Not sure how to put this in a game but I always liked the problems that would arise when a superhero had to struggle to maintain their dual identity. Getting caught changing into costume or uniform. Being late for a meeting or date with a non hero. Trying to maintain a job and relationships when they really want to devote all their time to patrolling or saving the world. Not all heroes are billionaires.
Wed, 12/17/2014 - 17:50
#1
Favorite part of being a superheroe, secret identity
Oh absolutely! How well I recall several of my CoH characters, the bios for them, and the many macros I made that defined them. Loved putting emotes in as the character would say something to a villain, like /e TAUNT, say Yo target name, Was that a whimper I just heard?" and bind that to one key.
Most of my characters had at least 4 macros that did fun things like, Emo the phone, while talking to mother about being too busy at the moment to go to the store, (while prepping for a fight) or something equally outrageous.
Capt Odee, saving the city one click at a time.
[CENTER][URL=http://www.nodiatis.com/personality.htm][IMG]http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/20.jpg[/IMG][/URL][/CENTER]
I think there's a few different ways to do this, and if it's integrated into the storylines, it could very ell add another level of customization to character creation.
1. Full-time Cape. This is the option for people who don't really want a secret identity put into their character, such as most non-RPers and RPers with a character concept in mind that doesn't allow for a secret identity (a good example would be Spawn. Sure, he had a life before becoming a Hellspawn, but after? he was always in costume, always on duty, pretty much). This would include such things as someone who's being sponsored to do their super business, someone who can't actually put the costume away (such as a sapient robot), and possibly things I haven't considered yet.
2. Split between Super time and secret identity. This is the classic concept, best showcased by Peter Parker or Bruce Wayne with their costumed identities as Spider-Man and Bat Man respectively. Splitting time between your normal persona, and what you do when you put on that snazzy outfit to go kick someone's teeth in.
3. People with Powers. This is a much more recent approach to the idea than the other two. The idea is that their Super identity and their Secret identity (or not-so-secret) are one and the same. this is the person who'll go into battle with a supervillain decked out in jeans and a tee-shirt, rather than spandex and a cape. I don't know any examples off the top of my head, but this is definitely my preferred sort of character for my own concepts.
An infinite number of tries doesn't mean that any one of those tries will succeed. I could flip an infinite number of pennies an infinite number of times and, barring genuine randomness, they will never come up "Waffles".
Can't think of any examples? What about Clark Kent in the TV show Smallville, or Buffy the Vampire Slayer. This type of hero isn't often seen in the comics but it's the most common type in TV and Movies.
The problem is that COH gave us no way to roleplay our secret I.D.s. But there was good reason for that. It's boring. Being a normal person is what you do when you're not playing the game. No one plays a superhero game to be Clark Kent, we play a superhero game to be Superman. That's why the number one cause of death in the Sims universe is suicide. You get bored with the character you kill him and make another one.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse/pub/3185/Crusader-Game-Books
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC48O9dPcNVdeyNM4efAvX6w/videos?view_as=subscriber
While this is true, i figure that's why there'd be the full time cape option. The way I see it, anybody who doesn't want to have the Secret ID baggage doesn't need to worry about it, but there could potentially be a subsystem for the secret identity. As I recall. the devs said something about a day job system already, but I can't remember what and, having pulled an all-nighter last night, don't have the wherewithal to go looking for it
Also, yeah. Couldn't think of any, but Buffy and Clark from Smallville both fit. The others were obvious, but I'm pretty tired.
If nothing else, getting a secret identity would be great for RP reasons. For some of my characters, I'd love to have a casual wear options as well as the super suit, and the ability to RP with either. I'm certain most people can at least agree with that sentiment.
An infinite number of tries doesn't mean that any one of those tries will succeed. I could flip an infinite number of pennies an infinite number of times and, barring genuine randomness, they will never come up "Waffles".
Not really a big fan of RP'ing. Kudos to those that do enjoy it, but I really don't care. About as far as my RP'ing goes is creating a bio for my character. After that, I'm all about punching stuff in the face and having fun.
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
Despite my negative comment above, I'm actually in favor of this and would try it out. In COH I made most of my toons use one of their costume slots for civilian clothes.
