genuine need or company spite? *spoilers*

Did this thread travel into the future from four months ago?

I actually thought Psyche's death was a lot... "heavier" than Statesman's. Having it be at the hands of her husband, to save the whole city, seemed to mean more than having it be "just because" and at the hands of some until-now-minor character.

Back in the '90s, when DC killed Superman and broke Batman's back, one of people's biggest complaints wasn't that those things happened, it was that they happened because of villains who showed up out of the blue for that specific purpose. Wouldn't it have been a little more momentous to have Lex Luthor (for example) kill Superman, or the Joker (for instance) put Batman out of commission, or Lord Recluse (just to throw a name out there off the top of my head) finally off Statesman?

Not to mention the fact that there was some build-up to Psyche's death, with the whole Malaise thing earlier in the arc. Statesman was purposely left out for most of it, then brought back just so he could be killed. That felt lazy to me. At least they made me care that Psyche had just made the ultimate sacrifice.

I am expecting issue 25 to be a Double~sized extravaganza, featuring the return of Statesman in a new, black costume and with a darker attitude.

"Even though we'll be removing Statesman from the game, we're leaving Statesman on all the promotional material."

Oh, yeah. That's really really spiteful!!!!

Whether or not it was intended internally to look like a childish action, it really really did in my eyes.

I mean, there's conspiracy levels of spite: BABs leaving and going to work at a rival studio; Galaxy City is destroyed. That was probably in the works for a long while.

Killing off Statesman as a metaphorical singular digit based gesture? Eeeh, maybe. There's some story potential there, especially considering what it brought out in Recluse. Obviously they're going to keep him on the promotional material though, he's the only thing resembling a recognizable figure PS really has right now. The understudy being Desdemona's shorts.

Killing off Psyche? Ok, so here, you start to get into "that was sort of unnecessary" territory. On one hand, you get that whole "women in refrigerators" argument, even more so considering the reasoning behind it was fairly hamfisted and poorly explained. On the other hand, you have "petty slaying of Jack's characters because he left a bad taste in the community's mouth." Backed even more so by the fact that Psyche was replaced by a character with almost the exact same powers.

Promoting Matt "Positron" Miller to the in-game position that Jack "Statesman" Emmert had after killing his character? Yeah. Yeah, that sort of seals the deal there. The final straw, so to speak. Sure, you can argue that Positron is the most suited for the role (and I'd argue BABs right back at you), and that's a sturdy "maybe". But, I can't possibly chalk this entire thing up to writing considering Citadel, a member of the surviving 8 had around 1 line in an arc about the surviving 8. And what, 2 grand total appearances? At least Synapse showed up in a mission and had some (plural) lines. Heck, even the villain patrons that were completely ignored up until the finale got an awesome treatment. I don't think I could accept the argument that it was purely done for story purposes when areas of the story are blatantly glossed over or forced just to fit in a convenient death.

I don't know if there's any personal or company spite, but frankly there was no concrete reason to off either of the characters. And Miller's wording of why this was done doesn't help with the impression that two of Emmert's characters were singled out for the job.

And when I say there was no concrete reason to do this, I mean it. People can go on and on and on about how Statesman was a Mary Sue, in spite of the fact we save him on more than one occasion in-game and Incarnates well and truly created a new tier that only player characters stood on.

The only reason I can see that players wanted him gone was that wonderful sense of entitlement that only gamers can have which is 'I want all the things NOW'. Note that Statesman doesn't intrude directly at any stage during the character's levelling time, nor does he step in and patently do something it is impossible for the player to do. Now look at that in contrast to practically every step of Who Will Die where there are direct and obvious cases where NPC's who are not Incarnates can still outperform and even outshine the player character, who is meant to be the only person capable of stopping Wade. Penny Yin, anyone?

I've had complete strangers who don't even play this game watch the Statesman cutscene and wonder why he just gave up without a fight; I can't imagine a single one of my characters (some of whom are vastly older than Statesman) just go 'oh yeah, it's my time, off I pop'. Either Statesman is written to have a death wish, or he stopped caring about Paragon City years ago, in which case he's again an incredibly poor model for the ideal hero.

And Sister Psyche's death is the model of mischaracterisation. From the inabilty to prepare the ritual to Manticore improbably and impossibly not realising he has alternatives other than killing Psyche rings false and hollow from the moment it starts. It's BAD WRITING. It's not dramatic, it's not suspensful. Anyone with even the most basic understanding of plot can see the ending a mile away and that's inexcusable. And like it or not, when that happens people start looking to reasons beyond the story as to why this has happened.

