Why is the Malta Group out in the open?
So Crimson and Viridian can be a part of an organization that Malta is influencing, and still be aware of them, but that gets thrown out the window for some reason for Roy?
That doesn't make sense.
Murphys Military Law
#23. Teamwork is essential; it gives the enemy other people to shoot at.
#46. If you can't remember, the Claymore is pointed towards you.
#54. Killing for peace is like screwing for virginity.
What Venture is saying in effect is you can't change older content at lower levels and still have a level/story progress trajectory. What you're saying is to essentially lock the changes behind progression gates. In effect, to use phasing to enforce progression trajectories. When you start the game, Galaxy is there. And then eventually in your timeline its destroyed, and then and only then do you actually see it destroyed. Something like that.
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No-one is saying that content progression should never change or that events should never be added to the lower levels that have effects later down the line. What I'm saying is that when something is changed, it should either be change so it doesn't contradict the timeline, or to the timeline should be changed to accommodate it. Moreover, a timeline SHOULD exist. Not necessarily stretching from 2002 to 2011, but still having SOME form of staggered information delivery and at least a few surprises.
If we take the view that at this stage in the game everyone knows everything and we should have no more mysteries and no more surprises, all we'll accomplish is turn what used to be an interesting world into a parody of itself.
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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So Crimson and Viridian can be a part of an organization that Malta is influencing, and still be aware of them, but that gets thrown out the window for some reason for Roy?
That doesn't make sense. |
They enlist your help with an ambiguous task. Help somebody. There were scary people there with weaponry designed to deal with meta humans. Interesting. They ask if you'd like to help them deal with their "friends" from here on out.
So far, the only really "public" thing the Malta Group has done is send a gigantic robot to assault heroes in broad daylight and another to tear down the War Walls. In both instances, it still leaves the public scratching their heads and wondering what the Hell just happened.
Their troops in the streets? Still deniable assets.
My Stories
Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.
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So, I just found another bit that probably fits into this thread. A line by Montague Costanella.
"Percy Winkley is missing... again." Now this is something that folks may already know, but when I first saw it, I thought it was another of those fourth wall referential moments, about how every new Hero would be running the arc (at least if they want in Cimerorra). Well, I just started a contact that I hadn't run it apparently years, Harvey Maylor. One of the first elements of his arc? Rescuing Percy Winkly from Carnies. |
The kid is just unlucky.
As for Monty's arc hero-side being 10+, it's because it involves the lost, which only exist sub-20.
Orc&Pie No.53230 There is an orc, and somehow, he got a pie. And you are hungry.
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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 like how you're saying that there's only so much that the characters should know, then ignore the fact that the devs decide how much it is that the characters know. Roy Cooling is at the top of the FBSA, and it was decided that a top member of the group that oversees the super powered individuals in one of the most powerful countries in the world would know a little about a group that's said to leave "Fingerprints staining the headlines with regularity".
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So Crimson and Viridian can be a part of an organization that Malta is influencing, and still be aware of them, but that gets thrown out the window for some reason for Roy?
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Their troops in the streets are a metagame kludge, as is their presence in the Grandville papers.
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Care to elaborate on that? At what point is it impossible, short of simply not knowing your own plot, to not contradict established stories, or to fix the stories you contradict? Surely the 5th Column to Council both job is better that current state of complete jumble we have now.
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Personally, I don't see a problem with that, but that is technically 'imperfect consistency'.
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!
So if he's at the top of the FBSA and has a lot of influence with the hero community (most of whom had never heard of him until very recently), and he knows a little about Malta, why the hell is he sending relative newbies after them? These are the guys who eat inexperienced heroes for breakfast. Why, I remember back in the day, big tough level 50 tanks would wet their pants at the sight of a Sapper.
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Basically he's betting that there's not going to be any Malta there, and it's just going to be Sky Raiders. So there's the in story justification.
And the other justification is, why have any lower level Heroes save the City? It's too much a risk, Positron should get over Vhaz conning gray, and save the Dam himself instead of sending Dr. Thingamajig and his merry band of catgirls. At some point people have to divorce level from the story and just enjoy a decent arc.
