Coming Soon

[Shadowe]

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.

It's a concept that has hit the tabletop RPG market with so-called "Ivory Tower Game Design" (coined by Monte Cook, I believe for 3rd Edition D&D) where the assumption is that casual players can pick whatever option they want and have a fun experience, but to actually "beat the system" you need to develop a degree of system mastery to pick good options.

It's dumb as all hell, and I agree that informed choice should be the goal.

[Victoria Victrix]

Further in the story we almost don't want to like him.  Again, maybe one should like the main character of the story. 

This, by the way, is the reason Blake Snyder's book is called Save the Cat.  He points out that in order to become immersed in a story or movie we must at least identify in some way with the hero (or antihero) even if we don't precisely like her.  He uses as his example, the moment in Alien where Ripley goes back to save her cat, Jones.  We don't much like Ripley until that point.  She's a pretty cold character.  But when she saves Jones, we start cheering for her and we want her to win.

[Nyx Nought Nothing]

I honestly do not have time to do a line-by-line.  But like FFM said....no.  If you really want your epic published you must get rid of all game mechanics.  Back in the day when PnP DnD was all the rage, I got shown a lot of books that were based on someone's campaign.  Short form: if you can hear the dice roll (or the RNG generating) every time someone does something, it's nothing anyone who was not there wants to read.

In some cases certain game mechanics can be worked into the story in an organic way. One of my current favorite manga is One Punch Man and the villains and heroes are ranked by power levels by a central hero registration authority. Heroes rise in rank through a combination of demonstrated abilities and public acclaim. In a variety of ways it does an excellent job of capturing the flavor of CoH's setting, at least in terms of a world covered with superhuman beings with a dizzying number of unique origins. The main character, Saitama, is a natural origin hero who became so powerful that at the start of the manga he's wrestling with boredom and melancholy because fighting evil has no challenge anymore since everything he fights is defeated in one punch.

[Ohioknight]

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.

Especially annoying was everything to do with the Well.

^^^^^^^^
That Floating Fat Man know what he's talking about

[Ohioknight]

Kids these days don't even know how good they have it.  All their fancy javascript and Ruby on Rails.  They don't know what it was like to have databases without stored procedures, cpus without memory management, and languages you had to learn Spanish to code in.

Hey, inheritance is radical nonsense.... And screens should be BLACK with GREEN letters, dammit

[Ohioknight]

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. ...

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....

It always bothered me from a "making sense" perspective that you could beat the crap out of 5 guys in a big room for five minutes and have none of the other 5 groups of 5 thugs notice that you were beating the crap out of their friends in full view of everybody -- I really wish there had been more line-of-sight mechanics in the game (though I realize the problems there -- I suppose it was an optimal solution but it bugged me)

[mad skills]

It always bothered me from a "making sense" perspective that you could beat the crap out of 5 guys in a big room for five minutes and have none of the other 5 groups of 5 thugs notice that you were beating the crap out of their friends in full view of everybody

I'm quite sure that those other groups hoped that they would be the group that you skipped. As for the defeat all missions, they did not know that it was a defeat all mission so it was okay for them to be in denial.

[switch]

so i had a  idea and wonder if anyone else has thought about it   so  here it is  making a Raidcall channel so all of us running around in game chatting could actualy be in voice chat as well with some old friends  to catch up and talk about the good old days  and stuff   

was just a random thought

[Fifth]

If the game somehow comes back I will make it my personal mission to excise the Origin of Power arc from canon with extreme prejudice.

oh I thought that was the Red Coral mission arc which I loved to death, but no its the story arc I never finished because it was boring XD all good! yes remove that abomination!

[Fifth]

There's evidence to believe that Prometheus, for some reason, believes "champions" of the Well are a bad idea, that somehow investing all that power in a single or too few hands will be ineffective against the Battalion.  Given what the devs have said about how the Well works and what the Battalion were likely to be, that's totally illogical, whether the devs had plans to try to make it logical or not.  But I believe, discounting future plans, that the Prometheus in the game is not so much manipulating us as treating us like children, not sophisticated enough to know the truth, and so have to be told what we need to hear to do the right thing, whether that's the truth or not.  So he's totally unreliable as a source of information.

What I believe, again separate from dev future plans, is that his plan ultimately fails, and Silos knows that.  Silos has seen Prometheus fail, he's seen the Dream Doctor fail, and he's seen Ouroboros itself fail, and that's why he's taken the big risk to leap from tether to tether to get back to the present.

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.

I agree! I love how in your story Silos does know that and plans accordingly.  Have I ever told you how much I love your story.

