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Quote:I believe it is. You don't. We're both free to interpret the game as we see fit.The quibble is whether Longbow = NATO, meaning that the Longbow invasion is a multi-national action sanctioned by some subset of the treaty members.
Quote:NATO was formed to protect Europe from the Soviet Union during the Cold War. I have to question whether Albania, Croatia, Slovakia, et. al. actually give a rat's **** about the Rogue Isles. Maybe they'd just rubber-stamp the US government policies; I can't really say.
Quote:You're suggesting that nuclear missle activity in Warburg somehow justifies invasion of Nerva Archipelago while Warburg itself goes pretty much unmolested aside from the diplomatic measures that resulted in the death of Miss Liberty?
Stop demonizing Longbow.
Quote:If nuclear war was Longbow's concern, they'd be focusing on Marshall Blitz instead of leaving him free to do as he pleases (and incidentally assisting random private individuals to launch and control Warburg orbital weapons platforms).
Quote:In any case, if I was the US government and I was concerned about nuclear attack I'd exercise a military option, not put the decision of how to handle it into the hands of a paramilitary group.
Longbow is the government's solution to the meta-human infestation just a few miles off the coast of Rhode Island - pack a bunch of unruly teenage patriots with nullifier rifles and send them hunting. -
Quote:At which point does inaction become a sin? Cole wasn't responsible for the Devouring Earth, MacArthur and his pencil-pushing goons were. Why would Cole help those very same politicians that ordered a nuclear strike on top of his head, nearly killing him and definitely killing every other meta-human ally he had on Korea?This was probably Tyrant's SOP for 'saving' people. Wait until the situation is so desperate that it's either get behind Cole or become compost.
If Cole hadn't been in Rome when it burned, those people would still be dead. He was there, and due to either pity or compassion he ended up rescuing a bunch of people that in his mind weren't worth saving. "Come with me if you want to live." That means his city, his rules, and if you don't like it, well, good luck out there. Those aren't the actions of a hero, but by that point Cole wasn't claiming to be one, just the savior of the human race.
I don't like him, but I would rather bend to his rule than get eaten by a tree. -
Quote:NATO aren't private arms dealers, and they aren't "the rest of the world" either, they're an intergovernmental military alliance of North Atlantic nations that don't go around supplying equipment to random PMCs. If Longbow's being officially backed by NATO, that means they're operating under their supervision, no different from Vanguard's relation to the UN.Longbow is not NATO. NATO is NATO. Longbow is a private mercenary army that may be getting some oversight from some part of NATO. The description claims that they get materials from them but we don't really know how deep the connection is or if there's much of a connection at all. I have a difficult time believing that the rest of the world sees the Rogue Isles as a threat to world security that requires an international military response.
Quote:Longbow is nothing but Ms. Liberty's private enforcers, which is why they operate on US soil as well as internationally in the Rogue Isles. They are NOT some international super hero squad fighting for the safety of all people of all nationalities, and their priorities have nothing to do with anything related to the UN or NATO.
I'm one of the greatest critics of Longbow policies in a fictional, Vanguard dominated world, (mirroring NATO's tendency to bypass the UN whenever it serves their national interests in the real world), but I won't go so far as to say Longbow is Ms. Liberty's private gang. I just don't see it that way. As Issen said, given the events that took place in WWD #3 red-side, would you sit around waiting for a UN resolution while the US coast is being nuked? -
It's a little more complex than that. The Rogue Isles aren't officially under Arachnos' rule, each governor has at least some degree of independence (Dr. Aeon, Marshall Blitz, Johnny Sonata, etc). While Arachnos' presence is strongly felt pretty much everywhere in the Isles, it's probably seen as a terrorist organization rather than a state, and the UN security council could be hanging on to that excuse to avoid overextending Primal Earth's forces - already stretched thin trying to contain the Rikti. That said, Longbow (NATO) are openly fighting Arachnos in the Rogue Isles, so it can't be said that the US and their allies are doing nothing. Just not as much as we'd like.
