Mr_Grey

It's a good work, Blue, but I don't think you need to work on Pia's story. Hers is told largely in-game already. The aftermath of it is left pretty wide open, but she makes sure you understand she has no further interest in rooting out the issue of her brother or her friend. She learned the truth of what happened to her brother, let her grief consume and blind her until all she could see was a vague notion of revenge, and almost found herself executed for it. That was all she needed, it was enough adventure for that Fortunata Seer.

There's still more to go, an epilogue of sorts, but Malaise's adventure is about done.

I like to think that we can bring a little more life to these characters who are forced to stay so neutral in a game setting.

My Beautiful Misery is updated and the main story is done. There's still an aftermath, but with every little bit that comes out about Going Rogue, I lose a little more heart about this thing.

I know the Praetorian missions were sketchy at best, but they at least were a window to a larger world that seems dashed on the rocks now to make way for this massive Retcon. I missed out on the whitewashing of the Fifth Column. I guess I'll get to bear witness to this travesty instead and learn how other players feel.

Wandering through the devastation, I find myself hissing every time Synapse opens his mouth. The things he wants to do to Dominatrix are not the stuff of polite conversation. What's more, I have to make the illusion respond.

It's actually pretty easy. I would listen to his behavior, then I would respond in a manner I figured Libby never would. I've perused numerous works of unusual... Art... So I was pretty deft at making the illusion match the conversation. I clamped my hands over Calvin's, which were over Cheryl's ears, as the conversations took place, of course. I don't know what good that did, the girl could hear our thoughts, so I'd hate to think what she may have gleaned despite our efforts...

Anyway, we made our way to the north... To an old facility which was apparently a Portal Corporation facility in this dimension... Or whatever Tyrant's dimension had as Portal Corporation.

It was dingy and run-down, but the robots were in the process of fixing it. Well, they were at least cleaning it up. There were some sections that were torn apart and exposed to the open air, but it was like they'd been carefully picked apart. I almost got a flashback to the Clockwork back home, but this seemed more controlled.

Neuron led us through the halls and I saw that the entire building seemed to be getting renovated. Recreational rooms or offices were getting stripped down while energy management facilities were getting reinforced and shored up. Considering the fact that the human element was being rapidly eliminated from Antimatter's employment, that made sense.

Neuron led us to a monitoring station and I saw the truth of it. Monitors, hundreds of monitors, and they all displayed the goings-on in Earth... Prime Earth. My Earth.

I'm glad to say that I felt understandably violated by that.

"Look! Look! She's heading for the shower!" Neuron shouted.

...

I don't know HOW Dominatrix got a bug installed in Libby's bathroom, or why she installed it in the shower, but-...

...

...

I lost my train of...

...

Damn.

...

Just a moment...

Cheryl's voice rattles through my head, bringing me back to reality...

"Mister Jeanne-Pierre!"

What? Huh? Oh! Right! Oh shoot...

When I came out of my trance from the many mixed emotions that came to mind from seeing my boss in the buff (oh man, I gotta keep an eye on myself to keep from ever, ever making the mistake of forming that image in front of Ms. Liberty; alright, I'll try to forget that sight *sigh*), I realized I'd lost my concentration and the illusion of Dominatrix was almost faded. I whipped another one up and I guess the adrenaline surge from coming so close to discovery reinvigorated me, because it was a fairly decent illusion.

I don't like to think it was easier to make because I'd just seen her twin naked. Still... I can't discount the idea, either...

Neuron seemed impressed. In fact, he was more than impressed. I wish I knew why we wore tights, and I'm saying this now: I want to get some baggier pants. Baggy pants should be freaking mandatory for heroes, or heroines need to start covering up more.

Anyway... Neuron had a strange idea. He wanted to have some fun with Dominatrix. I tried to have her dissuade him, but he kept making "enticing offers." Apparently, he had intended for this little trip to end with nookie, and unless I thought of something fast, he was just intoxicated enough to get aggressive.

I couldn't let that happen. Aside from the fact that I'm opposed to such behavior morally (HEY! I've got morals! Awesome!), if he... Did what he wanted... He would wind up... Puncturing... The illusion.

I... I guess I could reinforce the image, and make it more... Realistic... But frankly, I don't feel like-

"OH! The portal chamber!"

What?

"Oh?" the Dominatrix Illusion asks as she taps the handle of her whip threateningly, "What's this, then?"

"Itsh a totally awesome idea, babe!" Neuron shouted, "We do it in the portal chamber! We can do it right on the control board!"

"Does... Does the portal still work?" the illusion rubs her chin in the same manner I do.

