If you don't like the writing...

As people have been telling you, in the US these titles are pretty much interchangeable. So your difficulty is cultural and/or idiomatic.

This thread has probably gone way past the point where topic drift even matters, but apologies anyway...

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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow I get that they're interchangeable, but I still have a hard time seeing how the same person can refer to a professor as a doctor and back intermittently. Does the story really gain anything from the titles being swapped around?

They aren't really interchangeable. That is, a professor doesn't have to hold a doctorate. It just means that he's a college-level teacher. The few PhD's that I've known over the years have all referred to themselves as "Doctor" and usually insisted that others do the same. Some, in fact, would be highly offended at being referred to as "professor".

The mission writer probably didn't think about the difference or care, and it's a small quibble in any event. I do agree that consistency is a good thing, though. Something to watch for in the future, especially if there are multiple writers contributing text (which could well account for the way the two terms are used interchangeably in the missions). Yet another problem, however small, that could have been easily corrected by hiring an editor to review things.

New topic, but this seems like a convenient thread to toss it into:

Do people know that your character is an incarnate?

I ask because I was running some of the new DA stuff a while back and I reached a point where I was trying to convince this Tsoo fellow to give me some information. I believe my dialog choices were sort of like "attempt to intimidate him" or "be nice and attempt to gain his cooperation".

The "intimidate" option was represented by the dialog text, "You know that I'm an incarnate, right?" (Implied threat that I can kick your posterior to the moon and back...)

As a player, my first reaction was "How the heck would he know that? How would he even know what an incarnate is?" I was more inclined towards the other dialog option anyway, so I let it go and went on with the mission.

It made me consider afterwards, though, about the ramifications of that dialog option.

Do you as players feel that the world "knows you're an incarnate" on your level 50's? That people in the game world would point out your character and say, "Watch out for him, he's an incarnate!"?

Just as the world at large theoretically doesn't really know about Ouroboros, I've always figured that they don't really know about incarnates and wouldn't truly understand what it meant if they did know. The whole point of the "slow incarnate" business is that you're supposedly sneakily sliding your way into becoming cosmically powered without the Well even really realizing that you're an incarnate. I certainly wouldn't expect my hero to be carrying around an "I'm an Incarnate!" sign tattooed on his forehead.

Am I wrong? Do your characters freely bandy their incarnation about and assume that everyone else does likewise?

I've always felt that how much the public knows about any given character should be a function of the highest level inf badge that character has. Meaning by the time you're 50, unless you were horribly PLed, your character probably has cyberstalkers blogging about what you had for dinner last night.

Well, if you're some normal mook, or a random civilian, would you be able to tell the difference between a normal 50 and an Incarnate? I get that it's silly and oversimplifying, but people tend to use labels. That still doesn't excuse it, but it goes a long way towards explaining it. Do you see people in movies stop to say "Three hundred forty-five Nazi soldiers, with ranks ranging from Recruit Private (85%) to Lance Corporal (~1%), approaching from a heading of one hundred thirty-five degrees at a speed of approximately eight knots!", they say "A crap-ton o' Nazis comin' in from the North-East!"

Anyone known to have fought Praetoria in the war would also be known as an Incarnate, as the Well-powered debuff that Tyrant used to cripple all non-Incarnates during the loyalist invasion would be big news.
The general public mightn't have known all the details about Incarnates and the Well, but just from following the news, blogs, chatrooms and so on, they'd know that the loyalist AVs that had previously been defeated during the rescue of Statesman were now much stronger because of a power source that Tyrant had access to, and that the heroes of Primal Earth were using a similar power source to combat them.

I feel in a good mood today, so I wanted to bring up a bit of writing that I actually DO like without complaining about it. Dun dun duuun!

I've talked about the concept of friends acting as though they're close trusting each other and so on, but it occurs to me that HOW the Freedom Phalanx act towards each other is only part of the picture. How OFTEN they interact with each other is also a problem, because you really can't demonstrate bonds and relationships without actually having these people share scenes together. But at the same, I think we're pretty much in consensus that one thing we DON'T want to see is over-long cutscenes of NPCs basically talking to each other. We came to play a game, rather than watch a movie, after all. We want to do stuff, not watch other people do stuff.

So how do we express relationships without pulling out the drag chute of cutscenes? Well... Have you noticed how Mercedes Sheldon's villain arc manages to suggest that Mercedes and Wade have a history together without needing to have them interact at all? Isn't it just... Genius? Mercedes Sheldon as a character isn't one of my favourites. Her original missions are gun as gameplay, but her old hero-side writing is kind of generic. Same for Wade, actually. They're character archetypes more so than characters. But Mercedes' villain arc is considerably newer than the rest, and it shows a writing approach that I simply LOVE. If you haven't run this arc, I heartily suggest running it before you continue, not so much to avoid spoilers as to make sure you know what I'm talking about.

Maybe it's just me, but Mercedes and Wade honestly act like an old bitter couple. I'm sure that's not what the writer was going for, but they act like people who know each other very well, as though they've either been old allies or long-time rivals. Every time one comes up in conversation with the other, the other always has some clever yet at the same time quite emotionally-charged reaction. They're never on-screen at the same time chatting, but you get the feeling that they're interacting by proxy. Mercedes hears of Wade and - without needing the narrative to tell us - you can get a sense she rolls her eyes. Wade hears of Mercedes and you can see the mention spark memories behind his words. Without ever saying a word to each other directly, I get a sense that not only do Mercedes Sheldon and Darrin Wade know each other, but also that they have a long history going back. What's more, this interaction manages to give personality to both of them, bringing two otherwise flat characters to the forefront. To me, THAT is what good writing looks like.

