How Would YOU Have Written Statesman?

It's mostly the "leader of the free world" bit that upsets everyone else. Although it might even be true from some points of view, it still has an air of arrogance.

There's also a cultural difference about the flags in general. If you are to compare for instance "Saving Private Ryan" and the Finnish "Beyond the Front Line", you will notice something pretty interesting: I can't recall a single Finnish flag in "Beyond the Front Line". It's possible that there was one in the background on the soldiers' cottage scene or at a soldier's funeral, but I didn't notice it if there were, so it certainly wasn't in focus. "Saving Private Ryan" opens with one, close-up and very much in focus, against a blue sky and absolutely not in the background.

I think that part of the difference is that we every now and then have a extreme right-wing nationalist group more or less appropriating the flag for their own use, which given Europe's history with such parties gives the whole flag thing a little foul tinge and encourages a little bit of caution and reverence.

Case in point: to accuse the President for being unpatriotic by not wearing an American flag lapel pin is ... well, silly. In contrast, it wouldn't surprise me if the Swedish prime minister would be accused of being unwholesomely right-wing if he wore a Swedish flag pin.

So even though it is completely in order and true to the setting, it's a little bit unsettling, a little bit arrogant and just a bit too much.

If anything at all "gets" to me, it's usually this, and I don't mean this in a hostile manner. It just presumes a patronising approach where a cooperative one would be much more appreciated.

That's a good point to bring up, actually. I live in Bulgaria, but the only time I ever see a Bulgarian flag up anywhere is on government buildings, and don't think I've seen the coat of arms... Anywhere within living memory. Well, I think it's embroidered on military uniforms, but I can't say for sure as I missed the mandatory draft by a few years. In fact, most of the "flag-waving" people around here are usually seen as extreme nationalists and rebel-rousers that few want to directly associate with.

That said, I really don't mind the American flag being present in movies and games. Hell, the Nostalgia Critic held the Spider-Man movies accountable for shoving huge American flags everywhere, and I never really noticed. It takes place in the US, so when Spider-Man hops onto a municipal building and there's a large national flag waving in the wind... It makes sense that it'd be there. What bugs me is the "warship" of the flag, especially when I end up having to do it, and even then it doesn't bother me all that much. Again - the original "Patriot" badge bugged me, but I didn't care enough to complain (and for me, that's saying something).

This actually extends over "Patriotic" heroes, as well, and this may be part of why I'm not that interested in the Statesman. Like his name, he is a statesman, a representative of his nation who apparently once wore the American flag as his cape. I've seen a fair number of "red white and blue" tights super heroes and I fail to connect with them in a similar fashion. There just isn't anything in it for me. It's not my cause they're fighting for, just because for me, "patriotism" would point in a different direction for geographical and cultural reasons. I do have a "red white and blue" tights hero of my own, ironically enough, but him I made more as a super hero cliché collection than anything else, and that's just what pops into my head.

Again, I don't say any of this to be mean or attack Americans for staying true for their country. That's actually quite admirable. I just tend to have an easier time getting into stories and characters when they don't presume a very specific nationality and cultural background that I just don't share, and instead focus on broader themes of heroism or villainy. I've found that alien invaders are a very good unifying thematic just because... Well, they want us all dead and we all don't want to die, right?

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.

The game is set in the US, but that doesn't mean all of our heroes have to be American. If I were to make a Canadian-themed hero it would be silly to get the Patriot badge from standing next to an American flag.

No sillier than a number of other badges in the game. "Usurper", for instance, when you don't actually usurp Lord Recluse's position.

Which is even sillier because in order to get Servant of Recluse at least one person on the team must have Usurper. The thing is, the other silly badges in the game aren't potentially politically charged. If something is likely to offend a bunch of people for no reason, you change that thing. There is a badge on top of City Hall, there is a badge called Patriot, so what did we lose when the badge was moved?

Okay... um... Why?

What is with people's HATE for these characters?

I have no problem with them, I don't see what they're doing that is causing such rabid and adamant revulsion.

I like the idea of Statesman working with the heroes from level 1 and up, like a real mentor, but the vehement demand that he completely oust the other low-level contacts is a bit heavy-handed. Though that's probably a conversation for another thread...

