Dark Astoria and CoH Storytelling: Thank You

This is going to be as rambling a message as that was a rambling title (and it's a long, LONG message!), and it's mostly just talking about story stuff since one of my regrets is not teaming more when the game was going strong. I haven't posted all that often, though, so hopefully I've saved up some rambling credit. A lot of it's about the character Astorian Shade, but there's a more general point coming, promise.

One of the lore elements I'd always been curious about was Dark Astoria, and after reaching a survivable level with Yuki I got to explore it for a few weeks before the announcement came that everything was changing for Issue 22. All anyone knew at the time was that Mot wakes up, the fog's gone and the ghosts are no more... and worst of all for my lowbie, solo'ing self, it was an incarnate zone, which seemed as far out of reach as a moon base. So to commemorate the old foggy Astoria, I created the Necro/Dark MM character Astorian Shade, the vengeful spirit of a young girl who died in the warehouse massacre during the fall of Astoria. As her story grew in my imagination, an AE arc about both her redemption and the fall of Astoria itself was born, and a few stories charting her progress through the game emerged. The game did an amazing job of letting me bring her to life. She could appear as a hauntingly beautiful girl with dead leaves fluttering around her or as a tortured specter wreathed in fog (with a fiery, cackling costume change from her "human" form that worked perfectly). The power customization allowed such things as bleeding out of her wrists to call the undead out of crimson pools while gliding above the ground in a roiling white mist, and her weapon of choice was MAGI's ghost-slaying axe. For a game that's ostensibly about superheroes, she came to life as something entirely different, all because of CoH's immense customization options.

Throughout all of this, I read nothing about the new Dark Astoria and refused to be spoiled on anything. Until the announcement, my goal was to lead her through the story arcs all the way to level 50 for an eventual return to her hometown to fight Mot. After the announcement, I couldn't log into the game at all, and let several weeks go by without touching any of the characters. A few people, especially Golden Girl, had said there was still time get her to Dark Astoria as an incarnate, and I finally decided to try it, to forego the story arcs I'd hoped to run and instead grind her from 32 to 50 with just a few hours a day over a few weeks. With some help from the forums, she finally got to level 50, ran the Ramiel arc and then took the call from Captain Nolan to investigate an epidemic of murders and suicides in Peregrine Island.

Well, over this past weekend she defeated Mot. And never has a video game left me in tears before.

DARK ASTORIA SPOILERS!

For one thing, it's even more amazing a story than I'd allowed myself to hear people say (i.e. "the new Dark Astoria is amazing, especially..." "lalala can't hear you!"), and it's a more perfect an ending to the game as any game I've ever played. The message about hope overcoming despair has never been more relevant, and as someone who's struggled all my life with depression, the metaphor of Mot as depression, especially how it drains the joy out of your memories and leaves you feeling like your whole life has never been any different, rang painfully true. For a story about a cursed town and a Lovecraftean horror ushering in the apocalypse, it turned into one of the uplifting, triumphant stories I've ever played, ever seen, or even read. The scene with the huge army of practically every NPC in the game gathered to fight against the Pantheon left me frantically hitting the screenshot key and just elated at the sight of it all, every arc in the game coming together at the last to fight for hope. Jim and Fusionette, Shadowstar and Sunstorm, Keith Nance and Jenni Adair, even Katie Hannon (one of my other big alts is a Cabal sorceress gone MAGI heroine, so I practically cheered aloud to see the Cabal represented in the fight against Mot)... it's like everyone in the game came out for one last, epic sendoff. If anyone hasn't played the DA arcs yet and has a level 50 character, please do so. If CoH has to end, that image alone is as beautiful an ending as could be asked for.

But with Astorian Shade, the story took on a life and power I'd never expected. I had no idea what the new DA was going to involve, I just drew on the old badge lore for her story - and yet the two stories intertwined in ways that left me just gaping at the screen, trembling with the emotion she'd naturally feel before finally catching my breath and daring to hit the keys again.

