The Well, Praetoria, and Incarnates; Problems with Writing?
By
AkuTenshiiZero,
Posted on: 2012-01-14 01:40 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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It's not.
| As you say, though, Dark Astoria seems to be a step in the right direction, at the very least in terms of presentation. |
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
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I'd like to dodge the underlying issue and instead focus on how happy I am whenever the game uses the $heshe variable. Context-neutral narrative is lovely when used in situations where context really couldn't and shouldn't be inferred. That's why we don't have $race or $personality or $religion. On the other hand, there are limitations to context neutrality. Certain situations just come off as weird if context isn't assumed where such context should be obvious. That's why we have $name, $heshe and so on. After years of the game being hilarious in saying "It's Samuel Tow! They will not escape! Get them!" I presume much of the game's original text just defaulted to expecting a team of heroes half out of MMO convention and half because the game couldn't tell gender. But if I bring an obvious man into a mission, having the bad guy tell his goons to "Kill him!" just makes things flow smoother.|
Originally Posted by Sylph_Knight
For example, I know a few women who play online games that will immediately correct someone in chat when they are mistakenly referred to by that person with "him/he". This is because they value that part of their personal identity even when a virtual avatar is involved. DISCLAIMER: Note that I did not say ALL Women, or even all the women I know who play online games, because such a declaration would be both stupid and false...
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As with most things, either extreme is a bad thing. Go too context-specific and people will recoil, insisting that you're assuming things about their characters that aren't true. Go too context-generic, though, and you end up having to say really silly things that break the flow of the story. It's a question of finding the right balance between things the story can assume (name, gender, archetype, level, alignment, previous exploits within the actual game, etc.) and things it can't assume (race, motivation, personality, speech, ideology and so forth). I firmly believe that striking this kind of balance will make the story much easier to accept by most people while still retaining much of the narrative flair of the current, much more specific storytelling.
Yes, I realise I've been arguing for generic storytelling up until now and it seems hypocritical to turn around and argue against it, but it is a very real fear of mine that we might go overboard with the argument and end up hurting the story in a different way.
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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.
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Well, the hypothetical dream would be if the game world was totally, completely, and rigidly defined, but only according to our specifications...Or better yet, magically anticipating our specifications before we'd even thought about this or that particular issue. But of course, that's ludicrously impossible. I can't even imagine how any combination of humans and machines working together with any amount of resources available could construct such a game for even one person unless they already had an excessively intimate bond with that person. Nonetheless it's helpful to keep in mind our hypothetical goal when thinking about ways to improve the game that could actually happen.
As an example, anything the game can safely assume about your character (like gender, in that even if you're a robot and technically sexless, people will still probably refer to you as "he" or "she" depending on whether your chassis is curvy or angular) should be specified.
This gets particularly easy if things like Hero/Vigilante/Rogue/Villain are treated as allegiances instead of alignments, such that "Hero" just means "usually works for or with Longbow," "Villain" just means "usually works for or with Arachnos," and Vigilante and Rogue both imply being more in it for oneself or dedicated purely to ideals not embodied by either organization. Although you'd probably want to rename them if that were the case.
Regardless, the game world is perfectly capable of inferring what Longbow and Arachnos think of the character because Longbow and Arachnos are part of the game world, whereas it can never hope to infer whether my villain is an insane psychopath, a well-intentioned extremist, a man driven mad by revenge, an unwilling recruit being manipulated into using their powers for evil by another, or any other of a dozen motivations. So let me figure out my own motivation and don't assume it for me.
That being said, I'd like to reiterate that there are certain goals that no one ever had any reason to believe would be actually doable in-game, even if they're perfectly genre-appropriate for super villains and video games typically allow the player to achieve their goal if they beat the game. Your villain will never get to blow up the world, because how would that even work? Don't ask the devs to code it when you can't even concept it, and don't ask the devs to code something that would lose them gargantuan amounts of money because you're just so special that you deserve this game feature, regardless of how many people lose their job over it.
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Case in point:|
Originally Posted by RuthlessSamael
As an example, anything the game can safely assume about your character (like gender, in that even if you're a robot and technically sexless, people will still probably refer to you as "he" or "she" depending on whether your chassis is curvy or angular) should be specified.
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I find gender to be easy to assume, as whether people say "he" or "she" is entirely dependent on what said people see you as. If they get it wrong, then they have quite literally gotten it wrong. Mistaking a man for a woman or a woman for a man is not unheard of, especially if you're stupid, drunk or under pressure. In fact, a lot of leeway can be given on how NPCs refer to us and what they describe us as provided these references are written as their impressions, rather than placed into the disembodied narrative of the game, which generally represents the objective truth.
