Samuel_Tow

And herein lies the problem. In order for a character in a story to have a meaningful character arc, something about that character must prove central or at least crucial to the outcome of that arc. Even in stories where an everyman falls over backwards into super powers (see: Spider-Man), how the story progresses from there must still be shaped, at least in large part, by how the everyman's personality influences the super being that results from this. When you create a story in which you can swap the characters around in their roles and not change terribly much about it, you've essentially made a bad story because you're both not utilising the characters to their potential and you're actually not making a very involved story.

I've always maintained that a good story is a puzzle that clicks into place, with each character and each event representing a separate piece. In essence, this puzzle gets put together as the story progresses, it gets arranged in large chunks throughout its run time, until you finally start seeing how the major pieces fit together towards the end. A good climax will show you how easily things could have gone otherwise and how important people's onscreen actions and reactions were to the eventual outcome. You want people invested in what's going on thus you want actions to be meaningful, and they can't be meaningful when you can role-swap characters around and not change that much.

That too. When BABs and his crew first worked on power customization, the workload was so great that they had to pick their battles. It is for this reason - he explained - weapon sets were not given custom effects: They already had customization options and so resources were spent elsewhere. What BABs explained back then was that this being only the first step of power customization, this would probably be done for weapons at some later point.

Well, as far as I'm concerned, we're overdue. Weapon effects are hardly very graphics-intensive, consisting mostly of swing arcs and a few larger particle effects. Axe, Sword, Mace and Katana only really have one or two special powers each, Assault Rifle is mostly muzzle flashes and fire effects that have already been customized for the various fire sets, Archery needs a selection of arrows and so on. I can see Dual Pistols presenting a problem since the effects of the powers change based on the status of Swap Ammo so I'm willing to give this one a pass (and even then I can see customizing at least basic non-swapped per power shots and then swapped shots whole-sale), but the rest really ought to be done.

I guess at this point I'm just happy we're getting pool customization so I can hold out for this, but I also fear that once this round of customization is done, we may never see another ever again, at the rate this studio is moving on power customization issues. I don't mean to sound ungrateful - I'm throwing a party when pool customization comes out. I'm just worried, is all.

Honestly, I'm not trying to argue for or against Goodwin so much as I feel bringing Hitler up is sort of like bringing out a loaded gun. You may only mean to show how it works, but the danger is still there. I prefer to not bring these sorts of tragedies up because despite our desensitisation to them, they're still emotionally charged and that tends to detract from the actual point made. All of a sudden we're discussing WW2 history instead of City of Heroes and it kind of goes sideways from there. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, just something I wouldn't do unless either Hitler himself was specifically relevant or something specific to the Nazi themselves were the subject matter.

And considering your clarification, my above "unless" actually seems to be the case. To me, invoking Hitler as a historic person whose own life parallels that of Tyrant seems like a legitimate call, as does bringing up the history of the Third Reich to bring parallels between that and the history of Praetoria. To be honest, despite being fairly well-versed in WW2 history, I myself hadn't really made the connection. I'm not entirely sure the person who wrote Tyrant's life story was, either, but you're right that the similarities are uncanny. Perhaps the fate of Hitler's Germany has been cemented in popular culture as such a strong lesson of the folly of the Nazi way that people are unintentionally and unconsciously producing stories like it when they reach for the folly of an aggressive, warmongering totalitarian state.

That's actually a pretty good observation, thank you.

I do have one comment to make, though, and I can't source this information since it comes from what I've heard about the stories in iTrials that I haven't done. SPOILERS to follow, so proceed with caution.

While it seems like Emperor Cole didn't need to invade Primal Earth for strategic reasons and did so out of irrational ideology, I'm told that's not the case. What I'm told is Cole never actually defeated the Hamidon, and instead made a deal with it - keep people in line and they can leave. Let them run about and destroy nature and the Hamidon will kill them all. When people from Primal Earth start showing up, it's the Hamidon who forces Cole's hand into invasion, demanding the subjucation of the Primal People as well as those in Praetoria, hence pushing Cole into a war he himself never wanted.

As I said - I don't have a source for this and there's a wide margin of error where I could have read wrong, interpreted wrong or just plain remembered wrong. If you can source this through the Wiki or through experience from Trials or if anyone can correct me, I'd appreciate it. However, per chance I'm right, this would make Cole less of an evil character and more of a tragic one, somewhat straddling the line of being put in charge of humanity for its protection and yet firmly believing he was doing the right thing. Then again, Praetorian morality has flip-flopped so many times I don't know where we are right now.

"Fix all things" is like trying to unscramble an egg - you can say it, but you can't do it. I'd call the Issue, instead, "fix [many] thing." And considering this is a "fix many things" Issue, it stands to reason that people would point out more things to fix. This isn't a sign of misunderstanding or entitlement, it's a sign of the subject being raised. A public discussions forum does what its name suggests and sees people discuss a topic brought up irrespective of the nature in which it was brought up.

Will this happen? Probably not. Dun mean we shouldn't keep it on the radar, though.

I can verify this from personal experience. Not the Terra Volta thing, though - I've run that thing, what... Three times total? But I remember my own builds and my own understanding of the game back in the pre-I1 days. I knew I could slot more than one enhancement of the same type in the same power, but I was convinced that Build Up was the same as a red inspiration, I didn't think I'd ever need Practised Brawler because... Well, I'd just come out of Diablo 2, and I never saw stuns and holds there, so I didn't think there would be any here. Took me fighting through several Pariahs in my Cape mission in I2 months later that I realised what had been happening to me when I fought the Lost and why I hated their bosses so much. I kept putting to-hit buff enhancements in my Build Up because I thought that mattered and it really didn't. I kept skipping status effects because... Meh, who needs those when I can take more attacks? I kept running out of endurance for reasons I don't even remember any more, I ran Sprint while fighting because I didn't know it had a cost...

OK, granted, a LOT of this was before Combat Attributes and Real Numbers when I still believed Jack Emmert's ridiculous idea that "you don't need stats" so all I knew was my powers did "moderate" damage and had a "short" recharge. But then, you have to remember that while real numbers help ME now, to a new player that's still the kind of stuff you don't understand right away when starting a game, and I doubt too many even know to use them.

I tend to find that invoking the Nazi in socio-political debates (including such about a fictional world) generally misses the point. We all know that the Nazi are evil, yes, but we tend to turn over two pages at once and not really consider WHY they're evil. It's easy enough to infer that they're evil, therefore everything they're involved must be evil, too, but that's not entirely true, or at least not entirely accurate. When you bring up the evils of WW2, most of what that implies is the Holocaust and the other horrors of war, which honestly have no place in this game as far as I'm concerned. They're evil, yes, but the kind of evil I'd rather not have to deal with.

