Twinshot's Arc is Brilliant. (MASSIVE SPOILERS)
By
Ang_Rui_Shen,
Posted on: 2011-09-18 15:53 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
Quote:
Get over it, Venture. This is comic-book world where no one dies except when the plot calls for it and then they're hardly ever really dead. You can't knock someone out with a flame thrower. For a literature snob, you seem to lack the capacity to understand that different genres operate by different rules. And your real world science just doesn't work here. Unless you want to explain how we can fly. |
Originally Posted by Venture
Not an excuse. He's using a live-fire scenario to "test" the Shining Stars. It's sheer luck (authorial fiat) that no one got their head blown off or otherwise hit in a way that prevented Medicom from kicking in.
|
Our 'live fire' is non-lethal, else we'd be murdering muggers all the time. And the medicom never fails unless the plot calls for it. The end.
Speeding Through New DA Repeatables || Spreadsheet o' Enhancements || Zombie Skins: better skins for these forums || Guide to Guides
Quote:
As a great man once said, I'll swallow one porcupine but not two. Manticore's actions judged by the setting's own internal logic display a wanton disregard for human life.
| This is comic-book world where no one dies except when the plot calls for it and then they're hardly ever really dead. You can't knock someone out with a flame thrower. For a literature snob, you seem to lack the capacity to understand that different genres operate by different rules. |
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"
Quote:
So do a quite a few power sets available to heroes |
Originally Posted by Venture
Manticore's actions judged by the setting's own internal logic display a wanton disregard for human life.
|
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
Quote:
Fix'd.|
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
So do all but a few power sets available to heroes
|
Near as I can figure, Martial Arts is really the only totally non-lethal (and only if you want it to be) set.
Where to now?
Check out all my guides and fiction pieces on my blog.
The MFing Warshade | The Last Rule of Tanking | The Got Dam Mastermind
Everything Dark Armor | The Softcap
don'T attempt to read tHis mEssaGe, And believe Me, it is not a codE.
Heroes use those powers in situations in which a police officer would be warranted in using lethal force.
Except, of course, when some idiot has dressed innocent people up like criminals and sent them in to get shot.
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"
Quote:
Fix'd.
|
Originally Posted by Venture
Except, of course, when some man with authority has dressed trained professionals up like criminals and sent them in to complete a mission.
|
Where to now?
Check out all my guides and fiction pieces on my blog.
The MFing Warshade | The Last Rule of Tanking | The Got Dam Mastermind
Everything Dark Armor | The Softcap
don'T attempt to read tHis mEssaGe, And believe Me, it is not a codE.
I think that Twinshot's arc is one of the unsung gems of i21. The way that it weaves incredibly interesting story, fun characters, and in-depth introduction to gameplay elements is simply inspired. Massive kudos to the design team that worked on it, and I sure hope that this isn't the last we've heard of the Shining Stars.
I'm not the droid I'm looking for.
MA Arc ID 8121: Rapp'Mas'Ta's War. The Rikti are trying to incorporate sonic effects into their weapons? THAT can't be good. Maybe we should ask them to stop.
Just completed the Twinshot Field Analyst mission. Not happy! I'm doing a mission with Grym, I'm a support character(ish) and because of that I've kept him on full health but suddenly the game requuires him to be hurt and turn off! So he drops to 25% and stops reacting! Not only that but because he stays targetable you continue to try and heal him even though it has no effect. Very annoying.
However wrote that mission doesn't play support characters. 
This is a song about a super hero named Tony. Its called Tony's theme.
Jagged Reged: 23/01/04
I loved the arc.
But I am flabbergasted that people do not object to this arc as they do to Dr Graves arc. It got the same basic assumptions, hyacking your speach and thoughts, railroading you, giving you tutorial lessons a bit late and not with enough detail. I am glad people like it, but still.
Perhaps it is the hoorb factor?
Many of us do object to this set of arcs as we do to the villain counterpart. I ran the hero set on one character to see if anything had changed at the last minute (it hadn't): I won't be bothering with either set again.
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"
Out of curiosity, a question for the thread: Did you (that is, you the reader) "get" the pop culture reference in the hero name "No Mind"? If so, what did you think it referred to?
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Dark_Respite
... I have NEVER, EVER found a character who so lived up to his name as I did in my wannabe sidekick, "No Mind."
Michelle aka Samuraiko/Dark_Respite |
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Necrotron
Forget Fusionette. The new term is No Minding.
|
Twinshot's comment after I left: "Well, I guess you did right by him."
Heh.
The Abrams is one of the most effective war machines on the planet. - R. Lee Ermy.
Q: How do you wreck an Abrams?
A: You crash into another one.
Quote:
Isn't this the same Manticore who had no problem pulling a false flag operation, and has once threatened torture on a captive to get information he has wanted?|
Originally Posted by Venture
As a great man once said, I'll swallow one porcupine but not two. Manticore's actions judged by the setting's own internal logic display a wanton disregard for human life.
|
As for the actual arc, it was fun Dillo is cool and needs to replace statesman as leader of the Freedom Phalanx, Grym was pretty cool. Though proton could have used other powersets, he felt like Discount Posi to me.