When Heather Townshend's story ended with the revelation of her role at the warehouse, I just sat there for half an hour, reeling with what it'd mean to Shade, how such a conversation would go. The game leaves it ambiguous whether Heather actually tells your character anything, but it all flashed in my mind with hardly a conscious thought. Heather had found hope in Shade saving both Kadabra and Sigil, only to have it snatched away again when she admitted to the heroine why she'd come back to Astoria. Shade's look of shocked betrayal, shaking her head wildly when asked what's wrong, and Heather's guilt-stricken realization that all this time she's been working with the ghost of someone who died there, that the screams haunting her dreams were probably Shade's own screams, her stammering attempt to apologize only to be answered with Shade furiously shouting to leave her alone (not even really out of anger, but from being so vividly reminded of something she'd tried so hard to forget)... all of it came together to make Heather's almost suicidal trip through the warehouse in a vain search for redemption, and then finding it in Ajax's reassurance that her life has meaning, that Shade's going to need her help to defeat Mot, incredibly moving.

Of course, everyone who's played the DA story knows what's coming, and that Heather's just the tip of the iceberg. The big moment, and another one I had no idea was coming at all, was the revelation in Cimerora of how the seal ended up beneath Astoria. Her whole afterlife had been driven by vengeance against the Pantheon and Mot for what happened in Astoria, only to find that she was the reason for it all. Now, to give the future a fighting chance against Mot, she'd have to condemn her town, her family, everyone she knew, and her past self to die. Heather's guilt became nothing against the enormity of that decision: Heather never would have been in that situation at all had Shade herself not sealed Astoria's fate centuries before. The question finally arose of what's really driving her, because vengeance no longer even made sense. She couldn't destroy her own life to make Mot pay for destroying her life. The only reason to make such a choice was to give up revenge in favor of saving the world, and accepting Astoria's fall as the price.

I'd never, ever imagined that plot twist coming, and it changed my original character into something far more than I'd planned, into a tragic, messianic figure. She'd learned at the end of her AE arc that blind vengeance only serves Mot's purpose. She'd learned from Aaron Thiery that vengeance and justice are two different things. But only now had she really learned that a third possibility exists, understanding and forgiveness, and when Hua Tov later asked her whether she thought he could be forgiven, she honestly said yes and comforted him before he died. And within a few more missions, the game had sent her back to Heather, this time understanding the terrible choices people sometimes have to make and so more compassionate and willing to listen to her.

And then there's the finale. Learning about David Hazen's life and struggle against Mot (and I really admire the sheer bravery of the journal addressing the question of how God fits into a setting where ancient deities threaten the world and can be killed with magic swords, as David himself asks that very question), saving Detective Hopp and Bellerose (and kudos to Hopp's story for subtly bringing Roy Cooling's arc back and showing that things have started to change because of it), and eventually having the whole world placing its faith in her, cheering her on as all the world's heroes and many of its villains rally to fight together in a massive war against the Banished Pantheon... I knew she was always going to defeat Mot, and then ascend to the afterlife, but I never dreamed of such a sight as this...



And all I can say is thank you. Thank you to Doctor Aeon for writing a story that did so much more for my character than I had ever imagined for her, that gave her a shining moment unlike anything I'd dared to hope she might have. I have two other characters who also worked hard to reach their proper endings, Sparkly Soldier Yuki in the Moonfire TF to arrest Arakhn, and New World Daughter in the Katie Hannon TF to reconcile with the Cabal and defeat the Red Caps, but Shade's story is the one that's going to haunt and inspire me for the rest of my life. Thank you.

And thank you to a development staff that had a philosophy unique among MMO's, and unique among most video games at all. They created a world with dozens and dozens of narrative facets, and they didn't tell you how your character relates to that world at all. A writer's natural intuition is to write a story around a central character, and most games do just that. Even when the character can be customized, it's still the same character: Commander Shephard may be a grizzled old vet or a freckled young recruit, but no matter the look or choices, the basic character's the same. I love The Secret World, but your relationship with the supernatural world and those who fight it is shaped entirely by the faction you choose: you can make your character a hard-boiled detective or a brilliant scientist, but that background will be derailed by the opening cutscene in the same way as everyone else's life was, and it will lead to the same thing as everyone in your faction. If you want to RP, you have to be willing to work around the game's narrative.

