Cipher

I think I'm largely echoing you, Sam, but I genuinely think some of my favorite GR choices have been the ones outside morality missions. The morality ones I feel are largely metagame choices -- which line of missions to do I want to run when I switch zones? But the ones INSIDE the arcs make me think.

Do I let those people go or not, given that no one's around to verify that I killed them? Do I pursue this criminal or swoop to the rescue of some NPCs? That was one where I just sat and stared at the screen for a few minutes (glad I was solo!).

Yeah, I'd love to arrest Ricochet and the crowd would love me for it. At the same time, MY TEAM is in danger; I'm a mastermind and attacking my team equates to attacking ME. I wound up saving my team -- the game suggested it was an act of humility. I wanted to explain, no, it was an act of hubris. I don't like people TOUCHING MY STUFF, and if anyone is going to kill my henchmen, it's ME.

That was a moment that surprised me. I was invested in the choice my character made and I wanted the game to reflect what took me a few minutes of internal struggle to decide. But just like in life, you don't always get to explain your motives, or people impute a motive to you.

I knew that in the long run, the choice wouldn't matter as far as which storylines I played or content I saw. But somehow, the LACK of impact made the choice more potent, freeing me from the mechanics of the game and making it a more traditional role-playing choice ("Well, but my CHARACTER wouldn't do that..."). I think there are a lot of well-written moments like that in GR.

The trouble with the question is that it's framed in terms of the real world. In the real world, even someone like Superman would routinely exceed the limits of the law and tread into vigilantism. There's just not a lot of ROOM in law enforcement for private citizens, which is as it should be.

While someone like Batman makes for compelling fiction, the fact that he takes the law into his own hands is dangerous and problematic.

Mugger beats up Victim and leaves him in the alley. Batman sees this so he beats up Mugger and leaves him on the steps of Gotham Central.

It's the same act. The same crime. The motive is different, but motive's not an element. The mens rea and the actus reus are identical, and the fact that Batman was "enforcing" the law is irrelevant. If both go to trial, both should be convicted.

So, really, unless your alter ego is Observe-and Report Man/Woman/Dog/Bot, you're a vigilante.

N/\CLb0t

(Cheap chemistry pun ahoy!)

I selected a contact, thinking the waypoint would lead me to the right door, but it pointed me to the door from which I entered. Pocket D teleport: go!

Dark fits thematically and is a genuine powerhouse among MM secondaries. When fully equipped, a necro/dark MM is almost unparalled at locking down enemies -- you have the MM, the Lich, and the Dark Servant all debuffing the foes.

The others are fine, but you basically cannot go wrong making a /dark MM. Whichever primary you have, /dark makes it better.

Just wanted to post a follow-up. On Ms. Mesmer's advice, I decided to run more missions, and the final contact in the Neutropolis Warden chain DID have a Failed Experiments mission. Got my badge, handling this last gasp of Praetorian business, then I'm off to Primal Earth, where the supervillains at least have the good sense not to believe their own propaganda. Thanks!

Do Failed Experiments spawn anywhere outside of missions? I defeated all those I could find in my missions (I confess, I haven't done all the Neutropolis arcs* -- trying to save some stuff for other characters), but I have... I think every other Praetoria badge and am ready to begin the invasion of Primal Earth.

I searched Neutropolis Underground with no success, and I certainly didn't see any FE above ground (just regular ghouls).

I suppose I could just leave it undone and wait for the arcs to show up in Ouroboros, but... it would just be irksome to leave with unfinished business.

*I did all of Crusader and the first two Warden contacts. If the final Warden or either of the Loyalists can complete my set, please let me know and I'll do that, gladly.

I'm also not a fan of voice chat. I know it's useful and fun for the people who find it useful and fun, but it's not for me.

Several years ago (issue 4 or 5-ish), I was a participant in an SG that I really liked. There were some great people in it, and I count my time with them as some of the best I've had in the game. But we wound up going our separate ways, and from my end, voice chat was a big part of the reason why.

It's never really appealed to me, as I've said, so when the group started using it, I was a holdout. If I want the TV on or I want to listen to my stereo or something, voice chat gets in the way. I suffer from migraines and was in law school at the time, so by the time I logged into the game, I'd already had a full day of listening to talk, was usually stressed and hurting, and just wanted to slide into neutral and double-Sunless Mire my foes into oblivion. I was also going through an excruciating breakup and... I guess voice chat was too "real"? Having them exist as a costume and text on a screen was just about my comfort level -- it's not that they weren't welcoming, but even "just come on so you can listen" felt like too much for me.

And so it goes. People started talking more on Vent, and while I'm sure they were having a great time, it meant that no one was typing. At some points, it would be seven people on Vent and me as the silent loner. People started to forget that I couldn't hear them, and instructions got lost. I'd wind up hip-deep in purple enemies and find out that we were stealthing the mission; I'd get to the mission door only to find out we weren't doing missions anymore.

