Dr_MechanoEU

Edward smiled, "So I have to succeed in this plan, interesting, my goal is merely to create chaos enough that people become stronger through it as I have said, to know that this is all part of a greater scheme of things pleases me, the knowledge that I am on the right side does so too."

He chuckled, "how can causing chaos ever truly fail? Even the wrong word in the right place can insight it...anyway, yes I understand what you're telling me...and please, call me Edward, Mechano is a name for the heroes to use and for people to seek guiding light from, we are equals here."

He gave a smirk, "hmm but still...apart from this, why did you summon me? You hated me enough to attempt to kill me before hand, why suddenly are you offering this true and I assume, something else as well?"

Edward chuckled, "I am no member of such a league, I play to my own tune."

He smirked, "Conquest? Such a goal is pretty compared to my goals, I seek to strengthen the children of God so that they may inheret the earth, Humanity is strengthened through adversity and I plan to create as much chaos as I can so they humanity may be strong in the face of the unholy Rikti and win this war once and for all."

He chuckled, "The Priest is a man of God BUT while he goes about protecting those that are already strong enough to protect themselves, delivering sermons and preaching, the true path of worship is not in prayer nor just the healing of the sick but doing the Lords work on earth and making it the perfect place before the second coming arrives, saving as many sinners as I can...perhaps in time...all of Paragon could be saved, just like those that excepted my elixir of life, Gods salvation comes in many forms my dear...even death is a form of salvation..."

There we a grunt, a raise of a hand to haul himself out the concrete before it slumped over, the Troll was conscious but barely...definitely dealt with for now, it had taken too much of a pounding to think about moving just yet.

It seemed like these new Uber-Trolls had been satisfyingly dealt with around Paragon, a few hours of chaos kept contained. Most of the Trolls were either in custody or had fled down into the sewers, smashing anything in their path but for now contained.

In The Rogue Isles

Edward landed on the rooftop, looking over the woman that had called for him. He smiled slightly, "I swear you tried to kill me once..."

He gave a low bow, "so...what is it that you want?"

((remember Alpha, Pious is unconscious ))

The enraged Troll saw the person heading towards it, body was taking a pummelling from various other heroes, the healing factor just about covering it, in anticipation his muscle mass seemed to bulk up even more (Dull Pain) and he lunged at the glowing figure who approached him.

He traded several blows with little to no visible effect, he growled and roared in the beings face.

The last remaining uber-Troll stood his ground, though his skin seemed to soften, signifying he could no longer keep himself invulnerable but he was still a rage filled machine of destruction.

Ripping a large hunk of concrete out of the ground at anyone close enough to hit with it.

Meanwhile, around the city!
The tide had been halted, the limited supplies of the new improved Chronodyne had all been used up, these new trolls either retreated or were now unconscious and in police custody.

In the Rogue Isles
Edward leaned back, "that shall seperate the believer from the non-believers, thoughs who escaped I shall put messages through the criminal underground to come to the Isles so we can start their worship and training...the rest, well no doubt an antitdote for my drug will be found..."

He smiled, "still I have achieved my main goal, making Paragon City stronger through conflict, since that is the only way that Gods children will win this war with the Rikti...still...there is much to do, more plans to unleash."

The female Troll...now trapped in layers of rock made the one choice she had, using all her strength she kicked downwards, breaking enough room for her to drop down into the sewers that ran below Paragon City, a large section of which was under Kings Row and away into the dark...

((she's meant to escape, sorry, plotting and such))

The blow to the troll from Automobilised connected so hard the poor troll smashed into a wall, falling on the ground unconscious, six down, two to go. The other Uber-trolls decided that perhaps retreat was such a good idea. One of them told the others to go as they made for a quick escape, his muscles seem to ripple intensly, his eyes turning a pure black as he looked at the surrounding heroes, letting out a gutteral growl as he charged anyone who was close to him.

