Pauper

That's my recollection as well -- the divisions on the meter represented various milestones (trusted enough to give Story Arc missions, trusted enough to give cell phone, trusted enough to unlock Enhancements in contact 'store', etc.). Some contacts were relatively easy to unlock, but many required you to be well into their Story Arc (if they even had one -- not all did) before they'd give up the cell number.

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Pauper

It's a noisy set -- not quite as noisy as standing next to a portal in Portal Corp, but if you're really rolling the attack chains, it's close.

I also wasn't that thrilled with the options for the rifle itself, though haven't yet seen the two new rifles in the Retro Sci-Fi set. I ended up going with the DUST rifle as being something with in-game history.

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Pauper

Definitely a matter of taste. I'd rate the zones as follows:

1) First Ward
2) New DA
3) Night Ward
4) Rikti War Zone
5) Striga Isle
6) Croatoa
7) Hollows

I did First Ward with a Primal hero, so take that with as much salt as you need to -- I thought the story was very engaging (and it led to an interesting RP moment in my supergroup as the Praetorian Warden who originally rescued Katie Douglas from the Seer Network found out I'd locked her back in it). There's a lot of information in the mission briefing/debriefing screens, so if you're in the habit of clicking through those quickly to get to the action/rewards, I can see where you'd think the story isn't as coherent as I thought it was.

The new DA was also very engaging, though I'm not sure how excited I am to try re-running the entire zone through Ouroboros just to farm it for Incarnate Threads -- though I may not have a choice until Magesterium-obsession begins to die down once people have tier 4'ed their Hybrid slot.

Night Ward isn't as engaging to me as First Ward was, since the stories seem largely disconnected (despite having obvious connections -- the stuff in the Midnight Mansion was triggered by Master Midnight's actions in the First Ward storyline, for instance). The zone is saved largely by the presence of the Animus Arcana, which are a group of 'enemies' unlike any other in the game. In a game that's gone very hard toward the graphic novel style of dark story lines, a bunch of living spells is a breath of fresh air.

RWZ is nice for the few missions that break the traditional mold (in other words, those missions that differ from the ones you get at Firebase Zulu -- 'go to this cave and beat up bad guys!' 'OK, sir!'), and for the amenities built into the zone (having a crafting table in the main quest-giver room is probably one of the best QoL ideas a zone builder has ever had).

I recently re-ran Striga on a former Praetorian toon and was reminded why the traditional opinion of Striga is 'I run it until I get the Wedding Band, then stop'. I wouldn't mind getting a group together for the strike force, just for old time's sake, but I've completely lost interest in the rest of the zone content, since there's so much else to do in that level range. (Which in a way is odd, because you'd think 'fighting Nazi werewolves and vampires' would never get old.)

I'm also in the process of re-running Croatoa with a toon who's been on my bench for some time, and the difference in story structure between Croatoa and the new Dark Astoria, despite them both being 'eldritch suspense/horror' themed, is as good an example as exists for the serious upgrade in story content that seems to have entered the game starting around Issue 19. DA has a number of factions, for which you slowly learn why those factions exist and how they're using/being used by the other factions. Croatoa is more like 'go fight these dudes, then go fight these other dudes, then find out that there's yet another group of dudes that are the real bad guys, even though it's not really clear why except that they're bad guys'. It's easy to see that the early Croatoa missions were an attempt to use the 'don't assume certain groups are evil just because they're ugly' trope, but aside from a couple of interesting mission fights, the overall plot is just kinda flat. Sorry, but I've got no better term to describe it.

Hollows? Meh. I'd rather re-run the Shining Stars arc for the fifteenth time than go Troll-hunting for David Wincott again.

Just my $0.02US.

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Pauper

I disagree.

Working on getting my Fire/Energy Melee blaster to Incarnate level, so joined a bunch of folks on Victory over the weekend. They were farming the Psychic Clockwork that's part of Tina McIntyre's first mission.