Mainly because I'm not crazy about the new tutorial or the Twinshot/Graves arcs. Now, Matthew, he's ok. it's not a bad story line but it feels, I don't know, sort of off for me.

Purely an opinon.

This reminds me how much I'd love to see more places in game set OUTSIDE of Paragon and the Rogue Isles.
My Japanese heroes are getting homesick, my French Wizard wants decent wine and not "California crap", my Arab Alchemist wants to visit would like to visit- Okay, so his home country hasn't existed since the Crusades, my Midnighter wants to visit the slums of Rio where he grew up and flip the police the middle finger and turn them into frogs

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.

I'd love to see such settings, myself. But if they made them chances are something in the setting would be taken as stereotyping or mockery of some sort because...

...people (not you, ED, people in general, this just happens to lead into my answer to you as well) get upset over the most ridiculous things. There's about as much political charge in a frivolous badge in a video game awarded by a flag as there is in a deck of cards with its cheeky monarchy. You admitted that it's appropriate to the setting, and I wager had the standard been fictional rather than the American flag no one would've gotten upset, ergo the only agenda clearly lies with the people who were upset by it. People who were exhibiting a form of bigotry, whether it be against nationalism in general or specifically against American nationalism.

I won't deny this, honestly. As many times as I've seen movies talk about "the president of the EU" as though Europe is a confederacy or represent nations via their national stereotypes, there IS reason to worry. And that's not a jab at Americans, by the way. I think almost everyone does it. I think the problem, when it occurs, stems from trying to hammer home the point that you're in a particular country.

Why set your mission in France if you'll pick a section of Paris that looks like just a modern European city? You may as well set it in London for all that matters. No, if you set your mission in France, it has to include the Eiffel tower, mimes and baguettes. How else can you tell you're in France, after all?

I find this in itself to be a fallacy that's easily avoided, however. For instance, look at Half-Life 2. One of the Valve developers actually is Bulgarian, and much of City 17 looks A LOT like Sofia, my own capital city. I've been to the capital many times, and the first time I saw the city, I had to point my finger and go "I recognise this place!" Everything from the architecture to some city layouts, to the old Sovier era concrete panel blocks of flats to the early 20th century Bulgarian buildings is there. I recognise the location without having to have anything iconic with the country shoved into it. If you make a location faithful enough to its real life inspiration in at least theme, you don't have to shove stereotypes in it.

The change to the Patriot badge was shortly followed by a poster on the forums making a big stink about there being no 9.11 event in the game, insisting that this was a slap in the face of America and a sign that the game was not patriotic enough. It goes both ways.

For what it's worth, I myself didn't have THAT big a problem with the original Patriot badge. I just felt it was in poor taste for an international audience, but my judgement was not entirely objective at the time. I had recently been insulted for suggesting that the game offer the option to measure distance in Metrics, told that this is an AMERICAN game set in AMERICA for AMERICANS and that if I didn't like it, I should go back to Europe. And that's before there even was a European version of the game, so yeah - I argued against it.

My point, though, is I just don't think it was necessary. A fictional nation with its own flag is a "safe" thing to pledge allegiance to as that just carries no real-world connotations. Having this be a real-life nation, even a fictional representation of one, just made it uncomfortable for me. Considering the solution was very simple and it's pretty much the only such concession I can think of off-hand, I don't see it as a problem.

Honestly, though, I'd probably have had a problem with it even if this were a fictional nation. For instance, if I'm asked to pledge my services to the Praetorian Government or to Arachnos... No! Hell no! Most of the characters I make don't identify themselves with any one nation. As the Anthem from the musical Chess, made even more famous by Jai McDowall's performance of it say: "My land's only borders lie around my heart."

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.

You... you terrify me.

well, in the most recent SSA4, apparently he tore into his granddaughter and blamed her for the death of her mother.

Ignoring that it's scripting specifically to lead into the next chapter, as opposed to anything from the past eight years, and that it's description, not dialog - How does getting upset that your daughter was killed by what you see as your granddaughter's poor judgement make you an arrogant dick?

(Personally, I feel that the whole storyline of this SSA is a load of hogwash but none of the Powers That Be are knocking down my door begging for my opinion...)

Everything else from the past eight years not being scripted at all, but rather the genuine emotional responses of an advanced A.I. secretly created for this video game?

The fact that it's her mother.