"Of course!"

I can't pass this up. It's over. It's done! I can get Cal and Cheryl out of here, we can be free...

"Let's do it!" I make the illusion say breathily and she gives Neuron a predator's mischievous smile.

Neuron almost leaves us in the dust as he speeds away in his enthusiasm. He comes back and chuckles a little nervously before taking Dominatrix's hand (which I have to put a little more energy into in order to make it "solid") and leading her down the hall.

We descended for what felt like ten flights of stairs. Apparently, at some point the elevators got wrecked. Neuron blamed it on the Phalanx attack. Frankly, I figured it could have been anything. It didn't look like these guys had been maintaining much of anything until very recently.

The chamber he eventually led us to was almost the spitting image of a Portal Corp. portal chamber. It even had the rotating ring at the far wall and countless tubes leading to it. The ring was still spinning, which I thought was a little odd, but I guess they need to always be spinning once employed... Maybe the portal it develops breaks the thing apart once the stability is ruined or something.

A faint glow rests in the center of the slowly rotating circle. Hopefully, that means it won't take much effort to reset the coordinates to Prime Earth.

This next part of the illusion is strange. It takes work to make somebody think they're doing one thing, but in reality they're doing another. I'm not proud of the image I put in Neuron's mind. Cheryl covered her own ears as I did so... I guess it means she's shutting me out.

Huh... Interesting idea. Willfully shutting someone out... I wonder why I never thought of-Later! I can consider that later! There's work to be done!

I reached into Neuron's alcohol soaked (and it turns out drug-addled, too) mind to and rooted around for his understanding of the portal technology. He had quite a lot of information stored in here, a lot of quantum physics and mechanics equations that I can't make any sense out of. What I can figure out, however, is the instruction on how to activate the portal and set the coordinates to Prime Earth. He's had to do it so many times, he could probably do it in his sleep...

Neuron started gyrating his hips while typing on the console. He thinks he's banging Dominatrix on the control panel. Calvin turns his daughter away and shakes his head in disgust at me. I don't notice at first because I was shaking my head at the same time.

With an electric sound and a bright flash, the portal came alive. The loud, oppressive whirring roared around us and I waved for Calvin to take Cheryl to the portal. For some odd reason, he hesitated.

"No..." he shouted over the roar, "This is a trick! THIS IS A TRICK!"

Now he doesn't trust me? Now!? Of all the times he could have distrusted me...

"Daddy..." Cheryl says softly, yet we both can hear her.

Neuron hears her, too. He stops gyrating and looks around confusedly. I can feel that his inebriation has just evaporated. That mind-clearing thing the girl does has just proven to be a double-edged sword at the worst possible time.

Mon... Dieu...

"Run!" I shout at them and Cheryl tugs insistently at her father's sleeve.

Neuron takes a moment to try to place them, but he can't figure it out. He's also suffering from a moment of indecision... He finally decides the prudent thing to do would be to shut down the portal.

Hitting the terminate sequence in a blur makes my heart leap into my chest and I start running after my charges, pushing them along as quickly as I can. The portal fades slowly, though. Apparently the process can't be opened and closed like a door.

Cheryl leaps through the energy hole (I wish I knew a better word...) (Aperture, Mal) (Oh, thanks...)... Cheryl leaps through the apertureand vanishes. Calvin, in a moment of sheer panic, leaps after her.

I stop. Not because I want to, mind you. It's because a pair of energy beams just burned into my leg and caused me to stagger. I turn back and Antimatter is standing on the overlooking catwalk.

"I knew it," he announced as Neuron approached me, "I knew my calculations were correct. We just brought back the wrong Malaise."

"What're you talking about, Ray?"

"We sent Malaise to ambush theirs... Apparently, theirs got the drop on him somehow... Possibly through the large mechanical beast he mentioned."

"Babbage and the Clockwork cause psychic disruptions," I replied, "And we disrupt them a little, too..."

"Duly noted..." the armored man tapped the railing, "Neuron... Bring him back."

It was then that I realized the crucial detail. Neuron mentioned it earlier. Antimatter was still an energy being encased in armor. He must have known that his counterpart wasn't anymore. That had to grate at him fiercely.

"You ever wonder what the major difference between me and your Malaise is?" I shouted as Neuron grabbed one of my arms roughly.

"No," Keyes replied in a peculiar monotone.

"Well... Ergh..." Neuron's hands were making my arm feel numb or buzzy, "The difference between us... Is... Ug... The things I make can turn real..."

I have to sell this.

"What?" I can hear Antimatter's interest immediately.

