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Germany has laws about depiction of nazis in media; specifically you aren't allowed to use any if their iconography unless its in a historical context. The 5th column didn't use any nazi iconography or uniforms or anything though. I think it was just Cryptic not being sure about the laws and deciding to err on the side of caution.
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May 8, 2013 21:43
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As Miller puts it "CYA" - Cover Your rear end. I always theorized it might've also been influenced by CoV's original goal of letting you join existing villain groups, which definitely would've been a no-go.
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May 8, 2013 21:45
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there's a long list of requirements for things that can't be in games in germany, i might still have a copy sitting around somewhere, but it's super specific like "you can't depict a closeup of a woman's face as a sword is being inserted into her anus" and "you can't depict a monster being shot and run over by a jeep while one of the passengers says 'good job' to the driver", those 2 are just from my hazy memory.
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May 8, 2013 21:48
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Sharrow posted:Q.) What was the backstory of Lady Grey? Of all the characters, she seems to be one of the most elusive in terms of giving away anything about herself. Wow, that's stupider than I could have possibly imagined.
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May 8, 2013 21:57
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Letting Matt Miller write anything only ends in tears. Amazingly, even the rest of the writing team basically said "no, that's too stupid".
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May 8, 2013 22:02
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I'm neutral on the idea - I like Vanguard being taken down a peg or two, but I think Lady Gray being an unknowing patsy would be a better idea. I don't think they ever indicated where Impervium came from, so just say that she discovered/invented it or something, and then have the Battallion press the 'turn Impervium into lead' button and have people go 'oh poo poo! (except you incarnates because your Impervium is supercharged now).
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May 8, 2013 22:06
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Oh, I have nothing against the idea of taking the super-cops down a few notches; you've got to do that from time to time, or people start asking why all those vigilantes are allowed to go screwing about as they please. But really, the game barely had room for Nemesis as the centuries old mastermind of plans within plans. Having Lady Grey pull her face off to reveal a Destro mask made of Impervium wouldn't have been a shocking twist or anguishing heel-turn because she's a boring cipher. It's like Miller was in the middle of reading a John Grisham novel and said 'I wanna do this!', forgetting that he was writing for a superhero game, and not a half-baked thriller.
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May 8, 2013 22:21
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I was talking with someone on TOR about CoX, and now I miss my 'bad' builds, such as Little Sun, my Necro/Dark MM. Necro may have sucked, but there was nothing quite like wearing all pastels with a zombie horde at your command.
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May 8, 2013 22:22
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For me, turning Lady Grey's origins into a big "gotcha!" reveal completely cheapens the character and making her an alien is just insipid. I also get a really blatant vibe from how Miller talks about it that it's basically a means to an end to puff up his Battalion story, rather than a thought out plot twist. (See also: AMA #1's "let's make Citadel a Battalion forward scout!") As for shutting down Vanguard, when taken alongside the previous AMA comments about the Battalion storyline, it sounds like it would've been part of the 2nd act "and then the Battalion wins (temporarily)!" part of the story, which makes it less about taking Vanguard down a peg and more about coming up with a desperate contrivance to strike a blow at the forces of good without directly touching the Incarnates themselves. Bieeardo posted:Oh, I have nothing against the idea of taking the super-cops down a few notches; you've got to do that from time to time, or people start asking why all those vigilantes are allowed to go screwing about as they please. But really, the game barely had room for Nemesis as the centuries old mastermind of plans within plans. Having Lady Grey pull her face off to reveal a Destro mask made of Impervium wouldn't have been a shocking twist or anguishing heel-turn because she's a boring cipher. It's like Miller was in the middle of reading a John Grisham novel and said 'I wanna do this!', forgetting that he was writing for a superhero game, and not a half-baked thriller. To be perfectly honest, reading between the lines of both AMAs, it sounds like Miller has a huge, swinging boner for his Battalion idea to the point that everything else had to be sacrificed to support it. About half of the "so were you guys ever going to do something with X" answers were "Well, yeah, the Battalion!!!  ". Any character that had nothing better to do was suddenly swept up in the Battalion garbage.But no, because of "Praetorian fatigue" let's not deal with the Praetorian Hamidon that we spent like six issues setting up, let's jump headfirst into Battalion fatigue.  The only element of the Battalion that sounded good was them using a dead/fallen/lost hero as a mouthpiece to sing their praises...and of course that was an idea they dropped.On the plus side: quote:Q)What are your thoughts on the RP community within the context of the lore? (@Mazzo Grave) Can do. 
