Author Topic: Coming Soon  (Read 207317 times)

Golden Aurora

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Re: Coming Soon
« Reply #480 on: July 02, 2015, 09:41:04 PM »
The whole issue of lore reminds me of what my mom used to say: If you don't have anything nice to say, keep your <expletive> mouth shut. In this case however, this refers to the devs. In other words, unless your lore is moderately bulletproof don't try to shoe horn crap in. It's just embarrassing to have what was once decent lore a mockery of its former glory due to either ignorance or laziness.

I remember that arc though and always wondered how a natural origin should be for cosmetics only. Wouldn't it seem that a superhuman is somehow on a fundamentally basic level more than a mere human? They should be either smarter, faster, or more resilient somehow.

Ugh. Star Trek flashback. Khaaaaannnnnn.

Arcana

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Re: Coming Soon
« Reply #481 on: July 02, 2015, 10:00:23 PM »
I guess I really don't need anybody to critique it.

Most people write because they want to write, because they want to see their ideas on paper, and if someone else likes it great.  Most people who knit aren't planning on selling socks.  They just enjoy knitting, and if it means one less present to buy at Christmas, fair enough.

There's no specifically good reason to expose a hobby to critical dissection.  I actually recommend against it.  I only recommend, *if* you decide that critical review is something you want, to get an intellectually honest one.

I'm not a published fiction writer, but I am a writer, a teacher, a speaker, a composer of words.  Not just in a professional sense, but in a "that's who I am" kind of way.  For me, I'm always thinking about finding the right turn of phrase, the right way to express a thought, the right way to be engaging.  I am always critiquing my own words.  I am open to external critique, because my words are always being critiqued and nitpicked constantly.  Just by me.  And I hit hard.  So its ok for me to ask for external criticism.  Its not going to discourage me from writing, or speaking, or composing.

In a sense, that's why I would often tell City of Heroes players that I didn't recommend following the forums as a general rule.  Certainly, I strongly recommended playing the game for a while before doing so.  You had to know why you were playing the game and what you were enjoying about the game before a bunch of other people tried to tell you otherwise.  We were a fairly decent bunch but we were also a very opinionated and vocal bunch.  Before everyone tells you Blasters are broken and Regen is weak, I recommended players form their own opinion first, so they could engage in that conversation with some experience to back them up.

Don't let other people dictate your fun.  If you want to be a professional published writer, then fun is not your primary priority.  Eating is.  You need to learn the skills of the craft or you'll starve.  But if you're doing it for fun, don't let someone else steal your fun.

Arcana

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Re: Coming Soon
« Reply #482 on: July 02, 2015, 10:18:53 PM »
I remember that arc though and always wondered how a natural origin should be for cosmetics only. Wouldn't it seem that a superhuman is somehow on a fundamentally basic level more than a mere human? They should be either smarter, faster, or more resilient somehow.

When this subject came up on the forums, I would sometimes be challenged to name a superhero that had super powers but I could still credibly call with a straight face "Normal."  And I had one ready: Daredevil.

During Frank Miller's run on Daredevil, Miller snuck in a tiny but important retcon that to the best of my recollection is still considered canonical.  At one point Murdock gets exposed to the same chemicals he was struck with as a child, and it causes his supersenses to go haywire.  In desperation, he shuts himself inside of a sensory deprivation tank to prevent himself from going crazy from all the sounds, smells, sensations.  He's discovered by Stick, who in Stick fashion chastises him for running away and hiding.  When Murdock tells him he can't leave because the chemicals have enhanced his senses to impossible to control levels, Stick tells him that's baloney.  The chemicals didn't give him super senses in the first place.  The chemicals only temporarily revealed to him the senses he already had, the senses anyone could have if they only had the proper training.  When he was re-exposed, those senses were temporarily boosted again, but with Murdock's years of training to be aware of them, he was now seeing everything amplified to painful levels, like someone trained to see in darkness being blinded by bright light.  What's more, the chemicals wore off quickly, and Murdock only believed their effects were permanent because he continued to use and train those senses once aware of them.

