The Well, Praetoria, and Incarnates; Problems with Writing?
By
AkuTenshiiZero,
Posted on: 2012-01-14 01:40 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
Quote:
Well it took them seven issues to make it easier to use bases for what many players actually use them for, rather than what they were designed to be used for.|
Originally Posted by Egos_Shadow
Well, to be fair, this would not exactly be the first time we've confused them with how we actually use the game, as opposed to how it's designed to be used.
|
The Origin of Power nonsense came out ten issues ago. There were complaints about it then. Isn't it about time?
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
Quote:
Sign me up for agreeing with that.
|
Originally Posted by Stormbird
There are a lot of times I dont' agree with Xanatos, but he's really hitting the nail on the head in this thread... all the nails, frankly.
Just had to quote this bit because it's something that irritates the hell out of me with the way the current team is going, even MORE than sticking Praetorians and the Well in everything. |
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Zwillinger
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
 |
Quote:
Given the current definition 'Incarnate' doesn't really actually mean much. It has as much effect, to me at least, as 'Uber level' or 'Security level 50 and then some'.|
Originally Posted by ShadowMoka
I just like to RP that ICly the toon isn't incarnate.
|
What does it mean 'Incarnate' anyway? States was always the 'Incarnate of Zeus', which now seems to be somewhat confusing. If we are meant to be 'Incarnates of the Well' then that's just a load of bull doos.
In fact, now I think about it, was it EVER explained what we are meant to be Incarnates OF, or is it just used in a 'level 50+' way?
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Zwillinger
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
|
Quote:
Isn't this the danger of playing in someone else's sandbox? You fill in details with your own conceptions and interpretations, taking advantage of the conceptual space left by all the unsaid things in the game's official canon (early on), and then one day those details do get elaborated upon and now everything you've come up with stands in conflict with the newly established canon. Wasn't this sort of thing inevitable?|
Originally Posted by Egos_Shadow
On the other hand, we can't exactly argue that the Well wasn't in the backstory from a very long time ago, it just wasn't spelled out in detail.
|
I guess some things are just better off left unspecified, like where superpowers "come from". Flexibility here is so fundamental to character origin stories that it is probably the one thing they should never have elaborated upon. But they did. And now we are required to ignore the new canon in order to preserve our character concepts, or retcon our character concepts to fit the new reality. For anyone who already was ignoring the Well and/or the whole Incarnate concept, this is no big deal. For everyone else, disregarding everything that is coming down the pike for Incarnates is going to become harder and harder and less satisfying with every update.
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
Quote:
But everyone KNEW that risk when they went to play in the sandbox, right? Again, none of my characters, ranging from any of the origins, have had their concept or story compromised by the presence of the Well or the backstory of the Well. But then, perhaps it's just the way I make characters. Most of my characters are middle of the road. They're good, but their backstory/concept doesn't automatically make them pseudo-gods.|
Originally Posted by Wing_Leader
Isn't this the danger of playing in someone else's sandbox? You fill in details with your own conceptions and interpretations, taking advantage of the conceptual space left by all the unsaid things in the game's official canon (early on), and then one day those details do get elaborated upon and now everything you've come up with stands in conflict with the newly established canon. Wasn't this sort of thing inevitable?
I guess some things are just better off left unspecified, like where superpowers "come from". Flexibility here is so fundamental to character origin stories that it is probably the one thing they should never have elaborated upon. But they did. And now we are required to ignore the new canon in order to preserve our character concepts, or retcon our character concepts to fit the new reality. For anyone who already was ignoring the Well and/or the whole Incarnate concept, this is no big deal. For everyone else, disregarding everything that is coming down the pike for Incarnates is going to become harder and harder and less satisfying with every update. |
So I suppose my lack of problems comes from my style. So I can understand that someone's style might get compromised or cramped due to existing lore. But isn't it part of the challenge to work new ideas into existing lore in a way that works? I have a hard time believing characters are simply flat-out BROKEN by the existence or expansion of Well lore.