But when you're trying to discuss Tyrant, comparing him to Hitler and his state to the Nazi is missing the point and actually simplifying a rather much more complex point. If a comparison must be drawn, then I'd rather draw one between Praetoria and a fascist state. Right out of Wikipedia:

We can argue about the morality of fascism, and there is some leeway to argue, as certain Civilization games have used that as a legitimate national policy, but I feel the larger point here is how well this matches the world of Praetoria. You can, for instance, quote the Rogue Isles as a nation of evil, and it kind of is, but it represents a very different kind of social structure, one based more around feudalism if anything, and is not at all similar to Praetoria. Bot consider how good of an example Praetoria is of a textbook fascist state not too dissimilar from that of, say, Starship Troopers. While you CAN make a parallel between Praetoria and the Nazi, it's really not the connection most people infer when the Nazi are brought up. What people infer is a connection of violence and murder, whereas what's similar here is the connection of social structure, instead. We cannot forget that Nazi Germany was, at the end of the day, a fascist state not too dissimilar from fascist Italy.

That's the connection and I believe the intent of the comparison, but it's also a connection that gets lost in the shuffle when you drop the bombshell that is the Nazi. Goodwin's Law, to my eyes, is more to point out that bringing up Hitler and the Nazi in a normally unrelated discussion is akin to firing a shotgun to a projector board to point to a PowerPoint presentation item. Yes, you've accurately pointed to the item, but your audience is a bit too shocked at you firing a shotgun at a meeting to see what you pointed at. It's also largely pointless in that it's a roundabout way to say something that, ultimately, doesn't need bringing up the Nazi to actually say. In fact, the Nazi have no real relevance except to add shock value which, ironically enough, ends up hurting more than it helps as it detracts from the actual point.

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All of the idle philosophical ramblings aside, I actually have to applaud Praetoria's 1-20 game for pulling off a pretty faithful, pretty creative depiction of a functional fascist state, and for making it about as sympathetic and morally ambiguous as you can make a totalitarian military dictatorship. It's a pity 20+ Praetoria pretty much discards this and descends into a sort of goatee evil parallel universe full of scenery-chewing ********.

Wow, OK, that I did not know. I'm right there with you in insisting Jack had disagreeable notions of fun (I don't think they were unreasonable, just not right for this game), but at the same time the man did a pretty good job keeping canon in check. Even the ugly mess that was the Council-to-Column switch still ended up making SOME degree of sense after a few revisions. That's not who I was referring to, though.

A while ago, I was told that Rick Dakan, the Cryptic Studios lead designer before Jack Emmert, was working with a writer whose name escapes me, who was said to be responsible for a LOT of the early game history. Things like the Rikti war, Oranbega, the 5th Column and so forth. Now, I can't say how much of this I'm misremembering and how much I was plainly mislead on, but I always wanted to remember that guy's name so I can quote him, and I just never did.

To self-advertise a little, the reason I need complete quiet and extreme concentration when I type is because I generally keep the entirety of the body of text I've written in my head. Not perfectly, not like I have photo memory, but if I use a word a few times, I start to notice it, and if I repeat myself, I notice that, as well. It makes the forums a lot more labour-intensive than you'd think.

Back to the game's writing: It's not just that, actually. Something I noticed with a lot of earlier writing is the story really likes to rely on vaguaries used to skip over places where the narrative would otherwise give context. Even in Night Ward, people spent a lot of time worrying about vague problems like "but it's really dangerous out there" to describe the world outside the "Lighted Paths." When there's danger, it's rarely specific, in the sense that we rarely get good orientation who's in danger of doing what to whom and why. And there is no worse offender in this than Roy Cooling, whose entire arc revolves around "the tech" with never any real grounding as to what "the tech" is. I had a whole thread devoted to figuring this out and the result people came up with was "It's tech! You're over-thinking it!"

I do agree with you, though, that a lot of the in-game text bears the mark of text written and never read back after that. I know this, because, as you can tell from my posts - when I write something and never proof-read it, it comes off badly written, too. That's why I insist on having an editor - some kind of third party who'll be seeing this with a fresh set of eyes and asking "Wait, why did this happen?" "What does that mean?" "Why do both Mr. G and Tami Baker have such similar speech quirks?" and that sort of thing. Such a person would also be much more likely to pick out basic text errors like spelling, grammar and redundancies just because he or she would bring a fresh set of eyes.

And I do agree it'd be a good position to fill with a low-paid volunteer just as an extra layer of protection from someone who isn't on a tight schedule with a dozen other things.

Oh, I didn't mean to say that old missions were A-OK. They are for me, but I recognise the problems.

No, what I meant to say that, on a purely story level, the old missions have a lot more backing them up and making me care than the newer ones. And that's not for lack of trying on the part of our current writers, so much as it's for a lack of background as they move from one arc to the next without giving them too much context and without building a world around them. I don't want to say that Rick Dakan was a great writer or anything, but what the man and his crew did was spend a lot of time writing a world BEFORE they set a game in it, and eight years later we're still replete with story seeds from way back then. Whether the game built around those stories was good or not (I thought it was) isn't really the point, so much as that grounding and backstory just isn't there for the newer stuff.

Consider Praetoria, for example. How much of its backstory do we really know? We know the stuff with Cole and the Hamidon, but that's about as far back as it goes. What about "a land called America?" What about the years before the Hamidon? What about stories from the war? What about the place that is Praetoria City before it was this? Did they build over an existing city or start from scratch? What about religions of this great land? What about ancient civilizations? What about aliens? What about the US and the USSR and the cold war? Did any of that happen on Praetorian Earth? We don't know, because no-one really know, even at the studio. At the very least that's how it comes off.

Oh, sure, we've gotten bits and pieces here and there like the Eternal Prison and Lamashtu, like the fate of the Midnight Club, like what's in the Trials, but it's all bits and pieces as if made up on the spot, rather than derived from the background lore of an existing world. And that's a problem.

It honestly feels like the original City of Heroes fictional universe had an actual, professional writer involved in it at some point. I remember hearing about someone who did most of the writing for Rick Dakan, but I don't remember names. Regardless, if there WAS a writer, he or she left before the game launched in 2004, and the game hasn't had an actual writer involved since. FOR SURE it didn't have one when coming up with Praetorian Earth's makeover because for as much as we praised the gameplay, that place doesn't have any more depth than it did back when Portal Corps first showed up in Issue 1. It has more content, yes, but there's nothing beyond the content already in the game. For as much as I bash our writers... Maybe they really aren't writers to begin with. Maybe they really are just mission designers doubling up as story writers when they get a minute free here and there.