Also, once this game gets going, I'm going to try to create a web comic using screen shots and It will be a lot more interesting with secret I.D.s.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse/pub/3185/Crusader-Game-Books
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC48O9dPcNVdeyNM4efAvX6w/videos?view_as=subscriber
I didn't really interpret it as a negative complaint to the overall idea, Paladin. It more seemed like a general bemoaning of CoH's limited coding, which I figure at this point is something everybody here can relate to. The trick for CoT of course would be to make it important, but not a spotlight feature.
An infinite number of tries doesn't mean that any one of those tries will succeed. I could flip an infinite number of pennies an infinite number of times and, barring genuine randomness, they will never come up "Waffles".
Second thing to have, after a second costume slot for what your secret ID looks like: a secret ID name to display.
Also, body type should not be locked in. While most heroes will be the same gender as their secret ID, some shapeshifter types might not be!
Foradain, Mage of Phoenix Rising.
[url=https://cityoftitans.com/forum/foradains-character-conclave]Foradain's Character Conclave[/url]
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That was Jack (Statesman) Emmert's point of view, but it became pretty obvious that he was wrong given the demand for civilian clothing and secret ID-based requests. While people may not play superhero games just to be Clark Kent, a good many people do play them to be both Superman AND Clark Kent. It's much more common in the portion of the playerbase that engages in RP than otherwise, but the desire to spend time as one's hero's secret ID rather than their costumed alter ego is certainly present.
One SG member of mine had (once CoH allowed it) a character whose civilian form was a petite women while hero form was a massive armored battlesuit. If someone's inside a tank (or the powerarmor equivalent), there's no requirement that gender be at all obvious.
In fact, it raises several rather strange questions if the combat mech does in indeed have a gender. I mean, obvious that's going to be desired by some, but from a purely real world point of view, there's no reason to give your combat vehicle breasts.
An infinite number of tries doesn't mean that any one of those tries will succeed. I could flip an infinite number of pennies an infinite number of times and, barring genuine randomness, they will never come up "Waffles".
Unless the Breasts are missiles like Aphrodite A
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse/pub/3185/Crusader-Game-Books
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC48O9dPcNVdeyNM4efAvX6w/videos?view_as=subscriber
Clearly, they'd be there as increased capacitors for an attack like this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tloSO6olREQ
An infinite number of tries doesn't mean that any one of those tries will succeed. I could flip an infinite number of pennies an infinite number of times and, barring genuine randomness, they will never come up "Waffles".
I agree that it's not required that people wearing massive armored battlesuits have to notify anyone outside about which gender they are inside. But by the same token I think it ought to be something that could be made outwardly obvious if the player actually desired it to be.
Case in point I also created my own version of a "petite female hero with a Huge (body type) massive armored battlesuit costume" in CoH. It was fun but the two main problems I had were that all of her badge titles were automatically switched to the male names/phrases and I always intended it to be fairly obvious that the character was definitely a FEMALE in a battlesuit. I don't have any problem with people who want to have truly gender-changing, gender-neutral, or gender-hidden characters, but in my case it was impossible to achieve the "small girl in a big battlesuit" concept I wanted without everyone thinking I was just always meant to be a big, faceless MALE in a suit of powered armor.
For what it's worth I think the character creator in CoT is going to allow for armored battlesuit costumes that could be worn by either sex, or at the very least allow such a battlesuit to be worn by a character where it's obvious which gender the character's supposed to be by having the proper badge names and so on.
Bottomline I don't need my female character's "massive armored battlesuit costume" to have attached armored breasts to remind everyone she's female. But I would like to be able to have a costume like that and still be able to keep my female as a female as far as the rest of the mechanics of the game are concerned.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Relevant to the discussion of gender is [url=http://cityoftitans.com/forum/genders]an existing thread[/url] about all things gender-related, including costume and pronoun issues.
Wow I could read that or dig my eye out with a spoon, I'm weighing my options.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse/pub/3185/Crusader-Game-Books
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC48O9dPcNVdeyNM4efAvX6w/videos?view_as=subscriber
Doing the latter will make it a lot harder to do the former, so choose wisely. It's a long thread but contains a lot of valid discussion. I thought it might be helpful to point out given the recent direction of this thread, but if not, c'est la vie.
Yeah I was aware of the "gender thread" having posted to it quite a bit myself. I admit it is related to how people might want to handle their secret identities in CoT, but I think that particular thread got into some minutiae about the gender topic that I didn't really want to reference here.
