Discussion: The Intrepid Informer: Issue #12

The conception of "Who Will Die"
by Sean "Dr. Aeon" McCann

Hello everyone! Sean "Dr. Aeon" McCann here to talk to you about our first signature story arc series entitled Who Will Die, a story which will include the death of someone from the Freedom Phalanx. With the release of City of Heroes Freedom, we wanted the players to have a constant flow of new content every month, but we didn't want it to just be random bits of content; it had to be a continuous story from month to month. Matt "Positron" Miller, Nate "Second Measure" Birkholz, John "Protean" Hegner, and I sat down and threw various ideas on the table as to what story we could do for our very first signature arc.

There were a lot of ideas thrown out there, some of which will be seen future signature arcs, but in the end we decided the story that would be most impactful for our very first series would be the one in Who Will Die. However, we understood there would be a lot of challenges involved in writing such a story. The first would be to keep the suspense and mystery in the air regarding the identity of the character who will be meeting their fate. The second challenge was ensuring that the story was still focused on the actions of the player character. This isn't a story revolving around the life and death of the Freedom Phalanx with the player as an onlooker; it's a story about your character and how your own story intertwines with that of the Phalanx.

The first of seven episodes of the series is meant to set the stage for all the other episodes, with heroes and villains experiencing the story from opposite ends of the spectrum. Heroes will find themselves working with Theoden, an arrested member of the Lost who believes his brethren are going to commit a horrible atrocity, which would be 'infecting' the Lost with magic through the use of an ancient obelisk. Villains are contacted by an ancient spirit, Alastor, who claims to have created an obelisk that can transfer powers from one being to the next and wants the villain's help in retrieving that obelisk from the Lost; in exchange, the spirit says that he will use the obelisk to give the villain the power of Synapse, the speedster of the Freedom Phalanx.

One of the challenges when writing and designing the story for Who Will Die was to get the same plot points across by telling two different stories. The first arc involves a magical obelisk which is one of the key points in this series. Heroes and villains both need to understand specific things about the obelisk in order for the story to progress and make sense, but they can't necessary reach those conclusions the same way; a villain needs to be doing something villainous, and a hero something heroic. However, heroes and villains will find smaller clues in their own specific arcs which foreshadow future events in the arc series.

The first episode of the signature arc series is live on the servers now and is free for VIP subscribers, so go out and see the beginning of the arc that will dramatically change the world of City of Heroes forever!

Sean "Dr. Aeon" McCann

Cool set of maps; want them for the AE.

I'm concerned about who will shut down these obelisks of Oblivion. I've had it with these pancaking obelisks in my pancaking countrysides.

Also, my scrapper had trouble finding enough bloodgrass to craft the poison I need for my arrows. I know that I can buy the Frostcrag Spire Plug-in, but I'd much rather just obtain them through normal questing...

Could someone please explain to me why they thought a level 20 story arc was appropriate? Because that's just what we need... more low level content. I have Incarnates... I want to be able to use them, not have my Controller back to spamming a rotating hold on 3 different opponents: been there, done that, told them to forget the tee-shirt because I didn't want to remember it.

My impressions from running through it once:
1. The dialog seemed a bit ... stilted. Definitely could use some polishing.

2. Theoden didnt sound much like a member of the lost - and the writer of the story didnt seem to be aware of the link between the Lost and Rikti.
Could have sworn there were Rikti "Mages", so I fail to see why the
Lost would be opposed to the use of magic.

3. I like the new maps. Cool use of lava.

4. I do not like timed missions. Period. I was not able to complete anything
before the timer ran out.

5. Too many ambushes. The use of unending triggered ambushes needs to stop.

It's also quite possible that newer ideas amongst the Rikti don't really filter down to the Lost very quickly - like the "teachings" that the Lost follow could easily be from the pre-Magi period of Rikti society - or they could even be aware of the Magi, but regard the Restructurists as "heretics".

My biggest problems with the Alastor arc(haven't played Theo yet): there are a lot
of very noticible typos. A LOT. I make a lot because I don't care about spellcheck
on forum posts, when most people type much more garbled english than me anyway.
If I was getting paid money for it though, and expected my posts to be taken as the
work of a professional, I'd think I'd want to run spellcheck over them each time I made
substantial text changes/additions, before I commited them to post. Just something for the
aforementioned crew who worked on it, to think about.

And way too much repeated emphasis, even for my tastes. I like emphasis. I don't
think italics keep their effect when used every other word though. Try mixing it up
in the future.

Last mission was very fun; I enjoyed it considerably, though I could see where it could get
a bit rough on squishies(I did it on a scrap) The NPC mage did a surprisingly good job of
following across the rubble and not getting stuck that much. Wish that was the norm of
pet pathing!

As soon as I saw the room shown in picture 3, I typed in global chat: "Devs h8 MMs." When I got to the map shown in picture 5, I stopped, swore for almost a full minute, and then typed in global chat, "Wow, [string of expletives], I wasn't kidding, the devs really DO hate masterminds."

I ended up being pleasantly surprised. OK, yes, I did lose all four minions at least once in the room shown in picture #3, but it didn't matter -- not least of which because I had six-slotted Force Bolt. After all these years of Virgil Tarikoss's Strike Force, I got to be the one pushing somebody else's minions into the lava! It was surprisingly gratifying.

And I don't know what you did to that last map to make minions reticent to enter the lava, but I wish you'd go back and do it to the last Virgil Tarikoss map and to the room we fight Trapdoor in for Mender Ramiel. Please!!! I have no idea what you did that made it possible for me to fight a Elite Boss speedster with AoE knockback on a flat rock the size of a dinner table in the middle of a sea of lava without losing a single minion, but it needs to be done to all of the environmental-hazard maps. And maybe to the catwalks in Keyes Island. Seriously, how did you do it?

I played the hero-side mission last night with my dark tank and absolutely loved it. The maps, the story, the missions, the final cutscene, and the rewards at the end all seemed good to me.

I thought the Lost were given some well deserved attention and didn't see any problem with the anti-magic attitude of Theo. It foreshadows the division amongst them regarding magic that comes to a head in the 40's as those Lost transform into Rikti. Theo's realization of the paradox at the end was well done. I liked seeing the pumucites get some face-time.

Good job and looking forward to running villain-side tonight!

BTW - I like that what is basically a TF contact was on the zone map. This should be done for all the TF/Trial contacts.