And that would just be hugely disappointing. It'd be like making an animated series and losing your sole animator between season 1 and 2, forcing the storyboard artist fill in with what he knows about Flash animation. He may be very good at it, but you still lack an actual animator.

To be fair, I don't feel confident quoting numbers at this time. In fact, the overwhelming majority of responses against exclusivity here surprise me, just because there's usually a much higher percentage of people who insist on their exclusive items staying exclusive. The shift in opinion in this thread seems like an appealing proposition to draw conclusions over, but it's just too aberrant from my own personal experience that I'd actually like to give the thread more time to develop so more people have a chance to chime in. I can't imagine we've lost this many people who'd otherwise argue for exclusivity.

And again, Tex has a point - we probably shouldn't be arguing for absolute unlocking of everything. Even though I disagree with the concept of exclusive software just on a principle level, I keep thinking we ought to draw the line somewhere short of the other end. Let's be fair and say that people did indeed pay quite a bit of money for a purported "collector's edition" and focus on the game moving forward without going AAALL the way back. If we were making an official request, I'd feel comfortable requesting everything AFTER the old DVD Edition.

And another thing: Prestige Power Slide. This is the only power we have that's compatible with travel powers and yet alters the animation with which we run. In order to stop people from seeing it as more valuable than it is, we need to make it non-unique. My suggestion is to institute an alternative of it that has NO stats and NO vfx, but alters the running animation in the same way, then sell that in the Paragon Market. This way, Prestige Power Slide will still be unique in general, having a non-replicable visual effect and being a replacement sprint, while the rest of the people will still get access to a base-run-animation-altering power at the same time.

That seems... Excessive. Maybe you don't post too often (I neglected to check your post count), but I know if I tried to respond to everyone who responded to me I'd be up to my neck in work. Seriously, I'm not being difficult here. If you can manage it, then kudos to you, but this seems like a daunting task, and I suspect it might turn the forums into work. As far as far as responding to me in the future - while I appreciate a response, please don't feel obligated to. The last thing I want to do is waste other people's time arguing on the forums. And I mean that.

And had you stuck to that argument instead of arguing about people being greedy or entitled or "whining," then we'd have moved forward with it. I don't want personal quarrels on the forums, believe me, so if we can stick to arguing a specific point and not trying to say who has the right to argue it and whose character reflects what flaws for arguing which point, it'd go much more smoothly.

When it comes to collector's editions, yes, the examples aren't good. I wasn't giving them as examples of collector's editions specifically, however, but rather as examples of "exclusive" items. Perhaps not exclusive to out-of-game purchases, but exclusive to specific unlocks or specific player account status levels. My point is that they were, in various ways, locked and are no longer. Well, technically they're still locked - behind money - but if we are to accept the "free to play," or rather "pay to have," mentality of the Market, then they are "available."

I'm not sure what you're saying here. As these were marketed at least to the best of my understanding, those were to be exclusive to people who pre-purchased from those vendors precisely for the purpose of showing status, as a token to people's faith. I get that that's not precisely a collector's edition, but it's still an edition that includes items which come with the promise that they WILL NOT be available to people who DID NOT purchase those special editions. Now, I don't agree with that practice, either, but that's what was presented to me at the time, and this is a decision the studio went back on.

Not only could I not make the argument that levels are a sign of status (even if they can be interpreted as such), but I can actually argue that they are a sign of something else entirely. Bare with me here.

There is a distinct difference between gameplay and cosmetics in any game, but most of all in MMORPGs. Let's assume for a moment that we want to make the game into some kind of impossible Mecca of complete customization where a player can have anything he dreams up. Even in this Mecca, characters will still have different levels of power because the growth of character power is the cornerstone of at the very least any traditional RPG's gameplay. In order for an RPG to function even absent of any cosmetics, it needs to have some form of character progression to where a character is unable to solve some situations at an earlier stage but becomes able to solve them later through a non-scripted, non-artificial overcoming of some limitation. Not only is this an unavoidable part of an RPG, it's also a large part of what makes it fun to play. We need progression of some form.

Herein lies the difference between gameplay and cosmetics when it comes to status. Gameplay advantages CAN be interpreted as status symbols, but the significance of this isn't what you interpret it as. This kind of advantage is a cornerstone part of the game, thus this status denotes not a superior player, but simply a player who has advanced farther into the game. This is not at all dissimilar from having seen, say, Lord of the Rings: Return of the King and trying to brag about it to someone who's only seen the Fellowship of the Ring and the Two Towers. Yes, you are farther ahead, but this is not an advantage to brag about, it is a natural part of watching a movie trilogy unless you happen to coordinate your moviegoing with another person specifically. Yes, some people will try to lord their gameplay advantage as a status symbol, such as "Ha! I can solo pylons in 10 seconds!" to which you can simply reply "That's a very short strip show, mate." Because - and here's the kicker - it doesn't matter.

City of Heroes is a game that doesn't exactly require great character power to progress through, thus excess character power is rarely a meaningful status symbol. It can be if excessive powere were your goal, but there's nothing stopping you from reaching it. Copy the other person's build and you're about three quarters of the way there. Sure, gathering the components might take a while, but that's what the game's about - progressing a character. At the end of the day, all a person lording his status is saying to you is "I have played more than you!" which can only ever been a good thing, because it means there's a lot more game left to play before it's over. And I mean that - in a good game, having more of it to go through is a good thing.

Now contrast this with cosmetics. First of all, there is no clear hierarchy of the "quality" of cosmetic items. Your instinct might (MIGHT) be to suggest that newer pieces with better textures and a higher polygon count might be "better" because they're of a higher visual quality, but that's not necessarily true. Better graphics don't necessarily make something look better. They simply give the artist better tools of expression, but it's up to the artist to deliver. Moreover, an artist saddled with working with TOO MUCH detail can still produce works of a lesser quality than one working with simpler designs. There's a reason old 2D spirte-based games age so much slower than 3D games of the time. Half-Life is now an ugly polygonised mess while going as far back as Marvel vs. Capcom gives you a game that's low-res, but still looks and feels damn good.

It's not entirely true that you can't grade cosmetics. The "general public" you can't, because there's no generally accepted scale of best to worst costume piece. However, YOU - you, Texarkana - still can, because that's a matter of taste and I'm sure you have pieces you like more than others. The trouble is that when you grade them from best to worst and compare that list to how I've arranged them, I can bet dollars to doughnuts that they won't match. And therein lies the problem - everybody's objective view of what's "better" is different, thus the pressing need to avoid putting artificial weight on costume pieces by trying to make some artificially more valuable than others. The more "equal" all cosmetics are, the greater each individual player's choice is.

