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Question to all PnP Players.
Archived Post
Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
Already asked this question to the DnD community, so why not here?
What are your takes on the MMO that has been created based on the PnP RPG you played? Is it better? Is it worse? Do you think they did a decent job?
How do you feel about the fact the MMO is/was more popular then the PnP? I never heard of Champions till I read a conversation in CoH. I'm not trying to be rude, just curious.
What are your takes on the MMO that has been created based on the PnP RPG you played? Is it better? Is it worse? Do you think they did a decent job?
How do you feel about the fact the MMO is/was more popular then the PnP? I never heard of Champions till I read a conversation in CoH. I'm not trying to be rude, just curious.
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In my opinion, the original Chocolate Factory movie was better than Tim Burton's. I truthfully find the animated and lesser known Lord of the Rings better than the live action movie everyone recognises and praises, and I prefer the comics of Kick-**** than the movie.
The fact that Cryptic bought what was a fantastic source material and then made illogical and (to my mind, at least) utterly incomprehensible and dumb changes to that background information just shows to me how little respect the new owners have for what they bought. They seem to have made many of the changes just on a "because we can" basis, which to me is utterly nonsensical.
Sort of like Disney snapping "Hunchback of Notre Dame", adding cutesy sidekicks, and claiming it as their own. Sorry, Chuck, but its still Victor Hugo's story, even if your name is now on it.
I have opined elsewhere that the best thing to happen for PnP Champions would be for this game (the MMO) to be just successful enough to spark the interest of new players in the PnP version, then close and never be seen again. I stand by that opinion.
I played the big blue hardbound edition and the earlier ones. I skipped Fuzion as it was crap. I think they have done a pretty good job so far of bringing the Champions Universe alive so far. However, from a source material standpoint, if Champions source material is a one thousand page book, then Cryptic, from a lore standpoint, has completed HALF of PAGE ONE. They still have 999 pages to go...
:cool:
I disagree with World Maker, however. I think they have done a good job on the content, however, they've only scratched the surface.
In the PnP the villains are the showcase. In the MMO they're a rarely-encountered occurrence. You fight your way through every petty thug imaginable every 25 yards while the hundreds of CU supervillains are unseen and unencountered. In that regard CU is nothing like the PnP. The PnP is a like a comic book: superheroes fight supervillains. Defeating the thugs is what Spider-man does between page 2 and 3 on his way to capture Venom. The CU showcased by Cryptic is not a comic book I would have ever have purchased or read beyond the first couple of issues. The MMO is just a very pale shadow of what Champions is to many thousands of people.
As far as CO being more popular then the Champions PnP? I doubt it if there are even 25% of the people playing the MMO as compared to what plays the PnP on a regular basis. The fact that you've never heard of the 30 year old game doesn't mean there aren't hundreds of thousands who also haven't heard of it. It has always maintained a large fan-base of loyal players and is still one of the top two superhero games in the industry.
This is true. In most Champions games I've run or played in, agents or thugs are rarely encountered.
In addition, while character build customizability in CO is way better than in any other MMO I've played, it pales in comparison to the PnP game.
Imo the builds in CO are too buff-centric, which tends to channel the better builds into similar lines. In PNP, power level is a limitation set and enforced by the GM. One can get to the power level limit however one wants within the confines of the points allowed. In CO, the tinkerer players build characters that tend to stack buffs/debuffs to achieve damage results way above the curve in comparison to the characters who aren't optimized. In PNP, tinkering and tweaking builds to get the most out of them does not allow you to get above the power curve set by the GM. Instead, tinkering (creative use of limitations to free up points) allows the creation of more versatile characters.
Sorry if this topic angered you or anything of the sort, it was created to feed to curiosity of me or any other players with a craving for knowledge.
If Cryptic would allow customization of "power effects" (ice/flame/etc) to each power available it would go a LONG way towards matching the flavor of the PnP system.
In fact, to my knowledge, i don't Cryptic has EVER explained why this isn't possible/allowed.
*coigh**cough*hint*hint*devcall**devcall*
Oh by all means the game is enjoyable in and of itself. I just think its Champions in Name Only. Cosmic's reasoning, by the way, is the same as mine, but he said it better.
I agree with others that it is a fun game, but is far more like a fun movie, "inspired by," a novel of the same name rather than an actual translation from page to screen.
One thing that bugs the hell out of me but I always see there reason for it [wheather it's good or bad] is when a movie of a novel is pretty much nothing like the book. The reason this is is that you can't be entertained watching a novel. Movies have visuals, every thing is there for you, the books have to give you descriptions.