Paragon Studios had already left behind Cryptic Studios and its legacy the instant Going Rogue was unveiled. Statesman remains, even though he's dead in-game, the main marketing figure the game is based around. What then is the purpose of killing said character and then promoting him as the 'ideal hero' of the game?

It was a publicity stunt and at the very worst an arguable case of professional spite. Statesman and Psyche served valuable purposes for selling the game, and players who were taking issue with that as they were somehow stealing their limelight are frankly deluding themselves. The game isn't sold on us the players, it's the NPC's. Always. Show me an instance where this isn't true. Go ahead.

In any event, these deaths serve no long-term purpose whatsoever. Those who wanted them dead are happy, but now want more importance in the game. Those who didn't look at their replacements and wonder where the difference is.

And those who make the game need to make the mature decision to step away from their own characters and realise that the game is more important than any one character and promote or kill off whomever serves the game's purposes, not their own.


S.

I was disappointed that Sis Psyche died, she was my favorite of the FP as she was for many others. However I feel that killing her off will pave way for Penny... can't have 2 ultimate psychics, ya know. Either way that doesn't mean that can't overlap with paragon studios desire to wipe out the existance of Jack's characters.

States needed to go regardless though. Glad he's gone.

Well, in the defense of Paragon Studios, heroside NPCs did need a bit of downsizing a streamlining to a degree.

I mean in the ranks of heroes we have the entirety of the Freedom Phalanx (including Sister Psyche and Statesman for this) with seven members. Eight if you want to include BAB, but apparently Statesman never did. (Product of his era, I guess) You have NINE Vindicators, the Faultline Trio, two out of four members of WISDOM (Why can't Rose Star be in the game? I mean seriously, her powers can't be too add to replicate).

It all starts to get confusing I suppose, and writing uniquely for all of them must become a strain on the overclocked writers who have already been told to just ignore the established lore by Positron himself just to save that much more time.

Now Villainside you have Nine bigwigs of Arachnos. Lord Recluse at the top, the four Generals, and their lieutenants.
Smooth, streamlined, simple to remember, and Lord Recluse plus the Four Generals easily make up each of the five villain ATs.

Of course, if that was the case, the Devs need to kill off A LOT more NPC heroes. And of course, the Devs kept saying this was about promoting the player character. Well sure, it promotes HERO player characters, but Villains are still stuck beneath their glass ceiling. Regardless of what Lord Recluse might say to you in Time and Again, you still end up kissing his butt for the LRSF, still end up getting downtalked by him in the Mender Tesseract SF (due to circumstances unforeseeable on your part and out of your control, when you were helping him in the past OUT OF THE GOODNESS OF YOUR OWN FREE WILL), and nine out of ten times in Story Arcs or newspapers, it's all about Arachnos.

TL;DR Maybe heroes did need some downsizing, but if we're going for downsizing, we need to kill off a lot more. If we're going for players rising above the NPCs, than we need Lord Recluse to die too.

Quote:

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.

Well, since we're having this thread again, let me again make this point:

It's the players' fault Statesman and Sister Psyche were 'killed off.'

Players have been grousing about being second class characters in the stories. FedEx missions, glorified lackeys, lacking initiative, etc.... And so, we've seen a concerted effort by the content writers to put players front and center and be more proactive and more consequential.

But how can we do that when we're in the shadows of near-immortals who are of a magnitude more powerful than our characters? Oh, sure, we mop up the EB versions of Statesman, Psyche, and Lord Recluse. But the story makes them the most powerful beings on the planet. Statesman can also survive a nuke. A real nuke. Not the declawed version of a Warburg missile. Psyche, story-wise, was the most powerful psychic on the earth. And they're all several generations old, and not likely to die anytime soon of old age.

The only way our character can shine story-wise when there is a more powerful generation that just won't die or age out... is to murder them.

The content writers have already diminished the Freedom Phalanx in many ways by setting them up for failure. Positron is no new Mary Sue when villains steal the Fire of Prometheus from him; he was inconsequential in saving Psyche or Statesman; and he gets his entire team snared in Diabolique's trap, requiring us to save them all.

And, yes, this also means Recluse and Lady Grey have narrative bulls-eyes on their backs.