Take Ascension, for example. A couple of years ago, Matt Miller put his foot in his mouth by saying that the Ascension set was so good that enabling it for characters lower than level 50 would be "an insult to the art team. Now look at Ascension and tell me what's so good about it that me using it would insult the people who made them. Is it that they have a higher polygon count? Is it that they look like standard-issue Fantasy armour? Is it that they have inbuilt auras? Because all of that stuff has been present in other sets that aren't level-locked to 50. But Matt Miller said the set is "better," and so it was essentially taken out of circulation. Many people simply don't like it and many who do like it want it for characters that aren't level 50. A number of people have, since, used it on costumes that have been drastically out of place with Ascension pieces put on them, as well. As a result, this artificial exclusivity of a costume set has more or less ruined it in my eyes and you know what? I barely see people use it these days. Maybe it's just my luck, but it seems to me that wanting to make Ascension exclusive to Incarnates as a representation of their status was a massive miscalculation.

Let's look at the "why" if it for just a second before I move on. Why is Ascension as an Incarnate status symbol a bad idea? Because... Is that what an "Incarnate" is supposed to look like? Why? Madamme Bellarose doesn't look like that. Hero One doesn't look like that. The Statesman doesn't look like that. Lord Recluse... OK, I'll give you that one. But the idea that "an Incarnate" had a specific look was the mistake that nearly tanked the entire lore behind the Well of the Furies. The attempt to turn our characters into their vision of what a god should be was the mistake, and the exclusivity of the Ascension pieces - born of that mistake - is what ultimately ruined the set. And to be quite honest... It's not a bad set if you have the character for it, which is all the more disappointing.

That's not what I said, though. Or rather, it doesn't mean what you infer that to mean. No, I don't want other people to be making horrible costume. Yes, I'm using my own judgement to determine what a "horrible costume" constitutes. But that doesn't mean I want to control what people wear, I'm merely pointing out a flaw in the system which incites people to take decisions based on values OTHER than what looks good to them. That's the whole problem. I've actually spoken with a number of people who put a cape on their character exactly because they unlocked the think, so they felt like they should, even if they themselves admitted to me they weren't too happy with the look. Mind you, my sample size isn't large, but at the very least it proves that this notion exists.

Again, I'm not trying to control other people. I'm trying to extract from the game the factors which try to shape how other people express themselves. I want to take away the artificial weights from the various costume pieces such that a person's only driving priority is making something that looks good. What "looks good" is, obviously, up to the person to define and if that person chooses only what looks good and STILL comes up with something hideous... Well, that's the nature of taste. However, I still want to take out the artificial inflation of the value of costume pieces.

Looks in this game are not loot, and they shouldn't be treated like it. What a costume piece "cost you" should never factor into how much you want to use it on a character.

Again, that's not what I said. I'm not trying to control what people do. I'm trying to control the artificial values the game's structure puts on costume pieces. I want to ensure that no costume pieces are made to appear more "important" just because of how they're obtained. If all pieces are equal in value, then what a person chooses is that much more reflective of that person's actual personal expression.

And this does get into the subject of personal expression and "status," as well. I never meant to say that I'm against status in general, merely that I'm against status acquired by non-representative means. What I mean by this is I don't want people to buy their way into status or luck their way into status. I don't want people to have status because of what they own. I want status to represent a person's actions in the actual game, or possibly out of the game in terms of community interaction. A person with a great costume, a person with a great story, a person who helps other... Hell, even a person with a great build if he's the one that came up with it. I want status to mean that this has actually done something remarkable, not that he owns something artificially limited.

I actually quite like status as a general concept. It tells me who the people are I want to look at and draw inspiration from and who the people are I want to try and inspire. It doesn't have to be a rigid power structure and it doesn't have to be in my face, but I do want to know who's good at what. And again, when I say I want to inspire people, that doesn't mean I want to show off. Far from it - if I've found an idea that I think is great, I just want to share it with people and maybe they'll think it's great, too, and use it. Really, everybody wins that way.

You present me as wanting to control people, when the exact opposite is true. I want to put as much control as I can in the hands of the player without liming their toolset or giving them cues as to what's good before they have time to judge for themselves.

Well, you're wrong. My language is harsh, but the logic jump between harsh language and character assassination is a big one, not to mention a very unfair one. I find you to be stubborn, insulting (whether that was your intent or not) and dismissive, but none of that has anything to do with the merit of exclusivity. I'm not sure how you're reasoning that this assessment extends over to other people who share your opinion when not a single one has spoken up in this thread or been addressed in a similar way, however. You are, in effect, making a self-fulfilling prophecy. You posted to insult another poster with accusations of whining and now you're crying foul when others have done this to you. Yeah, that kind of comes with the territory. I'm trying to keep a civil tone, but look at what I have to work with.

I'm TRYING to stick to discussing the topic, but you keep rolling character assassination into it and using it as an argument. Considering I have to then untangle that ball, I kind of have to address it whether I want to or not, and I can't really state that you're intentionally insulting my intelligence without saying you're insulting, can I? Again - if you'd simply accept to stop with the character assassination and stick to the topic, then I wouldn't have any reason to keep talking about it, will I?

Which is funny, considering so many of us weren't born in America and have never been there, nor are we even that keenly aware of that particular cultural phenomenon. And regardless of the above - you're clearly using it as a derogatory term. All this does is remind me of Will Smith as Jim West explaining to the lynch mob why calling them "rednecks" was actually a compliment so they don't hang him: "But let's break down that word redneck. First word, red - colour of passion, fire, power. Second word - neck. Neck... All right, I can't think of anything for neck right now."

Somewhat sideways of the point, you can call somebody a "nice, kind person" and wish "nothing but the best" on him and still make that into an insult given the right context. And your context, I'm sorry to say, was one of using a term to insult another poster for holding an opinion different from your own. And I'd be OK with it, we all have moments like that, were you not continuously trying to justify it.

Which I didn't do, but supposing I did - how? A straw man is the act of attributing an easily-refutable argument to another person that this person never actually made and then refuting it, which you proceed to use as proof that the other person is wrong. That's a good few of my paragraphs here start with "That's not what I said." When did I attribute to you an argument that I proceeded to bash and prove you're wrong? When did I indeed prove you're wrong in regard to anything I've brought up? When did I even discuss you being wrong or right when I have repeatedly stated that IT IS MY BELIEF that what I described is how the game should work?