Crimson and Indigo weren't part of any known organization until i6.
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I swear Indigo was the only one to call them "Friends", didn't Crimson call them the Malta Group outright whenever he mentioned them?
Murphys Military Law
#23. Teamwork is essential; it gives the enemy other people to shoot at.
#46. If you can't remember, the Claymore is pointed towards you.
#54. Killing for peace is like screwing for virginity.
At some point people have to divorce level from the story and just enjoy a decent arc.
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It also doesn't excuse my argument in the slightest. The organizations and groups need to act in manners that make sense for their "modus operandi."
The Malta Group's method of operation is secrecy and deceit when their "jack-booted thugs" cannot achieve the intended goals. The deniable assets move in when the secrecy and deceit fail.
Indigo, Crimson, Shadow Spider, Viridian and Arbiter Daos know the term for the enigmatic group. The rest of the world has next to no idea about the weird, dark-blue dressed operatives that seem bent on making life a living Hell for anybody not progressing the cause of Capitalism.
My Stories
Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.
"We're lucky, though, that they're using Sky Raiders; it means that Malta is trying to have as minimal a presence in this operation as possible. This man called 'Peter' is probably the Malta liason between the Rogue PPD and the Sky Raiders."
Basically he's betting that there's not going to be any Malta there, and it's just going to be Sky Raiders. So there's the in story justification. |
And the other justification is, why have any lower level Heroes save the City? It's too much a risk, Positron should get over Vhaz conning gray, and save the Dam himself instead of sending Dr. Thingamajig and his merry band of catgirls. At some point people have to divorce level from the story and just enjoy a decent arc. |
And? |
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Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper
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Arc ID#431270 Until the End of the World
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With the devs turning away from street hunts, they're not really needed as zone mobs anymore - making them a villain group that only appeared on mission maps would help to make them seem more secret.
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![Wink](images/smilies/wink.gif)
There is no such thing as an "innocent bystander"
But then you'd have to remove the existing hunt missions and no one in this game likes it when things are removed.
![](http://i778.photobucket.com/albums/yy70/KojiroJames/neversurrendersig.jpg)
Indigo, Crimson, Shadow Spider, Viridian and Arbiter Daos know the term for the enigmatic group. The rest of the world has next to no idea about the weird, dark-blue dressed operatives that seem bent on making life a living Hell for anybody not progressing the cause of Capitalism.
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Not to mention the background information that's been out for as long as I remember (and quoted earlier) Implies that multiple government agencies are aware of Malta as well as veteren heroes being aware of them and reporting on their abilities. That's actually an even scarier thought, that multiple world government's and agencies (and heroes) are aware of Malta's existance and agenda, yet can't prove they exist or take any real offence against them because they're just that good.
Originally Posted by Eva_Destruction
If he really knows so much about Malta, then he'd be stupid to make that bet.
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What I do know is, it's in the script so that's what happens.
Murphys Military Law
#23. Teamwork is essential; it gives the enemy other people to shoot at.
#46. If you can't remember, the Claymore is pointed towards you.
#54. Killing for peace is like screwing for virginity.
Arcanaville is referring to teaming. A level 1 teaming with a level 50 is going to be seeing things that "haven't happened yet", while the 50 is seeing things they might have already done.
Personally, I don't see a problem with that, but that is technically 'imperfect consistency'. |
1. Our characters progress in both level and time in a monotonically ascending direction. Basically, early levels happen before later ones chronologically for the player.
2. If a future event changes parts of the game experienced at lower progressional levels after a character has progressed out of them, the character's own past will change to be inconsistent with past experience.
3. If a future event changes parts of the game experienced at lower progressional levels before a character has progressed out of them, the character will perceive cause and effect in reverse order.
4. Both #2 and #3 unavoidably create global storyline inconsistencies.
5. Therefore, any MMO that allows future events to change lower level content necessarily introduces global storyline inconsistencies.