It's not necessarily that they can't be Incarnates. All of my characters are low-power enough that becoming an Incarnate of practically anything would be a step up in power. Even the ones intended to be heavy hitters (mostly Wicked Samael comes to mind) isn't so cosmos-crushingly powerful that being imbued with the power of a being who plays chess with entire civilizations wouldn't be a step up.
It's just that it's not always the direction we want our stories to go. Most of the other plots don't really change our character very much, leaving us to decide whether our characters are changed by the events or not. The Well changes us by making us the Incarnates of something, though, it's not just a raw power source that can be used for any purpose to any end.
Incidentally, if they intend to have an option wherein you punch out the Well of the Furies and take all its power for yourself, they should have made that obvious from the beginning instead of waiting until the very end to reveal your own character's plan to you.
Quote:
I wish I could say that was true. But as I've said before, there's nothing in character creation or tutorial that mentions the Well and how it empowers characters. In fact, the Well is barely mentioned in game at all until you get to Incarnate level. So one could create a character, freely play them till 50 considering their powers etc to be 'theirs', not gifted to them by some ancient power source. At which point they hit the Incarnate content and get treated to a nasty shock. This is part of the problem of the storytelling around the Well: it's simply not explained or foreshadowed enough in existing lore, it just got tacked on at the end of the game. |
Originally Posted by Issen
But everyone KNEW that risk when they went to play in the sandbox, right?
|
Now as a Lore Junky, I don't have that excuse these days. But expanding on existing lore, adding that 'here's what's really going on' twist is a risky proposition depending on how far back you go. I was hesitant to create a magic using Praetorian because nothing in the Praetorian backstory mentioned what happened to magic there. And then a couple of issues later, *bang*, here's First Ward and where all the magic in Praetoria fled to. But that was only the difference of a few issues.
The Well lore stretches back to the very beginnings of the game. It expands on a piece of lore that affects every single character ever created. If I were writing it, I would be very, very careful about how strict and defined that path was to more power. Because in doing so, I could trample on a lot of players' creativity. And alas, that's pretty much what the Incarnate lore has done, hence why some players feel rightfully annoyed about it.
@Dante EU - Union Roleplayer and Altisis Victim
The Militia: Union RP Supergroup - www.themilitia.org.uk
Quote:
That's only true so long as they don't replace half the sand with gravel after seven years.
|
Originally Posted by Wing_Leader
Isn't this the danger of playing in someone else's sandbox?
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Zwillinger
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
|
On the beta forums, Sylph_Knight has posted the latest infro from Prometheus:
Quote:
I removed one small-ish part that contained I22 spoilers.
|
* The Well of the Furies is not unique. It is an amalgamation that represents the Force of Human Potential that manifests itself in the form of a spring, which was a representation of a resource and of relief to primitive humans. However, every race has their own version of the Well, supplying and absorbing their own respective Potentials in a continuous cycle. The Kheldians' equivalent is a perfect sphere of energy that represents their idealized form. * The Well's personality and ambitions change with time, and it enters periods of hibernation that can last for centuries. Every time it wakes up, its personality manifests differently based on the collective psyche of humanity in that era. In the current era, the Well craves and rewards those who seek power. Part of this is to survive against the Battalion but also because of how humanity has changed. * The Furies are not direct servants to the Well. There is no hierarchy between the two as the Furies have their own ideas and schemes. They were some of the first Incarnates ever created, representing ideals that the Well favored at the time. The Furies disagree with the Well's current methods due to its change in personality following its recent awakening and are acting independently of the Well. In other words - their power comes from the Well but they are not an integrated grouping. Also, Prometheus says the Furies do not appear as twisted monsters, unlike their servants. * Prometheus is part of an organization (he does not define this as a Race, as I recall) that monitors Forces of Potential like the Well of the Furies and can lead members of a race towards drawing more strength from their Force of Potential... or surpass it. * The Battalion are a race of Incarnates that have direct contact with their Force of Potential, allowing them to capture and feed the Forces of Potential belonging to other races to their own. This allows them to strip other races of their collective Potential and increase their own while leaving their defeated enemies as slaves with almost no ability remaining to resist. According to Prometheus, nearly a dozen races have already fallen to the Battalion to date. * There is a level beyond the Incarnate, in which an individual breaks free from their race's Force of Potential and becomes one unto themselves, wielding truly god-like powers. However, a being capable of doing so represents a massive portion of their race's own Potential and breaking free dramatically weakens their race's Force of Potential has a whole. In addition, Prometheus refuses to grant you the ability to achieve this level of power so long as the Battalion exists for this very reason, but also because he fears that if you are defeated then the Battalion's power will grow exponentially more than it has already. He also threatens to kill you if you attempt to reach this power and become a "rogue" Force of Potential. A separate branch of that same conversation reveals that he is privy to the idea of helping you ascend if you do manage to beat the Battalion with your current power as an Incarnate, however. * Rularuu is one such being that has become its own Force of Potential. While this part is not elaborated upon, I suspect his mission is not unlike the Battalion as he consumes whole worlds - possibly stealing the potential of all beings residing in them by consuming their Forces of Potential in the process. What Prometheus does confirm is that Rularuu is a rogue - a Force of Potential that is outside of their organization's observational control. * Twilight's Sun survived a future where the Kheldian's Force of Potential was consumed by linking himself to the Well of the Furies (Humanity's Force of Potential) to regain his lost powers. |
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
more metasourcing of powers? Really? I really don't like it.
