You know what's the one thing I hate the most about Champions Online?
That ugly, fat, smelly, nasally punk standing outside a comic shop dressed as a superhero.
and the game won't let me target him.
He's an insult to the fans of the genre who for the most part are nothing like him.
I don't appreciate being seen that way, by people who don't know anything about me, just because I like superheroes.
I wouldn't even bother mentioning him except hat I've seen versions of this character over and over again in a lot of different sources and I'm asking you please don't put one in this game unless we can target his fat @#$.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse/pub/3185/Crusader-Game-Books
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC48O9dPcNVdeyNM4efAvX6w/videos?view_as=subscriber
Not very Paladin like to smite a guy just because of poor hygiene.
I do a DnD Podcast, which can be listened to here.
Additionally, I write up my sessions of a Teen Heroes game here.
I have not seen this fanboy in Champions online, but I was not able to play that game for very long either...
Sadly, I have no trouble at all believing that this NPC is as annoying as you say, the whole game feels to me like a joke driven too far. And the reason I like Superheroes and Villains is not that they wear goofy costumes and hit people in the face, it is because in their own way, they impersonate human virtues and the opposite thereof. They give good and bad examples, sometimes by very simply showing what is right or wrong, sometimes in a more deep and subtle way. Sure the sillyness of hunting criminals in skin tight spandex is part of the fun and a joke here and there about that is fine. As long as is not overdone and the deeper intentions behind the superheroes and -villains still play the major part.
Careful, Paladin. Insulting fanbois is the first step to the darkside. That must be worth at least +5 Vigilante and -5 Hero.
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Agreed with hating CO's joke upon itself. The game never feels like it takes itself serious to me.
Yeah I wouldn't really be looking forward to seeing a clichéd "fat fanboy" standing outside a comic-book store in CoT. But it might be interesting to at least see a comic book store in the city somewhere.
It raises a weird philosophical question about what a comic book store's purpose would be in a universe where superheroes actually exist and aren't just works of fiction (like they are in our world). Would average civilians in CoT enjoy comic books the same way we do when all they need to do is look up and see "real" superheroes flying over their heads? Would what we think of as comic book stores actually be more like "fan club headquarters" for specific heroes the same way that sports fan stores for specific sports teams exist in our world?
Interesting things to think about...
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I've never played CO, but I now want to make that character in CoT :) I could start a SG called the Fanboy Legion...
Evildoers, prepare to be bagged and boarded!
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
In Watchmen, the superhero genre died out and was replaced by pirate comics. One of them is even shown, a small and very gruesome tale, read by one of the side characters. I always liked that little detail about the comic. It made sense, if you wanted to read about 'superheroes' you only need to look at a newspaper headline and get the real thing.
Watchmen dealt with that to a degree. Comics existed, with pirates being an especially popular choice but super heroes were no where to be found.
Before the ACC more or less shut them down, true crime and horror comics were quite popular. For many years Disney comics was a force to be reckoned with, especially those set in the duck universe. I think it is easy to believe that if Hero comics never took off in the CoT universe do to them being real the other formats could easily continued to be popular.
Edit: I see Lutan beat me to the punch with Watchmen. Darn me for taking my time.
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I never set anything on fire accidentally!
The Titan Legacy - Defender of the Inner Flame
As I recall, it wqas a story of a man shipwrecked on an island with nothing but the dead bodies of his crewmates, so he lashes them together to form a raft, which then attracts sharks, etc.
It was entitled "A Man on Sixteen Dead Mens' Chests" which I thought was funny, given the gruesome nature of the story.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Maybe there would be graphic novels about these weird fictional worlds where, get this, no one has any superpowers at all! Imagine what it would be like if no one had any superpowers and people had to get by just with their puny average human abilities. ;)
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
On the other side True Crime stories could easily involve super powered individuals depending on the crime story being recounted.
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I never set anything on fire accidentally!