His skin turned as hard as rock, putting all his rage, his fear and his hatred into himself, condensing it down so it boiled inside of him.

(Rage, Instant Healing and Moment of Glory activated ))

Two of the eight were now down for the count.

Now the female troll, who seemed to be incharge did something that most trolls wouldn't think of doing...

"RETREAT, LEAVE DA CAPES, IT AINT WURF IT!"

She picked up a nearby car and hurled it at the collection of heroes, then tossed the street-sign she was holding at any nearby hero, pointy end first. She then began turning around and breaking into a run and heading for the nearest alleyway...this one obviously wasn't stupid, however unlike the female Troll...the others remained, leaving five to deal with the seemingly every increasing amount of heroes.

The grenade went off directly in the Uber-trolls face, sending him reeling and slumping on the floor, there was a groan as his hand moved for a moment before collapsing back onto the ground, four to go...

One of the remaining four slowly shook off the mental domination over him and saw a nearby cowering Skull gang member, grapping the skull gang member by his feet and attempting to use the poor criminal as a human club, whirling him around his head aiming at Pious who had just knocked out his 'friend'.

The others continued advancing on their targets.

One of the Trolls let out a long, loud crying howl which seems to shake the ground itself...though not an aggressive cry, this one was a cry for help...a cry for reinforcements.

The troll that had been pummelled seemed to suddenly kick back into consciousness and lifted himself off the ground.

The Troll woman grunts as her flesh and muscle seem to ripple, rapid healing kicking in as the wounds from the infernal heat blasts seemed to heal over. She began picked up a nearby S.W.A.T. team van and hurled it towards the nearest hero.

a few more Trolls joined the fray now, one for each available hero, answering the cry it's brethren had given out.

A few stood in their tracks, cowering in fear, it seemed to be the only obvious weakness, animals as they were fear was a major driving instinct, still the female Troll bellowed at them and wrenched a stop sign from the ground with ease, swinging at any hero within reach as an encouragement to the rest of her kin.

One took a full smack to the face from the glowing red fists of automobilised, this sending the Troll reeling and crumpling on the floor in a heap and unlike his other compatriot, he didn't get back up.

These weren't Freakshow, they were still creature of flesh and bone, knocking them unconscious seemed to do the trick...well some of then. Blunt trauma seemed more effective than bullets.

Meanwhile, all over the city

Reports continued to feed in from places throughout the city, the only places unaffected were the usual suspects (Dark Astoria, the Hollows etc.) and oddly Peregrine Island. The heroes were begining to stem the tied in other parts, there was only so much Chronodyne to go around so the number of uber-trolls was small but still devastating.

((Imagine an SS/Regen brute some of which HAVE specced revive and some haven't...and you have your powerlist))

By now the lumbering uber-trolls were closing in fast on the Police line, obviously not your every day trolls and one clearly able to be defined as a woman though still a hulking mass of muscle she had retained her more feminine features and slightly slimmer build.

"Smash'em!" came the cry from one of the Trolls, grabbing hold of a police car and flipping it over with ease, panicked the police fired at the four individuals but the shots seem to barely slow them down, bullet wounds appearing and then healing over in a matter of moments. The officers quickly barrelled aside by the Trolls, sending them flying in various directions, left with the heroes who had joined the officers.

"Beat da capes!"

The four trolls now closing in on any hero who had joined the police line...

someone scrabbled quickly, snatching the case while the skulls and the various others were distracted, looking around before injecting the syringe of the liquid into himself. He clutched his head, his body felt like it was on fire, his skin began to turn green, horns ripped through his forehead. His muscles began to bulk out, skin quivering as it continued to stretch to cover the rippling muscles as what use to be a man looked about the scene.

A mountain of muscle barely contained within the human form, rage unbridalled. He looked down to the case...tossing it to another vagrant near by...soon four of these green men mountains stood in the alleyway. Hearing the Sirens they begun to run towards them...

Meanwhile all over town!

