LightSide

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And, if they're not right now, mines should be targetable and susceptible to knockback.

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Are Trip Mines even visible to the opponent in PvP?

That would seem to defeat their purpose... who would step on them if you could see them?

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Thank you Manti. So the debate ends. Manticore didn't found the group and most likely just inspired it. Very interesting.

Um, that's not what he said.

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Manticore did say he funded the group.

Manticore did not say he founded the group.

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Okay, at the risk of it just being my computer, I have to ask :
What the hell happened to this thread? It was well into the double digits last time I came by, and now it's down to two.

Even a redname post promising a site update about Longbow has disappeared! In fact, before this post, the 'last post' link pointed to a post by Cipher. No longer reachable.

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Ya this thread poofed alot away. My replies as worthless as they normally are, are also gone...

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My post about the perils to the 4th estate in Paragon City and the disappeared journalists was itself disappeared. Sad irony.

/e flees to the Rogue Isles

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I'm suprised those Minigun-toting Longbow Girls don't also have Super Strength attacks. You gotta be superhumanly strong to actually hold and fire a minigun without getting knocked into the next room from the recoil, not to mention all the ammo and batteries you have to carry.

(Yes, miniguns are not infantry weapons. They are vehicle mounted guns, even in Predator and Terminator 2 they had a hidden power cable and were using reduced-powder blanks for when they shot the scenes featuring the minigun.)

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Hellllooo?

I don’t know about that high-falutin book-learning stuff you’re flapping on about up there, but I saw Arnold on the TeeVee using one of those mini guns things you’re going on about and he didn’t have no power cable doohickey thing plugged in to it. And I could tell by the way the alien blew right up that it weren’t no blanks he was firing. Reducerated powder my sweet a... Were you even watchin the same movie?? And I know that if I did a few curls with them weights I could be as strong as Arnold. So ifn you got it in your head that I couldn’t shoot no mini gun, I think I just done proved I could. Not meaning to start a feud or nothing but sometimes you gots to use logically directed thinking there, son.

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So, after issue 5 comes and slashes defenses, and issue 6 comes and slashes defenses more, we still have toggle-dropping, and that discontent is boiling over.

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Err, you've stopped typing that you're not bitter....

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Yea, sometimes it can get confusing. For example:
A even level SO DefBuff Enhancer does NOT buff your Def by 20%. It increases your DefBuff power by 20%. If you have a 10% DefBuff from a power and you put that enhancer in it, you do NOT get a 30% DefBuff (your 10 plus the enhancer's 20). You get a 14% DefBuff (your 10 plus 20% of that 10).

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That's the part which seems really counter-intuitive to me. And if I understand correctly it’s the same way for defense buffs, accuracy, everything that’s a percent.

The increase being discussed is applied to the percent of whatever the power itself provides, not to the actual power effect.

So if I have 50% defense and I get a SO that increases defense by 30%, me (being inane) would think that my defense is now 80%.

But my defense is now the original 50% plus (50% * 30%) or a new defense level of 65%. 65% is a lot less than 80%.

@ _Castle_ it would be really nice if somewhere on the enhancement screen it showed what the values people are actually concerned about (total adjusted power value) really are. Part of the mouse-over or anywhere.

Having enabled the mouse-over showing what the individual incremental improvement is, players who understand CoX math can figure this out by mousing over all the appropriate powers, but those of us who find the wording of the CoX math to be counter-intuitive or those players who don’t read the forums a lot can be left with a very wrong impression.

<sob> Won’t someone think of the casual gamer??

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I like being able to participate with the community in a meaningful manner. I was on the boards as a fan within days after they went up a few years back and got used to posting on ocassion.

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ZMOG! _Castle_ was Puffy Shirt?!?

/e falls over

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And also storage...we are going to need it ..

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No joke. The first thing my wife looks at in new houses is the closet space.