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May 8, 2013 22:33
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My favorite part is how Earth is rescued from the Battalion by Dream Doctor and Cole and then Cole thanks "the little people" for helping to make it happen, yeah you're welcome assholes I've never seen so many good ideas in one place, or things that could be developed into good ideas, let down so badly by the execution. (I totally thought it was Requiem loving with the player's past, too -- access to time travel, plus that's exactly the sort of petty poo poo he'd pull -- and yet, someone still had to chime in with "Battalion!")
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May 8, 2013 23:40
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I honestly hated the Battalion from the very first word that was spoken of them, way back when the invention system was an awkward mess of lovely temporary buffs and a Kryptonian IKEA store. 'You'll need these lovely buffs to have a chance against the Battalion!' they claimed. This was way the gently caress back in single-digit Issues, before I left Triumph, so the thought of having to join a pubbie SG in order to work with the lovely salvage and crafting system wasn't filling me with confidence. Then after that it was all foreshadowing. Foreshadowing, and more foreshadowing. Only instead of foreshadowing, it was that annoying kid trying to jam the unstoppable army he'd been daydreaming about for years into everyone else's playtime. 'Oh yeah? Well, they use Kheldians as batteries!' 'Oh yeah? Well, they scared Nemesis into giving heroes the secret of time travel!' 'Oh yeah? Lady Grey's totally one of them!'
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May 8, 2013 23:56
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Considering how useless Impervium anything seemed, I wouldn't have been too worried about it being supplied by THE BATTALION™ "Oh sweet, Impervium armored wizard!... Oh wait, they got taken out by Rikti Monkeys. Wait, the Battalion also uses this poo poo? Aaahahahahaha."
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May 9, 2013 00:16
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The Cheshire Cat posted:Germany has laws about depiction of nazis in media; specifically you aren't allowed to use any if their iconography unless its in a historical context. OneEightHundred fucked around with this message at 01:24 on May 9, 2013 |
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May 9, 2013 01:13
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minimalist posted:(I totally thought it was Requiem loving with the player's past, too -- access to time travel, plus that's exactly the sort of petty poo poo he'd pull -- and yet, someone still had to chime in with "Battalion!") In the I11 trailer, Mender Silos outright says "The catalyst that brings about the unraveling of the cosmos starts HERE!" as it switches to a conspicuous close-up of Requiem. Also I hated the Battalion because they're literally the Covenant from Halo. Edit: It is also seriously amazing how they lacked any self-awareness. Their entire tact was to never follow up on any plot hook because of time/money*, while simultaneously continually writing stories with even more plot hooks they were never going to able to follow up on, all the way to the point where the power creep from the Incarnate system would overtake everything else and they would be forced to nuke the world and press the reset button to make CoH2.  *This wasn't even limited to ancient, launch-era plot hooks, but ones they themselves seeded (like the aforementioned complete dropping of Praetorian Hamidon). After all the build-up to Dream Doctor's anti-Ouroboros team, they fully admitted they didn't have the time/money to actually do anything with it, so they were just going to shoot DD/Rularuu out of a space cannon at the Battalion. Maybe cannibalizing parts of your team to work on 1-2 other MMOs while you're trying to build some semblance of a huge "epic" storyline in your current one is a bad loving move. And yet somehow the Freem 15 was also a thing that happened. I just don't get it. John Murdoch fucked around with this message at 02:29 on May 9, 2013 |
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May 9, 2013 02:12
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My only problem with the Battalion idea is that they're really putting all their eggs in one basket here. Everything is tied to Battalion! Lady Grey is secretly working for them! They were loving with time! Something about Rularuu! Emperor Cole redeems himself by taking up the mantle of Statesman (I actually like this idea)! The Rikti help us out as best they can, finally shedding their antagonistic reputation they've had for the entire game! ...And then the True Rikti show up! What do we have left? They fired all their plot bullets at the Battalion, regardless of whether or not it would have worked, and left nothing for what would've come after, which is made even worse because what came after would've been a much better 'endgame' foe. Also, while I like the Vanguard betrayal, they definitely picked the wrong member for it. Have Battalion be in keeping with their abandoned but way better 'using simulacrums of old, dead heroes' idea, and make Dark Watcher be the traitor. The guy that vanished mysteriously most of a century ago, only to mysteriously come back knowing way too much about everything and getting involved in all of the biggest things going around. The problem with the Lady Grey twist is that nobody cared about Lady Grey, nobody was suspicious of her. I dunno abut anyone else, but I was suspicious as all hell of the Dark Watcher.
