An Overly Long Tangent Talking About Pocket D (TM)

[McSpazz]

After I made my post on Mediporters and Teleportation, I thought I'd give Pocket D a stab. As far as subjects that roleplayers in the community argue over, it's weirdly one of the more common ones. Yeah, that's right. Star Wars has who shot first, FFXIV has how to handle house claims, and City of Heroes has...an extra-dimensional dance club. What a world, huh?

 

Why the debate? Well, put simply, for a zone of the game roleplayers spend so much time in, there's not that much lore out there outlining what it is, who DJ Zero is, what he can do, so on and so on. As a result, it's an area where people can slam one another's heads into frequently.

 

Why make this a tangent post rather than a fully fledged one? Well, put simply, there's not much meat on these bones and the conclusion is, unfortunately, one entirely based on my opinion. It's based in the lore, but outside of that? We're stepping into Head Cannon.

 

1.  Context
Yes, this is gonna have a short context post to set up the environment the game was set up in. I'm POSITIVE most people reading this know this, but it is kind of necessary to lay the groundwork for what's coming later.

 

When the game first came out, there was no red side. It was City of Heroes all the way down. For whatever reason, be it madness or a desire to throw a bone to the weird nerds that like to pretend they're a superhero in their free time, the devs added a club to the game. No, it wasn't Pocket D.

Paragon Dance Party was the name and it used to be the only place to wear down those dancing shoes. They removed the ability to go there after City of Villains came out, but Homecoming has re-opened it for business.

 

And it is certainly...a location! Look, if you want to check it out yourself, there are doors in Talos and Steel Canyon. You really aren't missing much though. You know that big area that's in some warehouse maps where you go up a big ramp, pass through a break room, and enter what looks like a large docking bay? Yeah, it's that but with neon lights and flashing colors.

 

If my memory serves correctly, however, Galaxy City was actually a more frequently utilized hub for chilling out. After the Galaxy Incident left it a crater covered mess, I remember many vets at the time remarking on the now bitter sweet memories of their time spent in the zone. That was before my time, but I'm certain someone who was around to see it will chime in the comments.

 

As I said, though, after CoV was released, Paragon Dance Party was closed. Why? Well, while I have no solid evidence of this, the devs likely wanted a zone for two things: wacky seasonal events that they couldn't just cram into the game world AND somewhere that both heroes AND villains could go so they didn't have to make two identical zones to house those events in for no reason. Thus, Pocket D was born. A zone accessible to both Heroes AND Villains.

 

It's important to remember, though, that this wasn't being done in a vacuum. At the same time this was going on, World of Warcraft was a growing powerhouse and one of their biggest marketing gimmicks was Horde versus Alliance. While the PvP zones are fairly devoid of life in servers that doesn't have a large PvP player base now, back on live, they got a fair amount of play and the division between heroes and villains was pretty heavily reinforced. Which led to an issue. How do you make a neutral zone where heroes and villains can coexist without a ballroom blitz breaking out?

 

Much like mediporters mostly existing to explain what happens after defeat, I strongly believe that Pocket D's neutrality rules and restrictions primarily exist to explain why heroes and villains can't engage in open hostilities and to separate it from the vast majority of the game where, if you saw someone from the other city running around, it meant you were about to shoot or get shot. For a very long time after its release, Pocket D was basically the only location heroes and villains could both coexist.

 

2. The LOOOORE...contradicts a bit
Yeah, there's not much. I mean, there is and there isn't. What we know for certain is that DJ Zero created Pocket D and is effectively the god there. Not a god, THE god. His primary interest lies not in power, however, and is instead entirely focused on making sure everyone has a good time. He "strictly enforces" the rules that make Pocket D a neutral territory and rules with an iron glove covered in disco vibed glitter.

 

The rest of the lore is very scattershot. Based on the Snaptooth story arc, DJ Zero appears to have the ability to open portals to his club literally anywhere he wants should he desire. Which does make some sense. A static portal location would just make it easier for THE MAN to shut him down. While the in-game doors to Pocket D are static, it's easy to chalk that up to game limitations and/or quality of life considerations.

