Dr. Graves hurts my brain...
By
Arcanaville,
Posted on: 2011-09-16 07:52 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
I liked Dean McArthur though! Yes you got tricked into doing it, but honestly I don't mind. I'd probably have done it anyway as Ajax reforming RI isn't exactly good for buisness and hey, my characters aren't perfect. Sometimes they get suckered.
By the end of the Villain story you've beaten up all your bosses and blackmailed the leader of the Rogue Islands into recognising you're awesome. Honestly I LIKE being an odd job man for people. I like running about helping Vernon Von Grunn get his mad scientist licence or helping Washington punch dissidents in the face. Being "My own man" is something that the morality missions and papers do and .. well they're not all that interesting. I guess there could be more "I've decided to do this" missions if people like those, but honestly I like having a contact with a personality helping me along.
Sure sometimes they're not very good arcs, but sometimes they're aces.
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When you're playing a Vampire RPG game, that's par for the course.|
Originally Posted by Venture
It doesn't make for a stale game world, any more than (e.g.) an RPG wherein every PC is a vampire made for one. If you can't work with simple conditions like this then you're not as good at this as you think you are.
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In a comic book-style Universe, the origin story is part of what makes a great character. I'm happy to have my characters being part of the world. I'd just like the freedom to not have one major event dictated to them where something else might work better.
If you can't understand the idea behind having a villain rising up through the ranks on the Rogue Isles and not being jail-broken, or someone coming to the Isles from another country to make a name for themselves rather than being jail broken, that's your problem.
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I understand it perfectly. In another game it would be perfectly fine. In this one, prior to Freedom, it's just wrong.
| If you can't understand the idea behind having a villain rising up through the ranks on the Rogue Isles and not being jail-broken, or someone coming to the Isles from another country to make a name for themselves rather than being jail broken, you're not as good as this as you think you are. |
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Then I enjoy playing this game wrong a lot.
Badwrongfun for the win!
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I see your quote and raise you XKCD.|
Originally Posted by Fanservice
Then I enjoy playing this game wrong a lot.
Badwrongfun for the win! |
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
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And who are you to say what is and isn't wrong? You're starting to sound like the RP police and I suggest you don't go down that road.
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Originally Posted by Venture
I understand it perfectly. In another game it would be perfectly fine. In this one, prior to Freedom, it's just wrong.
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@FloatingFatMan
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
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I'm not sure why everyone keeps assuming I want new tech, or indeed that I want more functional choice. What I want is the narrative to be less intrusive. It has been done already. It has been done by the game's writers on staff, it has been done by people in the Architect, it has been done by myself, as a point of fact.|
Originally Posted by Venture
An earlier respondent summed it up by citing the difference between "sandbox" and "theme park" designs. The game Sam wants is possible to create but City is not and never will be it.
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Yes, Venture, YOU won't like, but I'd still want to see more arcs told like Dean McArthur's and Leonard's. The grand schemes in them may not be my choice as the player, but they're still presented as my character's own initiative for his own personal gain, and that's perfectly fine.
I don't need a sandbox. I just need the writers to stop grasping at the easiest solution, which is to make the story about other people where we just take control of a pre-determined character. DC's MMO at least has the decency to admit that design up-front by giving you missions where you out-and-out play established DC canon characters instead of your own. A lot of our story arcs are like that, but without admitting it's like that.
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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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Its not a question of philosophically right or wrong. Prior to the new unified tutorial, the total number of possible characters that could be player characters that did not escape from the Zig with help from Arachnos and ended up in Mercy Island as one of the five standard red side archetypes was zero.|
Originally Posted by FloatingFatMan
And who are you to say what is and isn't wrong? You're starting to sound like the RP police and I suggest you don't go down that road.
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There are two different things being discussed here. The first are the limits that in-game canon impose, and those exist and are real. The second is the degree to which in-game canon should impose limits on players, and that's an entirely different issue. Where the two issues are linked, however, is in the fact that all true MMORPGs must make compromises in this area between meaningful canon and limiting canon. The more meaningful the canon, the more limits it by definition has to impose. The less limiting canon is designed to be, the more pointless it also tends to be. There are good ways and bad ways to balance the two, but there are no free lunches that get you everything you want on both sides of that equation, because no matter how brilliant and expansive the writing, ultimately you run into the fact that meaningful canon cannot be ambiguous or contradicted, and the inability to contradict unambiguous canon is the very definition of the limits of player roleplay.