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May 9, 2013 02:46
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I cared about Lady Grey, but only insomuch that I liked her attitude, I liked Vanguard, and assumed she was the Lady of the Lake and just went with it. That actually would've been neat to make Dark Watcher the traitor. It would make up for the silly, forced "why didn't you come find me, Marcus?!  " resentment he had towards Statesman.
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May 9, 2013 02:53
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I played this game on and off for about three years, and this is the first I remember hearing anything about this Battalion. Granted I never got around to doing any incarnate stuff, so I've missed more recent content.
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May 9, 2013 03:21
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They were only vaguely hinted at in-game (Mostly in the more recent content). Most of their build-up was from the devs talking about them as being the next major thing after Praetoria. Honestly, I didn't really like the idea too much either. I mean, we already had the Rikti and the Nictus covering the "Alien" niche, and they were both interesting and well-fleshed out groups. Battalion kind of made me think of Dragonball Z, where every time they beat the major foe of the story arc, some other, bigger, more powerful alien or whatever would show up and it kind of devalues the whole thing. The constant upwards progression doesn't really jive with what City of Heroes had already established; they were really great at adding new content at all levels. Just stacking more on the very top is what every other MMO does and not doing that was one of the things that made CoH unique.
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May 9, 2013 03:49
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John Murdoch posted:In the I11 trailer, Mender Silos outright says "The catalyst that brings about the unraveling of the cosmos starts HERE!" as it switches to a conspicuous close-up of Requiem. I almost never bothered to watch the trailers. I don't even think I knew they existed until, maybe, the one for power customization. quote:Edit: It is also seriously amazing how they lacked any self-awareness. Their entire tact was to never follow up on any plot hook because of time/money*, while simultaneously continually writing stories with even more plot hooks they were never going to able to follow up on, all the way to the point where the power creep from the Incarnate system would overtake everything else and they would be forced to nuke the world and press the reset button to make CoH2. I read an interview with Positron a year or so back where he said that his approach was basically to back off and let each new crop of writers do whatever the hell stories they wanted. And naturally, each bunch had their own stories they really wanted to tell, appropriateness of the setting be damned (seriously did anyone ask for that horseshit with the Black Knights in Night Ward, I can't even be bothered to remember if that had anything to do with anything, probably not; it never felt like it fit in CoH, at all). And whenever they actually did make top-down decisions about where to take the story, they often seemed to make exactly the wrong ones (like Praetoria instead of loving SPACE for GR). Anyway I'm still just boggled that after all the feedback about the player having little to no agency, all-powerful NPCs ending up doing everything that matters (with the players being spectators/assistants), and incarnate trials being large and faceless, they were still going to crank all those things up to 11 for the Battalion storyline (hey guys, go be cannon fodder while DD and Cole do the real work, thanks) and what the dickens is the Freem 15
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May 9, 2013 03:57
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I loving love you guys. Games dead for six months, and we're arguing about plots that were never officially released. How much nerdier could you possibly get? If you asked someone if you could take this thread and make it any nerdier, you would say "No, this is as Nerd as it gets"
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May 9, 2013 03:57
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It's because we loving HATE this game that we loved so much edit: also I just wanted to beat up Nazis on the moon and punch an alien god the size of a skyscraper, that's all that ever mattered usenet celeb 1992 fucked around with this message at 04:02 on May 9, 2013 |
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May 9, 2013 04:00
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minimalist posted:It's because we loving HATE this game that we loved so much It summed up so many feelings. Speaking of Nazi science and giant things, I love that the 5th Column's time travel plans, of course, included giant robot hangars in ancient Greece/Rome land. I'm sad you nevr got a chance to fight the giant Mechmen. The Mechmen were some of my favorite designed robots and I always picked the tiny mechman veteran pet as soon as I had access to it.
