AzureSkyCiel

well, maybe the Dream Doctor's not a Wizard, but maybe he's a Wizzard

well there you go. When you've spent most of the time one forums using winkies to denote that you're joking and stop doing it when you still are joking I think you can understand it can get a bit confusing.

In this case, people don't give Lord Recluse much crap about attempting to Annex Galaxy City, kidnapping Paragon Citizens, establishing Military bases in Faultline and Atlas because it's expected of them as villains from the player standpoint. We also don't give crap about how the US government and UN is completely worthless in putting their foot down on this because, just like real life, no one expects government to ever do anything productive or useful. (So why were people so shocked with Obama?)

In truth, I myself have really wondered what's kept the Rogue Isles from being nuked into oblivion or invaded by more than just Longbow for a long time myself when they actually do do State-Sponsored Terrorism and Arachnos is a freakin' Terrorist organization that played a coup on the lawful government of the Isles.

My suspicion is that Lord Recluse actually has blackmail on dozens of major world leaders in the form of Bane Spider Executioner and Night Widow Assassins trained on them and Fortunata to forewarn them when they step out of line for his tastes. The World Leaders are aware of this, and thus just have to accept what Lord Recluse does.

You know, given you're not ending these statements with your usual winkies, it makes me wonder if you're being serious and if there's a tone of bitterness that the text doesn't convey in your posts?

I'll /sign this idea!

Now wait one moment, Golden Girl. There's lots of light colored dirts, believe it or not. I mean how many times have you had to clean a dark coated horse of light, sandy colored dust?

Also, I kind of feel Arachnos has terrible designs. They put pointless spikes on everything that only succeed in letting grappling hooks snare around them, their "all shiny black and huge, unnecessary pipes" are an eyesore (and I already hate French Gothic architecture. I'm more an Art Nouveau or Art Deco man myself), their interior design sense is worse, they put in wire mesh floors with holes in them the size of golf balls and then force women to wear stiletto heels and end the legs of all their spider bots in tiny, sharp points.

And most of all: the fliers are ugly and impractical in design! Absolutely disgusting and offend my aesthetic senses!

I suppose being hideous and lacking any real fashion or artistic senses is the point of Arachnos though.

I should note that this might be because my aesthetic sense is painfully realistic at times. In a prose piece I was writing for RP, one of my characters was supposed to have trouble against fliers while piloting a highly customized Longbow Chaser. Problem was that in my mind, it was impossible for a much sleeker and jet-like VTOL to be easily beaten by things with no sense of aerodynamics and have been seen in game to have the speed and maneuverability of a rabid, pregnant, yak.

I actually considered making this. Complete with a Barrack Obama expy for the President. And a flipside where "The president has been rescued by dudes! Are you a bad enough ninja to kidnap the president?"

Thirding this sentiment.

Kingdom, Golden Girl, Primal Earth Kingdom. The Lady Grey is not some bare-*****, savage from some far off 'empire', she's a proper English Rose.

Still waiting to see Geisterdammen in Axis America as a loyal Allied Resistance member... Loyal even in death.

Though on that note: it's true, I mean even if the Pacifist CoT world were all pacifists, they could be jerks in some of their dialogues.

Double reference. Plus two points for Spyral.

Nemesis Prime: GIVE ME YOUR FACE!

Kind of fitting, I mean being an Incarnate of Zeus, and what were mythological gods prone to? Self-fulfilling prophecies and dooming themselves.

Uhh, Golden Girl, White wasn't talking about "sterilize" as in "make clean or infertile", White likely meant exterminate.

Anyway though, just because this thread's here:

TYRANT LIED, PEOPLE DIED!

to be fair, the unnamed longbow soldier isn't so bad either, he's just way too prone to quoting movies and being a bigger nerd than the players.

Yeah, kind of funny isn't it? Almost every talons and knives of vengeance NPC has a double cape rig and players often run DA content at high spawn settings, and yet what really lags systems isn't the cape rigs, it's the Talons' ridiculously awesome and showy powers like ash fall and meteor.

Now that you've said this, one out of the dozen of writers will begin attempting to portray longbow as this and fumble terribly, not helped by the other writers disagreeing and going with their own characterizations.

