I think those Image characters are still around at DC, Brand X. ;)

I feel like a large part of this thread can be summed up by my pal Syndrome here:

[youtube]GYmHYQPaHaw[/youtube]

But, yeah, I can agree with Rotten Luck in that no matter what, it will still be your story to play through, it is your adventure and what not. I guess the problem can, and likely will arise when it comes down to heroes over populating a city.

It's kind of a catch 22, I feel. From my experience in past games, a lot of folks wanted to have their own stories, be the title character of their own comic books with everyone else acting as side characters and stuff like that, and not many would consider themselves part of a team. There were Supergroups, sure, but it was more or less something like Superman's connection to the Justice League rather than Cyclops' connection to the X-Men; the former would largely act on his own with the team acting like a continual crossover, while the latter needed the team as the team was the main storyline.

With the hero MMO, it's difficult in most cases to have such a solo story be mechanically reinforced since everyone else in the game is there doing the same things. You can't really avoid that, since it's the very nature of MMOs. The feeling one gets in this scenario is similar to the problem one has when the game tells you 'You're the Chosen One' despite you, as a player, always knowing that the thousands of other people out there have been granted the same title. (I want to work on a podcasty type thing about destiny, prophecy and the chosen one in games at some point)

However, instead of it being "how can I be the chosen [i]one[/i] at the same time those guys can be?" it's "with so many people as powerful, if not more so than myself, why am I even here?"

Paragon City, as said before, had the saving grace that everything that happened in that setting usually occurred in Paragon City. In Champions, the maps weren't restricted to Millennium City, and your influence was typically global as a result.

Something like this might help players feel a bit more special. If it's somehow put forward that the super population of Titan City was the majority of the world's super population, and there was some proper context on why alien invaders, supervillains and giant monsters pick that place to attack it, the problem will likely be solved.

The next question would be, then, why would a normal civilian want to live in such a place? As lovely as Titan City looks, what possible benefit would the city offer for a mundane human to live in such a dangerous place?

No I don't like it.
I don't want some explanation for why this city is so overpopulated with supers,
I want the ability to feel like the city isn't overpopulated.
I know there are going to be a ton of other players out there
and It's up to me to ignore them and the game lore
If nothing else I can always just play offline,
but even that wont work if the npc dialog is constantly reminding me that there are so many costumes around that it's nothing special.
Please don't have the npcs acting like they see superheroes every day and they're probably sick of them.
That's all I'm asking for really.

LOL 'average height'.

Be Well!

The Devs have said that they want adaptive stories focused on the player. So each player has something different and each playthrough is different. Faction system one of those methods of having a shifting game.

That means no matter how many beings there are who aren't your Mild mannered civilians. It be a different experience you are the focus of the story no matter how many cross overs and cameos you have.

Can't help how I feel.
And when the direction of the forum seems to be going strongly against what I'm hoping for,
It does seem likely that the devs will go in the direction the wind is blowing.
After all they want the game to be popular
and I can't blame them.
They have a lot more riding on this than I do.

I wasn't threatening to not play.
(I did joke about it on another thread today, but made it clear it was a joke)
I'm just saying I'm not happy with the direction this is going.

Honestly, unless CoX's (or any other game's) lore bothered you that much, I really can't see CoT's being in the solo player's way at all. We are building CoT from the example of CoX, remember. Our goal is to make the game accessible to ANY style of play and actually improve on where CoX tended to be a bit thin (i.e. PvP). Don't let one update that concerns a color commentator style NPC dictate how the entire game will feel. I know it's impossible to see how the game will turn out. We aren't 100% sure on that ourselves. We have goals, guideposts and aspirations. From this far out very little is solid enough that it can't (and won't) be changed if needed.

TheMightyPaladin wrote:

That's a good ratio
but it's not the numbers I'm concerned about
It's the Blasé attitude toward supers that Gabby seems to be expressing.
Superheroes shouldn't be something most people have a chance to get used to.
Sure there are people who work with celebrities, and they get used to seeing them, but these people are almost like celebrities themselves to normal people. Their friends and family will bombard them with questions about Jean Claude Van Damme, or whoever it is they worked with last week. It doesn't get normal.

And yet people can get used to just about anything. People in Metropolis are used to seeing Superman fly overhead. Cabbies in New York point out the Baxter Building to their fares or talk about how Spider-man saved their pal Denny from a mugger. In particular I'd expect people who are talking up the city (like cabbies or tour guides) to exaggerate the familiarity to further enhance the city's reputation.

Perhaps as a better example, in the Astro City universe, Astro City is like Titan City, a place with a very high concentration of super-heroes, far greater than most other places. The people who live there are used to seeing super-heroes. Not everyday perhaps, but seeing Jack-In-The-Box springing down the street or the Samaritan confronting the Iron Legion is a 'Hey, look at that!' not a 'Oh my god, it's a super-hero!'.
In one story, a person from Astro City went to visit family in a small town upstate. Her cousins assumed that because heroes were so common in Astro City, that she must know them, have talked with them, etc. "You saw Cleopatra? What was she like? What did she say? What did you say?", that kind of thing. Of course while she'd seen several heroes, she'd never actually talked to any of them. Seen them, sure. But talked to them as one person to another? No, because they are different. Special.

There's a difference between super-heroes being common and accepted and their being so common that they're treated as just another citizen.

There's a LOT of celebrities in Hollywood. Doesn't stop each and every one of them from being unique individuals ...

Being a "super" in Titan City is a bit like being a celebrity. Even when you get them all together for a "star studded" event or gala, they're still "special" in a way that normal people aren't ... even if their only claim to fame is just being famous.

Redlynne wrote:

There's a LOT of celebrities in Hollywood. Doesn't stop each and every one of them from being unique individuals ...
Being a "super" in Titan City is a bit like being a celebrity. Even when you get them all together for a "star studded" event or gala, they're still "special" in a way that normal people aren't ... even if their only claim to fame is just being famous.

This says 99% of how I felt about immersion in CoH and in CO, Redlynne, +1.

To add my own thoughts from here, there is a wide swath of people in New York and LA that want to be "famous" that I feel comfortable knowing that there will be tens of thousands of low level heroes For every hundred or more max-level heroes. If the tech industry in the past 20 years has taught me anything, I would believe it's that markets and the industry landscapes will adapt and grow to answer any need people think they can profit from. To me, that's why a super-costume based fashion show wouldn't be so far-fetched.

I do sympathize with concerns with "overpopulation" but I then also believe such ideas like a "minimal heroes" option that limits which player avatars render on my game client should be enough. Spider-Man has his private list of villains that rarely overlaps with Iron Man's, which doesn't often overlap with Captain America's, which don't overlap with many X-men stories in New York....unless they're meant to for cross-over interests.

In all likelihood, I expect the released product will have some sort of accommodation for all of our differing play styles, but it'll require a bit of compromise. Maybe role players will have to endure that L1 in Phoenix plaza with a bio claiming he's a god, or pvp villains not getting to blindside heroes in an ambush, or that you're not, to paraphrase Little Brittain, "the only hero in the village!"

I'm with others about the high population: I'll just have to wait and see. Final thought though, please let there be a floor on the minimum civilians algorithm so when the day/night clock is at midday and I'm playing at 2 am it's not a ghost town with only mobs on the streets...