Mob Spawn Gimmicks

[Falling Stargazer]

One of my absolute favorite aspects of CoH was how much effort they put into little living touches. The fact that mobs are often -doing something- worth you starting a fight with them has actively poisoned other rpgs whose mobs just idle around in little circles waiting to offer their lives to the exp gods. Thugs are trying to hammer open garage doors. Cultists performing rituals on captured innocents. The Clockwork are in a tier of their own, just prying up materials in places no player would ever actually be looking for fights.

So I've been trying to capture especially interesting quirks when I see them. Tell me your favorites too!

 

Clockwork being awful gremlins:

 

 

 

 

A Circle Mage's reach exceeded his grasp:

 

Hellion chilling way off the beaten path in the Atlas Park warehouse district:

 

The Lost clown car spawn in Faultline has several variations they put in! In some of them the PPD Officer is confused how all of them even fit into the car. In another version one of the Lost is trying to argue their way out of having run a red light.

 

This last one is probably my current favorite in the game. It's a Crey exhibition where they spawn as neutral (yellow) alignment and are talking up the Protector unit. But when the encounter triggers, the Protector clutches their head and lashes out for what Crey has done to them. It's a solid little micro story!

 

 

More to come if people are interested!

[Techwright]

I'm still waiting for the day I bust into a side chamber of Orenbega and find a bunch of Thorns sitting around playing D&D.

[wjrasmussen]

Let's not forget some of the spicy talk those NPCs have.

[MonteCarla]

I love that Crey one.

I'd always assumed the Voltaic Tanks and others were just guys in Iron Man suits. This implies something much more permanent and horrific.

 

And yeah, this is all part of making a living breathing city, having the idle animations that play out before you engage.

[Scarlet Shocker]

18 hours ago, Techwright said:

I'm still waiting for the day I bust into a side chamber of Orenbega and find a bunch of Thorns sitting around playing D&D.

 

They don't play that. Their game of choice is People & Palaces (Advanced Ed v3)

[srmalloy]

All of the boots costume pieces have unique sole textures.

[DougGraves]

I like those touches.  But it is weird to come upon Lost being arrested and then attacking them and beating them up.

[Clave Dark 5]

I was just running around King's Row to get my Toy Collector badge last week (and yes, cleaning up any snow beasts I spawned, thank you very much), and too noticed how well placed and planned those Clockwork gremlins are.

[Falling Stargazer]

Yeah, Kings Row really shows a high bar for these kinds of sprinkled details! Someone out there had fun looking at infrastructure and thinking "what would be the worst possible piece of this to fail suddenly?" and then putting a Clockwork there, no matter how out of the way it was.