The Well, Praetoria, and Incarnates; Problems with Writing?
A few points that come to mind whenever I see these worries.
This also has something to do with limited resources. The devs can't work on a dozen top enemy groups at once if they really want to shine the spotlight on them. They have to decide what to spend their resources on. Resources include available artists and writers and programmers and team leads, and hours available to be worked. This isn't me knowing how the industry works, it's me using my brain.
It also has something to do with "darned if they do, darned if they don't." Would we all be happier if they solely focused on Arachnos for several issues? No. Would we all be happier if they focused on different "big-time" enemies for several issues at a time? No. So there you have it. They can't make us all happy.
It also has something to do with myopia. For me, Arachnos hasn't gone anywhere. Neither have the Rikti. And my namesake character is just now getting into the Portal Corp content for the first time. I love how I've been playing for two years and still firmly consider myself a newbie. There are seven years worth of content in this game, and it feels like it. There is still so much I haven't seen. I realize that puts me in an enviable position compared to some of you, but I'm not gloating. I'm pointing out that old content doesn't disappear when new content is introduced.
I've never had the impression that "OMG they're forgetting about the XYZ!" Unlike Marvel Comics, Paragon Studios doesn't have a gazillion writers and artists working on a gazillion interrelated and separate titles all at the same time. Of course, if NCSoft wanted to put up the money to make this game more like that, I'd be one happy paying customer. But that's not how the cookie crumbles, or something....
@Captain-Electric � Detective Marvel � The Sapien Spider � Moravec Man � The Old Norseman
Dark-Eyes � Doctor Serpentine � Stonecaster � Skymaiden � The Blue Jaguar
Guide to Altitis � A Comic for New Players � The Lore Project � Intro to extraterrestrials in CoH
A few points that come to mind whenever I see these worries.
This also has something to do with limited resources. The devs can't work on a dozen top enemy groups at once if they really want to shine the spotlight on them. They have to decide what to spend their resources on. Resources include available artists and writers and programmers and team leads, and hours available to be worked. This isn't me knowing how the industry works, it's me using my brain. ![]() It also has something to do with "darned if they do, darned if they don't." Would we all be happier if they solely focused on Arachnos for several issues? No. Would we all be happier if they focused on different "big-time" enemies for several issues at a time? No. So there you have it. They can't make us all happy. ![]() It also has something to do with myopia. For me, Arachnos hasn't gone anywhere. Neither have the Rikti. And my namesake character is just now getting into the Portal Corp content for the first time. I love how I've been playing for two years and still firmly consider myself a newbie. There are seven years worth of content in this game, and it feels like it. There is still so much I haven't seen. I realize that puts me in an enviable position compared to some of you, but I'm not gloating. I'm pointing out that old content doesn't disappear when new content is introduced. I've never had the impression that "OMG they're forgetting about the XYZ!" Unlike Marvel Comics, Paragon Studios doesn't have a gazillion writers and artists working on a gazillion interrelated and separate titles all at the same time. Of course, if NCSoft wanted to put up the money to make this game more like that, I'd be one happy paying customer. But that's not how the cookie crumbles, or something.... |
Can't agree with much of anything you've said there old chap.
Here's the thing: The quality of the game overall, graphically, powers, sets etc... wonderful. Visually the game's gone from strength to strength. Praetoria, for example, looks stunning. So does First Ward and the screens I've seen of DA are outstanding. The enemy groups in Praetoria all offer something new, even if some are culled from here and there and amalgams - but they all work.
Arachnos went a long way when we got VEATs. We can now tell our own Arachnos story but the story that goes with it, Alain Dessoc... no thanks. That's poopy. I grant you there's not a huge amount of action been lavished on them but they have moved forward.
Likewise, the Rikti got a huge makeover in I12 and the LGTF and we got the first raid. I grant you, that's a while back now, but it did push the whole story forward and is a big slice of content in its own right and keeps them at the forefront of the CoH legend. So it's very hard to say they went nowhere - and even Montague Castanella manages to shine some more light on their relationship with the Lost.
The issue here is not even one of shining a spotlight. It's the fact they are shinign a spotlight on something that... well it's the Wizard of Oz thing all over again: Once you get past the shiny of Praetoria, and the pretty graphics and Ultra Mode etc etc etc... the content, the stories that make this game so great have crashed in quality.
When I first started playing almost 6 years back, the graphics looked almost dated then - but I played because the stories were cool and I could be a superhero.
Now, the graphics are shiny and I'm reduced to being one of Matt Millers NPCs in his hubristic love affair with Positron.
And that is the Elephant in the room
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Thelonious Monk
I'm reduced to being one of Matt Millers NPCs in his hubristic love affair with Positron.