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So I've been told... I still say it's a conspiracy, and MARTy's definitely involved -_-
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Quote:I suspect MARTy's involvement everytime I roll a common after an iTrial run I totally rocked -_-So MARTy is evil like Macavity? An evil whose involvement is suspected even though it can never be detected?
"Macavity's a Mystery Cat: he's called the Hidden Paw -
For he's the master criminal who can defy the Law.
He's the bafflement of Scotland Yard, the Flying Squad's despair:
For when they reach the scene of crime - Macavity's not there!" -
Dunno if it's already taken, but how about Aces and Eights for the gun-toting spade? It's the poker hand Wild Bill Hickok held when he was gunned down by the coward McCall in Dakota.
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Quote:Heh... Kinda reminds me of a joke in 30 Rock, a poster of "Transformers 5, Planet of the Earth" written by No One. Btw, according to that episode, Aaron Sorkin is having trouble finding a job; it might be worth checking if he wants to come work for Paragon StudiosThat seems to miss the point. It sounds like you're saying the reason why we have continuity errors, typos, grammatical errors, and sometimes broken writing is because the writers are too busy world-building to spend time writing effectively.
But we don't allow them that excuse if there's a giant hole in the geometry or if the elevators in the missions don't work. If someone said the world-builders and map editors are spending too much time writing to make the missions work correctly that someone would be ridiculed, rightly so. -
Quote:Interesting point, Leo... but assuming you did play one of those RPGs with item decay, you'd remember that there's a "repair all" button that essentially accomplishes the impossibly tedious 'maintenance' SOs require. It's press "repair all" vs squinting at an ugly menu for half an hour every 5 levels, full of similar stuff with unintuitive names and mutually exclusive origin types. Plus, when gear decay actually starts to make sense (at level cap), it stops working...What you're doing with enhancements is 'maintaining'. I never played one of the popular MMOs where you had to repair your equipment so it continues to work properly, but that's basically what it amounts to.
There's a big difference between what's happening here and what happens in other games. Upgrading the Buster Sword to an Ultima Weapon isn't the same as replacing a lvl 40 Awakening with a lvl 45 Awakening. There's no new graphics involved. No extra materia slots. No actual accuracy increase. No incentive to do so at all. To make matters worse, the Buster Sword stops working once you ding 45, so you'll actually find yourself fighting empty-handed midfight. And if things couldn't get any worse, the Ultima Weapon will barely work at all against a pair of low level street thugs when you're exemplaring in Sector 6 Slums. Needless to say, I haven't slotted a single SO since IOs made it to live servers.
As for the OP suggestion, I'll /sign it, mostly because attuned IOs would solve the problem of set bonuses disappearing when you exemplar, which is a bummer when most of the new content being released is non-50. -
The words necro and crono (chrono) share much of the same spelling, so how about something like Necronomancer or Necronominicon?
*edit, scooped up thread ^_^ -
Quote:This.I usually hit a wall around 33-35 when all the good content suddenly drops off and I have nothing but old content that's usually a string of defeat alls or timed missions or timed defeat alls with no interesting story or mechanics in the missions.
For me it's not really the AT that's the issue... it's the uninspired content from 35-50. We really need more new content for the 35-50 range.
If the difficulty's too high, I can always lower it, but there's no going around a "go rescue 12 hostages, click 20 glowies and kill all enemies within two hours, then do the same the following mission". -
Quote:By Havisham, do you mean Matthew Habashy? You should probably replay the arc, including its subsequent conclusion in the Thiery arc.The newer arcs in Atlas could have done a pretty decent job of this - the problems in Galaxy City, how they affected ..Havisham, I think his name is, and his family. That's something real. It's beyond me why we're not sent into Galaxy City to help those folks get out. All the magic and technology, and not one of the Phalanx can send a lowbie hero to Galaxy City (the destroyed one) to rescue someone's family?
[Spoiler] Matthew's wife, Dana "Scully" Habashi, believed to have died in Galaxy City, was instead being held hostage by Arachnos. So were alot of missing victims of the meteor crash. We did rescue all these people from Galaxy City, even if they weren't there anymore. [/Spoiler]
It would be cool if there was a mission to go around the rubble and search for victims, but it's heavily implied that it was happening during the tutorial.
