City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

What would I need to do in order to play a mute character?

Agent79

By Agent79,
Posted on: 2011-09-23 04:40 in CoH and CoV General Discussions

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by SlickRiptide View Post
Mission givers are a game mechanic. You don't need to treat them as anything other than that.
I disagree. Not that contacts aren't a game mechanic - they are. I disagree that I shouldn't treat them as anything more. I enjoy the story in City of Heroes, believe it or not, and I do enjoy finding ways to enable my characters to partake in as much of it as makes sense for their concepts. If given the choice between reading and not reading mission briefings (that I already know by heart), I'll almost always choose to read them anyway, provided they made sense for my character that's experiencing them.

More broadly, I'm looking at how a character with no ability or inclination to interact with others would fare in the world that City of Heroes provides. I completely understand that this isn't what the world was made for, but even so, I'm positive it will permit for it to some degree, and I just want to know where that line is. I may be writing a character for the sake of writing a character, but when I log into the game, I do want to play the game to as full an extent as possible, so it's a question of balance between my own writing and what the setting will permit. I don't want to run endless Scanner missions, for one.

People's examples of their own mute characters have been very helpful, actually. I almost laughed out loud at the concept of carrying around a big marker to write on walls. That's so cool I don't know why I didn't think of it It's also been enlightening to see the concepts behind people's mute characters, as well as the disposition that governs them. As Maros likes to say: "We learn nothing, but through revelation." Seeing others' ideas put to words and comparing them against my own helps me construct a much stronger character in the end.

Besides, I can bend concept to some degree to have Stardiver interact with contacts as a necessary evil. That much is unavoidable. It's how I handle her from there that's the question.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
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.

 

Posted

I have this vision of a mute Stardiver, unable to communicate verbally, choosing to thank someone who helped her by, puppy-like, bringing them a gift. A piece of the sun.

/earth melts

"Bad Stardiver! Drop it!"

If we are to die, let us die like men. -- Patrick Cleburne
----------------------------------------------------------

The rule is that they must be loved. --Jayne Fynes-Clinton, Death of an Abandoned Dog

 

Posted

Have you seen the Peter Sellers movie "Being There"? It's about a boy raised into his late middle age in almost complete isolation except for television and the man who employed him as, essentially, a butler and later a caregiver. (There was also a cook/maid.) His one passion was gardening.

When the old man died, and Chance was turned out into the world, he had no effective way to communicate with other people outside of making allusions to gardening. Attempting to make sense of these pronouncements, people assigned their own wisdom to them and their own meanings instead of what he actually meant.

I picture that as being how my bug, Chrrrp, communicated most of the time. When the dialog tree said "Golly, gee! That's awful!", that wasn't my bug's line. That was the NPC's interpretation of "Chrrrp!". Who knows what Chrrrp himself was actually saying about it?

 

Posted

I've mostly skimmed through the replies, but...
I didn't see any jokes about SAM being MUTE!?!?!
Too obvious?


Hats off to you, Sam...

In all seriousness (well, as serious as one can be about such a subject), since you're asking more about contacts and their content, I see this two ways...

1) I would most likely just ignore the game writing/speaking for my character... click the options without thinking (for a second) that my character said a word. I basically do that already. I generally rewrite everything in my own head as I go through it in these games. Sometimes things work well, sometimes they don't... often times I tweak them, regardless, to work much better.
So, just lock your mind around that concept. And don't let any of those little lines of dialog register. Silently click accept and imagine that your character just learned the info or didn't respond or whatever you think works best (I think that, most of the time, my characters learn things through their own senses, detective work or happenstance, as opposed to learning it from this contact mission giver person NPC thing).

2) Go for this really hardcore video game approach where you scout out the interaction options (maybe pour through paragonwiki), walk away from any mission that involves dialog options that go beyond your preference... and really stick to this approach as some sort of challenge.


1 may allow you to relax, enjoy, have fun and explore that side of role-playing and using your mind to reshape what exists and craft it into what you like more.

