Why is the Malta Group out in the open?
I'll cast a vote in favor of internal consistency and continuity.
It should absolutely be possible to draw a clean line through the game at any level (or at least any cluster of 5 levels) and say, "below this line, x is a mystery and y is revealed" as if the game were a single player game.
All it would take is an editor, and I and many others would be totally willing to do it gratis.
This game has a rich, deep back story and that is important to my enjoyment.
Sure, there are a lot of people who are in favor of rush and kill, but that doesn't mean that there should not be content produced for those who want to read and alter the course of a good story.
For all of the issues with talk-heavy arcs like parts of First Ward, Dr. Graves and more, no one has to do them. They are an alternative to more action-packed arcs, and they absolutely should exist for those who like them.
The game has a strong core of face smashing goodness; it can also support paths to 50 for those who like relationship stories, mysteries, and puzzles.
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!
Just as a side note, people actually had to wait for the reveal to figure out the Lost->Rikti connection? I picked that up the first time a "homeless man" pulled out an energy weapon.
There is no such thing as an "innocent bystander"
Just as a side note, people actually had to wait for the reveal to figure out the Lost->Rikti connection? I picked that up the first time a "homeless man" pulled out an energy weapon.
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That's supposed to be a reveal in the 35-40 range, and to the game's credit... It kind of is. You can either get it from the original Omega Clearance, or from the Dark Watcher in the same level range, or from Timothy Raymond who throws it out as an afterthought because whoever wrote his arc did a singularly inept job of it. But all of that is restricted to the 35-40 range.
In fact, when running the Midnighters' arc - at least in the 10-30 range - you run across a "good" Rikti and the narrative wonders aloud how such a thing is even possible. To the game's credit, that's done fairly well.
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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I'll cast a vote in favor of internal consistency and continuity. It should absolutely be possible to draw a clean line through the game at any level (or at least any cluster of 5 levels) and say, "below this line, x is a mystery and y is revealed" as if the game were a single player game. All it would take is an editor, and I and many others would be totally willing to do it gratis.
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This kind of explanation is the ultimate saving throw. It allows us to have our basic timeline expand as the player advances in level, but it still leaves the door open for major changes to happen that affect the low levels as a result of events taking place in the later levels. Someone messed with the timeline, so what's happening at levels 1-5 isn't a direct result of what happens in level 45-50, but instead the whole 1-50 timeline has shifted so that something which was supposed to happen later happened earlier, but time progression with levels remains the same.
It's an idea so awesome I'm ashamed I didn't think of it, myself. This is the perfect workaround, and at the same time it leaves no excuse to NOT have the level-based timeline consistent.
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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When I first started playing CoH I had never seen the Rikti before, and they were the source of hushed rumours and sly comments from my betters (read: People in Atlas).
I thought they were called "Headmen" because they wore TVs on their heads and I only realised Pariahs looked like Rikti when I finally saw them. New players don't even have the old naked Rikti to compare them to.
It should absolutely be possible to draw a clean line through the game at any level (or at least any cluster of 5 levels) and say, "below this line, x is a mystery and y is revealed" as if the game were a single player game. |
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"
The idea that "level progression equals story progression" has been on life support at least since CoV, and as of the destruction of Galaxy City is now Not Merely Dead But Really And Sincerely Dead.
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IIRC, very few arcs proportionally in this game are connected to a specific date and can be left alone. The rest can probably be mostly fixed with text changes ('Malta' becoming 'some mysterious organization'). So the new timeline becomes:
2002 First Rikti Invasion
2004 Statesman calls for heroes to migrate to Paragon
2005-2010 Stuff happens that is accessible only in Ouroboros (if that)
2011 Fall of Galaxy City; Freedom generation heroes arrive
2011+ Your current career
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!
Bringing this over from the Content Overload! thread...
I'm back in Paragon City for the long haul, I think, but what I would really like to see in the future is a rethinking of the mission and arc paradigm combined with a project of going back and revisiting/revamping old mission chains, cutting out the fat, and making them actually do-able in a five level timeframe; then presenting all of that in a way that lets you customize your experience beyond taking missions ad-hoc and hoping you don't outlevel the contact or the zone before you finish up the story.
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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!
Understood; I think we should toss it a Ressurect, or perhaps a Mutation.