This is probably what the developers are doing. They can't make a PnP into a MMO without changing things because it wouldn't be fun playing something that requires different skills and thinking. But as I said before, the reasons can be for better or worse and some might not like it.
In an MMO balance is almost key to the survival of the game, where as in a PnP game, a GM can personally tailor an encounter for each individual player and style. If developers of an MMO tried that for every possible build and such in a game, then any realistic updates would be so far and few in between it would practically never go anywhere.
Now, having the mechanics of the game be different in the PnP and MMO formats is to be expected. But the wholesale changes to the background content? Why should that have been expected?
Let me give you a f'rinstance: In the MMO, Lemurians are suddenly good guys suffering a civil war, instead of the corrupt, decadent, and basically amoral bad guys they were before Cryptic got involved. The Empyrions, who oppose the Lemurians in their quest to rule the world, are nowhere to be seen. This little background struggle did not need to be altered in any way in order to make it workable for the MMO There was no real reason to make the change.
Granted, its a minor thing, but its just the first example of what the rest of us were talking about that came to my mind. I'm sure I could come up with another one. How about Robert Caliburn becoming the archmage. Or Gigaton not being the world-beater he's supposed to be. Or here's a good one: why did they change the Black Mask's look?
Lots of needless alterations made, as far as anyone can tell, for the sole purpose of "because we can". And to me, that's just not good enough. This isn't the Champions Universe... its the Disney Version of the Champions Universe, complete with songs, slapstick comedy ([sarcasm]something the PnP CU was well known for[/sarcasm]), cutesy sidekicks, and always a happy ending.
NWN1 and 2, shipped with a DM client. Enabled exactly what you are talking about.
Longer answers on this topic to follow, when I find I can write an answer without it becoming a wall of text
I've spent hours reading all the content offered in both PnP and MMO. The wholesale changing is actually rather light comparably speaking. This is a basic fanatic viewpoint that some people will never be satisfied.
Except, in NWN and NWN 2 you aren't dealing with thousands of people at the sametime. Larger possible servers i ever saw was 50 people at any given time. So again, it's impossible to get the level of personalization needed for every possible situation, scenario, build, and set up.
They made, IMO, the critical error of trying to apply levelling to a superhero game. Levelling, which makes little sense in fantasy, makes none at all in a superhero world. The day your mutant's powers show up, in a comic, they are, basically, as powerful as they get; superheros don't, except around the margins (Or the odd 'nuclear accident'), get much stronger. They get more experienced, sure, they learn to use their powers more skillfully or in different ways, but their power levels, more or less, remain the same.
And Champion PnP got that exactly right. Sure, you could build a 300 point cosmic hero who would wup a 150-point street level hero, but that same 300 point cosmic hero, with 50 additional points, would basically have the same power levels. He might have an AoE or removed his 14- disadvantage to his flame attacks, but they would do similar levels of damage, and the supervillain he struggled to beat on day one would still give him a good match at 350 points.
This was the exactly right moment to avoid the levelling trap, and Cryptic bottled it.
I'm going to agree with all of this except I like the lore of the Champion Universe.
The tech available these days would lend itself to reproducing much of the Hero mechanics. There are however a few problems with that from the standpoint of this game.
1) Cryptic didn't acquire the Hero system, just the Champions Universe IP.
2) Hero system isn't the most noob-friendly game to make a character in. Appealing to a large market has got to be a concern when marketing a MMO.
3) Cryptic already had their game engine made when they picked up the Champions IP.
Personally I think a point capped system such as Hero, would lend itself to power balancing a lot more readily than the current system and give even more customization options. As was stated by a previous poster, in PnP Champions your character got broader and more refined, rather than a lot more powerful, over time.
The leveling system could easily have been replace buy a system that let characters raise their "point cap" by spending exp. This would be similar to the "tier" powers we have in game now and could either be a character wide purchase or a by-power purchase.
