AzureSkyCiel

Indeed, it's a bit of a major problem how the game's timeline continues to move forward without looking back and considering what's already passed while what's already passed is actually tied by rope at the Advancement's waist and still being dragged along, groaning in miserable pain, looking worse and worse as its cut up, beaten, dragged, and bloodied.

Okay, I understand it would be a lot of work to attempt to revoke the godhood of Status Que that surpasses the Well of Furies after this game's been baked into it for so many years and we've come to accept the idea of the Time Scale being in relation to our characters' levels.
but the problem with that latter part is that with recent patches, the time scale's been jumping around like a Schizophrenic cat with ADHD with newer stuff being crammed into the level 20-29 pocket, and for heroes it gets worse when you through in the Midnighter arcs and such.
I roll a new toon, it's 2004 for me, they play the midnighter arc at level ten and oooooooops I just got kicked ahead to 2007 or so, afterwards I'm back to 2004, I play Keith Nance's or Roy Coolings arc and ooooooooooooops I'm in 2010, finish those, back in 2004, go to steel canyon after having run some arc that had been taken over by the Council putting me at 2005 or so and ooooooooooops I'm in 2009 because I'M STARING AT THE FIFTH COLUMN RUNNING AROUND RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME.

You know, golden girl, I'm actually interested to hear how you feel on this. especially the fact that the Well is being established as not nice in the least and your characters is being forced to play dance monkey for it.
How do you feel about Golden You and the Incarnate system and its story line.

Also, for those who wanted a video, here it is
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKWZm...layer_embedded

I'll admit, these two sum up the BIGGEST problems with the recent additions of the Well of furies.

Brand, you're thinking of Pandora's Box, which is technically a different entity altogether to my understanding. Also, it's equally convoluted but at least, is vaguely explained enough that alternative explanations could even work it with existing characters.

Now as an RPer, I will say that working around newer lore is getting harder and harder, and when you RP in group, everyone's different readings/interpretations can collide very easily.
though I did manage to succeed in working around the Mender Ramiel arc in way (for demonstration) as follows:
My main katana scrapper reincarnates, and his earliest recalled life was Oranbega, so he's got a lot of lives to cover. The entire arc is 'playing through hie memories' ala the animus in Assassin's Creed to learn from his past lives.
First mission (where the Storm's broken over Ouroboros) was played out as his witnessing of the Mu Oranbegan war at its peek. (The twist being Mender Ramiel was played as his dying past incarnation, having lost everything in a war wrought by jealous gods and swearing revenge)
Second mission was a later life as an Indian soldier who's wife had been taken by a demon (Trapdoor) and he journeyed into hell itself to rescue her. Only to find out that his long tours as a soldier meant his wife had become lonely and felt neglected, and both her and the demon were mutually in love. (cue BSOD for that life)
Third mission was his life as a soldier Serving Alexander the Great, he was separated from his unit by a sandstorm during the Persian campaign and found himself in ancient Persian ruins fighting 'Sand Demons', at the end, he subdued a hammy Janni (Honoree) and became its master for that life.
Forth and final mission was played a Tibetan monk who had gone on a spirit quest to defeat a demon who had been haunting him, the cavern of the Well became the demon's lair, and the time echos worked perfectly since the demon was Drug (A Persian demoness of Lies and Deceptions, in this case, illusions too), and sadly, when he finally confronted the demon, he lost, but was able to foresee her inevitable defeat.

Also, let's get something clear here: What is an alien? they're outsiders, beings not entirely well understood.
And what are gods? Often enough, they're the same things, just they tend to be powerful compared to us, and even less understandable (God, why did you ruin Job's life just to make a point to Satan?).

this was actually a bit og an interesting point my aunt brought up to me (we're both occult and mysticism enthusiasts) when dicussing the source of Yuri Geller's 'powers'.

And the real irony is that they weren't being hyped until AFTER Jack Emmert was gone. Or IS he?

nothing, actually. Part of why Nemesis' consciousness is divided up in so many pieces is so that way, he can have moments where he just unwinds and enjoys intellectual discussion with equal peers.

Medieval costume pieces, Middle Eastern styles (which have not been touched on at all), Romani/Romano styles, more military styles, more Asian styles, martial arts booster that isn't a love letter to Mortal Kombat, more Trench coats, more wings/back options, more hats, more tattoo pattern options, etc. etc.

Well, depending on who you want to believe, supposedly Sexy Jay's dropped hints about Medieval armor styles.

I would love to see a booster pack series dedicated to Medieval armors, period dresses, etc. etc. They could call it: Heroes of the Old World: [Insert related location here, I.E. Sun and Sands for North African and Middle Eastern themed pieces]

True, but I'm not sure the Tsoo would be the greatest of guides into hmong culture when they run around with Japanese swords, use Chinese sai, and have very strongly Japanese (at least to my knowledge) tattoo artwork, wear Japanese Han'nya masks, and have a boss in Radios/newspapers named 'Katana'.
I recall running a tip mission with a friend of mine where every time they referred to themselves, they called themselves 'The Hmong Tsoo' as though after years of not remembering they were Vietnamese, they now remembered and hooked 'Hmong' onto their group name as a reminder of what their actual ethnicity was.

