Zemblanity

It would actually make more sense if they *didn't* remove him from the game. Chronologically, he'd be killed in Who Will Die, but later during Maria Jenkins' arc we'd find out he'd actually been kidnapped by Emperor Cole months ago and replaced by a clone, which would explain why Darrin Wade's powers faded at the end of the fight (Darrin drained the clone's powers, and the clone's connection to the well was artificial, far from stable). After you rescue the real Statesman from Emperor Cole, you would unlock Statesman's Taskforce and begin your own incarnate career.

This is the final nail in Cole's coffin, Dr. Keyes travelling back in time to attend Cole's wedding and sharing a private moment with the bride

And probably his mother as well. Hero 1 Junior is too young to be Megan's father. Hero One Senior, however, is the most likely Patrick Duncan candidate in the game.

3) Ms. Liberty chose the name Duncan instead of Cole because she valued her father's name more. IMO, the only male hero in the game that is described in the official lore as more prominent than Statesman is Hero One (and his son, Hero 1).

4) In the Top Cow comics, Dominatrix makes a joke that Ms. Liberty is *still* unable to draw the sword. Considering that you'd have to be descended from a specific fae lineage to do it, that joke would only make sense if Megan was actually expected to wield excalibur and yet was unable to do so due to her own incompetence (in Dominatrix's opinion).

The odds of getting a non-common salvage merit are probably alot lower than 26%, either that or I must be incredibly unlucky. In 3 DA playthroughs with 3 different toons (two of which were played at +4, or +4-3 with the incarnate shift), I've *never* had anything but common salvage drop in those tables. I even tried picking a couple of astral merits with one toon just to see if I would get lucky and get the empyrean, but not even that worked.

Pure speculation, but I get the feeling it was a legal issue, that Paragon Studios *had* to stop using all of Jack Emmert's signature characters after a specific period of time - Statesman, Miss Liberty, Sister Psyche and Malaise. Notice how they managed to keep Ms. Liberty alive - they killed Miss Liberty instead. If I'm not mistaken, the Jessica/Megan/Alexis/Monica issue was resolved in the forums by Sean "Manticore" Fish, technically making Ms. Liberty (Megan) his creation.

I prefer to solo any content that can be played solo. I often take time to read the contact info, the clues, the NPC descriptions, even alt-tab wiki for info on an enemy group or game-lore term that I'm not familiar with - things you can't do in a team. That's not to say I dislike teaming, just that I prefer to always explore content at my own leisure. Since I don't farm or power-level, I usually just team for Task Forces and iTrials (but I do alot of those, lately).

Oddly enough, the thing that sold me to this game was the background description they tell you to fill during character creation - which can be updated any time you want. This little feature becomes more and more awesome as you learn the boundaries of the game's lore - suddenly you're not just some random mutant invader from another dimension, you're a former Top Dog who defected after learning of Emperor Cole's plans to invade Primal Earth! For me, a little role-playing is fundamental to solo play, which involves fleshing out my toons as if they were part of the game.

Familiarity with the game's NPCs is another thing I like about the (new) solo portion of this game - not saying the PCs should start going on dates with the NPCs, but it's endearing to know that Faultline and Fusionette still remember you as a friend when you meet them at Vanguard, or that Overdrive never gave up hope that your villain can be redeemed, or that Katie Douglas is now calling you by your name instead of just "Killer", or having Twinshot invite you to her supergroup (I wish we could return the favor and "invite" her to our own supergroup as well). Cultivating the PC's relations with the game's NPCs, as is happening in the SSAs and First Ward/Night Ward/Dark Astoria, is IMO, very important for a primary soloer.

First, the game would benefit alot from a reduced number of NPCs that popped up more often instead of a horde of copy-paste look-alikes with different names and costumes - just count how many young perky female reporters we have, Amanda Vines, Lillian Issan, Jessica Flores, Deborah Rosenfeld, Linda Summers, Maggie Greene...

Second, the difficulty. The notoriety NPCs offer the possibility to downgrade bosses into lieutenants, they should downgrade Elite bosses into bosses as well. They should offer the possibility of disabling Quantum Guns and Voids. They should prevent the random spawning of +1 mobs when your rep is set to +0.