The Titan Legacy - Defender of the Inner Flame
I was actually thinking more along the lines of CoT universe civilians reading comic books based on us as "the strange world without superpowers" as a sort of mirror universe inside-joke.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
If City of Titans gets set up to have civilians on the street making passing mention of your PC's exploits, perhaps by going to the comic book store you start hearing a LOT of mentions of past exploits ... as if there's a "following" of your past history going on (and people are arguing over what it means) ...
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
It would certainly be a spiritual follow-up to all those civilians who would comment on your deeds in atlas park
I'm with you 100% on this one, Paladin. As others have said, that character symbolises the core problem with CO: that even the devs seem to think of the game as a joke.
Spurn all ye kindle.
It's not JUST that they don't take the game seriously, but even more they don't respect the fans/players.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse/pub/3185/Crusader-Game-Books
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC48O9dPcNVdeyNM4efAvX6w/videos?view_as=subscriber
Just make the lore of CoT based in the serious parts of comic books and i'll be happy. The more "camp" and "fun" in the lore the less I like. Champions was written alot by the people who did Venture Brothers .. I don't want this in Titans please.
Crowd Control Enthusiast
It's a balancing act. Put in too little humor and the game looks too dark and grim to take seriously and any attempts at humor come off as painful, put in too much and it just looks silly and pointless. Putting in things that mock one's own player base like fanboys has to be done carefully, only on occasion, and has to be alongside mocking of themselves and comics in general or it just comes off as insulting.
I think this game needs some poking fun at comics and comic book fans among other jokes in it sometimes, as long as it's done with some subtlety and tact, but if it's constant, blatant, and obvious it becomes a problem. I think the Simpsons would be worse off without Comic Book Guy around for instance, but that's because they use him very sparingly and effectively.
BTW, when I saw the title of this thread at first I thought you were referring to characters like Oblivion's [s]Annoying[/s] Adoring Fanboy, an beyond annoying little unkillable NPC that follows you around, which I would also agree that there should be none of.
"I never cared about justice, and I don't recall ever calling myself a hero..."
Players will inject what they want.. humor included. But I say leave that to the players to bring that to the world not the world bringing it to the players.
Crowd Control Enthusiast
Well the problem with CO's story writing wasn't that it contained humor, the problem with their writing was that it contained too much humour to be taken seriously, and a lot of that humour isn't even that funny with it relying pop culture refrences and very very childish jokes to cover up the fact that the plot was made up of comic book clichés, pale imitations of CoX groups and movie plots they ripped off from classics. If this fanboy your talking about is just one npc that doesn't even say anything just flips through a comic book, that would give me a chuckle. If he followed me around and wouldn't stop talking about how cool I am then that would have been a problem. When writing a story one has to balance the light elements with the dark elements since without the dark elements there are no stakes and without light elements there is no reason to care because the cast is made up of nothing but boring jerks who think their better than everyone else.
not my video just one I lke ===> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6-SdIN0hsM
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As I said this particular character stereotype has appeared in a lot of media and he's an insult to comics and gaming fans.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse/pub/3185/Crusader-Game-Books
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC48O9dPcNVdeyNM4efAvX6w/videos?view_as=subscriber
I've seen guys like that work in comics and gaming stores. It's hardly universal but they exist
Yeah we all know SOMEONE like that and people like that do exist, I mean all the people outside the comic book store aren't all fat smelly weirdos in capes, it's just that one guy.
not my video just one I lke ===> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6-SdIN0hsM
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Mojo was Chris Claremonts response to the fanboys breaking the 3rd wall. He remains the part of the Marvel Universe I wish never existed.. *To be fair i feel that way about SO much of his stories..*
Crowd Control Enthusiast
It would, however, be really interesting if there were a group of characters in CoT that were amateur hero fans that actually tried to do things, and occasionally you got leads from them or had to fish them out of trouble when it got over their heads. Kind of like how The Lone Gunmen fit into the X-Files storyline.
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
But at least we got Longshot out of the deal
always did like the concept of probability changing heroes
Lay your hands on me
While I'm bleeding dry
Break on through blue skies
And take it high
Or the Newsboy Legion from DC.