ArticulateT

Speaking of Mot, I remember a specific, low class spoiler where [name removed due to spoilerness] tells you that Mot's corruption became so far reaching, most of Chicago was devoured.

I'd love to see the ruins of Chicago be a zone. Perhaps something has been dwelling in lake Michigan that was upset by the commotion on land?

I would also like to see something with Sstheno, though a Snakes based iTrial may be a marmite affair

The thing is, it didn't matter about the story's structure or anything. As many people have said before, it's a shame that it's all about the NPCs and that we get next to no interaction, forced to go along the stupid, "we were just too late!" road of plot creation, and that much was obvious when the entire thing was announced.

With a title like 'Who Will Die?', it doesn't matter how much they try, unless the arc is targetting the player itself (which would also be a bad idea) it was garunteed the story was never going to be about the player. When it was sold off as the major heroes of the Freedom Phalanx being in peril of losing their lives to a relatively unknown agent such as Darren Wade, then really, the story has next to no chance of really being about the player. Sure, the player may be the one to put a stop to Wade, and for heroes, it's likely to end up with a moral choice of whether you should kill the guy, with Positron and Manticore being your little angel and devil respectively; however, the focus and selling point was that at least one of the phalanx was going to kick the bucket.

The question wasn't so much about 'How are we gonna stop that?' but rather 'how, if we can, are we going to get them back?' This question was answered in part 5. Alexis was a casualty that would lead to the downfall of the Statesman. Really, if anything, the first arc could have ended there, and another arc could have started up where you now have to go find and defeat Wade. While Psyche's demise wasn't an entirely bad decision, it doesn't do anything for the player emotionally for her to bite the big one so soon after Statesman was killed.

If I'm gonna be so bold, I'm under the impression that, in the event of 'replenishing the ranks' of the phalanx, the following would be considered:

Hero 1

Back Alley Brawler

Ms. Liberty

and perhaps an open spot where they make you a Phalanxer. You already have the accolade proving you're on the reserve. They just make it really ambiguous as to who got the spot (a task very difficult to do well).

I guess this story kinda reeks of DCUO syndrome. It's a series of events where you try and clean up the mess the NPCs have set for you, and regardless of how well you do, you aren't properly recognised until you've single handedly stopped the world from imploding (a feat I'm sure we've all accomplished hundreds of times by now, and will continue to do so), and even then all you get is a thanks, a pat on the back, and a small trinket that wouldn't go for much on eBay.

"Thank you, hero, you have done so much! You have my eternal gratitude. Now let's go back to the way things were. He's a little hero merit, now be on your way."

I can tell you that a response such as this is a fairly sizable slap in the face when you've gone and proved their little organisation completely superfluous. I'd respond in the same way I responded to Wonder Woman when I saved her behind:

"No, keep your little toy. You guys suck at your jobs, I'm going to go form my own damn league!"

/endnerdrage

As for the story itself

I can't help but think that maybe it will turn out like that one Batman Animated episode, where they all think Barbara dies from a high fall, and the Batman family are systematically hunted down and arrested, with it all turning out to be a dream.

... I hope thye don't go that route.

I guess my issue in the whole thing was Tyrka.

When the assassin popped up, I was half expecting it to be a major NPC we'd never expect to be working with Wade. It couldn't be the villain player's NPC stand in like Echidna was at the begining of it all, because we all know that the Villains got fed up with Wade when he offed Statesman.

Speaking of which, I am significantly surprised Recluse hasn't personally stepped in to break Wade's neck. While he and States have been enemies for a while, you'd think the big guy would have some kind of emotional investment, some remnant of respect for the man he considered family. If not, he'd be angry at the guy who stole his kill.

Anyway, back to Tyrka

When I got there, I was confused as to who this person was. Do they appear in any other story arc? Who are they? Why are they working with Wade? Am I meant to be shocked by this revelation? If Manticore and Psyche are in danger, why am I still fighting this person? Why couldn't I send Yin, the world's most powerful psychic, to go back and calm Psyche down? If they were only there for me, Yin would be perfectly capable of running back real quick and surpressing psyche enough for it all to be stopped, why didn't that happen? If mediporters are known of in game lore, and had a story arc at level 20 dedicated to them, why don't the Phalanx have any?

