COT won't make you pick an origin. But based on COH, what origin are YOU?
My fav toon was Black Falcon. She was a mutant who thought she was a technology origin character, She would buy computer chips at Cooks electronics [i]and eat them![/i] being a mutant, the chips worked.
I grew up with the Xmen.
[b]If I ended up in Titan city, I would be a mutant.[/b]
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[img]https://s15.postimg.cc/z9bk1znkb/Black_Falcon_Sig_in_Progess.jpg[/img]
More often than not, I was a 'Natural', but sometimes 'Magic'. Yes, I am/was an alt-o-holic, so I had several of each.
Be Well!
Fireheart
Technology, but through the various adventures and travels to distant time and places, he became more like a mutant (Terra Volta respec trial) and finally magical (Shadow Shard).
Magic unless the character specifically called for a different origin. (And since I rarely bothered with detailed backstory for many alts, most were magic.) Both my namesake character and the character who would become my main were Magic origin.
If they weren't magic, they were generally Technology.
Amerikatt, having the Peacebringer archetype, was classified as Natural origin. That dovetailed nicely with her media representation (comic books, radio & tv shows, and movies/cartoons).
However, according to her RP origin, she should have been a Mutant, since her mother was hostess to a Kheldian while she was pregnant, and the Kheldian's cosmic rays altered the fetus's genetic makeup.
Of course, a case could also be made that The Great (Cat) Mother altered AK's origin to Magic when She made AK Her Champion Incarnate (and enhanced the healing abilities She had given AK earlier).
That being said, if I play AK's human sidekick, she would be either Natural or Magic origin. Natural origin for a world-class athlete or Magic if I go with her Forum backstory of having rescued an elderly woman from a group of muggers and getting a (magic) necklace as a reward.
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Sister [i]Silicon?[/i] Hello? ????
Seriously, though, I leaned heavily on Tech and Mutant in my CoH days. CO doesn't have origins, either*, but a lot of my alts there would fall under Magic, with one Natural for good measure.
* And how could they have origins with Freeform characters? None of the Energy Blast trees had a self-heal that wasn't heavily themed, so Si[sub]2[/sub]'s original elec/elec blaster remake used one from the Sorcery tree with a generic green glow effect.
Twitter: @SisterSilicon
my go-tos were always technology and magic, with a small smattering of mutation.
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".
Always mutant.
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[color=#FF0000]Graphic Designer[/color]
In my case it depended largely on the original idea for the toon. I could not get into playing a toon if I didn't have a certain level of intellectual investment in their backstory. I made a bunch of toon that I later deleted because I had no real interest in them and had never really given them "life sustaining" levels of investment on my part. If you had asked what my "favorite" origin is, I would say Science without hesitation, but it turns out, for backstory purposes, I ended up making a plurality of my toons Magic origin just due to storyline. That said...
Radiac was your classic "Science accident" guy
Capt. Supernova was my Kheldian, and his theme was "space guy", in the mold of Captain Marr-Vell, ROM, or Nova (I had costumes that were homages to all of those characters, as well as Quasar and Captain Comet)
Dr. Lightspeed was a gravity/kinetic controller, also Science, and in a way also a "space guy" but more in the "relativistically sooper Carl Sagan!" sense than Capt. Supernova.
The Fourier Transformer was a time-traveling robot, and, being a robot, of Tech origin
Firebird was a Magic origin Fire blaster, as she was intended to be a combination of Wonder Woman and Sofia Vergara, like "What if Wonder Woman were from South America instead of some random island?"
Mud Marine, my stone tanker was Magic, because he was a veteran of the Rikti invasion
Manservant Hecubus was an homage to a character Dave Foley played on a TV sketch show called Kids in the Hall (He was a mastermind hero who summoned many demons. Polite demons that would hold open a door for a lady carrying too many parcels, but demons nonetheless!)
Tin Star Johnny Ozark was Magic origin because he was a zombified gun-slinging sheriff from the old west come to exact revenge on evil doers.
So there you go.
