test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
A more serious tone for CO?
johnnyquantum
Posts: 6 Arc User
I dont expect anything to change, but just want to put this out there Ill start by saying that I like the game, but I can only take it occasionally and in short bursts due to the campy (think 60s Batman TV series) feel of the game, the Purple Hat gang, really? Others have called the game goofy and this may be the appeal to most of games audience? Even though I think it is an inferior game in some respects, I find myself drawn to DCUO due to the more serious or darker overall feel of the game (think new Batman movies like The Dark Knight).
Post edited by johnnyquantum on
0
Comments
CO could use more diverse approach and having both campy and serious missions in equal numbers, but I do not think it should be skewed towards the either side.
Anyway, incoming Mechanon missions are pretty serious.
But I disagree CO has this particular Silver Age comic book camp. Otherwise we'd have our mandatory story arcs involving apes.
CO sillines is rather because of too many pop culture references, memes and inside jokes stuffed into missions, NPC talks and flavor text, but none of these are especially like classic Silver Age-y camp.
Also, if you haven't, try the Comics Series and Adventure Packs. Whiteout is my favorite, but I think all of them have a darker mood than the general missions.
DoomedLuke at Primus Data Base
And at DeviantArt
And yes, most of the higher level zones have fewer jokes and pop culture references: Monster island and Lemuria are mostly free of it if you ignore the random NPC dialogue. VB has a Buffy reference and a (very satisfying) Twilight reference, and some bad jokes in the NPC dialogue, but is pretty serious if you don't mind spending hours in crypts doing missions that are three times longer than any others in the game.
Yeah, it's not like Adam West Batman, which is arch and buries its references so they can be appreciated on multiple levels (and which at its best is quite good, as is DC's current Batman '66 book). A lot of CO's camp is "geek camp", the sort of jokes made at a gaming table by gamers who are less clever than they think they are, self-referencing parodies of a parody that ignores the tone of the world around it, and drives any attempt at drama into the ground. It's the gamer who doesn't know when to stop trying to be funny, and whose jokes are rarely any good.
The Green Dragon alert, which is a "Last Dragon" parody that completely falls on its face, probably best illustrates the folly of this approach. Parodying 1980s martial arts movies is fun. parodying the Last Dragon is painfully unnecessary. Parody gets stale very quickly when it's repeated, and when it fails, it fails HARD.
*ridestowardssettingsunwitharobotunicorn*
And playing by myself since Aug 2009
Godtier: Lifetime Subscriber
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Or just put on a blind fold and throw a hand full of sand in your mouth. Now that's grim!
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
I'm glad the new Mechanon missions start off with a darker tone to them, and I hope that tone continues through the whole story.
Totally Not Edward uses the Sparkle Aura. That makes me sad.
You can have a mature story line without being "grimdark". Personally tired of the stupid pop culture references since there are WAY too many of them.
[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009
The most recent content we've gotten has storylines that entail: Angel-Demon tries to invoke the apocalypse by summoning forth heaven and hell, Evil syndicate attempts to summon ancient snake god, Evil cult attempts to make their leader a god, People from alternate dimension seek help to mount a resistance against a horrible dimensional threat, and in the process free Doctor Destroyer, Viper and DEMON have a horrible cluster**** fight over Qliphoth going mad and attempting to sacrifice you to attack earth, Mysterious shapeshifting aliens arriving and invading, apparently working on the behalf of some weird dude, Hacker driving the city's central AI insane, and a really lame galactic arena. Within that there's probably like... One reference to The Thing in the mission involving the Roin'esh. Though it's sort of a pervasive one.
I don't think we need to worry about Cryptic going 'silly' with their new missions and content at this rate. They seemed to learn that being goofy ****s didn't work out well for them.
I don't think so.
"Bombing, arson, theft, and murder were the usual tactics that the gang employed to enforce union policy"
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009
The CU has a pretty close analogue to Mr. Myxyzptlk, called the Incubus, an impish creature with broad powers over reality. He's a prankster by nature, but his sense of "humor" is rather malicious. He can be used for laughs, but his practical jokes often aren't laughing matters to his victims.
With something like this(which would revert him back to force and keep some of his muni power):
...it's an idea.
Join Date: Aug 2009 | Title: Devslayer
....Poe looks metro.
EDIT: I started a separate Suggestion thread exploring this possibility, so it wouldn't get lost here.
The graphic engine's color palette.
The game's music.
Everyone gathers in "gangs."
Hi Pan is a walking racial slurr (especially if you play Thick as Thieves with the sound on) and the way his gang dresses is on Sailor Moon levels of tackiness that brings me back to the days when Superman comics used to say in the cover "Superman says it's alright to slap a J[censored]."