[Arcana]

so i had a  idea and wonder if anyone else has thought about it   so  here it is  making a Raidcall channel so all of us running around in game chatting could actualy be in voice chat as well with some old friends  to catch up and talk about the good old days  and stuff   

was just a random thought

City of Heroes never directly supported voice chatting, but nothing stops people from making their own voice chat friends lists.  I have heard there are some issues with broad compatibility for voice support in XMPP, and I don't know if resolving that directly is a priority for the Paragon Chat team.

[Fifth]

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 ). 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.

I always thought of Mutation and Natural ast he same thing. As to mean that this character was born like this but, its not considered a normal thing for their species. As far as any mutation given later in life, I bulked into science. I think of Science as Chemical/Biological and Technology as, well, playing a robot like in my case.  

[Sekoia]

All 5 origins can be argued to be the same. Magic is just science we haven't figured out yet, and using magical artifacts is thus the same as using technology. Magic is something anyone can learn, therefore it is natural. Mutation is apparently a natural phenomena. Psychic abilities could be argued to be natural to humans (even that horrible arc mentions that they aren't really the same as mutations and have been around much longer).

[Arcana]

All 5 origins can be argued to be the same. Magic is just science we haven't figured out yet, and using magical artifacts is thus the same as using technology. Magic is something anyone can learn, therefore it is natural. Mutation is apparently a natural phenomena. Psychic abilities could be argued to be natural to humans (even that horrible arc mentions that they aren't really the same as mutations and have been around much longer).

Its not really a question of what you can make a case for, its a question of what you're willing to enforce.

But as to the semantics, the difference between "Natural" and "Mutation" is hazy, but at least for humans there is a very specific distinction.  We don't normally consider "natural" to be "whatever might happen in the world."  That's vague enough to be meaningless.  Normally, the general consensus meaning is "an ability that a normal biological human being could acquire through means that primarily involve learning to use the abilities all human beings have to some extent, as opposed to being altered genetically in some why that's fundamentally different from normal humans.

Mutations can be "natural" in the sense of happening because of natural processes, but a mutation-based superpower cannot be Natural in the sense of not altering a human in a genetically significant way.

And while you can argue that "Magic" is just Science we don't understand, Science itself makes assumptions about the way the universe works.  Magic is by its very definition things that violate those assumptions on a fundamental level.  You can argue that super-advanced technology *looks* like magic, but actual magic operates on the basis of rules that can never be integrated with conventional science.  The fact that its difficult to conceive of a phenomenon that cannot even in principle be integrated with Science is a reflection of the fact that by definition it is difficult to explain something that by its own definition is ultimately unexplainable.  If you believe Magic is just Science before its discovered, that's really tantamount to believing there is no such thing as magic.

When you make the case for saying all five origins are really the same, you are really making the case for all five origins working the same way.  There's no right or wrong of that, but it does have consequences when you design a game around that principle, assuming consistency is a goal you're striving for.  That I can make a case for saying there's really just three origins - Sci/Tech/Mutation, Natural, and Magic - isn't making the case for saying that's the one right answer, but rather that I believe it would make for a more interesting game if there were three different "kinds" of superpowers, each with different rules, strengths, and limitations.  You know how in the comic books Superman was said to be "weak to magic?"  That's a concept that's fundamentally impossible to represent in City of Heroes in any consistent way, because "Magic" is just a word in City of Heroes.  Its a label for enhancements.  But there's no such thing as magical defenses and magical attacks.  They might be called that, but the game engine is totally blind to that.    Its something you can't do, because there is only one set of rules for how powers work.  All five origins are exactly equal, and exactly indistinguishable.  There is no "magic" in City of Heroes: not really.  There are only things we can choose to call magic if we wish, but calling them that has absolutely no effect on anything.

I contend it might have made a more interesting game if that had meaning.  But I don't make the case that the game would be "better" or that that is the "right" way to do origins.  I do contend its an internally consistent way of doing origins that is meaningful to game play, rather than the unnecessary non-entity Origin was in the actual game.  Making the case is not the end, its the beginning.  What you do with that case once you've made it, and how you would wrap the game around that case, is the interesting part.

[Ohioknight]

  You can argue that super-advanced technology *looks* like magic, but actual magic operates on the basis of rules that can never be integrated with conventional science. 

Science, Magic, it's all the same crap:

http://www.adultswim.com/videos/the-venture-bros/im-a-super-scientist/

[Felderburg]

[Arcana]

I think the biggest things to take away from this response is that Origin of Powers is an arc told from the point of view characters in the world of City of Heroes, and they don't really know what's truly going on. Because of this, the TRUE nature of the origin of powers will be revealed to players later, restoring what most of us think of as the "proper" origin of powers - namely, our characters.    .....or something like that.

