Horror is scary to normal people.
To a superhero, not so much.
When Batman goes up against Aliens or Predator
My first thought is Ripley beat the Aliens, Dutch and Danny Glover beat the Predator
Batman isn't going to have any problem.

I'm not saying these things shouldn't be used.
They should
I can't wait to see them
but lets not go out of our way to make them more terrifying that a regular supervillain
and don't be disappointed if they're not more terrifying than a regular super villain

In many ways the best horror characters are super villains and vice versa
Ever notice that Doctor Vahzilok has a lot in common with Herbert West–Reanimator?
Pin Head from Hellraiser is one awesome supervillain
if Doomsday had been a dragon thing with tentacles instead of a humanoid,
Superman's death wouldn't have been any different.
and the ultimate supervillain
who I'm hoping will be not just present but prominent in this game
is DRACULA

Just remember that when you mix genres,
Superhero trumps almost anything else
Because if they didn't, they wouldn't be Superheroes.

My thought on that subject were expressed in a thread I started a long time ago
http://cityoftitans.com/forum/keep-most-monsters-streets

what if add Uncanny Valley to CoT if u not know Uncanny Valley watch video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSKtTBjSBg0

The tension and release concept works well with normal characters. But
As I've already pointed out, a superhero is not going to be scared of what's going to happen
waiting for it is just going to slow the pace of the game.
As the guy in the video said, there's a big difference between an action and a horror game.

Besides that, I'm not sure how we can control pacing in a game where the difficulty setting and team size will determine how many bad guys there are.

One thing he suggested that I would like to see is mission maps with different types of lighting and fog.
including the ability for players to adjust this for their missions, in the Mission Architect.

Just remember that some powers should be able to adjust the light and blow the fog away.

Maps with ambushes waiting around corners will require very precise control of where opponents are set on the map.
but closed doors could be cool if we can open them without loading screens.

Finally I've said before that the game (and the Mission Architect) needs traps and secret doors, (and the ability to detect and disarm them with certain powers) to add more variety to the challenges.

Some traps could even be designed to force teams to split up without actually hurting anyone. That could be a neat surprise for people who rely on safety in numbers and like to crank the difficulty for maximum rewards. Soloers wouldn't be immune to the disorienting effect of suddenly having their exit cut off, and or finding themselves in a totally different part of the map.

TheMightyPaladin wrote:

Doesn't work for me.
That's one of the benefits of asperger's:
There's a lot of stuff we just don't notice.
So if the uncanny valley is familiar enough to seem like it could be real to you
then it's familiar enough to pass for normal with us.
Although it does go a long way toward explaining why I creep other people out.

if add something like twin peaks like say in video (every scene every line of dialogue even the way the actors deliver their lines it's tilted in a natural yet not so unnatural that you can resign it to the round the fantasy) what if we add the to npcs and if u did not watch twin peak it a good stelevision series

Why did you quote my whole post, then only respond to the first paragraph?
I mean sure we see things differently as far as how effective horror can or even should be
but I think there were some good Ideas in there.

Do you want fog and darkness to be part of the environment?
Do you think traps would be good?
What about forcing groups to split up?

Oh and here's a new Idea, What if players that are defeated wake up in terrible places?
I've mentioned death traps before but a comic book death trap is really a puzzle to solve.

What if you wake up bound to 2 crossbeams with a table in front of you
the only light is hanging low over the able so all you can see is the instruments of torture on the table.

Or what if you wake up in a cell with horrible creatures in adjacent cells.
Creatures that were once human.

there could even be other (still human) prisoners that you could rescue
turning this mission into every gamer's greatest fear: An Escort Mission!

what if put Cthulhu to CoT i here ideal to do it i make a surviving missions and i play against the expectations that game set up for us the further into the game players went the more i'd make them realize how little control they actually had the more expose them to bout love eternal darkness askin sanity and where normal games go of of their way to point out here just how meaningful your decisions were i'd turn the tables in late in the sure the player just how meaningless how inconsequential all those big decisions they thought they were making really were i wouldn't guarantee the happy end you normally see from video games either i wouldn't have you win i.d have a debatable best ending is simply surviving the best endind i'd also have most to be in npcs in the game not be in on the meters in the world lovecraft create most peoples would think that any mention of the creeping things the colors outer space or a sign of madness if player try to talk to them about the experiences they were having it simply be shunned or possibly thrown into award because part of Cthulhu is isolation it having an experience the world needs to know but that no one's willing to accept park the Cthulhu questioning your own sanity and having to ask your rational self whether it's more reasonable to think that the entire world is ignorant to their peril or that you yourself just might have gone mad