"Yeah!" I shout, "Why do you think Positron is human again? Why do you think you never see me in action? I got a hold of pages of the Malleus Mundi, and now I know how to alter portions of the world with just my mind! They keep me under wraps because of it. Hey! You let me go, and I'll fix you, too."

"I don't believe you," he said prudently.

"Yeah, Antimatter! Can you believe this-"

"I knew you'd say that," I say, inflecting a lack of surprise, "That's why I already started. Can't you feel it, Raymond? Can't you feel the helmet closing in? Can't you feel the need to breathe?"

A mind is still a mind, even if it's composed of incandescent... Whatever. With a little push, he takes an involuntary breath. With a little more, he feels the helmet pressing against his skin.

"What?" Neuron asks and I look back at the portal.

It's not closed to that faint light, yet. I could make it if...

I look back at Neuron and he glares at me. I smirk and wink at him before nodding my head back to Antimatter. The armored man is about to take off his helmet. My captor realizes what I'm getting at.

"NO!" he shouts before rushing away and I'm free.

He almost reaches Antimatter in time.

I almost jump into the portal in time.

The last thing I see, as the universe warps and distorts, is a green flash as Antimatter's armor is breached and something flash fries my spine.

----------

The destruction of the portal facility severed the connection between Prime Earth and Praetorian Earth. When I came to, I was floating in a pocket dimension. It wasn't like D.J. Zero's Pocket D. It was like... It was like those shows where the character is dead.

Not only was everything gray, it was blurry now, too. I could see a large harbor, some ships... Large, writhing tentacles. Ah. Independence Port. Fantastic.

I get to spend eternity looking at the patrol zone of my mentor and my replacement for all eternity, and they'll never know I'm here. I'll live forever in suspended animation... Unable to move... Unable to blink... Just an eternity to my thoughts, but for once it will be only my thoughts. They won't bleed out, they won't be interfered with or monitored, and I won't be hearing the surface musings of every passerby.

I know this because for once... I hear nothing. Absolutely nothing.

The only thing I wish is that there was no pain in my back. I feel like I'm on fire, but it's just the intense sensation from the momentary contact I had with Antimatter's radiation. It will never leave me... It will never end.

I could make it end, though. I could overload my nerves with sensation, force my brain to shut down and-

There's an audible pop that turns into a loud, thunderous boom. I take a gasp of breath and proceed to plummet to the water below. I braced myself, tried to land right, but I was falling about fifteen feet to the water. It was gonna hurt, and I was already in pain.

When I landed... I'm just going to say this: I feel I've suffered enough now for whatever crimes I've done. That kind of pain... I'm surprised I'm lucid right now, two and a half months later.

I can't even talk yet, of course, my jaw's wired shut (the perils of landing on your CHIN).

So... That's my story. That's what I did over there. I may not have done the right things... But I did what I could. I don't know if it was enough. I don't know if I did any good... But I know I rescued two people from a fate worse than they ever deserved, so I don't have any regrets, nor do I have even a shadow of a doubt that what I did was right.

Can... Can I go to sleep now?

Yes, Jean. Rest...

----------

"And there you have it," Sister Psyche said to her friend, "Everything he did and what he was thinking... I'm sorry about how literal he got at times..."

Sister Psyche lowered her hands and rubbed her palms together. Statesman blinked as he looked at the ravaged body hanging in a harness in a special clean room. He'd never figured the young man was capable of the selflessness he'd demonstrated in the memories.

The young girl, Cheryl Scott, was causing quite a stir for Aurora, not to mention the presence of a second husband. The new Calvin seemed to be speechless when around this dimension's version of his wife, and Aurora could only cry around him. She explained to Psyche that it was because she could feel the pain of being with somebody you loved but could never have radiating from the man.

"What he did has consequences," Marcus said in his deep, authoritative manner.

Shalice just leveled a stern look at him.

"I know," he finally relented, "What he did took courage... Faith, even. He had no idea what he was getting into and no clue whether he would come back alive... Which is what makes it foolish."

"You can't win the war from a planning board," Manticore said exasperatedly, "He did what any of us should be willing to do anytime an opportunity like that comes along! He saw a chance to really do something, Mark, and he took it! He dealt with the trials and tribulations as best as he could, and that was certainly better than many would have done! I shudder to think of how many heroes have been lost to the horrors of that place!"

"As do I, Justin," Statesman sighed, "I guess... I guess the young man really has changed... But there's no way we can tell the rest of the world about it. Nobody will believe it..."

"Then tell Jessica to let him patrol again. Let him get his face out there again."

