Why was Statesman killed off again?

[Darmian]

7 hours ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

the Statesman vs Himself show with Emperor Cole about to loom over the horizon as Tyrant in Going Rogue. Hard to think they could have done with Praetoria what they wanted to do if somebody approaching Coles equal in raw power remained on the scene.

People on here have in the past seen my rants about Praetoria. My personal Head Canon is that ultimately "Who Will Die?" was a Praetorian plot literally intended to take out the one man who could maybe go toe to toe with Tyrant. Recluse's fight against Tyrant is a fake out, so if he'd really tried maybe he'd have a a shot too, we'll never know. However, only Statesman would have tried to do it.

 

It has its issues but it makes more sense to me than "Darrin Wade just happened to have this plan".  

[Clave Dark 5]

Eh, just a dumb comic-type storyline.  Like alternate universes, every comicsy media property is going to mine that tired well sooner or later.

[tidge]

16 hours ago, SeraphimKensai said:

Oh the days of Unyielding rooting you in place, forcing all of us early Invuln tanks to use teleport, or detoggle our mez protection to run around.

 

I have a vague memory that Stateman (the PC) also had ranged attacks, which were not really a thing for Tankers at Launch. Between that an Unyielding, as an Invuln Tanker from Day 1, it felt like Dev "cheating" for their PCs in ways that were not as immediately obvious with the rest of the big names. It's sort of like in the more modern era, Penny Yin has access to an obvious pet that players can't access... although that bothers me not-at-all.

[Snarky]

13 hours ago, FupDup said:

Wade was captured by Vanguard/Lady Grey at the end of Who Will Die and is having his brain picked apart for any and all info that could be used against Rularuu. I don't think anything else happened to him after that point. 

He will be fine. Just fine

 

[lemming]

I mean the last chapter came out the year sunset happened, so there was probably more "planned".  Pandora's arc's last mission didn't get to live.

 

Wade still being in Sharkhead is probably the snapshot of what your character would see while leveling past.   It's all part of the oddness of "every character is the main in their own story" thing.  Just a bit messy.

[Techwright]

I never had a problem with Statesman the character, and I was pretty distant from the JE stuff so I never made an association between avatar and JE.  Actually, I had one problem with Statesman:  I couldn't stand that dorky front-to-back half helmet.  I'd been hoping they'd give him a costume upgrade at some point.   Also noting: I had no problem with Statesman's personality.  He could be a bit of a jerk at times, and that made him a more distinct character than just a Superman clone.  I was probably relating because I've had bosses before who could be complete jerks one minute, then mindblowingly helpful the next.

 

I have felt for some time that an advancement of the story should be the healing of Hero One and his assumption of Statesman's old position, possibly feeling a little shaky in the confidence because of what he's been through and how it affected others.

 

On 11/16/2023 at 1:39 PM, TheZag said:

My understanding was that Statesman needed to die in order for the players to progress.  If the next big threat arrived,  Statesman would be expected to deal with it instead of the players.  I would have preferred for him to remain alive though.  There are several ways to exclude a character without having them killed.

 

I'd never heard that, and the potential implications, now lost to us, are crazy good, IMHO.  Rather than Incarnate, we could have gotten an ongoing saga of our character joining the Phalanx and gradually working their way up to Statesman's old position, possibly challenging Posi in some tense moment, then once on top, gained the ability to direct the Freedom Phalanx, possibly to victories or defeats.  Maybe have the Incarnate stuff running more gradually in parallel.

 

23 hours ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

What was utterly reprehensible was killing off Sister Psyche - there was no reason behind it, and so poorly executed (pun intended) that it defies logic. It was as though the Devs sat down around a table and said "ok the fans know we're gonna kill of Statesman and they mostly hate him anyhow, so let's throw them through a loop and kill somebody they like off too"

 

Even at a basic level, we already knew Sister P could mind-ride - she'd done it with Aurora for some years I believe, so why she couldn't do that again is very unclear.