And as proof of this, Stick, Stone, Shaft, Claw are all depicted as having equal or superior senses to Daredevil, all obtained through training and not chemical enhancement.  Therefore, within the Marvel Universe, its possible to have every ability you'd call a superpower that Stick and his followers have through nothing more than rigorous training (and being hit in the head thousands of times by Stick) without supernatural enhancement.  So not only is Daredevil a Natural superhero within the Marvel Univese, Stone is.  That means even Invulnerability can be a Natural power in the Marvel Universe.

The Natural Origin is a convenient way of saying I have powers that in the real world are supernatural, but in the City of Heroes world they are possible to achieve through natural albeit difficult means.  The difference between me and everyone else is not that I'm superhuman, its that I was smart enough, lucky enough, or determined enough to figure out how to unlock them.

LaughingAlex

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Re: Coming Soon
« Reply #483 on: July 02, 2015, 11:03:39 PM »
I often feel that, seeing some things said above about the origin of power story, is that keeping the games lore and gameplay separate is somewhat important.  Tying the two together to much can lead to silly things like the powerset proliferation and whatnot.  Some ties between gameplay and story can work, but they have to be sensible and within reason.  Some good example would be Deus Ex: HR or Spec Ops: The Line.  Spec Ops: The line's gameplay is a stressful slogfest, and the story is the same way and you can see it's effects on the characters.  Human revolution, save the boss fights(unless you got the directors cut) also does similar, whether you use stealth or combat can very well effect how the story develops in some spots, and the gameplays difficulty and adjustments reflects that.

At one point in DX:HR for example all enemies are INSTANTLY on alert, so if your spotted for even a second your enemies are fully alerted.  This is in contrast to most areas where if your spotted but you slip out of sight right away and move smart enough you can evade detection still.  It's done to reflect the story and the situation, rather than just difficulty.

Course one doesn't want like, MAx Payne 3 and "Oh, Max is totally wasted and completely washed up, wait, why is he dive rolling with super reflexes and moving like a ninja?".  It's just an amount of balance between gameplay and story one has to consider.
Currently; Not doing any streaming, found myself with less time available recently.  Still playing starbound periodically, though I am thinking of trying other games.  Don't tell me to play mmohtg's though please :).  Getting back into participating in VO and the successors again to.

Paragon Avenger

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Re: Coming Soon
« Reply #484 on: July 02, 2015, 11:05:47 PM »
Eating is for fun, don't let someone else steal your fun.

Thanks Arc.  Yeah, When somebody suggested VV look at my fan fcition, I was like, oooo I'll get tips and advice and maybe some small praise.  Then I realized that a professional writer might want to help get some one started down the professional writer career path.  That's not for me.

Zombie Hustler

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Re: Coming Soon
« Reply #485 on: July 03, 2015, 02:33:54 AM »
You, me, and just about every single RPer in the game, plus all the others.  It was bloody stupid, annoying, and was rightfully ignored as much as possible.

It was easy xp if you needed it, though!  :D

(Except for that last mission, sometimes...)

Zombie Hustler

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Re: Coming Soon
« Reply #486 on: July 03, 2015, 02:36:08 AM »
Which makes his clumsy ignorance in Ramiel's arc all the more inexplicable.  Even if you toss out everything I conjecture and look only at the in-game information, it makes no sense whatsoever for Silos to be so ignorant about Incarnates, when he's done what he did to the Dream Doctor and given the respect he otherwise has from the other Menders.  He's had a million years to learn what Ramiel knows, and it slipped his mind to research the one most important element of his current goal in life?  That's not Nemesis.

Would you believe Doombot Fake Nemesis?  :P

But yeah, that whole conversation between those two was a head scratcher in an otherwise pretty interesting arc.

benkenobi

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Re: Coming Soon
« Reply #487 on: July 03, 2015, 02:41:09 AM »
This convo has taken an interesting turn.

I very much agree Arcana's assessment here: and in fact when I had the Old Ben Kenobi character (for like a month before it was nerfed :P) he was a Natural Regen Scrapper (Katana). The "force" like "chi" or "ki" of any martial art is definitely "natural."