Statesman nods. While his granddaughter was loathe to do what he said out of some youthful notion of rebellion, she did tend to react well to reasonable requests. If he were to explain the main points of the young hero's adventure to her, she just might be willing to-

"Just..." Sister Psyche winces a little as she interrupts his musing, "Don't mention the surveillance."

Depends on the SF, but I wouldn't mind tossing my Night Widow into the action.

April 13th.

Enough time for the developers to come up with something more to give us than just "Guns and Demons if you give us money" and serves as a prelude to Going Rogue. Seriously, if that's all I-17 does, I will be sorely depressed.

But I thought Marino and Ghost Widow reconciled after Marino discovered the truth of the situation. It's actually one of the more heartwarming stories on Redside, even if it's not exactly a happy ending.

I would recommend Teamsters, but it would be better to talk to DJ_Kyo about that. They were built around the idea of teaming, and they're pretty active.

My condolences, WRider.

I like playing all aspects in THIS game. 've explored almost all the archetypes, the two that I'm currently lacking in are Dominators and Fortunatas. I've gone a great distance on the different combinations for all the others.

I like having Villains, I like having Heroes. Each side has aspects that are interesting and intriguing.

I've played games where the option remained to be evil (like truly, personally, dastardly evil; Fallout 3 and blowing up Megaton, for instance), and I didn't take those options. Not only did I not "walk the dark path," I simply could not will myself to do it. I don't see the point to it. My characters are just trying to live their lives.

When it comes to how the game portrays events, I like to think of these as not our adventures, but the adventures of "The Hero" and "The Villain" (and soon, the "The Loyalist" and "The Revolutionary"). When my characters wind up working for Westin Phipps, they're not the actual ones helping him, but they're reviewing the story (through journals, articles, etc.).

It's the only way it makes sense to me, that no matter what we do, nothing ever really changes. However, these tasks have been accomplished, leaving the world in its peculiar state of equilibrium. None of us have done it, yet all of us have done it. It's a strange state of affairs.

Now, as far as the Redside missions go, I'm not too keen on some of it all. On Blueside, not every arc needs to be capped off with an Elite Boss/Arch Villain fight. A few of them do, and those missions are memorable. On Redside, though, you wind up fighting an AV/EB as early as Level Six (it's that vampyri in Port Oakes... I've never seen it fought with more than a couple people, so it might just be an Elite, like Cortex). Further arcs involve the Sea Witch (twice, in basically the same exact fight, both of which are just plain NASTY), Calystix the Shaper (a just plain RIDICULOUS fight), Metalshift (Freak Tank Swiper... With Psychic POWER!), The SuperFreak (I'm not writing that in 1337), The RiktiFreak (Retrofitted Superfreak, he says so in his dialogue, again I'm not spelling it in 1337), and a host of other EB/AVs, all of which are statistically more powerful than our characters (simply because of the videogame numbers). If they fought us as Bosses, it would be battles that make more sense, but wouldn't be "challenges" to teams.

Just because a battle is more challenging is no reason that it's better. Imagine if everything was more challenging. Take driving, for instance. Imagine if, in order to drive, you had to reach behind you and hit a switch in the back seat every five minutes in order to keep the engine running. Does this make engineering sense? No. Is it challenging for the driver? Oh yes. Is it better? Hell no.

Now, let's get back to something more comparable. Take sports. Say, football. One team is clearly outclassed. The other team has bigger and more experienced players. They've had the money from the beginning to buy the best talent in the sport into their team. The team of underdogs inexplicably wins, through sheer determination and raw iron will, and becomes the stuff of legends. Is it epic? Quite. They make movies about this sort of thing.

Now, say you're that underdog team... And you have to face this challenge every single time you play a game. Not only that, you're no longer just playing football. You're playing hockey or baseball or whatever. There are new sets of rules to learn for each game, new tactics to master, and new challenges to overcome.

You can fight Metalshift and Sea Witch roughly in the same range. This is what it feels like. Metalshift is a brute. He charges at you, hits extremely hard and leaves you gasping for breath. Sea Witch, however, her battle is chock full of nasty tricks and traps. There are ambushes out the rear (Arch Villains who call for reinforcements still bothers me; I thought these were supposed to be the best, what do they need help for?), and a few nasty runes that summon a complement of elemental creatures to kill you if you step on them. That's quite the steep learning curve for a team, and most players (the extreme most, 95-98%) are too impatient to take the time to learn. Sea Witch is a definite meat grinder for teams, I've seen her repeatedly chew them up and spit them out.

There's a blog I follow from an independent developer whose games I like, The Bottom Feeder, and two of his articles: Why Bushwhacking Your Players is a Bad Idea and Make Your Game Easy, Then Make it Easier explain the basic premise of customer perception in videogames.