While I can see what they plan on doing with this arc, it all raises too many questions for it to be enjoyable, part 6 especially. If Part 7 is going to be dedicated to ending the whole thing, I can see it as being one long series of missions if they want to end it on a satisfying note. If not, then I guess we'll have to wait for volume 2

Perhaps not, but I'm under the impression War Witch knows what she's talking about. I guess whether Gods are or are not Incarnates will be a matter that is up for debate for a while, if it hasn't been already, especially if the existance of deities requires praise, and incarnates don't need praise, chances are, there wouldn't be a war over whether Ermeeth should have given the humans magic.

However, Prometheus does point out that basically all power is connected to the Well, so deities aren't seperate from it in a slightest.

To me, the Well wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't the only way one could increase their powers beyond that of a normal being. It seems very magic based to me. I would have loved it if they kinda had a story for each specific origin, for example:

Science Origins could delve into research with the aid of Dr. Aeon or some other big wig science guy to adjust your structure on a near Atomic level, or come up with some kind of chemical that can increase your potential beyond what you expected.

Mutants could have a go at Gene splicing to the point where they technically aren't Human (or whatever race they mutated from) anymore.

It would also help if they didn't pass off the risk of control with a kind of Deus Ex Machina sort of deal where you are a 'slow' path Incarnate. Considering the fact that the Well can't control you 24/7, while good because it would be difficult to impliment it in game mechanics, would be bad because you lose the Risk/Reward ratio altogether.

The big shock factor behind it was that you're putting your trust in an entity that, at the time, we knew next to nothing about. When you can, in the process of a single hour, steal a large portion of its strength with basically no consequence makes the entire thing trivial, and therefore not exciting.

I'll more than likely be getting my Dominator, Magus Mu'Nerall, as close to 50 as I can. He's level 44 now, would be higher, but Redside is always so barren when I check it. I must have bad timing :S

If Staff Melee is out by then, I have an idea for a Staff/WP character, so I'd want to get that up as far as possible, and I have a few other characters that have been sitting at 20 for eons. I'm half expecting the Patrol XP to be as high as the level cap by now :P

In regards to the original post, I wouldn't be surprised, really. It would be cool to fight the Titans, and it does work to a theory I had on Prometheus while discussing various spoilerific things in issue 22 (which I'll leave untouched until it actually comes along)

My theory is that Prometheus' excuse for starting the war, which is an unsettling grudge towards Tyrant and The Well of Furies, is a little too... pathetic to be believable.

From what we know of Batallion, they are a terrifyingly powerful entity or group of entities who seek out great power to fight, defeat and destroy. One reference I remember being told about is that the Rikti have encountered the scouts of the Batallion before (may be wrong on this, I keep forgetting to ask for a reference when told) and were sorely beaten. Seeing this, the Batallion ignored them and went on to do other things.

This kinda got me thinking. The Batallion go forth to seek power, and do this by watching where the Shivans go. If the inhabbitants of that planet can fight the Shivans, they make a note of it then proceed to attack to test their might.

Prometheus explains that the intention of Tyrant was to protect both the inhabbitants of Primal and Praetorian Earth from the Coming Storm, and was doing what he was doing to gain favour from the Well. By becoming its champion, he would be granted enough power to fight off Batallion and keep both earths safe. Prometheus further explains that the Well has a similar ideal, but because it values the strength and will of those connected to it, the Well will only give all that power to those it can truly trust; it wants to be sure that the guy with the power will stop the coming storm, and not just go gun crazy and rule earth.

I started to think, then, that the War with Praetoria wasn't exactly the best of things. Given most circumstances, the entire situation could have been solved diplomatically if it had the chance. Really, the only reason why we were going to war is because Prometheus flat out told us that Cole was evil and had to be stopped, only telling us the 'true' story when we were too far into the conflict to stop and make negotiations.