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Its entirely possible the devs could come up with a way to eliminate this problem as you see it. However, such a solution would be highly personalized to you. In the general case your problem is intractable if the intent is to solve it for a majority of players with the problem.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I'm not sure why everyone keeps assuming I want new tech, or indeed that I want more functional choice. What I want is the narrative to be less intrusive. It has been done already. It has been done by the game's writers on staff, it has been done by people in the Architect, it has been done by myself, as a point of fact.
Yes, Venture, YOU won't like, but I'd still want to see more arcs told like Dean McArthur's and Leonard's. The grand schemes in them may not be my choice as the player, but they're still presented as my character's own initiative for his own personal gain, and that's perfectly fine. I don't need a sandbox. I just need the writers to stop grasping at the easiest solution, which is to make the story about other people where we just take control of a pre-determined character. DC's MMO at least has the decency to admit that design up-front by giving you missions where you out-and-out play established DC canon characters instead of your own. A lot of our story arcs are like that, but without admitting it's like that. |
Its obvious or should be from this thread that what people consider limiting and not limiting varies significantly. What you find a solution I might not - probably will not - and vice versa.
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So every single Villain that could be role-played escaped from the same cell, got the same people their drugs/gadgets, saved Jenkins (Yes ALL of them) and then caught the same helicopter out of there. Later on nearly every single one of them would surprise Recluse by beating him in the future. The fact he continues to be surprised suggests he ain't all that bright.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
There are two different things being discussed here. The first are the limits that in-game canon impose, and those exist and are real. The second is the degree to which in-game canon should impose limits on players, and that's an entirely different issue. Where the two issues are linked, however, is in the fact that all true MMORPGs must make compromises in this area between meaningful canon and limiting canon. The more meaningful the canon, the more limits it by definition has to impose. The less limiting canon is designed to be, the more pointless it also tends to be. There are good ways and bad ways to balance the two, but there are no free lunches that get you everything you want on both sides of that equation, because no matter how brilliant and expansive the writing, ultimately you run into the fact that meaningful canon cannot be ambiguous or contradicted, and the inability to contradict unambiguous canon is the very definition of the limits of player roleplay. |
Meanwhile nearly every hero has personally helped Penelope Yin undo the Chronomegatonicaboodle (I forgot it's name), defeated Frost-fire and saved Statesman from Praetoria. Multiple times.
After all, if everything we do in character is canon, this must all be true! It isn't silly to think this way at all!
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We accept this in an MMO in the same way we accept that the galactic empire did not spend trillions to surround the Death Star with special symphonic music transmitters. Its sometimes referred to as locally consistent storytelling, and its an example of the sorts of compromises you have to have between story telling and game mechanics in a shared gamespace.|
Originally Posted by Fanservice
So every single Villain that could be role-played escaped from the same cell, got the same people their drugs/gadgets, saved Jenkins (Yes ALL of them) and then caught the same helicopter out of there. Later on nearly every single one of them would surprise Recluse by beating him in the future. The fact he continues to be surprised suggests he ain't all that bright.
Meanwhile nearly every hero has personally helped Penelope Yin undo the Chronomegatonicaboodle (I forgot it's name), defeated Frost-fire and saved Statesman from Praetoria. Multiple times. After all, if everything we do in character is canon, this must all be true! It isn't silly to think this way at all! |
Don't like it: don't play alts and don't team, and ignore all other players in the game.
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If I might be allowed to presume to translate for Sam, all he wants is:
(You agree to do the mission)
OR
1: I suppose so.
2: Let's do this!
3: It will be so, because I so will it.
As opposed to:
Gosh, gee, ya think!? I guess I better, then...
Story Arcs I created:
Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!
Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!
Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!
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See, that's the thing: in situations like this, I think widespread use of the irrelevant choice would be worse than the railroad to me, and presumably to some fraction of others. I actually prefer the choice where the choice only says what I do, not what I think or say.|
Originally Posted by Kitsune9tails
If I might be allowed to presume to translate for Sam, all he wants is:
(You agree to do the mission) OR 1: I suppose so. 2: Let's do this! 3: It will be so, because I so will it. As opposed to: Gosh, gee, ya think!? I guess I better, then... |
Accept the mission
Leave
It doesn't say why or how I accept it. If I choose to believe I gave the contact the finger as soon as his back was turned, I can. But once you start putting in actual choices with actual positions in them, the odds are that none of them, no matter how diverse, will match what I was thinking much of the time.
