Talk:CoX Arc 4804

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Nice storyline on this one! I loved the "inversions" of the cannon characters as well as the idea of Bright Astoria. Also, once again, good job on the enemy difficulty. Wasn't bad at all soloing on Heroic with my Ice/Ice blaster.

In terms of suggestions:

• I would consider swapping UD in for his wife in the final mission. He comes off a bit poorly in that he's basically dictating through Hetrodyne what the players are supposed to do but can't be bothered to lend a hand himself ("all that stuff cons grey to me"?). If he won't fit in any of the missions then perhaps some text describing how he's helping off screen would help too.
• The line in the first mission briefing of "Usurper Dyne has declared this a Task Force" is a bit dubious too. It smacks of UD having some form of official authority that the player character should be bowing to. My first reaction to that was "who died and made him Positron"?
• If they can't manage to fix the melee npc problem it might be good to make sure everyone has a ranged attack available. The wife was 100% useless in my run due to that bug.

Dreamfarer 16:17, 11 April 2009 (PDT)

I'm glad you liked the story. I've implemented a couple of things in both arcs that your feedback made me think of, and made a few more tweaks. I also wanted to address a few of your comments.

UD "can't be bothered to lend a hand" in the missions

Well, besides describing his intentions to work on a permanent solution as he steps down at the end of the first arc, all of the mission briefings in this second arc had some sort of reference to what Usurper Dyne was off doing to help in the background, which generally involve working on the computer system in some way. At least one of the entry popups also alluded to him being the one transporting you into the proper programs. So I thought that was pretty well covered already. Still, I added a few more references to what's going on, and made mission 2's description more explicit.

Only a purely practical level, there's simply no more room for another custom character (if I could use the built-in Mynx at any level, I could free up some space, but even then I'd probably just use it for more Kolizhav or Cray.

I could take out Malevelyn, but I won't. For personal reasons, it was very important to me that she play a role in my "signature" arc, among them that she and her player are at the top of a very short list of reasons that I remained in the game after my free month back in 2004. Instead what I've done is expand her presence in the story somewhat.

I've also changed all of the melee allies to a ranged fighting preference, which will hopefully mitigate the melee bug.

UD's authority

I could go on and on about this one, as it bugs me (not your comments specifically ... I've been seeing it crop up elsewhere), but I don't think a wiki in general or this page in particular are a good place for a theoretical discussion about the etiquette of Player Content. The short form is that I believe that approaching player stories and characters differently (from dev stories) solely because you know they came from a player is a form of meta-gaming, at best. You accept Positron's apparent authority at face value, why not Usurper Dyne's? Several signature dev characters are already known to be tabletop characters written into lore by dev-fiat (including not only Positron, but also Synapse and Statesman), but it's offensive when a player character displays any hint of being on their level? At least with a player's character, there's a good chance their supposed reputation derives from actual gameplay.

I'll save any elaboration of that general point for a forum topic, and instead move onto specifics to answer your question: "Who died and made him Positron?"

The answer is that (in character) the city officials and (out of character) the game did that. We aren't talking about the authority to command players here. We're talking about the authority to state, officially, "this is a big problem ... a group needs to be mustered to take care of it".

UD is a level 50 character, ostensibly now a peer to the signature characters and roughly equivalent in influence, respect, and power (to the extent the devs allow us to be). He has been for several years. He's worked with nearly all of them directly, and saved some from dire fates. He's saved not only the city but the planet from destruction on more than one occasion. He's had dinners with the president.

This isn't something I've claimed for myself through RP; it was related to me through badges and canonical storyarc souvenirs based on my actual gameplay. Nor is it something unique and special about UD; it can apply to more or less any character of that level as fits their story. In short, if we are to believe what the game tells us, he does have that degree of authority.

He no longer needs to play second fiddle or errand boy to the signature characters as we all do through most of the game, so behaving as though he had to ask them for permission to do something as minor as declare an official Task Force, especially on a critical and time sensitive matter like an incipient invasion, would be inappropriate (and galling), IMO.

You don't need to bow to him, nor know the history that granted this (IMO, frankly minimal and entirely pragmatic) level of recognition to him if you don't want to. As with all the other Task Forces in game, if you want the history of the contact beyond what is directly relevant to the arc's story, you can read it elsewhere. But the city does need to acknowledge it, I believe.

This is one of the only methods players will ever have for any sort of game fiction to reflect our actual existence and impact on the game world for others, and thereby make a relatively static MMO into a shared world (unless you count random civilians saying things like "I heard $otherplayer defeated $recentvillaingroup. Isn't $heshe so awesome"). We should embrace that ability, not scorn it.

That said, I reworded that bit to make it clearer that he is only officially forming a task force and then asking you to join it, not that he's exerting any ability to command you or unilaterally decide that YOU are a task force.

- Gregor 16:46, 13 April 2009 (PDT)