Samuel_Tow

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The models for "Professor Echo" and "Dr. Aeon?" were accidentally reversed.

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I knew it! I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. When I did the story arc, my first impression was that they were reversed. However, as Echo took part in another story arc, I didn't think it possible. But after all, HE has the old painting, HE acts with hindsight in knowing where the dimentional thingy is, HE is here to deliver a warning. In a time when I didn't even consider dimentional travellers (and maybe there sitll aren't in this case), it's the only thing that made sense. So, consequently, dispelling that idea, I was left confused and dumbfounded.

Glad to know it's getting fixed. And given how the Blood of the Black Stream reference goes completely unreferrenced in favour of future content, I'd be pretty happy to have this explained in another arc later on.

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The models for "Professor Echo" and "Dr. Aeon?" were accidentally reversed.

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I think it's pretty clear what he fears: our character doing the arc. The more interesting question is "why?" Or maybe the old picture doesn't mean what we all assume it to mean. And for some reason he wants me to "defeat him after I defeat him," to paraphrase his words. Curious, and very well written. Be sure to tell us which contact gives the sequel to that arc when it's out

That really tied my brain into a knot. Not because it doesn't make sense, but because I can never figure out who is an older version of who, because the evidence in the arc is conflicting. What you say makes sense, but when I try to figure it out, I keep drawing a blank. My brain works in an odd way, so that when I know there is an error somewhere, I just cannot think straight over the data. Let's hope we get some confirmation

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Holsten Armitage is not a confirmed time traveller -- it is entirely possible given the facts that he could just be crazy.

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Good point, I keep forgetting that. But the way he is introduced, as a scientist with high-level enhancements and intimate knowlege of facts normally unatainable is pretty convincing.

Didn't you just spell out the plot behind Time Squad?

Well, that's certainly one way of looking at it, but that's a few too many "ifs" for my taste. Mostly, I like things in order, and once you start thinking "what if" you can potentially come up with many, many seemingly consistent scenarios. An infinite amount, I would wager.

Any "ifs" in any good story come to light sooner or later, usually by the end of the story itself, or in a sequel if they are planned ahead. Those are generally called plot twists. When, however, "ifs" come to light that weren't initially planned but later found to be conveniet plot devices, that is no longer a plot twost. Those are ret-cons. The act of rewriting your own backstory to fit your current story.

Which is which is mostly subjective, but I like to thing that plot twists outside the main story, or such that were never hinted at are undesirable. However, seeing the 5th Column affair, that doesn't seem to be the case here.

Regardless, what I'm trying to say is that I feel you're digging too deep into this, and you're also expressing just one view on how time would work. The observer effect, as you call it, is just one idea. The idea that the time traveller instantly knows both the new time and the old time is another that I have seen. If I put a little thought into it, I could probably come up with a few more takes on temporal paradoxes.
And then there is the digging too deep. Once you start questioning people's motives without sufficient plot justification, you can pretty quickly warp a storyline into something completely different, and every fact isn't explicitly stated in a story. I, however, choose to follow the storyline that I feel was intended to work with the story without looking for logical loopholes in them that could throw another twist at things. Of course, I've ended up being surprised many times, But I would sooner be surprised for lack of attention than spend the time and attention to come up with stories that probably won't turn true anyway.

As such, I find the take on time travel in the CoH universe to be straightforward. To this point it has been presented as such, and until I can actually see Recluses Victory, I have only Holsten Armitage and a typo-ridden story arc, which may contain trans-dimentional travel as well, to judge by. And even then, convulted as it may be, Echo's list of things to do is pretty straightforward as well.

Hmm, I didn't think this had anything to do with the PTS. Given that Echo had my picture on him when I finally killed him (I assume), I thought the warning he was willing to give his life to deliver had something to do with me.

But then why would he need an ambush, and for who? Why did he say "you can't defeat me before you've defeated me?" And what was his connection to the PTS anyway?

Yes, let's go with that. I think I missed something, but it occurs to me that I never understood what Echo wanted with the PTS.

Aging backwards notwithstanding, the situation is needlessly confusing, and I'm fully confident it's a typo. Furthermore, the way CoH handles time travels in on a firts-time basis. What that means is that anything a time traveller may change is yet to happen, so therefore whatever Echo is here to acheive, he is yet to acheive, so it is yet to change the future.

This is different from Soul Reaver's understanding of time travel, where everything is predestined and anything a time traveller can change has alerady happened and influenced future events. The only way to cheat time is to create a paradox by bringing two same entities (in this case two alterations of the Soul Reaver) together and in this moment change time.

In CoH, we don't have these paradoxes, at least not as far as I've seen. The one confiremd time traveller on the heroes side, Holsten Armitage is able to change the future, by having you save a senator who would have otherwise been killed and this started a war that ended up not happening. We don't treat time with an eye for paradoxes, we treat it with an eye for continuity, and that seems to be broken here.

I'm not dissing on other theories (and that's all they are) about time travel, but I don't think the kind used here is as complicated or deep-seated. And I also don't believe all time travelling instances should be convulted to senselessness.

