Plot suggestion: More happy endings for the good guys *Spoilers*

I'll acknowledge it when I see the same treatment given to this IMPORTANT SOMEBODY that was given to, say, Hero One or Galaxy Girl. Do you see the flags at half mast? Do see civilians dressed in black, or at least mentioning it on the street? Do you see heroes foregoing their capes in her memory? Did you hear the City Rep making a public announcement? Nacional holiday? Where's the memorial? Where's her statue? Mourning of any kind?

If I see any of it, I'll admit I was wrong and apologize, but it seems to me that this was all done to set up an NPC (albeit an important one) so that he can do something atypical in a future arc. Everyone else involved just doesn't seem to care. Well, I do, but since it's just a vendetta against this volume, just ignore me.

Edit: Besides, I agree with you. She is somebody important to her world, and would probably deserve the same treatment as H1 and GG. But to the hero players, she was killed 2 missions after being introduced, so it makes it hard to care much. And not caring about someone supposedly so important to this world, well, sucks.

Well, there you run into one of the principal problems of operating in a persistent shared world. That would all seem pretty bizarre to the people who haven't played the mission yet.

No, she wasn't. Miss Liberty has been an important person in Paragon City for years, not "two missions". Heroes of the city know her, know her past deeds, know her present company, know her family, and care about her.

Just because she was not important TO YOU, one single PLAYER, until this one arc does not mean anything in the grand scheme of things, where you obstinately continue to ignore canon information.

As to the world's treatment of her passing: the game does not have far-fetching phasing tech yet. It just doesn't operate that way. It is better to be status quo than go off on one part a story arc that not everyone will experience (or even *CAN* - premium and freebies have to PAY for this content and not all of them do/can). It's not until the conclusion of the arc that the game changes meaningfully (when one of the Surviving Eight dies and is removed from the game).

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

OK, this is getting silly.

Galaxy Girl: Was killed during the Rikti invasion. There probably WAS sentiment like that (and visibly would have been had the tech been around for it.) She had a *big freaking statue* - taller than most of, if not any of the others - in Galaxy City in a very visible place, as opposed to, say, the one stuck next to the military surplus store or stuck in the courtyard of an office building. With a plaque explaining who she was. And, at the end, Longbow "honor guards."

Hero One: The loss of his team is part of the reason we don't (barring real-world-money considerations) get capes at level 1. It's part of the canon. There's a time capsule with the stuff they left.

So, yes, they have statues, and memorials, and people foregoing capes (in fact, not being allowed to wear them... again, until real-world money came into the game in the form of booster packs - until level 20.)

Are you SURE you want to use these arguments? These are events that, in game - and even real-world-ish - happened years ago. There's been a second Rikti invasion since then. There's been the driving out - and return - of the Fifth Column. And now we've been plastered with meteors. Life has moved on, and Galaxy Girl and Hero One are now history. Recent history, but history.


Besides, I do also have to take issue with the whole "Use PVP if you want to 'stick it to the other side,' don't make heroes lose" attitude. WHY should someone playing a villainside character be screwed out of a major win partway through the story? WHY do they not get to have a plan succeed in a *paired* set of story arcs? Are they unworthy of anything but being beaten down and called losers? Are you channeling Golden Girl and her nonsense?

The only other statues in Paragon City that rival Galaxy Girl's, that I can think of offhand, are the one of M1 in Blyde Square (that Positron and Valkyrie are standing in front of), and there's a humongous one of Cassiopeia on one of the little islands around Peregrine Island (ISTR Crimson's standing in front of it).

And another one in Woodvale where she died. Not a lot of heroes get that. (Interestingly, one of the handful of others I can think of was Galaxy Girl's sidekick.)

Perhaps more importantly from a game-world-design perspective, they happened before the game started. Immediately before, but still - they're events that were used to define the starting shape of the game, not changes made mid-stream. There aren't players who remember teaming up with/rescuing/thwarting Hero One.

It's difficult to impose a change like that on a persistent shared world once it's going. You have to do it as part of a flag day, like the removal of Galaxy City; otherwise you get weird discontinuities. Characters whose personal timeline hasn't reached the transition point yet running across an overworld-level feature that reflects the change they haven't yet experienced. That's annoying and generally ought to be avoided.

