What is a Mary-sue? *SPOILERS*

[Selvec]

I don't see the problem myself. I am very special. My mum says so...

[Ranadiel_Marius]

Actually, Silver Age Superman didn't stop existing until the end of Zero Hour. That was when he and the rest of the Silver Age Heroes finished evolving into the Modern Age. The Superman of Earth 1 (Silver Age) transitioned to the New Earth created by the end of the COIE. As did most of the Heroes. Powergirl (Earth 2 Kara Zor-L) was an exception. She made it to New Earth since her Earth 1 counterpart (Supergirl) died when the Anti-Monitor blew her away. Now the only surviving Silver Age hero that is STILL the same Silver Age hero is Barry Allen (Silver Age Flash), and he spent over 20 years dead. lol

 

While they were initially the bronze era characters when they transitioned over to the post-crisis Earth, reality essentially rewrite itself around them changing them to fit the history of the new world. That was why Superman's orgin was altered to the Man of Steel orgin which resulted in all kinds of fun continuity issues with stuff that wasn't updated at the same time such as Legion of Superheroes resulting in the Pocket Dimension Superboy.

 

Either way, Infinite Crisis was post Zero Hour so even under your timeline for when Silver Age Superman was removed from continuity, it wasn't Silver Age Superman that was being compared to Golden Age Superman in Infinite Crisis.

[Karkais]

I don't see the problem myself. I am very special. My mum says so...

 

"Everybody's special, Dash"

"Thats the same as saying nobody is.."

- The incredibles

[Sewerus]

"Everybody's special, Dash"

"Thats the same as saying nobody is.."

- The incredibles

 

Well said.

 

For me the biggest problem in sw tor about the mary sue is you can call your superior an idiot, if ihat is jedi master,sith lord, general etc with no problems for you.

And you can also kill as jedi/sith people, i mean going for dark side . As jedi the jedi master said np, it had to be done, bla bla bla, and nothing changes, or you can have lvl 5 dark side of a jedi but none of the masters are even pointing out that to you.

For example in kotor 2 you had different conversation depending on your dark/light side alignment, it doesn't happen here, and your dark/light side doesn't affect how your companion behave too.

In kotor II if you had huge influance for one of your character, it also affected how she/he would behave.

And your force aligment also would matter, how companions or random people would react to you.

 

Here i can be down the dark side more the darkest of sith lords but still jedi masters doesn't see it and my companions, sure they see it all right, have one or 2 sentences about it no matter.

 

Plus the most horrible thing is the companions/npc forget about my previous i choices i made in previous conversations. It really does feel strange like hell for me at least.

[ProfessorWalsh]

Well said.

 

For me the biggest problem in sw tor about the mary sue is you can call your superior an idiot, if ihat is jedi master,sith lord, general etc with no problems for you.

And you can also kill as jedi/sith people, i mean going for dark side . As jedi the jedi master said np, it had to be done, bla bla bla, and nothing changes, or you can have lvl 5 dark side of a jedi but none of the masters are even pointing out that to you.

For example in kotor 2 you had different conversation depending on your dark/light side alignment, it doesn't happen here, and your dark/light side doesn't affect how your companion behave too.

In kotor II if you had huge influance for one of your character, it also affected how she/he would behave.

And your force aligment also would matter, how companions or random people would react to you.

 

Here i can be down the dark side more the darkest of sith lords but still jedi masters doesn't see it and my companions, sure they see it all right, have one or 2 sentences about it no matter.

 

Plus the most horrible thing is the companions/npc forget about my previous i choices i made in previous conversations. It really does feel strange like hell for me at least.

 

Really the problem is BioWare misunderstood their core audience.

 

We didn't want a softball experience. We wanted real consequences for our actions. We wanted REWARDS for "walking the line" and we wanted REAL PENALTIES for "breaking the rules" we wanted an RPG with a stern GM who gave you freedom, but had consequences for that freedom.

 

BioWare wanted, instead, to be WoW.

[Sewerus]

Really the problem is BioWare misunderstood their core audience.

 

We didn't want a softball experience. We wanted real consequences for our actions. We wanted REWARDS for "walking the line" and we wanted REAL PENALTIES for "breaking the rules" we wanted an RPG with a stern GM who gave you freedom, but had consequences for that freedom.

 

BioWare wanted, instead, to be WoW.

 

For me this game, is too little rpg to called an rpg and too little mmo to call it an mmo.