2 is more of an out-of-character challenge upon the player. It could prove to be nearly impossible (short of street sweeping) and/or unfun, as you might get upset when you're enjoying an arc, when it suddenly writes your character as saying something.


My choice would be number 1 (with some attempts to try and see if method 2 could work at all), but I am a role-player, so that is more akin to how I play (solo and/or with other people... although, obviously, I don't rewrite my interactions with other role-players, haha).


Also... as a bit of practice Sam...
I'd suggest trying out the mute thing on the forums...


Just kidding, sir!!

@Zethustra
"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by SlickRiptide View Post
...
I picture that as being how my bug, Chrrrp, communicated most of the time. When the dialog tree said "Golly, gee! That's awful!", that wasn't my bug's line. That was the NPC's interpretation of "Chrrrp!". Who knows what Chrrrp himself was actually saying about it?
Exactly! That and/or it is the actual interpretation of what your character said (either or).
I view the dialog like that a lot, myself. All of those "whatever, let's kill this punk" lines are vastly re-worded for my different villains, hehe (Although, it seems that most of the villain dialog options match Super-Jerk pretty well...).

Also, great movie reference!

@Zethustra
"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan

 

Posted

Well, if you're going to treat the dialog literally, as a kind of challenge along the lines of "If I interact it's bad, but if I mainly accept directions/orders it's okay" then you're going to be hampered out of the starting gate.

You can't do Matt Habashy or Twinshot. I think you could reasonably do the sewer trial and then use your contact finder to contact David Wincott and do the Hollows. After that, just follow the contact finder - most of those missions are of the "Stuff is happening; I need you to go to this place and do that " variety. The exceptions might be Roy Cooling and the clone arcs. Once you hit level 20, some of the regular contacts will start opening up and I suppose that you can just do your best to pick missions that don't depend on more than "accept this mission".

You realize, of course, that Stardiver can NEVER call up a contact on the cell phone, yes? Good luck with that. ;-)

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Sailboat View Post
I have this vision of a mute Stardiver, unable to communicate verbally, choosing to thank someone who helped her by, puppy-like, bringing them a gift. A piece of the sun.

/earth melts

"Bad Stardiver! Drop it!"
You do not suspect how close you are to my own vision of her though with slightly less of a destructive twist. When I was writing dialogue for Star - if you can believe that - I did have her speak only in very broad emotes, such as *pouts* when she's unhappy or *dejected* when she fails or *innocent* for when she's trying to look innocent even though she was cheating in a game. It makes - at least in my mind - for something of an adorable character.

Considering my original inspiration for her came from Spiral Knights where everything is cute and chibi, I think it kind of fits. Stardiver is just a lost little alien thing that fell to Earth one day and kind of stuck around.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Electric-Knight View Post
I've mostly skimmed through the replies, but...
I didn't see any jokes about SAM being MUTE!?!?!
Too obvious?
I guess I'm doing something to make people take me seriously And I am, actually, quite serious.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Electric-Knight View Post
I would most likely just ignore the game writing/speaking for my character... click the options without thinking (for a second) that my character said a word. I basically do that already. I generally rewrite everything in my own head as I go through it in these games. Sometimes things work well, sometimes they don't... often times I tweak them, regardless, to work much better.
So, just lock your mind around that concept. And don't let any of those little lines of dialog register. Silently click accept and imagine that your character just learned the info or didn't respond or whatever you think works best (I think that, most of the time, my characters learn things through their own senses, detective work or happenstance, as opposed to learning it from this contact mission giver person NPC thing).
Hmm... That's not a bad idea, actually. Since way back in 2004, I've developed the habit of selecting my missions by clicking on the mission briefing text. Remember back in the day when contacts actually offered you two missions to choose from? Well, it was much easier to click on the briefing you wanted than to try and match an accept line to the mission it corresponded to, and accept lines didn't hold any meaningful dialogue back then. Flash forward seven years, and I keep clicking on the mission text and very often completely MISSING the mission accept text that was supposed to have me say something ending with briefings that go like "Aha! Now THAT is a good question!" and I'm like "Huh? What question? Who asked a question?" until I figure out I did, only I didn't read it. Oops!

