Despite myself, I like SSA2.1 <no spoilers>

I post this partly because I want to take every opportunity I can to praise this game's storytelling, but more so because I hope that what I'm seeing in recent content is a trend of putting more care into storytelling than just an excuse to go places and kill things. For as jaded as I am about storytelling in City of Heroes of late, if this is where it's going... Well, let's just say that it's improving, and greatly. And that's saying something, considering I've been bashing the game's wiring as getting worse and worse for pretty much the last two years.

I want to take the time to explore what I feel works in this SSA and what I feel doesn't, just because I want to try and figure out WHY it works so well when SSAs 1.1 to 1.6 really, REALLY don't in my eyes.

1. The ending works. As I said, I won't give any spoilers, but to say that the ending in SSA2.1 is neither a downer ending nor a cliffhanger. In fact, I wouldn't even call it an "ending" since the story doesn't really end. It just sort of cuts off mid-sentence, clearly intending to feed into SSA2.2. And I like that, personally. Unlike SSA1, SSA2 doesn't seem to try to pretend it's seven separate stories forming one larger narrative and fully admits that it's one large story that we're just not getting all at once. And it seems to have given the story a LOT of breathing room.

2. The pacing works. SSA2.1 may claim it's five missions long, but two of those are non-combat "talking" missions, so in practice it's about the length of your average SSA1 arc. However, this one seems to have been freed from the need to be a self-contained, three-act story within all of three missions, and this this allows the story to flow much more naturally. It doesn't really end... In fact it barely manages to begin, but that's OK. That's just part of the larger story. Once we have all or most of SSA2 out, this won't feel like a problem and the story will then be able to act like one large cohesive whole, as opposed to seven rushed, botched stories strung together on a single line.

3. The characters, believe it or not, work. After SSA1, I grew to utterly hate everyone in the Freedom Phalanx because of how they were presented. SSA2 starts off with giving them much better characterisation in a scant few lines of dialogue and a simple talking mission. It doesn't quite make up for the horror of SSA1 so it can't make them likeable in just three missions (why the hell is Manticore not in jail yet?), but it manages to make them feel more like real people with their own separate personalities and quirks. This has to do with the two "talking" missions, which manage to condense all the talky parts in controlled conditions where characterisation is easier and frees up the fighting missions to be mostly about fighting with minimal conversation interference. This, to me, is the perfect balance of story and gameplay, done in such a way that neither intrudes on the other, and this helps make the characters work. It also helps that they're not completely useless, inept, horrible people in this.

4. The mood works very well. My chief beef with SSA1 was that it felt like whoever was writing it was one step away from taking a razor blade to his wrists, such was the bluntness of the depressing, intentionally revolting atmosphere. Well, I can safely say that there's none of that here. The situation is no less grim, the people are under no less pressure and the end really doesn't try to lighten the mood, yet because of how the story is told, the "weight" of events feels much more balanced and the player much more in control. The story no longer goes out of its way to depress me, choosing instead to make the severity of the situation abundantly clear, but leave me to react to it with whatever emotions I find are appropriate.

5. The idea inspires. I said I won't spoil it and I won't, even though we all know what SSA2 will be all about from its very name. However, suffice it to say that the story takes on an angle that's a bit more creative than just the most direct interpretation of the premise one might come up with. The major plot elements are largely predictable to the genre-savvy among us, but how the story is executed is where SSA2 really shines. Can't say any more than that without getting into spoilers.

6. The technical side of the writing fails. Oh, boy does it fail! Viking said it best, that it's been bad since Ouroboros' meddling removed Paragon Studio's editor from the timestream, and it REALLY feels like SSA2's text was never proof-read, or indeed never even read before it was submitted. It's not quite as bad as SSA1.7 in this regard, since at least there aren't as many spelling errors (yay for spell check?), but the actual sentence structure, word choice and style is all over the place. Redundancies abound and are very obvious ("it appears" shows up three times in two sentences, for instance) and the whole thing feels like it was uploaded into the final build within 60 seconds of the last period being set down. I've written horrible fiction so I know how easy it is to write text of questionable quality, but I also know how easy it is to spot said questionable quality at even a cursory pass. This studio REALLY needs someone whose job it is to read every bit of text before it makes it into the game, and that someone needs to be paid based on how many corrections he can make. I respect our writers trying to do better, I really do, but they NEED an editor. Bad!

