Golden Girl

What time will the UStream chat be at?

From the info we have so far, I think there'll be at least 4 more Praetorian Trials - Anti-Matter, Hamidon, Mother Mayhem and Tyrant - but it's possible they could add more if they're intending to give all the Praetors a Trial to star in, either solo or as a duo.

You were scooped by the offical announcent section:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...82#post3598082

Not really - it's just using what we've seen and read so far, plus some logic and guesswork

For example, Incarnate trial maps seem to use water as part of the map border - like the BAF is on an island, Anti-Matter's reactors are on an island, Lambda Sector has a moat around it, and the concept art for Mother Mayhem's asylum seems to show that it's either by a lake or the sea, or is also on an island - and as the Magisterium is also surrounded by a moat, contains Tyrant's tower, and is the heart of his empire, it seems like a good place to fight him.

Story-wise, we know that Tyrant is giving himself over to the Well, but visuals-wise, it might seem a slight let-down to fight Tyrant, a normal sized NPC, as the climax of the Praetorian war - having him transform into some kind of cosmic figure overflowing with the Well's power would be a more spectatcular visual climax - and the devs have already shown with the ITF that the idea of defeating an AV who then retreats and gets a cosmic buff and visual transformation before the final fight is a plotline they're not totally unaware of

The lava lair as the place for the final fight also makes for a strong visual theme, where be confront Tyrant in a setting that's closer to hell than the "paradise" he's created above ground, and has a very neat tie-in with the setting where we first encountered Tyrant all those years ago on the original MJ arc.

AV fights will always invole some tanking and spanking, as AVs are designed to be a match for a whole team - if the AV is replaced with 8 Bosses/EBs, the team won't engage in an epic brawl of 8 one-on-one fights, they'll just gank the bossses one at a time.
Even with multiple AVs, like in the 3rd and 4th ITF missions, teams just concentrate their combined firepower on one, while weakening the others with AoEs - a team will always be strongest when it's focusing on one target.
Making AV fights more complex would start forcing teams to have certain ATs to be successful.

Apart from the recent discovery of the reward problems, the reception for the Trials has been overwhelmingly positive, which is awesome.
The devs are onto a winner with the style and format they've come up with for the endgame system.

The Galaxy Girl statue and its little park should be placed behind City Hall, and the Freedom Corps building should be located under City Hall

Talking of the Olympian Guard and the lava lair on the Maria Jenkins arc, I think that while Tyrant might wear that armor at first on the Trial we fight him on, he might transform in some way later on, by opening himself up completely to the power of the Well.
Like at first we might fight at the Magisterium, defeating mobs until Tyrant come sout of his tower to face us - after we beat him down, he uses a portal in the tower to retreat to his lava lair, which is linked to the Well, according to the MJ arc, and then we have to follow him there, just in time for a cutscene where he lets the Well totally take him over, transforming him into a more cosmic form.
He might also have all his Praetors with him, plus reinforcement spawns of Olympian Guards.

I think it's untradable, if it's an Incarnate item.

Maybe they'll use all 10 Incarnate slots as part of their powers?

The Well gives Tyrant and his minions Incarnate power - which is shaped to fit the people it empowers - giving a Clockwork increased psychic power for example, wouldn't help as it has no psychic power to increase - so a Clockwork would receive the power in a way that would boost it in the most efective way - like increasing its firepower and strengthening its armor.
When that Clockwork is defeated, the Incarnate power it had returns to the Well, but keeps the "pattern" it had while it was empowering the Clockwork - and an incarnate player, who's linked to the Well, can then draw out that pattern for their own use - and a Seer gets empowered by the Well in a a different way to boost her powers, so when she's defeated the Incarnate power in her returns to the Well in a pattern that matches her.
All the Lore pets are "imprints" - they're manifestations of Incarnate power that take the shape of the person or machine that the power was used on.

Current game mechanics turned up to 11 in a Trial could mean that we get an escort/protect phase in one Trial - maybe even with Fusionette AI for the NPCs we're guarding

I'm skipping Judgement until there's a physical attack tree, like stamping your foot or punching the ground