When Levantera says "Don't like it? You should have joined Longbow!" this is can be interpreted less as a case of writer brainfart for forgetting villains would play too (even though that's what it is), and more as a case of Levantera being a condescending ***** who speaks without thinking. A self-respecting villain could easily set her straight by explaining Longbow probably wouldn't employ him or her, and I expect Levantera's reaction to be a mixture of irritation and embarrassment. On the flip side, when the mission entry pop-up tells you "It sickens you to see these butchers in Paragon City." then you, as the player, are well justified to turn to the screenwriter and say: "No, it doesn't. What are you thinking writing this?"
In short, NPCs can be wrong when it's clear they're just getting the wrong impression, rather than giving exposition.
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Originally Posted by RuthlessSamael
This gets particularly easy if things like Hero/Vigilante/Rogue/Villain are treated as allegiances instead of alignments, such that "Hero" just means "usually works for or with Longbow," "Villain" just means "usually works for or with Arachnos," and Vigilante and Rogue both imply being more in it for oneself or dedicated purely to ideals not embodied by either organization. Although you'd probably want to rename them if that were the case.
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Ahem... Sorry about that. Tying heroes to Longbow and villains to Arachnos would be a very, very serious mistake, and one we've gone to great lengths to fix from when CoV came out. The single biggest story-related complaint levelled against City of Villains was and is that we are so strongly railroaded to "usually work for Arachnos." The simple truth of the matter is that many, many villains want nothing at all to do with Arachnos. Mine, for instance, are all too happy to work with all the other contacts without collecting "brownie points with the Spiders," even if they don't mean what I thought they meant.
"Longbow vs. Arachnos" is a railroading storyline of the highest accord, easily comparable to the Well of the Furies. It's just bad in a different way. It paints the world as a conflict between two factions of people I want nothing to do with, that I'm drafted into because apparently I want to have a stake in this fight. Even though I don't want to. It's even worse in PvP zones because we're not even allowed to have our own side objectives and stories like we are with Vanguard. All we do is for the war effort, like regular soldiers in an army. Because we all care about the war effort in Bloody frikkin' Bay, don't we? Because obviously, villains want Arachnos to win since a win for Arachnos is a win for all villains, right? What happened to "You will no longer need to bow down to those who deem themselves your superiors?"
Heroes and villains are not the same thing as Longbow and Arachnos. The terms are not interchangeable, the conflicts are not interchangeable. Hero and villain are states of morality. One is on the side of good, protecting the innocents, the other is on the side of evil, abusing the innocents. Who heroes and villains align themselves with is sideways of their morality. Some villains want to serve Arachnos. Some villains want to be allies of Arachnos. Some villains want to COMPETE with Arachnos, and thus helping in their war effort is counter-productive. Some heroes want to align themselves with Longbow. Others see them as a vigilante force with no real authority and would rather work with the PPD or Vanguard or the Midnight Club. Some heroes don't want to be part of a larger organisation to begin with.
I can't stress enough how important it is to NOT assume loyalty, belonging and allegiance. Offering Vanguard as an optional path where we can focus on helping or focus on our own agendas anyway is a good solution. Hard-coding the game to where every villain belongs to Arachnos, by contrast, is a mistake, and one that dates back to 2005.
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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.
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One last thing I want to post before I step away from the thread and the forums like I REALLY should after all the self-aggrandising spam:
Linkara's review of Identity Crisis
I know it doesn't seem like this has much to do with anything, and I know some people might like the series (a friend of mine once recommended it to me), but it deals with retcons, character deaths, storytelling, purpose, writing and more. It's also the first review of his I've dared to post here because this one is an attempt to analyse as opposed to ridicule. I guess enough people liked the story and told him about it, so he couldn't bring himself to do a proper destructive review 
More than anything, though, in a discussion that has so often drifted into "this is what comics are like," it seems useful to bring up an actual comic, and I didn't want to bring any of the generally notorious series out there that he's reviewed.
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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.
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are we forgetting that this could be a Nemesis plot to get us to question ourselves and our source of powers?
"I believe there's a hero in all of us, that keeps us honest, gives us strength, makes us noble, and finally allows us to die with pride, even though sometimes we have to be steady, and give up the thing we want the most. Even our dreams." Aunt May SM2
i dreamed a dream, but now that dream is gone...good bye Paragon
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
The single biggest story-related complaint levelled against City of Villains was and is that we are so strongly railroaded to "usually work for Arachnos." The simple truth of the matter is that many, many villains want nothing at all to do with Arachnos.
