Is the currently published back story adequate?
By
Ad Astra,
Posted on: 2011-07-14 15:07 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Maybe in issue #1. It's been progressively less true in every issue since.
| The REASON that CoH's storyline is so scarce is, when it plays out in the course of a story arc it makes you feel like you're actually important in this world. |
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What is wrong with Frostfire's background?
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Originally Posted by SlickRiptide
If the lack of lore (or lore organization) isn't convincing, then consider examples such as this: http://www.cityofheroes.com/game_inf..._outcasts.html
What does that say about how management feels about the lore of the game? |
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That is an extremely oblique reference that most wouldn't even get.|
Originally Posted by Zombie Man
Bottle of Wine From the 'Three Sisters' winery. The tag says 'From Marcus'.
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One of the reasons I'm disappointed in the Incarnate content is that it doesn't present the kind of scope of being an Incarnate that the novels and comics suggested.
In the comics and novels, Hades is an actual place you (well Statesman at least) can go. The Furies, the stuff in the comic with Prometheus, all points to this vast plane of existence of gods and such that we as Incarnates still don't see or even glimpse.
We're unceremoniously 'inducted' into being an Incarnate and whop-de-doo, we get to hang out with Prometheus in Ouroboros of all places and he talks down to us. We've yet to meet any pantheons of elder beings or get to step outside of Earthly bounds. It's just "well, there's the Well and it's a jerk. Go concern yourself with fighting robots in Praetoria."
If there is a world of gods and demigods, as Incarnates we're certainly not them and we're very much looking in from the outside with a grouchy blue has-been who wont even be straight with us.
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Half of the graphics on that page are broken, including the main one that should be a picture of Frostfire himself.
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Originally Posted by StratoNexus
What is wrong with Frostfire's background?
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Your overall thesis is good, SlickRiptide. Your posts are typically thoughtful and once again, I am in the "What he said" camp.|
Originally Posted by SlickRiptide
I won't even get into the whole Dark Astoria mess. If you think Ms. Liberty's name was a problem then don't even try to figure out the history of Astoria. Heck, take a stab at trying to figure out just when "Spanky" Rabinowitz was the mayor of Paragon City.
For that matter, what actually happened to Baumton? Can you say what sort of "accident" occurred there? Whatever you think it is that happened to Boomtown, how can you prove it to someone who asks where to find its backstory? Think it's a matter of directing them to the website? Go find the Geography section of the website and then read the Boomtown section and come back and tell me what you learned. |
There is a reason that so many folks want to join the Green Lantern Corps: there is a backstory and an ethos with which they identify. (I cannot say how many folks just got tired of the endless retcons and Hal Jordan insanities/murders and just quit following it as I did, but I digress.) Likewise, many, many players have particular villain groups that they consider arch-enemies because of their backstories. The Circle of Thorns is not just a pack of glowie-eyed robed dudes, they kidnap and murder children in the service of Hell. They were initially thwarted by the Dream Doctor and the Midnight Squad, but lately they are back to their body-snatching ways to the point of snagging anyone they can grab.
It is irksome when there are backstory conflicts or glaring omissions. Your example of Dark Astoria is one of the most obvious.
As far as I knew. Baumtown was devastated in the first Rikti war, and a number of my characters hail from there... their desire to help being fueled in a major part by being witness to the wholesale slaughter that went on there. As far as I knew, the "accident" was in Sirens Call. I have not had a chance to look where you indicated, but it will be a bummer if the Baumtown story is all over the park as well.
Good stories and lore are an inspiration to run certain arcs. Bad lore is a turn-off. The utter silliness about the Well is severely taxing...
"How do you know you are on the side of good?" a Paragon citizen asked him. "How can we even know what is 'good'?"
"The Most High has spoken, even with His own blood," Melancton replied. "Surely we know."
I'm torn between wanting more lore and the fear that such lore will be as unutterably stupid as the Origin of Power arc and the official story of Architect Entertainment. Stuff that I'll just end up having to ignore anyway, for the sake of my suspension of disbelief and/or sanity.