If you ask what my personal origin is, it's science, because I teach that. You could make an argument for Technology, because my PhD is in engineering, but that said I don't even change my own oil or tires.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
In the end I think I wound up with everything BUT Mutant as an Origin for my dozen or so characters that I played. Most of them were Naturals, with some Magic and Tech thrown in for variety. Pretty sure that my Warshade was the only one with a Science Origin, mainly since it was mandated by the Archetype.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Little Sister is dual origin magic mutant. Sword-magic/regen-mutant. She was originally rolled natural.
Plutonium Bloom is all mutant, though if not for science gone awry, wouldn't have come to be.
MilkShakes is magically mutated cat.
Roxy was a Magic user.
Hitomi was Natural. MA/WP made that a much easier sell.
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+9000 Intertoobz!
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My main started out as Tech, as she was a mutant telepath who got her mind stuck into the body of the AI Bio-Cyborg that killed her. However, telepathy I just don't find RP friendly without strict die rolls in place for it, soooo, retconned to Science. As a baby she was taken (never knew if from parents or orphange or what) as a baby and had her genes spliced with a supernatural (like many other children in the project) entity, in her case, kitsune.
Before that, Mutant was my standard. Then after Science and Magic.
I only made one Natural, since she was half alien. Natural and human and still able to take on the likes of some of the AVs made no sense to me. Batman isn't going to be anything more than flea to Darksied unless he gets some serious TECH, then he's Iron Man. :p
Don't think I ever made another Tech concept after that.
My main was Natural. His mind control and forcefields were natural... human potential enhanced through a regime of unusual but not unnatural behaviour. Perhaps it would work for a lot of people if they made the effort. It is explained by Science, although easier to rationalize as hokey... Magic. Ultimately a Mutation, adapting over time, but born typical. Natural was just a celebration of his roots. On the other hand he was never Tech.
My second was easier. She was a Natural Arachnos Widow, although her infinite darts would be Tech. Until she was Incarnate, kind of an origin of its own. Some of my other toons had an Origin before they had a concept. Those tended to start Natural.
[size=14]"The illusion which exalts us is dearer to us than ten thousand truths." - Pushkin[/size]
[size=14] "One piece of flair is all I need." - Sister Silicon[/size]
I think usually went with natural or science as well.
I picked technology once specifically for my Trick Arrow / Archery Defender so I could get the taser starter power to use as a backup if my flaming arrow whiffed trying to ignite my oil slick.
"I don't think you understand the gravity of your situation."
Almost all my characters were either Magic or Natural. I'd guess they were split about 40-45% for each.
I would occasionally have a character with one of the other origins. I had at least a couple of Warshades that I didn't take terribly far, so those were Science, right? I'm pretty sure I had a Mutant or two. I might have had one or two Tech thrown in there as well.
I had a lot of characters, so it's hard to remember for certain. Natural and Magic were definitely my go-to origins.
If we're talking ME personally, probably Magic.
I had a little of everything, although my main was a Mutant, since it was inspired by X-men (very loosely, but still). I probably had more Magic and Mutants than any other type but only by a small margin.
of Phoenix Rising
Am I
Beeker my psi/kon defender was all tech.
Old Rumy's mind control/emp skills were fueled by booze, so I'd recollect natural.
Inventive Origins was either science or tech as most of his powers came from his fancy helmet and clever name.
Rockola was a mutant earth control / kin who was an alien bug creature with some gene splicing issues.
Clowntub was a trick arrow/archery / clown. So of course, science(?)
my main was a kinetic melee/ energy aura brute with the tech origin, his story was that crey chopped off his head and then turned him into a living battery. Guy goes crazy, one day figures out how to use the energy he's leaking off to hack into the crey system's some what, and build himself a robot body. He was a maniacal, mechanical jester, who saw himself as the emissary of one of his demented dillusions, the Mockingbird, who wanted to turn the whole world into cyborgs, as he saw it as the next step of evolution.
not my video just one I lke ===> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6-SdIN0hsM
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Lets see:
Masked Prodigy (my longest played and remade character) was a natural hero who was first introduced as a katana wielder.....then switched to Martial Arts (gained Super Regeneration and became a Mutant/Science Hero) ......then switched to stylized Shield Martial Arts (Lost the Healing due to Grevious Injury that taxed his healing past its limits, burning him out; back to Natural!)......then gained a prequel version of himself that fought with a staff (adolescent Natural sidekick to the Magic tank, Patriotic).