With that in mind, not reading my mission accept messages should not be difficult. Also, I recently replayed a large number of old missions for which I did not read the entry messages as they were stupid stuff like "The voices tell you to smash!" or "You feel horrible about such and such." That kind of put me in the habit of not reading entry pop-ups, so that should be easy to skip, as well.

Dialogues... Not so much. There are objectives in them so I need to know what they say, and they sometimes lead to different outcomes, so I need to know what I'm picking. Best to avoid these altogether.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Electric-Knight View Post
Also... as a bit of practice Sam...
I'd suggest trying out the mute thing on the forums...
Don't tempt me! Though I probably shouldn't, as it will most likely come off as trolling, or at best mean-spirited snark.

Quote:
Originally Posted by SlickRiptide View Post
You can't do Matt Habashy or Twinshot. I think you could reasonably do the sewer trial and then use your contact finder to contact David Wincott and do the Hollows. After that, just follow the contact finder - most of those missions are of the "Stuff is happening; I need you to go to this place and do that " variety. The exceptions might be Roy Cooling and the clone arcs. Once you hit level 20, some of the regular contacts will start opening up and I suppose that you can just do your best to pick missions that don't depend on more than "accept this mission".
Yeah, the Sewers it's gonna' have to be, but that's probably for the best. People have been trying to force me to team more, so why not? Other than that, I can always just hunt stuff, much as that will hurt. As for the later levels, I wouldn't run Roy Cooling again if you paid me, and much as I like Keith Nancy, I can live with skipping him. I might be able to run Mercedes Sheldon, though, as that doesn't have any dialogue in it. I'd have to check on the Wiki. The Midnight Arc should also be easy, as I can just pass the Latin Student a slip of paper with the code word on it. No First Ward for sure, but I don't have to run that on every character. Should be good, really.

Quote:
Originally Posted by SlickRiptide View Post
You realize, of course, that Stardiver can NEVER call up a contact on the cell phone, yes? Good luck with that. ;-)
Oh for crap's sake! You're right! Damn it... Well, I guess I'll be doing a little extra runaround. Eh, it's been years since I have. Might do me a little good in curing my chronic laziness. I'll be giving Star flight since she'll have to be able to fly through space, so at least while the travelling might take time, it won't be very involving. I can deal with that.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
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.

 

Posted

Hmmmm. So...Im sort of confused.

I know from reading your postings that you are a conept ninja. I appreciate this muchly.

However you say you speak OOC with your teammates when you are on missions. You also state that you are RP lite, or that emoting or using the ; funtions to display your communication for this toon could possibly be effective.

So my issue is:

If you are mostly OOC when in teams (Because of game mechanics etc.) then the concept you have created would be sort of be game breaing to your concept!

If you are RP lite, creating this type of concept seems trivial because no one will know but you. Unless you are interacting with others the concept fails because well..."If a tree falls" (Know what I mean)

If you played on virtue in an RP group or team this would be appreciated!

However, I guess what my concern is, that you want to create something that is not being used for RP, other than lite RP, that speaks OCC in team chats, that will easily lose it's conctept to the things I mentioned before. Lastly it demands that pre-programed NPC's will respond to you the same as RPers would. Which would require to much AI to really allow, thus limiting you to the contacts and content that the game provides.

This is an amazing concept, and I see others playing mutes or deaf people. I as a deaf person completely understand communication barriers, but the thing is, that in general you also have to keep in mind that a lot of what I feel for each toon I play will always be subject to the topic, when it comes to how they would respond.

None of my characters are the same! Each would not respond based on the text I have been provided, but I realize that the goal of the toon would prolly fit the general mission that I agreed to perform.

Im essentially saying is that Sam...your imagination needs to allow you to fudge things.