Just not my thing. I realize it makes me a throwback -- apparently I'm the guy saying "these 'talkies' will never catch on; when are they going to stop with the gimmicks and go back to making REAL movies?" But it's my comfort level and preference. I'm happier with text chat than with voice.

My favorite was the post about the minion who joined a team with some random Bone Daddy in Perez Park, and all THAT guy would do was stand in a corner and say "Go. Hunt. Kill Herros."

I remember...
When enemies didn't scale for solo players. Bosses were bosses and AVs were AVs. I gave up on a number of low-level characters because they couldn't handle the first Skulls boss you encountered in Perez Park (this was pre-Hollows, obviously).

How excited I was when I got a character to the level where he could Hover. I took him right up to the top of Atlas' globe. There were no badges, then, but it was still the obvious first move.

Toggling Unyielding Stance on and off so I could move between spawns.

Six-slotted perma-hasten and Accelerate Metabolism would get you multiple instances of Phantom Army. /sigh

Which reminds me of one of my most dubious memories of soloing my Ill/Rad -- pre-containment, pre-almost-everything-else, in order to beat Frostfire and Atta, I had to Deceive a nearby minion into killing them. It took forever and I got no xp for it. In retrospect, teaming would have been much, much less pain.

The pre-launch strategy guide (which I still have) which promised a Faultline trial that never materialized. It also lists "Fold Space" still in Gravity Control, so that might be a blast from the past for some of the longest term among us -- it had already been replaced by Singularity when I started, but maybe someone else can offer a memory. It looks to have been a Recall Teammate-type power. Very little about the guide remains accurate, but it's still interesting to flip through when these threads arise.

I wasn't around for the CoH end-of-beta, but I sure was for the CoV. Statesman's Strike was goofy fun, even though it was intensely laggy. Personal highlight was getting KO Blow one-shotted by ol' Red-White-and-Blue himself (all I said was "Very well, I shall tell you my evil plan... before I kill you," and the next thing I knew I was face down in the Mercy Island dirt).

This is a question I've posed to Hero 1 in the past -- I think it piqued his interest, and I'm wondering if any more has come to light.

What happened to Marshall Mayhem and Eliza Silk? The Issue 7 promos discussed two Grandville characters we'd get to meet, Marshall Mayhem (known for complex global extortion schemes) and Eliza Silk, Arachnos Keeper of Secrets. But they proved perhaps too mysterious, because I don't think either one got mentioned in the game itself.

Other questions:

Will we see more historical scenarios added to Ouroboros? I'd love to visit more bits of history: Brass Monday, the December 7, 1941 invasion, Recluse's overthrow of The Weaver.

If Hero Corps withdrew from Paragon City in ~1999 (per website background), why are their Field Analysts still around, and why are we taking missions from Henry Peter Wong? We shouldn't need a Hero Corps liason if they're not in Paragon City anymore.

Also, I'd like to ask (once again) for more development of the Color Coded Spy Agency.

[ QUOTE ]
It did get their attention, but it didn't get much of a change.

[/ QUOTE ]

Because they were supposed to implement the ideas in this thread on Sunday afternoon?

(QR)

I don't know if this can be readily made into a bullet point, but it's a (somewhat) abbreviated form of a suggestion I've been developing for quite some time.

To further expand on the contact issue, I've always wanted a contact who is essentially your lackey. He hatches schemes for you, and since you have the superpowers, you do the leg work.

It could be simple, like a grovelling minion who's looking to get in good with an up-and-coming villain. Or it could be... something like Efficiency Expert Pither. I've always envisioned someone like a Villainy Consultant. He hires out to supervillains to maximize their malevolence and leverage synergies to capitalize on their core competencies. These lackeys would handle "the busy work" that we never see (recruiting minions, and so on), leaving us to do the high-profile work.

The general tenor of the missions, however the contact shakes out, would run something like this.

"Hey, boss, I've got a great lead on building a fantastic doomsaday weapon. Why don't we assemble it and hold Paragon City for ransom?"

And then you have missions like "Infiltrate Archon Burkholder's base and steal the MegaMech plans so we can copy the weapon delivery system." "Steal the Jewel of Hera to use as a focusing device for the laser." "Infiltrate Paragon City's high security whatever and steal the codes to disable the war walls." And then the arc culminates with you defending your weapon from Longbow assault, when you've driven off a few waves of Longbow, one of the signature heroes spawns to take you down (premised on the theory that he can stop the device AFTER you're in jail).

And so on -- the character could even be a recurring contact, offering you a series of plots every five levels or so, each time getting more and more grandiose. You could have an early arc allowing you to establish a "base" (clear out one of a number of mapsets depending on your preferences -- sewer, cave, tech lab, etc), which can be used in later missions when the heroes attempt to stage daring raids on your secure fortress.

That shift in tone ("do this for yourself and please don't hurt me for suggesting it") would go a long way to establish it as the story of our villains, instead of the story of our contacts, guest starring our villains.