While that might have been their intent - and different developers have different intents - that's not what the later stories about Incarnates and the Well explicitly stated, and would have been difficult to retcon.  Even after Origin of Power's fuzzy, annoying, and scattershot aspects were complained about, their remedies for that if anything tried to help a drowning man by setting him on fire.  Prometheus, who is supposed to know the story we don't yet, and in what legal minds might refer to a "excited utterances" refers to the Well as something more than just an amorphous construct, Prometheus is seen to hate the Well, as if it was an entity and not a mere reflection of human potential.  The Well is given a personality.  And it is shown capable of taking over other beings, like Statesman and Recluse.

I believe those developers were sincere, but I believe in this case they were also wrong, even about their own intentions.  And regardless, the wheel of mmo development often grinds independently of intent, with the momentum of cumulative contribution often overriding individual developer's intentions.

The exact, precise, word-for-word way the Battalion were going to try to demolish us was really going to be their last chance to rectify all of this, and I have my doubts they would have.  I think they were trying to do too much with the Battalion, and it was going to paint them into narrative corners, again.  For an extremely powerful destroyer of worlds and species and something Prometheus believes an Incarnate army of the caliber of Emperor Cole's was totally incapable of dealing with, the Battalion seemed content to use spies and front men to do their dirty work for them.  If they needed that sort of deception and subterfuge, the odds are they could not really be the big bad incarnate-crushers they were being built up to be.  Doing all of that allowed the devs to turn the Coming Storm into a power play story before the actual shooting started, but that stretches the narrative out at the expense of diluting it greatly.

And that would have made it very difficult to salvage Origin of Power/Incarnates.  To be a threat to the very existence of Incarnate power, the Battalion could not possibly be entities that fought at that level.  They had to be cosmic threats, fighting on planes vastly above such matters.  A politician and a spy cannot dismantle the Well of Furies if the Well is a reflection of human potential.  That would be like Back Ally Brawler trying to punch the concept of Sadness into submission.  Sure, its just comic books so you can Deus Ex Machina all you want.  But when the end game is bringing in Rularuu, destroyer of dimensions on your side, the enemy cannot be Cobra Commander.

When Galactus comes for you, he doesn't send spies, he doesn't send scouts, he sends a Herald.  And the Herald is not there to spy on you, he's not there to bargain with you, he's not even there to fight you.  He's there to ring the dinner bell.

If the true origin of power is actually inside us and not something externally powering us, then there's no way to steal that potential from us, except by taking it from all of us individually.  Like, say, by enslaving an entire race of beings and using their life force to power your warp drives.  We can't be cheated of it, or forced to give it away.

I get the feeling from the Lore answers that at least some of the devs felt we were too harsh on some of the build up stories, because we lacked the context to interpret what was happening correctly.  That can be true sometimes, but I don't believe its true in this case, at least for me.  I believe the narrative direction wasn't ambiguous, and was thus going to be extremely difficult to reverse.  And at best, you might try, and end up with a twenty car pile up of ideas smashing into each other.

After the Coming Storm and the entire Incarnate story, I believe the entire thing was going to be nullified (narratively) by Ascendancy.  The clean slate that told the players that the path to power was individual and self-controlled was going to be Ascension.

[Paragon Avenger]

Thanks alot Arcana.

There I was, perfectly willing to let my stories sit out there warts and all.  Then you had to point out the clumsy shift of point-of-view from third to second person.  So I rewrote that first entry:

He hid his money in a secret hollow in his left shoe.  He had several secret hiding places for his valuables.  This was the new reality.  He had to take whatever precautions he could think of in Atlas Park these days.  Gone were the good old days when anyone could walk down the street unaware of their surroundings.  When if Hellions tried anything, heroes would jump them.  As Paragon City citizens would back away, they could 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.
Today was different, as if some evil force threw a switch, the heroes are gone.  The Paragon City Police try, I guess, but not to the extent to make us feel safe.  The Longbow and the Vanguard seem to be busy elsewhere.  If he ever got noticed by one of the unruly street gangs, he would head for the nearest police drone.  They always work, but getting to one before getting beaten is not always possible.
Despite all the danger, he had to go to the rave.  DJ Zero would be rocking the house.  DJ Zero used to rock the heroes in Pocket D, so you know he's good.  But that wasn't the reason he had to go.  Yep, he met a woman.  Jenny Hall was her name.  They had met while watching a penguin superhero battle a military themed street gang.  What was their name?  There are so many street gangs these days.

It still needs work.

[Arcana]

It still needs work.

I guess.

[cohRock]

...
The exact, precise, word-for-word way the Battalion were going to try to demolish us was really going to be their last chance to rectify all of this, and I have my doubts they would have.  I think they were trying to do too much with the Battalion, and it was going to paint them into narrative corners, again.  ...

As an aside, do I remember correctly that the Rikti had fought off the Battalion?  They had to change their whole DNA matrix in order to be successful, but at least one race of humans had managed it.  I'm guessing they didn't actually defeat the Battalion, but essentially made themselves psychic skunks and too much of a  bother to destroy.