Quote:
Considering all the kinds of damage my characters have taken to be defeated without the Medicom failing to kick in, that's a very low risk. If I can activate a self destruct mechanism and be blown into smoke and still use the Medicom, the risk has to be pretty low.|
Originally Posted by Venture
Not an excuse. He's using a live-fire scenario to "test" the Shining Stars. It's sheer luck (authorial fiat) that no one got their head blown off or otherwise hit in a way that prevented Medicom from kicking in.
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Gunbunny
I loved the arc.
But I am flabbergasted that people do not object to this arc as they do to Dr Graves arc. It got the same basic assumptions, hyacking your speach and thoughts, railroading you, giving you tutorial lessons a bit late and not with enough detail. I am glad people like it, but still. Perhaps it is the hoorb factor? |
A hero's goals are pretty straight forward. Stop the bad guys, don't let the bad stuff happen. Whether it's because you're an illegal alien taught by foster parents in Kansas to be the ultimate Boy Scout or the brooding obsession of trying to deal with seeing your Mom and Dad shot down as a boy, the goal is pretty much the same. Yes, I want to help shut down the skulls in Kings row, they're bad guys doing bad stuff. I've just come from Galaxy City, of course I want to stop that from happening again. The dialog may not be quite right for an individual character, maybe some heroes may not be as understanding as the dialog suggests to the quirks and mistakes of some of the NPCs or need more encouragement to join with this group, but it's about stopping bad things from happening. Of all the heroes I've run through the arcs, on beta and live, none made me think "Wait, my character wouldn't do that".
Villains, however, have a myriad of different motivations. There's those who want to get rich without the tedium of things like earning it, there's those who are certain that with their superiority it is required they rule, there are those seeking revenge against the whole world, there are those whose ego is based on being the biggest bad *** in the block, and there are those who just want to see the world burn. It's been one issue with the villain content since CoV launched, and it shows up here. I don't play a lot of villains, haven't in a long time, but none of my characters would be particularly tempted by a desire to win a competition to prove I'm the baddest villain of them all.
My arcs are constantly shifting, just search for GadgetDon for the latest.
The world beware! I've started a blog
GadgetMania Under Attack: The Digg Lockout
I loved, loved, loved these arcs. The characters were likable and the story wove into the main canon wonderfully. Besides that, this is a GREAT ongoing tutorial. It introduces all the main game concepts and I, as a veteran, never felt like it was listing out how this and that works. All the information was there, set into a story, in a very easily digestible manner. Whoever set that up did a marvelous job.
One note on the dialogue, though- I rarely picture my character saying exactly what the text says. I see the text as guiding my reaction. So if I wouldn't say "You're off your rocker, man!" I might say, "Forsooth! Your mind doth confuseth me!" and so on. Obviously, in some extreme cases [Dr. Graves], the actions you're forced to take are shoehorned in. But in an average arc, like Twinshot's, the actions taken are usually reasonable and I can use my imagination to come up with dialogue that goes into the story but fits my character.
*hoorb*
Just started it so I skipped the posts. But yeah, loving it. Man there is some serious fun to be had these days.
I enjoyed the arcs and the work that went into them, but I'm a little disappointed in how it goes about trying to teach because if I read the missions and did them from the mindset of a genuinely new player, I really wouldn't have walked away with too much.
A practical example: Having to meet with Flambeaux at Wentworths. She goes off about looking for an enhancement for her hair. The intention of teaching that you go here to look for stuff is there, but the execution of teaching it ... is lackluster. Add to this that many things are taught later than you actually can do, or encounter, them.
The intention is there, and the intention is good, but the execution needs some work.
That said, I've done the hero arcs twice, and I'm going to do the villain versions here very soon. But I don't think I'm going to want to do them again.
Partial Character List:
LENINA 198-DELTA - 50+3 DP/Kin Corruptor (Main) / Captiosus - 50+3 Energy/Energy Blaster
Highlands.Hellraiser - 50+1 DS/Fire Tanker / SpazRat - 50 Claw/SR Stalker
Col. Gregor Aktaybr - 45 Robots/Time MM
Does Manticore's mansion still bizarrely have the Midnight Club conference room? After his quite cool Mansion, that struck me as utterly lazy.
I at least hope his mansion doesn't jump around to different buildings now?
Eco.
MArcs:
The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
[The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."
|
I finished the arc, but I'd like to help my sidekick No Mind out with more action and training.
Quote:
You enter it via a tram.|
Originally Posted by MrCaptainMan
Does Manticore's mansion still bizarrely have the Midnight Club conference room? After his quite cool Mansion, that struck me as utterly lazy.
I at least hope his mansion doesn't jump around to different buildings now? Eco. |
The Midnight Club room is reskinned.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by rian_frostdrake
the story is funny, some, including myself, also saw the stars as humorous jokes on specific player types. dillo's the committed rp'er, proton is the mary sue( hence the insane timeline twists and ham-handed links to major canon characters), grimm is the refugee from fantasy mmos, twinshot is kind of the "good teammate" counterpart of flambeaux's prissy obnoxious attention grabber character. at leas thats how i saw them, theories abounded.
|
I am so Flambeaux.
It's a fun arc.
Would be nice if some of the NPC dialogue was re-worked to be more appropriate to more character types, but not a huge deal to me.