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![Stick Out Tongue](images/smilies/tongue.gif)
Positron's first action as leader of the Freedom Phalanx doesn't go too well, and it's up to the more powerful Incarnates to step in and save the situation - and the world
![Wink](images/smilies/wink.gif)
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
The DD Trial suggests otherwise
![]() Positron's first action as leader of the Freedom Phalanx doesn't go too well, and it's up to the more powerful Incarnates to step in and save the situation - and the world ![]() |
Classic redemption story then. But the fact it's Posi running it from the start says a lot.
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Thelonious Monk
I've never had the impression that "OMG they're forgetting about the XYZ!"
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The 5th Column was one of my favorite villain groups when I started playing back in 2004, and I and others I know had made character concepts that were tied to that villain group. When they were just yanked out wholesale and replaced with the Council, all our faith in Cryptic kind of went right out the window. I am pleased to see them "back", but it is in such an afterthought-ish way, almost as if Paragon would be happier if nobody even really noticed them, that the bad taste left from their original removal continues to dampen enthusiasm.
I also remember the Rularuu invasion zone event when it originally occurred. I was doing missions in Atlas Park when the Brutes and Overseers just started gating in and wreaking havoc. They quickly overwhelmed all the zones, mostly due to a need to scale it back a bit in the code, but that first night was absolutely glorious. It really didn't take long before all the work that went into that villain group turned into a huge tax writeoff, as they are never encountered outside of the Shadow Shard and those zones get about as much play as the PvP arenas. What a waste of resources.
I am sympathetic to the "limited resources" problem Paragon Studios faces (they don't have Blizzard-like money to play with), but it seems to me they have a history of expending resources in dubious directions that make me scratch my head and whistfully think, "If only..."
NOR-RAD - 50 Rad/Rad/Elec Defender - Nikki Stryker - 50 DM/SR/Weap Scrapper - Iron Marauder - 50 Eng/Eng/Pow Blaster
Lion of Might - 50 SS/Inv/Eng Tanker - Darling Nikkee - 50 (+3) StJ/WP/Eng Brute - Ice Giant Kurg - 36 Ice/Storm Controller
![Wink](images/smilies/wink.gif)
Also, you can choose to fight against Positron on the Trial - even though they've all been captured, we only have time to rescue 4 of them, so we can choose to not save Positron, and save, say, Swan isntead - any ones who we don't save end up fighting us as puppets of Mot in the final fight.
So Mr. New Super Mary Sue ends his first leadership mission in failure, isn't even important enough to be a required rescue objective, and then either tags along with us as Fusionette-style support if we bothered to rescue him, or ends up as a minion to be swept aside by us as we fight the final boss.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
Or worse, "OMG they've expunged XYZ from the game entirely!"
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![Wink](images/smilies/wink.gif)
![Stick Out Tongue](images/smilies/tongue.gif)
And anyway, the Fifth Column got an issue in their honor (Issue 15, although "honor" probably isn't the right word for them hehe), which included two task forces! It's regrettable what happened to them back in the day (was before my time), but I've heard lots of rumors that politics (as in correctness) were involved, and sales in Germany or something. Like I said, rumors. Would be nice to have a fact-check, actually. But more to the point, content for them is demanded a lot and I think I remember hearing somewhere that more content was in the pipeline.
![Smile](images/smilies/smile.gif)
P.S. I didn't mean to gloss over your points about Rularuu, but I haven't gotten to that stuff yet. :P
P.P.S. Also not ignoring your post Scarlet [fellow] Shocker but I think GG said it better than I could.
@Captain-Electric � Detective Marvel � The Sapien Spider � Moravec Man � The Old Norseman
Dark-Eyes � Doctor Serpentine � Stonecaster � Skymaiden � The Blue Jaguar
Guide to Altitis � A Comic for New Players � The Lore Project � Intro to extraterrestrials in CoH
Not really - the Freedom Phalanx and the Vindciators go charging in, get into trouble, and we have to save them, and then they don't play a major role in the Trial after that - it's a new NPC that has the last word once Diabolique is defeated
![]() Also, you can choose to fight against Positron on the Trial - even though they've all been captured, we only have time to rescue 4 of them, so we can choose to not save Positron, and save, say, Swan isntead - any ones who we don't save end up fighting us as puppets of Mot in the final fight. So Mr. New Super Mary Sue ends his first leadership mission in failure, isn't even important enough to be a required rescue objective, and then either tags along with us as Fusionette-style support if we bothered to rescue him, or ends up as a minion to be swept aside by us as we fight the final boss. |
Just... thanks for the spoiler warning and do you really think I meant that this would be a single story resolution when nothing else in the game is?
I'm sorry... you're a smart girl GG but sometimes I wonder when you will be reconstituted into a single long plank.
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Thelonious Monk
Now, the graphics are shiny and I'm reduced to being one of Matt Millers NPCs in his hubristic love affair with Positron.