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Faces of the City
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Unfortunately, the problem is not that it's all over the place. The problem is that it doesn't exist. There isn't any Boomtown backgrounder. Was it destroyed in the first hours of the War, when Statesman was rather foolishly crashing mother ships into the city? Was it leveled as part of the offensive against The Freedom Phalanx and the other super teams? Something else entirely? |
Originally Posted by Melancton
I have not had a chance to look where you indicated, but it will be a bummer if the Baumtown story is all over the park as well.
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Who knows? After seven years, you'd think that someone ought to be able to answer that question, wouldn't you?
If you're wondering "why does it even matter?" -- Ms. Liberty and Back Alley Brawler are commemorated for saving lives from the Rikti here. If it was "opening day" then there's a potential problem, in that Ms. Liberty was also getting her butt kicked over in Woodvale (i.e, Eden) where the plaque commemorating Galaxy Girl's death is located. (Personally, I think that plaque is in the wrong part of town but I don't get to unilaterally decide that except in my own fan fiction.)
Since the Freedom Phalanx HQ was here, then it might have happened later when the Rikti "lost 10,000 toops" assaulting every hero HQ they could find and then did it again and again in the following days.
The problem: there's no way to know from the available sources just what the real story is.
It's all the more frustrating because, between the Overview and a couple of the exploration badges, it's clear that there IS a background here to be told. It's just that nobody had bothered to tell it.
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The Furies will get more of a mention in First Ward |
Originally Posted by Johnny_Butane
That is an extremely oblique reference that most wouldn't even get.
One of the reasons I'm disappointed in the Incarnate content is that it doesn't present the kind of scope of being an Incarnate that the novels and comics suggested. In the comics and novels, Hades is an actual place you (well Statesman at least) can go. The Furies, the stuff in the comic with Prometheus, all points to this vast plane of existence of gods and such that we as Incarnates still don't see or even glimpse. We're unceremoniously 'inducted' into being an Incarnate and whop-de-doo, we get to hang out with Prometheus in Ouroboros of all places and he talks down to us. We've yet to meet any pantheons of elder beings or get to step outside of Earthly bounds. It's just "well, there's the Well and it's a jerk. Go concern yourself with fighting robots in Praetoria." If there is a world of gods and demigods, as Incarnates we're certainly not them and we're very much looking in from the outside with a grouchy blue has-been who wont even be straight with us. |
Plus, defeating Tyrant and the loyalists is just the first stage of the Incarnate path - you can't expect to meet gods right away
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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And it's also foreshadowing the Coming Storm part of the Incarnate content, which is a great way of tying in the sub-50 expereince with the post-50 one, so that running into the Shivans and their friends again once you're an Incarnate will have more emotional weight to it because you'll have already encountered them and the destruction they can cause when you were level 1.|
Originally Posted by Zombie Man
Well, the whole tutorial and beginning zone arcs are being re-written, so, we'll see how the Devs do telling the story that newbies need to know.
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I'm also hoping they add some Praetorian fireshadoing to the new sub-20 training missions, so make the path to facing Tyrant and the loyalists in the Incarnate content start way earlier than the Admiral Sutter TF at 20, or the Maria Jenkins arc at 45 - although First Ward as a 20-25 zone will help to introduce the Praetorian threat much earlier that the PI arcs.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
I much prefer the old "to be continued?" approach than the new "wrap everything up in a five-mission arc" approach. It left openings for expansion. New content could build on existing lore instead of feeling tacked on. Writers had something to go on rather than pulling stuff out of their butts. It let our characters feel like, even after we had prevented an interdimensional invasion, stopped a global conspiracy and screwed over a demon prince, there were still more and bigger threats out there, some of which we didn't understand and some of which we couldn't fight yet. It gave the game world more depth.