Things like this develop: sometimes out of necessity, other times out of mere conditioning.
(N.B. Star Wars canon has midichlorians as force bearing organisms, also natural.)
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Victoria Victrix

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Re: Coming Soon
« Reply #488 on: July 03, 2015, 03:34:58 AM »
Thanks Arc.  Yeah, When somebody suggested VV look at my fan fcition, I was like, oooo I'll get tips and advice and maybe some small praise.  Then I realized that a professional writer might want to help get some one started down the professional writer career path.  That's not for me.

Hey if you are a hobbyist writer and that is all you want to be, awesome.  Have fun, enjoy yourself.  I cannot turn off the professional critic anymore, so you probably will not enjoy anything I would say to you.

Therefore I will point you in the direction of the most powerful books I know of that will hone your skills, which is all you really want, and once you've bought them, you'll have them around all the time, as guides you can refer to whenever you need them.

Save the Cat by Blake Snyder.  Although this is a book intended for screenwriters, it is the most powerful dissection of plot and character development I know of.  Using Blake's beatsheet technique you can immediately identify where the holes in your narrative are, and where you might have gone wrong.  Plus, Blake titles each section of his BeatSheet in a way that makes sections of the flow of a story instantly memorable.

Zen In the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury.  This is a series of essays on creativity; extremely useful as a (literally) Zen approach to the craft.

On Writing by Stephen King.  I don't entirely agree with Stephen King on some points; for instance, he feels that anyone who writes from an outline (in my case, a beatsheet) is a hack.  I think it's purely a timesaver that gets all the hard brainwork out of the way at once so you can get down to the meat of putting words on the page.  But this is a damn good book on all facets of writing.

The Deluxe Transitive Vampire  Grammar, grammar, grammar, in a way that makes things memorable.

The New Well-Tempered Sentence  Punctuation, by the same author.

The Disheveled Dictionary  If you love words, you'll love this.  By the same author.

Torn Wings and Faux Pas  Grammar and style, same author.

Out of the Loud Hound of Darkness  Putting all of the above in action, by the same author.
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Paragon Avenger

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Re: Coming Soon
« Reply #489 on: July 03, 2015, 03:49:49 AM »
Therefore I will point you in the direction of the most powerful books I know of that will hone your skills, which is all you really want, and once you've bought them, you'll have them around all the time, as guides you can refer to whenever you need them.

Save the Cat by Blake Snyder.  .

Zen In the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury.

On Writing by Stephen King.

The Deluxe Transitive Vampire

The New Well-Tempered Sentence

The Disheveled Dictionary 

Torn Wings and Faux Pas

Out of the Loud Hound of Darkness

Are you suggesting that I read books before I try to write one?

Seriously, thanks for the recommendations.

Arcana

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Re: Coming Soon
« Reply #490 on: July 03, 2015, 04:45:52 AM »
A word on grammar.  Most people think Strunk and White is best used to level their desk while they write, but while grammar is often considered boring, trivial, even irrelevant to creative writing, I believe that the study of grammar is absolutely paramount.  I think people get the wrong idea about studying grammar, thinking that its just a bunch of rules that no one cares about, and besides, the best writers don't follow those rules so why should they?

That's missing the point entirely.  Words, and sentence structure, are the writers tools.  They are the writer's weapons of mass discussion.  You have to know the rules, and *why* they exist, in order to manipulate them.  Everyone starts by trying to find the "right" words to express their thoughts.  Then maybe they tweak them in some vague sense of sprinkling style to them.  But there are no right words.  Its not a test.  Composition and grammatical construction separates the good writers from, well, everyone else on the internet.  Ultimately, writing isn't just about dictionary meaning, its about the way that words construct the scaffolding of meaning.

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He hid his money in a secret hollow in his left shoe.  This was the new reality.  You had to take whatever precautions you could think of in Atlas Park these days.  Gone were the good old days when you could walk down the street unaware of your surroundings.  When if some Hellions tried anything, five heroes would jump them.  As you would back away, you would see the bad guys frozen, inside fire circles with electricity shooting towards them.  And a weird hum, and a green aura filling the area.  What a sight to see.