Unless this involves loss of service or loss of virtual goods, I don't agree. I'm sure that where you will disagree will be that you consider exclusivity itself part of the service and that losing it is tantamount to denial of service. I'm sure you can put it better than I can, though, but I'm also sure we simply won't see eye-to-eye on the matter. Yes, I said before that I'm willing to accept with a grandfather exception, but that doesn't mean I'm willing to agree with it. I accept this as a necessary evil - and before you correct me, that's just a regular expression. I don't agree that the right decision is for this to be done, but I recognise that what I see as the right decision can't always be made.

Again, I'm willing to give you specific case, but I'm not willing to agree with you on it. Luckily, all we need is a workable solution even if it doesn't stem from ideological agreement.

And again - the subjects we're discussing are relevant to the thread. If we can keep the personal jabs to a minimum, there's more to be said on these subjects and I intend to say it whether you want to participate or not. If you want to make it a personal problem, feel free to take it to PMs, but I'll only move that side of it to PM exchanges. I intend to keep talking about exclusivity, status, expression and cosmetics.

*edit*
Took out the tags from my quotes to combat my post's erratic spacing.

I get what you're saying, but consider for a moment the literal meaning for what you're saying and you'll realise that's actually the problem behind a lot of newer story arcs. Imagine what a story would represent if it tried to use EVERY available gameplay asset. Go ahead, take a minute and imagine it. No think back to Dr. Graves and Twinshot. Does your imagination match those? Because it should

I completely agree with you that knowing when to use newer game systems has been a great boon to City of Heroes' gameplay. However, knowing when NOT to use newer game systems is a boon that hasn't been made much use of at all, and that's a problem. Just for a random example, I just got done beating Odysseus. He dropped to his knees and I was prompted to "speak" with him. I put "speak" in quotes because when I clicked on him, orange text n a conversation window told me I took what I needed from him and he couldn't stop me, and Odysseus' in-game model collapsed. Why, pray tell, did this need to be in a conversation and not in a clue? It served no purpose. There were no ambushes when he feel so there wasn't anything I was given the option of holding back, the mission didn't end so there wasn't that, either, and it wasn't a long conversation which would have been hard to do while the fight with the others was still raging. It was literally a "Click on Odysseus to unpause the game" objective for no real reason.

For-no-reason gimmicks and for-no-reason game mechanics can harm a story as much as they can help if used properly. That's really the just of my argument. I don't hate innovation (not unconditionally), but it has to have some purpose in the grand design of the mission. It can't be just a for-no-reason conversation when it's not a conversation at all and doesn't help in any way. It can't be a for-no-reason chained objective that shows up in places I already visited so I don't know where to look for it. It can't be a for-no-reason killable escort that makes my mission unwinnable when it dies.

Why I keep making these arguments is I want to make it clear to our mission designers that they need to budget their gimmicks. We can't have entire arcs of nothing but gimmicks for the same reason we can't have an entire season of Cage Matches - it robs the special situations of their specialness and it makes everything more cumbersome than it needs to be. Right now I'm at the end of Night Ward and I'm playing a story arc that has a gimmick mission as EVERY mission in the arc. How am I going to tell which part the ending is when it's all just one gimmick after the next?

I'd be very cautious of messing with the older missions because the border between "made better with gimmicks" and "for-no-reason gimmicks" is actually quite thin.

So? I fail to see where you're obligated to read it. I furthermore fail to see why you intentionally skip over the substance of what I said to keep arguing your petty point and missing the broader message I'm discussing. I don't want your stuff specifically, nor do I want what's in the DVD Collector's Edidtion. I HAVE what's in the DVD collector's edition because Nuclear Toast had one to spare that he offered to give me. I'm "lecturing" because I have a larger point to make about the nature of status, the nature of collections, the nature of digital distribution and so forth. You're free to ignore that, but please don't try to talk down on me like it what I'm saying doesn't matter. You're not the only person reading this thread and, consequently, not the only person I'm addressing.

Furthermore, you don't get to accuse me of being... What was it?

Oh, right. Yeah, you don't get to make a comment like that and then proceed to snark at me for actually addressing it. If you make an accusation, then you better deal with the reply. And if you don't want to deal with the reply, then don't bring it up. This idea that you can sling insults at people and then proceed to mock them for responding isn't going to fly. If you want to discuss the point, stick to discussing the point. If you're going to character-assassinate people, then at least have the decency to accept the consequences.

Except for the fact that, as of right now, the Paragon Market is selling the Vanguard Pack once awarded as a LOYALTY REWARD that cost those of us who had it prior three months of uninterrupted subscription over the course of the seven year anniversary, the Cape and Aura unlocks that are were and are an in-game unlock which Jack Emmert himself went on a tangent to explain how they were status symbols (hence where "status" comes in) and the Roman Pack which has a whole variety of items normally unlockable via a Cimeroran badge and, if I remember correctly, some normally unlockable via the ITF.

The Paragon Market has already demonstrated itself as being the place to retro-actively buy content which was previously unlockable in ways other than money and previously said to be exclusive. Furthermore, the Veteran Reward programme, and now the Paragon Rewards programme, contain the "pre-order sprints" and I believe the "pre-order helmets" which were part of special purchase promotions and were, at least at one point, said to be exclusive. They aren't, not any more.

It makes no difference. Even if this one item remains exclusive, the question of exclusivity in general is moot. Pretty much everything that's been exclusive in the past has showed up in the market and I'm fairly certain that pretty much everything else that's exclusive now (like the Wisps aura) will show up, as well. Maybe not the DVD Edition stuff, granted, but even that's not out of the table. We've gone through a lot of developers in the last eight years. BABs said a lot of things wouldn't happen as long as he worked at the studio, as did Castle. As did Jack Emmert, for that matter.

I'm talking about status. I fail to see where I'm required to wait for you to bring up a topic before I can discuss it. And the reason I'm discussing it is because it's integral to the subject of exclusivity, as well as because it has been a frequently recurring topic of conversation whenever exclusivity is discussed. You didn't discuss it, no. So what? I did, because it's a topic that's interesting to me, because it's a topic that's relevant to others and because, frankly, it's an interesting topic to examine. If it's not interesting to you, that's fine. Don't discuss it. You're not the only person I'm addressing with this, as unless I'm mistaken, you're not the only person reading this forums. Yes, I responded to your post as a jumping-on point, but again - this doesn't prevent me from branching off into subjects that interest me but aren't directly relevant to your post.

Again, you're the one turning this onto a "me vs. everyone else" discussion and either browbeating people for daring to discuss topics you didn't bring up or always trying to bring this back to "your stuff." News flash, bud - no-one cares about your stuff. You can keep it. You can keep it exclusive, and aside from the occasional grumble, nobody is going to care. Because the question isn't and wasn't about that. It's a much broader question about the merits of "exclusivity" in general. If you want to have a grandfather rule for your stuff, fine. Have it, with my compliments. Because this isn't about your stuff, and your stuff staying exclusive is, I dare say, a small price to pay for ending this bad practice of exclusivity of virtual items that can be copied infinitely. If you don't see how that's relevant, that's fine, but there are others who will.