The new "wrap it all up" approach is even more jarring when older lore is dusted off and subjected to the "done in five missions" treatment....and even more so when said explanations that really should be end-game content is shoe-horned into the 20-30 level range. I'm not holding my breath that the new low-level stuff will be any better. The old content, for all its faults, did a good job of tying leveling up to the game's lore. You start off fighting crummy street gangs, then move on to fighting their bosses, then move on to fighting their bosses' bosses. You don't stop the underground magical artifact trade by level 20, you just move up to the next rung in the ladder. And that's why Praetoria feels so utterly shallow. There is literally nothing more to explore. First Ward is just going to be a tacked on zone, not a logical progression of the story, because that story has nowhere to go.
And really, the current quality of the writing is only suited for monster-of-the-week arcs that have nothing to do with anything. World-building doesn't seem to be a dev priority these days. Pretty zones and cute gimmicks and "this person sacrificed themselves for the greater good, feel sad dammit!" arcs don't help to build a persistent and immersive world, but they sure are shiny, aren't they? If that's going to be the dev team's approach to attracting and retaining players, they might as well stick to what they're good at and stop pretending to be good at things they're not.
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There are still some secrets and surprises in Praetoria - and what's going on in First Ward is something that will affect the entire multiverse |
Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
And that's why Praetoria feels so utterly shallow. There is literally nothing more to explore. First Ward is just going to be a tacked on zone, not a logical progression of the story, because that story has nowhere to go.
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@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
Please tell me you're not hinting at stuff that's still under NDA.
No, on second thought, say it again. Louder. Into this microphone.
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Faces of the City
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That great and all, and if they were getting more of a mention in Incarnate content instead of 20-25 Praetoria content, I'd care more.|
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
The Furies will get more of a mention in First Ward
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But by this point they need far more than a mention.
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Plus, defeating Tyrant and the loyalists is just the first stage of the Incarnate path - you can't expect to meet gods right away
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The fact of the matter is, I don't want this game to be any more about Praetoria than it is about the Rikti. Or the 5th Column. Or the Skulls. I don't like that the Incarnate content revolves around Praetoria and that the big P has wormed it's way into every other facet of the game for the past year. i21 may be titled 'Convergence', but to me it's more of an ham handed 'Intrusion'.
In the devs' minds they may see this as some grand coalescence of threads they've been carefully been laying. To my eyes it looks more like they've been floundering for several years about the Coming Storm and are mashing Praetoria in all it's retcon'ed "glory" into it at the last minute and claiming they planned it all along.
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Gotta say I agree. Especially now that it'll no longer be the new player experience and I expect it to turn into a ghost town.|
Originally Posted by Johnny_Butane
The fact of the matter is, I don't want this game to be any more about Praetoria than it is about the Rikti. Or the 5th Column. Or the Skulls. I don't like that the Incarnate content revolves around Praetoria and that the big P has wormed it's way into every other facet of the game for the past year.
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--NT
They all laughed at me when I said I wanted to be a comedian.
But I showed them, and nobody's laughing at me now!
If I became a red name, I would be all "and what would you mere mortals like to entertain me with today, mu hu ha ha ha!" ~Arcanaville
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This pretty much sums up my feelings as well. Whoever is writing the lore over there now needs to stop.| I'm torn between wanting more lore and the fear that such lore will be as unutterably stupid as the Origin of Power arc and the official story of Architect Entertainment. Stuff that I'll just end up having to ignore anyway, for the sake of my suspension of disbelief and/or sanity. |
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| The Furies will get more of a mention in First Ward |
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| In the devs' minds they may see this as some grand coalescence of threads they've been carefully been laying. To my eyes it looks more like they've been floundering for several years about the Coming Storm and are mashing Praetoria in all it's retcon'ed "glory" into it at the last minute and claiming they planned it all along. |
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
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Isn't this the same thing they did with the Arachnos previously? Like COV came out and all of a sudden it's all an arachnos plot (when it's always a nemesis plot)|
Originally Posted by NuclearToast
Gotta say I agree. Especially now that it'll no longer be the new player experience and I expect it to turn into a ghost town.