To steer back closer to the original topic here I again think the bottomline is that the CoT character generator will hopefully be more friendly to people's character concepts (including secret identities) and not have to lock us into arbitrary situations like "if you want the biggest powered armor body possible in the game you must choose the male gender" dynamic.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I am confused. Was the op asking for missions that incorporate a secret identity or just the option to assume a secret identity?
If its just assuming a secret Identity then I would guess that an alternate costume slot would be enough to fill this role.
If its missions and such I guess that could be interesting....but would have to be optional. I would hate for my full time sewer dwelling mutant beast lizard to have to put on a suit and get a job.
Yeah the hard part about the Devs trying to come up with generic "secret identity missions" built into the game is that there's viturally no chance that any of them would completely fit 100% with any player's personal character concept. Even the "Day Job" badge system of CoH didn't quite work for this due to the limited number of Day Jobs hardwired into the game.
Once we have player creatable missions in CoT then I could see players coming up with content that might specifically relate to how they want to handle their own secret identities. But until that happens having multiple costume slots (and/or a specifically dedicated "secret identity" costume slot which might provide the option to be "powerless" if desired) seems like the easiest way for the game to allow us to handle roleplaying our own secret identities.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Well in addition to a civilian costume slot, we could choose an occupation and receive an income appropriate home, perhaps inhabited by relatives or significant others of our choosing. It could even include a secret entrance to our superhero lair.
We could also have a place of work to go to with coworkers and a boss,and perhaps with another secret lair entrance.
The NPCs might even have appropriate lines to speak when we click on them.
At first, it would just be stuff to look at but in time the devs could come up with more to do with it.
One obvious advantage is a quick way around town, from our home to our base to our job.
Of course if we don't have a secret I.D. we might live in our hero base, or be the kind of hero who doesn't need a home.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse/pub/3185/Crusader-Game-Books
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC48O9dPcNVdeyNM4efAvX6w/videos?view_as=subscriber
I love the idea of secret Identities in the game. Even if you do nothing with them, it allows people the option. I would start by having the option of displaying your secret Id instead of your costume id. I would make you basically as invisible as an NPC if you have your Secret Id option on... so you would agro street thugs at whatever level the developers feel is good. I would make it low, just because it makes no sense to have every person in a city attacked every time they walked down the street. If you are going to push an RPG feel then how about places you can go only in a secret Id? If there is housing, how about apartment buildings you can only rent in a secret id. It would be interesting to actually try to play a secret Identity and cool if you could keep it separate from other players. I have lots of thoughts on what you could do and how to do it. If the developers have an interest, it always comes back to time and money. I do feel it was an easy way for COX to have made some changes, but they kept adding zones and poor crafting systems.
I think all of my characters fell into Halae's #3: 'People with Powers' category. Many of them might have a 'powered-down' state, in which they might appear... normal. If by 'normal' you mean, "I might not be a superhero, but I play one on TV," levels of good looks and muscles... and height. My juvenile heroes might pass for teens.
And many of my heroes are clearly not 'normal', nor could they pass for Human without extensive disguises. They have too much fur, fangs, wings, scales, or freakish pointy-bits.
My main, explicitly does not have a 'secret identity', he has a 'public persona', like a Rockstar, or Pro Wrestler. "Say! Aren't you Perfect Perry?" *Weary nod* "Yes, I am, but right now I'm just Perry Smythe, trying to score some Chinese Take-Out."
I wonder, actually, if there are any elves, catgirls, werewolves, or aliens living in The City, who do Not have 'powers'? Just ordinary citizens who don't fit 'the norm'. It would seem that a city that accepts seven-foot flaming avatars of the gods as an everyday occurrence would be similarly blasé about someone with green skin, or who appears to be a robot. Wouldn't they?
I mean, what about the people whose 'secret identity' is that they Don't have any 'powers' and actually Are just a waiter at the local Denny's?
Be Well!
Fireheart
the devs could start with a minimalist approach to secret id's. you get your secret id costume/personality sorted at creation, you choose a profession from a pre-existing list. for those with a secret ID, the map indicates areas related to the player's chosen profession, e.g. for a doctor it shows the hospitals & clinics, for a reporter it shows a newspaper hq and courthouse, etc.
in these areas, if you're in your secret ID 'mode', you're able to find/overhear tips about story lines pertaining to your profession. For instance, i'm hanging around the hospital as mild mannered Dr Dooright when i hear a tip (only available to someone in appropriate profession disguise) that the local clinics are having their medical shipments interrupted by the black rose. later i hear another tip there's a shipment due tonight at clinic X across town. when the black rose show up this time they're facing Dr Whoopass instead of security. next time i'm around a medical center, in disguise or not, i hear locals talking about the exploit and how it saved lives, helped that kid beat cancer, etc. obviously it would work the same way for villains.