Seriously. After the second or third time Maelstrom did that to me, I wanted a mission where my character learns from this experience and works out a way to prevent it from happening the next time, then savors the look of shock on un-teleported-to-safety Eddie's face for a moment before smashing it in.

(Also, I want my player teleport to have his teleport effect. It's so much less lame.)

Yeah, like a toggle power the reduces your def due to you focusing on destroying his TP equipment. but, with a few sucessful hits, it's destroyed.

She was important to the game characters. Gamewise she founded the Freedom Corps and got Hero One's sword during the Rikti War. She was a great heroine with a long history of defending Paragon City and the world, something we the PLAYERS (sorry for the caps, your idea), were not privy to, since we didn't witness it and there's barely any mention of her exploits other than spawning Jessica.

To the PLAYERS, or rather, to ME as a player, Alexis Cole is an obscure character mostly left of of the story by the writers. She made a cameo appearance during a villain story arc, she played a minor role in the Web of Arachnos novel (which I read, and she did nothing but act as a victim of Sister Psyche's city-wide madness tantrum), she was barely mentioned in the game's lore other than being Statesman's daughter, Jessica Duncan's mother and Patrick Duncan's wife. Who's Patrick Duncan? Do you know? I don't.

She never appeared in the comics. She never appeared in a hero mission. She never appeared in the game world. I can count at least 30 minor characters whose death would have had more impact. So, no, she wasn't an important character to the players, just the typical female prop meant to be sacrificed to mess up a major leading character and that bothers me.

To the PLAYERS, Alexis Cole is, UNDESERVEDLY, an obscure character that should have been much, much more fleshed out and developed than she was, and instead she was killed two pages after being introduced. I'm sorry, but barring further developments, I'll still believe her role in the game was that of a senseless victim pulled out of a hat for added drama, not that of a heroine.

Giving heroes adversity doesn't mean they have to witness the death of someone they cared about. Putting Katie Holmes back in the seer network was tragic, but at least it leaves the chance of actually rescuing her on a later date. It used to be there was at least a remote chance for a happy ending, so it was tolerable. Not here. Alexis is dead. Death of a character is final. There's no going back. These Signature Arcs are spoiled to me because of this, and it doesn't matter if we come up with a cure for cancer in episode 7. Another bittersweet victory for the good guys.

As I said, again and again, I wouldn't be talking about it if this was an isolated case, but it's not. Almost all the story-arcs for heroes since issue 16 (we're up to 21 now) are ending badly, and I don't like it. If we players must at all costs experience tragedy, at least the writers should bother to flesh out that tragedy. By making sure we, THE PLAYERS, care about who exactly it is that they're killing AND by making it our fault - even if the script allows for no other outcome.

P.S. Aggelakis, if this talk is bothering you, I can stop. I've offered to give it a rest, already, only to see the discussion carry on regardless, so I stepped back in because the topic interests me.

Yes, it is.

If Alexis Cole is canonically as important as GG and H1, the writers have to demonstrate it. The burden of proof is on their side, not the players'. In game with phasing technology. An instanced mission regarding her memorial service, only accessed by those who've completed episode 3. By making an eulogy post in the forums. Releasing a comic book page in the web site. Something.

I don't think they will, because, to the writers, Alexis Cole is a minor character that never really had any impact in the game as presented to the players.

I'm sure. You still have to complete the Hero One memorial mission to access capes, for example. Galaxy Girl is a little different, but at least she had a town named after her (which was destroyed, granted) and you can still visit that town and all the plaques mentioning her heroics through Ouroboros. Alexis Cole doesn't have any of that.

PC Villains can, and often do beat NPC heroes. All the time. That's the whole premise of City of Villains, the bad guys win. PC Villains can also beat PC heroes in PvP, and vice-versa.

You're asking for something different, though, you're asking that PC Villains be allowed to beat PC Heroes in scripted PvE, moreso, you're asking for automatic success, to spice things up. How would you like it if my hero toon arrested your villain toon in PvE, and you were locked out of the game for a week because you were in jail?

Vice versa. If PC heroes were beating PC villains in scripted PvE missions, I'd be having the exact same argument.