Looking back on the history of the game, two things stuck out: The Golden Age of Superheroes and the Power Crash.

When Marcus and Stephan gained their powers from the Well, they also opened Pandora's Box. The event unleashed the creativity, spirit and power to allow various people to gain Super powers, going on to become heroes and villains and start off the age of Super Heroes. When Positron uses the Flames of Prometheus to restore power to Paragon City after the Power Crash, the effect was kind of the same, wasn't it?

As stated by the original poster, not much information is known about the Batallion, including how long they've been around for, and given how willing Prometheus is to send humanity into an interdimensional war, I had a rather extreme idea.

What if Prometheus knew who the Batallion were and wasn't Humanity's biggest fan. Maybe, in order to become a blip on the Batallion's radar, he planned on giving the Flames of Olympus to Humanity to give them powers, but not enough to stop Batallion and save them. Humanity would be wiped out, and Prometheus would laugh in his own little lair.

Recognising his plan, Zeus narrowly stops him, punishes him via the aforementioned hawk eating innards sentence, and then seals the flames in Pandora's Box to keep it safe from the rest of the world.

In the present day, he finds himself at a loss. While he's made humanity noticeable, as according to plan, the Well of Furies is making it difficult by making everyone stronger.

How to stop it? Play the Well's own ideals against itself. Send Humanity into a war that would drain the champion and dilute his power among the many Incarnates involved, also providing a suitable distraction so they aren't prepared at all for the Batallion in all their glory. Humanity dies, Prometheus wins.

I'm more than likely wrong, but that's the theory I found myself making when I read up about everything.

EDIT:

Actually, come to think of it, it could have been an attempt to wipe out the Olympians, with Humanity being expendable in the process. If the Olympians weren't already in the scope of the Batallion, then more power would be needed to prove them otherwise. As history dictates, the three big brothers of Olympus weren't the best of people. Hades, infact, is considered the good brother in some regards. Zeus may have just been fearful, not wanting to perish at the hands of Batallion, so, he stopped Prometheus before it was too late

Awesme, very very awesome. Nice work there!

:P Admittedly, I had that issue too. I was like 'Oh, Gordon Freeman, the guy who's god in Bruce Almighty, I can try that.' Didn't occur to me until just now that it was meant to be Morgan >.<

...still Gordon Freeman impression should be easy enough

Eitherway, it would be a good laugh XD

Meanwhile, back at the Hall of Just- I mean, original thread subject.

I'm on the fence regarding why Statesman can't be brought back, and about his death in general. As mentioned many times before, the devs have been somewhat quiet about the whole thing (apart from the fact that it was going to happen, which I find a little suspicious).

What comes to mind specifically would be something brought up within the first few issues of the comics, which is that ressurecting on the spot has a time limit.

When Statesman dies the first time around, Manticore brings him to Numina, who claims he's too far gone to bring back. Manticore then kills himself to personally drag Statesman's soul back from the brink of eternal peace (it's also here that Statesman snaps at him for not letting him rest, though, Manticore was the one to kill him in the first place, so aggression wasn't a surprise).

On another note, it's explained that Incarnates can't be killed by traditional means, and with Wade planning for so long, it can also be assumed he covered his bases when it came down to the goody-two-shoes heroes coming in hot on his heels. Perhaps Wade, who does pride himself on his immense arcane knowledge, is aware of the time limit, and chose to make the heroes fight Ruladaak's avatar to keep them busy while Statesman slips away.

If you really want to push it, though, it can also be said that, perhaps he had no option to not die. The ritual in question wasn't just to take the powers away, but to use that power to kill the original owner. With Statesman not having any superpowers other than his Incarnate powers, it was a Zeus powered blast hitting a bog standard human being. To that extent, perhaps the vision of his wife Monica was a part of a rapid progression through the stages of grief; a delusion to allow him to accept his death before he stops breathing.