And that is the Elephant in the room |
It's one thing to tell the writers what you're looking for (feedback is awesome), but when the quality of your feedback has spiraled to the point of--
the content, the stories that make this game so great have crashed in quality. |
I'm going to re-quote something you said earlier because it's something I can't argue with, the previous non-linearity of Origins compared to the restriction on creative freedom presented to us by the evolution of "The Well" storyline--
That was the entire point of Origins. A light touch, flexible enough to allow the character's creater (ie you the player) to create anything you wanted. Hell, Scarlet Shocker is an all electric blaster of natural origin and after almost six years I still don't have a credible explanation for that one, but it just simply works! If you ask her she'll probably shrug and simply say "I somehow manage to harness the ambient electricity in the atmosphere and direct it in a meaningful way - I don't much worry about the science behind it." And during her career, she's teamed with aliens, barbarians from alternate dimensions, sentient goo in an encounter suit, mighty wizards and escaped convicts - to name but a few. Origin has been a really useful tool that you could invest as much, or as little, in as you like. But now, the Incarnate line nails you down to a very specific set of rules that limit the players imagination and ability to interact within the game environment - it's gone from the examples above to "I've got this insane puddle in my head that lends me some of its powers and though I don't trust it, or like it, I've got to go with it just to continue progressing."
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We definitely disagree about the quality of the writing. I think the writing is great in older arcs (many of which are "new" to me, as I'm just now stumbling into them), and I love how the devs liked to build all the different storylines into BIG REVEALS. But I also think the writing is great in newer content. It's different, that's for sure, but in some places more mature. So I guess some people have one opinion and some others have another. Big shocker.
![Wink](images/smilies/wink.gif)
@Captain-Electric � Detective Marvel � The Sapien Spider � Moravec Man � The Old Norseman
Dark-Eyes � Doctor Serpentine � Stonecaster � Skymaiden � The Blue Jaguar
Guide to Altitis � A Comic for New Players � The Lore Project � Intro to extraterrestrials in CoH
P.S. I should add that if it were later and I didn't suspect this had too many readers, and if I hadn't received a phone call when posting this, it would have been one of the dozens and dozens of posts I've deleted right after making it. I really hate getting into personal arguments about personal opinions on the Internet. It always takes everyone's eye off the ball and that's never a good thing for a discussion.
@Captain-Electric � Detective Marvel � The Sapien Spider � Moravec Man � The Old Norseman
Dark-Eyes � Doctor Serpentine � Stonecaster � Skymaiden � The Blue Jaguar
Guide to Altitis � A Comic for New Players � The Lore Project � Intro to extraterrestrials in CoH
I was gone from the game from just prior to GR to just prior to Freedom, and upon my return after those 3+ years away
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Originally Posted by wikipedia
Going Rogue: City of Heroes: Going Rogue was released in 2010.
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Originally Posted by wikipedia
On June 20, 2011, City of Heroes announced the City of Heroes: Freedom subscription model, which was implemented in September 2011.
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Or worse, "OMG they've expunged XYZ from the game entirely!"
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I also remember the Rularuu invasion zone event when it originally occurred. I was doing missions in Atlas Park when the Brutes and Overseers just started gating in and wreaking havoc. They quickly overwhelmed all the zones, mostly due to a need to scale it back a bit in the code, but that first night was absolutely glorious. It really didn't take long before all the work that went into that villain group turned into a huge tax writeoff, as they are never encountered outside of the Shadow Shard and those zones get about as much play as the PvP arenas. What a waste of resources. |
Congratulations, you've now entered the realm of utterly unconstructive feedback. As much as critics like [CENSORED] and [CENSORED] and [CENSORED] are called big grumps around here (resisting the urge to name names, but it's never hard to guess), they back their criticisms up with "But how about this idea?" every single time.
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Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper
Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
Arc ID#431270 Until the End of the World
I think the complaints about the writing are subjective, for the most part. Anyway, the devs have gone well beyond the point of saturation with Praetoria. It was cool, we had an aspect of it and it seemed fresh. Now we've been getting it crammed down our throats for well over a year and half. Most of the major content additions have been Praetoria related. They killed any buzz or cool and have made a lot of players get nearly physically ill when we see anything Praetorian related.
The comic universe tends to be a big place. It may have been neat if we could have some other major player come into the fold but no...it's all Praetoria. It is also a huge joy seeing all these Praetorians have a primal counterpart (for the most part) and then many other main NPCs are versions of our signature characters? A bit of this might be fun but boy oh boy we are getting it and then some. I really think a lot of these factions lose their cache when they just got thrown at us over and over; it goes from cool/neat to resentment in some cases
Yes, of course. And we take great pains to ignore it, too. Because it's crap, and it seeks to define, or re-define our characters, as it were. It also makes one wonder where the Oranbegans got the powers to have an advanced magical civilization 14 000 years ago, long before Pandora's Box was opened.