7. BABs rocks. OK, slight spoiler here. At one point you are allowed to pick one member of the Phalanx to go with you on a mission, and since BABs seems to be in his "member of the Phalanx" phase right now, I picked him. His dialogue is awesome, his powers are awesome, he's awesome to have around. I'm not sure how much that has to do with the story. Just wanted to throw that out there.

Overall, SSA2.1 is not perfect, but its heart is in the right place, I think. Sure, technically it's left wanting, especially in terms of writing editing, but it is a chunk of a decent story, well told and not shoved into the mould of a three-act structure. It aspires to be exactly what it is - one excerpt of a longer story, and judging by it, that's a longer story I would like to experience in full.

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 picked BABs too. I might run it a few more times just to pick each of them once.

After all, they all need to be able to run around at least once with a real hero who isn't a jackass!

I agree with you about the new SSA, Samuel. Well, except for the technical writing part, only because I didn't really notice the things you mentioned. Not that they aren't there, mind you - but there wasn't anything glaring enough that it actually got in my way. I especially agree with you about how they portrayed the characters - still having their own distinct (and very imperfect) personalities, but not so unlikeable that you want to kick them all and tell them to grow the hell up.

Another thing I really enjoyed, which isn't on your list, is the use of more sophisticated immersion techniques. There is the obvious, overt flattery on a few occasions, which was utilized in the first SSA arc, but this time, there were more subtle (and I think) more effective techniques as well.

Where we are offered choices, there are actual alternatives (am also trying not to give away spoilers), and not just a series of obvious, canned responses... or worse, different responses you'd never actually give. For example, at the end of the 2nd mission, you get 2 very different options, which seems to guide the player into something of a roleplaying response. That's not just a nifty bit of writing for plot content. The first time I ran it (and subsequently, too), I had to stop and think for a moment, "what would my character actually do? And why?" That changed the dynamic of the SSA to something with much more depth. And later, that choice came into play during the "chose a hero to help you" part of the last mission. I loved that! What we did actually affected something!

This was also achieved through a deft use of cutscenes, most particularly the one where you view yourself running into the group of the assembled Freedom Phalanx. The last SSA had cutscenes into which our characters were inserted also, and while this one has some of those, too, this one in particular had more resonance - that scene "felt" like you were joining up with your friends or acquaintances, and a whole lot less like your face was photo-shopped into the picture.

It's really enjoyable to watch much more sophisticated the dev team has become at this stuff, and also that it's not "just" the writers, it's the art team as well. I'm sure there were other, more subtly immersive things in this arc which I'm just not bright enough to have caught on to yet. Certain parts just resonated more than other parts, which leads me to believe something tricksy was afoot, you know? Now I want to run it yet again to figure out how it was all done. A well-crafted book has that effect on me, too.

FPAE! First post after eeek!

O hai eeek

I picked Penny.

I picked Positron myself.

And yes, I love the fact that the writing is so very much UN-depressing, because honestly at times during SSA1 I felt like I was a few steps from slitting my OWN wrists over either how downbeat the atmosphere was or from the sheer enforced stupidity on the part of the PC.

I picked Citadel. I talked to all of them and he's the only one that really seemed to want to go with me due to interest.

ive not run the heroside version of any of the sig story arcs lol

IMO i liked all the redside ones, although it was still disapointing that the player was not the one to actually kill statesman

as for SSA2.1 i enjoyed it, it really made some good points about villainy and the fact that even super strong beings cannot control things by themselves but need loyal followers (such as arachnos)

I really enjoyed the arc, but it made me sorta dislike Penny as a character (love her powerset though). Perhaps that's because I've got no reason to feel any sympathy for Clockwork King.

I was particularly amused by the 'see the first mission in the Lady Grey TF for more info' footnote, as it was very reminiscent of reading comic books.

I took Penny with me at the end to give her a chance to redeem herself. I was hoping for some dialogue while we were fighting Clamor but was disappointed. Ah well.

I was also disappointed when I finished the arc and clicked on the SSA access button, saw part two of the arc, clicked on it and was put into part one again. I guess part two must not actually be available yet.

played it, liked it a lot.

I think most of the criticisms of SSA1 are based on it doing too good a job of aping standard comic book writing. Most heroes are genre-blind and walk into obvious traps all the time. Those that are genre-savvy still walk into obvious traps, but make some witty coment about it.

As for the seemingly arbitrary way major character was killed off, may I point to the introduction of Doomsday and Bane?

Penny Yin is so much Jean Paul Valley that I think her hero name must be Azrael-Girl.

Maybe the writer is also someone whose comic book experience is grounded in the early 90s?