If you have the patients for Ghost in the Shell...Im 100% sure you can suspend disbelief...even if just to allow your unique creation to fly...or get hover at least/

 

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Originally Posted by Nyx View Post
Im essentially saying is that Sam...your imagination needs to allow you to fudge things.

If you have the patients for Ghost in the Shell...Im 100% sure you can suspend disbelief...even if just to allow your unique creation to fly...or get hover at least/
I have the patience for Ghost in the Shell JUST BARELY

However, as with most of my concepts, this is done for my use mostly. You have to understand the context within which I make concepts before you understand why I'm not concerned with communicating with other people. The overwhelming majority of my time is spent solo, by myself, running missions that, when you break them down to their bare essentials, amount to killing stuff for one reason or another. During this time, I'm not functionally alone, as I am either chatting with friends over personal tells, chatting in global channels with people not on my team and often not on the same server (I'm on Pinnacle right now, yet chatting in Victory Badges) or otherwise Alt-Tabbing to the forums to post here.

Whenever I do team, it's because someone I know logged on and we decided to spend some time together, or because I'm taking part in an event friends of mine are hosting. In the former case, we would have been chatting over Global anyway and spend most of our time talking about out-of-game stuff anyway, and in the latter case my friends require Team Speak participation for scheduled events so there's no chance I'll be in-character even if I wanted to. Traditional RP where I talk and act in character just doesn't apply to the way I play City of Heroes.

What I'm left with is the way in which I interact with the game environment. Which missions do I pick, what decisions do I make, which contacts do I work with, etc. The game has, I would say, more than enough content to satisfy this particular decision of mine, so I'm not really hampering my gameplay in anyway. I have a choice between newer content and older content, and I'm simply choosing older content, which I honestly like better anyway.

In essence, it's all character concept, it's just not all written down in the Description field. If I do get the chance to substitute communications with emotes and say things like ? !!! ... ..! and so on, then all the better, but I doubt such opportunities will present themselves. Either way, I'm not shooting myself in the foot, as it were

Quote:
Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
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.

 

Posted

How does Stardiver feel about sending text messages?

 

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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
I have the patience for Ghost in the Shell JUST BARELY

...

Whenever I do team, it's because someone I know logged on and we decided to spend some time together, or because I'm taking part in an event friends of mine are hosting.
Speaking of which, if you make a version of Stardiver on Infinity, she and Infinity have to team at least once It'll be the cosmic crossover of the century! And likely one of those artsyfartsy all-silent comic books...

Oh, and why does Ghost In The Shell require special patience, and what does that have to do with muteness?

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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Quote:
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
What I'm left with is the way in which I interact with the game environment.
Thats all I needed to know, because it's all anyone ever needs to know in any game...even those that pitch the concept of moral options or "Choose your own Adventure" style options...like those super fun books when I was 12.

Going rogue teased with the concept of juggling good, bad, the middle and everything inbetween and it did it failry well.

To be honest the only time I have ever seen a game ever allow for the world of "Concept" to really shine, is PnP Dungeons and Dragons...or sitting around in someones basement (Usually their moms) RPing face to face, and making the DM/GM think beyond their own imagination.

Sadly...computers built for mass peoples...or in general still cannot allow for that freedom as they are dependant on specific actions performed by the player to continue.

Or...Make an emapth like my "White-Swan" (hehehe..I named her after toilet paper cuz she fixes team wipes...*Get the joke*) and just skip every story, and get to 50 doing everyone elses story

 

Posted

On a wierd note...it's funny that because I am deaf and not always able to communicate with people, that someone wishes to play a mute character that would go through the same experience that I have been through.

I guess perhaps I appreciate the dialogue because it allows me to speak? Or maybe it's just the reverse. Im so used to not being able to communicate face to face with many people, that I could not imagine playing a character that can't communicate in a game.

I guess it really is fantasy

(Side note) I am not negative about my condition at all...I just enjoy concepts that focus on the inability to interact with others. For instance I liked Monet St. Croix in the X-Books for the same reason

 

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
What would I need to do in order to play a mute character?
Shut Up.