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And then Ermeeth taught them to do it themselves. Lughebu wasn't even there.
Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper
Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
Arc ID#431270 Until the End of the World
Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper
Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
Arc ID#431270 Until the End of the World
Now on the note of Pandora's Box, I've come to take this interpretation of it:
Pandora's box didn't actually GRANT super powers, but it basically removed a mental block on human minds. (And I mean human minds)
Normally, in city of-verse, a human mind is closed off to the supernatural. If we're hot, we think it's a fever, if we see a wall, we'd only imagine climbing over it or going around rather than jumping over or running up, we'd see tank and think 'I can't punch that!' And with magic, we completely ignore it because it does not exist by our understandings of reality.
But with Pandora's box thrown open, we become inspired and open to new possibilities. We see a wall and think "I can make this jump", we have a high temp and realize "this isn't a fever, my fire manipulation mutation is starting to manifest!", we see a tank and punch it because we believe we can, we can suddenly also see ghosts, demons, and magic because we now realize they're VERY real.
It's also possible to subvert this mental block or be born without it in rare cases, such as Giovanni Scaldi and so forth.
It's a bit of s stretch, but it worked for me.
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And after he taught them magic Ermeeth went back to watching TV. If they wanted more power, they could figure out how to do it themselves, they didn't have to jump up and down shouting "Hey, Ermeeth! Look how cool I am! Can I have more power? Please?" like a bunch of four-year-olds begging for a cookie. They made themselves more powerful. Then they got invaded and started turning to outside sources, and that didn't really end well.
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(If I'm wrong about any detail, a fact-check from an old hand is always welcome/appreciated.)
I've never stopped to see things from that angle, but I'm not going to argue with it. Pandora's Box may have indeed unleashed a millennium of creative energy upon humanity all at once, BUT there had to also have been something within humanity that was capable of receiving and manipulating that energy--I believe that is the part that your interpretation focuses on. And in your defense, clearly, the lore doesn't tell us which was the greater portion of the equation--the power unleashed by Pandora's Box or our ability to channel and manipulate it. They key here is that the lore specifically refers to it as an unleashing of "creative energy," and that terminology implies a storehouse of human creativity, not some kind of energy that is normally external to the human experience.
@Captain-Electric � Detective Marvel � The Sapien Spider � Moravec Man � The Old Norseman
Dark-Eyes � Doctor Serpentine � Stonecaster � Skymaiden � The Blue Jaguar
Guide to Altitis � A Comic for New Players � The Lore Project � Intro to extraterrestrials in CoH
So is this a conflict, or are regular humans on the outside of all these matters just mashing the two groups together? Might be prudent to bring up at some point.
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.)
This is something I wrote that deals with this issue. I hope you take it in the spirit of intent, rather than some sense of self-aggrandizement but this is about the only way I've managed to make the Well work for me.
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=281281 |
I was going to go on a diatribe about how the newer story arcs give more choices but put more words into your mouth, without the ability to change your mind (the difference between threatening to snap a D.U.S.T. Ranger commander's neck, and actually doing it. Another example would be the villain starting arc with the 'contest'. That, for me, is the most jarring, character wise.
But when it comes to the Incarnates... Everything that the Dev's decide... if it leads to that ending, is justified by this story alone.
Well played and even better written, Scarlet.
"I play characters. I have to have a very strong visual appearance, backstory, name, etc. to get involved with a character, otherwise I simply won't play it very long. I'm not an RPer by any stretch of the imagination, but character concept is very important for me."- Back Alley Brawler
I couldn't agree more.
Ah, you just made me think of an interesting facet of the canon that could use clarification: in the Origins of Power arc, we started to understand that there were spirits among mankind who taught mankind things in exchange for devotion, and these ended up being called gods like Teilekku and Leghubu. Recently, however, we learn from Prometheus that beings such as Zeus and possibly other members of the classic Greek Pantheon whom are also called gods ingame were among the first Incarnates to exist among humanity.
So is this a conflict, or are regular humans on the outside of all these matters just mashing the two groups together? Might be prudent to bring up at some point. |
Yes, we can handwave away what we don't like. The problem is that we have to.
What's more, in a very real sense, you can't handwave away what you don't like. Yes, you can make up whatever you want and if that's what gets you through the night baby, whatever. But gluing feathers on a rat doesn't make it a swan. The canon is what it is. The story you've made up in your head to make it palatable has no currency here. It means absolutely nothing when we're evaluating the quality of the work.
I buy a classic car. It's green. I hate green. I can respray it.
Handwaving here is the only thing keeping my playing the game because the Incarnate story as presented is a big fat steaming turd on a high quality CoH carpet
Thelonious Monk