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| This gets particularly easy if things like Hero/Vigilante/Rogue/Villain are treated as allegiances instead of alignments, such that "Hero" just means "usually works for or with Longbow," "Villain" just means "usually works for or with Arachnos," and Vigilante and Rogue both imply being more in it for oneself or dedicated purely to ideals not embodied by either organization. Although you'd probably want to rename them if that were the case. |
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| Heroes and villains are not the same thing as Longbow and Arachnos. The terms are not interchangeable, |
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| Although you'd probably want to rename them if that were the case. |
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| One is on the side of good, protecting the innocents, the other is on the side of evil, abusing the innocents. Who heroes and villains align themselves with is sideways of their morality. |
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| Regardless, the game world is perfectly capable of inferring what Longbow and Arachnos think of the character because Longbow and Arachnos are part of the game world, whereas it can never hope to infer whether my villain is an insane psychopath, a well-intentioned extremist, a man driven mad by revenge, an unwilling recruit being manipulated into using their powers for evil by another, or any other of a dozen motivations. So let me figure out my own motivation and don't assume it for me. |
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I'll have to disagree. I've got no problem seeing the 'badder' guys try and rise above their station and then putting them back into their place. It draws a nice comparison between the wannabes and the folks (us) who should actually be going places. Enjoying the way this story plays out is a matter of taste, though.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
That's the real kicker - we WERE at that point when we were level 50, and then all of a sudden we're not. Zwillinger's now infamous and oft-quoted "you need to learn to walk before you can run" is the real problem. We should never have been put in a position where all the game's canon enemies race ahead of us and we're left having to catch up once again.
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| What, really, was the point of the last 50 levels if we're going to wipe the board and start the coming of age story all over again, but with bigger stats? |
At this point I'm sure someone will mutter something about guard towers, prisoners, and civilians. Nobody knows how powerful the guard towers actually are, or what was done with the BAF prisoners beforehand; I could speculate, but this has been debated squarely to death. The TPN civilian issue is extremely poorly explained, storywise and mechanically, and is the only thing I've found jarringly disagreeable with Incarnate progression so far...and not so much that the Incarnates are being forcibly weakened, but that the civilians are apparently made so strong.
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| Incarnates should have been bigger, better and more impressive than the heroes before them, but instead they're a step down |
61866 - A Series of Unfortunate Kidnappings - More than a coincidence?
2260 - The Burning of Hearts - A green-eyed monster holds the match.
379248 - The Spider Without Fangs - NEW - Some lessons learned (more or less.)
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Yo. I'd love some. I've still got a character in Praetoria that hasn't left and I have no intention of ever leaving.
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Originally Posted by Xanatos
You misunderstand. Golden Girl says that people are looking forward to new praetorian content.
Who are these people? Prove it. Show me them. People on the forum disliking it is absolutely irrelevant here. Golden Girl is making a claim. I'm asking her for the evidence to back that up. |
@bpphantom
The Defenders of Paragon
KGB Special Section 8
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It doesn't matter what orange numbers our powers generate. The only thing that matters is how fast the enemy goes down and how long we can last. When your enemies become tougher and you become weaker, that's a loss of relative power. That my powers may now do 33% more damage or what have you is irrelevant, because that damage now means less.|
Originally Posted by TheDeepBlue
You can only use the 'wiped clean' comparison because of Zwillinger's bad analogy. Yes, it was bad. It also doesn't apply, because we did not lose any of our previous power or experience at the beginning of Incarnate progression. We've only been gaining power. That's factual, and I'm not sorry.
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Raw power is a useless concept. It's not the size of your numbers that counts, it's what they can accomplish. When all the rest of the game rises in power faster than you do, you have dropped in rank, effectively.
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Originally Posted by TheDeepBlue
No. The Freedom Phalanx got wiped at Terra Volta at the onset of Apex's Task Force. They are, or were, the most powerful hero group in the CoH universe. Now they are playing catch up with our characters.
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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.
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Originally Posted by Melancton
*bonks Sam on the noggin with a rock*
*dusts hands* And THAT is how you take care of one of those "transcended boundaries" types!  |
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Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
Why you little...
Just you wait. I'm gonna get 20 of my friends, and we are so gonna kick your ***. |
Well played, Eva, well played. Once more you have totally cracked me up.
"How do you know you are on the side of good?" a Paragon citizen asked him. "How can we even know what is 'good'?"
"The Most High has spoken, even with His own blood," Melancton replied. "Surely we know."