Quote:The hero tip mission where we rescue Debutante's from the Carnies. That could easily have been made into a small arc - saving some foolish girl from getting in over her head.
Quote:1. It should make sense.
2. There should be some theme music fitting with the mission being assigned.
3. There should be some emotion being conveyed. Fear is fine - but if the hellion is unable to actually damage the civilian, why are they scared?
4. The contact should never make me zone hunt, nor send me out of zone. (oops, that probably doesn't apply)
5. Some humor wouldn't hurt either. -
Quote:I'm actually relieved that's still the case, which implies that whoever's doing the writing is at least passingly familiar with the game's lore. A not so distant future might have that sentence morphed into a "don't bother reading the old lore, just come up with new stuff that seems cool."Everyone has to honor the principle that what they do today must respect and integrate with what's been created in the past. Except apparently the writers whose directive is "try not to contradict prior canon, UNLESS YOU HAVE A REALLY COOL IDEA! Then its ok.
Quote:The lore of the game should be forced to be just as self-consistent as the code of the game. Lore can crash just like servers can crash, and its no less detrimental. Unless you don't care about story, in which case it would be more cost effective to not spend money writing any.
- Galaxy City - Bloody Bay
- Praetoria - Axis Earth
- The Council - Fifth Column
- The Coming Storm - Rikti invasion
Also concerning is the rising number of doppelgangers in Paragon City, because no one ever bothered to make an NPC database according to their jobs/roles/characteristics. Need a spunky young reporter for a mission arc? Just create one, ignoring the other twelve Amanda Vines' look-alikes already in the game.
Question is, can we live with it? To a point, yes. New and old writers should be expected to be somewhat familiar with the lore, but it's ok if they mess up every now and again (like Arbiter Hawk's old avatar mishap, for example, rolf), that's what beta feedback is for. That said, Moff's Law, as Venture suggested in the other thread, should be heavily enforced. There's a big difference between "I didn't know" and "I don't care".
Quote:There's a special test London cab drivers have to take to become licensed to drive a taxi. One element of the test involves being able to recite, from memory, the precise route from one location to another location without the use of maps which obeys the traffic requirements, including honoring one way roads. This must be done from memory and its pass-fail. I have often thought that writers whose job involves writing stories within an established canon should be required to take such a test. -
I'm sensing DBZ logic here... Goku, Vegeta and Picollo didn't take Boo seriously at first, either. We should always thread lightly around a foe whose main strenght is absorving someone else's power.
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Willpower kinda steals their regen from nearby foes, and the whole heightened senses thingie would fit with the vampire theme. And maybe he's a daywalker, his hunter powers resisting the embrace, allowing him to withstand sunlight. It's been awhile since I played Vampires - Bloodline (and I've never played the actual tabletop whitewolf game), but I seem to recal that not all clans had access to stealth until they aged abit, so the whole stalker/non-stalker thing would be dependant on that - the crazy clan and the ugly clan were stealthy, but the sane, pretty clans like Ventrue and Brujah were fully visible. Anyway, you'd know best.
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The battallion were held off by the Rikti in the past, and the Rikti aren't incarnate. If they were all lvl 54+ super-incarnates, wouldn't the Rikti have lost the war?
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Quote:True, but if you don't know something, chances are it's because the players aren't supposed to know that yet. Not implying you know everything, but from what I can tell you seem to know pretty much *everything* lore related about this game.This is more me being curious what people want to know more about in the lore (and hoping that Protean, Dr. Aeon, .Viridian., and company notice). I answer questions if I know them, but I don't know everything.
Quote:(We also don't, come to think of it, know if Shadowstar arrived as a Nictus or a Warshade.)
Quote:As for "meant to arrive in the future," follow my sig to the Kheld Backstory arc. They've been manipulating the Path of the Dark, they've been driving the Council, and their plans include wiping out the Peacebringers, taking over world leaders, and making the Earth a new Nictus homeworld... something you do get a glimpse of, by the way, in Unai Keenan's arc.