By the way. I mentioned before that I don't know much about Lovecraft, but the last couple of weeks I've been reading up on the subject. I don't have the time or really the interest to read his actual stories, but Wikipedia has plot summaries for most of them and I've been reading those along with some of the comments. They're pretty interesting. and they give me the impression that my old GM did Lovecraft Justice in our games.

Funny thing happened to me though. When I read the description of Celephaïs, it made me cry because in the game we played I became king of Celephaïs. That was my city a long long time ago and reading the description, after all these years was just ....
I can't describe it.

TheMightyPaladin wrote:

The problem with this approach is that it doesn't work in a superhero game.
The feeling of growing insanity in lovecraft came from the idea that the character's abilities, knowledge, & beliefs were insufficient to cope with their newly discovered realities and that not only were they unable to save themselves but in the end all of humanity was doomed. The main protagonists were all upper class white people living in a time when white people had dominated the world but when they were beginning to loose their grip on it. All of the things white people had assumed made them superior and destined to rule the world forever were proving insufficient, and their own civilization was tearing itself apart with a giant world war and a looming economic depression. Plus there had just been an influenza pandemic that had killed even more people than the great war. A lot of people had a sense that the world was falling into madness, that all of our efforts had been in vain. Even worse, the doom that they felt creeping toward them didn't fit their deeply held beliefs about how the world was supposed to end. It was as though their faith had also been in vain.
Lovecraft believed that among the lower classes of white civilization ignorance and depravity were always there waiting to rise to the surface. He felt that the civilization that had been so proud of it's accomplishments had been a delusion all along.
The reason this doesn't translate to a superhero world is that as I said before when you mix genres superhero trumps almost anything else. If it didn't they wouldn't be superheroes. Superheroes fight to the end and if they can't win humanity is doomed. Lovecraft could end a story with a sense of impending doom because you could see that the protagonist couldn't win, but in a superhero story; if the heroes can't win, other heroes will come and eventually they will win or all humanity really is doomed and we have to see the end or we just wont believe it. That means the only way for that sense of hopeless doom to come into a superhero game is to actually destroy the universe. Not just the earth either, but the whole freeking universe has to go, or else we'll still believe someone somewhere can make a wish or turn back time or summon the superheroes of a thousand other universes, to put things right. (Just like the episode of Adventure Time where the Lich took over the World and Fin messed up his wish but Jake made it all right with his wish.) In the superhero mindset no matter what the odds might seem to be the deck is always stacked against evil, and the good guys always win. It's hands down the most optimistic genre possible. Even more than most religions.
Are you really willing to not only create missions where the only possible outcome is permanent death or insanity, and then totally end the whole game for everyone every few weeks? Because that's the only way you can get that kind of horror to work.
As I've said before, I like horror, and I like to see superheroes overcome horror. It's awesome. And as the guy in the video pointed out most horror is actually designed to make you feel safe, which is why it goes so well with superheroes. Superman has been fighting giant monsters since his earliest cartoons. And I can't wait to show Cthulhu who's boss but in the superhero world it just isn't horror anymore because the heroes have got this.
Someone pointed out above that The fist time Batman fought the Predator he got his ass kicked. Yes, but he came back and won. And what happened when he fought Bane? It was even worse and bane is just a super villain. We all accept that superheroes can loose round one. In this genre that's how you build tension. But they always win eventually.
Here's a story I wrote hat appears in my book Knights of Saint George. It's the origin story for Der Übermensch:
Hansel Horst is the great great grandson, of the original Űbermensch. He was a young, athletic mass communications major enjoying the party atmosphere of Berlin, and dreaming of going to Hollywood to become the next Arnold Schwarzenegger. Yeah he's buff.
Hansel's life changed the day that he and his friends took a vacation, to The Czech Republic, and got lost. Lured into a vampire village, they would have all died, if not for Hansel's bold action and leadership. Rather than going like lambs to slaughter, they put a heroic fight, and as the danger grew Hansel found himself doing impossible things, to protect his friends. It didn't take long for him to realize that the danger had triggered his latent mutant powers. Pushing himself to the limit, he saved his friends and totally demolished the vampire village. They flew back to Germany, with Hansel carrying the van, that they traveled in.
That's what happens when you stick a superhero into a classic horror movie plot. First it turns into an action adventure, then a total butt kicking! Yeah! I'd pay theatre prices to see that.