"You had to take whatever precautions you could think of" is grammatically correct.  However, its also second person.  Second person has implications.  It dictates to the reader.  As a result, it can be distancing: the reader tends not to build their own sense of perspective, their own viewpoint, because they are being told what they see, what they think, what they feel.  It can make it difficult for readers to become invested in anything.  Grammar can tell you what your weapons are shooting at.  Grammar can tell you if you're aiming at the right things.  Were you trying to create distance between the reader and the story?  Or did you want to pull them in?  The meaning of the words say one thing, the structure of the writing says something else.  How about this:

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He hid his money in the secret hollow in his left shoe.  This was his new reality.  Gone were the good old days when you could walk down the streets of Atlas Park unaware of your surroundings.  When if some Hellions tried anything, five heroes would jump them.  He remembered the days when it was the criminals who had to be cautious, lest they find themselves frozen inside fire circles with electricity shooting towards them.  When a weird hum and a green aura filling the area was a sign to everyone that while they might not be exactly safe on the streets of Paragon City, there was always someone watching.  They were a sight to see.  But now he was the one taking precautions, wondering what might jump out at him, for trying to cross the street.

I'm not saying this is better (nor am I judging your writing specifically, it was just a convenient example).  I'm just saying I thought about every single word, and tried to apply some technique to them, while still maintaining as much of the original text and ideas as possible.  I'm not a fiction writer by trade, so this is novice stuff.  But I felt mixing "he" and "you" diluted the text.  There was a lost opportunity to try to connect the reader to something, to anchor them in a perspective.  I wanted the reader to immediately lock onto the "he" from the passage, and put them in his place.  See through his eyes.  Feel what he was feeling.  Put them somewhere concrete.  I even changed a single word: He hid his money in the secret hollow in his left shoe.  Not "a hollow" but rather "the hollow."  Saying he put his money in a hollow sounds random, like there's multiple hollows and he picked one, or it just happened to be a good place now.  Saying he put his money in the hollow makes it sound like that's the one and only hollow, the one and only place he puts his money, because he has done this enough times that he has an actual place that is the place, and not just a place.  It makes it seem like this has been going on a while.  I injected (or at least tried to) a sense of time with a single swap of an article.

Some of that is style, some of that is judgment.  But a lot of that is just deploying the weapons of grammar.  That thing nobody cares about on the internet.  Knowledge of grammar and tense and voice are important.  Without them, as a writer you're bringing a tweet to a poetry slam fight.

Paragon Avenger

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Re: Coming Soon
« Reply #491 on: July 03, 2015, 05:17:35 AM »
Thanks, Arcana.  You are right about grammar.  I was trying to imply that there might be multiple hiding places for his money, but I dropped the ball on that one.  Also, I didn't want the reader to be in the same place as the "He".  It was supposed to be life after we heroes had left, but I probably dropped the ball there too.  Further in the story we almost don't want to like him.  Again, maybe one should like the main character of the story.  Oh, did I mention that this was my very first fan fiction I ever wrote?  So, yes, I am well aware of several glaring errors in the story.  If I were serious about this series, I might want to go back and modify the posts.  Actually, it might be fun to pick it apart.

Vee

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Re: Coming Soon
« Reply #492 on: July 03, 2015, 05:30:36 AM »


This really has its roots in origin of origin, where someone in the dev team said we need a way to designate how the player got his or her powers, and they decided Science, Technology, Natural, Mutation, and Magic were reasonable necessary and sufficient descriptors.  Except Science, Technology, and Mutation are all the same damn thing.  Sure, you can ask stupid irrelevant questions like isn't being hit by lightning totally different from making a suit of armor?  Yeah, in the same way getting hit by lightning is different from being doused in chemicals.  The problem is all technology works on scientific principles, so the overlap between those two was going to be hefty.  And Mutation?  Is there a non-scientific kind of mutation?