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May 9, 2013 04:18
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minimalist posted:It's because we loving HATE this game that we loved so much  
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May 9, 2013 04:23
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minimalist posted:I read an interview with Positron a year or so back where he said that his approach was basically to back off and let each new crop of writers do whatever the hell stories they wanted. And naturally, each bunch had their own stories they really wanted to tell, appropriateness of the setting be damned (seriously did anyone ask for that horseshit with the Black Knights in Night Ward, I can't even be bothered to remember if that had anything to do with anything, probably not; it never felt like it fit in CoH, at all). the entire first ward/night ward thing is a big black hole of who cares in my mind. it seems like they took a cool idea about the DE and once again overloaded it with yet more new villain groups made of spooky ghosts and wizards. the talons of vengeance were dumb as well.
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May 9, 2013 04:35
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Sharrow posted:the entire first ward/night ward thing is a big black hole of who cares in my mind. it seems like they took a cool idea about the DE and once again overloaded it with yet more new villain groups made of spooky ghosts and wizards. The Talons of Vengeance were kind of alright, at least as far as they fed forward into Incarnate content and you suplexed the great mother of 'em all in a psychic plain of bones in front of a statue of the Furies facepalming at how bad they hosed up. I say that, though, having my first taste of them in Incarnate content and then backpedaling to see where they showed up in the first place. And First Ward felt like it had a place in the world, insofar as okay you've got the asylum and its fallout, and we never saw much of the Light Carnies, and all of that's got to feed forward somehow. Night Ward, well, I realize that they had to deal with no zone modelers on-staff and all but I couldn't tell you what it was about, in the big picture. The black knights and a bunch of spells getting intelligence and the distressingly Cockney machinery of the afterlife, yeah, but for the life of me I can't recall how it all ended or why. I don't know what they were planning with Batallion, but it kind of strikes me that one of the big things they could push is the whole Talons of Vengeance angle. The Well of the Furies is a dick. The Talons of Vengeance are mega-dicks. Citizens of Earth, this is how your planet repays you. Earth for humans, not for gods! Populist revolt with impervium arms rises up against Recluse, Crey plays their cards right and starts distributing Batallion tech to the PPD, and quietly behind the scenes Batallion begins co-opting the Well, quick and surgical and with a minimum of dirty work that no one will ever believe anyway. It'd end a lot like Cole getting kicked out of Prateoria, of course, but you'd also have the PUNCH GIANT MONSTER angle going on with Mot and the Hamidon, and it's hard to imagine the Dimensionless would be any less PUNCH GIANT MONSTER.
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May 9, 2013 05:00
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Section Z posted:Speaking of Nazi science and giant things, I love that the 5th Column's time travel plans, of course, included giant robot hangars in ancient Greece/Rome land. I'm sad you nevr got a chance to fight the giant Mechmen. The Mechmen were some of my favorite designed robots and I always picked the tiny mechman veteran pet as soon as I had access to it. On the pubbie forums, years ago -- maybe on one of the closed beta forums -- someone mentioned seeing evidence that the devs were actually working on being able to fight enemies that big. Once enemies got above a certain size, it could apparently really gently caress up targeting, but the devs were seeming to actually come up with workarounds. So at one point, for a very brief time, there was a working, targetable giant MekMan model (the reticle only appeared on one small part of the torso). I can only assume that it was still severely flawed because I don't believe they would deliberately withhold something like that for too long.
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May 9, 2013 05:06
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Yup, this is it. The biggest dick kick of a screenshot of any game ever in any existence ever forever and ever. I remember first seeing this screen shot in what, 2007? I swear to god I was looking forward to eventually fighting giant Rularuu more than anything else in the entire game ever. For those that don't get the size of scale going on there in that screen, look at the base of the tree, or light pole, next to the giant floating dude. Your character in game was about the size of the base of that tree. Those other "tiny" monsters in the shot absolutely dwarfed you in game. Yeah. I'm mad, bro. Night Ward (or first ward? whichever one got you the midnighter badge) was gorgeous. I was seriously pissed when I saw how underutilized it was. That was also the same time I realized trials were the worst poo poo when what we really wanted was more TFs. The Seed of Hamidon was freaking amazing to see too. Tommy 2.0 fucked around with this message at 05:14 on May 9, 2013 |
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May 9, 2013 05:11
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Honestly, I don't know if we were suffering form 'Praetorian fatigue' so much as we were just sick of all the poorly-handled poo poo they stuffed into Praetoria. First Ward had a place yes, but Night Ward sorta didn't. I refer back to what I said ages ago about I23: There was lots of big stuff going on in that issue. The Praetorian war finally ended with a big showdown against Tyrant. We got a big, permanent shakeup in the game's NPC lineup, and a good chunk of other stuff. And what did they focus on? The beefcake Na'Vi and a 90% recycled zone.