Having said that, I don't really care about their interpretation of the Champions Universe. Doctor Destroyer, Foxbat, Armadillo, whatever. I read about all these guys, but my friends and I never used them. It's too fun making characters in Champions! So whoever was GMing would always make their own villains, just as the players were making their own heroes. The CO devs could have made it dark and noirish, brightly lit but moralistic, an unstylish mishmash, goofy and four-color (as they did), or in any other style, and they would have gotten it equally "right" as far as I'm concerned. Maybe it could have been "righter" if they'd tried harder to make it like old Mark Williams drawings, but I'd hardly expect that
As far as the actual system goes, I guess they did OK. It's true that Champions was about a billion times more flexible for character creation, but there was a huge expectation that your GM would keep a close eye on every design to make sure players weren't being cheeseballs. In an MMO, the only moderation is done by computer, so a really open system would be incredibly, astronomically prone to exploits. You think balance is screwed up now? Let an MMO community loose on something like the actual Champions rules and the game would be dead in a month.
One thing I wish would have seen the light of day though is Disadvantages. I can see how Vulnerabilities (such as "takes double damage from fire") would be very tricky to balance, but I'd like to be able to take more Hunteds. (A Hunted is an old enemy that comes after you sometimes. It's true that the Nemesis system has minions coming after you, which they did very well. But maybe I'd like VIPER to come after me too. Or a Nemesis who comes after me personally but doesn't have minions. The system could certainly stand to be expanded.) DNPCs (Dependent Non-Player Characters) would be great, too. Like loved ones or non-super friends who get in trouble and you have to save them. Berserk/Enraged might be interesting too - losing control over your character in certain situations. Then again it might be too annoying. The thing about Disadvantages of course is that you don't have to take them.
Actually Power Limitations would have been nice too. A way to earn BACK Advantage Points. Would be neat if some Powers had optional Limitations, like Reduced Penetration, Limited Range, extra charge time, doesn't work against certain enemy types, the list goes on.
But I think they did a decent job capturing a bit of the spirit of open character design, which really is what the HERO System is about.
I am sorry but you are completely mistaken on almost every point.
In the comics characters that are allowed to develop (meaning not stuck as a perpetual teenager due to a desire to keep the title teen oriented) often become more powerful with time. They may become stronger, faster, tougher, able to fly instead of just leap tall buildings, etc.
In the printed version of the Champions Universe 150 pt street level heroes have suggested power levels far below those of cosmic heroes, not just for build points but also for permitted damage and defense levels as well as active points in a power.
Also the printed version of the CU has included write ups for established characters such as the Champions as they would appear after spending significant amounts of experience. Those write ups did more damage, had better defense, higher combat values, and generally were much more powerful than the starting versions. All of this to represent them developing over time.
The reason that a villain in your rogues gallery that you struggled with on day one would still give you a challenge after your character has advanced is because, if the GM wants him to have an ongoing presence in the game, he gets experience too.
Im not saying that every game has to be run this way. What I am saying is that the existing source material has a long established assumption that heroes get more powerful with experience. A level based system is not how I would prefer to see that implemented but it is far closer to the PnP game, as it is presented in the books, than what you are suggesting.
Honestly I am not upset about the changes Cryptic has made, but Silverspar you are mistaken. There are many such changes, some of them which alter the scope of the world.
As it stands I own or have owned a copy of just about every book Hero Games has produced (except 6th edition) and have been playing Champions since the mid 80's. One thing I can assure anyone reading this is that the CO version of the champions universe is different than previous print versions. In some ways radically so.
On the other hand each successive print version was at least somewhat different than previous print versions. In other words Cryptic hasnt really done anything that Hero Games wasnt doing all along themselves. Keeping things fresh, updating to current developers preferences, continuously evolving the setting even if it means altering or throwing out material that has been established lore for years.
This has been going on since Champions was released and isnt at all inappropriate considering the morphing nature of comic book history.
As I said, Hero Games has been changing the setting themselves for years. On the other hand Cryptic has made changes, as is their right as the new owners, of significant note since taking over.
THis isnt a complaint. Just an attempt to be accurate.
I would have been shocked had they not made such changes. What works in a PnP setting may not work well in an MMO. What worked well being sold specifically to comic book junkies may not work as well for the wider audience of an MMO. And, quite honestly, every good storyteller makes an existing RP campaign setting his own. My home campaign version of the CU is more significantly different from the print version than CO is.
Its the same with purist who complain about movie adaptations of their favorite novel. "But Legolas said THE not A !!!! this movie sux !!!!"
Nothing Cryptic has done will in any way affect my use of the CU when I run games. Nothing I do in my games will affect the CO Universe. Apples and Oranges. I dont complain that apples dont taste like oranges, and I wont complain that an MMO isnt exactly like my PnP game.
...Jean Grey Was a red head, not a brunette dammit! :cool:
Some things are worth getting up in arms about....Hot redheads is one of them.