Quote:
...|
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
On the beta forums, Sylph_Knight has posted the latest infro from Prometheus:
-Lore stuff- I removed one small-ish part that contained I22 spoilers. |
I...I think I take it back. That's actually not too bad. It kinda makes sense, it allows WAY more leg-room than the initial draft we got a brief glimpse at (in-game, etc) it...yeah. I can kinda deal with that. It allows it to be the 'potential' thing, rather than an actual power giving deity thinger. And allows for all the origins (i.e. science explosions give powers rather than melting faces)
I think I like that. I think I do.
Edit: It's hard to express properly, given I tried typing three additional things and then gave up. But I think it works well.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Zwillinger
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
|
Quote:
It's better. I'm a little surprised actually in that I kind of got the opposite impression from Prometheus' last reveal (after TPN/MoM release) but that was probably at least partially because he was being a vague vagarity of vagueness still.
|
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
It kinda makes sense, it allows WAY more leg-room than the initial draft we got a brief glimpse at (in-game, etc) it...yeah. I can kinda deal with that. It allows it to be the 'potential' thing, rather than an actual power giving deity thinger.
|
@Mindshadow
Quote:
It also implies that humanity has gone insane, and thinks grasping at power is the only thing that matters. While this may be accurate, our heroic characters are supposed to be above that. So now we're not only beholden to a sentient insane puddle, said puddle is subject to a majority vote? Humanity subconsciously voted for Cole, and the only way we can get them to vote for us is to beat him up? Sorry, I don't want to play that game either.|
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
...
I...I think I take it back. That's actually not too bad. It kinda makes sense, it allows WAY more leg-room than the initial draft we got a brief glimpse at (in-game, etc) it...yeah. I can kinda deal with that. It allows it to be the 'potential' thing, rather than an actual power giving deity thinger. And allows for all the origins (i.e. science explosions give powers rather than melting faces) |
It also amplifies the mess caused by the "one for each species" nonsense, since it becomes even more apparent that if the puddle doesn't cross species lines, it certainly shouldn't cross dimensional lines.
And oh yeah, another case of "if you do this I will kill you."
I think maybe they've read people's problems with the puddle, and are trying to "fix" it somehow. The thing is, you can't fix something that is broken at the core.
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
Quote:
I think he's being vague because he's already seen Incarnates like Tyrant, Reichsman, the Hamidon and Lord Recluse, and thinks that there's a good chance that we could also turn out bad, so he's not telling us everything until he's more certain that we won't misuse the power that we're getting.
|
Originally Posted by Egos_Shadow
It's better. I'm a little surprised actually in that I kind of got the opposite impression from Prometheus' last reveal (after TPN/MoM release) but that was probably at least partially because he was being a vague vagarity of vagueness still.
|
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
Quote:
The Well is only sentient because it's created by us - it just reflects the basic ideas in the mind of humanity at the time it happens to wake up.|
Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
It also implies that humanity has gone insane, and thinks grasping at power is the only thing that matters. While this may be accurate, our heroic characters are supposed to be above that. So now we're not only beholden to a sentient insane puddle, said puddle is subject to a majority vote? Humanity subconsciously voted for Cole, and the only way we can get them to vote for us is to beat him up?
|
If humanity starting hugging a lot, then the Well would start to respond to humans that showed the most potential to hug others.
