Dante

I agree that acknowledging that there have been more skirmishes with the Praetorians is a good thing. As the invasions are occurring in the TFs and not in the outside world, we can probably accept that there are attempts at invading going on around us but ones that get fought off by Paragon’s heroes. We already have precedent for the Praetorians appearing in our world from some of the random missions given out from level 45-50.

Therefore, I think it’ll be ok to say that invasion attempts are being made in the same way that we semi-acknowledge the Rikti when they decide to hit us with a bombing raid. Not a permanent IC event, but one that goes on in the background. Each RP TF attempt can be a character taking part in repelling the invasion but not necessarily being solely responsible for turning the tide.

As for the other side of things, I don’t expect the exit from Praetoria to change. The game has our journeys from 1 – 50 as quite linear so to a level 20 character just leaving Praetoria, the war effort is only just building up whereas to a level 50 character about to embark on the Apex TF, the war has begun. However, as someone who finds the forced exit from Praetoria both clunky and immersion breaking, I rarely acknowledge it as an event, having my characters leave Praetoria for their own means. Certainly for my Praetorian Loyalist, when she leaves, it will be to aid the war against Primal Earth, not to fight against it.

(As a side note, I really do hope there is a chance to aid the war effort for Loyalists who have crossed over. It’s kind of a shame that for a Loyalist that has crossed over, both new TFs are about repelling the invasion and not about aiding it. I’m hoping the new 20-30 arcs might help that situation a little…)

I don't like quoting entire posts so I'll just say: everything that Techbot said. With a cherry on top. Yes please. Mmmm mmm.

By now I'm about at this point with this thread:



So far all it's achieved is to show that Union roleplayers can be exceptionally petty and hold grudges for ridiculous reasons. I'm quite frankly embarrassed by this thread and wish I'd never posted in it. I'm interested in building bridges with other roleplayers on the Union server whereas others seem to be more interested in burning them down. If anyone likes the idea of bringing people together, I'm all ears.

I suggest taking further discussions to a separate thread called 'Union RP Issues' so that others can get back to discussing the original topic. But not for me.

I'll be somewhere else, having fun rather than continuing some OOC grudge match.

This thread makes me sad. I've been roleplaying in CoX for about four years and I decided a while ago to take my RP off of the main forums mostly due to being told how what I was doing was 'wrong' even though it didn't break any major RP rules. So it does make me sad that the EU can be perceived as being exclusive sometimes. (And it is, occasionally.)

I'm afraid that this is a common problem that is occurring more and more since the servers moved to the US. (See the Connecting...X thread in the European lounge.) I'd like to think that they will get their techy bods looking into it but I suspect more attention is being focussed on getting i19 out of the gate while stuffed full of turkey.

There's a few tips in that thread about how to work around the updater or kick it into life, maybe one of them will work for you.

This happens to me regularly but it has been happening more since the move to the US along with increased rubberbanding when I do get in. The flushdns trick works once in a blue moon but most of the time it's time to stick the kettle on while the downloader tries to connect. I'm trying the shortcut idea but for some reason, the route in the target box is 'invalid'. Ho hum.

I wouldn't mind so much if I hadn't of crashed out of an ITF last night and spent half an hour trying to get back on.

Welcome back.

The Militia is a hero group that has been running for about 4 years now and we currently run three themed nights: a weekly Praetorian group on Tuesdays and either Militia (hero) or Cadre (rogue) every other week.

We're not huge or uber but we're friendly and active so if you want to stop by and say hello, check out the forum linked in my signature. Feel free to join our channel (Militia) in game which is active most evenings.

Hope to see you around some time.

Without wanting to move the discussion into dodgy territory but the question over whether a character believes another person to be an Incarnate or not reminds me a lot of when deists see the hand of some other almighty power at work, whether that person believes it or not. The Well is clearly doing something and some people will believe that, others won't.

IIRC, Stephan Richter was always skeptical about the Well and after his exposure to it, went on to try and create the perfect technology based society. I don't think he ever once acknowledged that his new insights and abilities were based on some magic mumbo jumbo. So inevitably, the mad scientist that comes up with a way to create an orbital cannon is unlikely to think that maybe some mystical well is manipulating him. He'll just figure he got lucky or his own incredible genius led him to it. Whereas those who know of an 'believe' in the Well could point at his achievements and cry "Ah ha! Incarnate!" (At which point they'd probably get a funny look from the scientist before being incinerated by said orbital array.)

In short, people will RP the Incarnate powers however the hell they like. We already twist and bend game lore all over the place (as is our want). My demon character doesn't use Radiation Emission, it's recoloured to be spells and curses for her. Likewise none of my magic users call on the entities named on the SO enhancements. What counts is the character, game mechanics be damned.

The only thing we need to be aware of is that the Well is now entering current game lore and so people will talk about it, just as conversations turned to Praetoria when Going Rogue launched. Whether people seek the Well IC or just find new ways to explore their powers (as I've already said I will be) is entirely up to them. Whether they're Incarnate or not is about as important as what the Origin above their head says.

I hate the word 'reboot'. It's becoming synonymous with 'utter crap'. So I can only have one response to this news:

We’ve been discussing the Incarnate issue over on the Militia boards for a while and the conclusion I’ve come to is that there are some characters for whom ‘Incarnate-hood’ just does not suit. I feel that for a few of my characters, even though they are ‘at their peak’ at level 50, they’re simply not power hungry enough to seek more. That said, if all of their foes started becoming that powerful… well, that’s another issue.

One thought to consider though is whether this power will come at a price for some of our characters? Although player Incarnates are different to NPC Incarnates, I wonder what conditions the arc will try to place on people (not that I’ll pay them much attention mind you). For example, Statesman seems to have a bad case of immortality thanks to his brush with the Well, not necessarily always a good thing. And as for Recluse, I’m not sure I fancy the spider legs (although a spare arm might be handy occasionally…).

To my mind, roleplayers have already pushed the boundaries of the level cap with sometimes incredibly powerful IC abilities that would be game breaking if in game. So I don’t see the inclusion of a game related way of expressing that as necessarily being ‘a next step’. Dante has always used his arcane arts in ways that step outside of game boundaries so the pursuit of the Alpha Slot will simply be him investigating new magics but not necessarily ones that ‘make him more powerful’. All that will change for him will be that there will be more situations that require him to call on more extreme magics than before.

As a heads up, there will inevitably be an increase in the demand for high level TFs being run as a means to shard gathering and I’m currently working on an IC idea to pull together some of these individuals in their quest for power. More details to follow soon.

Oh and as a side note for those who don’t like the ‘mystic mumbo-jumbo’ side of Incarnates, one could always look at Stephan Richter’s response to his exposure to the Well. He never believed in the deity/magic side of it, seeing it more as a form of advanced power that unlocked human creativity and inspiration.

Cute wins over Hot any day for me. But then I'm the guy who watched The Truth About Cats and Dogs and wanted to date Janeane Garofalo right from the off. Hey ho.

Looks like fun although it seems like more of a straight up comedy film rather than The Princess Bride which had more romance in it. (Fred Savage was right, it is a 'kissing book'). Can't see the comparison to Blackadder at all though.

I'll have to add it to the list of films to see next year.