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1) ...which depends on the orange numbers our powers generate, and how far down we can push the red numbers the enemy generates.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
It doesn't matter what orange numbers our powers generate. The only thing that matters is how fast the enemy goes down and how long we can last.
When your enemies become tougher and you become weaker, that's a loss of relative power. That my powers may now do 33% more damage or what have you is irrelevant, because that damage now means less. |
2) Do you feel the same way when you're leveling your characters?
3) I would argue that it means more than if your powers didn't do 33% more damage.
Your failure to appreciate raw power does not mean that it's useless. Relative power depends on its inclusion or exclusion.
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| Sooner or later said enemies will have to stop being a threat because they're purely more powerful and start being a threat through strength of numbers and trickery. A Bobcat that can one-shot a tank is neither trickery nor numbers. It's sheer strength. |
61866 - A Series of Unfortunate Kidnappings - More than a coincidence?
2260 - The Burning of Hearts - A green-eyed monster holds the match.
379248 - The Spider Without Fangs - NEW - Some lessons learned (more or less.)
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::: joins queue :::|
Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
Why you little...
Just you wait. I'm gonna get 20 of my friends, and we are so gonna kick your ***. |
...waiting
The Alt Alphabet ~ OPC: Other People's Characters ~ Terrific Screenshots of Cool ~ Superhero Fiction
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Okay who didn't click the green button?
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Originally Posted by Ironik
::: joins queue :::
...waiting |
@Mindshadow
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Perhaps I should have been more clear by what I meant with "context-neutral" since it was clearly misinterpreted to an extreme: |
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I'd like to dodge the underlying issue and instead focus on how happy I am whenever the game uses the $heshe variable. Context-neutral narrative is lovely when used in situations where context really couldn't and shouldn't be inferred. That's why we don't have $race or $personality or $religion. On the other hand, there are limitations to context neutrality. Certain situations just come off as weird if context isn't assumed where such context should be obvious. That's why we have $name, $heshe and so on. After years of the game being hilarious in saying "It's Samuel Tow! They will not escape! Get them!" I presume much of the game's original text just defaulted to expecting a team of heroes half out of MMO convention and half because the game couldn't tell gender. But if I bring an obvious man into a mission, having the bad guy tell his goons to "Kill him!" just makes things flow smoother.
As with most things, either extreme is a bad thing. Go too context-specific and people will recoil, insisting that you're assuming things about their characters that aren't true. Go too context-generic, though, and you end up having to say really silly things that break the flow of the story. It's a question of finding the right balance between things the story can assume (name, gender, archetype, level, alignment, previous exploits within the actual game, etc.) and things it can't assume (race, motivation, personality, speech, ideology and so forth). I firmly believe that striking this kind of balance will make the story much easier to accept by most people while still retaining much of the narrative flair of the current, much more specific storytelling. Yes, I realise I've been arguing for generic storytelling up until now and it seems hypocritical to turn around and argue against it, but it is a very real fear of mine that we might go overboard with the argument and end up hurting the story in a different way. |
I am NOT referring towards your character's gender or name when used in conversation, but by any other details that do not correlate with direct variables plugged into your character upon creation.
I am referring to factors which can be interpreted: Super-Strength may not actually be a result of physical capability, but rather tactile-telekinesis for example. When the game goes through lengths to explain you, that's when the problems begin.
Raid Leader of Task Force Vendetta "Steel 70", who defeated the first nine Drop Ships in the Second Rikti War.
70 Heroes, 9 Drop Ships, 7 Minutes. The Aliens never knew what hit them.
Now soloing: GM-Class enemy Adamaster, with a Tanker!
I just wanted to chip in and say that I think it was Sam who put a link to Linkara's review of Identity Crisis that went up only a couple of days ago....
I watched it and I can only say that the writers on this game currently should thank their lucky stars that Linkara doesn't review story arcs on MMO's. That was one of the most singularly concise, logical, well-thought out dissections of a story using continuity of character, logic of writing and simple reasoning to say why he didn't like the story.
I can't recommend this review enough even if you'll never read Identity Crisis.
But it totally and completely underscores all the arguments that this thread was started for and shows you what can happen in a story when really important things are taken forgranted and things are done just to get attention. In Linkara's own words...
Just sayin'.
S.
Part of Sister Flame's Clickey-Clack Posse
Now I'm curious. Do you have a link?
Raid Leader of Task Force Vendetta "Steel 70", who defeated the first nine Drop Ships in the Second Rikti War.
70 Heroes, 9 Drop Ships, 7 Minutes. The Aliens never knew what hit them.
Now soloing: GM-Class enemy Adamaster, with a Tanker!
Yep, here y'go:
http://atopfourthwall.blogspot.com/
Lengthy, but necessarily so.