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May 9, 2013 05:12
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I went into Night Ward all of twice, I think. Once, when I discovered that the only character I had in its range simply couldn't survive the content, and a second time during the shutdown when one of the devs was spawning tentacles everywhere.
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May 9, 2013 05:18
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minimalist posted:and what the dickens is the Freem 15 IIRC, after the big Cryptic/Paragon split, the "Freem 15" were the remaining members of Paragon Studios, named after an older CoH promotional comic where "FREEM!" was an onomatopoeia.
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May 9, 2013 05:18
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I'm surprised this thread is so bizarrely active...didn't this game shut down in like October?
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May 9, 2013 05:22
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Man, I want the thread title change to that like right now.
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May 9, 2013 05:41
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I'm sorry, but I can't really get behind Lady Grey being a Battalion agent or Tyrant taking up Statesman's mantle. I also connected Lady Grey with the Lady of the Lake, so far as she knew about Incarnates and Hero One. Her being Battalion could explain how she knows about the Wells, but it still seems forced. It's kinda like the Hawkgirl arc in the Justice League cartoon: This person who's saved the world dozens of times over is really a deep cover agent for an enemy invading force. What, is she just saving it for her own people? I don't buy the whole Tyrant-Statesman thing as a redemption arc. Tyrant goes out in a nuclear temper tantrum because he was losing the favor of the Wells. Is it really possible to redeem yourself of being a sore loser? And he can do that by essentially duping the people of the world to rally them together, then pulling off the mask and saying the power was inside us all along? I don't even understand what his motivation is. He's certainly not the guy to admit he had ever made a mistake, that everything he did was not for the greater good. The only way this works is if Tyrant!Statesman is written to be the most cynical bastard on the planet. Which would be awesome. Cleretic posted:Honestly, I don't know if we were suffering form 'Praetorian fatigue' so much as we were just sick of all the poorly-handled poo poo they stuffed into Praetoria. First Ward had a place yes, but Night Ward sorta didn't. I refer back to what I said ages ago about I23: There was lots of big stuff going on in that issue. The Praetorian war finally ended with a big showdown against Tyrant. We got a big, permanent shakeup in the game's NPC lineup, and a good chunk of other stuff. I thought the Praetorian War angle in the Incarnate trials proceeded well. The fight against Tyrant came along at the right time, but I think it had the wrong ending. I didn't like that he blew up his world to hand over to his sworn enemy (Praetorian Hamidon) when he knew he wouldn't win. I think he should went down clean. The last scene would be a "Good job breaking it, hero" moment in realizing there's nothing stopping Praetorian Hamidon from taking over, like having it start breaking down the sonic barriers. One last trial takes the fight to him/it/whatever, Praetorian Earth would be left devastated but not in danger of becoming Hamidon Devoured Earth #324. Then you can start the next arc of Incarnate trials and still have your Praetorian refugee crisis going on. Thumbtacks posted:I'm surprised this thread is so bizarrely active...didn't this game shut down in like October? November. I'm surprised this thread's still active, too. And actively talking about the game. That should tell you something about NCSoft's decision making skills. WeX Majors posted:Man, I want the thread title change to that like right now. Mods? MODS?