Again, this is pushing it, but still possible. Only barely though.

In regards to the ressurrecting ritual used in that honestly terrible arc in the D? That has to be taken in two ways.

If the heroes tried it before the Red Widow incident, then it's likely that, as stated before, Statesman shook his head and politely declined (possible character based reasons to this I'll put forward later). The Conduit's explaination holds true, and the ritual fails due to the target saying no.

If done afterward, it's essentially the same story, with another possibility. In the story arc, Red Widow is a little... 'unstable' upon returning to the world of the living, requiring to go and get Cupid's bow and his last existing arrow to calm her down enough to think logically.

With the arrow possibly broken upon use (though those things are so damn blunt and sturdy, it's not so much an arrow as a rock on an iron rod) and with Statesman's love being back in the afterlife, there'd be little to calm him down if he does go crazy.

Those are my two cents on how, I guess I can take a crack at why.

In my opnion, and if I'm brutally honest, Statesman hasn't been the most well written of characters, both in the game and in the comics. His personality varies based on different things. In the comics, he was an all business, no nonsense, can't crack a smile if he tried hero, often talking down to the rest of the Phalanx. In other comics, he was fairly pleasant, and seen as a good friend and equal in many others, sharing hugs and the such. In the game, it varies a lot too. Sometimes he's really nice, others he's a little timid, and the rest of the time, it's hard to judge how far up the stick is. Sure, it's good to have a character who's capable of hitting the entire spectrum, but it's hard to judge what he'd do when he mentally jumps around a lot of the time.

In the story arc, Ms. Liberty tells you that the two of them have a rather heated arguement at Alexis' funeral, with Statesman flying off in a huff afterward. Next mission, he's cool, collected, and willing to stand by his personal morals even when facing the guy who's just killed his daughter. Doesn't help the fact that he was walking into an obvious trap, but that's a whole other story.

All of this makes it difficult, for me at least, to judge what is exactly in character for Statesman, though I'm pretty sure the 'no killing' thing has been a part of it through all itterations. It just seems a little inconsistent is all.

What gets me about the whole thing is that he was killed off in the middle of the arc. I would have accepted Kurrent's interpretation, despite the fact that it wouldn't have come to light, seeing as the players would be forced to watch instead of interact.

Knowing that, by the superhero law of physics 'no hero or heroine stays dead for long', chances are, Statesman may come back. When that is, we don't know, regardless of whether it will or not (though, he may of used his 'get out of death free' card already).

One thing Prometheus explains in Ouroborous is that when an entity dies, their power is taken to the Well, to be given to the next thing found worthy of its power. If the thing that died returns to life, the power they lost will immediately be given back to them upon returning to the world of the living.

Wade broke the rules on that. I'm under the impression that the Well will not be happy about this, and will try to intervene (unless, of course, Wade's actions exploited a loop hole in the plot, but that's yet to be seen).

It's understandable about what it's designed to do. Statesman was to Paragon as Superman is to DC. Game world wise, the indestructable Statesman was, well, indestructable. Essentially, on the good guy team, he's meant to be the top rung in power. He's been the face of the game, and gone toe to toe with the likes of Reichsman and Lord Recluse, enemies that are astonishingly powerful. Someone so strong falling to someone as relatively unknown as Darrin Wade is meant to provide shock, induce a feeling of lost hope. However, we're stronger than Statesman by that point. As stated by the devs, reaching Level 50 switches the roles around; no longer do we call on the Freedom Phalanx, they call on us. Perhaps another reason why Statesman is so comfortable being dead is that he can finally recognise this, and has total confidence in us. Whether that confidence is misplaced is another story entirely.

Anyway, that's what I make of the whole thing. Perhaps I'm wrong, but at this point, I'm just wondering if Sister Psyche is gonna survive what Wade throws at her in the next instalment.

At the risk of necroing this thread, I have a few more suggestions that could do with consideration.