Positron will insist on reminding us that it's not radiation, it's anti-matter. (which is SOOOOOOO much better)
On the note of the longbow and jurisdictions, those are fair points, and as far as them being a reskin of the council, I do agree and hate that terribly, I would personally LOVE to have chance to remake longbow from the ground up, missions included. It wouldn't even need to be a full Retcon, just Ms. Liberty deciding she needs to focus more on the Vindicators and helping out the Phalanx where she can and appointing someone new to be the director of Longbow, from there, Longbow takes a turn for the better with a gradual (as you progress through the levels) turn for the worse, the underlying principles being "he who fights with monsters".

Starts out better than before: they target yellow in Mercy and such, they're not actively out to fight villains anymore, they're doing relief work and dressed in t-shirts and such, and security is more showy and intimidating than actually threatening or sinister. It also adds a layer of "you *******" to villains, you meet a group of people who will be handing food to the poor in Mercy, and as you get ready to attack them, they might even offer you food, or just ask you not to hurt them... And then you do it anyway because getting a first free hit on them is faster EXP and rewards.

Then, they get a bit more militaristic, in this case, police-like with SWAT like "Peacekeepers" and recruiting low-ranked heroes and the like. And as the levels progress, they become more and more military, up to and including taking some cues from Crey and Malta. By the 40's and 50's, they're a vigilante organization beneath the shining exterior. Longbow Arbelasts are deployed against villains: titanic machines that use the brains of fallen Longbow agents to take revenge for their deaths. The arc that introduces them has them ambush a villain with the claim that you were their murderer. To make matters a bit scarier, villains find some evidence to suggest this process is not always voluntary, not always done on Longbow's dead, and their memories may have been altered by psychics and rage enhancers have been hooked up to their brains.

Exactly! The Freakshow is an entire gang of Jokers alongside the Carnival of Shadows (makes me wonder what would happen if the two groups struck an accord and joined forces, you'd have a full circus!), they will do anything and everything that might amuse them, but in their case the punchline must always be violent (and more than likely literal).

Like Nemesis Plots for everything, Statesman is a jerk (and should die), Freakshow are silly, overall harmless, and speak only in l33t, Azuria's tendency to lose things (which, admittedly, only got it's last nod about issue 10), Fusionette as a brainless idiot who gets captured even into her later levels (admittedly, its the only way they could have her join the player since the devs could not grasp "no mob" option around allied PCs at the time), stuff like that.

I can kind of agree with the Ouroboros thing and time travel stuff. Not so much that I hate time travel plots, but they need to be really meaningful. Traveling to the past for a sunday afternoon loses out on the epic potential of time travel. I would allow for Arachnos and the Fifth column to keep their time travel, but still keep it questionable, always everyone, even them, wondering if they're really traveling through time.

The Parallel worlds thing seems a bit too much though, but still the opinion is understandable.

C'mon, Batman and superman wipe the floor with huge mobs all the time. So does Spider-man, and when they're not taking on huge mobs, they're soloing AVs and even multiple AVs at once. The whole point of the Super-Hero genre is to be as ridiculously over-powered as possible.

Now I'm gonna have to call bull here. I mean you're doing something you hate purely to for the sake or profit? Kind of selling your soul there, aren't you?

I would not hate you for either of these. I love careful text selection dialogue because it makes me feel like I'm able to do more as a hero or villain than just punch stuff, but also smooth talk or set traps and make plans.

Anyway though, something that people would probably hate me for as a Dev? Probably my upgrades to various villain groups, but especially Malta.

-Most Malta agents now use special bullets that debuff res and def.
-They are given +plus perception
-Some units have stealth (SURPRISE SAPPER!)
-They would now have snipers
-Elite boss "Hyperion Titans" would have a chance to random spawn once per any mission
-Some Malta agents now leadership buffs
-Also Malta engineers would be able to heal and even revive Titans
-Malta would also gain a medic unit capable of healing or reviving human Malta soldiers (as would groups like the KoA and Sky Raiders whose numbers are supposed to be limited)
-While not something that would actually make them stronger, human, non-boss would get a "teleporting away" defeat animation. (also something to give to Sky Raiders and KoA)
-Possible inclusion of special, rare object that spawns in Malta missions Field Reclaimer, that you must destroy because it gives a heal over time to all malta agents around it and spawn Malta soldiers. (Also to be given to Sky Raiders and KoA)