IIRC, very few arcs proportionally in this game are connected to a specific date and can be left alone. The rest can probably be mostly fixed with text changes ('Malta' becoming 'some mysterious organization'). So the new timeline becomes: 2002 First Rikti Invasion 2004 Statesman calls for heroes to migrate to Paragon 2005-2010 Stuff happens that is accessible only in Ouroboros (if that) 2011 Fall of Galaxy City; Freedom generation heroes arrive 2011+ Your current career |
So, what is happening "right now?" The starter arcs, Graves and Twinshot, Death from Below, First Ward, the i17 redside clone arc, Vincent Ross, Roy Cooling, Admiral Sutter, Mortimer Kal, the SSAs, the Underground Trial and maybe the Keyes Trial. Cimerora deals with time travel so it might get a pass. Apex, Tin Mage, the i17 blueside clone arc, all the i18 Praetorian content, Lambda, and BAF are already outdated content. Your "current" career doesn't leave you with much to do, does it?
Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper
Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
Arc ID#431270 Until the End of the World
![](http://i778.photobucket.com/albums/yy70/KojiroJames/neversurrendersig.jpg)
Except it doesn't work, because aside from the RWZ and Cimerora, there isn't any "current" content to do past level 30.
... Your "current" career doesn't leave you with much to do, does it? |
In my idea, what is 'current' is determined solely (or at least primarily) by the level in which you encounter it, regardless of the memories of us old fogies. This is similar to how Franklin Richards has only aged 5 years since 1968, while in the meantime, Kitty Pryde has gone from a precocious young teen to a young adult since her debut in 1980.
So if you are level 35, the missions you get from Technician Naylor or Indigo or whoever are 'current'.
Something like Twinshot's arc (levels 5-20) would need text rewrites to happen 'before' characters start arriving en masse from Praetoria (20+), which event would happen prior to being sent there by Tina MacIntyre (35+) etc.
These are just text changes; hopefully immune to the Code Rant.
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!
Understood; I think we should toss it a Ressurect, or perhaps a Mutation. |
The storyline needs to progress in real time.
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"
No, we should drive a stake through its heart and fill its mouth with garlic.
The storyline needs to progress in real time. |
You mean like a given month's SSA and holiday events are the only things going on that month, and other missions you take happened years ago, quite possibly before you were ever a superhero (if it is a new post Galaxy character)?
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!
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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No, we should revive it and stop pretending it's dead. The storyline needs to progress with level progression.
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In a real-time world, few missions can be of much consequence; few heroes or villains can be of much consequence; and the story exists in an almost entirely separate context from what most players experience inside the game. I've played MMORPGs where the only way to experience ANY historical event was to be there at a particular date and time. The first MMORPG ever created is still operating under this principle, and for small parties of adventurers, it still sucks fifteen years later. Imagine if Temblor and Fusionette's arc, or the jaw-dropping "reveal" arcs for the Circle of Thorns or Rikti--imagine if those arcs could only be done once, not by your small team of world-saving heroes, but by everyone on the server who showed up to play.
People who love zone events might be drooling at that scenario, but keep in mind that if such events were the only way to progress the story, there would barely be any story to tell. Long months would pass between events during times when the dev team's priorities shifted. When an Earth-shattering event finally came to pass, your class-A super celebrity Tank couldn't save the Earth by himself, or with a few members of his super group; and not only because thousands of other heroes got the memo that day, but because you had to go to work IRL. Contrast this with your favorite character, who might have saved his neighborhood, or even the city (or even the world) a handful of times this week.
@Captain-Electric � Detective Marvel � The Sapien Spider � Moravec Man � The Old Norseman
Dark-Eyes � Doctor Serpentine � Stonecaster � Skymaiden � The Blue Jaguar
Guide to Altitis � A Comic for New Players � The Lore Project � Intro to extraterrestrials in CoH
Then there's the Malta Group, acting as mentioned before, with decrepit old Directors suddenly showing up with excessively powerful weapons and gear. Now, granted, I'm willing to accept that the current crop of Directors are the sons and daughters of the original group (Old Money at work...), so the arrival of a lean, athletic and surprisingly capable Director 11 doesn't really bother me. But the fact that we get NO gameplay to explain these shifts, changes or even the core elements of their backstory just leaves for their insertion elsewhere in OTHER group's plots feel forced and artificial.
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Global name: @k26dp
No, we should revive it and stop pretending it's dead. The storyline needs to progress with level progression. |
You can cure the Lost at level 10, but the mission that formally drops the reveal doesn't hit until the 25-30 bracket. Crey isn't formally outed as corrupt until 45-50 unless you run tips in which case you know at level 20. (Villains get it at level 15 through regular missions.) The Praetorian invasion is all over the place. So is "the coming storm". The 5th/Council nonsense is a Gordian Knot. And on, and on....