Watching the fight, I saw a lot of 'DOMINATION' and 'SCOURGE' and other text, but watching the combat detail scroll told another story:

You have defeated Cannon Knight
...
You have defeated Line Oscillator
You have defeated Line Oscillator
...
You have defeated Assembler Duke
...
X has defeated Gear
You have defeated Gear
You have defeated Gear
You have defeated Gear
...

OK, I'm exaggerating, but just a little. I probably got credit for about a third to a half of the mobs in each group that we fought, which I consider pretty decent for a team of 7.

Part of it might just be experience -- I see lots of corruptors leading off fights with their AoE attacks, and I'm guessing that they do so because they can, and because their damage isn't so high that they pull excessive aggro for it. I can't do that on my blaster -- if I lead with Fireball, I get pummeled into the ground, so I lead with something else and, after the tanker has had a chance to work his magic, then launch the Fireball and Flame Breath. (Rain of Fire is such a provoker of curb-stomps by red and purple mobs that I've dropped it from my build.)

Now before you respond angrily that all I'm doing is telling people to play blasters smarter, I get that there are folks in this thread who know what they're talking about, and that some tweaking to the blaster archetype is probably warranted. It'll be interesting to see what those changes are, even if they're only a change that causes blasters to have as many pop-up messages in the middle of combat as a controller or stalker.

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Pauper

You're also not allowed to directly delete a storage object that's not empty -- so there's no way this question can actually come up.

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Pauper

Except that's not the point -- the point is that what's being presented is the *male* power fantasy (if I had rock-hard abs, women would flock to me!), not what's actually attractive to women. Look at Statescrotch, for instance -- strong, powerful, and no package, because eww, right? Even though, according to your theory, having a huge package would actually be attractive to some women.

Except it's not. The image we're talking about is not 'a little for the guys, and a little for the ladies'; it's a guy's image of a sexy heroine fighting a guy's image of a powerful dude who a guy presumes a woman would find sexy. A woman could look at the image and think, 'ooh, there's an idea for a costume', but she's not necessarily going to look at the image and say 'ooh, I've got to play this game' -- the image is selling to men, not to women, which is part of the point of the discussion.

I have neither the time nor the space to present the argument here -- Google 'sexualization of women in comics' and go nuts. If you'd rather not do the homework, that's fine, but realize that, unless you take the time to figure out why people are complaining (instead of just assuming that they're complaining about something you find unimportant), your arguments will come across as well-meaning but facile.

For example, this one. Go back and look through the list of comics you noted earlier and ask how many of those male heroes are over-sexualized. Superman? Batman? Spider-Man? Hardly.

Then remember the recent Avengers movie and ask yourself which character's initial appearance was wearing a catsuit and tied to a chair. Had to be one of the guys, right? Because guys are equally sexualized in comics, right?

This world you think exists where male and female characters are equally over-sexualized in comic books? Doesn't exist. If it did, you'd be creeped out a lot more, because there would be many more over-sexualized characters who weren't meant to appeal to you. That argument is just your way of saying, "I like the world the way it is, why should it have to change?" Which is unsurprising, as the world was built to appeal to you as a straight male.

Fixed that for you.

That's part of my point in my previous post -- marketing still wants this stuff pitched to teenage boys of all ages, because in their minds, that's who buys this stuff. The game as a whole provides a lot more than that, and I give the art directors credit for that. But the game is better than "not putting T&A on the splash screen is marketing suicide".

And that's kinda the point of the whole thread.

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Pauper

Having recently finished the Power storyline for the Praetorian Loyalists, where your final morality decision is whether or not to present Cole the evidence that Praetor Berry is defying his wishes with respect to one of Berry's secret projects, it's not clear that anything changes as a result. Cole shows up, sees the evidence, says he'll have to have a talk with Berry. But he also compliments you on being one of Praetoria's best and brightest, even though the storyline is all about getting recognition without really earning or deserving it.

Then, shortly after, you're shipped off to Primal Earth and Berry is still a Praetor.