Ok, but in all seriousness, maybe you should check out the anime Durarara- it's airing right now on Cartoon Network saturday nights. One fo the main characters (theres a lot of characters) is mute, and spends good deal of time texting to communicate with others.

 

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sign language

Issue 23: All your base are belong to us?

 

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Originally Posted by SlickRiptide View Post
How does Stardiver feel about sending text messages?
Poorly It means I'll have to do a bit of extra running around, but that's really not a big deal. I grew up in a game where contacts gave their phone numbers only 3/4 of the way through their full inventory of missions and usually after you're done with their arc, so it's not something I'm not used to. I've gotten lazy over the years of free phones and now the "find contact" feature, but a little runaround won't kill me.

Hell, I was the guy who back in 2006 argued AGAINST CoV's condensed area design where zones were smaller and contacts only ever sent you to missions in the same zone. I fully believed - and still believe now - that getting to see the zones is a good thing. A little remembrance of the old days can't hurt, especially now that I don't have to swap trains in Steel Canyon

Quote:
Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
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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Originally Posted by Kitsune9tails View Post
Speaking of which, if you make a version of Stardiver on Infinity, she and Infinity have to team at least once It'll be the cosmic crossover of the century! And likely one of those artsyfartsy all-silent comic books...
Sadly, I only play on Victory and Pinnacle, and I only have the name reserved on Victory as of right now, so a trip to Infinity just can't happen. I would if I could, though

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kitsune9tails View Post
Oh, and why does Ghost In The Shell require special patience, and what does that have to do with muteness?
I mentioned it elsewhere as something I was planning to do during Maintenance. And it does require patience because it's a very slow, plodding movie heavy with exposition and philosophy. Once I've seen and understood it, it becomes harder and harder to sit through on subsequent views as I know what it's talking about yet it spends so long talking about it anyway.

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Originally Posted by Nyx View Post
On a wierd note...it's funny that because I am deaf and not always able to communicate with people, that someone wishes to play a mute character that would go through the same experience that I have been through.

I guess perhaps I appreciate the dialogue because it allows me to speak? Or maybe it's just the reverse. Im so used to not being able to communicate face to face with many people, that I could not imagine playing a character that can't communicate in a game.

I guess it really is fantasy
Call me weird, but I just love unusual ideas. The first time I designed a character who'd lost her arm crashing-landing from space, I thought that was one of the more interesting things I've done. You know, to have someone with a whole, fully-functioning prosthetic arm? The first time I designed a character who was dead as a defining characteristic, I thought that was pretty cool, too. Or the one made entirely out of sentient organic goo with no internal organs whatsoever. Or the alien bug queen from space who gave birth to an entire race of incredibly aggressive, world-devouring insects.

Anything that's unusual and presents a novel experience - even if that novel experience would be a bad thing in real life - immediately catches my eye. That's why I have almost no basic humans in costume among my characters. They're all aliens, robots, animals, dead or otherwise unusual. The weirder the better, I say

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Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
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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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
Sadly, I only play on Victory and Pinnacle, and I only have the name reserved on Victory as of right now, so a trip to Infinity just can't happen. I would if I could, though
Okay, I'll bite: why only those two?

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!

 

Posted

I'm sorry but I cannot get over the hilarious irony of you playing a mute character.

I really do mean that in the nicest possible way.

"You don't lose levels. You don't have equipment to wear out, repair, or lose, or that anyone can steal from you. About the only thing lighter than debt they could do is have an NPC walk by, point and laugh before you can go to the hospital or base." -Memphis_Bill
We will honor the past, and fight to the last, it will be a good way to die...

 

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Originally Posted by Kitsune9tails View Post
Okay, I'll bite: why only those two?
Tradition, stubbornness, that's where all my characters are. Truth be told, it would have been only Victory, but I ran out of slots there back when we had only 12. Right now, I've used up two full screens of both servers plus about half the way down the third on both. I was contemplating expanding to a third server recently, thinking of maybe one of the EU ones, but then Paragon Studios went and added a fourth page of character slots, so that's killed my ideas for expansion.

