Just to be clear, there's other origins and story themes than magic, k?

It a magical slap to a scientific face.

While I don't have a problem with the recent magic (before this it was giant robots wasn't it? ) swing...I don't know if I'd say it's Natural in DA. The god for sure would be, but BP are magic.

Translation: Why give me stuff I don't want but others might when you can give me stuff I want and others might.

Answer: Okay. Maybe next time.

Fair enough. I don't agree with it, but you're at least making sense now. As to why? Because somebody else wants that zone. Thor and Captain Marvel star in their own comics that focus heavily on magic, and likewise, this game has some stories that also focus heavily on magic.

Gotcha. I always just considered Magic to be another form of super power, to be honest. There are so many different outlandish and unbelievable sources of power, like super science and ridiculous technology, that magic really isn't that far fetched to me at all. And like most of the folks have stated in this thread, magic hasn't had a big chance to shine in the spotlight. After I22, I'm sure things will go back to being about science, tech, and the cosmic Well crap.

But I definitely agree with you about Night Ward. Although I'd have preferred to see maybe a revamped zone as opposed to an outright new zone. Like getting Kings Row some decent content or something.

I thought CyberForce did a good mix of it, but it was a storyline versus a big mix. Much like i23 is likely a storyline and not the whole.

Don't most incarnations of Atlantis, from the historical to the modern, involve magic of some kind?

Maybe magic hate can be averted by it being an under water zone?

I was always under the impression that most historical representations of Atlantis described what could be considered a higher level of technology.

It should not be a balance of them. Sci fi should be a lot MORE common because that is what can not only differentiate you from the WOW crowd, but is more appropriate to the comic book universes.

In addition, you have a list of both Sci Fi zones AND modern zones. A better distribution is to have an approximately equal representation of each ORIGIN, not one origin with almost as much as the others combined.

Mutants and Naturals are missing from the incarnate level content for a reason. They can't get to that level in a way that avoids making them another origin and is still interesting. With Natural origin characters, you could get new and better equipment and become tech based. Or you could find some artifacts and become magical. But you can't really just train more or something. Why didn't you train more in the first place? It just doesn't make sense. Mutants are in a similar boat. You, what, mutated more? If there's any other reason for your improved powers then you are relying on a different origin. So we end up with things like Malta wanting new nanites and the 5th Column being surrounded by purple Nictus fire.

You're taking the words from my mouth (keyboard, fingers? )

It isn't a balance of them. GG had to include a zone that isn't even live yet, and only go back a few issues, for it to even look like it's almost balanced. We've gotten disproportionately more magic lately, true. If that represents a permanent change in direction, it's maybe something to object to. But just letting Magic-origin characters have the spotlight for once should not be a problem.

It is - this isn't Elves and Dwarves magic, it's more like supernatural/horror than anything fantasy.

This is why I do not count Rularuu as magic content. But if you have a traditional religious or mythical or magical reference, like an angel, or voodoo, or etc., then it is not just a supernatural horror.

The amount of it far exceeds any other individual origin, especially villain content in which 3 of the patron pools are mystical, and each zone has a mystical monster living in it driving the story arcs. Mutant origin? 0 zones and not a lot of arcs of any kind. Sci and Tech TOGETHER get Peregrine Island, RWZ, a few more, and about as much general presence across zones as magic only. Depending how you want to interpret incarnates it gets a lot more than Sci and Tech.

Doesn't becoming an incarnate explicitly circumvent any limitations a natural would have? Being serial, I have not done any of the incarnate content besides unlocking the alpha slot

And I do have to agree with Xanatos a little bit. I know you get your Big Damn Heroes moment in DA, but First Ward made me feel about as far from heroic as the game can without me playing a straight up villain.

Like I said before, I'm not sure what mutant-themed content would even look like, since we don't seem to have the mutant stigma here that Marvel has. It would be interesting to hear ideas, but it doesn't seem to provide nearly as many potential hooks as other themes. Science and Tech very much run together as story themes. There's a place for Natural stories, but in a superhero game they should be an exception, IMO. After all, the appeal of Natural superheroes is often at least partly how outclassed they are by their opponents/the situation, and that's what makes their victories so exciting. So Natural characters are most enjoyable outside of Natural-themed stories, and non-Natural characters feel out of place in such stories.

In Incarnate content, we have an almost exclusively science/tech theme in Tin Mage, Apex, BAF, Lambda, Keyes, and TPN. We have minor hints at magic in UG and MoM. DD is the only one with magic as a defining theme.

Most importantly, the tendency towards magical themes in the last few issues is quite unusual for the game as a whole, and should probably not be expected to continue indefinitely. After all, the next looming plot development seems to be intergalactic invaders. If magic retains the spotlight forever, yes, I'd agree that's a problem. Having the spotlight for once is not.