--NT |
Btw, what happened to Nemesis?
By the catapillars hooka you WILL smile!
It seems that my understanding of what happened to Baumton was formulated by reading synopses like the Wiki. Indeed, the badge located at the old Freedom Phalanx HQ refers to an "accident."
I searched Baumton Boomtown Paragon Rikti and the web pages that came up were not official CoH. I had thought I had read official CoH prose about Baumton, but unless things are missing (and is the City Scoop canon if written by a Dev?) that were once available, then Baumton is simply a mystery.
I did come across a couple of interesting things, though.
Is this a "newer" badge?
>>>"Baumton Avenger" Badge
No one who lived through the Rikti Invasion of Baumton will ever forget it. For many this was a personal violation. They saw their homes, their lives, and those that they cared about laid to waste in mere minutes. The thirst for revenge against the Rikti is one that burns still, especially amongst the survivors of Baumton. Some take the trek down into these tunnels to exact some retribution against the Rikti, who now skulk and breed down here to perpetrate their alien designs. <<<
That seems to line up with my recollection. Meanwhile, Steelclaw posited this as the origin of Boomtown in a parallel universe:
>>* Boomtown: In retrospect, the Devs all agreed that the Embalmed Vahzilok GM was not particularly well thought-out.<< 
"How do you know you are on the side of good?" a Paragon citizen asked him. "How can we even know what is 'good'?"
"The Most High has spoken, even with His own blood," Melancton replied. "Surely we know."
Again, in the interests of preserving access to lost backstory:
The Paragon Times via The Wayback Machine
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20-25 is the last range that needed any new content any time soon. There's been a good amount added to this range over the past several issues.|
Originally Posted by Venture
I could not possibly care less about another level 25 zone, regardless of what new shinies they have stuffed in it. It's even worse that it's in Praetoria
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Just about any other range would have been better.
30-35? Yes!
35-40? Sure!
40-50? Most definitely.
What's worse is that this comes at the expense of a real solo Incarnate tract that people have been hounding for ever since the system was first seen.
And it's been brought into question if the new content will even be in Ouroboros, let alone the fact they've said some of it will be faction locked.
New lore and story developments, those I care about. Those are also things I can read about on the wiki without even playing, sadly. But that means the work put in for a new zone is for nothing.
Unless the GM in First Ward craps Empyrean Merits, I really don't care. I've got no reason to set foot into the zone because the number of alts I have in that level range is zero; there's so much content in the 20's nobody stays there long.
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Some cool links, good reading below (thanks to TonyV's CoH wiki). I know this isn't all official stuff, but it's a lot of things all in one place, in case some of you didn't know. 
Paragon Times Archived
http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Category:Paragon_Times
Lore, includes everything from Durakken's dead/abandoned City of Lore website
http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Category:Lore
Check out Durakken's freaking awesome timeline!
http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/In-game_timeline
General Background
http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Category:Lore
( Also, Manticore and company's Canon Fodder: Official CoH Lore Q&A is here for anyone who's been living under a rock: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=133915 )
I have a LOT that I could add to this discussion, opinion-wise. (I know, I know, who am I, right?) Fortunately for all of you, I have to sleep for work tomorrow/today. I sympathize massively-hugely-enormously with the OP. But (BUT!!!), people in our camp would do well to learn our lesson, and realize that the Incarnate "WE'LL TELL YOU WHERE YOUR POWERS COME FROM, WE'RE IN CONTROL OF OUR LORE, YOUR LORE AND YOUR MOM'S LORE" fiasco is what happens when writers, overeager, step on the imaginative portion of their audience's toes instead of meeting us halfway. This game is all about creative freedom, but Incarnates is a flop in exactly this category; though it is impressive and wildly successful in other ways.
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Guide to Altitis � A Comic for New Players � The Lore Project � Intro to extraterrestrials in CoH
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They will continue to give us fun and interesting stories |
Originally Posted by Venture
Whoever is writing the lore over there now needs to stop.