Finally, I bring up the concept of "status" as it relates to the concept of "collecting," which I would wager is relevant to the notion of a "collector's edition." Maybe if you spent less time trying to talk about how much my post doesn't relate to yours - as if that matters - you could actually see the connections and follow my conclusions. But no, you choose to see this as me specifically arguing against you specifically, when I'm not. I'm arguing a point, and it's largely irrelevant who's for or against that point for the purposes of the argument. You're the one who's arguing WITH ME instead of arguing FOR YOUR POINT. And arguing with me is a losing venture because I cannot be convinced by being argued with, I can only be convinced by being given a convincing argument towards a broader point than just "you're wrong, I'm right." I don't care about being right, I don't care about you being wrong.

I care about the subjects of exclusivity, collecting and status, as they pertain to the sale of previously exclusive items. I'll argue about other stuff, sure, but that's not as interesting.

And I agree that all previously exclusive items should be sold in the store. I'm sorry that me holding this opinion offends you, but that's simply what I believe. I don't question your character for holding a different opinion from mine, though I'm sure you'll find some way to claim that as you've done twice before. The "whiner/entitled" argument just seems so alluring for some reason. I'm simply of the fundamental belief that exclusivity cannot exist in a digital medium and faking it is a corruption of some of the medium's greatest strengths. To me, forcing exclusivity on items that can be copied infinitely in order to approximate the exclusivity of limited-edition physical media is no unlike creating a movie that consists entirely of text screens in order to more resemble a book. Yes, you can do that, but it misses the point of creating a moving picture (with sound) in the first place. Granted, I can see the benefit of having something like the Kindle that allows you to read books on a digital device, but that still uses the benefit of the media to its fullest, chiefly that it's a massive space and weight saver.

As I said before, I'm OK with you keeping your misbegotten DVD Edition stuff. That's not a big deal. Even though my fundamental belief goes against it, I'm not that much of an extremist to be unable to make an exception. Fine, keep it, it's not a problem. So long as it's that one thing, it's fine. So long as it's an exception to the rule, that's fine. It's practically impossible to shoot for 100% consistency in the results of our beliefs and I'm more than willing to accept this as the exception to my rule. Nobody's going to steal your stuff. Don't worry about it. Yes, people are going to occasionally make that comment, but so long as you keep in mind that "people" can't enact development rules, you're safe. I see no reason why you can't simply state your disagreement and leave it at that. What is this need to talk down to people who disagree and demonise them as you have? What do you gain by this, aside from people angry at you?

The question of "status" goes beyond just exclusive items. It's why I brought it up. Capes were never "exclusive," but needing to unlock them led to some people interpreting them as status symbols nonetheless. Some held having a cape as a mark of superiority. "See, my character is level 20 and yours isn't!" I heard a lot of arguments for why capes should remain locked to 20 that went along just this line, and I saw a lot of arguments that insisted we need "status symbols" in order to "show character progression." I argued then as I do now that character progression is a meta-game concept that's built into the actual game side of City of Heroes that doesn't need to be extended over the cosmetic side of it, citing customization and identity as one of the chief strengths of the game. I cited, further, that if people wanted to show progress, the costume editor fully allowed them to do this by choice via updating a character's costume to be "better" every few levels to simulate the acquisition of loot.

I know you'll cut me off and say "But I didn't say that!" and you didn't. I know you're not talking about capes or visual cues for levelling up or status symbols. Again I refer you to my "So what?" point. To me, the concept of exclusivity has direct correlations to the longstanding debate about "Capes at 20" and the evolution of it through the years up until putting cape and aura unlocks in the Paragon Market essentially ended it. These days, I'm the only one who still brings it up because it's done. It's settled. It's a non-issue. But to me, there are still lessons we can learn from "Capes at 20" both in terms of going forward with future content and in terms of how people react to costume pieces when they start to become seen as status symbols.

Here's how it all relates together - I don't want to see people using a specific costume piece because it's seen as prestigious in cases where it really doesn't fit the costume. Back in the "Capes at 20" days, I saw many people wearing capes over costumes that REALLY didn't work well with them. I get that capes are a big thing for tights super heroes, but I saw them used on virtually everything whether it looked good or not. To me, this is the ultimate corruption of what should be the game's central point - we create our own heroes. To give a costume piece extra weight by giving it some sort of "status" either by being exclusive or otherwise, to me, is to corrupt the whole system where our looks are separate from the game's mechanics. The whole point is that there are no game-side factors which force a certain look on us over another and we're free to choose based on taste and preference alone. You go back on that by attaching status to pieces, and making them exclusive is a form of attaching status to them.

I also have the inverse argument, and I'll give it with an example: I HATE Super Speed. I always have. It transpires, however, that I don't so much dislike the power or even the concept behind it (Saints Row: The Third did super running right) as I do the running animation we use with it, especially for women. In City of Heroes, run animations resemble slow jogs, so when you have a character slow-jogging at super speed, it turns my throat inside out. My solution? Find a power that swaps the running animation. That power? Well... Pretty much the only one which does that AND is usable with Super Speed is... Prestige Power Slide. Yeah, you can see how that goes. So I lamented on the forums that I didn't have that and how I couldn't buy one when I got a PM saying "Hey, I have one. Do you want it?" So now I have one.

But here's the thing - I don't really want any of the "exclusive" stuff. More specifically, I don't want any of that stuff because it's exclusive. I don't want Prestige Power Slide because it's exclusive. I want it because it's the only power that alters running animations. If, one day, we were allowed to customise the animation Super Speed used and a sliding or floating type animation were part of the choices, I'd stop using Slide immediately. It's clunky enough to toggle on and off as it is. Yet here I am, paying the price of exclusivity for an item that I don't really care whether it's exclusive or not. Because what's "exclusive" explores a side of the game that no other power does. It puts me in the position of wanting an exclusive item not because of its "collector's edition" status which is its key selling point, but because of how it works.

And to my mind, that's just wrong. It's like buying an entire for the sole reason of using its wheel rims on another car you'd rather drive and then doing nothing with the new one. I don't WANT a whole car, I just want four wheel rims. I don't even want the tyres. THIS is where the Paragon Market was supposed to shine - it was supposed to let me have just the stuff I wanted and none of the stuff I didn't want. Obviously, the Super Packs more or less went back on that idea completely, but even so - I don't want exclusivity. I want "stuff." Thus, making stuff exclusive just means people who need it for the "stuff" can't have it because that would ruin those who have it for the exclusivity.

