The Well, Praetoria, and Incarnates; Problems with Writing?

I think the amount of people who play this game who either don't care about or don't like the story of CoH is much, much bigger then those who like it. Hell, look at all the RPers, barely any of them base their stories around CoH lore, because it has a lot of problems. I think that should be a good indication of whether or not the story is quality. If the majority of players don't care for it, then it's bad. You can make a subjective argument to try and say it's not, but objectively speaking, the majority of the CoH population would disagree that this story is any good.

I think CoH relies TOO heavily on expecting the players to create their own stories, but then also provides very little breathing room within the canonical content of the game. If you are trying to paint an MMO story wise as being open ended and customizable/personal, then you have to make the plots follow suit. As it stands, CoH pigeon holes you into very linear story paths, and that is in stark contrast to the ability to near-limitlessly customize the look of your character as well as their "bio" or background story or whatever. The whole force-feeding of the praetorian story and the incarnate content does not help this game's story whatsoever, also. The writers for this game clearly have a vision for what they want the story to be like and are not willing to accept that there are other ways to approach it, and this philosophy often carries over to gameplay mechanics as well, which is why I'm no longer subbed to this game.

I'm not against Roleplaying, I am a writer myself, one of my main hobbies outside of playing video-games is writing short-stories, as well as writing about various real world philosophical/sociological topics. If this game actually appealed to me story wise, I would be much more likely to want to partake in some form of roleplay, and I have roleplayed in other MMORPGs in the past.

I don't REALLY care enough to get into a longer debate about it, because I'm more or less done with this game, but I think the lore and story in this game is generally fairly lackluster and continues to dissapoint, and many people clearly agree with that sentiment in some way shape or form.

I don't think the number of people who create CoX-relevant backstories is necessarily a good measure of how good the CoX story is. Most of my characters have little to no interaction with the CoX lore because I didn't know a whole lot about it when I started. Only the more recent guys can really be attached to the lore. Further, even if I really want one or more of my characters to interact with the lore, that doesn't mean it's going to be written into their backstory. I really liked the new heroic 1-7 Matthew Hashaby-Filler Episode-Aaron Thiery arc, and it interacted really well with Samael, but that doesn't mean I'm going to make a character who's Matt and Dana's child, or an old colleague of Aaron Thiery, or whatever.

A good measure of the general popularity of CoX lore would be if you could devise a way to find out what percentage of players, having some kind of actual character at all, enjoy having that character interact with and grow through CoX plotlines. It doesn't matter if they see CoX as filler episodes in between battles between their hero and whatever personal nemesis they've dreamed up, or if they develop imagined enemies, allies, and nemeses as they play through the game. If they're tying their own story to a CoX story in any meaningful way, they clearly like the CoX story.

Going by what I've seen, the HEATs and VEATs seem to have the highest percentage of lore-related avatars among all the ATs.

I don't say this often, but I found a couple of points here that managed to change my perspective somewhat.

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Originally Posted by The Katalyst I think CoH relies TOO heavily on expecting the players to create their own stories, but then also provides very little breathing room within the canonical content of the game. If you are trying to paint an MMO story wise as being open ended and customizable/personal, then you have to make the plots follow suit. As it stands, CoH pigeon holes you into very linear story paths, and that is in stark contrast to the ability to near-limitlessly customize the look of your character as well as their "bio" or background story or whatever.

This is a VERY good point, and brings up quite neatly the "Jekyll and Hyde" approach to game development that City of Heroes has been going through for years, almost as though no-one's quite sure what it is this game should be "about" and we're constantly tossing new things at the wall and seeing what sticks. To put it bluntly, City of Heroes is the one single game that has inspired more creativity in me than all other games I have ever played combined, and by a very wide margin. The simple reason for this is the amazing character creator that only keeps growing more amazing, and the presence of a Description field which forced me to think about my characters as real people with a real backstory, rather than "toons," as it were.

So, on the one hand, City of Heroes inspires people to create their own characters and their own stories by providing very powerful tools to do so... And then on the other hand, it shoots that inspiration in the knee by IMMEDIATELY thereafter running people through very intrusive, very presumptuous story arcs like Dr. Graves and Twinshot, clearly built with a specific character type in mind. Launch content notwithstanding, it just goes downhill from there, culminating in the Well of the Furies being ret-conned into our stories as the source of our powers all along. I'm ashamed it never occurred to me to ask this question before, but: Why give us so much freedom of character creation if you don't want us to create a wide diversity of characters?