 

You could also say that this game is a rpg with mmo elements but this is rpg with too little rpg elements.

 

In morrowind for example you could build your own settlement, in two worlds II you could buy a boat and sail the seas, in fable you could rent your houses and fish, in ddo you have guild ships, in lotro you can buy numerous houses and have items that you gathered there during journey, in fallout 1 and fallout 2 you could be a caravan guard and earn money this way.

 

For the end game to be more interesting you could add things like the ability to manage a settlement, do smuggling as a smuggler, as mercenary you could venture entire galaxy for lucrative contracts and etc.

 

Instead when hitting lvl 50, there is nothing fun to do except doing dailys, running flashes, doing ops, warzones etc.

 

Does things are in others "standard" mmo's, i kinda expect something different from star wars mmo, to give it more spice to it.

 

Maybe i was expecting too much.

[Dartanel]

Really the problem is BioWare misunderstood their core audience.

 

We didn't want a softball experience. We wanted real consequences for our actions. We wanted REWARDS for "walking the line" and we wanted REAL PENALTIES for "breaking the rules" we wanted an RPG with a stern GM who gave you freedom, but had consequences for that freedom.

 

BioWare wanted, instead, to be WoW.

 

I think you're underestimating Bioware's amibition.

Having a branching storyline is fine when you're only doing 1 story. But when you're doing 8 the cost just becomes astronomical.

I'm certain Bioware wanted to do a storyline with real consequence, but reality and EA's purse strings just got in the way.

[ProfessorWalsh]

For me this game, is too little rpg to called an rpg and too little mmo to call it an mmo.

 

You could also say that this game is a rpg with mmo elements but this is rpg with too little rpg elements.

 

In morrowind for example you could build your own settlement, in two worlds II you could buy a boat and sail the seas, in fable you could rent your houses and fish, in ddo you have guild ships, in lotro you can buy numerous houses and have items that you gathered there during journey, in fallout 1 and fallout 2 you could be a caravan guard and earn money this way.

 

For the end game to be more interesting you could add things like the ability to manage a settlement, do smuggling as a smuggler, as mercenary you could venture entire galaxy for lucrative contracts and etc.

 

Instead when hitting lvl 50, there is nothing fun to do except doing dailys, running flashes, doing ops, warzones etc.

 

Does things are in others "standard" mmo's, i kinda expect something different from star wars mmo, to give it more spice to it.

 

Maybe i was expecting too much.

 

Personally I could care less about making my own settlement and such. We have minigames as well, space combat for example. What I don't like is that there is far too little meaningful choice in this game. Nothing has any permanent consequences and no characters are willing to step in and smack a character down for inappropriate behavior.

 

The basic flaw in the BioWare model here is the idea that every option and choice has to be just as viable and that people won't do something if it negatively effects them... Well... BioWare... WELCOME TO REAL LIFE.

 

You need to have rules and penalties, that actually matter, for breaking them or breaking them has no value.

 

It isn't "hard" or difficult to be Dark Sided as a Jedi Knight... It is very easy... There are no consequences... You don't have to hide it. Likewise for the Sith it isn't "hard" to be Light Sided as a Sith, you simply are and nobody does anything that matters to you for it.

 

Oh, sure, a character might have slightly different dialogue but it should be more than that...

 

There should have been MAJOR turning points in each class story dependent on alignment. If you went too far Dark Side as a Jedi Knight you should have had a scene where Satele shows up and beats the living snot out of you before exiling you from the Order. BOOM your character CANNOT go back to Tython... EVER... And has a completely new set of missions... No turning back... No take backs... No "do over" you are evil, you made the choices, now live with it.

 

BioWare kept backing down on every single aspect, which is what created the Mary Sue problem.

 

"Oh... Force corruption? Nah... You can just turn that off."

"Companions turning on you and forcing you to kill them thus leaving you one companion down? Nope no need."

 

This game's major flaw is that it lacks... How do I put this... It lacks [censored by poster] in any way, shape, or form. It was too afraid to slap a player's wrist and therefor suffered tremendously for it.

 

BioWare can't claim they weren't warned either... Everything from population imbalance to poorly handling faction hype they were 100% aware of.

[ProfessorWalsh]

I think you're underestimating Bioware's amibition.

Having a branching storyline is fine when you're only doing 1 story. But when you're doing 8 the cost just becomes astronomical.

I'm certain Bioware wanted to do a storyline with real consequence, but reality and EA's purse strings just got in the way.