Actually, it can be argued that some powers have limitations built in as part of the power design. While this is not a system that allows for extra advantage points, the existing power mechanics do feature aspects that might have been intended to simulate limitations. Some examples:
(1) every charge-up power has "extra time" -- some more than others (alternatively, this could be viewed instead as "haymakering" the power, a combat maneuver that adds damage while postponing the delivery of the attack (not the CO power).
(2) Gigabolt has extra damage that not only requires extra time but is also "Linked" to another power (requires Energy Form).
(3) All PBAoE's from ranged sets would have the "No Range" limitation.
Alternatively, the devs did not consider limitations at all, but were simply using conventions found in other MMO's, as well as some that might be innovations, to balance powers. It's fun to speculate, though, as long as we don't get carried away and start thinking "we know" as opposed to "we believe."
A PNP GM might allow a power to exceed campaign damage caps if the power featured a rather severe limitation (e.g., 1 Charge per day or a lot of Extra Endurance). Extra Endurance imo is much more of a limitation in PNP than inflating energy costs to "balance" higher damage powers is in CO. If you blow most of your END in PNP you either lose an action to take a recovery or have to wait for post-12 (which allows a "free" recovery) and you only get as much END back as you have REC. In CO, if I blow 300ish energy on Force Cascade I can get it all back very quickly.
Haymakering ... I'd forgotten all about that. It's all flooding back to me ...
You're welcome!
Were you playing when they changed haymakering? Originally, it had been only for melee attacks and did 1.5x STR damage, and thus was most useful for the super-strong. It was changed in 5th edtion to be usable by any attack power, adding 20 active points to the attack.
You're absolutely right... it is easier to marginalize someone who is making an objection to which you do not agree by attacking them as a person and questioning their motives than actually address the substance of their point.
I liked starting out small in Champions PnP, and staying small for a significant amount of time. I liked being able to purchase powers, stats, PD/ED etc separately, and how you would naturally pay more for certain powers (I'm looking at you, Teleport!). I liked being able to have extra points by choosing to be vulnerable to something.
It would also be nice to have things more open, but maybe they'll improve descriptions and tooltips across time.
But I never imagined seeing travel powers like CO has. And I really like the PvP aspect.
Personally, I really hope that Cryptic steps up the writing and storytelling for CO in future content. I also think they should get one of the writers for the PnP material to do writing for the MMO as well. When I'm playing a super hero game, I want it to have a super hero feel, ala comic books and storytelling. I want to know why this villian here turned to a life of crime or that hero there is clostrophobic. I want these missions my characters goes on to have meaning. "Go over there and kill 10 of those guys because I said so" isn't story telling. We're super heroes, not errand boys (and girls). If I got up a group of friends and dusted off the MURPG books and ran a campaign, then started them off with "The chief of police needs you to go beat up ten thugs belonging to the 'Nines Gang' and collect ten of their medallions and bring them back to him", they'd all call BS and leave.
Just because a game is rated "T" for "Teen" doesn't mean it has to be written "S" for "Silly".
Just my opinion.
Well said !
Whether the PNP CU came across as campy is going to be a function of the GM's campaign -- one can run the CU any way one wants to.
Diversity in missions and better writing would be welcome. The Vibora Crisis is a step in the right direction, but they could do better.
If there is an MMO that has gone beyond kill X of Y (other than Guild Wars), I've yet to see it. In many ways MMO's play a little like old school D&D -- kill the monsters and take their stuff with little to no rationale why monsters sit in dungeon rooms waiting for adventurers to stop by.
I agree. Much less camp in more recent additions.
The, "dibs on the next fire hydrant," quote from random Dogz is actually funny because its a break from more serious content.
Given their visual design and context, it seems like we're supposed to find the Dogz scary, but they talk so goofy that it's impossible to take them at all seriously. By extension, it becomes very difficult to take Vibora Bay itself, which is otherwise a chilling horror show, seriously.
I kinda wish they would just replace Guy Sweetland and Black Fang with Huckleberry Hound and Scooby-Doo and get it over with.
But if they did, some GM would then have to generic them.
This is the problem I have with a lot of the NPC dialogue in the game. VIPER, Argent, The Coyboy Robots, Brain Trust, etc. These guys are supposed to be VILLAINS...Yet it's almost impossible to take any of them seriously. Was Dr. Destroyer firing off "your mama" jokes as he was trying to destroy Detroit? Serious villains are taken seriously, goofy characters aren't. There's nothing wrong with even villain characters having a sense of humor (it's a natural human ability that's common), but these guys should definately keep in mind that they are indeed...the bad guys.
