Jophiel

Just a note, but the lighting in Pocket D kind of sucks for costume contests. A lot of costumes look best in direct "sunlight" and it never gets nearly that bright in Pocket D. RWZ (outside in the compound) would work better for a cross-faction event from a lighting standpoint if not a convenience one.

Rather than rescuing people from a building, some sort of theft operation or smash & grab at a museum, weapons lab, whatever? I'm sure they could think of something.

Blow the tree up with bombs so everyone will know that Cole can't protect helpless stuck kittens.

Assault rifle will get that cat down.

I like the game just fine or else I wouldn't pay $16/mth to play it. I don't think that voicing opinions about the game somehow negates that or that any posts that aren't fluffy puppies are "whining" or "complaining".

Like I said, I'm just playing a game. My nicey-nice characters work Warden/Responsibility. My mean ones work Crusader/Power. I don't feel bad as a player about feeding PPD to ghouls or Seer bombs. And, ultimately, every path leads to the same portal to Primal Earth anyway so there's no consequence except in your mind.

No, but it's only a matter of time before Calvin Scott decides that the best way to show how evil Cole is would be to blow up the sonic barrier and leave a trail of kidnapped infants leading up to City Hall for Hamidon to follow.

Never played Exteel but DR never had a cash shop; you either played the gimped free version or the open subscription version. Given everything else they tried (hello shoe commercials at log out!), I'm surprised they never tried selling rainbows directly or whatever.

Or you could take ownership for your words instead of insisting now that they don't count. Whichever.

Really, what started this was your bizarre assertion that players who side with the Loyalists strike fear into your heart about how real world dictators come into power while simultaneously saying that the Warders don't go far enough and acts of plain, overt terrorism are completely justified, slaughtering untold numbers of innocent civilians en masse under the guise of giving them their freedom.

From a game perspective, I couldn't care less. I might object from a story standpoint but I don't play MMORPGs to deeply explore my moral psyche. I don't assume anyone playing Resistance is a terrorist nor that anyone playing Loyalist is a fascist. But since you brought the real world into it and started applying people's in-game choices to the real world, I find your beliefs as troubling as you say you find those of others.

Play the game? Beat up Resistance on Character A and send explosive-rigged ghouls to tear up the PPD on character B? While I think both sides are horrid from a moral standpoint, I'm not playing the game as a moral litmus test and grab whatever missions sound the most fun. Personally, my favorite is the explosive ghoul arc.

Of course. It's not as though he has a flock of brainwashed superheroes running his missions for him and proclaiming how he's a great guy compared to that Cole character.

No, I made an argument for not being worse than the monster you're trying to defeat. You're arguing that it's okay so long as the monster is defeated.

Ironically, you said you wondered how these people got into power. I guess now we know.

Yeah, if he ever "grudgingly" took up the mantle of Ruler after winning (just during these transitional times, of course...), it would be the first time in history that ever happened.

No, I condemn both without excusing the actions of a mass murderer who is no better in spirit, only lacking in means and power.

So you have two utterly evil groups, the one you like less you've decided is "eviler" and so the "less evil" one is in the right.

Yeah. Lesser of two evils still leaves you with a whole lot of evil. But good job defending slaughtering a pile of innocent civilians in a pure and simple terrorism plot to prevent a guy from keeping those civilians alive and oppressed. Of course, if they had preferred to be dead over oppressed, they could have done that themselves. You've just ripped that choice away from them though and used them as pawns for your own gains, huh? Wow... soooo much better than Cole!

Depending on previous actions and how the conversation tree goes, Scott then admits that the Syndicate came up with the plan and Scott's great regret is... that he didn't think of it. Blowing up a civilian target not because of any military value but purely to terrorize the civilians of Praetoria.

So there's the guy leading the other side who is so much better than Cole. A man who wants to bomb a hospital, slaughtering untold numbers of civilians, who helps plant bombs outside to increase the civilian death toll and whose only misgiving about it is that he didn't think of this plan himself. Oh, but he's not evil because Cole is "eviler".

One of the first mission arcs on the Loyalist side has you finding and defusing bombs from around and inside around Cole Memorial. That's a hospital filled with innocent civilians.

In regards to the outside bombs, you're told:
Them bombs, they weren't gonna send much of a message. At worst, they bought us time. At best, they were gonna increase the body count

About the ones inside, Scott tells you:
The people need to see that Cole is fallible, that Cole is just a man. A blow to the hospital would show that Cole can't protect the people from everything.

Even as an undercover Resistance agent, the hospital doesn't blow up because of any moral change-of-heart but only because Doublebarrel gets in trouble and Scott wants to keep you undercover.

Still okay though, right?

Need to bomb more hospitals if you want to do it right.

Whatever problems the 1-20 content has*, they're not Cole. Much like Statesman in Paragon City, Cole is fine while you don't have to deal with him much. It's when he becomes the leader of a big invasion that dominates the entire storyline that Cole falls flat as a person of interest.

*I think the 1-20 content is great the first time around but subsequent playings show the limitations of a system where all roads have to lead to Rome. Any one of the paths on its own is great; future revelations that none of it really matters (esp. the 'undercover' stuff) takes away a bit of the shine.

Maybe, but there's legitimate reasons to want to work with Cole even after the "Golly, what a monster!" reveal. Well, one major legitimate reason and that's power. Cole needs people to run the bureaucracy and that means plenty of opportunities for power and wealth even if you're not the guy on top. Heck, I could easily see a red side villain thinking "Pffttt... why not turn on Earth and join this guy and get a gig overseeing Brazil draped in wealth?"

Not everyone wants or needs the whole pie, just a big enough slice to keep them fat and happy.