As I've said before make surviving missions i.e like it videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3DAjEa5TjY and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCDqO25zEeY

I do like the idea of villains that can only be beaten certain ways
Though I'm not sure I agree with the only one way thing
Luring a vampire out into the sun is cool
but why couldn't I just pick up a piece of wood and ram it through his heart ?
As for villains that can't be killed at all
and have to be locked away or banished
Those are a really good Idea
I'm hoping to see some of that.

One scenario I'd love to see is a villain who's summoning a horror when you encounter him
But you can rescue his sacrificial victim, causing the horror to devour the summoner
before turning on you.

sev171 wrote:

TheMightyPaladin wrote:
The problem with this approach is that it doesn't work in a superhero game.
The feeling of growing insanity in lovecraft came from the idea that the character's abilities, knowledge, & beliefs were insufficient to cope with their newly discovered realities and that not only were they unable to save themselves but in the end all of humanity was doomed. The main protagonists were all upper class white people living in a time when white people had dominated the world but when they were beginning to loose their grip on it. All of the things white people had assumed made them superior and destined to rule the world forever were proving insufficient, and their own civilization was tearing itself apart with a giant world war and a looming economic depression. Plus there had just been an influenza pandemic that had killed even more people than the great war. A lot of people had a sense that the world was falling into madness, that all of our efforts had been in vain. Even worse, the doom that they felt creeping toward them didn't fit their deeply held beliefs about how the world was supposed to end. It was as though their faith had also been in vain.
Lovecraft believed that among the lower classes of white civilization ignorance and depravity were always there waiting to rise to the surface. He felt that the civilization that had been so proud of it's accomplishments had been a delusion all along.
The reason this doesn't translate to a superhero world is that as I said before when you mix genres superhero trumps almost anything else. If it didn't they wouldn't be superheroes. Superheroes fight to the end and if they can't win humanity is doomed. Lovecraft could end a story with a sense of impending doom because you could see that the protagonist couldn't win, but in a superhero story; if the heroes can't win, other heroes will come and eventually they will win or all humanity really is doomed and we have to see the end or we just wont believe it. That means the only way for that sense of hopeless doom to come into a superhero game is to actually destroy the universe. Not just the earth either, but the whole freeking universe has to go, or else we'll still believe someone somewhere can make a wish or turn back time or summon the superheroes of a thousand other universes, to put things right. (Just like the episode of Adventure Time where the Lich took over the World and Fin messed up his wish but Jake made it all right with his wish.) In the superhero mindset no matter what the odds might seem to be the deck is always stacked against evil, and the good guys always win. It's hands down the most optimistic genre possible. Even more than most religions.
Are you really willing to not only create missions where the only possible outcome is permanent death or insanity, and then totally end the whole game for everyone every few weeks? Because that's the only way you can get that kind of horror to work.
As I've said before, I like horror, and I like to see superheroes overcome horror. It's awesome. And as the guy in the video pointed out most horror is actually designed to make you feel safe, which is why it goes so well with superheroes. Superman has been fighting giant monsters since his earliest cartoons. And I can't wait to show Cthulhu who's boss but in the superhero world it just isn't horror anymore because the heroes have got this.
Someone pointed out above that The fist time Batman fought the Predator he got his ass kicked. Yes, but he came back and won. And what happened when he fought Bane? It was even worse and bane is just a super villain. We all accept that superheroes can loose round one. In this genre that's how you build tension. But they always win eventually.