If content set B is added after content set A in real time, then content set B must take place after content set A in game time as well. In most cases this means A must be removed to make way for B, and there is nothing wrong with that. Dynamic worlds require change, not mere agglutinization.
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"
I agree with this completely. The game's storyline might change in real time, but so far it seems like this is being handled like changes in the timeline. For instance, Galaxy City was fine yesterday, it's destroyed today, but this didn't just "happen." According to silos, there was a timeline where this never happened at all, and the Shivans instead landed in Atlas Park, so the game's plot changed, but as a result of someone tampering with the timeline.
This kind of explanation is the ultimate saving throw. It allows us to have our basic timeline expand as the player advances in level, but it still leaves the door open for major changes to happen that affect the low levels as a result of events taking place in the later levels. Someone messed with the timeline, so what's happening at levels 1-5 isn't a direct result of what happens in level 45-50, but instead the whole 1-50 timeline has shifted so that something which was supposed to happen later happened earlier, but time progression with levels remains the same. It's an idea so awesome I'm ashamed I didn't think of it, myself. This is the perfect workaround, and at the same time it leaves no excuse to NOT have the level-based timeline consistent. |
This allows me to play as if my level 50 tank was fighting crime in Paragon years before my Street Justice scrapper started, at the same time allowing for the events in Galaxy City to be happening right now for both of them. How so? Here's the SERAPH explanation. The Galaxy city event represents a really big bobble, heavy enough to create a water-well or tidal-pool in the time-stream, one that is drawing other bobbles closer to it, whether from behind or in front, it doesn't matter.
And, really, if you listen to most players in the game, particularly role-players, they seem to be employing this method anyway, if subconsciously. I'm merely slapping a rationalization on it. But, truth be told, it wasn't my idea in the first place. (Anybody who has been reading comics for a while is already in the know.
![Wink](images/smilies/wink.gif)
@Captain-Electric � Detective Marvel � The Sapien Spider � Moravec Man � The Old Norseman
Dark-Eyes � Doctor Serpentine � Stonecaster � Skymaiden � The Blue Jaguar
Guide to Altitis � A Comic for New Players � The Lore Project � Intro to extraterrestrials in CoH
It can't. It isn't doing it now, precisely because it can't.
You can cure the Lost at level 10, but the mission that formally drops the reveal doesn't hit until the 25-30 bracket. Crey isn't formally outed as corrupt until 45-50 unless you run tips in which case you know at level 20. (Villains get it at level 15 through regular missions.) The Praetorian invasion is all over the place. So is "the coming storm". The 5th/Council nonsense is a Gordian Knot. And on, and on.... If content set B is added after content set A in real time, then content set B must take place after content set A in game time as well. In most cases this means A must be removed to make way for B, and there is nothing wrong with that. Dynamic worlds require change, not mere agglutinization. |
Global name: @k26dp
I don't think the content and reveals need to be linear. I just assume that my characters are like Batman or Wolverine... appearing in about five or six different comic books at a time, each loosely tied to the same continuity, but not necessarily knowing all of the stuff at the same time.
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There's a point where we (as players) should ask ourselves if we're taking things way more seriously than the comic book genre would ever take itself.
@Captain-Electric � Detective Marvel � The Sapien Spider � Moravec Man � The Old Norseman
Dark-Eyes � Doctor Serpentine � Stonecaster � Skymaiden � The Blue Jaguar
Guide to Altitis � A Comic for New Players � The Lore Project � Intro to extraterrestrials in CoH
This allows me to play as if my level 50 tank was fighting crime in Paragon years before my Street Justice scrapper started, at the same time allowing for the events in Galaxy City to be happening right now for both of them. How so? Here's the SERAPH explanation. The Galaxy city event represents a really big bobble, heavy enough to create a water-well or tidal-pool in the time-stream, one that is drawing other bobbles closer to it, whether from behind or in front, it doesn't matter.
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So basically it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff?
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![](http://img821.imageshack.us/img821/7819/winkm.jpg)
@Captain-Electric � Detective Marvel � The Sapien Spider � Moravec Man � The Old Norseman
Dark-Eyes � Doctor Serpentine � Stonecaster � Skymaiden � The Blue Jaguar
Guide to Altitis � A Comic for New Players � The Lore Project � Intro to extraterrestrials in CoH
(oh, wait...)
Or plant entire groves of Epileptic Trees, but really, that's the same thing.
Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper
Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
Arc ID#431270 Until the End of the World