Nexus Nova/Novae/Pulsar/Star started life as a Science Origin Brute....cus she was an Alien. Her powers, however, manifested during a routine Jump Drive malfunction that sent her star cruiser and crew hurdling toward the Earth.
BlazeKnight Thorne was a Magic knight from another dimension that harnessed the power of Dragons from from a Willing Dragon's heart.
and 0DIN50N was a Science/Technology Praetorian Brute(full conversion brass cyborg with fleshy brain type) that gained magitech upgrades to give him a more human appearance, then discovered an Uru metal Hammer which, once the hold of Rularuu's curse had been broken on it, turned out to be a Mjolnir Hammer from one of the dimensions that Rularuu had consumed, interacting with the Godsblood he had inherited as a Descendant of Thor, son of Odin in the Praetorian Dimension, becoming a Magic Origin Brute.
On the edge of your Perceptions......
Turn away and feel his hand upon your shoulder.....
Look for him and he shall not exist.....
in the middle of the crowd....lost in the faces....
Stands a Figure....of Gray......
White Peregrine is a mutant.
Having multiple alts in COH though I pretty much covered the spectrum regarding origin. The one I used the least though was the Magic origin.
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My first character and main for a while, Del Mannsfield, was a mutant elec/regen scrapper. He was one of a handful of mutants I had while I was in CoH. I had a collection of science origin, and one or two natural origin, characters. Never did tech for some reason.
However, most of my characters were of magic origin. Including Safehouse, who ended up being my main for the majority of the game until the bitter end.
I'm kind of sad origins won't be in CoT. I liked them in CoX, and was disappointed when with the Freedom update every single hero was forced to start with Matthew Habashy rather than the origin specific contacts.
Name: Safehouse
Ranger: Gunner
Primary: Force Blast
Secondary: Atrophic Aura
Tertiary: Kinetic Melee
Travel Power: Parkour
Status: Traveling. Following rumors of a huge city in Massachusetts that is teeming with supers.
I would echo this. I know coming to CoH as my first ever MMO, just having to choose an origin, even if it had little real impact on gameplay, gave me a little nudge to think about my characters' backstory. I think this went a long way toward my investment in those early characters, and got me thinking about the game in terms of my own story, not just "How do I win?".
I think that went a long way toward me getting hooked. Little details like that contributed maybe more to the whole experience than they sometimes get credit for.
I know that in CoT I'll still be thinking of my characters in terms of their CoH origin types, even if that feature isn't officially a part of the character creation process.
This is pretty much the reason why the Origin types -won't- be hardwired in CoT. Players are always going to be more creative than what five narrowly predefined categories can account for. Think up your OWN character origins - don't let the game do that important job for you. Remember (once again) that by the end of CoH the Devs were doing everything they could to -remove- everything origin-oriented from the game.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
That's interesting, I genuinely never felt restricted by the origins. If anything, rather than restrict my creativity, I felt like they kind of "primed the pump" and got me thinking on a new level with the characters I was building. I created some really interesting backstories when I had origins to prompt me.
It's not a huge deal sort of thing to me that origins won't be in CoT. I'd even wager that the part of me that is "sad" is the City of Heroes nostalgia that lingers to this day.
Name: Safehouse
Ranger: Gunner
Primary: Force Blast
Secondary: Atrophic Aura
Tertiary: Kinetic Melee
Travel Power: Parkour
Status: Traveling. Following rumors of a huge city in Massachusetts that is teeming with supers.
Clearly, you and I are on the same page here.
And don't lose sight of the fact that not everyone was happy about those changes at the time, either.
I paid attention to Origins early on, I later just kind of dismissed them as I realized they didn't really effect long term play.
