Am I the only one who doesn't care about the story?

The steam powered robots are his only redeeming quality. Nemesis is a bad character because he's supposed to be a genius, but the people writing him aren't geniuses, so in order to make him look smart other people have to be made to look stupid.

If you're just in it to mash buttons, you shouldn't be working on an RPG. As soon as you put the letters RPG in a game's description, the story becomes important.

Yeah, we have NPCs for a reason. They're the ones who should be affected by the story in a predetermined way. As for the protagonist, the story should involve opportunities for character development. It should not take character development as a given, then decide what form this development takes.
No, these techniques don't "make our characters feel like they matter." They make our characters into puppets of the plot.
Yeah, that thing you said about character driving the plot? Crey and Malta are characters that drive the plot. Those stories do provide opportunities for protagonist development. These guys are working on a plan to kill heroes with a touch of a button...how does your character feel about that? Are you afraid? Are you determined to take them down? How do you feel about the Revenant Hero Project? Do you wonder if Paragon Protectors have feelings too? Do you feel sorry for them? Or do you consider them abominations to be put down at the first available opportunity? The writers don't need to tell you these things, they just need to present a scenario for you to react to.

You don't need to do something stupid like join Malta to interact with their stories, or to be an important part of them. After all, the last time I interacted with Malta for any length of time I received the thanks of the world. That makes me pretty important in my book. I didn't have to save the world, I could have just told Crimson to do it himself, but I went and did it anyway, for reasons that are entirely my own and may or may not make sense to you. Not because some guy from the future told me I would, or because some big blue guy said it was the only thing that mattered.

Yeah. So consistent that they changed the older arcs (sort of) to fit the new stuff. That's consistent alright. Not.

Well, they updated the models and maps.

Run a VEAT.

Don't expect there to be a storyline. You might as well PL (well, after level 10 and getting your first non arachnos costume.)

When you get to 50, wait for the exceptional crap that is the cutscene in your "yay, your 50, go beat up states" mission.

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What I was referring to was the complete lack of any moral decision we make in Prae from levels 1-20 mattering when it comes time to choose a hero or villain, linked with that fact that Loyalists ARE IN FACT villains, which makes allowing them to choose heroside even funnier.

They can go blue side to redeem themselves, and fight aginst Tyrant instead of serving him.
You can start off at level 1, and then see the full horror of the system you're working for in the 1-20 content, escape to Primal Earth, do good deeds for the next 30 levels, then return to Praetoria to help defeat the monster you used to serve.

Yeah, not buying it.

We'll have to agree to disagree.

You don't need to buy it - it's included for free in the game

Which is why I completely ignore the story. As I said.

Sadly, this seems to be the current situation.

Personally, I care about the story, and a great deal. I do a lot of writing in my spare time, and a large part of why I grow to like doing this is because of City of Heroes, and because it had such a great story way back when. Sure, it was never exactly told very well, I'll grant you, but the heart of the story was in the right place. It took itself seriously enough to be meaningful and it was full of good ideas, building an interconnected, persistent world of almost unlimited opportunity. This... Isn't the case these days, much to my disappointment.

I think it's pretty evident that a great many care nothing for a good story. What "we" used the Architect for when that came out should be proof enough. But I firmly believe that there are still a sufficient number of people who do care about the stories told here. As was said before, having a good story shouldn't be a detriment to those don't don't care about a good story. They can always skip past the text boxes and proceed to just kill stuff. However, having a crap story really does present a problem to those of us who care.

I, personally, care about the story of City of Heroes just because it was SO GOOD back in the day. The original design for the Nemesis was, and in fact still is amazing. The original design for the Freakshow was equal parts insane and threatening. The original design for the Rikti, back when they were silent aliens and "the greatest threat Earth has ever faced," something which is still in their descriptions, was great. Even the original 5th Column when they were being taken seriously. I fell in love with the City of Heroes lore, and over the past few years, I've had to sit and watch as much of it is bastardised, retconned or rendered pointless by new content and new developments, and what is being added to replace it is badly unimaginative.

I seek a good story, because it helps inspire my imagination, because it helps me come up with ever better, ever more impressive new ideas and new characters. And playing through a story that the creators just did not care about, with as little effort or planning put into it as possible, is simply disheartening.

Finally, I've heard the idea that because players clearly don't care about story, then the developers should stop trying to make good stories. This, to me, is would be the worst thing to do to a game - to attempt to develop it to the absolute worst quality that you can get away with while neglecting as many aspects as possible. This is not the making of a good game, let alone a great game.

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 have a Veat, I just didn't bother and turned hero as soons as I could ;p

Truthfully, I'd say you're inthe majority.

I tend to try to stick to some of which makes sense to stick to, but then, I realize have to ignore other bits here and there, but then I RP, and if you RP, I really don't see how you can't skip some of it, when you run into characters that blantantly go against CoH lore.

It's not that we don't care about the story...inside the MMO is the wrong place to develop/spell out it's details. I think they need to use more cutscences but that will make the game more expensive. In a compromise, I think they need a "legends" comic or publish more novels like Cryptic did for STO and early CoH.

Even Blizzard has done the latter to satisfy questions about lore. Wow and StarCraft has extensive histories/lore.

Why not, though? People who don't care about the story have already demonstrated their ability to just skip past all the text and focus on mission objectives. What harm is there to flesh out a game's story in the actual game, then? I mean, you need to have SOME story, unless the game is to devolve into nothing but Paper missions. So long as we need A story, why not make that a GOOD story? Why not try to tie it into the existing canonical world? Why not try to make it interesting?

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'd love to be able to do that. I only have three Praetorian characters (an insanely small number for an altoholic like me), and the only Loyalist just "graduated" to Primal. I'm a bit at a loss as to what to do with her. I'm basically RP'ing her as being on a "hunt and kill" mission against some of the Praetorian characters (mine and my friends') who have come to Primal to help fight the invasion/oppose Cole, etc. But they don't PvP, so I can only go so far with that! Well...I suppose I could grief their missions...but I don't think that woudl go over real well...

Its a well known fact that FloatingFatMen do not have any tiger blood, ergo, they can never win. FloatingFatDudes can however haunt your dreams.

So when they drive your sister bat crazy, I suppose its a win by proxy.

The stupid, it hurts!

Almost makes me want to go back to building more VEAT arcs in the MA.

If it wasn't for all those other problems with the MA.

But, without validation I have to pay for parking!

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You need to go home and rethink your life.