I agree that the growing insanity would be difficult, if not impossible to pull off in this game. I also agree that the player needs to win in the end. I mean, it's a superhero mmo, that's a must. I'm not thinking about the end as much so much, but more so the journey getting there. supernatural monsters tend to have different rules compared to your run of the mill supervillain. In some cases there are only certain ways they can be destroyed. In other cases they can't be killed so they need to be trapped in some way. You know you're going to win in the end but there's no reason why there can't be a psychological roller coaster designed to make the player fear for what's to come. Let's take the gardener from castlevania 64 for example. He can't die and he always knows where you are. You may escape him sometimes but he's always coming for you and you don't know if he'll there when you turn the corner. I consider Cornell to be a horror superhero. Like... he's a werewolf that shoots energy out of his hands. Still he can't defeat this enemy no matter how hard he tries, but he still needs to get passed him. My heart raced every time I entered that garden because that gardener was a thing of nightmares back in the day. This is an example of good horror through game play. I think something like that could be done in this game when it comes to horror mission chains. Along with many other effective horror themes.

if u have time watch video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IyPc5nw0Wk

dawnofcrow wrote:

if u have time watch video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IyPc5nw0Wk

I watched it and I simply disagree.
Or rather, I feel that what he's saying doesn't apply to me, or the heroes I like.
I've never had one of my heroes have to confront this kind of failure and realization of his humanity
Because I've never had a hero, who thought he was able to change the world, in the first place.

Superheroes are NOT out to change the world.
Villains want to change the world
that's how I've always seen it.
Superheroes fight against villains to preserve the status quo
[b]so that normal humans can be free,
to be the prime movers of history.[/b]

The closest things to exceptions in any heros I've ever loved are Zoro, & Flash Gordon
Both of these heroes fought to overthrow tyrants and change governments
But Zoro was fighting for the rights of his countrymen
at a time when the ideals he fought for were very popular around the world
He stood up for a cause the common people were clamoring for
so he didn't so much change the world as champion a change that was inevitable.

Flash Gordon fought Ming the Merciless and overthrew the government of the whole world
But he was first kidnapped by Ming and fought to save the Earth.

Even Superman usually (you know depending on the writer) Doesn't try to change the world
just protect it.

Now I know the Squadron Supreme and Doctor Manhattan each changed their worlds dramatically, and they're exceptions, but they're important exceptions because they prove the rule. In each case they were set outside the main continuity of their respective companies. That's because Yes superheroes do have the power to change the world if they try but if they do they turn it into a world very different from our own which the readers will have a hard time relating to, and the writers will have a hard time treating consistently.

Don't want the wild.
Also, in most stories vampires don't change until after they're buried.
Zombie infection takes a variable length of time depending on the story
In World War Z in was mere seconds, but that movie sucked
in most it's a matter of hours.

The main thing to remember however is that World of Warcraft already had a now infamous incident where an infection spread from character to character and became an epidemic plague. This was not a popular event. Not by any means. It was widely viewed as a major disaster that almost destroyed the game.

sev171 wrote:

This is just... incorrect. All heroes throughout the history of any mythology ever experience defeat and realizations of their limitations. They may not necessarily be trying to CHANGE their realities (although most are. I can get into specific examples if need be. but like... they are.) but they do fail in their goal and experience these feelings of humanity or isolation at some point. I mean... superman left earth at one point because he felt so isolated. A hero is an archetype. And the hero's journey has a very specific story structure: http://www.thewritersjourney.com/hero%27s_journey.htm If it didn't it just wouldn't be as interesting. Nobody likes 2 dimensional characters and people like characters they can relate to. Every hero has their flaws and coming to terms with them is part of what humanizes them. I can go on for a long time about this and it has nothing to do with horror really, but I'm just going to end with this: Heroes are only heroes because they achieve feats that are greater than themselves weather it be changing the world or otherwise.

Wrong
If you want to assert it as a universal truth then you're going to have to defend your claim.

As I said it's not true of the heroes I like.

Superman, as I said, varies depending on who's writing him; but I never liked the story where he left earth, and I stopped reading him during that time. It just wasn't interesting to me. (still kept buying it to keep my collection complete, but it went right in the bag because I wasn't interested).