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| I expect in order to get anything out of First Ward you'll need to have leveled the character in Praetoria |
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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I recognize the merit in what you are saying here, especially since I grapple with how to address the Insane Well Making Folks Immortal bit that, as you say, has landed on our toes. |
Originally Posted by Captain-Electric
I sympathize massively-hugely-enormously with the OP. But (BUT!!!), people in our camp would do well to learn our lesson, and realize that the Incarnate "WE'LL TELL YOU WHERE YOUR POWERS COME FROM, WE'RE IN CONTROL OF OUR LORE, YOUR LORE AND YOUR MOM'S LORE" fiasco is what happens when writers, overeager, step on the imaginative portion of their audience's toes instead of meeting us halfway. This game is all about creative freedom, but Incarnates is a flop in exactly this category; though it is impressive and wildly successful in other ways.
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(I have said that I am adopting the MST3K position of "It is just a show, I should really just relax," but someone pointed out that a more accurate description of my approach is that I am covering my ears and shouting "LALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" So it is surely a mess for a lot of folks.)
But I view the Incarnate lore less as the Devs overstepping their jobs and more as doing their jobs poorly here. Example: There should be a unified, coherent explanation for why Dark Astoria is the way it is. Not only is there not (Has Astoria been restored at some point? If not, why are there Vanguard billboards there? Etc.) but the Devs wrote into canon that the city leaders and the heroes, upon realizing the BP could not be expelled, put up War Walls, which prevented any escape by Astoria's residents, and they were all slaughtered and now their spirits roam about. That just reeks. I had always understood it to be that the residents were slaughtered and the War Walls went up afterward, but I was referred to the canon that said differently. Bad form and bad writing.
The Incarnate lore likewise should have been as open-ended as the Magic origin was when the game launched. Instead, to draw the parallel, if Tony Stark wants to boost his Iron Man armor's performance, he has to become the Incarnate of a diety... what??? He can't, oh, I don't know, develop a better reactor power plant for the suit like he did in the second movie? NOPE. HE IS AN INCARNATE *clik* INCARNATE *clik* INCARNATE *clik* INCARNATE *clik* INCARNATE.
What a mess.
Some things can be attributed to typos and the like. It seems pretty clear to me that all of the references in Eden to "Ms. Liberty" should actually be references to her mother, MISS Liberty, since they refer to her fighting alongside Galaxy Girl, who was a contemporary and friend to MISS Liberty. That can be tidied up. But what do you do with the Incarnate lore, which is frankly both stupid and by its inferences, an unnecessary breaking of the fourth wall?
The Devs just are not doing the job properly, and there are too many examples of how it can be done, and done EXCELLENTLY. And I shall bang the drum again: PAGING DOCTOR TROY HICKMAN! DOCTOR HICKMAN TO THE EMERGENCY ROOM, STAT! PAGING DOCTOR TROY HICKMAN...
"How do you know you are on the side of good?" a Paragon citizen asked him. "How can we even know what is 'good'?"
"The Most High has spoken, even with His own blood," Melancton replied. "Surely we know."
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Such as the Doppleganger arcs. But they will also tack on dreck such as the very poorly-written postscript to Jenny Adair's arc. And the foundation of the Incarnate system is just awful; anything built onto that foundation will be unstable and collapse as a result. |
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
They will continue to give us fun and interesting stories
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There will be good stuff in the future, but the Incarnate lore is, to quote J. Jonah Jameson, "Crap... crap... Megacrap."
"How do you know you are on the side of good?" a Paragon citizen asked him. "How can we even know what is 'good'?"
"The Most High has spoken, even with His own blood," Melancton replied. "Surely we know."
In the interests of promoting said back-story:
Manticore's "Canon Fodder" thread from 2009
If nobody at Paragon Studios has stepped into Sean's shoes, then maybe it's time that somebody did so. It would be very helpful to renew this kind of dialog between the players and the keepers of the Canon.