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May 9, 2013 05:44
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I took a lot of extra time trying to do all the Praetorian content and got a large amount of the 1-20 stuff in Praetoria, and pretty much everything in First Ward - and then got to Night Ward and wow, gently caress that poo poo. Dramatically harder content, really annoying enemy abilities (taunt taunt taunt), pretty unappealing story. Everything was dark as gently caress and you couldn't see anything without cranking gamma way up, excessive volumetric fog everywhere, etc etc etc, inexplicable Victorian London/gaslight visuals (how does this relate to anything else? iunno gently caress this area imouttahere). The only other reason to go there was to unlock Cimerora, which sadly I never got around to doing content in besides the ITF before time ran out. ITF was pretty much the funnest thing in the game though. e: ITF is a great case in point for gobs of required farming being any replacement for fun gameplay. Many times I declined going along for Dark Astoria trials to go do ITF, because that poo poo was fun as hell even if it was much less rewarding for 50+. Flesh Forge fucked around with this message at 05:51 on May 9, 2013 |
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May 9, 2013 05:45
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Flesh Forge posted:I took a lot of extra time trying to do all the Praetorian content and got a large amount of the 1-20 stuff in Praetoria, and pretty much everything in First Ward - and then got to Night Ward and wow, gently caress that poo poo. Dramatically harder content, really annoying enemy abilities (taunt taunt taunt), pretty unappealing story. Everything was dark as gently caress and you couldn't see anything without cranking gamma way up, excessive volumetric fog everywhere, etc etc etc, inexplicable Victorian London/gaslight visuals (how does this relate to anything else? iunno gently caress this area imouttahere). The only other reason to go there was to unlock Cimerora, which sadly I never got around to doing content in besides the ITF before time ran out. ITF was pretty much the funnest thing in the game though. I never really got that much into Incarnate stuff, mainly because of having metric craptons of alt characters. These had all been built up from the moment of launch and kept getting refreshed as I introduced successive waves of friends into the game. Super-sidekicking and such made it less necessary for me to keep making fresh ones, but loving hell this game made it really difficult to not want as many characters as possible. But one of my biggest regrets is that this game ended before my really good friends got to experience the ITF. Most of them had managed to get a character in the mid- late- 30s and I was just waiting desperately to show them how awesome it was.
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May 9, 2013 06:31
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The ITF for me is weird. I agree with you on principle Flesh. Watching you guys beating the holy gently caress out of...whatshisname.Purple Roman.whatever. That was a blast and a half, but then again so is doing anything with you goons (see: Recent Avatar Changes). But most of the actual guts of the ITF just bored the gently caress out of me. I hated fighting Romans. For whatever loving reason in this world of Dual Pistols and Laser Blasts and Flame Breath and Glowing Kitanas, Wooden Spears were where I couldn't suspend belief anymore and I'm just sitting there going "how is this thing hurting me, like, at all?" Also, for some reason I kept expecting the Romans do behave more Roman-y and I knew they couldn't do the limitations of the engine. Troop Movements, Actual Tactics, poo poo like that. I also DESPERATELY wanted Catapults and when I saw I was never gonna get em, I lost a bit of love for the game.
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May 9, 2013 06:35
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Tommy 2.0 posted:Yup, this is it. The biggest dick kick of a screenshot of any game ever in any existence ever forever and ever. I remember first seeing this screen shot in what, 2007? I swear to god I was looking forward to eventually fighting giant Rularuu more than anything else in the entire game ever. That screenshot  And yeah, I loved the visuals in Night Ward too. Just the mansion itself (well the outside) was gorgeous. It was a weird place and a total tonal shift, and I was kind of disappointed in it ultimately, but I spent a lot of time in there with my dual blades/willpower scrapper right before the end. Never once saw anyone fighting the Seed, though (although I think that was in First Ward)  Those zone events really did not pay off enough for people to do them.
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May 9, 2013 06:45
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i actually never really liked the ITF, i don't know why everyone else did either except maybe the last mission and the fact you could leech it starting at 35. it became a speedrun target for some reason and i know people got way into that, but i agree with wex, it was just kind of boring to do, i just did it because everyone was always down to. i would much rather have done any of the 45-50 tfs that nobody ever wanted to do pre-incarnate trials, like RSF/STF, LGTF, Kahn/Barracuda, even the incarnate ones like tin mage and apex. i loved going for master badges on those, i wish more people got into that  rip
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May 9, 2013 06:48