6. Captions and NPC conversations

There's something to be said about the atmosphere of an area when you can hear someone, but not see them. Captions in the newer missions of City of have really helped to set the tone of an instance. Perhaps if we could find some way to do such a thing, we'd be able to make our missions a little more climactic.

An actual conversation between two bosses would be awesome, too. There are a variety of devilish duos out there, a fair few of which are actually tied at the hip. Bosses of this nature would help provide an interesting feel to the mission

7. Anything other than a DPS Race

When all of your boss fights revolve around the beating them the good old Golden Age way, it can be a bit... samey, after a while. With boss fight mechanics such as Lord Recluse and the Web, or Ajax that the Psionic Inhibitors, we could come up with many interesting things to accomplish!

Boss fights that don't end with either the boss keeling over, or running away, would be good! Perhaps add another betrayal option, allowing us to talk with them before we either finish them off or let them go.

8. Power Customisation

I don't know about you guys, but I'd like my NPCs powers reflect their origin, and considering most things, it seems as long overdue as the missing powers mentioned in the original post.

I can get behind this, though I can see a lot of Archetypes and Powersets being banned due to the knock back issues.

It would also open up the potential for another non-praetoria based incarnate area and other content. Even then, Battle Maiden hit Steel Canyon from the upper atmosphere, who's to say that there wasn't another detachment of troops sent to the moon?

That, and the idea of Space Nazis is simply glorious

There are a few things that bug me about Architect, though, I still think it's one of the greatest things to hit an MMO since, well, an idea about making an MMO came about.

I'm sure, like a lot of people in this game's community do, I've spent more time in Architect, making or playing missions, than any other part of the game. It's a fantastic system, to be sure. However, I can't help but think that there could be some improvements here and there.

Instead of giving each suggestion as a singular thing, I've put them all in a list, and before you guys say anything, the suggestion for Cutscenes in missions is a given, so I won't be touching on it. I'm sure the devs know we'd like to have them by now.

1. Update the Powers list for NPCs

I can't stress how important this is. It's been so long, and I'm sure the player base has a considerable amount of ideas for NPCs in their games, the only issue being that there are still too many powers that aren't a part of it yet. While the newest slew of powers, such as Time Control and the like may be a given, the absence of the Epic Archetypes is kind of disheartening. It would be nice if we could see the EATs on the list, allowing us to have a much wider variety of characters to make.

I'm sure that if picked as an Archetype for character creation, you can restrict the secondaries and primaries, like it has been done for powers that wouldn't aesthetically work with Shield Defence.

As for the newer powers, that can be understandable. If you want to continue restricting its access to those who buy it, what can be done is just have the system check if such a powerset is availible to the player. if it is, that player can use it in Architect.

2. Free Form Spawn Points

I can't tell you how much it breaks the flow of a mission when a boss doesn't spawn in the place you want him to spawn, or, where a collection would be in a place that's far too easy or hard for the players to get to. Having everything on a preset recipe adds another issue to creating the right atmosphere for a mission, and makes it a chore to find a map that would suit the task at hand.

My suggestion is to give the players an option to set a custom spawn point for the objective they want to use. Perhaps to get around exploitation, you can restrict the locations, so the spawn points aren't simply on top of one another, and maybe you can say that a custom spawn point would add to the value of a boss (you know how maps restrict the number of bosses or objective you can have? Well, say adding a custom spawn point for one boss would be the same as adding 3 bosses to a map, and there you go)

An example would be having one custom spawn point for a collection object that's placed in the centre of the room. When the player collects said object, four bosses, all at their own custom spawn points, would appear in the room, not too close to the player to cause an issue, but close enough to aggro onto them.

This actually leads me onto my next suggestion

3. Subobjectives and Triggered Objectives

My example above, with the current Architect System, wouldn't work, at least, not in the flow that some would hope for. The only way it would work is if each boss spawns one at a time.

