Feedback: "Who Will Die?" Part 1

That's what I'm saying. Alistor's introduction is basically him saying the word "power" in quotes and waiting for me to start running a TF for him. The arc is pretty good, and the motivation - if you ignore some rather jarring aspects of it - is decent. But there needs to be a reason why I want to bother in the first place, other than "I as a meta-game player paid for this, directly or through my subscription."

Villains in general need to have a bit more complex of a motivation than "power" in quotes. It can still come down to power in the end, that's not my beef, but geez, guys! Hide it a little! Put a little meat on the bones. Give me a reason other than "because it's there." I know you can do better than this.

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.

If that's what you got out of my post, then we really missed each other by a mile. I don't mind story content and I definitely don't mind walls of text. I'd PREFER walls of text, as a point of fact, to the constant irritating need to insert conversations in every missions every couple of spawns and conversations with every objective I meet. I'm not even against comic book content as such, even if I don't particularly care for it.

What I AM against, however, is treating City of Heroes like a comic book instead of a game. If I wanted to read comic books, I'd read comic books. If Melissa believes City of Heroes is a comic book in the shape of an MMO, she is wrong, though it would certainly explain the nightmare that some of the more recent arcs have turned out to be.

The basic fact is that any game designer has one task that reigns more important than all the others combined - to make a good game. Irrespective of what genre the game is or what it's inspired by, if it's not a good game, it has failed. If you want to have a good game with a good story, first you need A GOOD GAME. This is vital and central to anything else the game has going for it, because if the game is good, then it can support that good story in question. It can support a mediocre story, too. If the game isn't good, by contrast, then no story is going to save it in the long run.

There are ways to integrate story into gameplay in non-obtrusive way. For instance, the First Ward Apparitions are able to possess people. Instead of being told about this in text, Apparition instead show up as easily-killed people with glowing eyes. When these people are killed, Apparitions spawn from their bodies. Without reading a single line of text or being exposed to a single comic book page, I quite literally knew all I needed to know about the Apparitions from nothing more complex than facing one. As a point of fact, their text description told me LESS than actually meeting them in-game did.

Movies have a rule - show, don't tell. Games have a similar one - do, don't show. Stories in games are best received by their players when they are integrated into the actual gameplay or, failing that, when they don't hamper and interrupt said gameplay. Including comic books at zone loading is hugely disruptive. If comic books HAVE to be included with these stories, then the game's current method of distributing them is sufficient, and he arc does a pretty good job of delivering its story without necessarily spending a lot of time talking about it. In fact, I'd appreciate that arc even more if it didn't throw as many fast-changing text boxes at me faster than I can read them.

In a nutshell: Story in games is not bad, if it's done so that it doesn't take away from the actual game.

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 made it out on the first go (played as a Rogue). It was close, and there were like 10 seconds left, but I managed it. Ninja Run helped.

Third mission, just as you blow up the obelisk, you get a textual clue (just as the cutscene hits). It's still in your "Clues" when you get back.

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................. People read the clues?

It's all part of the story

Is she?

I disagree.

No, that's too strong; I quibble.

You can have a fun an entertaining game that doesn't have an immersive or engaging story. But the two things are orthogonal to each other.

I can and have played fairly crappy games because they have good story and vice versa.

If a game has NO story (Tetris), that's one thing.

If an otherwise good game has a crappy and ridiculous story that pulls me out of immersion or offends me (Bible Black), then I will stop playing.

As far as THIS game is considered, I am in favor of the Devs experimenting with other media and methods of storytelling. We'll figure out what works as we go along.

Everything you just said is true in every other game but this one. This genre is indeed ripped straight from the comic book origins all super-heroes come from. Frankly, I'm surprised there's not a larger comic feel, but that might be mainly do to tech/time constraints when the game was first designed.

I think these newer missions with more dialog windows are just fine, and a welcome tweak to the standard formula we've seen for years.

If you miss the windows, the dialog is also in your chat window, just like it always was.

IIRC, there was a deliberate decision at the time to make this game a "World with comic book elements" rather than "playing a comic book."

However, with the introduction of the splash pages, perhaps that decision is being reversed.

There's a Bible Black video game? I only ever knew about the... ah... "anime" version.

There is, I've seen it around the various appropriate sites. However, having played other bishujo games with satanism in them and actually having watched Bible Black, Origins, Revival and New Testament, large portions of which I had to skip... Yeah, I'd imagine said game would take a very strong stomach. Not recommended.

Perish the thought! You know, I've tried our competition. I've lasted no more than a day in either one, and the central reason for this has always been the same - I don't like comic books, and those games are too much like exactly the things I hate in comic books. Hell, Champions had me fight a "Mr. Zombie." I think that's one of the last things I did in that game, and that's not a coincidence. Truth be told, when I was actually trying to decide whether I wanted to buy the game, one of my biggest dilemmas was "I like games, but I hate comic books. Is this one really for me?"

