SSA SPOILERS: He's WHO?!

My Fire dominator enjoyed burning everyone's much beloved Dillo. the only thing in the entire arc I didn't hold within seconds was the final Manticore encounter. He held me through domination.

I dunno, it's clever and it isn't. It was only an unknown to *us* because we've never seen him out of his costume.

They could easily pull the same trick with any other hero or villain that's under a mask and jump suit. Like manticore, if they showed him out of suit without telling us its him we'd be equally as mystified as we were with 'Jean'.

Which was the point; Shalice recognized him instantly. But I like the fact that someone many of us have seen, fought and teamed with was the 'mystery man'.

I now will forever think of Malaise as a person who has a life and does things like go buy jewelry or hang out in the back room of a bar in the Rogue Islands. Previously, he was 'that guy in the awful costume whose deal was that he could share his crazy'. Sadly, it humanizes him more than most of the Phalanx.

THAT is a rant for another thread, but only after I go through WWD3 on hero side.

I dunno, it really felt to me like he was still doing the creepy evil supervillainy thing, just outside of the spandex. Like being in the jewelry store, I think it's safe to say he was spying on you anonymously instead of shopping.

It is a nice trick, I admit, but it's a one trick pony, they really can't use this ever again without feeling completely cheap.

I also think the current devs are going to start pushing to use the signature characters more and flesh them out. Manticore has gotten a lot of exposure via the Twinshot arc and now with this episode. I honestly kind of like getting to talk to them more, like with the Origin of Power arc, so we can see them as characters than as just these mythic figures that pop up in important missions for tag-along cameos and boss fights.

At least that's kind of what I assume why they went with the name 'Signature' story arcs, that they involve stuff with the Signature heroes, like how they run the Signature Taskforces, etc.

Six of one and a half-dozen of the other, I'd say. To treat someone unequally is to insult them.

The point is that the trick only works because of the medium, which makes it cheap.

I thought it was a classic Rorschach. Which, I suppose, is also a cheap trick, but it works for me.

The moment Jean said "You are next." is the moment I knew I wouldn't be playing any of the other SSAs, because what you describe is probably what's going to happen. I simply have no interest in seeing that. I've had enough of characters being tortured and dehumanised to pander to the public's bloodlust.

And they probably will.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville 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.

Always? How about 'for once'? Can't we just accept that for once there's a story arc that isn't tailored specifically and exclusively to heroes that maybe villains get to tag along for out of pity even if it makes no dang sense?

That's pretty much the rest of the game though.

I get why the Devs like co-op content. I get why co-op zones need a particular heroic slant. It's easier to justify villains doing heroic stuff than heroes doing villainous stuff, after all. But that doesn't change the fact that it's not really co-op content. It's blue-side content that villains are allowed to play through as well.

I, for one, appreciate that the SSA doesn't make it feel like someone kinda-sorta forgot that the red-side exist and shunted them in at the last minute. The SSAs might not be the hight of storytelling, but at least it acknowledges both sides.

That blue-side players are all up in arms about this, amuses me to no end.

(on a side note, villains SHOULD be ahead of the game for the majority of the run, only to get defeated at the very last second. That's how we like it! Though I guess the very idea of the SSA is that we're not, this time. )

I'll finish them only because I want to see it through to the end. But the writing NEEDS to change. Villainous plots CAN succeed without demanding Heroes lose almost all higher brain functions and common sense, devs.

Also, anyone who did it Redside. Do we know WHY they wanted Alexis dead? Was there any reason given?

Having played Redside stuff from 1 to about 35-40, redside gets much niftier stories and ALL sorts of shiny rewards for it. Blueside just gets...being the good guy. I mean c'mon, Vincent Ross' arc alone is worth the price of Redside admission.




...Co-op content with a heroic slant? If we're referring to Incarnate, that's about as netural as you can get, and the ITF and LGTF aren't Heroically-slanted either.

As I said, I'm not against the idea of Villains getting to win or being ahead of the Heroes, but it's fairly obvious in these arcs that blue-side is forced to be idiots because the plot demanded it so, and we're also getting only half the story too (Villains get all sorts of info dumps, heroes are left scratching their heads and wondering WHY any of this is even happening)

Basically, the devs passed blue-side the Idiot Ball and are forcing us to hold onto it. If the CoX 'Status Quo' of sides not having a distinct advantage over each other is supposed to be maintained, I fully expect an SSA after 'Who Will Die' that would entail the Heroes getting to kick the crap out of the Villains in retaliation for this overly-elaborate plot designed solely to KILL a major character.