 

Incorrect.

 

Originally, for example, you could make a companion so mad that they attacked you and forced you to kill them. If you did kill them they were *gone* permanently. No take backs. No do over. No way to replace them. They were simply GONE. BioWare took that out and it was already coded into the game.

 

Originally, for example, you couldn't turn off corruption, if your character went to the Dark Side you looked ugly. It was a superficial consequence for poor behavior. BioWare caved in and made it optional.

[losdia]

To be fair about the lack of branching storylines, BW has claimed a couple of times that TOR was launched with the "story" part of the game unfinished, and that a lot of the content they're going to be adding will finish it. If that's true, since TOR is the story based mmo, it feels a little like someone missed the point somewhere along the line...

[Dartanel]

Incorrect.

 

Originally, for example, you could make a companion so mad that they attacked you and forced you to kill them. If you did kill them they were *gone* permanently. No take backs. No do over. No way to replace them. They were simply GONE. BioWare took that out and it was already coded into the game.

 

Originally, for example, you couldn't turn off corruption, if your character went to the Dark Side you looked ugly. It was a superficial consequence for poor behavior. BioWare caved in and made it optional.

 

Which proves my point.

Bioware wanted to do these things, but reality came up and smacked them in the face.

[AlyxDinas]

The term lacks fundamental meaning at this point anyway. It's become too malleable over time. As for it being applicable to this game because of a lack of necessarily lasting consequences in the game...I don't buy. There's much bigger problems with the game than that, narratively. And more pressing issues mechanically. Edited August 20, 2012 by AlyxDinas

[Sewerus]

Personally I could care less about making my own settlement and such. We have minigames as well, space combat for example. What I don't like is that there is far too little meaningful choice in this game. Nothing has any permanent consequences and no characters are willing to step in and smack a character down for inappropriate behavior.

 

The basic flaw in the BioWare model here is the idea that every option and choice has to be just as viable and that people won't do something if it negatively effects them... Well... BioWare... WELCOME TO REAL LIFE.

 

You need to have rules and penalties, that actually matter, for breaking them or breaking them has no value.

 

It isn't "hard" or difficult to be Dark Sided as a Jedi Knight... It is very easy... There are no consequences... You don't have to hide it. Likewise for the Sith it isn't "hard" to be Light Sided as a Sith, you simply are and nobody does anything that matters to you for it.

 

Oh, sure, a character might have slightly different dialogue but it should be more than that...

 

There should have been MAJOR turning points in each class story dependent on alignment. If you went too far Dark Side as a Jedi Knight you should have had a scene where Satele shows up and beats the living snot out of you before exiling you from the Order. BOOM your character CANNOT go back to Tython... EVER... And has a completely new set of missions... No turning back... No take backs... No "do over" you are evil, you made the choices, now live with it.

 

BioWare kept backing down on every single aspect, which is what created the Mary Sue problem.

 

"Oh... Force corruption? Nah... You can just turn that off."

"Companions turning on you and forcing you to kill them thus leaving you one companion down? Nope no need."

 

This game's major flaw is that it lacks... How do I put this... It lacks [censored by poster] in any way, shape, or form. It was too afraid to slap a player's wrist and therefor suffered tremendously for it.

 

BioWare can't claim they weren't warned either... Everything from population imbalance to poorly handling faction hype they were 100% aware of.

 

But it would give you the ability for something else to do.

 

For example if you could create a settlement instead of doing dailys, wouldn't it be more fun.

 

I think that would be awesome.

 

At the moment the only thing you can after hitting lvl 50 is to raid or do pvp ( ranked or not).

 

Imagine if you could have settlement of your own, create your own traceroutes, instead of doing the dailys over and over again.

 

Story is good and cool but it what would happen if people would complete the story, what would keep them playing, i think other things.

 

Some people are bored of raiding, pvp and all that stuff, I have done that for years and such, i want something different, something like the whole political system in tera.

 

Just something else to do, i am not saying that pvp or raiding aren't good, but i would add something more interesting to the mix.

To give this game little more spice.

[Ranadiel_Marius]

But it would give you the ability for something else to do.

 

For example if you could create a settlement instead of doing dailys, wouldn't it be more fun.

 

.....No not really, that sounds 10x more boring than running dailies, and I don't run dailies because of how boring they are.

 

And what the heck does this have to do with Mary-Sues? The Superman side track at least made sense in that on some level it was about the definition of Mary Sue.

