described as "a badass with two pistols" - and that's correct, except that the word order is slightly wrong

What if my character is a precise ninja assassin Stalker who prizes taking people out without collateral damage? What if my character's an unthinking killing machine who doesn't care that the enemies called him out, but is just attacking the nearest target? Really, in order to make the text never clash with character concept, it would have to be so vague as to be pointless. Anything less generic than some variation of "There are armed individuals inside of this structure, some number of which you will fight soon" is going to conflict with somebody's character concept. The real debate is over just where that line should be drawn.

Not necessarily. It's fairly easy to not make briefings clash with a character's concept simply by avoiding assuming motivations and preferences. Simply tell the player what needs to be done, give the player the possible options and let the player decide which option his or her character would take and why said character would take it. You don't have to assume a character would HATE HATE HATE Westin Phipps in order to send said character to beat him into tar at the expense of the lives of a few hostages.

My character could have chosen to beat Westin Phipps into a pulp because Westin isn't doing a good enough job pacifying the people of the Rogue Isles, where "order" is more important than "freedom" for said hero. Or maybe my character is just a violent jerk who signed up for a hero license because it allows him to set people on fire for jaywalking. If you don't try to assume why a character is doing a particular task, then you allow for a far broader range of possible motivations why actually having to account for even fewer than that.

What City of Heroes writers need to get comfortable with is trusting people to fill in the blanks and forward the stories of their own characters. The official writers don't need to write for us. Instead, they need to present us with an environment which encourages us to write for ourselves. Such an environment would PROMPT you for personal input, rather than overriding your input and substituting its own.

In simple terms - let the narrative tell the story and let us figure out our own attachment to it. You don't need to do more work to give us less freedom. It's not necessary.

This is something I caught pretty much two sentences into Roy Cooling's arc the first time I played it. However, not being a native speaker, I try not to ***** about awkward grammar and curious sentence structure and word order. Chances are "some people just talk like that" and I haven't heard it, and that's just not an argument I want to start, since I'm badly unprepared for it.

Suffice it to say, however, that there appears to be a new hand writing a lot of the newer post I19 content, who has a... Different take on word order than much of the rest of the game, especially when it comes to splitting infinitives. It's distinct enough that you can spot his or her hand in pretty much any stretch of text that this writer has had a hand in. This sort of thing kind of bugs me, because you're not surprised to see the man behind the curtain. Characters are supposed to come off as their own people, not as all being the puppets of one fairly opaque puppeteer behind the scenes.

Granted, I'm horrible cynic and an overanaliser, so I'm likely to spot these trends much more often than a casual observer may. But even if I squint and look at it sideways... This is still pretty obvious. Kind of like the "want to" epidemic in I11 writing. It's... More visible than it should be.

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 *slightly* more than ten per level range, I know this because you don't get every mission every rotation. It's something in the order of 12 or something though (Not counting the Vigilante>Villain and Rogue>Hero missions)

Yeah, it's probably not quite ten, but there aren't many. I know I always end up repeating Tips on the way to even just one Morality Mission, definitely repeating at two. That's not to say Paper/Scanner missions don't repeat - they do - and they are of a VASTLY lower quality, so I definitely have to give props to that. But no matter how much I like Tip missions, the fact remains that I stop reading them LONG before I get my second Hero Merit for the BotZ Knockback Protection thing.

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.

A contact using poor grammar is justified if it's in-character for the contact to do so. Roy Cooling maybe not so much, since he's important, and therefore presumably reasonably educated. I would expect some mangled grammar from someone like Dean McArthur, and that's perfectly fine; it's even a good thing.

Tip missions don't come from a contact though. They come from a "disembodied narrator," and as such should be grammatically correct. And whatever the source, there is no excuse for numerous spelling errors making it to the live servers.

That would be repetitive rather then redundant.

Did I mention English is not my first language?

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 lol'd at this. Sam, you've made my morning.

All the rest of the stuff you said about origins is exactly how I think as well... using the example of the Destroyer bomb, not every Natural character is as quick as Batman, but then again, if yours is less Batman and more, say, Armstrong from FMA*, you can always go the old fashioned way like a non-natural-or-tech character if you feel like roleplaying. I'm kinda snickering though about how as a Science-origin character, Synapse himself couldn't take the "quick enough to yank out both wires" route. Tee hee.

*Disclaimer: I don't actually watch FMA, so I have no idea how fast Armstrong actually is



EDIT: And to throw my hat into the game-writing-breaking-my-character ring, my blueside Widow, an escaped experiment who isn't even a licensed hero, avoids red tape, checkpoints, and all that by means of psychically making people ignore her - but still, the Vanguard security officer calls her over to check those credentials she doesn't have. Herp. No real point, just think it's a little bit funny.

The Vanguard security officer calls her over to check credentials she doesn't even need anymore, since they'll let anyone in. And what happens when the Rikti invade right in front of him? He stands there, asking to check people's credentials. Bureaucrats.

I suggest you check that.

I know! You'd think he wasn't part of an organization dedicated to fighting them at all!

To be honest, these guys have always bugged me. They're like contact introduction missions that take you to faraway zones you had no intention of visiting anyway, only slightly less obtrusive. It's twice as needless since you don't actually need to speak with him to enter. He's like some kind of attention-seeking mall cop who yells at people for loitering just for the sake of justifying his pay check, all the while people completely ignore him and mock him behind his back.

I don't remember if the Vanguard DOORMAN ever held useful information, but I see no reason why that information can't be put in a more prominent place, like in a contact's introductory mission or an obvious console somewhere. Just as long as it's something that either I have to go seek out, or that calls out to people in general without specifically calling ME out.

Though I must admit these guys occasionally highlight some remarkably stupid names that I normally just scan out of my brain. Like:

or

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.