 

And here's where the lore starts to get weird. DJ Zero forbids violence, but Back Alley Brawler got banned from the club after he punched someone through a wall. He's all powerful and wants to keep people from killing one another, but he still has mediporters. He's beyond any mortal legal system, and yet he appears to use Ziggersky prisoners as sound technicians. What's more, according to the City of Heroes Top Cow comic #18 (yes, there were comics), there is a power suppression field which is seemingly only ever mentioned in a singular panel in that singular comic and never in game.

 

There's also the case of Red Widow. According to what I've heard echoed from the Homecoming dev team, her resurrection as a direct action taken by DJ Zero contradicted the lore and was going to get retconned to originate from someone else. Of course, her resurrection is rarely understood to be related to Pocket D at all because it was a consequence of a long since forgotten Valentine's Day event.

 

Speaking of that contradiction, did you know that DJ Zero is barred from interfering with the continuity of reality outside of his club? No? Neither did I! The only reason I know about it is because I was given the reasoning for the retconn by one of the devs. 

 

To put it simply, what lore exists is sparse, hard to find, and not all of it really lines up.

 

3. The Rub
The primary point of disagreement that people have comes down to how much violence is permitted and what type. If you take the "neutral zone" to its far extremes, you can't even have a shouting match if you run into the mugger who killed your parents and turned you into Clown Man (because people fear clowns and not the night). On the other hand, clearly SOME level of intervention is needed as "strict enforcement" implies just that. Strict enforcement.

 

It doesn't even end there. Some people believe it's impossible to die in Pocket D while others believe that if you try and punch someone, you'll be teleported out before the blow lands. Except for that one time which might mean DJ Zero apparently wanted to see how hard Back Alley Brawler could shove through a wall, I guess?

 

Pocket D was never meant to be that deep. It's a dance club in another dimension where you go to relax and not fight bad guys. However, because it's become the defacto hub for roleplay in City of Heroes, the issues created by the combination of what is and isn't said kind of grows out of control until everyone has their own solutions to the problem. It begs too many questions and provides no answers.

 

The only thing that is CERTAIN is that you cannot directly attack someone in the club without their consent (ie: sparring). What happens if that rule is broken and if they only step in after it reaches a certain point is something everyone has their own answers to.

 

Despite the stated rules of the club though, for the sake of dramaaa and story, allowing some amount of conflict to occur between club goers is kind of essential not just to tell a good story but also to maintain a fun conflict between the heroes and villains that share the space. The only issue is that no one can agree where to draw the line.

 

4. My Opinion
Here it is! The part that's prolly going to be debated in the comments if anything at all!

 

There's three things I believe we need to keep in mind when considering what is and isn't allowed in the club: the context the club was added to the game (which I already went over), why DJ Zero opened the club to begin with, and the practical implications of running a club like this at all.

 

First, the context. The reason I think it's important to keep that in mind is that when the game talks about this being "neutral ground", this was expressly when City of Villains was released and, at that time, there were NO cooperative zones between red and blue side. There were no scenarios a hero and villain would work together, and no mechanical gray areas (like vigilante/rogue). That comes with the implicit implication that, if you're in the club, you have to play nice.

 

Second, why DJ Zero opened the club at all. As I said, he REALLY wanted an awesome place where everyone could set aside all of their worries and just have fun. A place apart from the fear and dangers of the world. He wasn't looking to solve world hunger or save anyone's life, it began and ended with making a great club that anyone could use.

 

And, finally, the implications of both of the above points as to how he would have to run the club.

