Finished Twinshot's arc
Unfortunately I'm inclined to agree, since he talks about helping us wit the Shivans and all that.
Quite a shame. I hope they at least give him some better dialogue instead of the garbled "for kids" scifi speak.
Unfortunately I'm inclined to agree, since he talks about helping us wit the Shivans and all that.
Quite a shame. I hope they at least give him some better dialogue instead of the garbled "for kids" scifi speak. |
Which, actually would be a little cool.
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Well, at worse they could have made Dillo COMPLETELY incomprehensible and speak like the Orz from Star Control.
Which, actually would be a little cool. |
"Men strunt �r strunt och snus �r snus
om ock i gyllne dosor.
Och rosor i ett sprucket krus
�r st�ndigt alltid rosor."
Personally I preferred the Graves arc. I know some felt like his arc treated you like an idiot, which Graves did. But I was always laughing because I knew they were all underestimating me. If I could have been given the option of kicking [spolier]'s butt at the end it would have been perfect imo.
As for Twinshot's arc. I've run it once but won't be running it again. The character development was good but I found too many of the game mechanics drown right annoying and at worst left me shouting at the game!
This is a song about a super hero named Tony. Its called Tony's theme.
Jagged Reged: 23/01/04
Well, at worse they could have made Dillo COMPLETELY incomprehensible and speak like the Orz from Star Control.
Which, actually would be a little cool. |
Dillo-speak on the other hand, makes me *frumple* and wanting to *dance* with *silly cows* who thought he'd be cute.
[*Silly cows* appears to be Orz term for organic lifeforms...]
I actually didn't hate Graves' arc. Or rather, I did hate it, but I kinda liked the end of it, and the overall implication of the creature and how it operates. All that was kinda cool.
Thought for the day:
"Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment."
=][=
*Happy Campers* want to have a *party* in my *house*? We could *dance*!
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![Smile](images/smilies/smile.gif)
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Dr. Graves' arc is insulting, and I feel dumber for having played it. Whoever wrote that arc needs to be reminded he can't write in my description field.
Twinshot's arc is tolerable. Too many nonsense-jabbering idiots in it, however, and the Field Analyst mission sends you to Croatoa. The twist at the end is just horrible. Your "least likely suspect" has to actually have a part in the story prior to being revealed (and "existing" does not count), and your red herring can't be so obviously framed by the narrative itself that it's obvious she's a red herring.
Both of these arcs would be somewhat decent if they were made into drawn comic book stories with author-created protagonists. As player-runnable missions, they make too many assumptions.
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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The Field Analyst mission sends you to Croatoa the same way the the Talk to Ms. Liberty mission sends you to Fort Trident. Some conjecture on my part here, but I think I have it all figured out... When they created Croatoa, they needed a Field Analyst for the zone so they copied and pasted the Field Analyst from Steel Canyon. I'm not going to bother getting screenshots, but if you have a minute go take a look at them both. They are identical. Same deal with Ms. Liberty, she got copy-pasted into Fort Trident. There does seem to be something special about the two of them though, since many other fedex missions don't send you to Fort Trident when you're to talk to a character who has been cloned there. There's probably an ID variable that got switched at some point. When I ran Twinshot's arc in Beta, it correctly said to go to Steel Canyon. All that has switched on live is the location that it tells you though. I have run the arc on live and, while it told me to go to Croatoa, I simply talked to the Field Analyst in Steel Canyon and everything worked fine. Same thing with Ms. Lib, you can talk to her AP version without issue.
So yeah, it's not *really* sending you to Croatoa; it just wants you to talk to the Field Analyst that is in Croatoa. He is the same one that's in Steel Canyon though. It does need to be fixed to point to the correct location though; it'd be nice if they fixed the Ms. Liberty one too.
And on topic... I haven't been able to bring myself to run anything past Dr Graves' first arc. It felt like it was written for a specific character to run, like it was a single player game with a predetermined protagonist that we had no say about. Twinshot's arc didn't do that too much; there were a few instances where I believe my characters would have reacted differently, but nothing so jarring as Dr Graves' arc.
@Johnstone & @Johnstone 2
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All my characters
So yeah, it's not *really* sending you to Croatoa; it just wants you to talk to the Field Analyst that is in Croatoa. He is the same one that's in Steel Canyon though. It does need to be fixed to point to the correct location though; it'd be nice if they fixed the Ms. Liberty one too.
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--NT
They all laughed at me when I said I wanted to be a comedian.
But I showed them, and nobody's laughing at me now!
If I became a red name, I would be all "and what would you mere mortals like to entertain me with today, mu hu ha ha ha!" ~Arcanaville
Personally I preferred the Graves arc. I know some felt like his arc treated you like an idiot, which Graves did. But I was always laughing because I knew they were all underestimating me. If I could have been given the option of kicking [spolier]'s butt at the end it would have been perfect imo.
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I just don't get a lot of thrill from playing the 'double agent' going behind everyone's back thinking 'oohhh you're all in trooouuble'.
Personally, I'd like to see an arc (not sure if it's doable) with a contest where you can actually fail the missions, and winning or losing affects the next mission or contact in the arc. Not sure if they could do that though :V
Actually, probably the funnest mission in the arc is setting up the stuff for the shivan meteors, getting to fight alongside the other Shining Stars and take on the Hearts of Darkness. It felt a bit more like a coordinated effort because we got some dialogue, some character development and a plot twist. Graves similar mission has no such development, it's purely 'find the glowie, beat up the heroes, watch Graves bust a blood vessel'.