By now reports were begining to flood in throughout Paragon of mass troll rampages, heroes were being called into assist the much bewildered police force, strangely the more notorious Troll hangouts were left untouched by the C-Dyne, the Doc knew from last time that the Trolls didn't like someone moving in on their territory so kept his plan strictly out of there range.

((sorry for the double post but any others interested...I know Raven isn't too keen on the forum RP))

(( a little OOC background info, through out the city are several locations marked by the Omega symbol. While the Trolls that would result from someone using the new C-Dyne it would merely be a level range bump as it were, instead of 5-15, they would be classified ingame as threat range 25-35, they're tougher, faster and heal a lot quicker than normal trolls. This variant also allows for muscle growth and strengthening but the body shape remains the same (normally at higher levels of dyne intake male and female trolls look the same, however with C-Dyne a woman would retain her female figure even if it was bulked out more). Where these marked points are is upto anyone since the Doc would distribute it quite widely so even a small amount got into the wrong hands)).

The location wouldn't be hard to find, though the streets were filled with civillians and gang bangers alike trying to find this new drug, the allure of immortality too hard to resist for the normal person.

However already a crowd had gathered around a group of skulls, a Bone Daddy standing on a box was yelling out to the crowd of skulls and citizens "Hey we got your Elixir right here folks, it's gonna cost you though, salvation always has a price, gonna say....hmm..hundred bucks a hit and I've only got so much to go around folks!"

4am aross Paragon City

Tv screens across paragon city flickered, white static slowly overriding the normal broadcast on all channels. A symbol appeared, a symbol which had since disappeared into myth from the time of its last use in Paragon City, the culprit seemingly pacified and repentant. Now the symbol of a skull infront of a cog flickered onto the screens once again.

An old man with grey skin, white hair wrapped up in a pony tail and a full white beard appeared on the screens, ready to broadcast his message to Paragon City.

"Citizens of Paragon, some of you may remember me as the villain Doctor Mechano, some of you may remember me as the heroic Doctor Edward Johnson. I was a hero until your justice system saw it fit to attempt to imprison me for heroic actions, saving the lives of many with the deaths of a few of the criminal elements," He took in a deep breath and let out a soft sigh.

"If you shall treat me like a villain Paragon City then that is what I shall become again, though no mere villain content with causing chaos and panic, no, my goals are far more lofty and far more heroic than some of your so called heroes would dare dream of!"

In the background could be seen through the slightly blurry video footage a large laboratory of test tubes, beakers, condensors and the like glinted in the poor lighting, a green fluid stored and flowing through them all.

"You see I have decided that as the Lord commands, the meek shall inheret the earth, you're society is founded on strength and unity and yet you let the area known as Kings row to remain a slum?! You let people starve on the streets, fall prey to the gangs and organisations which pick off these stragglers...to this I say no more!"

He slowly picked up a vial of the green fluid, "some of you may remember my most infamous of inventions, Chronodyne...or C-dyne as you young'uns call it. I have refined this drug so that it is more potent, I have created the very elixir of life itself...take this and you will be forever young and forever beautiful, you shall be strong enough to fight those that oppresse you, search for the symbol of the Omega and there you shall find enough of this elixir to make you and all your friends demi-gods among humanity. Go my brothers and sisters of the new flock, go and find this elixir that you may be strong, that you would nolonger be meek, inheret this city and then THE EARTH!"

The transmission ends with the same symbol before cutting off, channels returning to normal once the static fades.

Sorry for laying into you Shockwave but if I had laid into the PvP community with the same kind of post you made I would fully expect people like yourself or Globey to be jumping on me and defending PvP with as much if not more spirit than I would defend the RP community.

The fact you specifically picked the RP community to have a go at irked me somewhat so of course I lept to their defense, the PvP/RP community relations aren't exactly on a high note, both minorities and both wanting very different things from the game often leading to clashes and neither understanding the others mindset.