The secret ID/profession gives the writers some additional avenues for the imagination to run and wouldnt require anything out of the norm regarding tips/missions, etc, and works the fame dynamic in nicely.
the challenge with this would be whether players find it an annoyance to flip back and forth between secret id/hero, or require them to be in secret ID mode to get certain missions.
The only problem I'd have with this is if the game absolutely required you to have a secret ID in order to access this kind of mission content. You have to remember that not everyone is going to play the classic Clark Kent / Superman type character.
What if my character is a big robot that has no secret ID because, well, he's a big robot that never really bothers to disguise who/what he is? Will my character miss out on parts of the game because I've chosen to not give him a secret ID?
I have nothing against secret IDs or content that's geared for them. I just don't want to be forced to have a secret ID just to make sure I can enjoy everything the game offers. There needs to be equivalent ways for characters with no secret IDs to be able to get clues to missions the same way your secret ID characters would.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
totally agree. not suggesting only those with secret id's get tips. i think everyone should have access to tips and the tips should derive from a variety of sources.
in this case, those with secret id's have access to a select set of profession-specific missions that those without secret id's or secret id's in a particular profession don't. when not in secret id mode, these players get the same regular tips everyone else does and don't hear the secret id tips even if they're wandering around the aforementioned map locations. these secret id tips don't yield epic arcs, they're just simple missions akin to scanner missions from CoH.
as an aside, i personally don't go in for role playing. i'm just thinking about ways to make the secret id construct (if MWM decides to include it) more interesting and viable for those who do and want a little more texture and immersion.
I'm not sure about restricting those missions to people with secret IDs. Besides the possibility of those who choose not to have secret IDs thinking they're being cut out of the fun, there is also the point that overhearing or observing something directly is not the only way to find out about it. Non-supers in those same professions could be just as good at realizing There's Something Going On Around Here, and they might think it a good idea to let somebody know about it. Maybe they think it just makes a good story, and repeat in the hearing of an information broker.
Another way to differentiate these sorts of tips, would be weighting the probabilities, so that if a character has a secret ID with the appropriate profession, they have a much better chance of getting that tip in that way, as opposed to others who might (much less likely) still pick it up in a slightly different form from other sources.
Foradain, Mage of Phoenix Rising.
[url=https://cityoftitans.com/forum/foradains-character-conclave]Foradain's Character Conclave[/url]
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A "non secret ID" character should be able to have access to any content a "secret ID" character does. There should be nothing like "profession-specific" missions because then you'd fall into the same trap they had with the origin-specific content of the early days of CoH. It became very apparent that people hated the idea of being locked into (or out of) specific content just because you did or didn't pick the right origin at character creation. The same would apply if you locked yourself into a given secret ID at character creation and could only get tips related to that predefined job type.
On the other hand I'd have no problem at all with using a secret ID system as a means to improve the random chances of getting generic mission tips. This would encourage using the built-in Secret ID system as a means to get a "tip drop bonus" instead of as a "requirement to get ANY tips". It would then be your choice to go without a secret ID knowing that you'd still have access to anything a secret-IDer could get but maybe just not as fast.
Secret IDs should be used to improve your chances of getting tips in general, not be a requirement to be able to get ANY mission tips in the first place.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I think Oogly has a point here. Going back to my three different character types of Full-time Cape, Split time cape, and person with powers, it's very easy to have three different content catalysts that lead into the same sort of missions. In this example, I'll use a character concept I've had for a while; Candice "Blackclaw" Dumont, a half-demon brute-style character with regeneration, super strength, super toughness, and general boxing know-how.
As a full time cape, Blackclaw is training in her government sponsored hideout, possibly with a teammate. they stop when a city official calls in, asking for help through the secure line; it would seem the tech thief villain Hodgepodge is stealing prototypes from Denton Computers. Blackclaw heads over but Hodgepodge and he gets away. After a bit of investigation, Blackclaw finds his hideout and makes a raid, affirming her position as one of the city's protectors. A villainous example of this would be similar, with Blackclaw getting a tip from one of her Fixer contacts that Hodgepodge is going to be making off with some goods, and it might be a good opportunity to steal it away from him. He gets away, but it's not hard to track down his hideout through your contact network.