The only way I can see this working is either with "commemorative" items that don't really explore a new concept (like the custom Arachnos logos, those are a great idea) or otherwise non-costume-related items like special titles. Really, if I could get Prestige Power Slide without going through the whole DVD Edition pack, I would have. Now because I can't, your items are one person less exclusive. And I haven't even used any of the others.

Technically, "Aion" is not a real word. As such, how it's pronounced is really up in the air. To me, however, it's an intentional misspelling of the word "aeon," in much the same way as "Tera" is an apparent misspelling of the latin word "terra" (Because poor literacy is kewl!). As such, I pronounce "aion" the same way I pronounce "aeon."

So, about that pronunciation of "Talos Island..."

Really? OK, let's break it down:

What I say here is that it's easy to devolve into the usual argument of "spoiled brat" vs. "elitist jerk" that you're clearly trying to start, but it's an argument that has no winner at the end of it. It's mudslinging for the sake of mudslinging and never accomplishes anything. The point of the Paragon Market - as described to us by the developers - is to give people the option of what they wanted to buy, as opposed to offering things in bundles or locking them in-game or barring them in other ways. It's supposed to be the one-stop-shop solution to content distribution (now there's a slogan for you) that replaces all other forms, if only you consider the Paragon Rewards system to be part of the Market. Which it is.

That's all I'm saying - everything that was attainable in other ways was supposed to then migrate to the Market. I know City of Heroes is still pretending to not be just a very, very expensive F2P title, but at the end of the day this is a business, and they've been milking us for cash in every way they could. It makes economic sense to sell the things people are repeatedly asking for, as opposed to trying to swindle us with gambling packs.

This one's pretty straightforward. I've argued the point of "status symbols" many, many times before. I argued it when capes were locked at level 20 (unlocked via Paragon Market), I argued it when Epic ATs were locked at 50 (now 20 or Paragon Market purchase, I believe), I argued it before. It is my passionate belief that this game will do better without symbols of "status," because I find "status" itself to be a corrupt idea, lending one faux respect based on external factors. I've always believed that if "status" is to exist, it should be based on a person's actual achievements, accomplishments and work. Arcanaville has status across the community, but this isn't for an exclusive purchase or a chance find. It is for continued work with the community. Samuraiko has status across the community, but this isn't for having something we can't. It's for doing something with the tools available to everybody, it's for work and dedication.

When I run into someone in-game, I'm not impressed that that person bought something eight years ago that isn't for sale now any more than I'm impressed someone went to a convention and came back with a dragon hat. What I'm impressed with is a costume that makes me stop, go back and have another look. What I'm impressed with is a character description that makes me go "OK, I want one of those, too!" What I'm impressed with is a person who can quote, off-hand, a build which would be superior to my own yet still attainable by my own rules of character building. What I'm impressed with is someone who can tell me about canon I didn't know about, or set me straight on a plot point that I would have otherwise seen as stupid. What impresses me is people who show skill, creativity and curiosity. What DOESN'T impress me is people waving around exclusive items.

Swag does not make a person. At best it's a kitsch. I don't hate people for having it, don't misunderstand, nor am I jealous of people who have something I don't. Life's too short for that. But I'm still determined to make sure everyone has access to the same "stuff," such that the most meaningful difference between people is the difference in what they express, rather than the difference in what they own.

Continual insistence on deionising the attitude does nothing to help your case. We're not asking for these items because we're some kind of greedy bastards who can't stand to not have anything that other people have. Take a stroll around the community here and you'll realise that we, to put it simply and bluntly, don't put much stock in "collectable" and "exclusive" items as a general concept. That's not to say people here aren't collectors. This is the game that pioneered badges, after all. What that IS to say, however, is that people only care what THEY have, not what other people have. By this, I mean that your average City of Heroes "collector" is only interested in what he has, but derives no real satisfaction from others' not being able to gain the same item. I know it makes me sound like a jerk to say this, but you really won't see much support for the attitude which puts value on things specifically because other people CAN'T have it, simply because that translates into intentionally wanting to deprive others of what you have.

In a digital world of infinite, no-cost replication, I see no reason to cling on to exclusivity. With physical items, I can see taking pride in possessing THE ONLY specific item in existence. I even support it. I have an old Sad Sam stuffed dog which used to belong to my brother and must be 30-35 years old at this point. It's older than me and I cherish it very much because I know for a fact no-one I know ever had one, or will ever have one, especially one this old. I get it. But this simply doesn't apply to digital distribution items. In the real world, you can have pride in having something other people can't have because only one person can have "the only" item of a certain kind. That's a physical limitation. In terms of digital distribution, however, there's no such thing as "the only" and there's no such thing as "limited availability." The only reason you can have pride in having something other people don't is because whoever is distributing it essentially chose to NOT give it to other people, and that's artificial.

Personally, I highly dislike artificial boundaries and manufactured scarcity. I dislike bringing real life physical item distribution gimmicks into a digital market place. I dislike rooting the market of the future into the limitations of the past. I dislike treating virtual goods like physical goods. I'm not one of those people who insists on having a physical CD of a game so I can bang it on my head while I play my game from my purely digital copy of it. I don't have a problem with publishers selling me a "license" to their software rather than the software itself. I have no problem paying for ideas and services. I like the virtual world where nothing is finite, nothing is physical and what sets people apart is their actions and creativity, as opposed to their physical possessions. I like that anyone can be a star if only they find a way to express themselves, and this is what I wan to support moving forward.

As far as I'm concerned, everyone should have a shot at every costume piece that exists at the game. Let everyone have a shot at everything, and let's see what people come up with. If you come up with a costume that blows me away, you already has something that no-one else can have - an idea that you brought into the world. Even in a world of infinite replication, THAT is something no-one can take away from you. An exclusive item, though? Yeah, that doesn't impress me.

Couple of points.

1. Shoulder clipping doesn't stop half the Assault Rifle weapons from clipping with the player's arm, and clipping badly. Beam Rifles can't be any worse.

2. Effect origins are specific to the power, not the weapon used. You'll see this the most clearly with rifles the length of which is considerably different from the expected base model. Take, for instance, the Redding Rail Rifle for Assault Rifle, then fire and look closely: All the muzzle flash happens about a foot short of the end of the barrel within the interior of the rifle itself. It's fat enough to where you don't really notice it at a glance in the middle of combat, but misaligned effects are already the case.

3. The reason we were given for not porting Beam Rifles, when a reason was given at all, was that they didn't make sense or fit conceptually or words to that effect. The problems were described as thematic, which I'd compare to shooting rifle bursts out of a broadsword, rather than technical, which is what you're describing.