Anyway I apologise again for leaping on you like that.

Back on topic:
Mildly miffed the storyline they've been building up to (the whole Coming storm thing) is still 8 months+ away, been waiting a long time for that story to come to fruition. Personally I'd rate this issue based on what we know a 6-7/10 it's good but it's not the 'omgwtfbbq' kind of Issue we were promised way back with the release of Issue 12 and the questions of Issue 12 being somewhat light.

I get the feeling that with the VEATs in Issue 13 (since they were brought forward) the Issue would feel definitely larger than it does.

Shockwave had a point though, the majority of people WONT play the mission creator non-dev choice missions, why play a mission that's got a great story but barely gives any rewards when you can play a normal paper mission that has no story but gives much higher reward in xp/inf?

Those of us that do play for the story are probably in the minority to be honest.

I suspect some will play the Mission creator purely to get the badges associated with it, as happens with Oroborous but in general after the initial flurry the casual player, that is one that plays, knows what they're doing but doesn't visit the forums, doesn't use Mids build designer, plays for a couple of hours a week. Those are the people you want to entice into the Mission Creator and with the reduce rewards people are just going to ignore it.

Anyway.

Day jobs: Free badges, definitely not complaining about that.

Multiple builds: Night Widow/Fortunata here I come and great for PvPers.

PvP/PvE power balancing: Means those pesky powers in PvP which are overpowered will get tuned down while still remaining powerful in PvE, this should have been done back when PvP was introduced and it's a shame it's taken so long to get it right but atleast it's here now.

Levelling Pact: Interesting, shame my mate that I was levelling with quit the game due to lack of time but I can see it being useful, the fact that it slows down the XP rate for whoevers on means it's not a very useful PLing tool (why suffer a big loss when you can do it probably twice as fast using a farm map and a sidekick to 45).

Wondering what all the new costumes etc. are as well.

I actually enjoyed it more when the mobs stuck around during the invasion, simply because the Rikti would aggro anything and everything around them.

Remember playing one on villainside, fighting off a small invasion force to see several Rikti fly past me, turn around and they'd aggroed a Deathsurge who was taking them apart with glee...I fled the scene knowing once he was finished with the Rikti, that Deathsurge would come after me since I was just that tad too close to him.

Oh and this regarding the levelling Pact from Pohsyb on the US forums.

[ QUOTE ]
Here is the gist of how this works, when players enter the leveling pact (level 5 and below) their experience is all flattened to whoever was the lowest. Any incoming experience to any member is effectively split by the member count of the pact (which we are limiting to 2 initially). From that point foward, all members will have the exact same experience and always be the exact same level. If player A logs out and lets player B do all the work, it will take player B twice as long.

The reason I wanted this is because I've started other games with a group of friends, only to have our tight-knit party fall apart because of differing levels of commitment. I imagine I'm not the only person to create an alt for every combination of friends. Hopefully the 2 person pact won't have any serious problems and we will be able to expand it to full team size.

[/ QUOTE ]

on another point we definitely need new mission types and maps, when a wee whippersnapper of a player back when I was 3 months into playing this game can predictable guess which map variation it is of a map type within a couple of minutes ("oh..so we got a t-junction here, this means it's office map A1" or "ooh a long straight corridor at the start this means it's office map A2") then we are desperately in need of new maps and tilesets.

With regards people not caring for XP but enjoying new storys, the XP is a byproduct of enjoying the story, it's that you're not simply paying attention to it as you're playing through the story. You ARE playing for the storylines but by that very nature, you're gaining XP.

The only time I well and truly care about XP is right at the start to get past the god awful slog from 1-20 (with new characters, there truly is only so many times you can do the opening hero missions) and at 45-50, when the end is nearly in sight and no cool powers are in sight either.