And it's not a matter of the heroes I like being 2 dimensional.
Rather it's a matter of my heroes not being so full of themselves that they set out to change the world.
The responsibility of power is not the same thing as hubris.
and because of that the heroes I love don't have to be transformed to become human, in fact most of them had to be transformed to become heroes.

I never saw batman as trying to change the world; just trying to save the innocent people of Gotham and avenge his father's death. He's done both of those things. Even in the Dark Knight we didn't see Batman trying to change the world, but Batman refusing to be changed by the world.

Most of my heroes inhabit worlds full of other heroes and villains so the thought of changing the world just obviously isn't realistic for them.
It's like someone in the real world getting a gun and a bulletproof vest and thinking he can take on the world by himself.
No my heroes are not that stupid.

Doctor Doom. Now that's a man out to change the world. So is Lex Luthor, and a lot of other characters who are ALL VILLAINS. Hubris is sinful pride, you know the kind that "cometh before a fall".

You know I didn't even like the example the guy used in the video.
Yeah the hero's friend died and he couldn't save him but I did'n't expect him to be able to save him. he just didn't have THAT kind of power. And though he mourned his death and was clearly moved by it, it didn't change my opinion of the character at all because I couldn't have expected anything different.

By the way I didn't really like either side in the Trojan war.
In my view there were NO HEROES in that story.
Just people with powers.
And none of them were admirable or even likable.
I'd love to meet Spider-man if he were real,
but I'd pass on a chance to meet Achilles.

Finally you claimed that NO ONE likes 2 dimensional heroes and I can tell you that's not true. In fact the video we watched told you it wasn't true. 2 dimensional heroes are very popular today because the missing dimensions are filled in by the reader with details from his own personality and life. Heck that's what most video games are about. And did you ever notice that even in COH a lot of people never bothered to fill in any background info for most of their toons? It's not just because they're lazy, it's because a lot of them didn't have any background for their characters. They were just trying out a different set of powers. That's not really my thing but a lot of people did it. (in my case if my toon didn't have a background it WAS because I was lazy. They had stories, sometimes I just never bothered to type it)

OK horror:
Horror has to be built using something unexpected.
Something that doesn't work the way it normally does
so you can't count on the things you usually do.

Having your powers/levels taken away has already been mentioned.
Isolating heros by forcing them to split up, and cutting off their escape has already been mentioned.
Having you revive imprisoned in the mission, instead of in the safety of a hospital, has also been mentioned.

What about having you exit the mission to a less than safe hospital
where Doctor Herbert West wants to experiment on you, and the other patients?
This would be a zone type thing.
If you're in the horror zone, the first time you go to the hospital you're sent to the horror hospital
and have to go through an unexpected mission to escape
before you can even get back to the mission you were on before.

Darkness and other visual obstructions have been mentioned.
But would they be just an inconvenience to the player?
or could it also be a debuff to the character?
After all there are powers that attack people with these things
so why couldn't environments attack also?

Speaking of being attacked by the environment,
having trees, and furniture that look perfectly normal
(like TOTALLY indistinguishable from the regular environment)
suddenly come to life and attack can be really scary.
But it only works if the stuff that's going to attack you really does look normal until it attacks.

I'd also like it if there were eyes peering at you from the darkness that you accept as just background until the final fight when the whole flock of bats suddenly swarms you.
Or squeaking noises that are just background at first but they keep getting louder
until you reach the place where the rats burst out of the walls.

What if there were some environments where automatic regeneration
Both Health and Endurance doesn't happen.
Which would be really scary, because you might not notice until you're already pretty low.
Characters with actual healing powers would be less effected but not unaffected.

Next, if you have to do certain missions in a set order, you can have characters set to disappear in early missions and return horribly transformed later. Undead is the most common sort of transformation but you could also go with some other ugly mutation, like deep ones for example. A lot of horror comes from recognizing that the monsters you'r fighting were once human. That can be even more effective if the heroes don't know it at first but only realize it when they find the NPC they knew before he was changed.

A situation where you can't succeed can be horrific to players, (No I'm not talking about a mission you can't complete) I mean NPCs that are just doomed to die and can't be saved. Work that into the story. You could either have them die i cut scenes or give them such low health and stupid AI that no player could possibly save them.