[Sewerus]

.....No not really, that sounds 10x more boring than running dailies, and I don't run dailies because of how boring they are.

 

And what the heck does this have to do with Mary-Sues? The Superman side track at least made sense in that on some level it was about the definition of Mary Sue.

 

I kinda would like some settlement managment to doing dailys, i kinda love strategist games.

[Captain_Zone]

While they were initially the bronze era characters when they transitioned over to the post-crisis Earth, reality essentially rewrite itself around them changing them to fit the history of the new world. That was why Superman's orgin was altered to the Man of Steel orgin which resulted in all kinds of fun continuity issues with stuff that wasn't updated at the same time such as Legion of Superheroes resulting in the Pocket Dimension Superboy.

 

Either way, Infinite Crisis was post Zero Hour so even under your timeline for when Silver Age Superman was removed from continuity, it wasn't Silver Age Superman that was being compared to Golden Age Superman in Infinite Crisis.

 

I was comparing GA to SA Supes because of what happened during Issue #12 of COIE. It was obvious even then that GA Supes was more powerful. Modern Age was nerfed pretty hard, but only after he came back to life after Doomsday. Up until that moment, he was still pretty much on par with SA Supes. My comparison, if I didn't clarify it enough, was that GA Supes handled Doomsday with much more ease than Silver/Modern Supes.

[sockrocker]

I think the Mary-Sue factor on all class stories mainly comes from you eventually becoming extremely important to the galaxy one way or another at the end of each of the stories. Someone who is well known for their extreme skill and abilities, able to do what no one else can. Everything else throughout the story as you go (read: lv up) sometimes seems to scream "you're very VERY special".

 

This is why I preffer the non-force user story-lines better. With the force users there always seems to be someone right from the start saying "you are special and destined for greatness". With the non-force users it feels like you actually earn your greatness a bit more through hard work.

[AlyxDinas]

This is why I preffer the non-force user story-lines better. With the force users there always seems to be someone right from the start saying "you are special and destined for greatness". With the non-force users it feels like you actually earn your greatness a bit more through hard work.

 

"...some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them."

[Cubed_Art]

Debatable. Overpowered characters with powers that, for lack of a better description, sound like the creator wrote down all the most awesome sounding stuff he could think of on a wall and threw darts at them to pick (like Superman had when he was first created), are Mary Sues in that they're so over-the-top amazing it defies belief. That was more of what I was thinking.

 

Apparenly you've never read Action Comics number 1. Superman is anything but a Mary Sue when he was first created. He could only leap tall buildings, not fly. He had no heat vision, cold breath, I'm not even sure he had x-ray vision. He could withstand bullets, but not artillery. His strength was not near as outrageous as it is today. I think he would have stuggled to pick up a train engine. On top of all that, he was a bit of a jerk fascist.

[Ranadiel_Marius]

I was comparing GA to SA Supes because of what happened during Issue #12 of COIE. It was obvious even then that GA Supes was more powerful. Modern Age was nerfed pretty hard, but only after he came back to life after Doomsday. Up until that moment, he was still pretty much on par with SA Supes. My comparison, if I didn't clarify it enough, was that GA Supes handled Doomsday with much more ease than Silver/Modern Supes.

 

No Modern Age Superman's powers were nerfed in The Man of Steel reboot. Easiest example of this to show is that post-reboot he required an oxygen mask when in space and was unable to really do interstellar travel. If you want to compare SA Superman to GA Superman, then you should be looking at how well GA Superman does against SBP because SBP is at SA Superman levels and no one else in the modern era really is.

[Captain_Zone]

No Modern Age Superman's powers were nerfed in The Man of Steel reboot. Easiest example of this to show is that post-reboot he required an oxygen mask when in space and was unable to really do interstellar travel. If you want to compare SA Superman to GA Superman, then you should be looking at how well GA Superman does against SBP because SBP is at SA Superman levels and no one else in the modern era really is.

 

Actually, SBP was so OP he made SA look weak. While MA and GA lost their powers very quickly under the red sun, SBP did not. But then, he had that solar armor that gave him a slight edge and allowed him to beat an old man to death. Remember, Superman loses his power in most universes as he ages. SBP was still a teenager, physically. He had the solar armor feeding him yellow solar energy. GA was up in his 80s physically. Without the yellow sun, he didn't stand a chance.

 

Take the 50s GA Supes vs. SBP, and you'd probably see a much different outcome.