Can't believe that there is no where to store salvage, let alone places to store or pool inspirations and infamy. It's a *base* for goodness sake. Perhaps there's a game design reason that I don't know or maybe the issue is with my expectations, but a base without storage functionality? Not much of a base.

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Is 20 the limit for each type of salvage in someone's inventory? And are you saying we can deposit salvage in a worktable in our base? I assume that's the only option to "deposit" salvage somewhere?

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It sounds like he is saying you can convert the salvage into some basic component called "raw material" which (maybe?) is actually stored at/ on/ in the workbench??

I was really, really surprised when my SG told me there was no way to drop off salvage at a cental location in the base so other people who actually want to be crafters to use. There are no cupboards, pantries, or storage area in the entire base?? My dad's workbench had a bunch of lumber below it and lots of nails/ screws/ supplies on pegboard all around it.

I'm not interested in spending my time crafting and I don't want to make or place something at isn't doesn't fit in the grand design scheme. I would much rather be running missions and playing that part of the game. So from my perspective, I think it's too bad that the workbench does not have a big inventory section where you can drop of salvage for other people in your SG (like... the architect maybe?) to craft away. People in my SG log on at all manner of bizarre times and trading this stuff around (assuming it can be traded) is going to be a big pain.

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I just tested all the Ninja Blade powers.

Sting of the Wasp: Enhancement worked as expected.
Gambler's Cut: Enhancement worked as expected.
Flashing Steel: Enhancement worked as expected.
Divine Avalanche: Enhancement worked as expected.
Soaring Dragon: Enhancement worked as expected.
Golden Dragonfly: Enhancement worked as expected.

Looks like it is working properly. If you can find a specific instance where it does NOT, PM me -- but make certain it is reproducable, please.

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Hah hah hah - In addition to wasting time in the forums, I did a few excel spreadsheets, prepared a powerpoint presentation and wrote a memo at my work today.

Who do *you* think has the funner job?

Err, wait, nobody answer that please.

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I find that as I level more and more it gets harder not to AS those lone bosses you see outside on your way to your missions. I guess this would be a kin to the whole brutes got to smash everything in site thing. I think 1 shotting a boss outside of a mission is like greatest rush to me.

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Yeessss. <shudder> Oh yeeeeessssss.

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I've put a Halloween Avatar up....

This year, I'm a pirate!

No! I'm a dolphin!

No! I'm a cat!

No! I'm a Bunny Playing DDR!

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I think your avatar is absolutely great. Is that so wrong?

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Well, to be quite truthful, invading the United States to "liberate" known criminals would be considered an act of war.

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I take it you are referring to the recent incident which occurred at the Zig?

If so, I’m glad you brought it up. Earlier I did want to touch on the dangers it dramatically highlighted but thought those were actually tangential to the main body of my original message.

The Zig clearly showed how very, very dangerous it is to live in a City where the 4th estate has been taken over by one group of recklessly powerful people and where reporters cannot publish in journalistic freedom.

When honest reporters like Jackson Turner can be “disappeared” to vanish without a trace because they anger the “powers that be” and when a Psychic can read & control the very minds of those who dissent or who have different opinions, then the only story that gets out is the story that the Statesman wants you to hear.

Ask the people who were there what really happened. A force of Longbow, an assassination squad, attacked the Zig causing mass chaos & panic. They were blowing the place up with explosives, firing their guns indiscriminately into the crowds, and were turning a house of incarceration in to a slaughterhouse. Fleeing citizens reported hearing them say “kill anyone that might grow into a threat the Statesman.”

Do those convicted deserve to spend their allotted time behind bars? Of course they do, no question there. But can any para-military group be allowed to simply bust in and kill as many convicts and police witnesses as they want? I know that you know the murder of a person is a crime, no matter that person’s legal status.

One (1) Arachnos pilot was flying overhead and saw the mayhem. He stopped to save as many of the targets as he could… and suddenly the Statesman has an excuse to go ballistic on the Rogue Isles because of a Lord Recluse "airlift"? Classic deception and use of the situation to his advantage. Or maybe he had the whole thing planed all the way though.