Science origin and tech origin just sound a bit better than 'unintentional science origin' and 'intentional science origin'. As to mutation, that strikes me as natural origin and only science in the amorphous sense that anything studied by scientists is science (unless we're saying mutation of this kind is caused by radiation ala early Marvel, in which case, fine - unintentional environmento-biological science origin :P). We can easily admit that though science and technology are both science in the sense that they both depend on scientific principles (or vice versa if you're a Heideggerian), but the difference between gaining an accidental power from a science experiment and intentionally developing technology to acquire super powers seems enough of a difference in kind to justify a distinction. Similarly if we take mutation to be 'natural' in the broad sense we can still draw a distinction in kind between that and abilities acquired through training. I should mention I never read the origin of power arc because I barely read any of the arcs, but the 5 origin types do seem sufficiently distinct to me. As to the actual terms used to designate them, they seem to me about as good as any we're likely to come up with but ymmv.

Arcana

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Re: Coming Soon
« Reply #493 on: July 03, 2015, 05:52:40 AM »
We can easily admit that though science and technology are both science in the sense that they both depend on scientific principles (or vice versa if you're a Heideggerian), but the difference between gaining an accidental power from a science experiment and intentionally developing technology to acquire super powers seems enough of a difference in kind to justify a distinction.

Why?  They are different narratively but City of Heroes is supposed to leave the narrative of the character up to the player.  Getting your powers because you are a scientist who is experimenting on yourself is certainly different from getting them because of an industrial accident, but that distinction is best left up to player bios to resolve.

When you say that powers from a science experiment and powers from a technological invention are different enough to justify a distinction, in what way do you want *the game* to honor that distinction.  In what way do you want the game to make Science powers work differently from Tech powers such that the player has no say in the matter.  When you are Science origin, you can only use Science enhancements.  You aren't allowed to use Tech enhancements (at least when we get to SOs).  You have no say in the matter: that's how the game works.  Fortunately, there's really no difference between Science SOs and Tech SOs, so its not a big deal.

But that's the point.  Why make a distinction - Science Origin and Tech Origin - and then deliberately make sure there exists no actual in-game difference between the two.  That's a worthless distinction.  They could have just made a blank on your character bio called "origin" and you could have put anything in there you wanted.  You could have put "alien transdimensional lifeforce transfer" and that would have been just as valid of an origin as "Tech."

You don't make a game option, tell the players to pick one, and then tell them it won't matter.  That's stupid.  You only make options if the options mean something.  So: do you want Science and Technology to work differently in City of Heroes?  Probably not.  Some players probably didn't want anything to operate differently than anything else.  They wanted origin to be just a free label they could stick on anything.  For that matter, some players felt "Fire" should be just a label they could stick on anything they wanted to, and if they wanted a Fire attack that held instead of doing DoT, that should have been their option.

Let me know if any of them become game designers.  In the meantime, real games are a balance between freedom and structure, and good games balance the two.  Contrary to some people's belief, there is such a thing as too much freedom.  When anything goes, the game has no structure, no rules, and nothing interesting can happen.  Choices don't matter, because there are no choices.  No matter what you do, you still get the same everything as everyone else.  For some that's paradise.  For most, including me, that's a disaster.

*If* they wanted Origins to really exist at all, the only reason for Origins to actually exist as a game mechanic is if different origins were going to work differently, have different rules, be able to do certain things and not do others.  If you don't want that, toss Origins into the bit bucket and make it a free text form on the bio.  But if you do want that, I don't think Science, Technology, and Mutation should work differently.  They all work by the rules of what passes for science in your world.  In fact, even calling them "Origin" is slightly misleading.  Its not about how you acquired the powers.  Its about the source of those powers themselves, the rules by which you can use them.  Fire burns, bullets make holes in things.  Mutations are a different way to acquire powers, but those powers will still (most likely) work on the basis of scientific principles.  They will give you a biological healing factor.  They will make your bones as hard as carbon fiber.  They will increase your metabolism and your muscle strength.  They will change you in ways you'd assume grant abilities in a scientifically (or pseudo-scientifically) extrapolatable way.

TL;DR version.  Its the beginning of time, and we're making City of Heroes.  I tell you we're going to make something called origins, and what the player chooses will be significant.  Origin A will have features Origin B won't have, and vice versa.  If you pick Origin A you'll be able to do things origin B can't do and vice versa.  How many origins do you want?  One?  Ten?  What should they be, given each one will work differently.  Do you even want them at all?