Alternate dimentions? Hmm, now that might help explain a lot of things, as soon as we get the typos out of the way. But how was I supposed to know it had ANYTHING to do with alternate reality?

For that matter, how did you know that?

A typo, yes, no doubt about that. But WHAT is mistyped?

Normally, I can brainstorm time-travel stories, but not when they're written wrong

This concerns the arc Echo Down the Aeons, and it's highly convulted storyline, which I believe is the victim of an evil text error somewhere along the line. I've played through this arc maybe 5 times now, and I still have no idea what it's trying to tell me. I realise it's supposed to be open-ended and leave me guessing, but I'm convinced something in the story is mistyped.

It starts out simple enough. Echo steals a time deflector. It quickly becomes obvious he's a time traveller, so he's obviously trying to deflect someone else's time travel destination. I'm guessing his own.
Then I find a base full of Shivans and a note in jumbled order about setting up an ambush there. But for who? Erither me or himself, I'm guessing, and maybe I'm the real ambush?

PLOT HOLE

And this is where things take a turn for the weird. I find a visibly old, white-haired, mad scientist looking man. He's identified as a younger version of Professor Echo. Excuse me!?! This obviously much older man is a younger version of a significantly younger man? And he reminds me of Dr. Aeon? Fair enough. But is that an older or younger Dr. Aeon? I haven't seen the guy in person.
If that weren't bad enough, my souvenir explains that I saw an older Dr. Aeon. Come again? So, Professor Echo is an older version of his companion, who in turn is an older still version of Dr. Aeon, who, himself, is supposed to be pretty old to begin with? Wow, Echo looks good for his age. OR something is screwed up along the line.

END OF PLOT HOLE

And then finally I find a tattered drawing of on Professor Echo which he was trying to give to, uh... the other guy, however he may be actually defined. So Echo was trying to want Aeon? Is the one identified as "Dr. Aeon?" a time traveller, too? What is his part? Wouldn't the tattered picture be in HIS hands? Wouldn't the warning come from him, as he has seen his demise? Or if it comes from Professor Echo, then isn't he giving it to the wrong person?

I really, really don't get that arc. Any help on making sense of it is welcome. I'm usually not one to ask for help on plot matters, but I am convinced something is mistyped along the way, and I have no way of knowing how much esle is mistyped and as such, what to trus.

Thank you in advance.

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That way they would still be rewards for the explorrs, as a lot of them are so out of place I've personally never seen them, let alone unlcok them, but it would be simpler once you actually find them.

What do you think about that, just as a concept off the top of my head?

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Personally, I like that they reward explorers and badge hunters.

However, if they were going to use your idea, I'd rather see it where the hidden contacts were far greater in number with less missions per. Right now, you'd find the hidden contact and that'd be it for 10 levels. This way, you'd still be encouraged to keep looking if you had, say, 5 hidden contacts per zone, each with about 3-5 missions.

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Or a small story arc. Yes, I see what you mean. And I love it Hell, something like that could actually make ME want to start exploring. If I knew I didn't have to kill a gazillion Family bosses or do Lord knows what to who knows how many ghosts somewhere, then I'd be inclined to actually look for those people.

If anything, there's very little exploration in CoH. Beyond graphically exploring the map, I don't do any exploration at all. Because either it doesn't give me anything but badges, or it requires badges. Exploration alone has never been rewarding to me, as it's always complicated by some factor.

But if unlockable contacts acted like "side quests" from your run of the mill Fantasy RPG, then that would be much more rewarding. Say you run around Aeon City, and you meet a bedraggled man behind a dumpset with a contact aura. You talk to him, and he explains how he was Dr. Aeon's personal assistant, until he was fired and Aeon kept all of his possessions. He then sends you on a few missions to retrieve some of them and maybe cause a few headaches. Then you take the ramp off the city and walk around the slums. You meet a woman selling hot dogs. Turns out she was a former girlfriend of the man now known as King Midas, and she wants to get back to him now that he's bigtime. She has a plan, but it ultimately fails. Then you round a corner and find... Who knows what.

I say keep the big stories for the regular contacts with many missions and involving fiction, then sprinkle the zones with less important, but still interesting contacts that can only be found. Looking at the amount of missions Marshal Brass has, instead of an unlockable contact with as many missions, that could probably be 4 hidden contacts with a quarter of his missions and still be plenty.

Just thinking, but I'd be a whole lot happier if it were instituted like that. I might even make a suggestion for it later.

Let me run something by you, you tell me what you think. What if unlockable contact were left completely unreferred to and completely unmentioned, but once you found them, they gave missions straight away, or told you in plain English exactly what you need.

That way they would still be rewards for the explorrs, as a lot of them are so out of place I've personally never seen them, let alone unlcok them, but it would be simpler once you actually find them.

What do you think about that, just as a concept off the top of my head?

States, patch your holes before you tuck content away for the proactive. With no way to know these contacts exist, where they are, what they need and what level ranges they are, you've made them a really exclusive item. There are very few people who can go out and find these contacts without assistence from spoler sites, and fewer still who can unlock them even with that assistence.