With regards the reduce XP:

You do have a point though. The main reason for the reduced XP was because Positron "didn't want people to 'wade through farm missions to try and find a decent, normal mission" perhaps it would have been better to keep the XP at a normal rate but simply have it so you could 'tag' missions, one such tag being 'farm' another 'story' another 'survival' (where wave after wave of increasingly stronger bad guys come at you (like Terra volta but the spawns get harder) and you have to fend them off).

This way people could search with several filters (so 'Farm' 'level 20-30' etc.).

[ QUOTE ]
You could be wrong there, to a lot of people xp is fun.

[/ QUOTE ]

I just play the game to relax, smack the hell out of bad guys, sure getting XP and advancing is the main point of the game and it is fun (though once I hit level 40 it seems like too much of a grind for me..but that is fun).

Still if I did grind constantly I'd be bored with the game a hell of a lot quicker than normal, sometimes I find it fun to take things slow or find a good team.

I can understand the mindset but it really isn't for me.

Having 50's is great but there is nowt to do with them once you get there, sure there's the high level Taskforces and badging (but badging is just grinding most of the time). Since I don't like grinding I never make enough inf to fully IO set out a character so that's out the window.

Still if the game does bore someone as much as Shockwave is getting across, or atleast seems to suggest, then a break would be advisable, all things bore/sicken you if your overdose on it (apart from drugs, which kill you).

To be honest as said earlier the claims of Issue 13 being a 'massive Issue' do seem to be less and less true as time goes on.

to be honest Shockwave, you are coming across as a bit of an [censored].

Dude, seriously if the game bores you THAT FREAKING MUCH stop playing for a while, give it a couple of months break, wait for the new issue (which you think is rubbish anyway it seems so perhaps not).

It looks like you're just terribly bored with the game, 'the whole been there, done that' approach and to be honest I'm in the same boat.

Yes I've been only playing the game 18 months but I do need a month or so away from it every now and then to keep the game fresh, it's why I'm playing WAR now.

As Dave said, most people play this game for fun not just 'XP XP XP!' that's why you're bored of the game, everything is grind, grind, grind.

You know what, PvP in this game bores me to hell and back but you don't see me slagging off the PvP community because it's not MY particular joy...they like PvP so good on them and it's nice to see the devs are starting to realise that PvP may have been a tacked on thing but is still quite important now it's in the game.

The other key factor and what makes up a very very very large chunk of their subscribers is the Koren market.

The Korens love grindtastic MMOs (which WoW has a lot of elements of, grind for repuation with factions, the grind for gear etc), they love everyone looking roughly the same with no individuality in sight (something which CoH has the opposite philosphy of while WoW has the tier armour sets which encourage people to all look alike in the end). They love everything loot based as well (which WoW hinges on).

The reason CoH failed over there was because it was neither grindtastic nor had loot at the time and everyone was encouraged to look as individualistic as they could.

Take away the Koren market and you've lost 60%+ of WoW's subscribers and brings it down to a still gigantic 3.6 million subcribers but then that would be primarily thanks to it being the most heavily marketed and hyped MMO in history.

((made of pure awesome...well done Ravenswing ))

hmm...just thought I'd let people know...self-destruct cannot be stopped..at all.

Was just testing it on my newly created AR/NRG blaster...she died before self-destruct went off HOWEVER...the whole lightning, steaming hissing AND explosion (missing graphics on the explosion) still went off but my body remained.

Very odd...looks like it can't be stopped no matter what.

Yes I bought the Cyborg pack for the simple reason I just love having all the costume pieces, made the above character 4 times until I settled on what I liked, decided to use just Cyborg upper arms, Cyborg shield shoulders, Cyborg gloves and cyborg boots from the set to give it a more...well..cyborg feel.

The entire set together doesn't really look Cyborg, looks more battle suit/power armourish in my opinion but hey the pieces are still very pretty.

heh no problem, glad I could somewhat...even if PRAF helped more...

hmm they should be under Chest detail, like the enforcer armour/samurai armour/roman armour etc.