Conversely though, Graves best mission is probably the final one in the mansion. Again, it's the mission where all the supporting cast gets to come together and we get to see everyone show off their stuff a bit. Actually the final showdown in Twinshot's was kind of nice, barring the fact that everyone but Maelstrom is a nobody we barely see (if at all) so they're more like placeholders. But it had the right feel at least.
Actually Maelstrom's henchmen show up quite a few times. Riptide in the Sutter TF, and the rest of the gang in the Power Loyalist storyline in Praetoria. (where there's quite a bit of interaction with them)
"Men strunt �r strunt och snus �r snus
om ock i gyllne dosor.
Och rosor i ett sprucket krus
�r st�ndigt alltid rosor."
We are needing more of the Dillo is our air spaces. *hoorb*
Just finished the last Graves arc tonight. I actually thought it was some of the better writing in CoH. I particularly cared for the writing of the Facemaker, Fateweaver, and Tech Quartermaster. Seemed to me they accomplished the job of telling you their function better than their heroside counterparts. I found the lackey request more engaging than the sidekick one as well. I felt no need to go to the clues on these with Graves whereas with Twinshot I did.
Overall I do like Twinshot better because it's a long slog of "Wait,... why am I doing this?" with Graves 1st 2 arcs before you get to the excellent 3rd.
It's not how many times you get knocked down that count. It's how many times you get up.
Thought for the day:
"Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment."
=][=
Graves, on the other hand, well, first you start off better than the rest, but in the end you're more of an errand boy than anything. I don't like my villain feeling like he was just a means to an end, he's the one that's supposed to be doing that to others, not the other way around. If he's *part* of a plot, sure, but you end up being the lowest common denominator ;9
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![Wink](images/smilies/wink.gif)
Which is why you should be allowed to kick Scirroco's butt at the end
![Mad](images/smilies/mad.gif)
This is a song about a super hero named Tony. Its called Tony's theme.
Jagged Reged: 23/01/04
finally finished running a lowbie hero through Twinshot's arc.
I'll admit, it didn't leave as bad a taste in my mouth as Graves. The characters were more likable in general though ironically I felt they were less developed than those in Graves. Where Graves gives each character their own mission where they're the star, Twinshot just throws you into a few missions and sometimes you rescue and/or have one of them as a tag along (usually grym/flambeuax). In fact I kind of like Grym and Flambeaux wasn't that intolerable. Dillo was flat out irritating, a JarJar with super powers. Proton.. I honestly can't say much about because he got so much less development than anyone else, and given the twist at the end he feels more like a set piece than anything.
Really, I kind of liked the general flow of the story. The 'twist' at the end is hamfistedly bad, it's completely obvious Twinshot isn't the traitor and that Proton is... well, again, he had so little development it's a non issue. I can't even feel bad for the guy, I had no attachment to him either way.
The railroading was kind of annoying, but not half as bad as Graves. Twinshot taps you with the clueless ball. Graves tapes the idiot ball to your head.
But again, Graves actually had better development for the characters. You got to know who they were, their background, some of their interests, and how nuts they all were.
Twinshot... well, you get the most face time with Grym but you don't learn much about him. Next is Twinshot herself, and the dialogue with her isn't that bad and I found her connection to Maelstrom somewhat interesting. Flambeaux is mostly a valley girl and you get half a mission with her tagging along. Dillo.. ugh. No missions with him explicitly, just having to talk to him a few times (thank goodness, though even that is too much). And then there's Proton, who is mostly in the background til he is done as his time as a set piece.
Compared to Graves. Well, you get a solid feeling for Graves personality with the (possibly overlong) dialogues with him. Crosscut is extremely creepy. Zephyr, as much as I dislike his surfer dude schtick, is actually kind of neat as the physical embodiment of an abstract entity. Omnicore is a whackjob. Dollface probably gets the least development but then she, like Proton, has the 'big twist' to her character. Though even then, she still gets a bit more time than Proton I think. But still, we got to know more about these guys.
Twinshot's just felt like my character was actually a part of this event going on. Graves... well, aside from being tedious and annoying, was just ridiculous. The 'game' is a farce from start to finish and by the end we feel like idiots and pawns. Where's the fun in that? And heroside at least introduces something that becomes relevant later on (Praetoria). Graves has nothing to do with anything in particular, and I don't think people even want to see Babydoll or cthulu or whatever she is later on. Whereas, I actually wouldn't mind seeing stuff develop with the Shining Stars more, I'd like to see more of Grym and Twinshot and even Flambeaux.
Though, both still completely fail as tutorials. There's just so much wrong with all of them. I mean even by the time you start them, you should already know about Enhancements, Trainers, and Inspirations. And come on, introducing Field Analysts/Fortunatas on how to adjust the game difficulty when you're level FIFTEEN? What kind of moon logic is that? Especially Twinshot's arc. Was it just me that got sent to Croatoa?? That's some serious wtf there, new players shouldn't be anywhere NEAR there unless whatever you're looking for is RIGHT at the entrance (like Annah).
It still just surprises me how bad the tutorials are compared to the Praetorian intro. Love or hate praetoria, you can park just about anybody into the tutorial there and they'll know enough about the game to get by. 15 minutes or less and you've got targeting, running, enhancements, inspirations, mission doors, dialogue, badges, alignment choices, trainers, difficulty slider, vendors, merit rewards and day jobs explained. Short, sweet, to the point and let's you jump into the game.
Kind of curious if the devs actually plan to use and develop these characters anymore, at the least. Or if they're just stepping stones that will be promptly and completely forgotten by the story at large. I kind of wouldn't mind them, even the graves crew, showing up later, seeing them develop as heroes/villains, etc.
Anyway, my 2 cents. Was okay to run through once, probably no more than that.