I know you meant at least most of these as a joke, but these are actually pretty good.

Some of my own suggestions for some new GMs include...

Nerva Archipelago - The Longbow Carrier (I'm not sure if this is possible by present coding abilities), a specially rigged cargo ship with a rather nasty cargo of automated Longbow chasers that will spawn from the ship to attack in addition to its existing anti-personal implements. You will need to destroy this monster of a ship in chunks.

Peregrine Island - Arachnos Assault Sub (an enlarged standard sub model with the ballistic missile pods), appearing not far from the northern islands of Peregrine, this specially designed Arachnos Assault sub threatens heroes anywhere in Paragon with a compliment of tactical nuclear missile batteries (Warburg nuclear warhead on a LONG recharge) and attacking the sub itself will only delay it, and Arachnos engineers will climb out from the inside to repair it regularly, the only sure way to defeat this is to go inside, fight the crew, and sink the sub with a bomb.

Okay, these are more like zone events but still...

how does he do that?

Blame Tycho (Warning: NWSF language is used in the comic.)

Well, in the Fate/Stay Night and Nasuverse (look it up and try not to tear out your hair in frustration), machines can be summoned as heroic spirits and I think it was mentioned that it's all about Akashic concepts.
Basically your 'data' that is recorded in creation itself.
Someone promptly made the joke of accidentally summoning the First Printing Press as their 'champion' for the Grail War.

Admittedly, Heroes aren't the only ones becoming Incarnate. Technically, due to how many recent content pieces seem to be about villains gaining/seeking the power of the incarnates, it would (be unbalanced but) make a lot of sense if Villains ended up with theirs a lot earlier on.

Though, hey, it is only a project essence of a seer and not a real one. I'll admit, there's a lot of ways you could try to play this, but for me, as an RPer with good imagination who's even been able to side step my characters actually BEING incarnates (merely becoming more awesome), I'm pretty sure I could come up with some clever explanation or get one from a friend. (Hell, my RP group was able to help me justify my Cold War era robot having willpower*)
But the Praetoria and Cole w#$k fest leaves a bit of a bad taste in my mouth, almost as though Jack Emmert's gotten back into the lead dev seat again and wants to cram down out throats how amazing Alternate Statesmans are and the stuff they have at their disposal.

*As they put it: "They have willpower as a completely implacable robot, completely unfeeling to the meager assaults of mere bullets and blades"

God, I LOVE that comic. It's mindless propaganda in the truest sense (at least by making Stalin into some kind of super hero, though he does have a great cape), but it is AWESOME propaganda. Now if Cole used Soviet Russian propaganda, I might actually support him.

Well, understandably this would be so in most cases, but one needs to remember that the Council was derived from the 5th Column who, in turn, were derived from pulp/classical Nazi depictions.
Not just in comic books and pulp stories, but the Nazis had attempted these things in real life. Nazi super-tech is drawn from the wunderwaffen projects while the mystic aspects (such as werewolves and vampires) draw inspiration from Nazi Occultism (Which I should note is only fringingly associated with the Thule Society*). Learning about how the Nazis delved into this probably freaked out a lot of people who learned of it, it revealed a new level of insanity some of the inner circle/higher ups had, but deep down, there was always the fear 'What if something of theirs worked?', and thus, the modern pop cultural belief was born that nazis had genetic experimentation, magic, and robots. Some stories favor one aspect over the other, but all three we experimented. (And thankfully, to our knowledge, only the wunderwaffen yielded anything, and all of it came as too little, too late.)

*Given how, historically, Nazis ended up dissolving the Thule Society and attempted to wipe it out in the Night of Long Knives, I've always thought they would have made a GREAT replacement for the Midnighters Redside. They would have still sent you to fight the Column in Cimerora, not to protect the time stream so much as just for revenge against past humiliation.

That is also quite a bit pretentious...

Thankfully, the cycle of pretentiousness can stop with me since I have no reason to be pretentious.
but I just was pretentious wasn't I?
OH SHI-
*Zero has been divided*

Chillax, man.

Another, and very cool part, about this idea would be that while you might not be able to customize your pet, it could also become said that Lore wouldn't exactly represent an incarnate power (being acknowledge by the Well) but the rest of the world starting to acknowledge YOU.
Malta gunslingers hear about some of your escapades and for the first time in their lives think twice about their career path, throw off their M1 helms/cowboy hats and decide 'I'm siding with a winner', the Tsoo has watched you progress and see your new level of power and begin flocking to you as a deific champion, or Longbow/Arachnos agents abandon the sides of their COs, feeling safer and stronger at yours.

I guess somewhere in my mind, it's pie-in-sky, but Lore seems like it should be more like this.

Edit: oops, wrong thread