Prime_Nighthawk

Sure, the evil twin universe idea has been around, but the similarities extend way beyond the basic "evil universe" idea.

I was just thinking as far as the cooldowns for advanced constructs, perhaps the global cooldown should be shorter than the individual cooldowns to promote variety. So for example

energy fist-45 second cooldown, 16 second advanced construct cooldown
Phantom tank- 4 minute cooldown, 2 minute advanced construct cooldown

So you could energy fist 2 minutes after summoning phantom tank, but you have to wait 4 minutes to resummon the phantom tank.

Info on GLC/SC

The green lanterns are a group of heroes created by the Guardians of the Universe. The Guardians are ancient and powerful beings who empower noble yet often superpowerless beings from various worlds with power rings and charge them with protecting a sector of the universe. The rings give the wearers several powers, most notably the ability to create "constructs" which are basically green force-fields emanating from the ring which can take whatever shape the wielder imagines. They can also be used to shoot beams. They allow flight and also serve as universal language translators and a sort of advanced interactive computer/encyclopedia.

Sinestro was a Green Lantern Corp member who became corrupted and turned against the Guardians. He eventually created his own yellow/fear based rings and recruited his own corps.

I noticed that the epic AT's are going to be unlocked at level 20. This may or may not open the door for new epic AT's in the future, but regardless it got me thinking about what this could possibly be. Basically my idea for an epic AT is to have something inspired by the Green Lantern Corp/Sinestro Corp in DC comics. Obviously COX would have to avoid any copyright issues, but that wouldn't be too hard.

I wrote a little background on the Green Lantern Corp (GLC) and Sinestro Corp (SC) for those who may not know. It will be the first response.

Now, there are a lot of ways that Paragon Studios could take the essence of GLC/SC (a galactic heroic organization and a galactic evil organization that are opposed to each other and yet mirror each other in powers which their members gain from an object) and do it in their own way. But the core idea is very strong and holds a lot of potential for intriguing storytelling, missions, content, etc.


Powers- How closely Paragon would want to imitate GLC/SC is neither here nor there, but I'll give an example of a fairly similar version that's different enough (imo). Instead of technology based rings, the Paragon Corps (working title lol) use magic based belts. The belts bestow powers similar to the rings such as flight and the formation of constructs. Possibilities for powers are the following:

Basic:
Personal shielding (passive)- minor-medium +res, +def
Personal shielding (togggle)- multiple types
Ranged Blasts- energy damage. 2 single target, 1 targeted AOE
Energy cage- single target hold
Aim
Buildup
Hover
Fly

Advanced Constructs:
Tank Pet- several possibilities here. Phantom army (single) type decoy or perhaps a mirror image of an enemy that attacks it's true version. It would be cool if the powers mimicked the mob as well, but that might be hard.
DPS Pet- shoots random targets with energy blasts
Energy swords- single target DOT. Swords form around enemy, doing lethal dot.
Energy fist- medium range, single target damage + disorient
Energy cages- limited AOE (3-5) hold
Team Shielding- ala dispersion bubble.

Group Fly


Balance- You may be thinking, OMG OP! Here's an idea to help achieve balance: All advanced constructs have a shared cooldown. So basically you can only use one advanced construct at a time. Some might have longer cooldowns on use than others. Perhaps energy fist has a 16 second cooldown while the pet has a 2 minute cooldown. So if you use energy fist, you couldn't summon the pet, energy swords, energy cages, or group fly for 15 seconds. But if you summon the pet, you can't use energy swords, energy fist, etc, etc. for 2 minutes.


Costume- the hero and villain versions would have most costume pieces set and a limited number that you could alter (mostly skin color, face).

Perks:

Global chat channel- an interesting idea would be to do something like Vanguard did with their Psionisists. Namely, they had a global chat channel specific to that class. I think it'd be neat to have one for this epic AT. Obviously, you could turn it off.

Base of Operations- there would be a zone for the group's base of operations. Everyone would have access, but members of the group would have an ability to teleport to the base form anywhere (maybe not a pvp zone???). They might have other perks such as access to an inner sanctum, storage, access to equipment, and vendors.

Weakness: extremely low Hp. without the *belt* they are regular people. Perhaps there could be npc's of both groups and you get extra agro when facing them. heh.

I really dig Doctor_Mechaniker's entries. Well done.

Sister Psyche, Back Alley, Synapse, and Citadel. Before & After:





notes: I'm pretty pleased with all of them, but especially Synapse because the original was so gaudy. I think I improved it while staying very true to the original. The baby blue doesn't clash as much with the red as the dark blue does, and the chest emblem is much more elegant while similar in theme to the original. Citadel was the toughest to do. He's supposed to be an android which is a robot that appears to be human, so I tried to avoid using power suit/robotic armor. I did make him a bit worse for the wear though. Heh.

Hey guys. I actually ran a group like this in LOTRO, and I'd be interested in joining you guys.

To me, there is no better way to get really immersive RP than to be in a perma-death group. Everyone wants to RP a heroic character, but without real risks and sacrifices, in a way it is a hollow experience.

Okay, I thought of a simple example of the kind of thing I'm talking about. I don't ever recall two NPC's talking back and forth (text) during a mission. This happens in instances in LOTRO all the time. The game freezes everyone in place and the npc's will blab at each other for a bit. Then you kill them :P

For example, one of the epic story quests in LOTRO has you tracking down one of the Nazgul after they were washed away at the river outside of Rivendell. You find him at Helegrod which is an ancient Dwarf fortress in the Misty Mountains. The Nazgul and his servants are performing a ritual where they infuse fell spirits into the rotten corpse of the dragon Thorog who had taken over the fortress but was killed long ago. When you come upon them, they are in the middle of the ritual. You interupt them halfway through it, and Thorog flies off before coming fully under their control (killing him was a raid later in the game). Anyway it's a very cool scene.

I'm curious about what kind of content COH has to offer. The basic combat is fun, and I've enjoyed leveling up my toons. I've blown through mission after mission. Usually I don't read too much of the text, and I realize I probably miss out on some of the story and background for the various heroes and factions. It just seems that COX doesn't do a good job of letting you know what you should pay attention to and what you can just mindlessly blow through.

So I guess what I'm asking is, how do I get to the good stuff? Does it even exist? And by "good stuff" I'm talking about missions where you get to do things like interact with the major characters of the game. Custom missions that aren't in the same warehouse, tunnel, or research facility that i've seen 1000 times before, killing the same old enemies, etc, etc.

Are task forces like this? Is the "endgame" content like this? Maybe I'm just missing the boat, but my experience has just been endless generic mission after generic mission. It's good that there is so much content, but either I'm missing something or the game needs to do a much better job of providing some epic/immersive content AND guiding the players to it. A good example of how to do this the Lord of the Rings Online's "epic story" quest series. You start the epic series when you first log into your character as the tutorial is the prologue. As you play through the game, the epic quests take you through the different areas and contain the most important elements of the game's ongoing story. The quests are easily identifiable, so while you might blow through a lot of the game's more generic quests, with the epic quests you don't get caught off guard and realize you missed a bunch of important info and now are lost.

ROTFLMAO

Awesome idea.

on 1 TF mission there was a clockwork stuck completely inside a weall. u could hear him, but not target him. that sucked. we had to disband.