Dear Rednames - I'll make you a deal...

At this point the only way to salvage the Freedom Phalanx is to have them admit that their glory days are behind them and stick to giving out task forces. They're an important part of the game's backstory, but holding them up as the city's premiere hero team just doesn't work, no matter how they try. If they keep needing my help, then why are they there in the first place?

Then again, if they really want my help they should listen to my advice to kick Penny out and have her spend some time as a sidekick until she grows up a little. But that's not likely to happen anytime soon since someone on the writing team really loves their bratty, ditzy female characters.

Just no pleasing some people...

"Stop making me a lackey!"

"... I'm being praised? DAMN YOU, DEVS! YOU SUCK! MAKE ME LICK THEIR BOOTS!"

Really now, make up your minds now. Would you be happy with getting Arbiter Daos his laundry, or giving Positron your lunch money? Because that seems to be your idea now.

So you're complaining about stuff you didn't read and mostly about the imaginary story that is in your head and doesn't exist in the game. Gotcha. Good to know.

To quote a Rikti guard, "Profound realization: You complain."

I blame Mark Waid.

(Actually, that's a pretty good all-purpose statement of intent. But I kid Mark Waid!) Seriously, though, I think if you want to look at the point at which the Freedom Phalanx stopped being "the premier super-heroes, which we all look up to but who aren't around in large enough numbers to make a difference after the Rikti War and so must train us to be their equals" and started being "a bunch of bickering children who are too busy sniping at each other to actually fight worth a plugged nickel and have to be bailed out", look no further than Mark Waid's first storyline for the CoH comic. That characterization was terrible, it made them look ineffectual, and it stuck.

I don't mind it when it's Arachnos, though. Ending the Arachnos storyline with literally handing Recluse his head is just freaking awesome.

While I rarely back player complaints about the writing or story structure, I think this one pretty much hits the nail on the head. The signature characters don't need to be failures just to make PC's look good.

I should also point out that there are arcs out there that make excellent use of signature characters. The Dark Astoria storyline, for instance, gives plenty of NPC's appropriately heroic or villainous moments. It's just that the arc itself focuses on the PC's deeds and experiences. (For a storyline involving a metaphysical threat to the universe, it's actually very personal, much moreso than, say, some of the Praetorian stuff.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by BadWolf I blame Mark Waid. (Actually, that's a pretty good all-purpose statement of intent. But I kid Mark Waid!) Seriously, though, I think if you want to look at the point at which the Freedom Phalanx stopped being "the premier super-heroes, which we all look up to but who aren't around in large enough numbers to make a difference after the Rikti War and so must train us to be their equals" and started being "a bunch of bickering children who are too busy sniping at each other to actually fight worth a plugged nickel and have to be bailed out", look no further than Mark Waid's first storyline for the CoH comic. That characterization was terrible, it made them look ineffectual, and it stuck.

I think this is correct. More importantly, many players think the same way Waid does. There's a strong current in geekdom in general and RPG's in particular (where players are very attached to the characters they create) that wants to see authority torn down, see its feet of clay exposed. In the CoH comics, this is represented by Waid's arc. In player discourse, it's represented by people claiming letting their loathing of Jack Emmert bleed into loathing of Statesman or people arguing that "all heroes are hypocrites" (this last was from an old comic creator discussion).

I argue that a group like the Freedom Phalanx doesn't need feet of clay to serve its purpose in the story. The Freedom Phalanx exists to represent "proven heroes," not "power." The idea of "feet of clay" is fulfilled by other groups, ranging from villain factions (Crey springs to mind, at least in theory) to supra-villain plot entities (the entire story of the Praetorian factions is about exposing weaknesses, whether moral or military) to particular characters (there are several tips about Longbow troops or named heroes going bad now).

Ultimately, I think this is really an issue of the devs (and some players) falling into the mode of other MMO's or games, where "factions" are less blatantly moral than ours, and each faction has a leader. The signature heroes are not there to represent "leadership of blueside" and all the potential flaws that "leadership" can possess. Rather, they're supposed to be ... heroes.

A discussion of signature villains is beyond the scope of this post. I'm not quite sure how to approach them myself; even after all these years, I'm still trying to wrap my head around the idea of a game where you portray the bad guy in a genre that's almost essentially about bad losing.