I haven't done Cole's personal story yet, and it's always dangerous to speculate on things you don't know about, but my guess would be that Cole's biggest failing was his trust in his friends -- he made them Praetors because he thought they could do good for Praetoria, but also because he liked them and thought they liked him. No matter how many times they went against his wishes, the Praetors were always able to convince Cole that they were doing what they were doing for Praetoria's benefit, and his benefit, and Cole believed them, not just because he was a tyrant, but because these were his friends.

Sure, it may sound like sympathy for the devil, but if Cole were really as ruthless and evil as some in this thread are making him out to be, a lot of Praetoria's problems wouldn't have been nearly as bad, because the people behind them -- the Praetors -- would have faced the same evil justice as those who went against the state in different ways.

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Pauper

No. No, no, no.

These are not characters that are drawn to appeal to women -- these are characters that are drawn to represent what men consider 'alpha' men.

I can see that you're trying to make a reasoned argument here, but you're talking right past the people you want to convince, because what you're talking about has nothing to do with what they're complaining about.

Sorry, but I see that as a cop-out. If CoX is supposed to be the online equivalent of being in a comic book, then why can't it be a comic book that 'gets' that there are more ways to represent beauty than just 'ooh, let's look at some cheesecake'? I mean, there are comic books out there that understand the problem and try to work around it. There's even comic books out there that understand the problem and effectively mock it.

With that said, if you actually play CoX, then you know that not every heroine is depicted the way Penelope Yin and Swan are. Head to the Rikti War Zone, for instance. Run the Shining Stars arc. I've seen way worse on PC builds than exists in most of the NPC heroes, and I'll happily defend the art direction of CoX against folks who would assume that, because there's a little cheesecake in the login screen that the whole game must be like that.

But just because the art direction generally gets it right (barring stuff that seems pretty heavily directed from marketing, which in my experience is where most of this guy-centric cheesecake stuff actually comes from), doesn't mean they're perfect, and doesn't mean they get a free pass from being part of the culture they're supposedly just reflecting.

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Pauper

Hmm...I currently have 14 toons on Victory, but only 5 server transfer tokens...

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Pauper

Prefer to avoid work-arounds like that when possible -- if I have enough points now, I can.

*sigh*

Well, at least I finally ran the Midnighter arc so I don't have to keep turning down invites to Imperious Strike Forces.

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Pauper

Logging in tonight to see if I have enough credits to get Celestial Armor.

Then desperately trying to fill my Alpha slot so I can try to participate in what I imagine will be a ton of Magisterium trials this weekend.

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Pauper

I used to be one of those who enjoyed going above and beyond, until my employers began to expect it -- then 'going above and beyond' turned into 'what we expect of you anyway' and it stopped feeling special or even worthwhile.

Just my $0.02US.

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Pauper

Sounds like you got into Death from Below, the level 2-5 trial.

Drowning in Blood, the 'other' trial, requires you to be at least level 15 to join, I think.

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Pauper

Well, you might find the new cape mission significantly improved over the old one -- check it out once you hit 20.

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Pauper

My first Praetorian character did the 'Power' arcs and chose to maintain Loyalist throughout all morality missions, and I got the impression that I was going to Primal Earth as something of an advance scout/one-man strike team for the coming Loyalist invasion.

All of my other Praetorian toons have finished level 20 in the way you describe, though.

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Pauper

This.

One of the things I like about CoX and that keeps me coming back is that, seemingly unlike most other MMORPG developers out there, these guys actually seem to care about the low-level experience. In seemingly every other major-market game out there, the early levels only exist in order to get past them in order to experience the 'real' (i.e.: end-game) content.

I missed GR when it launched and came back just as Freedom was being marketed and I'm still not done exploring Praetorian starting content. I also haven't gotten any of my toons to level 50 yet, and I'm not feeling all that bad about it, either.

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Pauper

As far as I can tell, the components are only useful for being turned into 'real' salvage via Brain Storm Ideas -- a piece of old base salvage turns into 1 Brain Storm Idea, while a component turns into 3. But it sounds like you've done that before.

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Pauper