The Joker, for example, can be quite funny and entertaining...in the hands of a great writer he's also terrifying and insane.
These guys are super hero villains, not Krang and Shredder from the old Ninja Turtles cartoon.
Personally, I enjoy it when I am entertained. The Camp has been dialed back, but if they remove it completely I wouldn't really be all that entertained. Honestly, you are getting too wound up in srs bsnss approach to a fictional universe and game that was meant to be entertaining and fun.
This game is fun. I do enjoy playing it. I like the passion the community of this game has. I like the fact that people can have different POV's and still talk like human beings in this community.
I don't think they should get rid of all the camp and humor in this game, but it would be nice if they would raise the bar just a little bit. Engaging dialogue. More creative writing and origonality and less pop culture parodies. Most RPG players are intelligent people that like to think, and in turn, be encouraged to do so. I like game content that makes me think; content that has shocking conclusions...cliffhangers even. Cryptic shouldn't be afraid the throw some of that our way.
Silverspar, we may not always agree (we probably won't most time to be honest lol)...but I always like hearing your opinions and thoughts on topics in the forums. Have a good one.
-Til next time-
WEll, I must admit that I havent spent that much time in VB as of yet. I waited until very recently to even do the crisis for the first time.
I imagine that if the dialogue ends up being like the metnioned quote all of the time I will get tired of it.
I like the idea of a comedic break in the tension of a story, even "the bard" (spoken in my best Hank McCoy voice)was fond of the method, but honestly prefer a more serious tone in general in my RPG's.
I totally understand Silverspar's comments about Serious Business, but for me it is hard to take my character seriously if he is in an environment that doesnt take itself seriously.
At this point I have learned to deal with the immersion breaking (for me) camp. Fantastic fiction requires some degree of suspension of disbelief. I have learned to just ignore, pretending it doesnt exist at all, those elements of this game that would contradict my ability to achieve the degree of immersion I need in order to enjoy the game.
Its not really any harder than ignoring the fact that the same VIPER agents hang out on the same corner in MC after I have blown them up a hundred times.
I do think that VB is a step in the right direction and that continuing to reduce the camp is a good thing.
A GM can portray his NPCs however he wants, but if a GM is a terrible writer, I'm not going to be excited to play in his campaigns.
The overall tone can be set anywhere on the slider as far as I'm concerned. What I want is consistency.* You brought up the concept of tension, which is a very important point. Management of tension and release is crucial to all good writing. (All good art, really ... even if it is "just" a less respected form of art, like comics or video games.) Good comedy is no different. Everybody is familiar with the concept of the straight man. The straight man builds the tension, the funny man releases it. When the funny men outnumber the straight men, no tension can build, so the punchlines fall flat.** And, yes, even a good drama will often have a comic character or two to break the tension ... but a good drama won't have a comic relief character on every street corner.
I like the goofy guys who guard the Vibora Bay freak maze, because they're each unique and stand out, and the maze is filled with murderous and totally serious Sovereign Sons. There's no story to that mission, but it manages to be both good comedy and good horror. You talk to a weird guy at the beginning, get stripped of your travel powers and trapped in a maze, with the pressure of a time limit even, and have to survive a gauntlet of scary magicians who are totally serious about killing you. Then, at the end, you are congratulated by a cartoon dog in a tri-corner hat. That's a brilliant example of tension and release.
The Dogz don't do this, because they are a constant mush of horror and comedy that never build any tension. They're very scary looking, but they say scary stuff half the time and stupid jokes the other half. When a Dog extends a jagged, bloodstained claw towards me, it's impossible to be scared when they have a cream pie in their other hand. The strong impression is of design by a committee that never bothered to put their heads together.
*Caveat: I'm totally cool with inconsistency in "overall seriousness" from zone to zone. I think that VB's darker tone is a wonderful contrast to the rest of CO.
**Note that a proliferation of funny men can work, and beautifully, but they still have to take turns being the "straight man". The Marx Brothers for example are my favorite comedy team, especially because they all operate on different levels. Chico makes a clueless pun that exasperates Groucho; Harpo does something crazy that endangers Chico or destroys his possessions; Groucho makes a cutting wisecrack at Harpo's expense. Then they all team up and barrage the "real" straight men around them with their combined arsenal. Of course I wouldn't expect MMO NPCs to generate a dynamic anywhere near this complex ... which is exactly why I'm against wholesale comedy against the serious backdrop of VB.