Shadow Destroyer's lines are even worse than Lord Recluse's, all he needs is a mustache he can twirl while talking.
D.E.M.O.N... we start with their very own name but for now let's stick with their wardrobe worthy of a Santo movie.
Gravitar dresses like some cougar from Hollywood's golden age era.
The "greatest genegeneer in the world" uses his talents to create cyborg dinosaurs and giant brains.
The New Shadows dress like Vladimir The Teenage Vampire.
The Sovereign Sons' voodoo lizards.
The villain named "Cyberlord."
Doctor Silverback.
Fatal Error's Tron camp.
The New Purple Gang as a whole.
Justiciar's crappy cyber limbs ripped straight out of Rocket Robin Hood.
The background and dialogs from any Two Minute Drill and Fighting City Hall alert.
If you really can't find all the camp in there, your problem might rather be one of genre tone-deafness. Ironically, Foxbat is the less campy of the lot because he is a tongue-in-cheek parody.
Unfortunately, the only ways to do away with the camp would be to:
a) Remake the game in its entirety. Not feasible.
b) Bury all the camp beneath lots and lots of well-written content and story arcs in the vein of the old Comic Series. Even less feasible than A at this point. (I'll gladly eat my words if Steel Crusade proves me wrong, but until I have reasons to think otherwise, I'll go with the empirical evidence).
c) Giving us The Foundry so now content quality was in our hands... and then giving us real superpowers and magical unicorns, because both have the same chance of happening.
The game color palette is totally more in line with modern comic books than with actual limited CMYK paletted for older books.
Nope. It's somehow in line with older movies and TV shows, but not specific for comic books (well, books don't have soundracks to begin with)
Also not specific to comic books. Never was.
Last time I checked Sailor Moon wasn't a Silver Age comic book.
But your argument is pointless anyway, since the entire Cult of the Red Banner as they are imagined are lifted from the Big Trouble in Little China movie.
Hi-Pan alone only works as a stereotypical Yellow Menace. The rest is taken from the movie which, as fun as it is, doesn't really has anything to do with comic books
A generic evil overlord. Who works really well, but also not specific. Well, specific for comic books in a wide sense he is.
But I'm not sure if he makes any good argument for whatever you are trying to prove.
And? One might ask if their outfit fits to them, but more important - the movie, not comic books.
If you change her haircut, she looks more nineties. Or eighties. Nothing aside of her haircut really points at anything.
Mad scientist, also trope not exclusive to comic books.
They're generic pulp fiction vampires. Not specific.
Also not exactly specific for comic books.
Who looks also very industrial in more modern style. His design is ok, but you can't use him as an argument since he's not specific for the Silver Age books. He could be as well used in sci-fi or modern book with no changes.
Mandatory one issue with apes, typical for Silver Age comic books. But that's mostly reserved for apes as villains. One ape individual for the entire game is close enough, I suppose.
What this Disney's movie has to do with, let's say, Bill Finger's batman? Or Adam West's batman?
Technically. Prohibition era gang.
In comic books up to nineties when everything started to be overdetailed, cybernetic limbs and robotic limbs were most commonly drawn as regular human limbs in metal thighs, sometimes banded. X-Men colossus and how Ultron was drawn both are good examples.
Things you mentioned are not specific for the Silver Age comic books, they're more wide tropes, and not every one of them specific to the comic books to begin with.
They are used in comic books. As well as in movies and tv shows.
CO also did use typical comic book villains because it's hard to not to do so if you are making a comic book inspired game. True.
Also, use of comic book villains and some of their typical ideas is not the point here. Mostly because these probably were not intended as be part of CO specific branch of "humor".
We're talking specifically about camp in CO on purpose and if it links to the kind of camp used comic books.
No, id does not.
CO camp is built from pop-culture references more specific to TV shows and from the fourth wall breaking NPC talks who are oftentimes lampshading playing a video game.
Is there a lot of intentional attempts at humor? Yes. Are these attempts really specific for the genre? Nope.
The closest equivalent to them would be, and that's a stretch, a comic books featuring characters heavily lampshading the fact that they are in the comic book, like Byrne's run of She-Hulk or Deadpool in general. Which isn't made in comic books that often. Except in CO they're lapmpshading fact of being in the game.
But you are tying to too hard to justify everything you see ingame. I'm not sure I am the genre-blind here.
He's a tribute to a real Canadian hero. One who's even better than Rocket Robin.
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Terry Fox! A very honorable tribute. One of the reasons why I like Justiciar.
AC