Third, NPC "escort" missions. Ever since the Fitness pool became inherent our toons will always outrun NPCs, who seem to have the eyesight of a myopic mole suffering from conjuntivitis. Who Will Die #5 offers a much better solution for this problem, a sort of "ally-ambush" at set points (boss battles and such), leaving the PCs free to wander at their own leisure. When it's time to face the Elite Boss, our NPC ally won't be stuck in a flight of stairs 3 clicks south of the boss fight.

Fourth, kill-all missions. I hate those, hate, hAte, HAtE!!

Fifth, the Mary-Sue treatment given to the PCs. We, and by we I mean I, screw up. Alot. Sometimes we do it within the confines of a mission's parameters, by messing up a timer or letting an escort get killed - we get blamed for those failures, as should be. Other times it's the mission itself that forces us to fail, like in WWD #3/5/6, or when Shadowstar sends you to warn Freeflight that she's being hunted by the Council - for some reason, we don't get blamed for this, in fact, we get a medal in some of those missions! Having NPCs sugarcoat everything we do wrong (as Manticore says, out of fear of hurting our feelings) is even worse than forcing auto-failure in a mission. I can stomach auto-failure for plot reasons, but at least be consistent about it.

[Spoiler] I only meant to say that no Praetorian civilians were hit by the nuke. [/Spoiler]

I'd say *almost* all of Who Will Die. The press conference options at the end pretty much summed up my frustration at the lack of branching in WWD, particularly in missions #3, #4 and #6. There were a few sparks of free will in WWD, though, like in mission #2, when you can refuse to rough up the art dealer for info (and instead sneak into his archives).

Other than that, I agree with pretty much everything you said, Sam, thankfully the slit-wrist theme of WWD no longer seems present in Pandora's Box. I'm even beginning to respect Manticore, he was the only one willing to admonish our Mary Sue PCs for letting the Clockwork King walk.

I had that impression too, but reading Cole's personal story changed my mind. It specifically states that every civilian in Nova Praetoria fled when Mother Mayhem was destroyed, which is why Cole was free to use his full power against Arachnos - there were only invaders left.

This.

Infernal and Malaise share their names with their Praetorian counterparts, why can't we?

I've been saying this for years...

You say Lucius Tarquinius Superbus and Lucius Junius Brutus, I counter with Louis XVI and Maximilien Robespierre.

You're rude, Venture, anyone ever told you that?

Cool, missed it last time because I was a VIP, thanks for putting it back on sale

Not really, Provost Marchand's dialogue at the end of the Praetorian tutorial suggests quite the opposite. He *wants* you to shake things up, because he knows the PPD are ineffective. Even Praetor White agrees, Top Dogs bow to no one, no matter whom you might piss off along the way - you can kill his girlfriend or best friend and he still has to swallow it with a smile because you had proof (real or forged, depending on your moral choice) that they were dirty.

This isn't true, Powers Division spends alot of time investigating their superiors. Once Power Loyalists got proof that Praetor Duncan was behind the new Destroyers at Imperial City, she was in real trouble with the authorities and only escaped punishment by arranging a scapegoat even higher up the ladder - as a result of a Powers Division investigation, Praetor Keyes lost his praetorship. Or, on the other side of the spectrum, ambitious crusader turn-coats can blackmail Praetor White about his involvement with the Destroyers at Nova Praetoria.

Praetors apparently still answer to the law, and Cole isn't known to be forgiving when definite proof of a crime is presented - hell, he killed his own daughter Alexis on forged proof that she was working with the Resistance, what wouldn't he do to one of the Praetors...

I'm not. I'm saying we have no *proof* that the Praetors weren't acting alone. That's the tricky part about a free society, even Tyrants are innocent until proven guilty

Not exactly true. First, Cole was elected emperor (whether it was a rigged election or not is another question), he didn't simply grab power. Second, we don't know the limits of that position. Until very recently, there *was* a Magisterium of elected officials in Nova Praetoria (which the Crusaders blew up for kicks). Does Cole still ultimately answer to the Magisterium, meaning, can the Magisterium depose him? Is Cole above the law, meaning if he breaks a law, is he legally immune from prosecution? Cole appears to have judicial power, can he also legislate? Is Cole allowed to simply draw bills or must he run them by the Magisterium first? Can he veto Magisterium decisions? Can he dissolve the Magisterium? Can he declare war on another nation/world without the approval of the Magisterium?

