So who shall replace Statesman?

I used to fiddle with my back feet music for a black onyx. My entire room absorbed every echo. The music was . . . thud like. The music was . . . thud like. I usually played such things as rough-neck and thug. Opaque melodies that would bug most people. Music from the other side of the fence.

Emperor Cole. [Sardonic villianous laughter.]

I already made a thread on why her leading the carnival of light alone is a bad idea.

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.

Me.

Which is quite natural when you think about it, because cats already rule.

Frankly, yes. We're the ones paying for the game.

How is a hundred heroes the MAIN protagonist of the universe?

And does that also mean future content is becoming solo content, so our heroes can live in their own little world and be the one lone hero who saves the day?

A valid point. While I do believe that the PCs need to be more central to the plot and action, but that can't be at the excessive expense of existing characters, which are flat, but can still get more character development. I think that Positron should step up and lead the Phalanx, but that player Heroes should definitely also step up and be treated more like the Phalanx's colleagues, rather than their sidekicks.

CoH was never "THE GRAND STORY OF STATESMAN THAT I GET TO WATCH". Theres what, one or two story arcs with him at high levels and one task force he offers and probably a couple more he is featured in? Granted theres more if you include his evil duplicates from other dimensions, but its not like we play his sk for 50 levels either.

No matter how you do, the story of the game is perceived from your point of view. Doesn't matter if the story is about Statesman, lord Recluse, Reichman, Emperor Cole or anyone else; nor does it matter if it is experienced solo, in small teams or in super large teams; it is still the story told from your perspective.

Now, before you remind me of how Shadow Kitty is not the main protagonist of Captain America, please remember that comics and movies are not interactive. Even so, their main protagonist is actually your avatar, in their fixed-perspective of the media kind of way. You identify with them, and you share their adventures with them through them. I make an investment in those characters, and for a moment I allow those characters to be my projection into the story as a stand-in for myself as Shadow Kitty sadly can't enter the comics pages. (It would be infinitely better if it was possible, but that kinda goes without saying.)

Slight difference here. Here I am Shadow Kitty.

And as much as Captain America is not the main protagonist of Spider-Man or Daredevil even if they happen to share the same universe, Statesman is not the main protagonist of City of Heroes. As soon as I login into the game, even if on team or solo, I am the main protagonist of the game.

And so are you.

Yes. But for the storyline to continue, I believe they need to have it fall a bit to the signature NPCS, rather than the players, for the story to keep going.

Running through the content doesn't have to look like "You're a sidekick" or "You're a flunky" but at the same time, the story wouldn't work if they based it off players choices, as that's just to many variables to account for.

Player versus Silver Mantis (in the players perspective) can easily be...

1) We fought, I killed her, ate her soul, she's gone forever!

2) We fought, I defeated her, she wound up in the zig.

3) We fought, she kicked my butt!

4) We fought, ended up making out and...well...^_^ let's just say we got sticky!

5) Something else entirely!

To many variables for the writers to account for when trying to move the story along.

Now, could go the route of it's your character doing all this, but it loses something in the effect of being an MMO (at least imo) because it's then hundreds of other players saying "I did that too!" or "I did it, not you!"

Example is discovering Honoree is Hero One! That's an event that can only happen once in a storyline.

Of course some of this is from an RP perspective, but that works works whether the player actually actively RPs or just imagines some things while smashing keys.

As a player I'm more likely to believe an NPC is in the spot that Statesman held untill recently than some other players character that isn't mine. But the story also wouldn't go the way I want if my character was in that place, would it?

Katie Douglas being put back into the box. My character never would of put her in back in, and would of gone along the lines of "the good of the one out weighs the good of the many" (to quote Star Trek ) in that case.

Now the PC replacing States would work imo, but it would require either a lot more work, or less storylines from the devs to account for multiple likely outcomes and then letting those on the team see the world the PC created through their actions. CoH however doesn't really allow that.

So for the sake of CoH's writing, I do prefere there to be some big heroes like the Freedom Phalanx. Of course, I'd also like for them to give some of these signature characters more depth.

It's not that I mind there being signature NPCs. It's just that I don't like that they are significantly more powerful/special than us, and we only get to shine because of increasingly contrived reasons that they can't do things themselves.

The statesman TF is a perfect example of this. "Hey, Recluse is up to some bad stuff. I'd deal with it myself, but he'd notice. You guys on the other hand aren't nearly powerful or famous enough to be on his radar, so you might be able to get it done. Good luck"

I want the signature NPCs to be our colleagues, not our superiors.

If they are not superior how do you justify our players following or getting missions from them? Or it requires a team of players (i am talking about not top-end uber builds with correct power selections in here) to beat one of those?

If they were my collegues I wouldn't bother to get missions from them RP-wise or would drag them into mission with me. I know you don't care this example but I prefer playing Flash rather than Superman but I would also glad that a role model like Superman exists if I was Flash even if he is way superior.

Actually, I don't care what you did. Well, I do care a little bit if we teamed when you do it, but from my point of view, I killed Statesman ages ago before he nerfed himself, no matter what you did to him and when. Because this is my story, in which you are my sidekick at best (or, more likely, recipient of backstab, if our paths ever cross).