6. The only way to add content without creating global inconsistencies is therefore to either a) add content with no connection to prior content or b) always add future content at higher levels than any previously experienced by any player. In other words, the devs would be forced to add no content lower than level 50 now. And later, level 60, then level 70, then level 80, preserving cause and effect to be consistent with content gating. Since that is not an option for City of Heroes, City of Heroes cannot have global storyline consistency in the temporal sense. QED.
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2. If a future event changes parts of the game experienced at lower progressional levels after a character has progressed out of them, the character's own past will change to be inconsistent with past experience.
3. If a future event changes parts of the game experienced at lower progressional levels before a character has progressed out of them, the character will perceive cause and effect in reverse order. |
Let me put it this way: Say I start a character in Galaxy City and this brands said character as having started in the "less popular" zone, thus making contacts occasionally referring to me as avoiding crowds. Years later, Galaxy City gets destroyed. My character still started there, but this "tag" now changes to my character being a Galaxy City survivor, which contacts reference, instead. Things have changed, my past has been re-written, but the timeline remains consistent within itself.
A full ret-con is bad, but it's still better than internal contradiction. Once you start changing events along the timeline, then good writing infers that you'd either write them so they don't contradict, or rewrite all contradicting entries so they are no longer contradictory.
Please understand that I mean no disrespect when I say this:
Your #2 is irrelevant, because you're talking about a player's meta-game experience as part of that player's memory. A character's history can easily be ret-conned, because that character's memory of in-game events is whatever the game says it is. If the game up and said "Your villain did not escape from the Zig on an Arachnos helicopter, he was buried under rubble in Galaxy City" then that's what happened. There is, of course, the balance between player concept and the story railroad, but the game is and should be free to ret-con at the very least its own in-game events.
Your #3 is also irrelevant, because players experiencing content which has been removed or altered are locked into their grandfather content until it is finished. This is why all of the original Mercy Island, Galaxy City and Atlas Park contacts were retained - if you had missions for them, you can at least finish them. A character caught in flux is errant to the timeline, but this is a temporary state. Once said character emerges from that state of flux, he is once more consistent with the storyline because his past deeds are ret-conned to be consistent with his future deeds.
This problem of inconsistent timelines exists only if you introduce the player's own knowledge of events, which is immune to ret-cons and re-writes. However, character knowledge can and should be tweaked where necessary. Even if it comes out of the blue.
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 did refer to that, but there is a more fundamental logical argument proving global consistency is impossible given basic assumptions about how MMO story arcs have to work and the limitations of City of Heroes in particular.
... 6. The only way to add content without creating global inconsistencies is therefore to either a) add content with no connection to prior content or b) always add future content at higher levels than any previously experienced by any player. In other words, the devs would be forced to add no content lower than level 50 now. And later, level 60, then level 70, then level 80, preserving cause and effect to be consistent with content gating. Since that is not an option for City of Heroes, City of Heroes cannot have global storyline consistency in the temporal sense. QED. |
First of all, most events can that are inserted into lower levels are not truly global effects, and are easily things my character could have missed interacting with or not known about. Many players already do this with their bios:
"I was never arrested and thrown in the Zig, I was an established villain with my own volcano base long before I decided to pull Recluse' chain by pretending to work for him."
One of mine is, "I was a hero in Paragon back in the 40s, but retired. Now I'm back, fedora and all, to show the youngsters how it's done." As opposed to being drawn to Paragon by Statesman's call in 2004, or in Galaxy City at the time the meteors fell.
It's up to me as a writer to see to it that my bio jives with canon (or not, and risk the ridicule of Venture). The same thing is evident with many characters that are robots, sentient clouds of gravity and plasma, animated porcelain dolls, or other ...things that then have to shrug off storylines that deal with them catching diseases or having DNA samples taken from them.
Already it is possible for the player to perceive cause and effect in reverse order in the game, and it will always be possible to do so, because you may simply not be at your keyboard when an event happens, and return to see only the aftereffects, then not experience the causative event until you Ouroboros or the event comes 'round again or something. Sure, you can choose to think to yourself, "My character would have been around for that (or NOT, even if they were)" just like you do now when that happens.