Respect.
Saying the source should take itself seriously, when the material the source is based on can't even be taken seriously is stretching things exceptionally thin. Yea, we daydream of being a super hero, but that's fantastical in and of itself. Trying to bring real world into my daydream is the last thing I want. And I seriosuly doubt people trying to escape some of their harsh realities want to be reminded of it. Kind of why people point out and bash obvious tropes of using current events as their plot device in a lot of comics, movies and TV series these days. When people are looking to be entertained, even an RPer like me, they don't want to be reminded of all teh bullcrap they are trying to escape away from.
Pop culture references I don't mind, considering even in my daily life I get abashed by stupid stuff like that (and yea I would bet you on the spot if werewolves were real one of them would make a fire hydrant joke just like they do in Vibora) it's everywhere and saying it ruins the immersion is being a bit unrealistic since even in everyday life these pulp culture references and silly things happen.
This whole post misses the point.
The seats at the theater have nothing to do with the writing of the movie.
Being fantastical does not mean that it has to be silly. I cannot go more than few minutes in CO without exposure to silliness. What percentage of the Lord of the Rings (a work of ficton every bit-or more- as fantastical as any comic book) is filled wtih slapstick, body humor, puns, pop culture references/jokes, etc ?
Say what you like but comic books can be, and often are, serious in tone. CO rarely is.
When I am attempting to be entertained, by roleplaying an angst driven character with a tragic backstory I dont want to be constantly reminded of bad comedic movies.
One werewolf doesnt make the hydrant joke. If it was just one, in a particular area, it wouldnt be a concern.
I am not sure where you live but I dont get these silly jokes and pop culture references every few seconds.
The only, "cop out," as you put it, is yours. There is silliness in the real world so it must be omnipresent, the unavoidable dominant tone, in the game, is a ludicrous argument.
You are really willing to make bets about what a large percentage of the members of a fictional species would say if confronted with a fire hydrant ?
How many times has your character made that comment ?
Not even close Ashen. That was the poiont I made, you are complaining about the seat colors at the movie and saying it ruins your entire experience. Try as you might that's exactly what you're saying. When it concerns RP and such, guess what, majority of the RP has very little to do with NPC interaction in an MMO. IN fact the vast majority of it is player driven meaning none of the NPCs actually are even in the equation when it concerns the entire RP and immersion experience. To say it kills immersion, it's attempting to make Mt. Everest out of a prairie dog burrow.
I can watch a movie at home or in a theater. THe seating will be very different in each location. The story of the movie, and the ability to immerse oneself in that story, is not different from one location to another.
The in story trappings of a movie are very different in their impact on a story than the chair a viewer sits on while watching the movie.
I can sit in stadium style seating, kneel, crouch, sit indian style, stand, recline, balance on one foot, etc while watching a movie wihtout the movie being altered by my choice of position.
On the other hand if I insert Abbot and Costello, the Three Stooges, the Little Rascals, a random Adam Sandler goofball character, etc into the Lord of the Rings, the movie will not be the same at all.
Oh, BTW I made a suggestion in your thread about Dual Builds..tell me what you think about it.
I don't team much. I don't hang out in Club Caprice. Even when I run across other RPers, I tend not to jump in. Yet I consider myself a role-player.
I try to make characters that make sense. I try to make characters, whether serious or silly, that respond in character to the world around them. Characters that are built to a theme, and stick to their own personal story, in a world with a vision (hopefully) that is equally consistent. I even try to make costumes that accurately represent my vision of the character. (You ever notice how many people are running around with carefully constructed costumes, yet don't RP in text? They didn't get those costumes with the random button. They were building to a vision. They are RPers on some level.)
Actually, I apologize for the insult, but take a step back and take a look at what you're really saying here. As soon as you said the word, "majority", you fell into the one of the oldest and, forgive me, dumbest arguments that I see come up again and again on discussions of how an MMO should be: "Well, most players are like me, so your desires and concerns are invalid."
You may know a great many RPers with a strong community. Maybe you've had wonderful guilds in MMOs, MUDs, PnP, and storytelling dating back to the first cave paintings. That in no way makes you an expert on what makes a fun, immersive world for some fictional majority of today's market. The players that you've RPed with in CO are a tiny fraction of the game's population. Your authority in this matter is imaginary.
It's true - it's quite possible that you're right, and Ashen and I really are the only people who care about a consistent world that makes sense by its own rules. Yeah. Maybe.