My suggestion is to allow specific bosses to be a part of the same sub objective. In the same way that the Patrons in the 'Not Statesman's Anymore' Task Force were a part of the same objective, the defeat of a specific boss would contribute to the defeat of the group as a whole. It would also help to reduce clutter in the navigation bar, and allow for multiple enemies to spawn on the same completed objective, as it would count as singular objective.

4. Dialog Options

We've seen a lot of this lately in missions, and come to think of it, it would seem complicated to add. It would technically be an objective that is added onto an already existing one. Clicking on a defendable object, or an NPC that has a chance to turn around and punch you in the face would be difficult to add in, but no impossible.

The reason why I suggest this is because it's difficult to make believable characters in the middle of a mission. We may have good writers in our community, but it's a constantly irritating and difficult work around to explain why the guy's there, what he knows, and why he's either going to help or tear your arms off, sometimes all in the space of 700 characters, which in turn is split into three seperate bits of dialog.

We could be able to create a dialog tree (of a restricted length, of course. can't have conversations going on forever) which is then added onto a mission's objective. With the dialog tree being an objective in itself, the way an NPC reacts can be due to resolution of the conversation (the betray option is already implimented in NPCs)

5. Synced Objectives

Remember these? Yeah you do. Ah, the good old days where two bombs had to be turned off at the same time. That was fun... ish. Ok, it was kind of a pain when a mission turned up, and you had to get a teammate to complete it. Enforced co-op, while it made sense in a superhero game, was one of those things no one liked because it was difficult to get a hold of a willing participant (at least it was for me).

With Architect used mainly by RPers and Farmers, it could help the superhero dynamic for the former by having some teamwork be beyond combat. What better way to do it by reinforcing the classic message most hero media throws at us, which is 'you can't be in two places at once'.


Those are my suggestions, hope you guys like them, and I do hope these get considered for implimentation.

Hey y'all

While this question is a little late (my RP Peacebringer already being max level) I wanted to know because, well, it's apparrent that it can potentially be a sensitive topic, and not just among the kheldian players.

What's your opinion on players using the AT, but not being a Kheld in-characterly?

I ask because, well, I do this. I've been given flak before because of it, despite a lot of time and effort being put into the concept. That's not to say I dislike kheldian lore. I wanted to make a 'true to lore' nictus for a while, though, I've been suffering from Altitis, so no progress has actually been made as of yet.

I picked the AT because, when the build was finished, it played and looked the way I envisioned my character. The concept was based somewhat on the Paladin class from Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition. While, backstory wise, it's been adapted to follow the lore, he's not a kheldian at all.

To counter this, I have specified that he's not a part of the Peacebringers, and that his official 'Archetype' on his ID card has either yet to be filled in, or that he's been put in the Tank section.

People have also asked why i didn't just pick another AT and coloured the powers white. I responded that it wasn't just down to the visual stylings, though, they do help a lot. The AT had the capabilities to be the class, such as:

An ally heal

A defensive focus, but offensive capability

both ranged and melee powers, with a melee focus

add in a taunt from the presence power pool and you're good to go.

I will admit, as the class has to work heavily to a concept (there are a lot of powers, especially the form changing ones, that I can't use) it can seem crippled compared to other kheldians. Hell, if I can't use Light Form, I'm screwed.

From what I can gather, the Devs used a similar technique with Darrin Wade, as he uses Warshade powers, but gets his abilities from a magical background.

So, all in all, I'd say I'm ok with it (I do it, why wouldn't I be?), but there has to be some limitations that need to be made, the biggest one being that only kheldians can be a part of the peacebringer army.

With the costume change option for Light Form to be the 'Light Wisp' form once again, there's an additional ability to make actual Peacebringers distinct from non-kheldian ones.

What're your thoughts on this? I'm curious to see what the discussion can be.

I did consider burn, and while I would go for the damage, it does kinda have a few issues.

First, with Combat Jumping already giving me the same protection against immobilise, it's kinda redundant in that factor, and other than PvE, most enemies wouldn't stick to the same Spot. That, and with Burn, I'd have to keep switching hover on and off, and it'd take me a while to get into that routine.