Mandatory Pool Powers

If the contact was Flower Knight, I'd make sense. Just sayin'

What BABs said was really just an explanation of why they felt comfortable to make the summoning process hint of magic so much. And I tend to agree with him in this case, as artistic inspiration tends to do a lot to make a powerset cool even if it ends up a LITTLE specific.

I actually keep running into those problems so often that I really DO want to see a dual origin, or a primary/secondary origin setup. I have an example in my own Majik - he's a scientist who, while researching technological means to protect soldiers from magical attacks, discovered a way to replicate magical spells with machines. Is he a Magic character? After all, he's using magical energy and effectively casting spells. Or is he a Technology character? After all, he's suited up in power armour and using science and technology to produce those effects. I ended up solving the problem by claiming he's using magic mostly as a power source, hence he's Technology, but I'd have gone MagiTek if that existed.

I completely agree with you on this subject. I see origins as a meta concept, an in-game mechanic that's meant to represent a much, much broader, abstract gameplay aspect by explicitly simplifying the complexities and abstractions of that concept down to five categories with the implicit agreement that what stands behind it is inherently impossible to standardise. In simpler terms, when you pick an origin, you are practically just picking a word, but you are theoretically putting your own complex, involved, unique story into the category it most closely resembles. It is inherently impossible to do anything with origins because to do that requires that you assume what players "meant" when they picked their origins. And with how broad a concept range origins cover, that is a physical impossibility, not without infringing on people's creative freedom... Which the Origin of Powers and its legacy - the Incarnate system - end up doing.

You can't base a storyline off an oversimplification of a concept for gameplay purposes. Origins have no explicit meaning. Their meaning is always implicit, requiring the context of description, costume, powerset selection and often further explanation of the thought process that made the character from the player himself/herself. This is like trying to define an in-game storyline and progression system based on a character's hair colour... When not all characters even have hair.

As far as metagame systems go, Jack Emmert's old team seemed to love to give in-story explanations for simple game changes. Unlocking capes was perhaps the first example of this, and while that was relatively positively received, I don't think it's a good idea in general. Some things should be left as meta-game elements without giving them contorted in-universe explanations. I feel the game's storyline would have been far superior if we hadn't tried to explain Powerset Proliferation by involving Dr. Brainstorm messing with the "Origins of Power."

You talk about contacts explaining why high-conning enemies' names are purple, but I have an even better example right out of the game: Contacts who talk about why a Brute who was never able to pick up an axe before is able to now because of a tear in the fabric of reality. That's almost literally the explanation we got. First of all, to ADMIT that your character are unable to pick up an axe and swing it is bad form. That's a gameplay limitation. We don't talk about it in-story. Secondly, to explain it with reality-altering experiments is just stupid and lazy.

The Origin of Powers has been a cancer on the City of Heroes storyline ever since it came out, to the point where I feel we should simply get rid of origins wholesale and just let people write whatever they want in an Origin text box.

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 agree cyclops is mutation origin, since the only "super power" he has is his laser beams, which come naturally from his mutation. He wouldn't have to live as a blind man, but would have to be directed, or live in a sunlight-free zone (when he spends time underground, his beams shut off)

As for aiming, he doesn't. The beams start from his eyeballs and would blast everything in his field of vision without his special targeting visor. The visor is tech because it allows him to target something without having to rely only on "staring at it". Don't ask me how, it's just the tech explanation. But when cyclops opens his eyes with no visor, everything in front of him gets blasted; he can only aim by turning his head. Also, it's not technically a laser, which is simply super focused light. His is kinetic energy, and the red colouring is translucent, letting him see through it at all times.

Also, he relies on super hero physics. Technically that kind of energy output would blast back on its origin (his head) with equal force. So his real power lies in his super human neck muscles I guess :P Which is part of his mutation apparently.

Err... Cyclops' origin is Mutation. Since he's y'know, a mutant.

"They're not lasers, they're punches. From the punch dimension."

And now I will forever imagine Cyclops as the Punchy the Hawaiian Punch mascot.

But I have the vet reward that lets me get the travel power without getting the pre-req...

So now I have all my primary, secondary and epic powers, and my travel power and still an extra power slot... totally unfair man...

::grumbles.:: Stupid game giving me too many damn powers ::grumbles.::

So true, so true. I'd like to be able to take Epic powers earlier as well.

I always have to take pool powers, even if only to get Flight, Tough and Weave. What I resent is having to take bull**** powers like Boxing or Kick, which I simply cannot get off my toolbar fast enough. Useless, stupid wastes of a power-pick. And no, I have better powers to put six slots on, ty.

With that said I have several characters with everything chosen out of their primaries and secondaries, with NOTHING out of any Epic pool on them.

You really don't want to get me started on that.

I earn that reward this September. I can't wait. I think I might use it on a character or two.

Not exactly, if we go by da comics. I recall a scene where Cyclops was in his 'civies', thus wearing his relatively normal looking ruby glasses. Demonstrating his power, he flips a coin high in the air, takes off his glasses momentarily (thus having no targeting tech at all) and neatly punches a small hole in the coin with his eye beams before catching it.

So, he has learned to aim and control those beams to an high extent without any outside tech - the problem he can't turn them off (besides closing his eyes)