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Lookie here.....

CoH Prima Guide

CoV Prima Guide

Sounds really nice. Pre-ordered both of mine via ebgames yesterday.

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Did they say when it was coming out? I'd be interested in the COV one but I'm not too keen on pre-ordering. TIA.

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from Arctic_Sun's post

October 27, 2005 – Statesman’s Strike

Extra! Extra! Read all about Statesman’s Strike! Statesman leads the Freedom Phalanx and Longbow to assault the Rogue Isles! Read all about it !

(Click on the top link)

Paragon Times Oct 27

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Blech. Typical fascist propaganda.

Nothing like applying the “mob rule” mentality that’s been enforced in Paragon to a completely different country with a different legal system where he has no jurisdiction. Freedom Phalanx initiative? I wonder what possible justification there was for the Statesman to set US foreign policy and attack a sovereign country? Talk about over reaching one's authority.

Not that obeying the law has ever stopped him from anything else he's wanted to do before. Must be nice to have the strongest super powers around and to be able to force everyone else to do exactly what you want them to do.

Statesman and his jack-booted thugs were handily repulsed last night… sent back to the Amerika who’s ideals they’ve twisted and distorted into their own tyrannical pseudo-democracy. It’s now exceedingly obvious that the Statesman and his cronies have no respect for Truth, Justice, or the American Way.




Nice write-up though, Arctic_Sun

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All I know is....

There is a reported history of Geko NOT liking answering questions from the forum.

But then again, it is only six questions, but since he is the powers guy....


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Well, considering that for the longest time this was the standard interaction:

...a month in the life of Geko...

Poster 1: ZOMG!! One of my powers missed last night!!!! Accuracy's been nerfed all to heck and back!!2!
Poster 2: Accuracy nerf!?! Oh the humanity of it! why Why WHY??
Geko: Accuracy wasn't nerfed. Didn't touch it. Actually, didn't make any updates to anything - everything is the same as it was yesterday and the day before
Poster 1: Well I missed some, so you did too
Geko: Nothing was changed anywhere
.
. :a week passes:
.
Poster 3: I missed a lot last night. I think accuracy's been stealth nerfed!
Poster 4/5/6: ARGH!! What's up with that Devs?!?
Geko: Accuracy wasn't nerfed. Really.
.
. :a week passes:
.
Poster 7: Was accuracy just nerfed?
Geko: No
.
. :a week passes:
.
Poster 8/9/10/11: Hmmm, think there was a nerf to accuracy?
Geko: <sigh>
.
. :a week passes:
.
and the cycle begins again...

The poor guy even had an anti-accuracy nerf disclaimer in his sig and there was a point where he had to be brought back from the brink by a cookie transfusion.

So while I don't know that he actively does not like answering posts, I could understand were that to be the case.

BTW, anyone hear anything about accuracy?

I... wow...

*boggles* *starts again*

As constructively as I can: The reduction in damage combined with the increase in recharge and also combined with the previous addition of Fear. Wow. My Fire Tank was still playable after the Fear change, but these additional changes are just ouch.

I enjoyed playing my Fire/* Tank because it was a bit of a different flavor (less def / more off) vs other Tanker powersets. It seems like the current trend is for everything to be reset to banal similarity. I really hope that "balance" does not mean that we all end up simply identical.

I do understand the need for one powerset to not vastly out perform other powersets & I do understand the need for there to be risk associated with reward (I had plenty a dirt nap while playing my Tank), but such a huge change to a power that was just recently changed and to a power that is seen as "the" power in a particliar set is a extremely painful to those of us who were having fun while playing the current version of the game.