Basically, no real reason, and believe me - that's the hardest reasoning to argue with. I've been on there for, what... Six, seven years now? It would take something major to shift me, short of running out of slots.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
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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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
Yeah, about that - I actually considered it, but it doesn't work with the character concept. See, Star is VERY reclusive.

...

Star just doesn't feel right dealing with people. If she's left to her own devices, she'd just hide out in a cave by herself.
If your character won't speak, audibly or psychically, then it has to write things down. If it won't write things down, it has to resort to pantomime.

Regardless of how reclusive your character may be, if its goals require some manner of communication with the locals, then that communication has to happen somehow; whatever is driving it to meet these goals must make it happen against your character's normal tendencies; otherwise, they can't meet these goals and the concept won't fly at all.

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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
For instance... OK, think of any typical emo anime protagonist, say Squall Lionheart, and how they just don't speak with people most of the time. You tell him something, he just goes "........." That's what I want to achieve.
But Sam, that's not communication, and Squall is acting like a sullen, stoic bozo. In any hypothetical conversation, people expect responses of some sort and will generally prompt the other person until they get one they understand. And note that I say "conversation" because you appear to want some sort of mutual exchange to occur between your character and the NPC.

Besides, do you really want to create a "typical emo anime protagonist" as anything other than a parody?

61866 - A Series of Unfortunate Kidnappings - More than a coincidence?
2260 - The Burning of Hearts - A green-eyed monster holds the match.
379248 - The Spider Without Fangs - NEW - Some lessons learned (more or less.)

 

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Originally Posted by TheDeepBlue View Post
And note that I say "conversation" because you appear to want some sort of mutual exchange to occur between your character and the NPC.
That's the point - ideally, that's precisely what I DON'T want to occur between my character and any of the NPCs. The whole point of this thought experiment is to theorise a character who CANNOT and WILL NOT communicate. I can fudge communication this way or that way and arrive at someone who can't actually speak, but for all intents and purposes might a well speak.

That's... Boring, honestly. Call me crazy, but I have 50 of these. It doesn't matter of Star speaks, writes, thinks or gestures to other people - as long as she's communicating, she's communicating and I don't want that. It's far more interesting to operate from the baseline that she CAN'T communicate with people in any way beyond a very rudimentary yes/no response and try to extrapolate what I'd need to do to be consistent with the character concept from there.

I'm not looking to take a hard-to-realise concept and make it easier, because it's that difficulty that makes it so interesting. I choose to make Stardiver as I have not because it is easy, but because it is hard, to steal a line from JFK

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Originally Posted by TheDeepBlue View Post
Besides, do you really want to create a "typical emo anime protagonist" as anything other than a parody?
Why not? If parody is all you can see such a concept as, then this is precisely the kind of thing I'd take seriously and run with. That's what makes characters in this game so interesting - taking the road less travelled. Or, in this case, the road SO MUCH travelled that there are hardly any good ideas left. So, finding one that's both good and left should be an interesting ride.

If I think back to all the characters I've made, I don't recall a single one of them starting as anything BUT a horrible, dumb, absurd idea that I nevertheless ran with and made my own. That's part of my creative process and part of what drives me. I could make something that's easy to justify and write about, but that just doesn't do anything for me. Eh, I have the most fun when I dare to be stupid. Sometimes my characters end up so stupid they rewind the counter and end up being awesome, and sometimes they end up just plain stupid. You win some, you lose some, but I'd rather try something stupid and fail than try something certain and succeed.