Quote:Host and Nictus (or Kheldian, or Warshade) do have influence on each other. How much, I'd imagine, varies by the individual personalities. Though, given the bit with the N-fragments, I think it's fair to say if the Nictus can't win over by force, it'll try trickery and subtlety.
A host breaking free after that? Impossible, short of outside interference, like the mind-schism that happened to Shadowcatcher.
Quote:This... is purely up to the player. There's no pact - think of it this way. We have traitors and spies in human nations today in the real world. There was no ancient spy-pact made. Becoming a Warshade is the nictus's change of heart - possibly due to the influence of a host, much like Sunstorm's intro talks about for him. The most notable difference is that instead of taking a host by force, the host is willing. -
Michelle, are you answering cryptic lore questions? Nice! I guess I only have the right to ask one, and that one has to be specific to one character's background, but I'll spam a few more weirdy questions just for kicks if you don't mind.
1) Mystery NPC - what is Patrick Duncan's alias?
... and the other questions follow...
2) What's the connection, if any, between Primal Earth's Furies (as described in the novels) and the creepy winged harpies plaguing First Ward and Dark Astoria?
3) Was Calvin Scott delusional in Primal Earth as well?
4) Male Widows - I've seen some nameless female wolf hunters in the game (in arbiter colors, true), but no male Widows in the game that weren't PCs. Do they actually exist in the lore, or are they a meta-gaming creation?
5) Dream Doctor = Letter writer - he appeared to have some pull over the FBSA agents in Talos Isle, though Agent Adair said she didn't know who the writer was. What sort of pull could the good Doc have over the FBSA to arrange for Protean's release, or did he simply break Protean out and leave the letter behind?
6) The red-and-black colored "voice" on Adair's arc was never actually revealed, who was Protean actually working for? Tyrant? Reichsman? Requiem? Nemesis? The Dream Doctor himself? An unknown party from an unknown alternate dimension?
7) Adair's arc again... We're apparently dealing with 3 dimensions, our PC would be either Primal or Praetorian, the good Doppelganger would be either Praetorian or Primal, and the evil doppelganger would come from... Council Earth? Axis Earth? War Earth? The Shadow Shard? The future?
8) Primal Vanessa DeVore was a college student at the turn of the millennium when she acquired her mask. If Penelope Yin is 22 in 2012, and thus born in 1990, does that mean that Vanessa was 10 when she gave birth to her daughter?
9) Cimerora - it's unclear if this is meant to take place during the short rule of Romulus Augustus (who would have been 16 in 476 AD), or before the republic, during the reign of the early kings of Rome (Romulus, the founder of Rome, reigned during the 8th century BC, so between the 8th and 5th centuries BC).
10) Nictus - they've been on Primal Earth since at least Cimerora, possibly earlier according to Shadowstar, but there's enough evidence to suggest they've actually travelled back in time to get there. When did the Nictus actually arrive on Earth? In ancient times? Present day, only to travel back in time and infest human history? Are they meant to "arrive" in the future, possibly during an invasion event?
11) Nictus again - According to Arakhn, even a powerful nictus like the Dirge of Entropy has to worry about merging with a weak host. Does that mean that at least part of the host's personality survives inside the nictus? Can the human persona take over?
12) Warshades - Shadowstar mentions that warshades are few in number, with her own redeemed symbiote being passed from generation to generation since ancient times. Are PC warshades like that too, meaning, did the nictus' "redemption" take place before it met the PC, or was the PC an unwilling (or maybe willing, i.e. Council or 5th Column) host of a Nictus before it decided to play hero? Furthermore, is it possible that more nictus would seek redemption in the future, or was it a one-time shadow pact in ancient times, its members surviving to present day?
13) Kheldians - Memphis Bill's kheldian guide mentions that the bond between human and alien can be broken at will, like taking off a hat, but Lars Mendelson's words would suggest otherwise, "I'm not Shadowcatcher anymore. I'm not sure I'm even Lars Mendelson." He's talking about an actual personality schism, suggesting their minds were merged, not just their bodies. I just can't see a bond like that unless it was meant to last until the death of one of the pair. What am I missing?