I don’t herd and I don’t PL so I am feeling a bit like I’m caught in the cross-fire. I see most of the changes that are being made as being made to address herding / PLing and I think that it’s extremely unfortunate that the game has to go this route (power adjustments) instead of fixing of the root cause (AI, mob stacking). I understand that per Positron the game engine can’t be fixed to prevent mob stacking… and that is really a shame.

It would be a lot nicer if those root issues could be fixed and if other powersets that are seen as weaker could be *increased* to the level of powersets that are seen as strong. Feeling super is fun.

As long as the root causes are left unfixed, herders and PLers will always find some powerset combination that lets them do what they want. And that will result in a never ending cycle of “adjustments” to players powers.

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Now comes my Question, How many of you are going to Join up With Lord Recluse? I know for one that he is one of the Coolest Villians I have seen.
But, I know my Villian Wouldn't Let anyone be his master or Boss.

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Agree 100% with that... I’m not exactly looking forward to being LR's or GW's little sk.

And I don't particularly want one of them to be my Patron nor do I want to be their Protégée… which it seems like perhaps one must be in order to get certain missions or powers near the end game.

We all just need to wait and see, though. It’s not like we understand 100% how everything will work and even if we did at this point in time - things change over time anyway. Maybe it’ll turn out to be the best thing since sliced bread. Well, if I get to make GW my little sk, anyway…

/e applauds Mockingbird_V

Even if (as suggested earlier) the Statesman is arrogant & basically a jerk because he drank from a fountain and imbibed Zeus’ essence, that is merely a reason for his behavior; it does not mean that the behavior itself is good or acceptable. It does not excuse the behavior. To-date in the 2nd series he certainly is not exhibiting any the leadership skills that I would expect from a leader of people.

<shrug> Since I didn’t come up with the concept and since I didn’t write the material, I can certainly accept that this is just the way he is in the CoH universe and I can also accept that there are a lot of other people that simply view it as edgy.

To me, however, if a person acts like a butthead, talks like a butthead and treats other people as a butthead then, well, he’s a butthead. I don’t accept the POV that great wo/men can be buttheads due to the tremendous responsibilities they shoulder. Truly great people (heroic people, one might call them) shoulder great responsibilities with grace and tact.

Oh and btw, if the eventual mechanic used to explain why virtually all of the “heroes” are acting like emotionally crippled azzhats is just that they were under tremendous stress due to losing their powers and the mediport system breaking… unfortunately it’s actually when the chips are down & the stress is high that you see what people are really made of.

I liked the previous series a bit better. Having recently started the game before the 1st issue came out, I could identify with the new Heroes and the powers they were using. Maybe it just arrived at the right time for me, but I'd read it thinking "hey I have that power" or "that must be xxx power he's using"

In this version of the comic, I am much less able to identify with the main characters.

No offense to the authors intended because I don’t think it’s written poorly but - while I don’t need my protagonist to be warm and cuddly - a rich azzhat type of a person is not someone I’d chose to associate with. So from the start, I’m not pulled along. If I’m not too thrilled but the guy, what do I care if he succeeds or fails?

I also am not too keen on the portrayal of the Statesman as being incredibly arrogant and dictatorial. Maybe the guy’s just under a lot of stress, but he comes across as being a complete jerk to me. Perhaps that’s the way he really is ment to be in the CoH world, but that’s not how I pictured him. There was a quote in issue 2 along the lines of “he has earned the right to be arrogant” and that’s a philosophy with which I strongly disagree. It doesn’t exactly sound heroic to me.

The intent in this series might be to portray the eight as having human foibles or as having darkity dark dark issues in order to make them more interesting but I prefer my Heroes to be, well, heroic and to be a cut above the rest. They don’t need to have such great strength/ ability that they then have to have a great weakness/ character flaw so net net they are average.


edit: forget to add... Will I read the the rest of the comics in this new series? Of course.

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Just wondering, which mission(s) was it mentioned that the Mu were being selectively breed?