The real problem with "mutant-themed content" is the X-Men style "mutant stigma". It is very, very difficult to write mutant content without going near some kind of racial prejudice and/or eugenics issues, and Marvel in general and Claremont in particular have poisoned that well for the next ten generations.

I understand the actual words, but I find the notion they put together almost impossible to grasp. This is a world where people can fly unaided, where people can make living constructs of elements or pure energy, where there are drugs that can make you super-strong and are related to interdimensional travel, where steam-powered constructs can be build that can be mistaken for humans, and where radiation can both heal wounds and accelerate metabolisms. If including magic in this setting requires any additional quantity of suspension of disbelief for me, it is so small that I cannot perceive it.

And that's not just a City of Heroes thing. How could genetic mutation enable someone to transform into metal and stay alive? To control fire? How could cosmic radiation turn someone into living rubber, bones and all?

Then let's consider that characters like Superman not only have their impossible-to-explain abilities, but they regularly achieve things that would be impossible for someone with such powers to achieve. What do I mean? Have you ever seen Superman carry an ocean freighter, or stop a crashing plane? If someone like Superman really existed and he lifted an freighter ship with his hands, he would poke through it - ships aren't built to take the pressure of their own weight supported on spots the size of human hands. Similarly, of he tried to push back on the nose of a crashing plane, he'd end up in the plane unless he took way, way longer to do it than we usually see. (And then he'd be left trying to keep it in the air under its stall speed by gripping only the nose - the freighter problem all over again.)

Such things are just as wildly unbelievable to me as magic. Assuming they could really happen requires a willing suspension of disbelief so great that you could replace Superman with Dr. Fate using magic and to me it's about the same level of unbelievability.

Given that, I really do have a hard time believing it's anything other than a matter of preference. If it's actually about suspension of disbelief, you must think about what's actually depicted in comics less than I do.

I did write up something about mutant stories on page 3 that aren't heavily based on segregation. Although I feel that plot point could be explored a bit more: Something that I always found fundamentally different between mutants and the other power types is that mutants are your kids, your friends, and your family. The other origins are seen as tools, as knowledge, as something extra that is added to the ordinary man. Tony Stark is a man who has a super suit, Green Lanterns are regular men who are given power rings, the fantastic four were regular people who got zapped into having powers, ect. In all of these cases, the superhero is a regular person who gets something added on to them. Another minor aspect is that these usually involve adults who have branched off from the next and are expected to be all mature and stuff. Superpowers here are more or less considered exotic weaponry.

But not mutants... no, those are the people who are born with their powers, and this is a bit of another primal fear that humanity has: something being seriously wrong with their child. By the mere context of expecting a human and not getting one, it makes mutants despised abnormality. The roles of the family fall apart, the social norms of adolescence are cast aside due to a horrendous power displacement, this is what makes people truly afraid. Now, you can make a case that this segregation can happen with all forms of powers, but you have to wonder exactly how often it is that little Billy is going to ingest a top-secret superserum and become Big Billy Boy Wonder before he gets out of middle school. When contrasted to how often it is that some child has a gene that, through the limitlessly intricate and not fully understood complexities of biology, has given him heat vision, it becomes a mutant issue instead of an all origin issue. No parent would want to send their kid to school with Johnny Storm.

Then there is the hunted issue. While the arcane need some kind of ritual/artifact/umpteen strange things, science needs rigorous and possibly dangerous research, technology needs assembly along with trial and error, and natural is just as its name implies, the mutant is a source of power that just happens. The genome has produced an aspect of power essentially for free with no strings attached. This isn't just "unfair" to the other origins. This is a shortcut to any opportunist who has the will to attempt it. The arcane and the natural want to use the mutant as a tool for their own gains. The science and the technology want to dissect the mutant to learn what makes them tick. The mutant is left segregated because they violate the established social contracts of power allocation, and likewise hunted because that very same power makes them valuable to whatever goal that anyone can have.



For natural storylines, one only needs to look at Roland Daggett, or David Xanatos. In a world of superheroes, unless things go the way of Praetoria it is a fairly safe assumption that the President of the U.S., the Prime Minister of Japan, the representatives to the United Nations, all of them will be regular people. To this effect, much of the villainy that you see happen in real life can be applied to the videogames as a natural storyline. The corrupt politician's weapon isn't flying or super speed, but a silver tongue. It is the jerk who's company is too big to let it fail, who gets pardoned for all of their crimes because they're friends with the Governor of that state, who's influence as an authority lets him dictate the news, who's endless list of contacts and personal relationships let him get a hold of whatever criminal resource they need. They are exceptional indeed, since there is nothing that a "never murder someone" hero can do against a villain who's powers are their cunning mind, charismatic personality, and substantial wealth/importance to the community.

While my original thought upon reading this was that you were just being obtuse here because you disagree with me. I'm afraid I would have to agree with you on this point. You don't seem to understand how suspension of disbelief works.

At the risk of merely reflecting what you said to me right back at you: