Durakken

I hate that game developers are still make such linear games, but whatever...

Anyways, not too concerned about pricing model at this point as I still need to write the engine and such... working on it... Can't think how i want to do some aspects and I suck at part of what I need which is level design. I'm think of either doing 3/4 top down 2D style or do prerendered background maps like FFX and just have the Sprites be 2D instead of 3D. Of course if I could find someone good at 3D, or could do it and willing to help me, I'd use that but meh.

Anyways I'm more concerned with what people think of how the story is developed, here it is going, and what I might add to make it better...

I'm creating a sci-fi universe for a game I'm making... So I'm going to post the time line of the universe i have, some other info, and the story as it goes...

The game itself is episodic and planning to make it 3 seasons of 13 episodes, hopefully with 10 hours of game play in each episode, and then after the end of the 3rd season make it more of a sandbox game... with possibly more minor story arcs...

The basic concepts are taken from Ancient Astronaut theory and has norse myth used a lot in references, but there are references to other mythologies. The plot also has come out as a weird combination of Mass Effect, FarScape, and Babylon 5 and that is somewhat intentional...

Also any ideas for alien cultures/races please throw some at me cuz i gotta create like 160 by the end and at least 15 before i get too far.

Anyways, get ready to reeeeaaaaddddd...

Timeline
~ 162,000 BCE : The first sentient life evolves and begins growing as a civilization.
~ 157,000 BCE : The first civilizations start meeting and going to war with each other
~ 152,000 BCE : By this time a single civilization has risen and to complete dominance, The Trinity of Shaddai
~ 147,000 BCE : The Shaddai creates the 18 jump gate hubs
~ 142,000 BCE : The Shaddai begin to leave the galaxy
~ 137,000 BCE : Those dominated civilizations try to form their own government, the Ahryv, but squables result in the space faring age coming to the end.
~ 132,000 BCE : By this time almost all the sentient races returned to a primitive state. The remaining Ahryv begine to do what they can to restore planet resources so the next generation can have a chance.
~ 122,000 BCE : The last of the Ahryv disappear from the galaxy and the sentiant races begin to grow again.
~ 117,000 BCE : The 2nd Age of civs begin meeting and warring with each other, however the jumpgates allow for a single race, The Jotnar, to dominate quickly by allowing them access to more space and resources.
~ 116,000 BCE : The Jotnar by this time has formed several confederated kingdoms around the Jumpgates.
~ 107,000 BCE : The Jotnar discover how the jumpgates work and the kingdoms wanting to secure their power more and extend it create networks of mini jumpgates around each of the Sheddai gates
~ 102,000 BCE : The Jotnar go to war with each other and cause great amounts of misery to all the subserviant races until many of the kingdoms are destroyed and mysteriously all the remaining Jotnar are forced to retreat to Yggdrasil. The sentient races begin to war with themselves as they savagely attempt to seize control in the power vacuum.
~ 097,000 BCE : The Jotnar retreat further to their homeplanet of Muspelheim which they then lock the gate out of the network. All sentient races have been reduced to very few in number and suffer nuclear winters
~ 082,000 BCE : The sentient races begin to recover, but only the Jotun are able to thrive and begin their civilization due to their large builds and love of the frost.
~ 077,000 BCE : The Jotuns civ reaches the point where they are able to leave their planet start exploring space and discover the jumpgate network and explore the galaxy.
~ 072,000 BCE : The Jotuns have decided to leave the other sentient races they have found alone. They also have solitary access to the history of the galaxy and the two previous ages
~ 067,000 BCE : Interested in the various other races in the universe they explore those planets and interact with them, but tend to stay uninvolved with them
~ 062,000 BCE : The majority of the Jotuns begin to leave the galaxy, but some wish to view the next age from afar so take the 18th Shaddai hub as a viewing post and lock it down, while other feel still connected to their home world and return to a simpler way of life.
~ 037,000 BCE : 4th age civilizations begin to develop
~ 032,000 BCE : Each of the Jump gate hubs form their own empires and no major power arises which leads to each hub becoming isolated in their own space.
~ 027,000 BCE : Some Jump gate empires form alliances and after the long isolation period which along with isolation leads other hubs to fall into in fighting.
~ 025,000 BCE : An alliance of the 16 hubs is finally formed and the capital of the alliance is the Sephirot Jumpgate Hub. The various races try to explore, but old anxieties cause feuds and blockades.
~ 022,000 BCE : The alliance has degraded and the hubs are isolationists again... The collapse however shows no sign of stopping at just the hub isolation though.
~ 017,000 BCE : Each of the hub empires show various signs of stability, rising and falling, but most have fallen back to their home worlds, content with watching their descendants rise up, or have been completely fallen to primitivity once more.
~ 012,000 BCE : The hubs continue to struggle with stability and a lack of resources which threatens a galactic wide war. Earth's high civilization reside in a Atlantis and are isolated from the primitive earthling. Other races from the Yggdrasil hub who have fallen and risen begin colonizing and enslaving earth civilizations. The Atlantians in their anger wage war on these aliens over the Earth and in a last ditch effort to save the human race they destroy the Yggdrasil hub and send a virus over the hub network to destroy their historical databases. This angers the conquorering races and they destroy Atlantis but due to alliances and lack of resources the alien civilizations are beaten and driven off while the alliances to save humanity watch over earth's next age civilizations from afar, remembered as gods and various other mythological beings. Also, the ice sheats of the planets around the galaxy that were in a nuclear winter triggered ice age melt, setting back their cultures to the beginning again.
~ 003,000 BCE : Age 5 civilizations begin to develop around the galaxy.
~ 001,200 CE : The first of the Age 5 civilizations start heavily exploring their solar systems



The Trinity of Shaddai : The triumvirate government that forms in the first generation of space faring civilizations, those who said enough to their world, often referred to as The Shaddai.

The Ahryv : A loose confederation of civilizations that were subserviant to the Shaddai that formed after the Shedia left the galaxy.

Jotnar : A race of giants that dominated the galaxy during the 2nd age only to mysteriously retreat back to their home.


Episodes
Season 1
Episode 01: Hero awakes in the Galactic Capital, Sephirot, where they are confronted with being surround by aliens. After some study hero is able to communicate and hero is told to get home they should become an agent of the government as they are the only ones that are able to freely travel around the galaxy. Hero meets with the console and after some debate hero is given the opportunity to become an agent. Whether hero does or not is up to the player.
Episode 02:
Episode 03:
Episode 04:
Episode 05:
Episode 06:
Episode 07:
Episode 08:
Episode 09:
Episode 10:
Episode 11:
Episode 12: Hero discovers that the way to return home is to trigger a mechanism either at Sephirot or in the Jotnar Network
Episode 13: Various organizations discover Hero's plan to create a Yggdrasil II jumpgate and send agents to either help/hinder hero's attempts. At the end of mission it is revealed that the hero was sent to Sephirot to reveal the Jotnar's imminent threat as well as to seek out allies as humans begin to explore space, space which is full of dangerous enemies. You are given the option of sending the new gate or not... it is not made clear why other parties don't just send their own.

Season 2
The Galaxy, regardles of your decision, falls into civil war. The Jotnar start to take over worlds and heavily influence those they had guided in secret before.
If Earth has been opened guys on the hero's side go to earth.
If the peaceful side earth is informed of the situation, join a new council, and this new government, with the help of the Asgardians start building a new fleet of ships
If the Jotnar side, Earth is conquered and subjugated. The Asgardians fall quickly, and the hero is turned into a slave.

If the Earth is part of the new council the Jotnar attack the Sol System, destroying the shield finally, and due to prolonged combat the earth is ravaged and on its last legs by episode 13.
If the hero is made a slave they must escape and get aid to free earth. This results in Earth rebelling and winning it's freedom in episode 13

In episode 13 a Single ship enters Earth space and obliterates much of the forces on both sides before finally being destroyed by an Ahryv who crashes on Earth and announces to the hero that the Shaddai are returning to regain control


Episode 1 detail -
Hero is drawn to Sephirot.
Learns that the most likely way to get home is to work for the council.
The council denies him at first.
Various council members are told or coerced into changing this denial and the other members demand a showing of worth before they make him an agent.
Hero must go through training in departments of magic, martial arts, space combat, and intel
->Single character MA tutorial
->first dungeon = short MA only dungeon where hero recovers a scabbard.
->Hero sent to discover 2nd dungeon with another trainee and told the scabbard is a clue.
->second dungeon = medium length dungeon where a criminal is seen escaping with a sword
->Question people around the area to track the criminal down to the 4th dungeon
->At the fourth dungeon you find that it is sealed magically and you must learn magic
->You are told of Wizard who can help and where to find him
->At the Wizard you are tested on your detective skills by being challenged to look inside the wizard's house and then tell which of several people is the wizard
->The wizard instruct you that to learn magic you have to get a certain weapon inside a dungeon.
->Wizard sends apprentice with you
->3rd dungeon = medium length and forces you to answer several riddles and puzzles
->In the 3rd dungeon you find a device that allows you to use magic and the wizard gives you a tutorial
->You are then able to enter the 4th dungeon where the criminal is hiding out
->4th dungeon = Long, shifts between magic and MA only and makes you solve several puzzles
->At the end of the dungeon is a boss whom you are given the option to let them turn themselves in, but either way you are forced to fight and at the end of the battle you are given the option to kill them or simply arrest them.
-> When you take the criminal or after you try to kill him it is revealed he is your fighter instructor, you are to return the sword to the first trainer and then meet up at the docks
-> At the docks you are given a tutorial in travel around and between solar systems as well as intercepting signals and engaging in dog fights.
->the hero is given the opportunity to practice and are forced to pass a flight shooting course
->When you are done you are told to report to the main training facility.
-> Hero is told he is ready and gets a lecture or praising for how he dealt with the criminal situation as well as an evaluation of how he did in the dungeons.

Hero is contacted by council to report to the council room ASAP.
When the hero arrives he is given the final test
-> final test = A short Dungeon that ends with a boss fight where the boss flees to a shuttle where you are force to battle it and then prosefcute a case presenting facts against the right person.

upon completing the final test various council members will vote and depending on that vote you will be made a government agent or not.

If made a government agent you are given a salary, a basic uniform, some basic weapons. and made put under the command of a captain with a small crew.

If not, one of the representatives will contact you in secret and offer you a smaller sallery to work for them. They will provide you with a small salary, some sarting money to buy a ship, and some gear as well as point you in the direction of a pilot/captain that might be willing to help you

If you turn this down you can turn this guy in and be given what you would have if the vote had gone in your favor but also are given a smaller salary

if you turn this down and don't turn the guy in you when you return to your room you find yourself kicked out and must find some place to stay. Feeling bad for you the person who kicked you out tells you that there is a captain that is looking for some workers and might be willing to take you on.

Once you meet this captain you are offered a job as a worker on the ship as candidates for agents (which he shouldn't know you were) are always welcome on his ship...and you meet the other two characters that were with you during training.

You are told to prepare and wait for the call... End ep1

If however you dn't want to go with the captain you can try to get a job/room/board from elsewhere and work your way till you can afford a small ship, citizen documents, and a pass to use a jumpgate.

This scenario ends ep1 when you get the small ship and plan to take off "tomorrow" You can leave without the docs and pass, but each may lead to various scenarios. Also, at any time you can try to contact the representative that you turned down or meet the captain and join them...also if you were offered the agency position and turned it down you can go back and take it... further you can just ignore the training all together if you want to go the path of getting a job and getting a ship on your own.




any ideas, critiques, etc... please post...

I want to see a Micheal Bay X-Men movie...

After reading Ultimate Spider-Man I got to think, you know, I've been wanting to read what an interesting concept it would be for everyone to know Peter Parker's identity... I was also curious about the Iron Spider costume...cuz it does look cool...and with that came Civil War...

I decided to start at "The Other" which sounded like an interesting concept and it was an ok read, but nothing I'd consider good, but ok I guess it's a way to have Spider-Man evolve, get new powers, get the new suit, etc...

As I've progressed through the story I was finding it harder and harder to read because...well it's crap. None of the stories are very well written and there incongruity as well as just being short and uninspiring for the most part... Of course that's just the Spider-Man titles issues that I've read so far which is the issue before Back in Black.

I just finished Civil War and not only is it bad writing with a story that goes no where... the ending is just horrible. The good guys who are fighting for freedom look like complete idiots when they stop fighting just cuz Cap says so. Cap goes back on what he's been saying the whole time which is 100% correct. And none of the characters on the other side actually learn a lesson or punished for the crap that they're doing and at least one of them know it's wrong. I haven't read FF but I'm supposed to believe that Sue and Johnny just go back to Reed and are all like "Cap stopped fighting so I'm not mad at you" wtf? Seriously? She has this huge moment of changing sides and seeing that what Tony and Reed were doing is wrong and she just stands down cuz Cap says so?

The entire build up is badly done. There is no turning point and there is no climax where "we paid a huge price, but we learned a lesson" and they just leave Spider-Man and several other characters just hanging out there and without saying a word to it other than "they're rebels"

And what's bad is up until the final page of this crap I was like they're going to have an epic turn around where they show that the every day person are heroes and need to stand against bad laws or Iron Man's side see that they've employed villains and this **** has gone far enough, resolving that they will now fight together against that act and have it over turned... but no they just have cap drop his shield and come to the realization that fighting a war and standing for your principles in the face of opposition is wrong...despite that being the opposite of what he said v.v

This leaves me with the Back in Black stuff to read and I'm not I want to... This hasn't been a good read, it wasn't what was advertised, and it sure as **** isn't something that the incompetent writers of SM and CW could ever write well after writing themselves into such a lousy corner.

And then I think...well at least One More Day fixed all this nonsense... I can forgive that whole MJ thing and the bad writing there. At least they were smart enough to see what trash they were putting out there...

But then I read that OMD was in the works for 2 years... and I look to check... and yup, "The Other" is exactly start 2 years before OMD which seems to me, without reading the comic before then that Civil War and all this other crap... they tried to destroy the Marvel Universe on purpose... So they could say "Hey look it was better than that crap before hand" but then I haven't read Spidey or Marvel before that arc much... (I read a few issues here and there) so I'm left with the overwhelming impression that Marvel comics are written by some of the most incompetent writers ever or writers/editors purposefully messing it up to promote themselves later on to have their crap ideas stick...

I've read over 4000 issues of DC comics and there has been some bad stuff in there but largely it is well done and nothing in there is as much sustained crap as what I've just read and it's one of my favorite characters in Marvel so... yeah I don't think I'll think about reading regular marvel for another decade after that.



On the other hand the mini-series of Civil War Front Line has been fabulous and I'd recommend it to anyone, though I'm not finished read it all myself each issue has been good and it's existence has pointed me to a good name Paul Jenkins whom I've never heard of before. So at least there is that one good thing that has come of reading this other wise crap fest of a comic universe.

I hear a bunch cry babies...

"I want it all to be mine!" is one thing i hear in all that

another thing I hear is

"I don't want to writer Dick and Damian. I want to write Bruce and Dick!"

along with...

"I don't want to write character how they've grown to be. I want it to be my way!"

what a bunch of blowhards.

Create new characters, now stories, new titles and have it your way. Don't **** with everyone else's stuff just because the only way your **** sells is if it has a known brand on it.

An hour of absolute boredom followed by about 30 minutes of get to the splosions already... followed by about 40 minutes of great action.

It was better than the 2nd movie...

There was a number of plot holes that i've forgotten in the last 30 minutes since getting through it and some things like why do you need a space bridge if you can fly to earth while that damaged? Why haven't you figured out that the Decepticons have been on modern earth for 60+ years? and Why are you announcing the alliance with top secret alien machines noone knew about is over? The proper reaction when that was put on the tv would have been "There are aliens and we have an alliance with them?! When did this happen!?"

It was easier to tell characters apart this round too due to the colors and that there were large surfaces with those colors on them on a number of the characters...

Better ending would have been that the Autobots knew about this attack and launch themselves off cybertron when it gets brought over just a little, land and start destroying the decepticons and this would have worked even better with them not having to turn the device back on, making the stupid human character less dumb v.v

I think Leonid Elenin is a code word. It's obviously you separate the word up like so

Leon ID ELE NIN

it's trying to tell us to identify the Kings of Leon and help ELE international to set up their concert with Nine Inch Nails

It's obvious!

It's supposed to be from what I've heard in various places but i don't have a concrete source for that. It does seem though that is what they were going for...

You could theoretically go over all the issues and pick up all the time line information, but it's been something like 9 months as far as i can remember the last time caption before ultimatum and then 6 months after that is where Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man takes place.

The series starts with him as a sophomore at Midtown High and 15 and ends with him as Junior just celebrating his 16th birthday

If we follow the time captions the birthday is impossible while if we follow the birthday the time captions are impossible.

Also, I do believe in one comic it i mentioned that it is his birthday and because it wasn't an important element i simply forgot it...

So we are left with Peter having 2 birthdays in the course of 2 years and yet somehow at the end is 16.

In my opinion is that someone made a mistake, Bendis, and he's 17, not 16, by the end of the run.

Freshman year = 14-15
Sophmore year = 15-16 Peter Becomes Spider-Man
Junior year = 16-17 Peter dies at age 17
Senior year = 17-18

This makes sense with how it was written and Bendis simply couldn't keep anything straight in his writing post Ultimatum due to the 6 month shift

Ultimate Spider-Man's story is supposed to be about 2 years long.
He's 15 years old at the beginning of the series
At the end he's celebrating his 16th birthday...
The problem with that is that the story is obviously longer than that.
So we'll say that that was his 17th birthday

In between Ultimatum and relaunch was 6 months.

As far as Peter Clones or derivatives right now...

Gwen Stacy was killed by Carnage and then Carnage decided to use her as a template rather than Peter. When Eddie came back and the whole battle took place Gwen was separated from Carnage to fuse with Eddie... Eddie seems to be now a Venom/Carnage non-solid character...

Eddie Brock is technically a merge of Peter, Eddie, Richard Parker, Gwen Stacy, and like 3 other people genetically. Peter's DNA and Eddie's probably override all the others.

The Spider is in North Korea, i think, who is a Peter/Prof Xavier clone and will likely be dead or declared a villain before long

Scorpion escaped from the Fantastic 4 isolation stasis chamber thing and we haven't heard anything from him and we don't know how stable he is.

Jessica Drew, a female clone of Peter Parker, that runs as Spider-Woman right now

There is a possibility of them cloning more pretty easily...

As far as who could take his place...They just need...
Super Strength
Super Flexibility
Wall Sticking ability
Some sort of Spider Sense

The top 2 are fairly common...
The 3rd is very uncommon, but can be replicated by a suit
The 4th can be replicated by super senses or by a suit
The webs... it's a matter of how he gets the web shooters and the formula for the web fluid... not that hard to get considering the shooters are easy to makes once you see them while the fluid formula once you know about Peter you could likely find the formula on a chalkboard or his PC, which denotes some sort of hacking ability. Or he could get the formula from The Ultimates or one of the Clones... which denotes a connection of some sort.

So...

So here's the problem

We know where Elenin is and we were able to track i...
Then he says Elenin changed directions and based on this information doesn't line up.

When he talks about alignments and the simulation he mentions that the plane of Elenin changes which means this alignment doesn't happen AND even if it were there the simulation disagrees with saying that the alignment happens when he says it does.

But assuming he's correct on the above he's saying that there is an object that will be siphoning off solar mass from the sun in our direction and ignores that that may be a problem... says that our north pole will be repelled by this object but doesn't say he thinks it will move which it would with that type of influence ... and worries that the "star" is trying to rip earth out of orbit around Sol yet says we're going to have a rough summer... ummm if that were the case we're dead and the planet would be too whether it succeeds or not and it would have done it previously.

If anything he said is true then the Earth would have been gone with it's first pass.



Also if it were a black hole we'd have seen hugely different effects already.

it occurred to me that throughout Ultimate Spider-Man everyone pokes fun at Spider-Man's costume and when I think about it... i consider it one of the better costumes out there yet for some people everyone wants to change it... even if those changes are "better" or as good in some senses I don't know why everyone needs to change his costume... Funny thing Spider-Man does have a few costumes that are awesome looking like Iron Spider and the Symbiote Suit, but i don't see what's wrong with it and I feel it is Iconic so why change it?

Same thing applies to Superman and Wonder Woman who's suit are Iconic, but we've seen them try all black, an electrical design, and now this new armored suit with Superman and all kinds of crazy stuff with Wonder Woman...

So
What costumes do you consider Iconic?
and
What do you feel about them changing Iconic suits?

Wow just caught up with Ultimate Avengers vs New Ultimates... they're even more d-baggy. Not only do they just leave Spidey there, there is a full scale rescue thing that happens there and they just leave him to die... and they just go chill while those 6 prisoners kill Spidey...