But right now, it's getting a power vibe from humanity, so it's responding to people looking for power.
The Well is what humans make it, not what it makes itself.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
Quote:
The cynic in me delights in this of course. Gosh - having gods shaped by belief turns out to be a terrible idea! Humanity believes in stupid things! Who knew?|
Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
It also implies that humanity has gone insane, and thinks grasping at power is the only thing that matters. While this may be accurate, our heroic characters are supposed to be above that. So now we're not only beholden to a sentient insane puddle, said puddle is subject to a majority vote? Humanity subconsciously voted for Cole, and the only way we can get them to vote for us is to beat him up? Sorry, I don't want to play that game either.
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
I think maybe they've read people's problems with the puddle, and are trying to "fix" it somehow. The thing is, you can't fix something that is broken at the core.
|
@Mindshadow
Quote:
Uh...|
Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
It also implies that humanity has gone insane, and thinks grasping at power is the only thing that matters.
|
Quote:
| While this may be accurate, |
Quote:
| our heroic characters |
Quote:
| are supposed to be above that. So now we're not only beholden to a sentient insane puddle, said puddle is subject to a majority vote? Humanity subconsciously voted for Cole, and the only way we can get them to vote for us is to beat him up? Sorry, I don't want to play that game either. |
Honestly, this fixed version makes more sense for the CoHverse. It doesn't trample anywhere near as much as the 'stub' version we had before did.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Zwillinger
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
|
The vibe I get from that, in fact, is much more akin to, for example, Terry Pratchett's Discworld, or rather the Gods and entities there. All of them are shaped by belief and, as such, look like what humans imagine them. The Crocodile headed god is literally that; a dude with a crocodile head. Sure it's impractical and awkward, but that's what the followers believe.
The best example is Death, the not-quite grim reaper. Given people have been going around inventing chaos theory and quantum mechanics, he now has to show up for near death experiences (he has a book) and events where you might die or might not, or are 'partially dead' and all kinds of stuff. Plays hob with his schedule too.
But he is that way because that's what humans imagine Death being like, and how they think of Death.
It...yeah, it works. I can live with that.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Zwillinger
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
|
It's funny, because I always read into it what that expanded lore seems to be getting some people see. I never had a problem with the Well superseding my characters' powers or origins (or Origin), because I always saw it as a being of manifest (human) potential, not a concrete source of power that fueled us all.
Maybe I've just been exposed to more things like that in other fiction and gaming contexts that I was able to connect it to more readily.
And frankly, I think reading into its current "personality" that humanity is "insane" is quite legitimate. Whether or not our characters would tap into that is completely dependent on the character, what that character feels is a valid means to whatever ends they pursue, and perhaps whether they believe they can put the power to good use separate from the Well's "personality". If the Well isn't in control of us, and its power isn't inherently insanity inducing, does it matter if the Well is "insane"? I find rejecting the Well's influence on that basis curious as a blanket statement, especially in a game where Villains are a force.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
Quote:
I wonder if Tyrant was the tipping point for it, and his "utopia" was what triggered it the Well to take on its current power crazed personality? The devs have said that Primal Earth and Praetoria are two major centers of humanity in the multiverse, so if one of them became unbalanced in a major way, like Praetoria has become, then that could be enough to create this latest personality of the Well based on power.|
Originally Posted by UberGuy
And frankly, I think reading into its current "personality" that humanity is "insane" is quite legitimate.
|
That could mean that defeating Tyrant would in a way "cleanse" the Well of its current personality, and restore a more balanced one.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
Apparently "Well of the Furies" is just a nickname given to the combined force of humanity's potential. It's basically a god emergent from our collective consciousness. It's kinda like Ion or Parallax from Green Lantern, but tethered to a species rather than an emotion.
I don't mind this. Feels like generic DC Comics nonsense. An improvement for sure.
