Golden Girl

But that would be ignoring traditional feminine clothing options, and limiting girls to refitted versions of male outfits, which would be totally sexist - that's why the devs are in a difficult position with these costume packs - whatever choice they make will still get them called out on a lack of equality, even though there's a lack of equality in clothing choices for women and men in the real world, and no one really complains about it.

That's the major problem - in real life, women wear anything, but men limit themselves to a much smaller choice of clothing types, which means that there aren't reall any clothes that are almost exclusively male, but there are plenty that are almost exclusively female, and that influences how people make their costumes in the game, and how the devs make the costume pieces.
For example, if there are some cool pants for the guys, then plenty of people will ask for them to be available for the girls too - but if there's a new skirt for females, hardly anyone will ask for it to be made available for males too - or if there's a shirt for guys, the girls will want it too, but if there's a corset, hardly any guys will want it - which means that costume part "equality" actually requires women to get twice as many parts as men, so something like the Gunslinger pack would need one male gunslinger outfit, one female gunslinger outfit, and the saloon girl outfit - or if there's a medieval pack, they'd need to make one knight outfit for men, one knight outfit for women, oplus a damsel/princess outfit for the women.
The lack of female versions of some of the male costume parts are probably a misguided attempt at being fair, and giving both genders an even amount of parts with each pack.

There will be another path

I was going to suggest that

For bases? That'd make a nice change from the creepy/peasant options we have now

Well, that's one obvious way of clearing the DE

I think that depends on how they're unlocked - like if the unlocking is based on something quite challenging - like getting a Shivan when you solo the meteorites and gun turrets/bunker, then the unlock becomes an achievement, and the NPC helper is just a bonus from that achievement.

There's also the balance problems that having such a large selection of powers causes - like they have to make content that's more challenging that the current level 50 content, but not so challenging that some ATs and power sets won't be able to solo it, otherwise that could have the effect of some of those players feeling that the game was telling them they had the "wrong" build or AT to solo with.
Trapdoor and Hero 1 on the Mender Ramiel arc are good examples of boss encounters that are easy for some people, but almost imposisble fro others.

AV teleport ambushes so you can't even see them coming?

If you go to about 31:45 of the UStream broadcast from SDCC a few months ago, Statesline gets some unintentional airtime from Zwillinger and Black Pebble

It's for safety - it means that no one sees it by accident

I don't think that Statesman is the main object of Tyrant's love:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...&postcount=419

It'd only be a retcon if the original arc repalced Tyrant with a clone.

Actually, that's not a retcon - the original arc still happened - it's even mentioined during the new arc.

The Well of the Furies does that.

The Well isn't the only way

Well, Blue Steel will be featuring in the new DA content, so we might learn more about him there - like maybe he's an Incarnate?

Plus, they've confirmed that we'll confront Tyrant, so that's at least 8 Trials that are live, in beta or known to be coming - and as DD doesn't seem to be directly connected to the Praetorian war storyline, I think that there might be at least one more in between MoM and the Tyrant Trial, especially as there have been quite a few in game hints about us having to face the Praetorian Hamidon to prove our superiority over Tyrant to the people of Praetoria.

Seven

It's not a device - it's the will of Tyrant, empowered by the Well to give him control over the cosmic forces of Incarnate power - just think of it as the CoH version of the Lord of the Nazgûl's ability to terrify and weaken his enemies at the same time as driving his soldiers into a battle frenzy, or Sauron's will being strong enough to govern an entire realm and command all his forces, and cause even the light of the Phial of Galadriel to fail in the heart of Morder - they were both basically just buffing thier own sdie and debuffing their enemies

For a start, he's the only person prepared to serve the Well on its terms, and he's the only person not to put a limit on his power or how he uses it.

She doesn't feature in FW, and might still be a prisoner if loyalists handed her over to Chimera during the 1-20 GR content - although the devs seem to be preapred to chose which of the moral choices in GR are the correct ones - for example, during Katie's GR arc, there's a moral choice at the end to free her and some other Seers, or to recapture her to protect the Seer network - but in FW, it's assumed that freeing her was the choice that was made, and as it was the Ressiatnce choicie, that fits with the meta-storyline, so they might use Belladonna in the future, and just go with the Resistance option of the moral choice she's involved in, so she wouldn't have been handed over to Chimera.

He's used the Well to empowered his whole army - which is why the Admiral Sutter TF seems so weird level-wise - it's presented as a part of the Praetorian invasion, but it's put in the 20-40 level range, which doesn't make sense at all for Primal Earth or Praetoria - even if you play it at 40, you still get Maria Jenkins 5 levels later talking about the possibility of the Praetorian invasion - and for Praetorians, it comes firectly after they escape to Primal Earth at 20 - which leavs no gap at all between Marchand telling loyalists that's there's a chance they could stop the invasion and the invasion actually starting.
Without Sutter, the story flows logically from 1-50 for Primals and Praetorians - Primals get some interaction with Praetorian scouts during the ongoing training missions 5-20, then the option for First Ward at 20-30, which has no mention of the invasion in it, then 40-45 with Tina Macintyre and 45-50 with Maria Jenkins, both with heavy foreshadowing of the invasion, then the Apex Incanrate and Tin Mage TFs for the invasion, followed by the Trials for our counterattack - Praetorians follow the same path, except that the 1-20 GR content replaces the 5-20 ongoing training missions.

Although the TFs and Trials can be played in any order, the correct story sequence is Apex, Tin Mage, BAF, Lambda, Keyes, UG, TPN, MoM.