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WeX Majors posted:I loving love you guys. My nerd rage is fueled by a miniature nuclear reactor inside of my heart. I'm one of the Nerdclear 90, as it were.  Vermain posted:IIRC, after the big Cryptic/Paragon split, the "Freem 15" were the remaining members of Paragon Studios, named after an older CoH promotional comic where "FREEM!" was an onomatopoeia. Actually an old April Fool's Day joke.  They were touting that they were going to replace all sound in the game with onomatopoeia, with "FREEM!" being the sound energy blasts make.But yeah, Freem 15 is the nickname for the core dev team left after the mass exodus post-CoV launch. For a while, the game really was being made by a mere 15 people. Somewhat paradoxically, this is also when a lot of the best content in the game came out. Glazius posted:And First Ward felt like it had a place in the world, insofar as okay you've got the asylum and its fallout, and we never saw much of the Light Carnies, and all of that's got to feed forward somehow. Night Ward, well, I realize that they had to deal with no zone modelers on-staff and all but I couldn't tell you what it was about, in the big picture. The black knights and a bunch of spells getting intelligence and the distressingly Cockney machinery of the afterlife, yeah, but for the life of me I can't recall how it all ended or why. First Ward has a lot of kickass moments frontloaded into it. Even moreso if you're going through it on a loyal citizen of Praetoria who's just starting to put the pieces together regarding Cole being loving crazy. You've got survivor camps holding out against all the crazy poo poo going on, political intrigue, DUST running live fire exercises on anything that moves, and "ghosts" starting trouble out in the bayou. It works, surprisingly. But then you get about half way through and things stop adding up quite right and the lack of story focus starts eating away at the fun of First Ward. Mother Mayhem inexplicably lets DUST get eaten by ghosts for poorly explained reasons, so scratch off an entire enemy group. Katie Douglas spends the entire zone going back and forth on whether she trusts you. You find out that the Apparitions are actually the result of Mayhem's psychic surgery used to create the Seers. They're not actually ghosts but pissed off psychic phenomena. This is actually cool! ...And then it turns out that these Apparitions somehow have opened a poorly explained vortex that leads to the Netherworld. Possibly because of Diabolique...? Who has now taken over as the Main Plot, along with Percy Winkley and his strained erection for her. Then a bunch of magic poo poo happens, and oh no the Talons are involved somehow! And then Diabolique and Sorceress Serene (the Talons' main agent at that point) have a cat fight, and something something blah blah blah zone ends in a lovely AV fight. Night Ward is an entire zone of nothing but the last third of First Ward. Confused, meandering, nonsensical, and totally out of place. This might be because NW was originally supposed to be a part of First Ward, but they ran out of time/money. On the positive side, the Drudges are cool. And the Animus Arcana are a good idea - magic spells that have suddenly been granted sentience, resulting in fundamental forces of magic with the personalities of bratty children. On the other hand, the Animus Arcana are completely wasted and amount to basically nothing over the course of the zone. Night Ward is so badly written that most of the missions end with a clue that sums up what happened in the mission you just did, and it's actually necessary because either huge reams of dialogue fly by without actually explaining anything to the player or giving them a chance to process it or you're given absolutely anemic amounts of dialogue and instead the missions coast by on scripted sequences. A very rough summary of the "purpose" of Night Ward is that the Talons of Vengeance draw a small slice of the Netherworld closely parallel with the real world (ala Croatoa) so that they can unleash an ancient goddess of vengeance or whatever to burn the world down or whatever. How exactly that ties in with the Seers, the Seer Network, the vortex, or anything else in First Ward...I have no idea. What specifically happens is that the now dead Sorceress Serene poses as the Queen of the Black Knights, seduces loving Pendragon/he seduces her, something something, Arthurian bullshit, oh no now the Talons have access to the Black Prison where this goddess is kept but you stop them. The end. I like the Talons in theory, but they're at the center of all of the dumb bullshit that happens in the Wards. Despite ultimately being the key movers and shakers of both stories, they actually get very little explanation or detail. They just Are the Bad Guys because...I dunno...the Furies, guise! The 2nd lore AMA actually explains their origins, and it's absurd that we're only now getting a coherent explanation considering we were done with Praetoria without getting one: The Talons are there as agents of the Furies to punish Cole for misusing the Powers of the Well, killing Stefan Richter and stealing his powers of Tartarus, and probably for also acting like a mini-Well and juicing up his lieutenants with magical asspull Incarnate abilities. Yet for some reason they spend all their time dicking around in First Ward, scheming around in Night Ward, and then for some reason show up in Dark Astoria. At no point do they actually go after Cole in any meaningful way. Similarly, while I like the Knives of Vengeance (and the whole concept of "if you give into vengeance, you turn into a psycho harpy"), they're completely out of place in Dark Astoria but have a full arc dedicated to them. In fact, none of Dark Astoria actually felt fleshed out. It was fun and had its moments, but things just kinda...happened. John Murdoch fucked around with this message at 08:44 on May 9, 2013 |
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May 9, 2013 07:04
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Holy poo poo I miss this game. Now here is a picture of a hero helping out a neighborhood with their mail. 
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May 9, 2013 07:29
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