Jeff Vogel states "People will happily forgive a game for being too easy, because it makes them feel badass. If a game is too hard, they will get angry, ragequit, hold a grudge, and never buy your games again."

There have been many times I have simply stopped playing Redside because the challenge I was being presented was just too much. Hardcase had sent my characters to do battle with a number of Howler Monkeys (I know that's not what they are), including one of their kings, and Johnny Sonata sent me to do the same. Their Arch Villain versions are the exact same thing as the Boss versions, and those damn things get back up after being defeated. Imagine having to fight the same banal Arch Villain twice in succession. On top of that, Arch Villains and Elite Bosses have their numbers ramped WAY up, for no more reason than "they're supposed to be a challenge, so they hit harder, resist more damage, and have more hitpoints than ANY hero can." Disagree? Have another go at Statesman and see if you can hit as hard as he does.

Redside's challenge rating, out of the box, is almost ludicrous. It's not that the archetypes aren't cool. However, the missions and arcs you wind up dealing with are exceptionally harrowing. You wind up feeling bloodied and battered by the time you find yourself (SPOILER ALERT) battling Recluse at the end of your patron arc (it doesn't matter which patron), and even HE can hit like a Mack truck, takes hits like a bunker made out of Depleted Uranium, and summons goons to take you down when you so much as slap him.

A challenge is not automatically better. It's when you win that you feel satisfied and awesome. However, for the five or six times it kicks the tar out of you, you just feel frustrated. You even feel cheated. Some players even go so far as to post here on the forums how they "hate that the game forces [them] to team" or that "the game forces specific team makeups."

A well-executed challenge is awesome. A cheap shot or a grindfest, as most MMOs are apt to do, is aggravating.

For my Blasters, if I decided to take it, the Nuke. Baddies are everywhere, players are losing health at phenomenal rates, and we're getting struck by a fully powered ambush... BOOM! Baddies are dead, and the Tanks and Scrappers get to work mopping up what few survivors are there.

For my Tankers, Scrappers and Brutes, it's the Tier 9 (where applicable). I usually try NOT to pop it, because those crashes are nasty (even if it's not like Unstoppable, I'm still dropping all my toggles, and if there are enemies nearby, I'm going to lose CHUNKS of health). I still haven't had a chance to use MoG yet (which I don't like the "fifteen seconds of fun"), but I'm hoping it measures up.

Now, for unusual Panic Buttons, one of my /Invuln Scrappers has the Rikti Psychic Defense, which I've found is actually very useful against heavily psychic enemies like the Carnies.

I also set up Inspiration "cocktails," a stack of Defense, Resistance, Damage and Accuracy, Tier 2 or Tier 3 (Tier 3 preferred), one of each. When in a troublesome or challenging battle, I repeatedly strike the stack's button (usually F1 or F2) until all the Inspirations are activated. Bam, one minute of boosted capability.

I have to work in the stuff. My job involves digging a lot of dirt...

Dirt that's now frozen rock solid.

But I have to keep working...

Damnation.

Oh, okay. Goodness, what was I thinking?

So, 5 or 6 Eastern? Sounds good, for the most part.

My posting of Grey's Army stories has dried up considerably over here...

And I need to get back to finishing My Beautiful Misery.

There is a reason for the delay, though. I HAVE been writing...

Just not anything here.

Last Autumn, I joined a group on DeviantArt. I could get into the why of it, but suffice it to say, I felt like I was hammerlocked into the decision by my subconscious. The group is called Angel Falls, and be careful, folks, there are some odd ones there (I won't link to it because there is a lot of risque material on display, if you want to find it, start from my DA page and bookmark as necessary: My DA Page, Ryat66).

A group of my characters, less-used ones from Grey's Army as well as a chunk of former BWO characters, have found themselves stranded in that city after running afoul of one of the criminal elements. As they struggle to build a new vehicle for Raging James so they can leave (they have a major "This is not my problem" attitude for a lot of their involvement in the setting), they continue to run afoul of the local hardcore fascists.

Now Cedric Grey has landed... And I don't think they're going to be leaving anytime soon.

But, I finally got to a point with my latest segment that I hope will free me up to get back over here.

Has a warm heart.

And I thought it was just me.

Every time I accessed the Auction House with a character while Ninja Running, BAM! Crash.

Have me down as a maybe. If I'm in-game at the time, I'll toss in a character to help out. I've got various kinds of Redsiders and can provide one of whatever the team needs. With all of my characters at least level 37, any one should be capable of providing adequate assistance in the role required of them.