Again. I'm not against the arc itself. I want BETTER WRITING FOR IT.

Presumably, because she's an OBJECT of affection for another man, and an OBJECT of responsibility for another man besides that. Alexis is a plot device, essentially, which makes her death extra undignified. I guess the story is shooting for gritty realism, but I'm starting to develop road rash from so much grit in games these days.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville 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.

So basically the entire point of her death was solely to piss people off so that whoever is pulling the strings can make their next move? All while the Heroes are left scratching their heads and unable to fight back.

Yeah, suddenly I have no problems with the way Longbow is written anymore. I saw a few posts in this thread alone about how bad Ms. Liberty and Longbow are. Now I have zero issues with it.

Alexis died, so she was obviously going to die.

And yeah, I'm pretty concerned about where Psyche's going, considering a lot of her recent portrayls have been pretty unflattering...

I think I'll know if I'm going to hate it as soon as I see the loading art.

...The Shining Stars are in the SSA arcs now?

I would, but I don't HAVE a villain. I typically never play redside except for Patron Pools. I mean, I'm on Virtue, the RP server, and redside is STILL dead.

(That and I suck at writing villains. They all wind up anti-villains)

Interestingly, I don't have a problem with the loading art on this one. I'm generally very picky when it comes to these things, but I don't really have any actual problems with the Statesman looking through a window into the morgue. Well, except to ask why Alexis' ankles are so skinny if her feet are so big, but that's minor.

The Shining Stars and whatever Dr. Graves' cadre of idiots is called are in a lot of new content. It was disappointing, but not surprising to see this. Every time a new writer sits down to write, he or she makes new recurring characters that show up everywhere. Take, for instance, Faultline and Fusionette. They showed up in I8's Faultline remake, then they were almost everywhere in I10's Rikti War Zone revamp. Then Praetoria showed up, and for a while everything we got had to involve the Praetorians in some way or another.

Once upon a time, players complained that none of our contacts were memorable and none of the named bosses were meaningful as they didn't show up again after being defeated. This was somewhat rectified as far back as the I1 arcs where Crimson and Indigo have lots of personality, Melvin keeps showing up, Moment keeps showing up, Nemesis makes several appearances, C'Khelkah turns up a few times and so forth. However, it wasn't until Faultline that we had characters who showed up across a huge level range and "levelled up" with players, as it were. For instance, when Fusionette first shows up, she has a regular tights costume, but when she shows up again in the War Zone, she's sporting Vanguard gear.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of this, for the simple fact that if you don't like the characters to begin with - and I don't like any of the Shining Stars beyond Twinshot - it starts to wear on you. It also makes the world feel much, much smaller. Once upon a time, if a hero needed to become involved in a story, that was a hero of the city with his own story and past, but it was a different hero every time. That's to be expected in a City of Heroes. With this many, running into the same one twice should be rare. Even on bank heist, you still had a pool of heroes who could turn up to stop you, it's not always the same one every time.

Now, though, we seem to keep running into the same heroes over and over and over again. Why? What's so important about Twinshot and her wacky miniboss squad that means they have to be in EVERY mission where a non-signature hero is required? You'd think in a city this big with this many heroes, you'd occasionally run into someone you haven't met before. But no, it's always Twinshot and the Shining Stars, because they're the current fad.

I want to point out that this really isn't a big complaint of mine. Recurring characters are not a bad thing. I was happy to see Duke Mordrogar show up as a CoT possessed mage, I'm always happy to see General Aarons show up in missions that concern matters of national security and I appreciate having Akharist turn up again and again to address matters of magic. If the cameo is rare, or it makes sense, it's always pleasant. If it's just for the sake of ramming familiar faces down our throats, though, I'd like to pass. This city should have more heroes in it than just those five.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville 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.

It works because Malaise is now one of three NPCs who owns more than one set of clothes. They took advantage of players' assumptions. Considering that every time an NPC with spiky hair shows up there is forum speculation that he's Aeon from the future or something, I'm surprised it did.

My powers of foresight tell me it will have boobs.

The entire thing is about defending the Earth in one way or another. Sure you can excuse it by saying "well, where are the villains going to live if there is no Earth", but on a fundamental level, "saving the world" is a heroic act.