But City of Heroes didn't do that. What it did was unique, and it didn't have some kind of advanced story tech that other games lack to make it possible - it used the same text boxes and missions as everyone else. But the miracle it worked was twofold. One, it has a setting where everything fits in. With the FBSA and its various departments representing all kinds of origin stories, mission stories that run all the way from military espionage to fairy tale magic and beyond, and interdimensional immigrants from Portal Corp to squeeze in any character concept that doesn't fit anywhere else, any character with any background can fit into Paragon City. A mad scientist can have coffee with an exiled angel while the newspaper boy shouts about the modern convenience of commuting through pan-dimensional portals, and nobody bats an eyes. It's a crazy, brilliant and insanely fun world, and there is nothing else in the MMO genre that matches all the story possibilities it offers, and how seamlessly the writing team managed to tie them all together into one cohesive setting.

Two, and this is perhaps even more important, the writing aimed to never make assumptions about your character. In Paragon City, the only thing that's true of every character is that, on some level, you're here to help (I never really played a villain, but I presume the equal and opposite is true of CoV - you can be anyone, but you're here to hurt). The FBSA branches and the public's acceptance of superheoes gives the setting the ability to let any character, whether he's a multi-billionaire with powered armor or a mutant schoolgirl who can talk to animals, walk up to a contact and be welcomed equally, with the dialogue taking nothing for granted except that you'd like to help. That's a hard ideal to live up to, since it defies all of a writer's normal instincts. In a way, they were tasked with writing half a story, and letting the player's imagination write the other half. Sometimes it didn't quite work: First Ward and the Twinshot arcs both got complaints that sometimes the dialogue seemed to assume a little too much about the character. That such complaints could be made at all, though, shows the unique freedom CoH worked to give its players, and even little things like Lady Gray in SSA1 saying "this spell will let you survive in space, if you can't already" did so much to help include any concept a player wants to bring to the game (I ran that story with Shade too, and her comment drew a "you know, that's actually a good question!" thought).

No other MMO does that. As far as I know, no other MMO tries to do that. It doesn't work for everyone: a few friends I introduced CoH to found the lack of any prewritten background and motive for their characters frustrating. But the writers wrote for fellow writers, for people who love creating characters, trusting them to bring their own perspective to the story, to fill in the game's half of the story with their own half as the character. With so many different arcs to choose from, even cherry-picking them to fit into a character's background left plenty of options, and some of the best character moments for me emerged from the seeming incongruities between the character concept and mission (how does a Cabal sorceress look wearing a modern tank top and jeans as she lightning-flings her way through a laser-lit Freakshow rave? Really, really awesome, that's how!).

And the writers worked to include so many little nods to the character choices you make. When Yuki, whose title is "Legendary Radiant" and whose extended battle cry includes shouting "legendary radiant Sparkly Soldier Yuki," ran the Path into Darkness arc, Colleen concluded her congratulations with "Sparkly Soldier Yuki, you are truly Radiant." I assume from the way it was capitalized that the game read her title and filled it in accordingly. But it doesn't matter: it was still a heartwarming moment, and a perfect way to conclude Yuki's solo adventures.

Those little touches add so much to making the game feel like it's that character's story come to life, like you're more than just another soldier in a war. I ran Dark Astoria with Shade, but a criminal looking for redemption, an optimistic hero trying to bring peace to the world, or even a comedic sociopath like DC's Lobo could all run it and, with the right dialogue choices, it would make sense as a chapter in each and every one of those characters' lives. And when the pieces fit together perfectly like a puzzle, shaping your character in ways that you never imagined but make perfect sense once it's happened, the results are unlike anything I've experienced in a video game.

I hope some last-minute miracle will let that magic continue with another publisher, or even another game that keeps the lore and total creative freedom of this one. If not, though, then thank you to the people who joined Yuki, Ginny and Shade on their last TF's and made it possible to bring their stories to a triumphant close. Thank you to Golden Girl for encouraging me to race Shade to level 50 anyway, that Dark Astoria was worth playing before the game ended, and to everyone who offered advice on how to get her there. And thank you to everyone at Paragon Studios, from Jack on up, who had a part in shaping the world of CoH, where we can be any character we've dreamed of and the writers still did their very best to make the game our story.

And also, thanks for reading this all the way to the end.