City of Heroes' story, especially recently, has been the single biggest drawback to its massive, powerful character creation toolkit, and THAT is at the root of most of the complaints. You teach us to be creative, you let us go wild and make all of these weird and wonderful characters with wild and unusual storylines, but then when we get into the game, it turns out most of those characters don't fit the storyline. It's like Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura, where I'm allowed to make my character allergic to magic, thus making the game unwinnable when I have to equip a magic pendant to find a plot-advancing ghost.

What really gets my goat - and I'm just now realising it - is that the character creator offers me a great deal of options that technically don't work with the storyline the game presents me with. And that's hugely disappointing.

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Originally Posted by RuthlessSamael Even if I really want one or more of my characters to interact with the lore, that doesn't mean it's going to be written into their backstory. I really liked the new heroic 1-7 Matthew Hashaby-Filler Episode-Aaron Thiery arc, and it interacted really well with Samael, but that doesn't mean I'm going to make a character who's Matt and Dana's child, or an old colleague of Aaron Thiery, or whatever.

Very well said. There needs to be a distinct difference between my characters taking part in the City of Heroes storyline and the City of Heroes storyline becoming part of my characters' backstory. The truth of the matter is I DO want my characters to interact with City of Heroes lore and canon, because despite how much I criticise it, it's still very good. I want the Steel Rook to pit his own autonomous battle drones against the War Works robots because it would make for a really cool battle of technology. I want Brutticus to fight the Warriors because she appreciates personal strength through training and dedication. I want Mage-Killer Po to fight the Banished Pantheon and the Circle of Thorns because she hates mages and wants to rid the world of at least the bad ones. Where it makes sense, I very much want to involve my character in existing storylines.

That doesn't mean I want to involve existing storylines with my characters. Though the Steel Rook may make sense to take on the War Works robots, I wouldn't want to put it in his storyline that THAT'S where he's getting his technology. While it would make sense for Brutticus to want to show the warriors true physical power, that doesn't mean I want her to have a romantic relationship with one. While it would make sense for Po to fight the Circle, I don't want it to be the circle who turned her from a common house cat into a monster. Just because my characters take part in a story as an <insert name here> protagonist, it doesn't mean I want to keep that story as part of their CV.

I don't need my characters in particular to change the game world. I'm fine taking part in a story where a generic undefined player character changes the status quo in a predetermined yet general way. Moreover, I specifically DO NOT WANT the game world to change my characters, except in the most general, unspecific way of making them "stronger" without defining what shape that extra power takes on. I am NOT FINE with a storyline trying to explain my character's powers, backstory, personality or genealogy, or indeed one that even tries to reference those.

As far as I'm concerned, our interaction with City of Heroes canon should be a one-way street. Our characters can act on the world, but the world cannot act on them. If this is limiting from the perspective of writer convenience, then that's just how it's going to have to be. It's not an insurmountable challenge by any stretch.

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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.

Taking some time to think about it, my complaint with the Incarnate/Well storyline is that it is coming to our characters Too Damn Early in their development. Yes, really, our level 50 characters are not in the least bit ready for Cosmic Level threats.

Let us look at who we fight at level 50: the same ghosts we've been beating on since level 6. Alien invaders that aren't even as effective as Kree or Skrull, but at best Khunds. The Freedom Phalanx's old nemesis from the 1940's who they can't be bothered to squash again. Angry meta-phobic normals in cowboy hats and their dumpster-shaped battlesuits. The goatee-twirling neurotics from the dimension next door. Fungus people. Psychic Clowns. Rularuu is the only serious world spanning opponent, and we're invading his dimension.

Godzilla hasn't strolled into Independence Port heading for the snack buffet of Terra Volta. Terminus hasn't gang-tagged the North American continent declaring "all your resources are now mine!" Mot waking up and needing to be put down by the skin of our teeth, and a frantic search for lost relics of a bygone era, should be a PRE-cosmic plotline. If we put "Kali" or "Hecate" in his place, would anyone bat an eyelash? Atlantis hasn't attacked, Sub-terrania hasn't popped up declaring "Die surface-dwellers!", the moon isn't about to hatch a giant space bird, and the sun hasn't so much as flickered. All of which I would expect to face before the ultra-scary fundamental forces running the multiverse from behind the scenes come into play. This is like the Power Pack being expected to deal with Galactus.

Then there's Praetoria. However technically well written the stories involved are, like the works of Charles Dickens, their content does not deserve the attention that has been expended upon them. The Maria Jenkins story arc should culminate in a reference to Alexis Cole-Duncan as a contact, and a final Task Force, not an additional seven zones of alternate first-half of the game shades-of-dark-charcoal content, and a pile of raids that fend off a threat that really shouldn't be all that threatening.

And THAT is why I have issues with these stories.