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I don't doubt that; YMMV, and all that.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
See, that's the thing: in situations like this, I think widespread use of the irrelevant choice would be worse than the railroad to me, and presumably to some fraction of others.
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The very little bif of asking around indicates that the vast majority of people don't care, and those that do care would like the nondescriptive choice when there is no real choice. I'm not in that camp myself, but I get it.
I was just clarifying in case anyone was mistaking (what I beleive to be) Sam's position.
Story Arcs I created:
Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!
Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!
Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!
I don't really get why people are against the idea of adding some extra dialogue options to the Graves arc to compensate for additional character types. I mean, I know it can be done, and done easily, because they already DID it in the arcs before Graves'!
I mean, look at the very second mission of the new arcs. Interrogate a Longbow Prisoner. There's three simple options; Break his arm, Break his leg, and Describe to him what you could do to him. Just three simple options, but they allow for a variety of character types. Is your villain just the standard variety of mean? Break his arm. Does he prefer to cause intense levels of pain or display his strength? Break his leg. Is he the non-violent, intellectual, or psychological type? Describe what you could do to him. It's so simple, yet it allows for more than just a single type of character.
And the same goes for several of the other choices in the other pre-Graves arcs, like what to do with that one top-hatted villain in the Longbow Base, or how to deal with Lt. Harris after he breaks down.
The only thing that really confuses me is, if they were doing so well with these sort of choices beforehand, then why did they suddenly stop once you reached the Graves arc? Why suddenly shoehorn your character into a single role now, after so many arcs before then let you decide what kind of character to play? That's really my issue with the arc. It's not so much that they shoehorn you into acting a specific way, that I can deal with- it's that they just sort of spring it on you from out of nowhere, after letting you decide how your character acts all the way up to that point.
Two wrongs don't make a right. However, three rights make a left.
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Target. Destroy. Rularuu.
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Those are two options.
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Originally Posted by Large_Man
I mean, look at the very second mission of the new arcs. Interrogate a Longbow Prisoner. There's three simple options; Break his arm, Break his leg, and Describe to him what you could do to him. Just three simple options, but they allow for a variety of character types.
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My point, that you missed completely, is that our only difference is which bits of the game we consider "Wrong" to ignore as you have to ignore some bits of it for it to be even halfway sane.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
We accept this in an MMO in the same way we accept that the galactic empire did not spend trillions to surround the Death Star with special symphonic music transmitters. Its sometimes referred to as locally consistent storytelling, and its an example of the sorts of compromises you have to have between story telling and game mechanics in a shared gamespace.
Don't like it: don't play alts and don't team, and ignore all other players in the game. |
You decided that when all Villains had to do the Breaking out of Jail mission (Ignoring the fact people can skip it) that anyone who roleplayed not coming from the Zig at some point were therefore "Wrong". While 'Locally consistent storytelling' means you're allowed to edit nearly every other thing just so we don't all end up sharing the same weird history.
The disconnect there is fairly obvious. You're being weirdly selective about which bits of 'canon' we're allowed to ignore.
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Here's the thing: I agree with you in general terms. I would always prefer choices presented to us to be phrased as impersonal descriptions of the actions we take as opposed to first person dialogue. It's much easier to justify doing something specific than it is to justify saying something specific simply because action is far more vague and less characteristic than speech.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
See, that's the thing: in situations like this, I think widespread use of the irrelevant choice would be worse than the railroad to me, and presumably to some fraction of others. I actually prefer the choice where the choice only says what I do, not what I think or say.
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However, I agree with Kitsune in this particular case, given what I presume to be a design goal of the mission - to use dialogue trees (or rather, "trees") to enact actual dialogues. IF we assume that a design goal is to make our characters speak, then in these cases I feel it should be MANDATORY that we choose what to say at EVERY instance where we're asked to speak, even if the actual practical difference is irrelevant. If I HAVE to speak, then I damn well better be given an choice of things to say.
In short, I'd rather not have to speak in first person dialogue ever at all in this game. If, for whatever reason, writers feel my character has to speak, then I want to be given a choice in selecting the manner in which I speak, including options to say nothing.