I'm all fine and well with additional content to reward the explorers, but as it stands the redular content is lacking, and these contacts are becoming mandatory, which is really frustrating. Make sure you have sufficient content to allow less-avid exploeres to advance through content without ending up out of missions. THEN add additional rewards.

As it is right now, I have this irresistable feeling that the unlockable contacts are cutting into my own (being a non-explorer type player) content, and that's not pleasant.

Besides, do you really think adding rewards for exploration without a single in-game hint really promotes explorations? Let's be honest here, people, how many of you have gone out to find the exploration badges and history plaques all on their own, and how many found their locations off the internet and just tracked them down?

What the hell? Who stole the past and slapped it accross the present?

I believe Positron said they'll be awarding an invisible badge for earning a respec which never disappers, which would solve that problem.

The only contacts I've ever unlocked were Johnny Sonata and Arbiter Leery. Johnny I came accross when I did a sweep of the Giza just looking around. I later heard I needed a badge I already had. Leery I found because he hangs within spitting distance from Mu'Drakhan.

I don't like unlockable contacts for several reasons. I have no idea how to unlock them, and there isn't any indication anywhere to any of them. Even if you come accross them (and that's a big IF), they're still vage to the point of uselessness. Also, they require actions that in no way correspond to the contacts themselves, and the reasons behind these actions are never explained.

This is just straight up aggravating if you want to unlock them, and outright waseful if you don't feel like going way, way out of your way. Having a way to track the contacts down would help, even if it's not a direct waypoint at their feet. Being told how to unlock them would help as well, even if it's not a blatant explanation of exactly what you need to do point for point. Putting the contacts in more public spaces would help as well.

Johnny Sonata is tucked away in a side room at the giza. Leery is on a barren island in the middle of nowhere. Doc Buzzsaw is under a shed by a hut around a corner somewhere in a Freakshow ghetto.

And that's the only contacts I've actully seen. I've seen Traxus as well, but I had thought he was just an NPC you were being sent to. Never occured to me he was a contact. The auras around the feet of active NPCs have enough colours to put a rainbow to shame, so I can never remember them all.

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The concept of having unlockable content is good.

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We'll have to agree to disagree on this one. I like to thing the content itself should providethe challenge and entertainment value, thought means integrated in that content. I do not like the idea of having to work first to unlock the content through some mostly unrelated action that isn't even made aware to me.

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The stories from them (from the ones I have done) are good.

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Might depend on Taste a whole lot. Johnny Sonata's story arc was truely reat. Arbiter Leery's story arcs, not quite so much. Not at all, in fact.

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They're hard to find, so unless one knows they're there, it's unlikely one will stumble across one until after one has outleveled the contact.

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Percisely. If ever there was an uninformed decision, unlocking (or not) unlockable contacts is definitely just that.

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CoV just doesn't have enough content yet (especially in the higher levels) to warrent having any contacts as being secret

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Percisely. It wouldn't bother me quite as much if I didn't feel it was eating at my content. I don't want to have to patch up content holes because some contacts were arbitrarily locked.

A frend of mine used the zombie upper legs, and it looks pretty well. He still has the tattered patch on his crotch (don't ask me how I know this), but because of the toga, you couldn't tell.

You pay for your entertainment. Some people pay for a gazillion channels of cable television, some people pay tons of movies each month for movies, some people buy clothes for the sake of it. You pay for a video game. It's the same thing, really, just some short-sighted people can't seem to grasp that playing video games is no different than watching television, except more fun.

Holy Molly! The Koreans get to measure in centimeters? Damn, now I hate having to measure in feet even more!

I don't know, it's probably me, but this movie kind of reminds me of this movie.

Well, your concerns seem reasonable, as do your suggestions. The one about fighting/not fighting an AV if people drops seems a little abusable (start with few people to spawn an Elite Boss, then invite more), but I can see where it's coming from.

But my personal worry is, does that affect ALL AVs? So, the Preatorian counterparts of the surviving six, Dr. Vhazilok, Nemesis, Requiem and so on will transform into Elite Bosses? For one, that ought to make people more heroic, no scratch that, feel stronger, and for another it may be a little demeaning the the baddest of the bad. Regardless, I'm just happy I won't have to put together teams of strangers for a single mission from now on

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In the end though its not the action of building which is what people enjoy, its the gathering and the outcome of the crafting they like.

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Well, "people" may like that, but I find it infinitely boring and a giant waste of time. I can understand where you're coming from, but you also need to recognose that not everyone likes that, and some people (such as myself) outright hate it. If you make crafting a big part of the game, that would be akin to making PvP necessery for PvE. In other words, a bad choice.

Now, if this can be balanced in a way that I don't have to waste my time with it to enjoy the game, or be grossly outperformed by those who do (thereby making me have to fo it), I won't mind. I'm of the "whatever floats your boat and doesn't sink mine in the process" mentality.

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So... we're getting a refund for time that we could theoretically be playing, but can't due to server outage, right?

I DEMAND FREE MONEY!

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I like you

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How come we have no red servers yet???

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Well, they're all red now. A big fat red DOWN.

How many people of your SG are 35+ and how many of them are willing to go without influence gains?