Uh...

Sam, the problem is that you just don't like the humor. Again, I could go with you if you were saying it was detracting from the overall storyline, but the problem for you is that you don't appreciate the joke and you just want it gone because of it. In even my most favorite comedic movies or books, I don't necessarily like or appreciate all the humor (I'm reading The Princess Bride to my wife, and while most of it is hilarious, we don't appreciate all the humor and randomness as much as others would).

That's the way humor and aesthetics is: we're not going to appreciate all the stuff out there that is considered humorous or art. I don't appreciate Picasso's Guernica like some do, but I can appreciate what it was doing and the effect it has on most people.

You know this is a tongue in cheek joke. You know this is lampshade humor (which is humorous to some, or we wouldn't even have the term). You can even acknowledge the asides and references for those who care to follow them. Yet you won't allow that some people will find that combination a good thing, even though it often is.

Just forget about the humor that you don't like. Even without it, it's still a good mission with interesting mechanics, and a challenge. You obviously like those parts more, so simply focus on those... or you can even ignore the whole story arc. I hate the Devouring Earth with a passion and avoid their missions because I don't like them. Yet others do enjoy them and play those missions (and vice versa for CoT... I like that mob group). There's nothing WRONG with that, it's just the way people are. And luckily there is more than enough content in CoX to allow us to play other stuff we like more.

Really, my problem is less that I don't appreciate the humour (and I don't) and more that I feel it's a cheap humour that gets in the way of potentially less cheap humour. And I'm not trying to bash people's preferences hear. But it really IS cheap, because it's based on an obvious gag, and because it frankly doesn't take much creativity to produce.

If it were just that joke over nothing else, I'd groan, probably complain and move on. But it's not JUST that joke. Because beneath it, there is an actually amusing bit of writing, and I want to highlight THAT, because it's a much more masterful use of comedy and humour. Because it took work, because it took imagination, because it took genuine artistry. Yet it gets buried under the cheap laughs.

To me, it's like going to a fancy uptown shoes-and-tie restaurant and ordering a burger and fries. It's missing the point of what could be so much more. Of what IS so much more.

---

I've spent inordinate time bashing the game's writing in a whole slew of locations, but this isn't because I hate writing or I have the game, merely because so much of it is bad. There's actual GOOD WRITING here, but it's eclipsed behind bad jokes and corny one-liners. I want to bring that to attention, I want to praise it, I want to make it known, because I want more like the actual writing behind Fusion and Jane Temblor, their inter-personal dynamics and their power designs.

Few people fully realise what the two of them represent. Not just good writing, but GREAT writing. We have actual characters who manage to be established and fleshed out in all of two sentences. We have characters having actual believable conversations IN REAL TIME. We have character interaction written just about as well as I've seen it anywhere in this game and coded to a level above and beyond anywhere else that I've seen.

On top of that, we have a boss fight which relies not on simple "Get away in time!" tactics, but on actually using the two bosses to impede each other. Yes, when Fusion pulses, he knocks players away, but he also knocks Jane down. And when Faultline rumbles, she not just knocks players into the air, she knocks Fusion down. Pulling the AVs apart actually removes this element, and playing one boss against the other is a GREAT idea that exists precisely nowhere else in the entire game.

And yet all anyone remembers about them is "Haha! Fusion is wearing a girl's spandex!" It's demeaning to what is probably some of the best writing we've seen in literal years.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

I really wonder why you play this game, to be honest.

I like how this thread changed from why Jim and Fussionette are different genders to what Sam's preferences in humor are.

Which reminds me of the original question: Why are they different genders?

I think I realize that it maybe, just maybe, and if so possibly only slightly, that it is supposed to be a joke. (Which in my opinion, kinda takes a knife to Praetorian Lore)

I like my games to be more than just pushing buttons and seeing loud colours on-screen. I tend to look for depth of narrative, quality of writing and so forth. Now, obviously, I won't look for that in a game which is obviously not ABOUT those things. Really, how much narrative power did Space Invaders have?

But City of Heroes is... Or at least WAS a game about good writing, good stories and emotional content. Much of the original Launch content did a lot to inspire me into both the writing style and the preferences I have today. Sure, it wasn't stellar writing, I can admit that, but at least it seemed like it was trying. It constituted a genuine story. A lot of what has come since hasn't been nearly as good, either constituting a messed-up "they just didn't care" tangle of continuity or a complete failure at comedy, which renders any drama behind it a complete failure by default.

I praise the original CoH content for trying to tell a good story, rather than subsisting on knock-knock jokes. And I still respect it for that. Indigo's "person behind the professional" character is something I hold to a very high regard to this day. The end of the Missing Melvin and the Mysterious Malta Alliteration was actually a very touching, if brief scene which inspired me to write quite a few characters and more than a few stories. It's just that good, because it isn't strictly narrative for the mission progression, but it's still a nice and very deep look into the very heart of the character. And it's even a little funny, as well as more than a little sad.