Turns out City of Heroes is all-inclusive, and it's a good game DESPITE being inspired by comic books, as evidenced by having a fan who not only doesn't read the things, but doesn't actually like them, either. From the word go, City of Heroes has been described as a game inspired by comic books, but not necessarily constituting a comic book simulator, and that's pretty much the whole reason I'm still here.

City of Heroes is more a game about the outer limits of my own imagination than it is about any one specific genre or framework, that's why I'm still here seven years later, never really wanted to go anywhere else. If I wanted to experience a comic book, there are other games that do that better. I'm not playing those games, and I wouldn't play those games if you paid me. I'm playing this one. Just as I don't want City of Heroes to be more like WoW or EQ, so I don't want it to be more like Champions or DC. We need to stop trying to define City of Heroes by what it tries to emulate and realise that Cryptic and Paragon have created something wholly unique in and of itself, and I dare say something that I don't think anyone has ever made before. That, to my eyes, is what City of Heroes "should be."

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Somewhat sideways of the above, I'm not saying that a good game with a crappy story is as good as a good game with a good story. That's never the case, because it takes good gameplay AND a good story to make a game great. However, I've played shoddy games with good story, and I can only ever play those once. I would love, for instance, to go back and rerun the old Soul Reaver games, but they're TERRIBLE in term of actual gameplay. Maybe Defiance is about so-so by ripping off Devil May Cry, but the other two are just painful.

There are ways to integrate story in a game that doesn't infringe on good gameplay. Again I cite First Ward and its Apparitions. Fight one of these things and that encounter will tell you more than any wall of text or conversation ever could. Fight a few of them and you'll have a complete story told better than text ever could. Moreover, I found myself playing through First Ward last night and greatly enjoying the story when I realised... There's a crapton of gameplay in this story AS WELL as a really good narrative! I love it! Having gone through content-lite arcs like Graves and half of Praetoria, this was a very welcome change of pace - I get to play the game AND experience the story without one interfering with the other. How cool is that?

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.

Obviously I need to re-read the clue. That is what I get for skimming.

Yes, but not too well sometimes.

Actually, Alastor says you can have it. He doesen't want (or can't have) the power for himself (being dead and all) he's looking for someone "worthy" to give it to.

The problem is, that would run afoul of the entire "don't ascribe motivations to players" thing. "Power" is generic enough that any villain would presumably want it (even if it's not the end-goal, it's never a bad thing to have) kind of like how "helping people" is a decent generic motivation for heroes.

Start giving people more complex motivations and it means writing their characters for them, to an even greater extent tahn they already do.

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No, no, I mean I'd like to know what this power constitutes. What is this "power?" Will it work with my power armour? Will it consume my soul? These are all pertinent questions. I don't expect contacts to tell me why I want to work for them any more so than I would want anyone to try to sell me an opportunity by telling me why I really want it. I don't trust used car salesmen

However, Alistor does a very poor job of offering a tempting opportunity. "Power" isn't an opportunity. It's a word that, absent of any context, has no meaning. "An obelisk that can draw power from others and give it to you that I want you to use because I can't" on the other hand, is a tempting offer. The logistics of how the thing works aren't important so long as I know three things:

1. What am I after?
2. How do I use it?
3. Why do I care?

"Power" is about a third of the way to answering the first question and doesn't even begin to touch on the other two. More context is needed, and such context can easily be given without putting motivations into people's heads. If, for instance, someone offered me "lots and lots of money," then context follows the offer. I wouldn't refuse money, I know how to spend money and I care about money because it can buy me things. Not all characters are motivated by money, obviously, at which point not all characters will take an offer for lots and lots of money.

But "power" isn't really as defined and specific a concept as money. It's like a contact offering me "right" or "privilege." I need to know a bit more than just that, dude!

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 could be wrong/misremembering, but I thought that it was presented as "the power of Synapse" and, possibly, the power to steal power from anyone you may wish to!

I'll have to check it again.
To me, it felt passable. Something I could convince myself that most of my villains could go for.

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I just use my O-Portal or WW's porter, like I do on most "find the exit" missions. *shrug*

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Sure, the devs are supposed to listen to their customers, mister business 101 out there. And if I decide to start suggesting that the devs change the game from being about superheroes and supervillains to being about clowns that is my right as well, and technically Paragon Studios is supposed to pay attention to me. But I hope strongly that they assume a meth-head somehow managed to hack into my forum account and make paper airplanes out of my posts, because I hope they recognize stupid when they see it. I assume they will recognize futile just as accurately.

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."