There has to be a major backlash that happens in canon if Spidey stays dead.

ps... is it wrong that I'm considering reading all the Marvel Ultimate Universe books because it is less than 400 issues which is like less 10% of what I read to catch up for the Bat-family...

Just finished all 160 issue of Ultimate Spider-Man...

I gotta say the whole "I'm Peter Parker" reveal thing was worthless with...

Norman Osborn
Harry Osborn
MJ
Gwen Stacy
The X-Men
The fantastic Four
SHIELD
The Ultimates
His Principle
Kong
JJ Jameson
DareDevil
Dr Octopus
Ben Reilly
Curt Conners
Aunt May
Shocker
Chameleon
Eddie Brock
Nova
Kingpin
The FBI
The CIA
Felicia Hardy

All knowing his secret identity

The death was also undercut by his less epic in terms in how he went out but more so...so very much so more epic... in terms of world scale and with Requiem having that awesome JJ turn of character.

I also didn't like the jump after Requiem because we have no clue really what happened in the interim which could have been great stories with him coming back and apparently there was a break up randomly between Peter and MJ after they said they wanted to marry each other.

I also think the whole Ultimates/Avengers thing is lame, though i haven't read that yet. I mean come on. are you seriously try to tell me that both the Avengers and Ultimates wouldn't realize how severe the situation was, especially for Spider-Man and just leave him like that to continue with their BS? Or even without the Spider-Man aspect... they know those guys are essentially on the same side so they would have more likely realized to go after the escaped prisoners.

Also, the whole "we're gonna train you to be a good hero" ******** that Cpt. America and Carol Danvers pulls in the previous arc shows them as hypocrites in the last arc. And I don't like that especially after showing the respect that Stark and Thor at least had for him.

The whole last 27 issues were down on quality and seemed like it was all editorial mandate with too many loose ends hanging about. The first 133 issues all were excellent...where they weren't trying to reweave old stories in a new way... and I have to think that after Requiem there was/is too much editorial interference...

That being said... I'm conflicted... The Requiem ending is more or less satisfying while the 160 ending is not and all full of meh... at the same time Aunt May ROCKS and we would not have gotten that had those 27 issues not happened. They should make a new series... something like Aunt May's house of super orphans.

I also have to point out that I don't buy Spidey's death, nor hobgoblin's for that matter. We're to believe that Osborn used the same stuff on himself in a less stable form that would have given him less of a regen ability and we see him stabbed through the back with an iron girder, shot hundreds of times, and various other wounds less severe or more than a gun shot to the abdomen and we're supposed to believe the more adaptive, more regenerative one dies while the less one keeps coming back? I don't think so.

I'm saying that Captain America had his run. Then when the new set of heroes came along they brought him back but they didn't focus on him as the flagship.

Where as Superman has clearly had his run and instead of letting him become the respected character he should be in the background and focus on other characters they continuously cut other characters' wings who could really be the next big thing and instead try to "rejuvinate" the man of steel by making him younger, less relevant, and toss everything people actually care about him.

Also I wouldn't consider him the flagship of DC. That would be Batman. He's more interesting and just about everything in the DCU revolves around him in someway...and he has more books which feature him. Also because there can be only one flagship.

I'm not saying, put him out to pasture, but why not put him in a role more akin to Captain America which would make the character fresher and in some ways more relevant to both the real world and the comic world.

Not really,
The first is hard to see and is pointing up before something is happening and there isn't enough of a reaction.
The second is just crap super imposed
The third is, i dunno what that is, but UFO, at least extraterrestrial space craft, do not leak like that and if it was and it did something is likely massively wrong onboard and it would have most likely crashed.

Sorry, just not anything worthwhile imo.

As I was reading through Ultimate Spider-Man it struck me that Captain America used to be the face of Marvel at some point. He used to be their go to man and even now, in canon, he's still considered an authoritative figure to some degree, but for the most part he has taken a back seat because Spider-Man came into his own and was allowed to flourish...

On the other hand we have Superman and I seem to see many people saying he is stale and boring. And not only is he stale and boring DC continuously tries to right him into the present and tried to make him the center piece of their universe when he just isn't... and this has caused, in my opinion, the lose of allowing other younger creations to flourish and become big stars and get DC the money they want...

Do you think that DC should take a page from Marvel and have Superman take a more Captain America-esque role, and maybe even have Batman take a more Nick Fury role? and try to let those character that have potential shine?