I don't get that from dreck like the Roy Cooling arc or clowns like the Admiral Stutter TF. And I actually LIKE the Stutter TF. I hold the game's writing to a very high standard because it has earned that standard, and it's continually disappointing to see that there's no-one left who gives a crap about it. War Witch is apparently content on throwing in self-referrential humour, but I've long since seen anyone so much as care about professional integrity or artistic content when it comes to writing. It's just an excuse to get us from instance to instance, from one amorphous sack of hit points to another, and maybe throw a very basic joke at us from time to time, because that's about the height of its intellectual aspirations. And it's a cryin' shame to see a fictional world of the quality that Rick Dakan left us with perverted into THIS.

We can do better. We SHOULD do better. And we should not be so quick to excuse bad writing because, really, who cares about writing? I care about writing. I happen to do a lot of that. And it HURTS me when potentially good stories are half-***** because no-one cared enough to even try.

*edit*
I'll be honest here - if the game ever devolved into "the act of punching the crap out of whoever was closer," I'm gone. Instantly. Without a second thought. City of Heroes without the plot, setting and writing is mediocre garbage at best. It's the super heroes, the amazing and improbable stories and the fantasy of "anything goes" that keeps me here. Half-*** that and you ruin the fun of the game right quick.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

There are times when the plot matter to me but they're rarely on Taskforces, I have the mentality of 'get this done' when it comes to taskforces.

Now this is actually a byproduct of the attrocious storytelling the original six heroside taskforces have, they're bland, boring and nothing but a series of missions which are barely connected. I'm there to tank and hit stuff.

When I'm solo, completely different story, there I want to pause, take a breath, read the story and I'm altogether an easier man to please than yourself.

While I had little vested interest in Roy Coolings arc (ech the Praetorian invasion thing seems shoehorned in, why couldn't it just be about people wanting the medical care that heroes recieve without the whole 'the Praetorian invasion hangs over us' that looms over the arc), I like the Clone arcs in Talos. They made my character feel important, I like Dean McArthur's arc because, damnit, I liked Dean.

I found him one of the few likeable characters villainside who I can picture most of my villains ending the arc going "you know what Dean, you're alright..." amd giving Dean a little fistbump, or atleast a wry smile, which puts him up there with Vernon Von Grunn, an arc that I hold dear to my heart.

Almost every arc (O'Wretched Man is a stand out exception, along with a few others) made me not give a toss about the contact, most of my villains would much rather gut them than play lackey, especially Hardcase or Westin Phipps.

I think the problem mainly stems to the format.

Taskforces, in my opinion, aren't great places for writing the likes which featured in the arcs we seem to enjoy. For a story to really go well, I think it needs to be a lot more personal and you just don't get that in a Taskforce, especially if you're not the leader.

The very fact nobody but the leader can get the full story really doesn't work in their favour, to make up for it they need to have things that are snippets in themselves.

That isn't to say all new arcs have been good, a Heroes' Epic, while better than a Heroes' Hero, just made me feel unimportant, why the hell am I there if the Freedom Phalanx are there, I already know those pets can pretty much mush any resistance I'm going to face.

Roy Cooling's arc, I felt had some real potential but just didn't quite live up to it because it had to shoehorn in the new 'latest thing'. Once the Praetorian war is over (as in we get to beat Tyrant), it won't stand on it's own as well as the self contained stories of Vernon Von Grunn or Oh Wretched Man.

I know Venture and Eva HATE the new clone arcs but they atleast make my character feel important, especially the ending to the 2nd part of the villainside one. Where I can be as evil or as noble as I see fit, often times taking the noble option because sometimes even the most evil villains need a moment where they let their humanity shine, even if it's quickly forgotten the moment another opportunity arises.

Hey can someone please post a picture of what the OP was talking about, yeah yeah I could just go run the Sutter TF, but I am impatient and want to know now. :P

I find it interesting, I love the COH lore to bits, but I think it's not really come into it's own until lately. (Really, the ITF/Cimerora was the first big "Okay, that's pretty cool!" lore moment I had) and the Praetorian content is actually genuinely *interesting*.

COV has some decent arcs (and a vast majority of forgettable ones) O Wretched Man, Vernon von Grün's stuff, Scirocco's patron-arc are all pretty good, but they really are much inferior to the praetorian content. (Pretty much every arc there is better than every arc in the older content, I'd say, except possibly the introductory one)

During Mechano and Sam's conversation, I read the first paragraph of the post that started the whole thing. After that I thought tl;dr, and scrolled down to see all of it. Honestly, I never saw so many big words in my life...