I sense a movie idea here, or at least a weekly TV show.

I assume that you deliberately ignored "to lead into the next chapter" in order to make your quip, as opposed to actually believing that the statement I made was about whether old dialog was "scripted" or not.

If the point actually requires clarification, I'm interested in examples of "being a dick" that don't involve the agenda of forwarding the SSA story plot.

*********EDIT*********

Tenzhi - I think your programmer is showing. "Scripted" in the post you replied to meant scripted as in "action to advance a story plot" not scripted as in "a list of computer language process commands".

Being someone else's mother trumps being your daughter? I really doubt that's true for everyone.

To be fair, we're only seeing Ms. Liberty's view of the whole conversation.

The one thing I've learned over the years is that when there's an argument more often than not what's said is not what's actually being heard.

Well for starters the war with the rikti is kinda is fault. sure they retconned it into a nemmy plot, but facts are facts. Way it was originally outlined in lore, statesman tracked nemmy to a meeting with rikti who where conducting peaceful trade.

Statesman being statesman persued them through into thier own world. The rikti long ago outlawed magic, and eradticated meta potential from thier kind, Once human as our own worlds people, thier current form was a product of science use to make them powerful enough to rival beings just like statesman and drive them from the rikti homeworld.

Naturally statesmans attack on them left them feeling threatened by our world, and I always felt the rikti actually saw thier attack on our world as an attempt to liberate humanity from thier meta tyrant over lord.

That was my impression from all available lore in year one. most current lore actually oddly reflects many rp conspiracy arcs ive played with my sg and friends in game on virtue for years.

Even the current revelation that he is in fact a puppet of the well rather closely mirrors my own long time ranting that he was just an avatar for the entity called zeus and using the guise of statesman to get people to worship him again.

There are even some who have gone a interesting route Ive RPed with, who say that praetoria is more like our world but abit fast forwarded. And that the only real difference is our worlds stephen richter was bad *** enough to survive coles attempt on his life, and although we see him as evil, he is more the being a villain to save his world from a greater evil. and that he isnt as powerful as statesman because like us, he took the slow path of incarnation.

As I said earlier in this thread the simple fact is the noble,selfless, man named marcus cole died long ago. The Tyrant State is all that remains.

I just figured I'd mention here that your comment has enlightened me.

It didn't even occur to me that the depictions of the monarchy characters in a deck of cards could ever be compared to current world leaders because it just skipped my mind completely that there actually is a queen and she might be offended by the depiction of a queen in a deck of cards. that's shockingly immature of myself to never even have considered that. how backwards am I that I think of a queen as something completely different from the queen?

To answer the OP:
How would I have written statesman?
I would not have written statesman.
It's not that I think his presence detracts from the game, because there really isn't a character labeled "the patriot" other than him, but he in my mind even fails in that regard because I see him as more of a flag than a hero. but Atlas serves as the inspiration for the heroes.
Seeing as I am who I am right now, I don't think I could confidently claim to have done the job better than anyone else back then. I'd have started the game off by having the big guys wounded, visibly and psychologically, with our first acts of heroism being the act of rendering aid to those guys rather than beating stuff up - but I have different tastes than others. I associate redside with the gung-ho, take no prisoners, arrest people with flamethrowers and grenades approach, and it bugs me just a little (no really, it's a superhero game, I mean just a little) to see guys like longbow being obvious supervillains but hiding behind a white star on a blue field. I associate heroism with true heroes, those that make sacrifices to save others, even if that means letting the girlfriend die to save a bus full of innocents. very little of that real drama in the game, but the morality missions were a huge step in the right direction. I loved Praetoria.

But statesman? I would always have let someone else handle his story. They'd do a better job of him than I would.

Either way you take it, all of Statesman's actions in-game are "scripted". Whether it be that a programmer decides what his actions are, or a writer is using those actions to advance a particular plot. There's always an agenda/program there.

In the context of the SSA, Statesman making a jerk of himself didn't really seem to advance anything other than the idea that Statesman is a jerk.

I wasn't even going that deep with it. I was just thinking about being offended by the concept of monarchy itself.

You'd really yell at someone who'd just lost their mother that it was their fault? Or think that wasn't a dick move? Actually, nevermind. This isn't the hill I want to die on.

True!