Dante

Losing EU global names and now no incentive to try out EU/NA servers? Wow, this list merger just keeps getting better and better.

Very good question. As a player of a pro-Cole Loyalist operating in the Isles, I would love it if like minded Praetorians could meet up too during the event.

I'll be honest, the Incarnate system is a dead duck to me at the moment. If the developers can come up with something more reasonable than the glacial rate of shard conversion, It may get me interested again.

When Ouroboros was first introduced I got excited, hoping that gradually our time travels would expand to cover other events in the CoX timeline. Unfortunately, it never happened. As it stands, I think Ouroboros is underused for actual time travel and overused for 'stuff that does not fit anywhere else' i.e. Incarnate content.

Still, interesting statistics. Makes me wonder, with so many people playing Villains and Loyalists why the endgame is all hero orientated. Hey ho, here's to another seven years.

Thanks for the tip. I will try and check out all of the servers at some point. I hear that there's a strong EU presence on Victory these days.

Or, if the current thrust of Paragon Studios is 'co-op for everything' have missions for the villains to do that make the zone worse i.e. bring the fog back, spawn GMs etc.

Except for the Merit Vendors. Who ARE they!!? Those guys still bug the hell out of me especially in the Isles. Arbiters are inviolate but those guys? Why haven't my villains broken their noses and stolen all of their LotG +7.5% recharge recipes yet?

And it’s this illusion of choice that has angered me more than any other lore decision in the game and just looks like a wasted opportunity. These days, alignment has about as much meaning as origin. Much was made about moral choices in Praetoria but regardless of what choices you do make by level 50 you WILL fight Praetoria whether you like it or not. It doesn’t matter if you want to support Cole or whether your character would thrive on the chaos and destruction of the war, you WILL fight against it whether you like it or not. And this bait and switch really brought me close to leaving. Some people like playing villains. We don’t all want to line up and join Vanguard like some reluctant hero. Co-op content has become the bane of this game, the last time villains got to do anything really villainous at level 50 was the LRSF.

So in some ways, I’m envious of people who don’t give two hoots about the story. It means they can get their fulfilment from whatever content is thrown at them, regardless of how badly disjointed from canon it is or whether it rides roughshod over character concepts. The game’s never been a paragon of storytelling, it can’t be. If we’re blunt about it, the story is there to string one fight to another. But the game used to strike a good balance between epic fights and a reasonably consistent story which made the player the centre of the action regardless of their character concept. These days, we’re all getting shoehorned down the same road. This is fine if you’re playing an Epic Archetype, less so if you give a damn about your character concept.

Hence why now I have to ignore story in order to progress. But it means that a part of the game I used to enjoy, immersing myself in the lore, is significantly absent. And this topic does come up regularly because for lore enthusiasts, something is broken. And just as some people would complain about how a mechanic or game system doesn’t work properly, this is just as important to people who draw their fun from the game’s backstory.

Story still matters; look at how people complained about how the Alpha slot originally opened. I guess the mistake we made back then was that we asked for story content to be attached to it. In hindsight, maybe we should have specifically asked for a good one.

Welcome Back!!!

I actually find it more scary to consider what a Praetorian Azuria would be like.

I only wish I could believe that it was that well thought out. More likely it was an oops moment on their part.

Hmmm... I guess that is a tricky line to tread. I wonder if some AVs could have varying resistances to mezz then. They might shrug off stacked holds but are weak to stuns perhaps. Or that they resist ToHit debuffs but crumble under Slow attacks. It'd be fun I guess if an AV had strong resists to everything but knockback. Suddenly KB is not just epic, it's useful!

I'm not sure if that already happens (I know most AVs are weak to immobilize for example) but I can already see the downsides to it by having team leaders pick and choose what powersets they want on the TF... I don't know, I'm not a developer but I find it irritating when an AV (or any NPC for that matter) just shrugs off my Controls for no clear reason.

If that's what they're doing by giving Maelstrom Dual Pistols AND Martial Arts, I approve and hope to see MA for Blaster Secondaries very soon.

In the meantime, I'll keep getting an extra kick out of smacking the cheating little git about.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Regardless, there's a lot to celebrate and I'm glad that my favourite game has reached its seventh anniversary. Looking forward to whatever events are planned.

*Shuffles off to negotiate an evening off with the other half so he can go and hassle the Devs...*

We do our best to entertain, thanks for the kind wishes.

I will be on my best behaviour this time. I do not want to enter the place to hear a small voice stating, "I just need to know when Dante arrives..."

I never pay much attention to her so I can't confirm that for you.

However, I too feel abandoned when it comes to the current direction of Endgame design. I've tried it, despite my dislike of raids (because that's what they are) but found it not to my liking. The chaos, the shouting, the multiple deaths, the horrible UI, the ridiculous lore... I could go on but others have levelled their criticisms about the endgame so far better than I.

I am glad that those who have been calling for endgame raiding have got what they wanted and I wish them well grinding the same trials over and over again. However, that's not my way so I will just hold on and hope that i21 or i22 brings me something I do enjoy and that doesn't exclude me from the epic storylines I hope are coming. In designing the raids, they've aimed for a particular section of the playerbase and at this time, have not brought anything out for people who don't like that style. On the bright side, there may well be Incarnate story arcs and repeatable missions coming so I'll just spend my time levelling alts until that happens.

This is true however, that would suggest there will never be any further regenerations. Also, despite holding the reigns to the franchise, I doubt the BBC would agree that Moff could permanently kill him off with no way out.

So like Kiken, I'm less moved by what they did and more caught in the Grand Moff's trap of 'how are they going to get out of this one?' (I will add, willingly and quite happy to be so. )

I roleplayed through it with the Militia the other night and although it's a fun TF, the plot inconsistencies are becoming hard to work around. These days, it's easier to run our own plots than to patch up the slap dash way the Devs are treating the plot. And that makes me sad.