Vee

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Re: Coming Soon
« Reply #494 on: July 03, 2015, 06:39:15 AM »
I don't really disagree with any of that, I was just resistant to the application of the vague 'science' to three things that seem sufficiently distinct to count as different in kind. But yeah, that is a narrative distinction that could easily have been left up to the players. The distinctions in origin were completely arbitrary from a game standpoint, but I suppose it's understandable that they would want to put in some sort of 'explainey-type-thing' for why the city is so populated with powered individuals. Rather than go the causal event ala DCUO's 'all the super powers were redistributed except for the ones from the recognizable supers' they basically came up with a featureless way of saying 'everyone got their powers the same ways everyone in comics gets their powers.

But from the standpoint of the in-game differences (or lack thereof), the distinction between e.g. natural and magic is just as arbitrary as the other three. So much so that after my second toon I picked mutation for all my heroes because the mutation store in steel was more conveniently located, and after I learned about the Yin store I made everyone magic because the damage SOs made the DO levels go so fast. And plenty of people would pick their origin solely based on whichever one had the tiny bit of -resist in the base ranged power.

From a design standpoint they seem to have been trying to avoid annoying the people who'd say 'hey how'd all these people get these powers anyway' and ended up annoying the rp crowd, the lore crowd, the crowd who don't want pointless game mechanics, and probably the group they were initially trying to satisfy as well, given that 'the usual ways' isn't really much of an explanation.

Arcana

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Re: Coming Soon
« Reply #495 on: July 03, 2015, 07:09:02 AM »
But from the standpoint of the in-game differences (or lack thereof), the distinction between e.g. natural and magic is just as arbitrary as the other three. So much so that after my second toon I picked mutation for all my heroes because the mutation store in steel was more conveniently located, and after I learned about the Yin store I made everyone magic because the damage SOs made the DO levels go so fast. And plenty of people would pick their origin solely based on whichever one had the tiny bit of -resist in the base ranged power.

You and a lot of players.

Quote
From a design standpoint they seem to have been trying to avoid annoying the people who'd say 'hey how'd all these people get these powers anyway' and ended up annoying the rp crowd, the lore crowd, the crowd who don't want pointless game mechanics, and probably the group they were initially trying to satisfy as well, given that 'the usual ways' isn't really much of an explanation.

We're conflating two different things here, and its important to keep them separate.  There's the "Origins of Power" story arc, where the devs tried to come up with an in-game narrative for what being a superpowered being meant, and eventually led to the basis for what being an Incarnate is, and how it relates to the kinds of superpowers that existed before.  That was an epic dud.  It pissed off the roleplayers, the lorekeepers, the continuity trackers, the fiction writers, the nit pickers, and the backstory thinkers.  Basically, everyone literate enough to actually read Origin of Powers in the first place.

Then there's the original origin of origins, which is the question of why we even have origins in the first place.  That's a game design question, with a game design answer.  That one is a case of the devs having big ideas in 2002 they couldn't execute in 2004 and decided to forget about in 2005 then got the bright idea to revisit in 2006 (with origin temp powers).  It wasn't until Issue 12 circa 2008 that the Origin of Power storyline was introduced, in part to address power proliferation (i.e. Dr. Brainstorm), and in part to lay the groundwork for what eventually became Incarnates.

The singular idea about Origin of Power that is honestly retarded is that what we call "Science" and "Technology" are fundamental and Magical properties of the world.  There's some mystical force that brings "Science" into the world and with it Science superpowers.  Without this force, I guess there'd be no more Science and we'd all be throwing rocks at each other.  In that arc, you learn that "Science" and "Technology" and "Mutation" and"Natural" and "Mutation" just happen to be the origins that hold sway now, but in the past there were sometimes more and sometimes less.  You know, like how in the past sometimes there were more numbers and sometimes less.

In effect, and there's no escaping this, all superpowers in the world of City of Heroes are magical.  Science is a form of magic.  Mutations are a form of magic.  All origins only exist because magical forces make them exist.  I call them "magical" but of course, there's a "magical" source for "Magic."  Call it a meta-magic.  That meta-magic would eventually be discovered to be Incarnate power: the pseudo-mystical-metamagic that includes the potential of all sentient life.  That potential transforms into power through the conduits of Origins.  Science isn't Science, its metamagical Incarnate energy powering something we think is Science.