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On a very separate tangent, is it me, or has SILENCE been greatly devalued in this game? Every year, the Paragon City writers get more and more tools to write stories with and more and more text fields to fill, yet the decision of whether they actually SHOULD fill all those text fields or simply not have some characters speak in some situations never seems to come into consideration. It seems to me that the general driving mentality is that the more the text, the better. That's why First Ward has so far managed to throw four text boxes and two speech bubbles on-screen at the same time at me, and has had the tendency to give me a string of over six speech bubbles to read within the span of around four seconds.
Silence in City of Heroes seems to be considered a bad thing. If there isn't text on-screen, if someone isn't yelling in my ear, I'm not having fun. Remember back in the day when the Rikti never spoke? I personally feel that they were much more unsettling and scarier for it, and they came off as significantly more alien than now when they banter in colon-perforated English, going as far as to monologue. Much of their original mystique has been lost to that: cacophony of Rikti: talk.
Much in the same way, we ourselves were silent protagonists for many years. Suddenly, dialogue trees came out and we could finally speak. Yet did anyone wonder if we actually SHOULD speak? When Dean McArthur is being an annoying ****, did anyone consider that perhaps I would choose to say nothing to him until he shut up or got to the point? The only instance in the whole game where "say nothing" is an option is when you let Praetorian Aaron rant about... Something, I don't remember what it was. Penny Yin, I think.
There's so much text, so much dialogue, so much talking that sometimes - and this is going to get me mocked out of existence, but what is the ever - I wish I could just shut up. Well, if the game won't let me...
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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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This. I don't feel as strongly as Sam expresses it here, but we are on the same page.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
If I HAVE to speak, then I damn well better be given an choice of things to say.
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If a mission writer is writing lines for my character for a mission, which she does not have to do, the reason is presumably to make the mission better as in more enjoyable for me.
I humbly express that the best way to do this for some number of people is to give the illusion of choice (if actual choice is not practical).
Story Arcs I created:
Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!
Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!
Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!
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Do I come off as speaking that strongly? Yikes, I need to read my own posts more often |
Originally Posted by Kitsune9tails
This. I don't feel as strongly as Sam expresses it here, but we are on the same page.
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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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1. Break his arm.|
Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
Those are two options.
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2. Break his leg.
3. Go into grotesque detail of what you will do to him if he doesn't talk.
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I believe the point was that "break his arm" and "break his leg" are the same option repeated with different names. Seems like smart writing to me, actually.
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Originally Posted by Prodiguy
1. Break his arm.
2. Break his leg. 3. Go into grotesque detail of what you will do to him if he doesn't talk. |
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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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Eh, leg is harder to break. Plus I can see it being a lot harder to get by with a broken leg than a broken arm. If you're going for more cruel and long lasting incapacitation- So, a villain who is both smarter and stronger while being very open to physical mutilation- Leg break works better. It gives different levels of 'evil' to the choices, and I enjoy that. I also like that in that mission, they don't DESCRIBE what you'd say to the agent to freak him out, you get to think of that yourself. =P
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That's pretty much the way I saw it. Yes, both have you breaking a bone, but it's not entirely the same thing. Leg bone is harder to break, and I've heard that a broken leg is more painful than a broken arm, particularly if it's the upper leg. Plus a broken arm doesn't prevent you from walking around.|
Originally Posted by Prodiguy
Eh, leg is harder to break. Plus I can see it being a lot harder to get by with a broken leg than a broken arm. If you're going for more cruel and long lasting incapacitation- So, a villain who is both smarter and stronger while being very open to physical mutilation- Leg break works better. It gives different levels of 'evil' to the choices, and I enjoy that. I also like that in that mission, they don't DESCRIBE what you'd say to the agent to freak him out, you get to think of that yourself. =P
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Which is why I said that breaking the arm would sort of be the "default" evil response, whereas breaking the leg would be a greater display of strength and/or cruelty.
Two wrongs don't make a right. However, three rights make a left.
L00k, w3'r3 r3f0rmed! W3'v3 g0t l1v3s n0w, 4nd 1'm 4 buz1n3ss Pwnz0r! -Reformed Freak Proprieter
Seek. Find. Rularuu.
Target. Destroy. Rularuu.
Go. Hunt. Kill Skuls. Rularuu.
An earlier respondent summed it up by citing the difference between "sandbox" and "theme park" designs. The game Sam wants is possible to create but City is not and never will be it.
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"