But that means that what happened in my story is true, and what happened in your story is false, right?

Wrong. Your story is as true as mine. It's just not real, for me. Your story might differ, but since I can't look into your head or read your memories and I don't read any fanfic at all, I have no idea what you did to Statesman in your universe. But both stories are equally true, from an outside perspective. I'm just not bothered about yours.

Now, this may sound confusing as heck to you humans, but thanks to a professor Schrödinger, the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics comes quite natural to us cats.

And then how to the devs write new content around that?

You've killed Statesman ages ago! But now Darrin Wade just killed him!

And if you're willing to ignore the story and it doesn't matter to you, then how the devs write the story shouldn't matter to you, as you just make up your own anyways.

I've never said that's bad. So I got your point. But your point doesn't work for writing the stories really for the devs. With that line of work, they could just have nameless character in costume and you can decide who it is, what powers they really have, and just smash away at the keys

Perfectly valid!

But some of us also like to go somewhat with the given storyline. Praetoria happening. Tyrant isn't soloable (anymore) and requires a massive gathering of heroes. ect ect...

I never said that I'm willing to ignore the story (actually, it's more like "I have to", rather than "I want to"). I'm just willing to ignore yours.

The devs write up a story and implement it in the form of mission content. I then experience that content from my point of view, and that content mixes with my experience into my story.

Same thing happens to you. That's your story, and that's the story I'm ignoring (except if the content happens to us at the same time in the same team). I suspect that you ignore mine anyway, so that just makes us even.

But back to the devs' story. That story behaves pretty much the same as any story: as soon as it escapes their minds onto paper (or in this case electrons), it isn't theirs anymore. It is experienced by the reader, shaped by that reader's experience and interpreted through his eyes, and out comes another story, somewhat unlike the one that the author had in his mind.

In an interactive medium, I have to be flexible when interpreting that content. I may not totally agree on the inflexions or even the specific wording that Commander Shephard uses, but besides that, I sort of control the story. Although originally conceived and written by the devs, I still shape it into my story about my Commander Shephard, and it will differ from yours.

In a multiplayer interactive medium, there are two solutions: either they write more or less single-player content, or they write multi-player content.

If they write multi-player content, it's basically that we take all permutations of the Commander Shephard story and put them into a many-worlds solution of the quantum equations. I have to be a little bit more flexible with the devs' content when making my story, especially if content is repeated. But it basically behaves like the single-player story above.

Sometimes, it's awfully good, like in that game that has glowing sticks that go bzhyuuuuum-bzhummm, where it is the story about how my character develops from a mere trainee to a master of glowing-stick-swinging, or in this game when Ghost Widow decides to test me to see if she's worthy of becoming my personal can opener (she actually says "you're good; if I'm to become your patron and give you access to my uber-cool powers, you have to get even better", but we all know what she really means).

Sometimes, it's not quite as good, as in every case where the story is really about someone else, or worse, just about me being hired to do a job. "Hello there, I have a problem with snakes, care to lend a hand?" We're required to insert a lot of "insert your story here" in the latter case, less so in the former, but still to a certain degree.

The alternative is that the concept of the "devs' story" will have to be abandoned almost completely. It then becomes our story that we make together in a story-less open-world sandbox, and the only story that the devs can introduce are meta-level stories or single events. This is what you had under the skirt of Galaxy Girl before it was meteored, or in Pocket D before the trials: lots of players creating a story together, completely on their own. Well, kind of - they all write their own story, but instead of being flexible towards the devs' story, they're flexible towards the other players, and the story is not pushed on them, it's grown organically by them.

And by the way, Darrin Wade haven't killed Statesman's impostor yet, since I haven't played that content. And if there's gonna be a replacement for Statesman's replacement, it should be me, since cats rule.

I'm not sure why it needs justifying. A lot of the contacts in the game aren't super powered at all, and I haven't heard anyone saying we need to justify why we'd take missions from those people.

Well, this is one of those things that I kind of dislike about the game. I DON'T think it should take a full team of normal heroes or a single purpled out build to take on one of the signature heroes. I think a level 50 signature hero should be able to fight them one on one and have a shot at winning (though it doesn't necessarily need to be easy). However, I also understand that this is an MMO, and that they want to encourage teaming. So I'm willing to settle for the fact that it takes purples and a specific build to equal the power of the signature heroes. But even then, when statesman was alive we couldn't match up to him. We couldn't solo rikti motherships, we couldn't solo the Statesman TF (both things it was said or implied that States could do). I don't need it be easy for us to equal their level of power, but I want it to be possible. And with Statesman dead, we really only need to knock off Lord Recluse and Statesman's alternate versions, and we'll pretty much be there.

Colleagues might have been a bad word choice. Peers would have been better. And as far as getting missions from them, I covered that above. And I do think we should have more missions where the signature heroes help us out.

And that's fine. Sometimes I want to play The Flash too. But I don't want to be forced to do so. Sometimes I want to play Superman instead. I think it's design to make a superhero MMO, make this overpowered uber-hero who's looked up to by the whole world, and then tell the people who are paying for the game "Look at all the cool stuff that can be done and how powerful and looked up to a hero can be, but that's not for you, you can't do that, only the NPCs can do that, sorry".

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk