If you haven't looked at the new Skulls, please do.

If by Posi saying "Uh, actually, I don't really have much clue about this".....wait, that's not a compelling argument in the slightest.

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

If there was another Posi comment after the - "the original creation of the character was supposed to..." post then I didn't see it.

Regardless, I love what they've done with the new Skull update... so *shrug*

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the fact the gang finally got some visual love and more in-depth missions. I just don't see the need to butcher the one bit of solid canon they had for a guy who looks like a less cool version of Salvador, i.e. a not overly tall guy on steroids;

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Yeah, but see I liked the new look and his introduction within the story. And, while I admit I hadn't run any skull content in a long time I really enjoyed fleshing out the in game leadership. I just don't see it as a drastic troubling retconn... but everyone's perspective is different.

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

oh, well, that is a whole other conversation.

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

This is an MMORPG. RPG by it's definition is a Role Playing Game, where you immerse yourself in a world rich in history and storylines. Writing is just as much a part of this game as the gameplay itself is, and needs to be treated as such. Some people have been drawn to this game specifically because of stories, and some people have actually left the game due to the drastic, ridiculous turns the writing has taken. We were even given the AE to make our own stories and share them with others.

So when something comes up in the writing that needs to be addressed, like a blatant avoidance of past established history, it needs to be brought up. Otherwise we'll get more arcs like the original Closed Beta Field Agent Keith Nance, where he threatens us with off screen ninjas if we don't follow his orders, and our doppleganger is actually our Praetorian.

So yes, story is important. It may not be important to you, but there are a number of people in this game that are drawn to it.

Bingo, we have a winner.

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

And the doofus hair, well, I have SEEN that in real life. Today. On the street. Top of the hair left alone, shaved sides.
All of my What

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

And then you realised you were looking in a mirror..

Love ya!

Swing and a miss with the insult there, champ.

You were not named in the "insult"...

But you responded to it as if you were...

There's something there, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

Calm down.

My original post doesn't need editing. I asked a question, I requested people look at new content, and I relayed my opinion.

Not sure how many people you thing you're speaking for....

Wanting the devs to stick to established storylines/ characters/ whatever is not shallow. Expressing dislike of something is not being shallow or rigid. It is having standards. We all have a right to dislike something here and point it out. Beta exists (aside from the more obvious testing) for that reason. The devs have shown many times that they want to hear from us, even-- and perhaps especially-- our complaints.

If nobody ever expresses dislike for something, or does not try to hold the game to certain standards, we may end up getting any old crap "because no one cares anyway".

People taking the time to express displeasure are those who care about the game.

Those who care about the game are keeping it alive, TYVM.

I distinctly remember a great deal of tooth-gnashing; so much so that the art team stepped it up a notch and added a ton of new designs to the CoT, and people liked the newer proposal much better.

You ever see a Life Mage in a skin-tight Joel Schumacher leather bodysuit? Because that's what most of the original new CoT looked like. Twas not pretty.

Actually, there was much more. The majority of the playerbase was against it. Hell, people who never posted on the forums at all actually dropped by the thread to voice their displeasure. It was glorious! The whole community, united as one!

Those were good times....

Don't be dissin' my style, braaaahhh!!

I'll kill you later, honeybunch

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Yes, because you're really contributing to this dialogue now.

Oh, wait. What was that about, pots and kettles, or stones and glass houses?

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

I've already done that in the VIP Beta suggestions thread.

This thread was created to spread the word and hopefully push folks who don't normally check out Beta (and those people do exist) to do so and give their own opinions in the feedback thread.

Are you here to just to argue? It's fine if you are, I just want an honest answer so I know whether or not I should have you on ignore. You've done nothing but insult me and sling useless passive-aggressive comments, so I don't expect a straight answer from you.

John, with all due respect I think you're knee-jerking a bit here.

In the end, we're all going to go on with our lives and nobody is going to shed tears if Emil Petrovic become Chernobog instead of Marrow Drinker. It's kinda hard to drink marrow in the first place and Chernobog is kind of a cool guy to be named after so really, it's not such a big deal.

The big deal is that the Powers That Be have been making a practice of being unfamiliar with their own product and of changing things whenever it suits them.

Case in point, about the Skulls - We all know that Skulls wear masks,right? When Atlas Park Mark 2 launched, Grym made it clear that whoever wrote his dialog thought that they wore face paint. It went live despite objections. Now, we have masks again and not just masks but masks that are going to become player costume elements.

Just yesterday, Matt made a post about how Marrowsnap was nothing special as a name, that HE created the name as a generic boss name and that any confusion on the matter of it being a specific boss name was most likely a confusion by the players based on lack of information (about which lack, don't get me started on Standard Lore Rant #3). It only took one following post to point out that the official studio website background information on the Petrovics says that they named themselves Marrow Snap and Marrow Drinker. Oops.

Matt would wave it off as a mistake, just a studio mistake that is being corrected/clarified. Regardless, it's not a single instance of such a mistake. It's a pattern that's been developing for years now.

The discontent and nit-pickiness if you care to classify it as such is a reaction to that. I don't ask that you change your opinion. I would ask that you look through the objections being raised here and on the beta forum and consider whether some of those objections (particularly about the Boris Badenov dialog) might be legitimate ones.

I will simply say what I've been saying - If the Skulls are being "clarified" to show that they've been an ethnic gang all along, then how is that making them more interesting and how is it improving the game? More to the point, what is being done to insure that continued gaffes about the story are dealt with appropriately, especially when the studio has publically stated an all-but-official policy that nobody should feel beholden to the established canon?

This is a RPG. The backstory is the foundation of the game, regardless of how many players could care less about it. Other game studios treat their backstory and in-game history as a strength. They build on it and feed it to the players as a benefit of learning the game. This studios throws their backstory away and publically makes statements about how their developers should be able to make whatever new thing they want without concern about whether it fits the established backstory, contradicts it, or outright erases it.

It is reasonable for people who care about the story to respond to that state of affairs. I support anyone who is fine with the changes to express their opinions and to BE fine with them. The game will go on regardless and few of us will quit in disgust over it. However, in return I ask that the opinions of the dissatisfied people be respected as well. Customers are customers and the studio needs to know about that dissatisfaction, especially in the rare case where it's not just the "usual suspects" complaining but a measurable percentage of normally quiet individuals.

Whether that's the case here or not remains to be seen. The final form of the whole thing remains to be seen. The studio has already said that they're dealing with the dialog. We'll see how they address any of the other suggestions/complaints or if they are comfortable with their design and choose to leave it as is. That's their perogative, too.

We all know that. There is constructive dialog happening here, not just ******** and kvetching. We should all do our part to keep it that way.