Personally, I'd say this is about the best way to communicate relationships between non-player characters in this game. There are more effective ways, strictly speaking, but almost all of them are also a lot more damaging to the game's pace and actual gameplay. Scripted dialogues, cutscenes, etc. do work, but they're basically hit pause on the game. Instead, if we want to depict, say, two characters having a relationship, the best way to do this is to just bounce the player between the characters as part of the mission and having them comment on each other. It's been said that one is much more willing to confide personal feelings towards friends to a stranger than one is to one's own friends, and this is true at least in my experience. That's exactly what we can use to give people more personality and fleshing out without having to have a narrator say it.

In fact, for as much bouncing we do between Crimson and Indigo (putting them on opposite ends of the world was a mistake, by the way) it's kind of a shame we never get them to comment on each other and interact through the player, aside from that one end of the Missing Melvin and the Mysterious Malta Aliteration arc. And yes, Crimson and Indigo are a bad example, but this doesn't have to occur by beating feet between multiple contacts. You can actually keep encountering these people in-mission for short dialogues. In fact, having Positron comment how he'll never hear the end of it from Synapse is a great little step in this direction... Except that we don't have a view into their relationship aside from that, which is kind of the problem.

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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.

Instead of meandering, let's take a basic but hypothetical example. Let's assume for a moment that Syster Psyche weren't dead. We'll say it happened before the SSA train wreck. How do we depict her relationship with Manticore in a way that's not intrusive? Well, let's examine a very short story arc. And look for ways:

Mission 1: A shocking evidence fabrication scandal has seen Countess Crey's conviction thrown out and she will be retried. In the meantime, she's out on bail and doing SOMETHING. Swan is worried that Manticore has gone off to infiltrate one of her facilities without a proper warrant and that this may be a trap. You and Swan find Manticore inside, who has held his own against Crey Security but has succumbed to the Countess' hitherto-unknown massive psychic powers. Swan takes him to the hospital, but now psychics are involved, so the next step is to look for assistance from Sister Psyche.

Mission 2: Sister Psyche has already seen Manticore. She went to his hospital bed as soon as she heard of what happened. Making sure her husband is safe is the most important thing, and she's determined to get the woman who did this to him. You bring up Swan, however, and Sister Psyche acts ever so slightly irritated, but does her best to hide it. This prompts her to shake her head at Manticore's recklessness, both for breaking the law and for risking his life without thinking of his family. She catches herself doing this and backpedals, saying it's just hard to watch Manticore do this to himself, but she knew what she was getting into when she married a hero. He acts like he doesn't care about anything, but that's just an act. The people Manticore loves, he would give his life for.

You and Sister Psyche go on to investigate the traces of the psychic powers that hurt Manticore, leading you to a Crey laboratory where Countess Crey is undergoing some kind of genetic operation. You two arrive too late to catch the Countess herself, but just in time to fall into an ambush by Crey Security. If the Countess is psychic, it makes sense she saw you coming, a thought that only dawns on Sister Psyche after the trap is sprung. It's clear the Countess is aware you're hunting her and using her psychic to leave false traces and mask her presence. The battle is won, but Sister Psyche has over-exerted herself and is drained. She must return to her home to rest, but will still be able to provide remote assistance.

Mission 3: Manticore has checked himself out of hospital despite still suffering from psychic injuries. He has already spent time with his wife to ensure she'll be fine, and has ordered security around the mansion strengthened significantly. When you speak with him, he laments how Sister Psyche trusts her psychic powers too much, to the exception of her ordinary senses. An accomplished detective, Manticore would have senses that this was too good a lead to not be a trap. He is then caught reminiscing about how this is part of why he fell for Sister Psyche - that she's a dreamer, always seeing the world in ways that he never could. Where he saw just a grey cityscape, his wife saw a world of dreams and aspirations, the people who make the city into a living, breathing entity all its own.

Stopping himself mid-sentence and realising he's acting out of character, Manticore changes topic quickly and focuses on the mission. He and Sister Psyche have worked out where Countess Crey is. Manticore gained access to Crey transportation records, identified the Countess' personal transport and tracked it to an office building. At first Psyche couldn't detect any psychic trace in that building, but knowing what to look for, she was able to sense a powerful presence there, using layers of dampening psychic barriers to suppress its signature. The Countess is there, but Manticore is too hurt to come along. He has grown just slightly wiser and decided to listen to his wife at least this once. He'll be in charge of the mansion's security while you take out the Countess.

You infiltrate the building, find the Countess, fight and defeat her. Only it turns out what you defeated was a Paragon Protector, an exact genetic copy of Countess Crey. Soon after the events, the real Countess Crey comes out publicly, stating that some of her CEOs had developed the illegal Revenant Hero project not just to manufacture heroes, but to replace her and steal her company. She has been in hiding ever since the assassination attempt. With an army of lawyers, she challenges all charges of murder and stolen identity, and it appears that the evidence originally used to convict her has gone "missing," along with Julianne Thompson's remains. These have been re-buried, but no record is made of where this was done.

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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.