Make Origin relevant

Now I've been playing i21 for a while, something has struck me. It's small, but it could have a bit of an impact (apologises if this has already been brought up):

Origin, something you HAVE to choose when creating a character, means nothing.

Ok, maybe not absolutely nothing, it still dictates what enhancements you can buy, but now you have a single contact to start with in Atlas, it pretty much doesn't mean anything. Before i21, your origin dictated your starting contact and while their arcs weren't exactly fantastic it at least meant you didn't have to do the same series of missions every time you started. Villians never had this, true, but at least they had a choice of 2 starting contacts.

So my ultimate suggestion is: add content relevant to your origin.

I'm not saying this should happen now as to add different content for each origin would be a problem as the game is based along a single story thread at the moment, that being the war with Praetoria and the Coming Storm, but in future, when these arcs are all tied up and Galaxy has been rebuilt, there's the chance to allow the player to have a slightly more relevant story arc.

So, from the start (and I appreciate this would be a hell of alot of work), you get an origin opporiate contact who then points you towards other appropriate contacts in what could be an over arching plot (like the Malta Group trying to destroy Mutants), though you can just go your own way and deal with who you want to and other contacts may deal with you differently (say a Luddite contact who'll work with a Natural origin but shun a Technology origin) and alter bits of their text (like say someone impressed a Natural, Technology or Science individual has done so well but isn't impressed by a Magic or Mutant individual)

It's an idea that needs alot more freshing out, but in principle, what do people think of such an idea?

Been suggested before in a few different ways - some good, some bad. So you're not alone.

There is (or was) some pointing at origin - if you look at your contacts, at least earlier blueside contacts, they'll mention "They are going against X group and provide Y origin enhancements," so you could tailor who you picked to go with by origin. (I don't actually recall right this second if they still do - I want to say they don't.)

BTW, Galaxy won't be rebuilt.

I don't think I agree with contacts refusing to work with you based on origin right offhand.

I do still think, really, that there *should* be a 1-50 origin-specific "arc" though, with appropriate groups - kind of an investigation trying to find out who's trying to convert/capture/study/kill you and why. Though part of the problem with that is that it doesn't fit everyone's character.

Natural, for instance - some people take to be "Natural human." Now if it's written that way ("The Council is trying to win you to their cause to train their soldiers in your image - and if you won't join, they'll try to kill you" for instance) what are they going to do with, say, my Natural Spine/Inv scrapper... who's an alien. Who grows, fights with, and flings toxic spines, and can fly? That makes zero sense.

Or, Magic - "the COT want to steal the artifacts you use" or some such... but what if magic's an innate part of your being? There's nothing for them to steal, so the arc would make no sense.

Like I said, I'd like to see it. It would just be exceptionally difficult to do well without being so generic it'd be rather bland. (Probably more something to tackle individually in AE.)

See my Guides and Tutorials

I would actually love it if there was more origin-specific content out there, as long as it was just content, and didn't give you anything else besides fleshing out your character a bit.

The problem with making origin too-relevant is that you can't change it (and that's a topic for another discussion: in fact, they're going on now in several places), and characters have been created for 7+ years now that would miss out on stuff (bonuses, powers, etc.) that they might want because of a decision they made almost a decade ago. So there's a fine line that you need to walk.

That said: yes to origin-specific arcs, no to origin-specific bonuses or powers (and yes, I know this wasn't suggested by the OP).

I was worried it was going to be a thread suggesting Magic origin characters should spell casting actions etc etc. I used to hate those thread! Glad this is something different

Still, up until Issue 21 we used to start of with missions dictated by our origin. Personally I would be happy to see more Origin Contacts.