Suddenly, Street Justice exists. What, there was no 'bare knuckles brawling' combat style back in the 40s? No, you just hand wave it and move on, just like you do powerset proliferation (or ignore it, like you do with the Origins of Power). Or is it the plan to have future additions to the game happen in Real Time?
"The Rikti suddenly now have battlesuits! News on the latest developments on the war front at Eleven. But first, E!ntertainment reviews the stylish new Circle of Thorns robes. Alastor, take it away."
Now the Devs may have planned truly global effects, like: the planet Earth explodes. History is rewritten so that Paragon City never existed. Your character (whomever or whatever they may be) was hunted down (wherever and whenever they are) and assassinated. But in a world of alternate universes, Ouroboros, and reality-warping psionic devices, do we need these things to happen on a date (Mar 13, 2012) as opposed to a level (Level 35)?
If the Devs are making this move to make things easier on their writers, then cool. I understand that, and canon history may just not be something (like patch notes, which to be honest are greatly improved from launch) that they are going to be able to get a handle on soon.
But honestly, I think the idea of gating certain content behind certain story arcs (similar to how Ouroboros is done) is a better idea.
I am currently playing through Vampire: the Masquerade: Bloodlines for the first time. I am not using a guide. So are some of my friends. As a result, we are getting radically diverging gameplay. Entire lines of inquiry or chunks of story are being sealed away from various characters, because when they choose to let x npc live or not, or take this route as opposed to that, or develop Hacking before Stealth ...it matters. Sure, we can share the experience and discuss things that one character did that another did not, and spoil things for each other and give advice. But the history of each character's progress through the game, and my gameplay experience as a player, is unique.
The effect I am looking for here is sort of a "Crying Game" or "Usual Suspects" effect: sure I knew what the spoiler was before I saw the movie, and the movie was good enough to pull it off anyway, but I was able to go back and experience the story as a whole and as a unit. The player should be able to have the emotional experience of carrying an alt through a story 'for the first time'.
What I fear the Devs are moving toward is more like "Lost" or where you can miss an episode or two, come back to the story, and be ...lost. "Oh, you weren't around when Back Alley Brawler died? Too bad, it was awesome. He used to be in this Strike Force we're playing through, but now he never was."
And as I said before, I respect both you and Venture, and if your perspective is that this is impractical, I'll accept that. I just wanted you guys to see my perspective and why I think it is not only practical, but worth one more try.
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!
Obviously not because Roy Cooling, Lord Recluse, and Recluse's patrons are aware of Malta.
Not to mention the background information that's been out for as long as I remember (and quoted earlier) Implies that multiple government agencies are aware of Malta as well as veteren heroes being aware of them and reporting on their abilities. That's actually an even scarier thought, that multiple world government's and agencies (and heroes) are aware of Malta's existance and agenda, yet can't prove they exist or take any real offence against them because they're just that good. What I do know is, it's in the script so that's what happens. |
Assuming they are a common threat to him, and they're high-end threats, it's a little unsettling that he's pitting a group of low-rank heroes against them. If he were worth his salt, he would be calling in the big guns to put down the Malta Group threat... Excuse me, to use his words, the "Malta" threat. Even with his inexplicable knowledge of the situation, he fails to mention them by their appropriate title.
My Stories
Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.
Speaking of Malta being common knowledge, I can only ever see that in the high 40s. At the end of World Wide Red, CIA China Bureau Chief Jack Fonzie, also known as Director 17, has been arrested and charged and, according to Crimson, Malta's existence has been brought out into the open, meaning that they will now have to worry about more conventional threats from law enforcement and not free agents like him and Indigo. Just HOW out in the open Malta is is up for debate, but post World Wide Red, they can be seen as being known.
However, World Wide Red is a 45-50 story arc, so anything "after" that is really just Incarnate stuff.
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They are The Conspiracy. Their existence is supposed to be ambiguous, frightening and deniable.
My Stories
Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.