That's actually a good way of putting it. Magic doesn't have to have defined rules so long as plots that involve magic have at least some kind of limitation. When you can flip a loser into a super threat and have a super threat nullified completely, you have... Well, anime, essentially, but you have a story that's very hard to get involved in. It becomes a story driven by what's convenient to the narrative rather than by what makes sense, and when we keep getting blindsided by sudden and unexpected revelations of power, we start to not care terribly much.

To bring a story I HAAATE, this is more or less what happened to the Legend of Korra, the sequel show to the Last Airbender. There's really no specific definition in terms of exactly what a bender can do or how powerful he could be, but the narrative of the original made a pretty good effort to enforce a power hierarchy among the characters and yet still occasionally challenge it because... Well, sometimes you do well, sometimes you screw up. In sequel, everyone's as strong as the plot calls for them to be, leading to competent characters getting curb-stomped like losers and apparent b-listers pulling off ridiculous stunts, all because the plot said so. It also throws out what limitations the setting imposed on a lot of the powers so you get this mish-mash of "magic" where everyone can pull off anything with no warning or build-up. And it makes for a dull watch.

She keeps them as her personal harem. Can you imagine living with that enunciation every day?

I don't know. On the one hand, I can admit that basic kill-alls can become somewhat stale after a while, but on the other hand I can't really say I prefer the "new" approach to mission design any more, either. Too many gimmicks, too much reliance on fighting back waves of ambushes, too much reliance on "large" spawns and too many "talky" missions that consist of 50% NPCs talking at each other or defeating a boss and going through a three-page dialogue with him. It's especially aggravating when I run into cutscenes of essentially the villains going "Aha! Here's my evil plan, and you can't stop me because you're frozen in place watching this cutscene! Ha ha! Die, Statesman!" Yeah, even the newest content has that, and I don't like it.

This is kind of like every instance of replacing something with something "better" that isn't actually better. You need look no further than Atlas Park and Mercy Island. Praise those missions all you will, I still refuse to run them because it's the same story every time and I can quote it in my sleep now. Same for the tutorial. Twice the action, twice the flash, twice the boredom, twice the pointlessness. Basically, what's "better" isn't actually better all the time. For as "bad" as they may be, I can run kill-alls all day, but drag me through "Protect the Midnight Mansion" again and I'll just about **** kittens, if you'll pardon my word choice. Yeah, we're doing the old Jack Emmert "This mission is hard! Get a team or abandon the story arc forever!" Ugh...

It's not as bad as it was during the Twinshot/Graves days, but it's not exactly good, either. I'll need to see more of the newest type of mission design before I can trust our mission designers to potentially ruin arcs I actually enjoy. Maybe if they didn't use anything not available in the Architect I could be more easily persuaded, but otherwise?

I feel completely the reverse. I've almost never met a person whose costume or story impressed me enough to want to dig deeper. Sure, there have been a few exceptions, and even those mostly come out of the Best Costume Designs thread. That's not a dig against other people, mind you. I'm not saying there aren't creative folks out there. It's just a personal preference thing. The kind of fiction I like just isn't the kind most people write.

By contrast, I LOVE the game's lore and its backstory. It might not be quite Tolkenien levels of pedantic detailing of every last story bit, but at least the older world is detailed enough to inspire. I've had this discussion with Nuclear Toast quite often, but I like to explore different stories in search of inspiration, and people's stories just rarely have anything they can offer in this regard. I'm sure these stories are very meaningful and dear to them, but I rarely find something I can take away and use. To a large extent, it's a function of the medium - stories are limited in size and costumes are a "next best thing" fit. The game's canon, by contrast, has a lot of room to work and a lot of room to build an actual world.

I don't try to fit my characters into the existing world so I don't expect other people to do so, either, but that doesn't mean I don't want to lift ideas from the world, either. And for as much as I've dogged our writers, they STILL have very good ideas. I love the social structure of Night Ward, I love the presentation of SSA2, I love the direction of threat that Dark Astoria takes. I love the story and I want to know more about it. If it's like reading a book, then a book I shall read. I don't read physical books, so why not?

This, on the other hand, I can't disagree with. City of Heroes loses SO MUCH by not having decent music and, for the most part, not having music at all. For as much as I HAAATE Dr. Graves' arc, that one moment right at the end when the façade drops, the text bubbles swap colour and the music changes abruptly is just genius in theatrics. I LOVE it! And yet I walk into Apartment Whatever to go to Dark Astoria and you'd think there'd be some kind of foreboding music but no. There's silence. I get dumped into a garden with tentacles looking at me with eyes, so you think there'd be some kind of suspenseful music, but there's nothing. Instead, I walk around First Ward shopping and I'm followed around by the world's most basic action music until it becomes annoying.

Music and sound effects matter. To this day I keep pointing to Aquaria as a game that is MADE by music and wouldn't have been even half the experience it is if it played in silence. Music can create emotion even in the most soulless among us, even if you can't sense it, and it can help us care about what we're seeing. Music can set the tone and communicate so much more than text ever can. Yet City of Heroes uses it almost not at all. Simply check out an old midi and tell me that music doesn't tell you a story of what's going on even though you can't see moving pictures on the other end. Why can't we have music like that? It would make so many more encounters so much more personal and memorable.

The same actually goes for sound effects. City of Heroes used to be pretty good about this, but that was a long time ago. It used to be doors didn't make a sound, remember that? But these days they barely do, footsteps are quiet, most surfaces sound like concrete and most of what we do generates no sound. If I'm interacting with a box, then play a small box opening sound. If I'm interacting with a computer, play a small computer sound. Have enemies give cues to what they'll do in audio. I just got out of a Space Marine multiplayer game I can can tell you for a fact that every time I heard that low, rumbling "Waaagh!" as made by a large ork, I took notice. Nothing of the sort happens here. If I'm being ambushed, the first time I learn about it is when I "hear" the ambush announcing its presence over text, but I don't actually hear anything.

I know some people play with the sound off, and I can't blame them, but the game is more than just visuals. Sound and music should be a bigger part of it, as they can help the writing tremendously.

*snerk* Oh, God, that's just so special I can't tell if it's the height of brilliance or the depth of stupidity

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Honestly, for as hard as I ride our development team, these guys still come across as both wanting to make a good game AND wanting to listen to us as much as they can. Even with David gone and his tendency to make a thread asking for feedback not as prevalent, I can still see the development team slowly dialling in on what we've been asking for, and I can see myself and other major detractors turning around to positive comments once again.

Even at their darkest hour, this development team has been more open, responsive and overall pleasant than pretty much any other that isn't an indie team of two.