In another few sentences, I'm going to bite my keyboard in half, so you'll have to look up the rest yourself.

Vee

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Re: Coming Soon
« Reply #496 on: July 03, 2015, 07:31:01 AM »
In another few sentences, I'm going to bite my keyboard in half, so you'll have to look up the rest yourself.

Pass, the bit you summed up already filled my lulz quota for the day. Though I do have to hand it to them, that's just about silly enough to have actually been a comics retcon.

Shadowe

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Re: Coming Soon
« Reply #497 on: July 03, 2015, 07:45:35 AM »
Knowing that CoH borrowed a lot from the Champions RPG helped a lot for me when it came to origins. In Champions both mutation and science (as we know them) fall under the banner of mutation, which is split into "natural" mutations (this character developed this mutation on their own, no external factors were involved) and "accidental" mutations (at some point after birth, the character was altered by an external scientific event). Technology requires devices (could be bionic implants, a power suit, or whatever) that allow the character to manifest their powers.

In this schema, the X-men are all Mutation origin, while Spider-man is Science, and Iron Man is Technology (just to cover the other two, and to touch on DC, Zatana would be Magic and Superman would be Natural). It's something of a fine distinction, and I think I get why CoH adopted it, but the implementation fell a little short because of the desire to allow a huge amount of freedom to the players on how they defined their own powers.

The differences were most telling if you carefully cherry-picked your story arcs based on the reward enhancements: at low levels, if you picked up arcs which granted Science rewards, you spent an inordinate amount of time fighting Vahzilok, for example (I was something of a purist when I began, so I did this on my main, and it really stuck with me when I made characters of other origins and had a completely different experience). And that was one of the beautiful aspects of CoH: you could (for a while, at least) focus on your origin's story arcs, and have enough to do to level up without having to touch too much on other origins (though it did help to diversify), but you weren't railroaded into only those stories. If you wanted to be a Science origin character who spent their life helping Azuria deal with magical problems, you could.

So, at the end of the day, origin mattered as much or as little as you wanted it to, and because of that freedom, combined with the really very loose descriptions of the origins themselves, it appears as though origins don't matter. From the perspective of your character's story (and how you went about realising that story through the arcs in the game), it actually mattered a lot.

Edit: But yes, Origin of Power was seriously annoying and dumb.
« Last Edit: July 03, 2015, 07:52:11 AM by Shadowe »
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Arcana

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Re: Coming Soon
« Reply #498 on: July 03, 2015, 08:04:33 AM »
The differences were most telling if you carefully cherry-picked your story arcs based on the reward enhancements

Which, I should point out, 99% of all players were not capable of doing.  Another pet peeve of mine: informed choices.  The occasional surprise is fine, but if you (the developer "you") want to claim that one of the effects of Origin is that it could influence your decisions of what content to run, based on what content would reward you congruent enhancements (i.e. the stuff that would help someone like you) you actually had to inform the players about that.  You needed to actually tell them that choice even existed, and provide them with enough information to actually make that choice in an informed manner.

I think a lot of MMO devs believe in the notion of discovery, that the point of the game is for the players to figure out how to play it.  My response to that, for any developer wishing to make that argument is: I would like to design your next car.

FloatingFatMan

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Re: Coming Soon
« Reply #499 on: July 03, 2015, 08:15:22 AM »
In effect, and there's no escaping this, all superpowers in the world of City of Heroes are magical.  Science is a form of magic.  Mutations are a form of magic.  All origins only exist because magical forces make them exist.  I call them "magical" but of course, there's a "magical" source for "Magic."  Call it a meta-magic.  That meta-magic would eventually be discovered to be Incarnate power: the pseudo-mystical-metamagic that includes the potential of all sentient life.  That potential transforms into power through the conduits of Origins.  Science isn't Science, its metamagical Incarnate energy powering something we think is Science.

And that's what annoyed me the most, because my main was a Peacebringer. An alien/human conglomeration and had absolutely nothing magical about her whatsoever.  She couldn't even do basic card tricks!  Bloody railroading devs!