The problem I had with the "Well of the Furies" was that it used to be written as the source of all our powers. (Aka metagaming our backstories.) Turns out, our powers create it, not the other way around. I can dig that.
...assuming I've not completely misinterpreted Golden Girl's quote.
Quote:
I didn't call you heroic. There is a reason I specified heroic. While villains might pursue power for its own sake, heroes do not. However, since the puddle is still rewarding those who do, heroes should still be resisting it.|
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
"What'd you call me, fleshling?" -Alpha
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by UberGuy
If the Well isn't in control of us, and its power isn't inherently insanity inducing, does it matter if the Well is "insane"? I find rejecting the Well's influence on that basis curious as a blanket statement, especially in a game where Villains are a force.
|
It's also a jerk. There's that collective subconscious thing again.
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
Quote:
It is the culmination of who we are as a species and like us, will do anything it can to continue existing.
|
Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
I didn't call you heroic. There is a reason I specified heroic. While villains might pursue power for its own sake, heroes do not. However, since the puddle is still rewarding those who do, heroes should still be resisting it.
Yes, because it goes around possessing people, and we have only Lady Grey's say-so to go on that it won't do the same to us. It's also a jerk. There's that collective subconscious thing again. |
"Samual_Tow - Be disappointed all you want, people. You just don't appreciate the miracles that are taking place here."
Quote:
Playing in a sandbox is a lot like writing fanfiction - one day, word of god can simply render your entire fictional universe addon contradictory, and there's nothing you can do about it. While that's an accepted risk, I feel a good sandbox should be weary of doing this for no reason whatsoever, especially with the full knowledge that it's going to happen. It's one thing to change Positron's Tron stripes from blue to green, not knowing that Blue Stripe Man's entire origin is that he was born of the Positron's Blue Stripes. That's unpredictable and just the nature of giving people the freedom of thought. It's quite another to somehow miss the masses of people having large, repeated discussions about the meaning of Origins and citing many, many examples of bending origins to fit concepts. This has been all over the forums for as long as I've been here, and I'm sure it was a "thing" on the pre-beta forums before me.|
Originally Posted by Wing_Leader
Isn't this the danger of playing in someone else's sandbox? You fill in details with your own conceptions and interpretations, taking advantage of the conceptual space left by all the unsaid things in the game's official canon (early on), and then one day those details do get elaborated upon and now everything you've come up with stands in conflict with the newly established canon. Wasn't this sort of thing inevitable?
I guess some things are just better off left unspecified, like where superpowers "come from". Flexibility here is so fundamental to character origin stories that it is probably the one thing they should never have elaborated upon. But they did. And now we are required to ignore the new canon in order to preserve our character concepts, or retcon our character concepts to fit the new reality. For anyone who already was ignoring the Well and/or the whole Incarnate concept, this is no big deal. For everyone else, disregarding everything that is coming down the pike for Incarnates is going to become harder and harder and less satisfying with every update. |
If Paragon Studios so wanted, they could ret-con the whole game to explain how My Little Pony characters created the world and our player characters and then limit our colour spectrum to pink, blue and yellow... But that doesn't mean it's a good idea to do this. Obviously, when I made many of my characters, I assumed their origin wasn't Bronie - and that IS an assumption, albeit a reasonable one - so if that happens, I'll really have no-one but myself to blame for not having My Little Pony characters on my roster. That doesn't mean I won't have a leg to stand on in arguing that such a thing is needlessly restrictive, and in a game which was much more open-ended before.
The basic point is that while people writing fanfiction in a sandbox are indeed flying by the seat of their pants, the developers of said sandbox aren't necessarily free to change whatever they want, whenever they want and for any reason they fancy. They could, but that doesn't mean they should. Moreover, in a lot of cases, they don't even have to. The Well of the Furies could have been handled differently, been drawn up as a less invasive force, and the result would still have been achieved. That is, of course, assuming stifling creative freedom wasn't the actual point, but I don't like to think that it was.
Quote:
|
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.
|
I just like to RP that ICly the toon isn't incarnate.
http://www.virtueverse.net/wiki/Shadow_Mokadara