Discussion: The Intrepid Informer: Issue #17

I have to admit, I was a little underwhelmed by that arc. The cut scene at the end was great and did Statesman justice in terms of a send off. Some great references to the City of Heroes 2nd novel there.

I just feel there should have been more. More mourning, more people present to see him die, more close ups of someone face having a KAAAAAHN moment.... But maybe thats the point. Maybe he's just one man and that was his time (even if he was immortal).

I'm looking forward to next months arc to see reactions.

I was just about completely underwhelmed. The only good part were his visions as he was dying. It was not Epic like an Epic hero deserves. There should have been some sort of fight, some sort of final sacrifice that saves someone elses life, not, "Oh look it's raining, Zap I'm dead!" Seeing more of him in the other arcs might have been nice too. We don't even see him in the previous stories until his death scene. We never got to see his reaction to the death of his daughter, we never got to see his reaction to the other attacks on the Phalanx.

If he stays dead, (which this is a comic book universe so I have to question that), I wouldn't mind seeing a story arc develop where perhaps Emperor Cole or Reichsman puts on the Statesman costume and uses it to infiltrate and bring it down from within.

Well...

The death scene was touching. I think it would have been better to see Statesman actually fighting for a bit (against an aspect of Rularuu, maybe) before dieing, but it worked well enough.

The missions themselves, however, were pure filler. I can almost FEEL someone going "Oh no! These are boring! Quick, throw in these random Signature Characters, to liven things up!" Seriously, most of the Signature Character fights in these missions served no purpose to the plot of this story.

Outside of that, now I honestly hope that Statesman* stays dead... it would invalidate this entire arc if he were brought back now. (* - okay, if someone else gets the Zeus powers and takes up the Mantle of Statesman, I guess I could live with it... but I think I would still be dissapointed.)

People bring up a good point about Wade in issue 23... but I'll wait until he's actually dead (or at least presumed to be dead) before asking that. What I will ask is about Malaise. While I don't think there's anyplace in the world he's just standing around in, I know he shows up in several high-level missions... is he going to be replaced there, as well? If so, by who?

Well while I found the death of Statesman a touching cutscene I did think it could have been handled better, especially for a Villain, it just didn't have that epic feel I was expecting from CoH's Superman Death Scene but theirs still more to come...

...what I really wanted to see was maybe a cut-scene of your villain taking the new to Recluse.

I never felt that Statesman stood in the way of my character, he's always been on a different path and of a different caliber for the player heroes (unless we somehow get the ability to actually fly at mach speeds and smash through Rikti Motherships) so I think his death was pretty pointless, however if they follow proper comic book theory then they will have to bring him back and it will be his resurrection thats the import part, why he comes back for what major reason will be more important than him just dying.

Anyway for Malaise, I thought it possible that the one in this arc was the Praetorian version who had kidnapped the original scanned his mind and was impersonating him while Primal is locked away somewhere.

Ah well, whatever the outcome of this story its been entertaining so far and its given me an idea for a piece of art...

I'm looking forward to what happens next.

- Raith

Here's some guesswork about why the changes to the Statesman content are coming in I23.

The 7th and final part of SSA volume 1 will be in March, and with I22 looking like it'll be live in the February-March timeframe, it seems like that would be the best palce to make the Statesman changes - or even in an I22.5 a few weeks later, if they're having one.
But here's the guesswork part - volume 1 was focused on Statesman and the Freedom Phalanx, it's quite possible that volume 2, which starts in April, will focus on Recluse and Arachnos, with the Valentine's Day and DA content showing some big changes for Recluse, Scirroco, Ice Mistral and Ghost Widow, Red Widow and the Mu.
Now, 2 of the biggest bits of Statesman content, the STF and LRSF, also happen to involve Reclsue and Arachnos, so they could be delaying the changes to those 2 TFs because they'll feature situations that will reference events of volume 2 of the SSAs - like if I23 is out sometime in the summer, that'll means that we'll already be several episodes into volume 2.

So basically, the reason for the Statesman changes being delayed until I23 might be because they contain spoilers for volume 2 of the SSAs.

The question I want to know is how long until they kal-el him from the grave.

Oh, and if lord recluse will attend his funeral.

I would like to know how lord recluse will react.

They were once friends, almost family.

They both became godlike.

And now someone killed his nemesis.

Someone with the power to kill him as well.

And Uh... How exactly are we supposed to become Incarnates now? The whole Alpha slot storyline revolves around not only talking to him, but having the well talk to you through him. On top of that you have to fight a shade of him in the beginning mission. The whole Arc actually revolves around him in a way.

Then you have the Maria Jenkins Arc. We can't very well save Statesman from Tryant.... since Statesman is dead.

Not to mention how many other references to him there are throughout the game's content.(( Poor Penny Preston's gonna need a new shirt. )) You just can't kill off someone so centrally integral to the game's storyline, without missing all the small minor details.

I'm not even going to mention how many AE Storylines that probably involve him either, but that's not really a factor here.

Sorry but the whole idea is just idiotic.

Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.

I'm a little lukewarm on this idea of having the association of Statesman with a developer that hasn't been working on the game for years be the reason why the character should be killed off.

I've played the story, and knowing this information now lessens the impact even more than it already was by having it spoiled a month in advance.

A thought occurred to me: why wasn't the "Statesman" moniker passed on to someone else when Emmert left to go work on other things? Players ask for someone to release names they're not planning on using anymore, and I think I would much rather have a member of the current staff take on the Statesman identity (I was half-hoping Nakayama would have done so on his promotion, but he's cool as he is now, too) and allow the character to persist rather than perform this act of "purification".

The memorial art (for the new log-in screen) is also well done, don't get me wrong on that, but with Statesman supposedly behind us now it would be better for that image to be the background, fading, and featuring either the rest of the Freedom Phalanx and/or a montage of "player characters" (a la the original CoH log screen) in the foreground.

In terms of a Statesman statue/history plaque, I'd throw in my support for this in a heartbeat. He should get the same, if not better, treatment as Atlas has currently in the game lore. Put it in Prometheus Park, or the green area south of City Hall, or even the park south-easterly from the Architect building. Put one in Independence Port, somewhere. Put one on Rikti Hill in Talos Island. I'm... running out of ideas.


Then there's the mystery of the Salute to Statesman loyalty program... the one thing that we really don't know about is the vanity pet that they'll be giving us, unless I missed something. Is it going to be a mini-States following us around? What else can they come up with for a promotion like that, really?

(Personally, I want the mini-Statesman so I can use it in a concept. Do it.)

Everyone knows that Statesman will be back from beyond the grave eventually, its just how super hero comics work.