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At one point in the Envoy of Shadows story arc, Akairst tells you "At her command they preformed generations of what you would call eugenic breeding to strengthen the magic within their bloodlines"

Of course, you do have to consider the source of the information (a CoT defector)


Thanks Red Tomax! Great website!

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...when the Oranbegans were pushed they turned to dark powers that corrupted them. If that "Push" hadn't been the Mu it could have been something completely different. Say, the Rikti? Or the Rularuu? Or any other kind of lethal monstrosity that the Oranbegans were unable to fight "straigh up". Not very enlightened at all. "Spitting in the face of your killer" is something villains do. The oranbegans of our dimension released their magic A-bomb, and the demonic pollution is still here.

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IMHO you are soft peddling the fact that their entire civilization was being destroyed (yes, I know I tossed out a similar analogy earlier ).

Expose your family, friends, neighbors, every single person you know, your entire country and your entire culture to imminent extinction at the hands of rampaging fanatics and see how many straws a reasonable person would grasp to try and save something.

Additionally:
• If they wouldn’t have done what they did, then present day Paragon City may well not exist (Mu surviving as an empire changes the course of the “future” as we know it).
• If they hadn’t done what they did, then living with the eugenically engineered, fanatic (un-destroyed) Muvians may have turned out to be a lot worse then living with a few CoT ghosts… who only recently reappeared (in the CoH timeline) anyway.

Spitting in the face of your killer might something villains do, but destroying a mad vicious dog at the cost of your life, your civilization, and the very existence of your peace-loving culture could be seen as the last act of a true Hero.

Oh well, we’ve all got our opinions. I don’t think I’m changing yours and you can’t penetrate my tinfoil hat (there is a reason I wear it, you know).

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I believe the there is a lot more to the war between Mu and Oranbega than Mu=good guys and Oranbega=bad guys.

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Err, yes. That's the point. Based on the way I read the PT article it started as Oranbega = Good & Mu = Bad (IMHO, other posters differ). The part I was struggling with was how to get from there to CoT (former Oranbega) = Bad and the missing ingredient for the soup was that they made a wee deal with the demons. You just know that’s going to push the envelope of acceptable behavior; hence the "revisions to the Code of Ethics handbook" comment.

S’ok… just go on believing exactly what Azuria wants you believe.

Those artifacts actually are really hard to keep locked away in the super-secure vault which is protected by the most powerful staff of MAGI. The fact that Azuria knows how many descendants of Mu are alive today plus where they live & work is nothing more than a snippet of valueless information. The fact that her ancestors where specifically breed and engineered to be fanatically loyal to Hequat is an irrelevant anachronism; that’s not hardwired into her genetics.

WRT to (*)… well I threw that out as a possibility, so perhaps I’m not discounting it. But you have to make your assessment based on the facts as they are known. Remember that earlier I did say that I expected the CoH canon to have Azuria end up lily white. The rest is just speculation on something that would keep the game interesting and which fits the information we’ve been given so far. Frankly, I think it would be a good thing to shake the CoH world up a little and see an in-game event that left a smoking crater in the basement of City Hall. <shrug> I like plot twists.

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A ) Power does not equal enlightenement

[/ QUOTE ] Sure. But that’s a strawman. Enlightenment does not equal power either. Who is to say that Tielekku, while powerful, is enlightened? Because she told us that she was when we prayed to her? Erm, ok.

It’s also worth nothing that the Oranbegans were not seeking power. Ermeeth was seeking to teach them. Subtle but important difference. The PT story stated that Ermeeth wanted to teach humanity magic, not that the power-crazed Oranbegans demanded to learn it.

Then, faced with the complete and utter destruction of both their society & their very lives, they turned to a dark power which ended up corrupting them. Isn’t that sort of like spitting at someone from the grave? Their society in its peaceful form was going to be wiped out anyway. Might as well take the genocidal maniacs with you.

