Jophiel

I'm not those people. I'm speaking for me. Hell, make the end of the Cole line be that he loses if it's that worrying to you. It's not as though "victory" as a villain Red Side ever results in you moving your futon and hotpot into the Freedom Corps building or making Recluse your chauffeur. Have Cole lose, you get to grab a choice prize from the rubble of his failure and you're good.

Edit: Even this is essentially trying to help the developers out of a situation they made for themselves. I don't know if the answer is to extend the 1-20 content but the problem remains that the Incarnate Praetorian content is boring and uninspiring.

Easiest solution would be to not have the TF end in complete resolution. A TF to take over Atlas Park or something rather than a TF to destroy the whole world.

Will Atlas Park be conquered later? Nope. No more than Steel Canyon is in burning rubble after you complete Apex. But battle lines move back and forth and a "reclaiming" of Atlas can be handwaved in as easily as the continued Rikti invasions around Miss Liberty.

Do you think we're arguing on this point? I said that the idea of "dueling TFs" or an open-ended conflict where you can side with Cole doesn't bother me because MMORPGs don't usually resolve stuff anyway so why should I be upset about two TFs with conflicting "endings"?

I don't like Praetoria because it's cliche. For Positron saying it wouldn't just be Evil Goatee Earth, it feels exactly like that. Evil Statesman and the Evil Freedom Phalanx. Zoinks! Back Alley Brawler here is against drugs but the one in Praetoria is actually making them! How topsy-turvey is that?? The setting is different but that only matters form 1-20. After that, they might as well come from Bizarro Paragon City where black is white and penguins live at the north pole.

Compounding this, Cole is the least interesting incarnation of Statesman. Statesman as Uber-Nazi or Statesman as Roman Emperor? That at least feelsl like you're mixing it up a little. Statesman as jerkier Statesman? Meh. No one likes Statesman anyway (speaking as a player, not a character) so who cares if it's Statesman as a bigger jerkbag? He's boring. And, while you can at least ignore the "He's really alternate Statesman" aspect while squashing Nazis and Romans if you like, Praetoria takes "He's EVIL Statesman!" and rubs your nose in it over and over like you're a puppy being blamed for someone else's mistake. "See?! Evil Positron?? That's because he's led by EVIL Statesman!!" Again: Statesman is boring. The only way I'm going to care about a Statesman-themed story is if there's something interesting on the fringes. Evil Freedom Phalanx isn't it. The Roman stuff was interesting. Reichsman's TF at least had some amusing AVs (and it's only one TF; not issue after issue after issue about ReichsWorld). I don't feel it for Praetoria. Early Praetoria has some interesting hooks and gimmicks; Post-20 Praetoria is dull.

That's my thoughts anyway since you asked for someone to express them. Your milage obviously may vary and I'm not out to convince you and if you love it then that's great but, at the same time, no one has convinced me that it's worth following.

It means that "ending" the war is meaningless and unresolved. As evidenced by the piles of invading Rikti running around Miss Liberty several times a week.

Rather than go in circles with you I'll just agree with you and say that Praetoria now is every bit as boring and Evil Goatee Earth as it has ever been. Don't let it be said I'm not willing to meet you half way

On one hand, I would say that nothing ever really gets "resolved" in these games anyway. The Rikti keep invading, Recluse keeps hanging around and each AV you capture in the Jenkins missions gets a "But the Zig won't hold him for long!" Resolution isn't a strong point of MMORPGs anyway and competing TFs or whatever aren't any worse than "Insta-Repaired" Steel Canyon and the like.

On the other hand, if the developers boxed themselves in with a poorly plotted line where they can't resolve it leading to the game's detriment, that's not really my fault or my problem. Personally, I think the continued near exclusive focus on Praetoria for issue after issue is to the game's detriment but I'm not really out to convince GG or you of this but rather just expressing my opinions. Hey, maybe a developer will even read it and take note. One can hope...

*Shrug* I disagree. I'm not really worried about convincing you, I'll just play until I get bored enough with the content to stop playing. Really, the best thing I could take from your statement is that they ARE the same and 1-20 content is even more shallow and dull than I thought. I'm certainly not going to take this to mean that Incarnate Praetorian content is actually fascinating stuff because I'm not fascinated.

The problem with that is that I'm not at war with them. My character might be, but I'm not. So while my character could potentially not care about their motivations, etc, I do. And there's nothing compelling for me, the player -- the guy who has to actually read the text and press the buttons -- about Praetoria past level 20 when they become generic bad guys. They're boring at that point, even more boring than some villain groups who we've had since Issue 0 because they still just come across as cheesy Evil Goatee Earth.

Dante got it in one. In 1-20 Praetoria, you can work with the Loyalists. You're also given options and choices beyond "Rrwar! Must kill Praetorians!" Post level 20, that option is completely gone regardless of what you've done up until level 20.
You can speak to them, agree with them and work with them versus them being little more than AV farm fodder.

Past level 20 on Gold side? Yeah, it is. "Look! All the heroes from your world... but they're EVIL! Rrwar! They're going to destroy the world! Rrwar! Every story is now about Evil Heroes From Evil World coming to destroy you!"

Is it any deeper than that? Do you run the new Jenkins arc or Apex or whatever thinking "Wow, what nuanced characters with complex motivations?" Not really. It's Evil Goatee Earth with a slightly different backstory but ends up being Evil Goatee Earth all the same.

So it's nothing more than Evil Goatee Earth.

This is what everyone who's sick of Evil Goatee Earth is saying so I'm not sure where there's any argument. I was responding to Blue_Mourning's assertion that Praetoria 2.0 is somehow "deeper" than before. That's only true from 1-20 Gold side. Anywhere else and it's still as generic as you can get... "Yes, but it's EVIL Synapse!"

You're getting Old Citadel. Enjoy!

"New" Praetoria is only interesting when you're actually doing the Praetorian thing and forced to think that maybe there's a legitimate reason for Cole doing what Cole does.

Once you leave Praetoria and get into the "real" world, it's just "Rrwar! Cole! Evil! Rrwar! Evil BABS! Evil Positron! Rrwarr! Evil Valkyrie! Evil Sister Psyche! Rrwarr! Stop them from destroying all you love! Rrwarrr!!!!" and any depth is immediately blown away by Goatee Universe once more.

(A) I'm not really a superhero
(B) I view CoX as one game so a new zone is a new zone and a revamp is a revamp. I don't need to keep score.

I want to know where she hangs out so I can hang out there and get free buffs. Like Mousedroid said, the only time I get a fortune is when I start the chain.

It's now a Praetorian Guard or something like that. Anyway, it's no longer Tyrant.