14) Statesman's crotch - what happened to it? When did it went missing, if at all? Assuming it's always been like that, how did he manage to father a child? Is it a special incarnate power that we've yet to unlock? -
The way I see it, everytime I experience the world through another player's perspective, my toon is actually operating in a facsimile dimension, home to whoever holds the star. Greyed out powers are a consequence of this phenomenon, as every team member becomes subject to the timeframe of their leader's home dimension - perhaps that dimension exists in a different point of history, even if the calendar date matches with everyone else's, where Ouroboros rules apply.
Yes, I deny your existence, fellow players! Mwahahahahah!!!... erm... umm, disreguard that last part, please. -
Quote:The thing is, if I repeatedly find myself disliking a work in progress that I used to like, I start asking what changed, and mostly, what can I do about it. In most forms of media, there are only two options, suck it up and hope for things to change or walk away and never look back. In MMOs, and especially in this one, I have a third option, which is to complain about stuff in the forums and hope that a red name will read it and sympathise.I find, looking at media with the eye of a critic can really ruin your outlook on a lot of things. That's why I don't particularly care to critique people's stuff, their art, their writing or whatever if only because it feels like you have to be intentionally *looking* for something to comment on or critique rather than enjoying something for what it is.
In this case, the whole Who Will Die, Death Incarnate, Death from Below and the rest of the recent plague of necrofilic paraphernalia were preventing me from enjoying the game. I don't like emo stuff, which is why I'm playing a supposedly cheerful and lighthearted superhero game instead of a vampire or zombie survival-horror. I love it when a plan comes together, A-Team style, and this can't happen if everyone around me is six-feet under as the story-arc comes to an end. I fully agree with Sam, except, ironically, about First Ward and Katie Douglas (which I really like), so I take my time letting everyone involved know I don't like it.
Quote:Another tangent: I found Dark Astoria to be 'meh'. I guess it's easier to feel it's so awesome because they put more at stake, but that doesn't automatically make things better.
P.S. I can't believe Katie Douglas asked me to pinky-swear in Night-Ward! I though she was supposed to be mentally 15, not 5? Sam, the mood might be heading in the right direction (let heroes be heroes), but the writing seems to be dumbing down abit. Heeroos not need be dumb! Urgh! -
I want NoFX options for the shapeshifts, Dark Nova using a human model would be totally awesome!! Well, NoFX but keeping the kheldian glowing eye aura, just no squid.
Plus, I really hate the Gravimetic Snare animation, though that ugly volleyball is strangely fitting during summer.
For VEATs, I'd like IVy's claws animations (dual blades) for Widows. Probably wouldn't work since the timing and sounds don't match, but would be sweet. -
Quote:It's akin to why we shouldn't deal with terrorists or kidnappers. Do it once, you establish a dangerous precedent that will inevitably come back to haunt you in the future. I'm with Venture on this, data obtained through illegal experimentation at the cost of innocent lives should be outright destroyed. Granted, principle only goes so far - if the benefits of an unethical discovery vastly outweight the consequences of said research (say, cure for cancer), we could all just turn a blind eye and use it, even while knowing that it'll encourage others to do the same.The argument Venture makes for destroying the data, of encouraging a future insane butcher to commit crimes for the credit of a scientific break through, doesn't hold up for me.
Quote:First, it assumes that there are a bunch of scientific discoveries and cures just waiting to be found by someone willing to commit mass murder for it, and that those willing to commit that mass murder have the skills to find them. To call that an "edge case" would be an understatement. Most gaps in our scientific knowledge are not just needing some vivisectionists to go out and get the data.
Quote:Second, it only makes sense if you believe such mass murdering scientists are motivated by "Yes, I'll be arrested and found out and imprisoned or executed but my work will survive!" Those who would be sufficiently civic minded to say "I don't care what happens to me so long as this disease gets cured" are the type who are least likely to say "so let's go kill a few hundred people".
Let's say a scientist just stumbled upon a working cure for cancer. He *knows* it works, because he used it on himself and miraculously recovered, but he also knows that, best case scenario, it'll be decades before the cure can be made available to the general population - countless people will die in the meantime. Said scientist might literally not care what happens to him as long as he can prove to the medical community that they should be administering this cure. -