Finally I have an Idea that I've copywritten in my book "Minions & Monsters" But I would totally let COT use it if they gave me credit:
[size=30]Piranha Mice[/size]
Make your @#$%ing Sanity Check Bitches!

TheMightyPaladin wrote:

sev171 wrote:
This is just... incorrect. All heroes throughout the history of any mythology ever experience defeat and realizations of their limitations. They may not necessarily be trying to CHANGE their realities (although most are. I can get into specific examples if need be. but like... they are.) but they do fail in their goal and experience these feelings of humanity or isolation at some point. I mean... superman left earth at one point because he felt so isolated. A hero is an archetype. And the hero's journey has a very specific story structure: http://www.thewritersjourney.com/hero%27s_journey.htm If it didn't it just wouldn't be as interesting. Nobody likes 2 dimensional characters and people like characters they can relate to. Every hero has their flaws and coming to terms with them is part of what humanizes them. I can go on for a long time about this and it has nothing to do with horror really, but I'm just going to end with this: Heroes are only heroes because they achieve feats that are greater than themselves weather it be changing the world or otherwise.

Wrong
If you want to assert it as a universal truth then you're going to have to defend your claim.
As I said it's not true of the heroes I like.
Superman, as I said, varies depending on who's writing him; but I never liked the story where he left earth, and I stopped reading him during that time. It just wasn't interesting to me. (still kept buying it to keep my collection complete, but it went right in the bag because I wasn't interested).
And it's not a matter of the heroes I like being 2 dimensional.
Rather it's a matter of my heroes not being so full of themselves that they set out to change the world.
The responsibility of power is not the same thing as hubris.
and because of that the heroes I love don't have to be transformed to become human, in fact most of them had to be transformed to become heroes.
I never saw batman as trying to change the world; just trying to save the innocent people of Gotham and avenge his father's death. He's done both of those things. Even in the Dark Knight we didn't see Batman trying to change the world, but Batman refusing to be changed by the world.
Most of my heroes inhabit worlds full of other heroes and villains so the thought of changing the world just obviously isn't realistic for them.
It's like someone in the real world getting a gun and a bulletproof vest and thinking he can take on the world by himself.
No my heroes are not that stupid.
Doctor Doom. Now that's a man out to change the world. So is Lex Luthor, and a lot of other characters who are ALL VILLAINS. Hubris is sinful pride, you know the kind that "cometh before a fall".
You know I didn't even like the example the guy used in the video.
Yeah the hero's friend died and he couldn't save him but I did'n't expect him to be able to save him. he just didn't have THAT kind of power. And though he mourned his death and was clearly moved by it, it didn't change my opinion of the character at all because I couldn't have expected anything different.
By the way I didn't really like either side in the Trojan war.
In my view there were NO HEROES in that story.
Just people with powers.
And none of them were admirable or even likable.
I'd love to meet Spider-man if he were real,
but I'd pass on a chance to meet Achilles.
Finally you claimed that NO ONE likes 2 dimensional heroes and I can tell you that's not true. In fact the video we watched told you it wasn't true. 2 dimensional heroes are very popular today because the missing dimensions are filled in by the reader with details from his own personality and life. Heck that's what most video games are about. And did you ever notice that even in COH a lot of people never bothered to fill in any background info for most of their toons? It's not just because they're lazy, it's because a lot of them didn't have any background for their characters. They were just trying out a different set of powers. That's not really my thing but a lot of people did it. (in my case if my toon didn't have a background it WAS because I was lazy. They had stories, sometimes I just never bothered to type it)

u have time can u watch it video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUqivXMlpcQ

I like children just as much as the next person ... but I can't eat a whole one.

What?

Yeah, I killed off the Giant Monsters thread by linking a video of giant bunnies eating people in many...creative disturbing ways.....

sev171 wrote:

XD It was a good video.

Which one?

The scary part is that is not even the most disturbing scene in that anime (Blood C). In the entry before that one there is a Cerebrus/Dog-like monster from the same anime that's also very creative in it's kills (the cerebrus and the bunnies are all apparently part of same race that likes to eat humans for sustenance....yeah right they like to eat them for ''sustenance'').

That award ''For most disturbing scene'' goes to giant spider that slaughters and eats a classroom full of kids earlier on for all you arachnophobics.