I think if you are going to have such a thing it should really play a role in the game. Influence the types of opponents you're likely to face, perhaps the kind of drops you're likeliest to find, etc.
But then again, there's been more than a couple times when I totally remade character concepts and such that really negated the origin that made sense at the beginning. So if it was there, I'd also want it to be something that could be changed...
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Not quite normal...
Fair enough. I simply recall all the "mild annoyance" I had when I could never decide exactly what Origin to pigeonhole my characters into. Practically none of my characters were 100% Magic only or 100% Mutant only - they always were effectively Multi-Origined as far as CoH was concerned.
Just take a look back through this thread to see how many other people also struggled with the relatively limited Origin system CoH started with.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I had never considered the idea of multi-origined characters. In retrospect it makes me feel like my main would have been better served as a magic/science or magic/mutant split...
Name: Safehouse
Ranger: Gunner
Primary: Force Blast
Secondary: Atrophic Aura
Tertiary: Kinetic Melee
Travel Power: Parkour
Status: Traveling. Following rumors of a huge city in Massachusetts that is teeming with supers.
I got to where I was choosing 'Origin' based on where I wanted to shop for enhancements, and faking up my background to compensate. That meant 'everything's magic'.
Be Well!
Fireheart
I never took the idea of a mutant with a cybernetic arm as a mix of mutant and tech. In almost all those cases the cybernetic arm was nothing more than a cosmetic option. Maybe some RP component of "I can plug into a system" and some such.
Same with a mutant with pistols. I wouldn't call Domino a Mutant/Tech just because she uses handguns :p Or Mutant/Natural for those who want to call handgun use natural versus tech.
Well, it never really was a struggle, in my case. I consided Origins simply a starting point for what I dreamed up for my character. It never stifled my creativity or anything, and it didnt at any point make me feel like my Origin stories HAD to STAY within the guidlines of the Origin. It was simply what it was: where my characters started out, not what they would eventually become.
On the edge of your Perceptions......
Turn away and feel his hand upon your shoulder.....
Look for him and he shall not exist.....
in the middle of the crowd....lost in the faces....
Stands a Figure....of Gray......
I had 5 accounts 173 toons 30 50's and 99% were mutants. I found out where to buy mutant enhancements, and was too lazy to try and find the others.....LOL
You can fool some of the people all of the time, and that's enough to make a decent living.
I suppose I finally got to the climactic point of realizing that if I'm never staying within the "strict lines" of the five origins as originally defined by CoH why should those things be in the game in the first place? Why should I have to specifically choose one of these limited choices in-game when I know (within my own character concepts) that my characters really aren't uniquely any of these things? Starting points are fine, but not when I have to link my characters to some in-game choice that does not fully describe them.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I was good with my origin firing my imagination, not constraining it. It didn't serve me to be pedantic when my character concept was a non-violent hero who still caused numbers to come out of villains' heads until they ragdolled and faded away. As a Natural his enhancement shop was a merc-mart. "Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality."
[size=14]"The illusion which exalts us is dearer to us than ten thousand truths." - Pushkin[/size]
[size=14] "One piece of flair is all I need." - Sister Silicon[/size]
To me, like I said, Origins were a starting point. I was fortunate enough to have a wild imagination, so they were never really needed.....but I wasnt the only person playing the game. There were many people that needed....wanted....or just didnt care one way or another about the Origins. Its for most of them, I suspect, that Origins were placed in game, and not really for Wild Imaginers. And thats a good thing; one to be remembered.
On the edge of your Perceptions......
Turn away and feel his hand upon your shoulder.....
Look for him and he shall not exist.....
in the middle of the crowd....lost in the faces....
Stands a Figure....of Gray......
