The Question of Origins

[Paragon Avenger]

On another topic, CodeWalker or maybe it was Arcana, anyway, I'll try to quote it here, talked about origins and the origin of origins.

What do you think of origins?
Do we even need them?
Or should they play a bigger role in the game?
For the DO's and SO's origins matter a great deal, but does it really matter?
For some of us, it would be fun to fill out a superhero/supervillain origin form explaining our toon's existence.  Detailing how the powers were acquired.  Where the toon came from.  Who the toon is related to.
For others of us, let's just play and leave the creative writing for fan fiction.

So, if origins do matter, how could they be incorporated into the game?

[Groundbreaker]

Origins had a lot of potential, back when your starting missions were set by origin it became a great way to make sure you faced an enemy group that you liked. It was also somewhat important early levels for the extra power like the Taser. And of course before IO's it made a difference to where you got your Enhancements.

I would have liked to see more done with Origins, they used to be quite important Solo but almost all of the effect they had on your character disappeared when you teamed.

Of course any implementation that ties Origin to your character more has to be careful not to inadvertently make one more "powerful" than the rest. I think safe areas to expand on contacts would be through specific content only available to certain Origins (though obviously not to the exclusion of your team) and perhaps costume options unique to each origin would be a good idea too. If you are making a Magic character then you will have a very different look in mind for your costume than say someone with a Technology origin.

[doc7924]

It might have limited some creativity, but I would have liked to have seen origins matter in what powers you pick.

Like a tech origin would get bonus stats for weapons, magic would get bonus for magic powers and so on.

Sure some cross the line and it might be difficult to balance but I never felt origins really mattered much. Only for enhancements and some contacts.
 

[Paragon Avenger]

With IO's and IO sets, should origins still matter?

I'm thinking that there could be an optional form where one could detail the bio and origin story if one was so inclined.
Maybe origins should be removed from the game.

[ryuplaneswalker]

What do you think of origins?

They were an okay thing, good for RP.

Do we even need them?

Yeah, it is nice to define how your character gets their powers.

Or should they play a bigger role in the game?

Not, really Them just being a little thing that you pick as to explain how your character has their powers is fine, I could even live without them providing the extra powers,

Things got really odd when they started to go to the "origin of power" stuff and tried to make them more influential to the lore of the game. I got what they were going for when they were going for the whole "the well ties to everything" stuff but it was a little akward. Especially with characters not born..on paragon city.

Origin Exclusive IOs would have been neat to see perhaps though.

For the DO's and SO's origins matter a great deal, but does it really matter?

No, but they were also a little overcosted, knocking off the a zero on the cost of DOs and SOs would have let them go along way to being more of  a useful thing.

[Paragon Avenger]

I thought about a scheme to limit the powersets and/or archetypes based on the characters origin.
I decided against that.  It doesn't take very long to piece together a story about a magic origin AR/Devices blaster.

So even a natural ice/kin controller could be explained, some how.

Playing epics, you stay with a contact throughout your career, maybe the same for the origins.

[LateNights]

Origin sets similar to the epics is a great idea!

Even taking into account the first power you gain from choosing an origin - perhaps beefing those up to make them viable all the way through the incarnate levels, and giving them enhancement slots...

But yeah, origins matter - even if people don't want to write it down or explain it to anybody I'm sure everyone has some reason / story for their character existing, and flavour powers are a nice extension of that - especially so if we can show them off while playing.

[Felderburg]

The Lore AMA has some interesting things about the nature of the Well of the Furies and how that relates to origins of powers, and one developer voicing their opinion that the Origin of Powers arc wasn't that great: http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Lore_AMA/Sorted (http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Lore_AMA/Sorted#59).