 

If he wanted Villains to feel comfortable coming over, he'd need to ensure that they could not be arrested there nor forcibly interrogated. Few villains would want to hang out at a place that law enforcement felt like they could use to monitor bad guys without their consent. If he wanted Heroes and even random civilians to feel comfortable going there, he'd need to ensure that villains could not kidnap guests or do anything, shall we say, extreme. If you slammed a hero's boyfriend's finger onto the counter and threatened to kill him if your demands weren't met, you probably wouldn't be welcome to return to the club

 

Some amount of animosity is likely to happen at some point and maybe even the rare brawl might be allowed to happen once in a while. However, if DJ Zero intends to keep the club a neutral no-fire zone, simply drawing the line at no physical assault kind of misses the point. If you aren't leaving your baggage at the door and are going in explicitly to antagonize someone, you aren't using his space as a neutral no-fire zone. You're using it to retain a level of diplomatic immunity. If either villains or heroes abused that too often, the other side would find somewhere else to party. And that's just no fun. If DJ Zero was going to run a club like this, he'd need to be more strict than just, "no killing each other." It's a practical necessity.

 

Why are there mediporters if you can't be harmed in the zone? Why can you self-destruct there? Could you die of natural causes there? Why is the only mention of any power suppression in the comics? I dunno. The lore I mentioned above is basically the only stuff I was able to dig up and, in the end, I too am mostly left with more questions than answers.

 

For me, personally, going by what I said above, figuring out what is and isn't acceptable is kind of a know it when I see it kind of situation. It sucks, but with so little to go on, everything's just kind of down to vibes. Until and unless a new bit of story is released expanding on Pocket D, vibes is kind of all we got.

 

What does feel certain to me, however, is that if you actively do something in Pocket D that would stand a good chance of chasing away club goes just minding their own business and not wanting to get caught up in whatever weird and/or violent shit you're wading in? The bouncers might just not let you walk into that elevator next time you hop into a portal. If the portal lets you in at all.

 

6. Other Points of Contention
These are somewhat smaller bits of contention people might have with Pocket D that I'm going to briefly touch upon

 

• The club is probably actually very clean. Yes, there is a sapient ooze coming out of the bathroom, but what I mean is that you are unlikely to get sick from anything you encounter in Pocket D. The club maintains a certain grungy aesthetic for the most part, but that isn't true for the entire club. The ski chalet and tiki lounge both seem far better kept. If you have the kinds of powers DJ Zero has, you can literally get something aesthetically dirty without letting it actually be dirty.

 

• It seems unlikely that you can use Pocket D as a means of going places you cannot go normally or use it as a means of bypassing travel and regulations (ie: smuggling). I already touched on this in my post talking about teleportation, but there's another element I didn't mention there for the sake of brevity. Ziggurskey inmates are actively employed doing...something at the central dancefloor. I think the simplest reason is that this is a job that inmates can take as part of serving their sentence. If that were the case, since there are no guards hanging around to keep a prisoner from just fleeing to the red side elevator, being restricted by where you can reasonably be outside of the club is the simplest solution. As DJ Zero wants this to be a club and not a shipping route, that would also prevent you from smuggling goods through Pocket D.

 

• For most other contentions people might have about behavior being in Pocket D, a pretty safe assumption is just this: would allowing that behavior make running the club as a fun space for all harder? You can't satisfy everyone, but there are definitely some behaviors that would scare off the average party goer. Just because you aren't in Rhode Island jurisdiction anymore doesn't mean the bartenders will just happily serve a 13 year old a bourbon on the rocks.

 

7. Conclusion
Basically, we don't know much about Pocket D or its god-like host. However, as it's a neutral RP hub, allowing for some butting of heads between people is kind of necessary. There's few other open world locations you can go to where it doesn't feel like you aren't just setting up a playdate with your arch rival.

 

It's not amazing that the only thing we have to go on are vibes and minimal lore, but that's kind of where we're stuck. I don't actually encourage people to police other people's self imposed rules on Pocket D unless it gets ridiculous (such as openly attacking or shooting at someone). In the end, the club is pretty much just casual roleplay and, for the most part, most of the roleplay most important to your character isn't going to be conducted there.

 

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This post is tangentially part of my series talking about roleplaying! You can see the full list of posts Here!

Edited January 15 by McSpazz
Formatting fix, grammar fix, and added a missing link.