GG she merely offers her opinion, which, while I often don't share, is nevertheless as valid as any other, and I wouldn't call it "her nonsense". This is a free speech forum, and of all the forums in the game, this For Fun - Suggestions is the one where you're offered the most latitude when it comes to speaking your mind. Would you gag me as well because you don't agree with what I'm saying?

Back to topic - More happy endings for the good guys!

That's true.

One of my qualms here is not having a chance to sneak into Malaise's cell and drop a trip mine inside his toilet, to swap Blitz medication with vinager, to tell Manticore what an incompetent loser he is before putting him in the dentist. I am, after all, playing the role of a vigilante according to the script, deal with the impending doom and arresting the bad guys rather than rescue the victim, so at least let me act in character.

I'd also like a chance, in game, to apologize to Statesman and Ms. Liberty, which would have been pretty simple to code in.

You have one. It's called Base Teleporter, Oro Portal, VIP Pass...ect.

Learn to be quicker in using it.

Sort of a nicer version of the "Hey, Marauder, turns out your girl was a traitor. No worries, though, I wasted her so you don't have to" conversation.

All mine can be interrepted, except the oro portal. if I'm being owned in a fight ... does no good to click something that can be interrupted and when I'm getting owned, it's not a slow expirience, LOL. The only TP that can't be interrupted you have to pay ACTUAL money for mission TP. I don't even think that'll work. never tried.

Pretty much, but delivered in a slightly less psychotic way

You go to join a Statesman TF and he won't let you till you apologize ... LOL

Ms. Liberty "Oh, you know dodge dark(my toon that ran the mission) I won't train you till he apologizes"

Those would be hilareous.

I don't feel I was acting as a vigilante ... just a lesser hero(playing as lvl 30-35). The important task was given to the (though pathetic) established hero "manticor". I was given the less notable, common hero task of saving the city (not sure how that's less important or less heroic). If you want to feel like you were being a selfish vigelante instead of an important part of the hero team ... do that. I perfer to think of myself as lucky to be repected enough as a young hero (30-35) to be even involved is this task, and to have completed my objective flawlessly. *takes a bow*

You get one, it's called mediport. There's nothing to indicate that the EBs don't get debt (as much as anyone does anymore, in this era of patrol xp and half-debt in missions) from their defeats. You'd prefer permadeath? Go make a MAN character.

It would, lol

Well, I didn't see it that way. While not an incarnate yet, since he was exemplared to lvl 40, my toon was anything but a lesser hero. Canon-wise, he had just arrested Countess Crey (Janet Kellum), beaten the Envoy of Shadows (Cadao Kestrel), put Nemesis on the run (Maxwell Christopher), and was widely regarded as perhaps the second most powerful hero in the city, right after Statesman (equal to other lvl 40 PC heroes).

Nova, my toon, was brought into this mission as a deterrent to foul action from Blitz, in fact Manticore basically says so. Something like, "don't try anything, you villain, we have Nova here with us!" It's more or less assumed that in a fight, of all the five people in that room (Miss L, Manticore, Malaise, Blitz and Nova), my toon was by far the bigger threat. Nova was thus given the most dangerous assignments, leaving the simpler stuff to Manticore (like recon, or escort missions). He was technically reporting to Manticore, but only as a courtesy granted to a fellow hero that had specifically requested his help.

The problem, I figure, was when Nova realized at the end of the first mission that Manticore was over his head. My toon should have taken charge, and let his instinct take over, that of a hero, not a vigilante. Prioritize the safety of a hostage over the completion of a mission, for example. Scriptwise, he wasn't allowed to do that, and it's frustrating that a set of out-of-character actions led to tragedy.

Perhaps blame is better directed elsewhere, starting with the bad guys. Manticore deserves some of the blame, as do Ms. Liberty and Sister Psyche for trusting Malaise. Alexis for putting herself in harm's way and failing to fight off her captors. But my toon won't accept any excuses, he was there and someone of his power and stature could have done better - should have done better.

Post mission, negotiations with Warburg failed, the hostage died and some of the nukes went missing, likely still in the hands of some very bad people who are now openly targetting Sister Psyche. No *bow* or medal for my toon in this affair. Far from it.

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.

True that. At least in the old days they'd have had the decency to be parodying that kind of big-two-style bullcrap.