S.
Part of Sister Flame's Clickey-Clack Posse
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It would be a cool thing if such variables were there, with the ability to be defined by the user. Let's continue use Super Strength as an example. Suppose that could bring up a window of ticky-boxes that gave you an extensive selection of choices based on your power sets and origin. "Physical capability" might be the first, and default selection for Super Strength, you could instead select "tactile-telekinesis" for it...|
Originally Posted by Sylph_Knight
I am referring to factors which can be interpreted: Super-Strength may not actually be a result of physical capability, but rather tactile-telekinesis for example. When the game goes through lengths to explain you, that's when the problems begin.
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On second thought this is already starting to sound like a bad idea just on the possible permutations of choices alone, let alone having to tailor NPC interactions and dialog based on those choices. That would be such a tremendous amount of work. As well, would you have to make these choices right from the start? Would most people just not bother with it because it's such a slow and tedious process to go in there and select all of the right details, and so they'd just go for the default settings? Maybe you could delay doing it all until later. But how much later? Until level 5? Level 10?
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I don't see how people keep misunderstanding what I'm typing.|
Originally Posted by Coyote_Seven
It would be a cool thing if such variables were there, with the ability to be defined by the user. Let's continue use Super Strength as an example. Suppose that could bring up a window of ticky-boxes that gave you an extensive selection of choices based on your power sets and origin. "Physical capability" might be the first, and default selection for Super Strength, you could instead select "tactile-telekinesis" for it...
On second thought this is already starting to sound like a bad idea just on the possible permutations of choices alone, let alone having to tailor NPC interactions and dialog based on those choices. That would be such a tremendous amount of work. As well, would you have to make these choices right from the start? Would most people just not bother with it because it's such a slow and tedious process to go in there and select all of the right details, and so they'd just go for the default settings? Maybe you could delay doing it all until later. But how much later? Until level 5? Level 10? |
I was describing what I feel the game SHOULD NOT be implying towards our characters. The context-neutral dialogue was referring to how I believe that the game should NOT assume details about our characters BEYOND our name and gender, which are interpreted based on A) What we type in for our character's names, and B) Our body type. Anything else should be left for obscurity.
I WAS NOT implying that there should be any system for the game to use to interpret variables beyond these. I WAS NOT saying the game should be COMPLETELY context-neutral with our characters.
What I WAS advocating that the writing stick with the basics, allowing us to make assumptions as we see fit.
Everything outside of our name and body type has such a wide range of interpretation, including the source of our Incarnate powers, that the game should disregard the notion of explaining the origin of those abilities as they pertain to us. Doing so only tramples on the creativity of the player.
When all is said and done, there is a distinct difference between simply having lore and forcing a character to be integrated with the lore. In a perfect world, we would be able to tailor variables to create more involving conversation chains. But I do not advocate such because it is not realistic, and such a system would be rife with its own limitations.
Raid Leader of Task Force Vendetta "Steel 70", who defeated the first nine Drop Ships in the Second Rikti War.
70 Heroes, 9 Drop Ships, 7 Minutes. The Aliens never knew what hit them.
Now soloing: GM-Class enemy Adamaster, with a Tanker!
More to the point, the game should not constrain our creativity in this manner. If CoH wants to distinguish itself from every other MMO out there, they should embrace this "creative playground" model.
I definitely agree that the writers need to start creating context-neutral references to characters. Assuming they are new heroes or even incarnates, regardless of their abilities, tends to irk crowds who don't want their characters to fall under any assumptions or generalizations.
For example, I know a few women who play online games that will immediately correct someone in chat when they are mistakenly referred to by that person with "him/he". This is because they value that part of their personal identity even when a virtual avatar is involved. DISCLAIMER: Note that I did not say ALL Women, or even all the women I know who play online games, because such a declaration would be both stupid and false...
Please don't kill me.
I think the context is somewhat similar in this case, where there are a number of players who value their character's identity when referenced by NPCs and rather than wanting to BE referenced correctly, are just happy if they are NOT referenced mistakenly. Context-neutral is the winner in this case.
I think the only time this does not apply is when someone refers to how powerful / dangerous our characters are. And while I wouldn't use "powerful" to describe Batman in a physical sense, he is a "powerful" adversary simply because of what he is capable of.
Raid Leader of Task Force Vendetta "Steel 70", who defeated the first nine Drop Ships in the Second Rikti War.
70 Heroes, 9 Drop Ships, 7 Minutes. The Aliens never knew what hit them.
Now soloing: GM-Class enemy Adamaster, with a Tanker!