As a split-time cape, Blackclaw spends her days as Candice, using magic to disguise herself as someone purely human. She spends time at work to keep up appearances (and to make ends meet if she's a hero), stocking shelves at the local grocery store for minimum wage. While spending some time at work, she hears through the radio that Hodgepodge made a raid on Denton Computers. she spends her night as blackclaw shaking down criminals to get his whereabouts, either to steal and sell off the tech herself, or to return it to its rightful owners.
In the People With Powers example, Candice Dumont doesn't bother with all the pomp and glam regarding supers. Instead, she's in her civvies at the bank across the street when Denton Computers gets sacked - whether she was there to rob the place or just make a deposit. she can't follow the flying Tinker, but she can track down his position through her contacts and raid his base, once again either to get the equipment back or to sell it herself.
The trick is that none of the above examples dictate the mission, just how you find out about it. Villain or Hero, full-time, Part-time, or just a person walking about, you get a tip somehow and head to Hodgepodge's base, take him out and take the tech.
An infinite number of tries doesn't mean that any one of those tries will succeed. I could flip an infinite number of pennies an infinite number of times and, barring genuine randomness, they will never come up "Waffles".
Lothic hit the nail on the head on this last post. The problem comes with creating a secret id system is that it is basically an entire sub-game within the game. It requires a separate build for the secret id with its own faction repuations, its own alignment, and with any inclusion of profession-specific concent, all the resources to create and support said content. With that are the issues of creating a system of parity of concent based on profession and how players access said professions; such as parity between billionair playboy profession and street ally bum.
If secret IDs don't have their own alignment and faction rep, then the secret ID yields nothing that the non-secret ID can't access on its own. As such it becomes a more involved system requiring development resources to create and ongoing development resources to support. It is due to these reasons the plans we had for a secret ID have been put on indefinite hiatus. We're focusing in the main game, and that's the thing, the main game is about the super-identity and all the action-based combat. This is why we did away with the skills system nearly two years ago because it didn't fall within the scope of game design. And if the main game is about the action, and then there is this...system that requires anything but action, you have an entire system that exists beyond the scope of the game. That's not an insignificant issue. It is basically creating an entire game on of itself that must adhere to the main rules of the game at large.
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i'm VERY much of the view that if this (or any other) idea significantly drains dev resources from the main game involving the super-identity, it should be back burner'ed until such time as the resources exist or the need for it is proven.
My original intent was a simple system that allowed toons to run some missions associated with secret identities. very straightforward, low-impact missions as 'immersion color' rather than anything too involved. if the tips are directly tied to reputation and alignment as they pertain to the secret identity rather than simply paralleling the super-identity's reputation and alignment, such a system makes no sense. The way Tannim summarized this mechanic as MWM envisions it I am in complete agreement with avoiding it.
*now contemplating which thread to kill next with my posting...*
It's not that doing anything with secret IDs would be a bad thing. This is a superhero game after all. It's just that most of the decent ideas related to it would either take too much effort to do right or likely have other problems associated with it that would be more trouble than they're worth.
For what it's worth I'd be happy with every character getting an extra free "secret ID" costume slot and letting people choose to use it and or roleplay with it as they like. Something along those lines might be simple enough for MWM to acomplish by launch time as a "first step" to other secret ID things they could do after launch.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
agreed. start very simple and add to it over time if it's shown to be something of interest - a.k.a the lean startup model of MMO building ; ) - but to go down the road that Tannim described would be folly at this point.
Really the importance of secret ids is more about rpg. Ways to make it more rewarding to rpg are great, but secondary to having the game out. I do however object to the argument about it not being fair... I mean you have multiple character slots and if you chose to be a giant robot, then one of the consequences is you can't mingle and will not have access to things. Do we not have any land based content because some people want to play only fish people? RPG has made a poor game Ultima Online a game that is still active, when many better designed or graphically pretty games have failed.
Regardless of what the developers do, I hope they stick to their vision. I am tired of games trying to appease minorities who are unhappy with a facet of the game. Ultimately you end up with bigger sections of unhappy players if you keep changing the game baselines.