 

I've actually never played that segment of the storyline (need to get to it).  Is it an absolute kill, or is there a potential for the mind-ride?  Just wondering if they set it up to reveal at some future point. 

[Scarlet Shocker]

1 hour ago, Techwright said:

I've actually never played that segment of the storyline (need to get to it).  Is it an absolute kill, or is there a potential for the mind-ride?  Just wondering if they set it up to reveal at some future point. 

 

I think you need to play it and decide for yourself. I think any comment I make could colour your own perception.

[BurtHutt]

I never played while this Jack character was around so I don't have any opinion on that guy - he just seems to be really hated by the OG community.

 

I also suspect killing off States was a publicity stunt to drum up interest in a game that was slowly losing players (and profitability). It's too bad and they could've done that story with someone else getting killed but it wouldn't have been the same. It is a pretty cool arc and there is some emotion most feel with that cut scene...oh the tragedy!

 

Lastly, wasn't there an AMA with a Dev that said they were bringing States back if the game kept going? That seems silly to me and glad it didn't happen. What are we, Marvel?! 

 

Was this the AMA?

https://archive.paragonwiki.com/wiki/Lore_AMA

 

EDIT - So, I did go through the start of 2016 AMA and they planned on bringing back States...well...a reformed Tyrant who would take the States mantle. I am SO glad that never happened. Yikes. 

 

Edited November 17, 2023 by BurtHutt

[Scarlet Shocker]

As for Darrin Wade, he drowned off the coast of Sharkhead Isle, giving Ramsey Lewis his greatest hit

 

[twozerofoxtrot]

3 hours ago, Techwright said:

I've actually never played that segment of the storyline (need to get to it). 

 

If you've run ITF more than twice and never run Who Will Die, you've robbed yourself.

I'd also offer that Pandora's box is a great treat. I'm biased but I get a bigger kick out of the Redside arc because of the implications at the end, but inherently it is a more hero-oriented story.

Please play both of these. Read the stories. Enjoy the ride. It feels *way* more like comic books than just mindlessly roflstomping toga wearing exp-bags.

[SeraphimKensai]

19 hours ago, Darmian said:

My personal Head Canon is that ultimately "Who Will Die?" was a Praetorian plot literally intended to take out the one man who could maybe go toe to toe with Tyrant. Recluse's fight against Tyrant is a fake out, so if he'd really tried maybe he'd have a a shot too, we'll never know.

From a lore perspective, I have a character named Hitpoint that mops the floor with Tyrant, and that's the reason Praetoria hasn't been in a continuous invasion since Statesman died, and that Recluse has largely stay on his side of the playground.

[lemming]

4 hours ago, BurtHutt said:

I never played while this Jack character was around so I don't have any opinion on that guy - he just seems to be really hated by the OG community.

He made a lot of proclamations that seemed "You must play the game the way I envision it"

 

That and an interview where he said how much he enjoyed those platform games that if you were a pixel off, you'd fail and you'd have to start over.

 

That being said, I met him in RL at GenCon while they were launching the Champions MMO.  Nice guy to talk to.  

[Kaika]

As someone who was around back then, he was incredibly unpopular, The guy was confidently the face of nerfing your characters into the ground. In retrospect the nerf's like ED back in the day were kinda needed for the game to have any semblance of challenge at all, but Jack could be a case study in how to not break the news to a community. He just had this vibe about him of not caring about the players opinions, and wanting the game to fit his vision, ironically, he had the air of a Tyrant about him. From what I hear though he is a nice enough guys IRL, but he was not doing himself any favors with the community.

 

When "Who will Die" came out, literally everyone knew Statesman was gonna die, it was obvious. I'm pretty sure Sister Psyche was killed partially so they still had something to surprise players with, but her death also served to push Manti fully down the vigilante path as they wanted to have major characters on each side shift alignment (Scirocco was going hero).  Statesman was kinda the perfect character to kill off though, he was attached to a unpopular dev, easy to remove from the game as he barely was in it directly, and would parallel the whole "Death of Superman" thing being this games "Superman". On top of that it makes a vacuum for the player to take his place as "The Big Hero" which seems to be the sort of move they were starting to make when the game shut down. Either way, killing off characters purely for shock value, is an EXTREMELY comic book thing to do, if anything the move fits well with the genre, good writing or not.