If you, your wife, your kids, everyone you know, your whole society is going to die anyway, how many people do you know that would just roll over and say <shrug> oh well, we gave it a good try? Their *entire* society was being wiped out. They had to do what they could to survive. Maybe they did a cost / benefit analysis and thought they could actually put one over on the demons and break the pact in some way. Who knows? The CoT still around today might be a bad issue that we are left to deal with… but would there even be a Paragon City if the original fanatic Muvians had not been destroyed? Perhaps not. Certainly not one with non-Muvian magic origin Heroes.

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B ) Handing the power of the gods to mortals is....well, pretty much like handing an A-bomb to every guy in the neighbourhood.

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Setting aside the fact that MAD actually appears to have worked, if you handed the power of the gods to mortals then, well, they wouldn’t be mortals anymore.

Who is to say that Ermeeth was just supplying power without wisdom? Maybe gaining a new outlook is part of ascending. In some alternate dimensions where the Oranbegans prospered, they are peaceful and wise.

To close an attempt at humor: I remember that when the, ahh, power of Testosterone changed me from a boy to a man and, umm, respec’d my, err, powerset it also caused me to change the way I think (nb didn’t say it was an improvement). So maybe ascending would do something similar. But with some wisdom thrown in this time.

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- Mu attacks Oranbega, and Oranbega loses. Close to defeat, the Oranbegans ask for demonic help, and the demons give them the Thorn Blades, among other "gifts".

Any comments?

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Right, right, that’s the part I was not remembering. Making deals with Demons and then being locked underground (with them?) for a few thousand years is bound to generate a few revisions to the Code of Ethics handbook.

Ok, so now I understand the change from Oranbegans to CoT and the CoT not being on the side of good at all, but it still seems like Ermeeth was looking out for humanity and that Tielekku her pantheon was not.

Even if Hequat was operating outside of normal mission parameters when using selective breeding & eugenics on an entire empire of people which Hequat founded solely to destroy Oranbega, by all accounts Tielekku still did not want humanity to learn magic but rather wanted humanity to stay depended on / worshipers of the various pantheons of gods.

They (the former nature spirits) ascended to additional power and she a) did not want humanity to have it and b) wanted humanity to continue to worship as required to keep her energizer batteries charged up.

Whether or not Tielekku supported the creation of what was effectively a race of slaves fanatically devoted to Hequat and brought into being for the single minded purpose of destroying (peaceful?) people who were in the process of being enlightened, she’s still not starting from a very benevolent position. (*)

Plus I still really think that it would keep things “lively” if there was a vast conspiracy amongst the descendant of Mu. Instead of creating new content by adding brand new villain groups, evolve or change some of the things that form the bedrock of our assumptions (ie Azuria & MAGI = side of good; we’ve had the assumption since level 1)

So... I'm back to how does Azuria know that there are “millions” of these descendants? That means that there must be some way of telling who is a descendant of Mu and who is not. More importantly, per her own statement she is actively sorting out who is and who isn’t a Muvian (she knows who is who at MAGI). Now why would she be doing that? And with so many of these Muvians working at MAGI, how can everything get stolen so easily?

Or are artifacts really being stolen? How about if Azuria is actually farming them out to her clique for use as or when needed and then she’s sticking the Banished with the blame. To wrap up her deception, she sends Heroes off to recover the artifacts. This also has the nice ancillary effects of simultaneously beating up on the Banished and keeping them in check while strengthening her cover story. And the Banished are left sitting there wondering why they are always getting the snot beat out of them by an enthusiastic band of Heroes every time a FedEx truck comes by and makes a delivery…. Azuria completes a covert mission with whatever object of power is needed and then uses the very fact that the object was taken from the MAGI vaults to weaken her enemies via subjecting them to a Hero SWAT team. Classic! She’s even smarter than the Malta or the Council.




(*) Assuming, of course, that the godhood packages do not come marked with cancer warning labels and that you can still operate heavy machinery after ascending. Could be that she was trying to save us from ourselves, but with the information revealed to-date this does not appear to be the case.