Veluta Lunata restores my faith in storytelling

You know what one of the best parts of the new "Find Contact" feature that rolled out with I21 is? Once unlockable City of Villains contacts no longer need to be unlcoked. They just show up in the Find Contact window, ready to speak with you whether or not you've earned the badges needed to unlock them. Earlier today, this allowed me to work with a contact I barely even knew existed - Veluta Lunata. Imagine my shock and amazement when a blond Fortunata Seer with a pretty but stern pale face popped up in my contact window. I'd heard the name, but I never really thought that's what she was. Based on the name, I expected a Sorceress of some form, though not being a visual person, I can't tell you what exactly that form was.

Veluta's origin story is pretty dark, having had an affair with a Wolf Spider, whom Ghost Widow made her kill, then helped Veluta bind his soul to her forever and ever. This is the story that showed up for her in the Find Contact window, and I expected the woman to be a tragic, sad figure in the vein of Pia Marino, but I found her instead to be a bitter, spiteful, slefish person with a giant monkey on her back about big bad Ghost Widow and how we must always keep her happy or she'd have both our heads. Surprising, but given that this is CoV Launch content, I can't really attribute this kind of darkness to new trends and therefore feel incapable of complaining about it. And, to be honest... It kind of works for her. Veluta is just not a very nice person, which really does kind of come with the territory.

Veluta's story arcs aren't anything to write home about, in the sense that they're not AMAZING!!!, but they are competent, they are interesting, they fit the setting and at no point do they feel gratuitous. As per usual CoV Launch content, they assume I want to serve Arachnos - and I don't - but also as per CoV Launch content, they don't really assume anything about my character beyond that. Veluta gives me tasks, I bring back clues to her and she gives me more tasks. I get to choose why I'm doing these things and how I behave while doing them, and that's a MAJOR plus in my book.

But there's something more about Veluta Lunata, something about her writing that really intrigues me. A lot of the Launch City of Heroes contacts come off like Mission Terminals (which is what was originally intended to give us our missions back in pre-beta times, predictably enough), in the sense that the contact is nothing more than a means to deliver text to the player, said text written as though it has come from a disembodied narrator and in no way seeming to be unique to the character speaking it or reflect said character's personality.

Well, Veluta is different, and different in a non-trivial way like for instance Grant Nylor is. She doesn't just have an eccentric speech quirk or an accent, she actually has a personality as a character, and this personality comes out through her speech. Of course, this is the personality of a whiny, demanding, prissy brat who just had her toy taken from her hands, but that too is a legitimate personality. Everything she does, she does reluctantly and because she feels she has to for fear of consequences, and every conversation she has is clearly unpleasant to her.

Considering I've spent so many years criticising the writing and storytelling in City of Villains, I'm surprised how much I'm enjoying Veluta Lunata's story and writing, considering she dates back to 2005. I'm also surprised just how bad of an idea locking contacts really was back in the day, and how much more fun I'm having now that I'm experiencing these contacts for the first time. I wonder if even Viridian became thus unlocked?

Anyway, I was due to find something to praise, and I feel compelled to praise good writing wherever I see it, hence this thread. Veluta Lunata's story arcs are awesome, and I'm happy to have been able to do them.

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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.

i noticed this too with unlockable contacts, very nice feature since most unlockable contacts have good arcs but some of the badges are annoying to get for them (the worst being the slot machine, ive never actually done the arc outside ouroboros because outlevel it way before i used to get the badge)

Actually, continuing to play Veluta Lunata's arcs now, I'm reminded of another aspect that I really liked - her missions are very simple. I typically only have one or two objectives, there are no complex mechanics to interrupt the flow, no conversations to stop me in my tracks, no distractions. Just get to a building, kill everyone inside, go back out and continue the story from there. I really missed this aspect of older content.

And, yes, not having to unlock unlockable contacts is sure to provide a bounty of "new" content for 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.

Oh, yeah, and that. I thought they were a cool idea. You can theoretically take any in-game model and make it a ghost, but I liked the fact that they matched the storyline. Someone's making ghosts, so it makes sense that these ghosts would look like who they were in life.

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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.

Wow Sam, you've been absolutely gushing since i21 went live. glad you're enjoying it.

Well, Veluta is technically not I21 content, but it's I21 content that's letting me play her when there was absolutely no chance I could have done that prior. If this keeps up, I'll run arcs from the famous slot machine and even Viridian soon, and possibly even other contacts I didn't even know about. Should be sweet

Plus, Veluta seems to be very well written for. A bit anti-climactic, ending the act with her getting kind of what she wanted and saying "Beat it!" but the writing was absolutely solid and I didn't say stupid things along the way, plus I got to clear a few very large maps of all enemies. All good stuff at the end of the day

And I haven't even started gushing yet. Wait till we get Street Fighting and eventually Titanic Weapons. Then my head might just explode with sheer awesome. I'd say City of Heroes is heading for success, judging from how things are shaping up right now.

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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.

Speaking of Pia Marino, I still feel her arc is one of the best-written in the game, and is easily among my top five favourites of all time. It's not very mechanically complex, save for one cutscene, it doesn't really any dialogue trees, interactive or otherwise, it doesn't have intricate threaded objectives. It's just a simple case of going into a mission accomplishing several objectives in no particular order.

And yet this simple arc is still one of my favourites solely on the strength of its writing. Actually, no, not solely. It is one of my favourites on the strength of its writing and because it actually allows me to play the game without being interrupted by a pseudo cutscene every five minutes. It allows me to appreciate the amazing writing when I sit down to read it, and it allows me to appreciate the great game when I'm actually running a mission.

If Veluta Lunata was a fun, well-written experience, Pia Marino is that, times ten. Call me a Luddite if you will, but I don't think any of the new starting content has anything on those two very basic arcs. I keep finding myself going back to the oldest of things to rediscover my love for City of Heroes, it seems.

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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.

I'm starting to notice the lack of Ms Bianco as a story and dialogue writer as things progress.

Remember the SAM ninjas and the outcry? And that was a year or so ago.

One of my favourite zones is Croatoa - story's good and gameplay is sensible (yes, even the Fir Bolg mission...) and my favourite writing is always Villains. For some reason it's better. Perhaps it's just a case of the devil getting the best tunes?

However, in terms of old content, go and play The Clockwork Captive or The Bonefire Plot and tell me it's a delight of story-telling and gameplay!

See, and people ask me why I always complain. I don't, but WHEN I don't complain, my threads sink to the bottom of the world and no-one remembers I made them in the first place

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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.

I'm leveling up a villain and totally missed this contact between doing the training arc and Death from Below. Dangit! Lower levels go by too fast...