That's what makes life interesting

*edit*
Actually, the Carnie prisoners in the First War brig gave me a great line to describe this: "That makes NO sense... I love it!" Words to live by

Quote:
Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
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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Quote:
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
That's the point - ideally, that's precisely what I DON'T want to occur between my character and any of the NPCs. The whole point of this thought experiment is to theorise a character who CANNOT and WILL NOT communicate.
Cutting this out to point out that some will argue even nodding or shaking her head is considered communication. It's not words, but it's communicating an idea through emotion and body language. After all, isn't most communication through body language, rather then words?

I like the concept, but unfortunately your best bet is to really just ignore the dialog trees and what the NPC's 'make' you say. It's not like they're probably listening anyways. I had to recently move to a part of the country where it's considered a great place to live, but I personally hate it (grew up here, so the magic doesn't exist for me). I've had the following conversation more times then I can count:
"Oh you moved to x?! How do you like it?"
"I don't, actually."
"I know, isn't is AMAZING?!"
"Um. Yeah, you know, we'll just go with "amazing"."

People don't listen, it's a human thing. So you can pretend the contacts are basically 'filling in' her answers, like the poster with the cricket character mention.

 

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Originally Posted by Tinier Bolt View Post
I like the concept, but unfortunately your best bet is to really just ignore the dialog trees and what the NPC's 'make' you say. It's not like they're probably listening anyways.
That's certainly an option, but I like to consider it a last resort. I'm pretty sure that if I just plan ahead, I could avoid all the conversations in the game by just picking the right arcs, especially hero-side. Not all of them, mind you, but most.

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Originally Posted by Tinier Bolt View Post
People don't listen, it's a human thing. So you can pretend the contacts are basically 'filling in' her answers, like the poster with the cricket character mention.
Yeah, that's possible. It's probably what I'll have to end up doing where it's unavoidable, such as with Mender Ramiel (I'd rather converse than run Incarnate Trials... Ugh!), but I find it more interesting just how far I can go on just explaining things away as things OTHER than communication. When a contact asks Star what she found in that abandoned lab, she doesn't explain, she just hands him over the thingy. Since I won't be using the phone, that should be an option a lot of the time. If She has to get a contact's confession, like with Jimmy the Preacher, for instance, there are always recording devices, so when the contact asks what Jimmy said, Star doesn't explain, she hands him a recording.

I'm curious to see how much of the game can be explained way by handing evidence directly to the contacts as opposed to explaining anything to them. With picking the right contacts, of course. The more I think about this, more I want to go all the way against the grain just to try what it's like

Quote:
Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
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.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
See, Star is VERY reclusive. She spent untold millennia just floating through space in search of new stars and roaming barren, lifeless planets. Every time she found intelligent life, its people just regarded her as a monster and either hid from her, made war to chase her away or at best kept their distance. Earth was the first place where she didn't seem terribly out of place just because everything here is so incredibly weird, but even so, Star just doesn't feel right dealing with people. If she's left to her own devices, she'd just hide out in a cave by herself.
I guess I don't really understand why this character would be running missions at all. The contacts system in CoX require your character to walk up to people spontaneously and talk to them. If she's *that* reclusive, what's her motivation to do it in the first place? And if her motive is urgent enough to overcome her reclusive nature, why isn't it strong enough to overcome her refusal to communicate? As soon as you concede the necessity to use contacts, then the concept of the absolute recluse is broken.

It seems like the best way to keep the concept 'pure' would be to avoid 'real' contacts altogether, and level up through streetsweeping and AE. Streetsweeping doesn't require any verbal interaction (although you might need to run away from grateful citizens :-) and AE is no more of a real interaction than reading a book. It doesn't matter if she can't talk in there -- just assume that there's a mechanic within AE which allows her to click the appropriate option when she's playing.

I was wondering about training, too, but Luminary might be someone Star would be comfortable with, and with the updated train lines she's easy to reach. That only leaves buying SOs. Hmm. You mentioned her becoming friends with a group of heroes -- would it feel like cheating if one of your other characters was in that group? Then they could buy the SOs and mail them to her, or drop them in a table in a SG base, so she could pick them up. (And she could leave unwanted drops there, for others to sell, if she didn't want to feel indebted to them.)

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