 

Keep in mind too, that this was the first signature story arc, and required a monthly subscription to access after the game went free to play. They had to make a big impact to convince people that these story arc were worth paying for. I suspect this is likely why States and Psyche were straight up removed from the game outside of oro while wade is still chilling in Sharkhead, because it drums up curiosity from those not subscribed when big important figures suddenly are replaced. Wade gets to stick around because he isn't an important or well known figure, and him getting removed would spoil his involvement.

[Verfall]

5 hours ago, Riot Siren said:

As someone who was around back then, he was incredibly unpopular, The guy was confidently the face of nerfing your characters into the ground. In retrospect the nerf's like ED back in the day were kinda needed for the game to have any semblance of challenge at all, but Jack could be a case study in how to not break the news to a community. He just had this vibe about him of not caring about the players opinions, and wanting the game to fit his vision, ironically, he had the air of a Tyrant about him. From what I hear though he is a nice enough guys IRL, but he was not doing himself any favors with the community.

 

My memories fuzzy, but I believe the breaking point for most of us was, after reducing defensive numbers across the board and saying there was going to be "no  more nerfs" we got handed ED. As an Invul tank, we went from herding maps to anything non-SL hurting a ton. Did we need reigning in? In hindsight, of course. But at the time we went from gods to street level practically over night. Now if he had done ED first, than tweaked numbers after, who knows how we would have reacted. But throwing an uppercut after a right hook, only to basically tell us we were playing his game wrong...ya...

 

 

[Darmian]

On 11/16/2023 at 6:54 PM, SeraphimKensai said:

Well, Ghost Widow isn't inherently evil, she's just bound to Recluse. If you haven't played her full patron arc, it's really worth the play.

It's even trickier than that though 🙂 She's bound to Arachnos, not Recluse.

[Scarlet Shocker]

I think we need to be a bit careful here because we can spiral into a "I hate the devs" thing (it's the internet, it can happen) - there are some deeply unsatisfactory things in the final arcs of the game but as others have pointed out, they are an unfinished project. We never got to the grand finale, so we cannot see for certain what the Devs had planned. It may well be that it would have turned into a big pile of fecal matter, but like Pandora's Box we can retain some hope that it would have been far better than it appears as it currently stands.

 

Maybe, just maybe, we will get something akin to the conclusion at some time in the future but that would take some fortune and serendipity, so I am content to just have our game back.

[srmalloy]

12 hours ago, lemming said:

That and an interview where he said how much he enjoyed those platform games that if you were a pixel off, you'd fail and you'd have to start over.

And declaring that, for him, 'fun' was throwing your character at the end boss again and again and again, being defeated each time, until you discovered the one tactic that let you beat them. And displaying a complete and utter ignorance of the way the internet worked by failing to realize that, no matter how complicated he made the end boss defeat technique, that fifteen minutes after someone figured it out, it would be up on the internet and read by the entire playerbase, completely defeating his intent to make each player figure it out for themselves.

[Captain Fabulous]

17 hours ago, BurtHutt said:

I never played while this Jack character was around so I don't have any opinion on that guy - he just seems to be really hated by the OG community.

 

He was.

[tidge]

6 hours ago, Verfall said:

My memories fuzzy, but I believe the breaking point for most of us was, after reducing defensive numbers across the board and saying there was going to be "no  more nerfs" we got handed ED. As an Invul tank, we went from herding maps to anything non-SL hurting a ton. Did we need reigning in? In hindsight, of course. But at the time we went from gods to street level practically over night.

 

I feel what is being written, but that doesn't line up with my own feelings as a Day 1 Invulnerability Tanker. If anything it was the aggro change that hit "herding maps". I will sympathize that pre-ED it was possible to over-exaggerate the core attributes of any AT. My own feelings regarding pre-ED for my Tanker was pretty much: "It looks like those Scrappers are shaming me!"

