Slaunyeh

In fact, we were ordered to stand down and let the reactor be destroyed, but Anti-Matter and the loyalist protagonist (ie. the player) wasn't about to let that happen. They defied a direct order from Cole, to prevent the massive casualties the destruction of the reactor would have caused.

The point of the responsibility story line is to slowly build up just how corrupt the system is. At first, you just run around saving civilians from being massacred by resistance nutjobs. Then you meet Mother... and you get the first taste of just how unstable this corner pillar of the Regime really is. And your first opportunity to oppose the regime from within, without changing sides. Then you meet the glorified Praetor Berry who is lauded as a genius but obviously doesn't care about anything but himself.

And that's when you start getting orders to 'let people die to unite the population against the resistance', and you have the option to start working more directly against those orders and save the people that Cole obviously no longer cares about. As an NPC tells you (I forget who): "I admire his vision, but not the thing he has become."

The point of Praetoria isn't whether the regime is right or wrong. The point of Praetoria is that the people behind it have become (or always were) wrong. "Rescuing" the poor deluded Praetorians and teaching them the wonders of western democracy becomes the point of the iTrials, but I think this is doing a disservice to the theme of Going Rogue and, as others have pointed out, suggest that the original idea of Going Rogue has been largely discarded at this point. Which is sad.

Oh certainly not. And I don't really like the attempt to "humanize" Cole's regime by revealing his deal with Hamidon. I liked Tyrant better when he was just being a totalitarian jerk. Now it's revealed that everything he and Mother Mayhem have cooked up might actually be justified? I think that kinda cheapens the horror of Praetoria, and paints all resistance members as unwitting villains, which I don't think was the point at all.

No. The trials are about pre-emptively destroying Praetoria and, apparently, feeding the population to Hamidon. This may be understandable, considering we're at war (or close to, anyway), but that doesn't make it 'just'. And it's about as heroic as a private mercenary company invading a sovereign nation.

But, you know, the fact that you think the resistance Crusaders are good guys make me laugh. You should really come join us in the Rogue Isles. You will find the lack of self-denial much less stressful.

So... are you accepting that the heroic side in Praetoria consists of responsability loyalists and warden resistance? Or are you saying that there is no heroic side in Praetoria?

Interestingly, my loyalist saved Vanessa DeVore from Mother Mayhem, because she's just like me: She accepts that her allies are extremists, but is determined to try to guide them onto a better path from within. DeVore accepts that some of them are just too broken to change, and acknowledges that those have to be stopped. But she will do what she can to straighten out her side.

Imagine if the rest of CoH had been designed the same way as Praetoria: Villains could do hero work, but got the option at certain points to "double cross" their contact. Heroes could go undercover to work with villains, only to bust them at the very last moment. Etc.

Co-op content could have worked much better, this way.

Maybe!

Keep in mind, that defeated only means dead if the game explicitly tells you so. Otherwise, we'd personally have killed Desdemona half a dozen times on our way to 50, and that clearly doesn't make sense with post-50 content.

It's safe to assume that most of these "casualties" are alive, but 'defeated' to the point where they are no longer in a position to stop us from mucking up their dimension.

If anything, they can always come back as giant hamidon super-monsters, once we've sacrificed all of Praetoria to the Devouring Earth.

On behalf of Gravity controllers everywhere, I would like to take this moment to thank you for your consideration. Teams are much better without this kind of attitude on them.

Ah. It was released in Europe back in march.

I think you are probably right. It's just a shame, because the storytelling in Praetoria (at least from 1-20) is really superior to anything else in the game. IMHO!

There are some really powerful moments scattered through those early levels. Whether it's a loyalist deciding that they have to clean up the Cole Regime from the inside while struggling to keep civilian casualties to a minimum, or a resistance member who reprogram clockwork to murder civilians right on Cole's lawn just to make the regime look vulnerable.

Or that one invading Longbow agent who wonders "are we really sure all Praetorians are evil? Their PPD mostly carry non-lethal weaponry. Look what we are carrying!"

I suppose maybe you can grind your way to 50 without leaving Praetoria, but it would be horrible. And can you even unlock your incarnate slots or queue for iTrials as a praetorian?

I know you're just being snarky, but the issue is that the original Praetorian story arcs make a really big deal about avoiding the kind of murderous outcome that the so-called "heroic" iTrials later does everything to promote. While that's fine in itself, it just goes counter to the motivations that the Going Rogue content was trying to instil in your characters (unless, I guess, you're a Crusader in which case it fits right in).

My responsibility loyalist had to take down a close friend in order to prevent exactly what the TPN trial is trying to accomplish, and, with his dying breath, he made me promise that Mother would pay for her crimes against Praetoria. It was a powerful, emotional moment, that is being completely invalidated by later content.

If I wanted to stay true to what happened in Going Rogue, I couldn't take part of most of the iTrials. At least not on Primal Earth's side (although, as much as I dislike the trials, my loyalist totally have to be there for the MoM trial. Mother needs a boot to the brain).

I really wish praetorian PCs could be involved in this, because it's such a fundamental point of the responsibility story arc that yes, maybe the Cole regime is wrong, but if something has to be done about it, it has to be done without inciting a mass panic that will result in heavy civilian casualties.

I know my Praetorian would fight tooth and nail against the outcome of the last iTrials, if given a choice. Sadly, the only option is to pretend they don't exist.

Both Oberyn and Quentyn come to violent and largely pointless ends. It seems to be a Dornish tradition!

Book 5 hit paperback, like, a month ago. At least, that's when I got mine from Amazon.

Absolutely. I don't think anyone is disagreeing with that.

There is, however, one seemingly random event that has huge ramifications on the rest of the story: Eddard's execution. Everything was planned, but Joffrey surprises everyone by overruling his mother ("the mercy of women") and have Ned executed.

Seemingly random, because given the end of book 5, I have my suspicions that Ned's execution wasn't Joffrey's idea. If Varys really has been plotting to throw the realm into chaos, it would make perfect sense if he had been the one who put that notion into Joffrey's head. Just about everything that has happens since, can be traced back to that one fateful moment (as Cersei herself reflects while she's imprisoned).

This also suggests who is behind Tyrion's "fall from grace". He was doing too good of a job, as Hand. If someone wants the realm thrown into chaos, Tyrion needed to be dead or, at least, discredited (note how Tyrion's reign ends when one of the Kingsguard 'spontaneously' tries to murder him during the battle for Kings Landing).

is completely counter to my experience with the series. Nothing, so far, has happened completely at random. Everything, imho, seems to be the logical consequences of previous actions.

That's actually what I really like about GRRMs style of writing. He doesn't seem to push anyone around out of spite, or protect someone because they are his "wife's favourite". Whatever happens, happens for reasons that makes sense in context.

I guess we have wildly different impressions of the books.

Arcanaville is an unshackled AI. We installed a female personality matrix, because females tend to be more compliable. And have better singing voices.

Good question. I expect him to almost manage to overthrow Euron, but failing miserably in the end. But I'm biased, I think Euron is fantastic as the evil pirate archetype.

Really? I think I completely missed that part. Didn't Tormund claim that they never actually found the real horn?

The horn was sacrificed to Cthulhu. I mean R'hllor. It was also supposedly fake.

Another very good point!

That's possible, but Brienne isn't really the kind to change her mind in face of death. She's stubborn as a mule!

It's almost a little too easy, given the characters involved. But maybe!