From playing the last arc of the Responsibility path, I got the distinct impression that Cole's actual power was limited unless he had the support of his people, which is why he was about to allow Arachnos to blow up one of Anti-Matter's reactors - an open act of agression by Primal Earth would justify the need to invade. If he was a ruthless Tyrant with limitless power, he wouldn't have needed that justification or the support of his people.

It's just an opinion, but from what I saw in First Ward, psychic women in Praetoria have a real chance of becoming uncontrollable, visibly deformed tentacled monsters. Of course, neither Cole nor us could have known that this "psychic disease" was a side-effect of Tilman's vampiric atrocities, and so he gladly went along with Mother's offer to "cure" the psychics at Mercy Hospital. When she offered to release a few of her patients to help out the PPD detect crimes, Cole probably thought of it as a lesser evil for the greater good.

I'm not saying it isn't horrible, and everytime I ran the Warden's path I've always helped Katie release the seers (only to see them all get butchered in First Ward, sigh...), but after the events of First Ward (where you see a single seer killing everyone inside a military base) I can understand Cole's need to find a solution for this "psychic disease". He chose the wrong solution, no doubt, but in this case I clearly believe he had no clue on how crazy Tilman really was.

I agree, the restoration of freedom is essencial. What I don't agree (by lack of proof, and there's no more proof to be found since this is probably the last Praetorian i-Trial) is that the oppression is a direct consequence of having an emperor. England has a queen, Spain has a king, Sweden has a king, are these people oppressed? A monarch's power is limited, even if they were insane, there's only so much trouble they could cause before being deposed.

Admittedly the level of oppression happening in Praetoria is completely out of control (drugs in the water network, city-wide psychic screening, wild-west justice enforced by corrupt PPD officers, etc), but all of these could still be in place if Praetoria had a president instead of an emperor. That said, Praetorians have an immense technological advantage over Primals which would allow them to build a much better society than we can - assuming they don't get exploited by monsters like Tilman and Duncan.

Not necessarily, with its miniscule population, Praetoria is in no danger of running out of resources, particularly when their anti-matter reactors offer them limitless energy and are perpectually maintained by self-repairing clockwork. Assuming the city model could be replicated elsewhere, there's no limit to the expansion Praetorians could enjoy if they got rid of Hamidon.

I don't think Hamidon opposed technology as much as the devastation of the environment perpectuated by humans. Unlike Primal Earth, however, Praetoria is ecologically sound, not dependant on fuel resources and (ironically enough given the events of i23) in little danger of being forced to utilize nukes.

I agree, but the problem (in Cole's head) is that Primals who travel to Praetoria have the potential to cause ecological disturbances, which could make the Hamidon active again.

All true. And for added emphasis:

It kinda does, when that corrupt corporation has the mayor in its pocket.

Irrelevant, the intention was there. Primals are just harder to oppress than Praetorians, I've never said otherwise.

Seriously.

That specific Malta plot was worse than anything Cole has ever done, basically implanting a remote bomb in every citizen in the country. That a high-ranking CIA agent was behind the plot means it's official, regardless of whatever plausible deniability the government might hide behind. And I do believe the head of the CIA had no knowledge of what was happening, just as I believe Cole didn't order Col. Duray to unleash Warworks against civilian targets in Skyway City, or that he was unaware (or had no proof) that Mother Mayhem was kidnapping psychics to satisfy her vampiric hunger instead of treating them.

Look, Eva, I'm not asking for the dismantling of Primal society. These examples were meant only as a reminder that corruption is universal. There's alot of good in Praetoria, things I wish we had in real (not Primal) Earth. After all, we're talking about a technologically advanced, ecologically stable society with limitless energy, clean water, free health-care and an automated clockwork force capable of handling every menial job you can think off. You don't throw that away because some crazy lady with psychic powers is brainwashing everyone around her - you arrest her.

Instead of that silly Rift mission once you run out of content in Neutropolis, had the game clarified the role of Powers Division post lvl 20, had them officially launch an investigation into Cole and his Praetors, culminating in undeniable proof of their guilt, had Powers Division *then* made contact with Primal Earth (Longbow, Vanguard and Arachnos) and requested their aid in arresting Cole... this whole i-Trial stuff would have made alot more sense.

Got my wish, thank you, devs