 

That Day 1 Tanker of mine was Invulnerability/Energy Melee, so the changes to the secondary certainly (and to some extent ED) hurt me in all sorts of places. With that character, I took a peculiar and limited joy in applying long-lasting stuns to all sorts of enemies... even if they would zip away at Mach 5.

[Scarlet Shocker]

In a way, I get Jack's philosophy that games should be challenging.

 

That said, his idea of challenge seemed to be to put you off gaming for life. He seems, from what I've read and seen, to have little understanding of human psychology and had he been more forgiving at launch, CoH might have been wayyyyyyyy more successful than it actually was.

 

I also think he loved the attention of being the boss. That was his ego trip above all else. He'd come out with a few controversial statements (when Champions Online launched) he claimed that a game would only be as good as it was on day one - something many games have consistently disproved. Some of you may remember when he played to the gallery telling the audience "tell NCSoft to give me a call" after sunset, when he presumably would have been in a far better position to quietly negotiate a resurrection than the player base that had been consistently ignored.

[Luminara]

Statesman was killed because he started every sentence with "Statesman SEZ!" when the Freedom Phalanx held meetings.

[DoctorDitko]

Yeah. Jack had an unresistable nerf-bat auto-attack.

He was an opinionated game dev, and apparently one of those guys that's great to know IRL, but turns into a were-asshat online.

The game was vastly better after he left (at least until monetization and micro-transactions infested it).

 

But UltraAlt is 100% correct, Jack's most heinous crime was taking Champions, an amazing, organically balanced, possibly Turing-complete*, TTRPG -- it's main weakness was that it cried out for a computer to handle its laborious mechanics -- and turning it into the abomination that was Champions Online.

 

That said, Statesman's death, like Superman's, was very poorly handled. Want to see it done well? Check out the death of Thor versus Jortmangandr in Walt Simonson's Thor #380! Now that's how you kill off a hero!

 

* I never met a comic character it couldn't model, and at the very least, I once wrote a virus in it.

 

[BazookaTwo]

Mandela effect 

[srmalloy]

1 hour ago, DoctorDitko said:

The game was vastly better after he left (at least until monetization and micro-transactions infested it).

Oh, not at all. You should look at NCsoft's Asian-style MMOs if you want to see a microtransaction-driven game. I'm convinced that one of the reasons NCsoft killed CoH was because it couldn't be turned into the cash-shop-centric games everything else they ran were without huge amounts of rewrite that would destroy a core part of the game. Back on Live, you could buy costume packs, unlocking new costume pieces that you could use from that point forward with any character and costume slot, as many times as you wanted; the pieces in the pack were unlocked permanently across your account. Now imagine, in the NCsoft cash shop, you have to pay for each costume piece individually, and buying the piece lets you use it on one character once — you want to use it for a different costume slot, you have to buy it again, and if you change the costume so it's no longer using that piece, you have to buy it again if you want to change back. You want to use the piece on a different character, you have to buy it again, too. Buying the unlock for a new AT, or a new powerset? You get a single-use token and can make one character using it; you want to make more, buy it again. That's the kind of cash-shop monetization NCsoft wants, with you buying 'NCcoin' directly from NCsoft, so NCsoft gets the money, and then you use the NCcoin in the game-specific store — that way, NCsoft gets all the money up front and can control what fraction (if any) the game development studios get, as another tool to keep them subordinate to their corporate masters.

[DoctorDitko]

Wow!

Just... Wow!

I had no idea we had it so well. I have a friend who bought a lifetime subscription for DC Online, so I tried it and thought they were greedy.

They are amateurs compared to that evilness!

 

The few things I liked about DC Online were the voice actors -- IIRC Kevin Conroy (the one, true Batman) voiced Batman -- and the idea that Gotham was always in nighttime and Metropolis always sunny.

 

But they gave you "rewards" that required money to unlock, and the costume stuff was much as you described. Ugh!

 

I have never found a game that made me feel super-heroic as much as COH does, and Homecoming made it all gooderer!