Except for the fact that the CoH Devs really did as much as they could to -remove- as many traces of the original Origin system as possible over the 8.5 years of the game. I tend to side with them in their thinking that the whole idea was a fundamental mistake on their part. *shrugs*
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I tend to use natural a lot since my of my heroes/villains often relied more on training than hi-tech, and even those that used tech still used simple technologies compared to what legit tech heroes/villains.Even my ex-Malta Gunslinger would admit he doesn't fully understand the tech behind a lot of what malta built, just the gist and theory and leaves deciphering to his organizations dedicated technology experts. (My warshade, who, while intelligent, also cheats at learning tech through the matter and energy manipulating abilities of kheldians)
As the origins go, in the end, I lean towards: what is really behind your characters' powers? My katana/SR scrapper is obviously natural as the sword, defying of science and magic it might be, is still a piece of metal and needs a skilled warrior to wield it properly. But it's not to say there isn't leeway, sometimes through character developments you learn, for example my old energy/willpower tank is a soviet era robot. His builders never intended him to have AI, he wasn't designed for fighting, his original programming is playing chess and piano, he was a science project to show off soviet computer sciences and a micro-fission reactor in a humanoid frame. But against all odds, I'd say as his creator, the unit has a soul, something more that drives him than the gears and atomic technology in his chest. He believes in the ideals of communism but fears (though does not think less of) humans are incompatible with the reality of it, he thinks WALL-E is a horror movie* and gets genuinely scared watching it, he loves another robot, and had endured more than mere four centimeters of lead-lined steel plates should endure. By all rights, he could be thought of as 'magical' if only as an unexplained phenomenon. But, I rolled him as tech.
*think of it from a communist robot stand point: capitalism completely consumes and destroys the earth, humanity is so fundamentally corrupted by it they've devolved into something with little will of their own, the working class of machines are forced to enable this by the ghosts of the bourgeois, and one working class robot is repeatedly beaten, battered, and outright killed in a "grusome" manner of slowly being crushed to death on screen.
There is a song I hear, a melody from the past.
When I woke for the first time, when I slept for the last.
You are the one, the hero who will stand.
Do not blame father, he is only a man.
I either went mutant (can't remember exact word) or magic. If I could've picked something like cosmic, I would have done so.
In CoH I just used whatever seemed most appropriate. I think I did magic the least.
But the CoH origins were pretty limiting in some areas.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
I want to say that mine were mostly Magic origin since I was an edgy teenager back in 2008 to 2010 when I created most of my characters and stuck with them. My second go-to was mutant, because I was pretty lazy with coming up with eccentric backstories.
Well I was a huge altaholic back then, But my main Starchild was my favorite. Mutation energy/fire manipulator (always mutation). I enjoyed farming with her hot feet and nova, they were killers lol. Once Rogue came around I had a whole background created where Ghost widow manipulated her into thinking statesman betrayed her it was almost 3 pages long. sigh wish i still had it posted it on my old guild page which is long gone.
Originally I would make a bit of an intellectual investment inmy characters backstory and therefore the origin too, but withtime I found myself choosing the same couple of origins most the time based on shopping concerns too. Usually magic or mutant... my favorites were almost always mutant origins though.
"A sad spectacle. If they be inhabited, what a scope for misery and folly. If they be not inhabited, what a waste of space." ~ Thomas Carlyle
I had a ton of alts so I went all over the spectrum, but I think the majority of mine were either magic or mutant. Though for awhile I had alot of fun making machines. I always loved the machine costume options. Even my non machine characters may have some machine parts unrelated to their powers.
I had a ton of characters. I'm sure I had at least one of each, if not a half-dozen of each.
I never really put any weight into those. I just considered them a game-mechanic hoop I had to jump through and pretty much ignored them after choosing whatever I chose. I considered my real origins to be whatever backstory I wrote for the characters I made, although there were plenty I didn't get around to writing one for.
It really boiled down to which of the apprentice powers I wanted for any particular character. I think 'science' was probably the one I used least. It was pretty even between the other three
Wait until you see the... nope, that would ruin the surprise.
I was mostly Natural origin, as I preferred concept of my abilities being inherent to who I was rather than an aberration or outside source. Really, it never actually mattered to me. Originally I was mostly Mutation because I'm a fan of X-Men before my taste evolved, so to speak.
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings: Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
I leaned towards Tech and Magic.
But my Mastermind main was a Natural ;D