Slaunyeh

I was looking over the issues after I7 for villainous content, earlier. I might have missed a few, but what I stumbled on was:

Ouroboros: Tesseract is the villain-specific contact, I think. I don't really remember her arc though, or what you do in it. All of Ouroboros is pretty silly, red-side, anyway (oh you're irredeemably evil? Why here, have the keys to my time travelling phone booth! What could possibly go wrong?)

5th Column Strike Force: It is villain specific. But you do end up "having to clean up the mess you made" in a distinctly heroic fashion. There's no "how could we profit from this..?" There's just "oh noes, go save the world from Reichsmann!" That's almost worse, since it isn't even co-op.

Lord Recluse Strike Force: Never done it, but presumably it's not very heroic.

I do get why co-op is an attractive game model though. Sharing content between sides is a practical necessity. And I do understand that it's much easier to go "oh, I guess villains probably don't want the world to end either"", than it is to justify heroes doing something nasty.

It just... gets really old.

It was suggested a while back that critical hits could put you back into hide. I liked that idea much better than the "must get the kill" option - those are always problematic on teams.

A threat to whom, exactly? First I save the world (from myself, even!). Then I save the world from the Rikti. And then I go on a save-the-world spree. I don't sound like a particular big threat.

Well, that's true. There's no motivation for anyone, really. Though I suppose heroes generally have more incentive to respond to cries for help. Saving kittens from trees is at least remotely in the hero portfolio.

Oh, I'm an equal opportunity kind of guy. I don't think a lot of heroes would appreciate someone like Westin Phipps as a co-op contact. Just as I don't appreciate a lot of the thinly veiled co-op-but-really-hero content.

The thought of hero characters being "forced" to work for Westin Phipps amuses me (I primarily play red-side, so sadistic glee is perfectly in-character!)

First Ward is a prime example because they gave up even trying to explain why you spontaneously decide to help out. Oh sure, the doorman guy does a vague "there's heroes helping out in there, I bet you wouldn't be able to help out nearly as much as a hero". And apparently I'm an idiot and fall for it? Or something? I don't know. I rather liked the story in First Ward, but it was clear that it wasn't written for me. At all.

I'm still waiting for the Westin Phipps co-op trial. If I can save the world, surely heroes can burn a few school books.

Hope so! And the description of the regular story arcs in DA sound promising as well.

Mostly I just think it would be a shame if future large-scale events (such as the Coming Storm) was met with indifference because the 'trick' to unify heroes and villains have been used for (almost) all new content since issue 7.

Trouble is, that's the excuse every time. Why? Because it's easy to write a hero story arc, and then tag on an "oh, and villains also want to stop this so they get to be heroes again". Diabolique isn't worried about the end of world. She's trying to take Mot's power for herself. Why, hello villain angle.

This means that when they finally DO introduce a credible galactic-scale threat that we all should care about (Ruularu? The Comming Storm?) the reaction will be more like "gah, we have to save the day again". Villains being forced into doing the right thing should be special and rare, or it loses all significance.

The only thing these "stop the real villain" TFs accomplishes, is to drive home the fact that I'm not the real villain. At level 5, I'm a 'global threat'. At level 45, I save the world (literally). At level 50+ I save the world again and again and again?

Screw the world.

Hrmph. Saving the world from villains (that are apparently much better at being villains than me) is getting a bit old.

!There's no one I don't want to not die.

I'm no expert on american time zones, but shouldn't it be 5pm PST/6pm MST/7pm CST/8pm EST?

I was all "hey, 8pm CET isn't so bad!" but.... 5pm PST isn't 8pm CET.

You are quite right, that is one of the main reasons you play an MMO game. Please be aware that there are a couple hundred thousand other players, in this game alone, who play for their own reasons.

They should make Grandville a co-op zone. I would greatly enjoy watching heroes do the Westin Phipps arc.

*waits patiently*

But you can never use a mirror again. SOME of us care about personal grooming!

The devs have always had a crazy fascination with explaining game mechanics in-game. Sometimes it works. The AE is a prime example of it not working.

Sad

Works for me.

Dark Astoria is, by far, my favourite zone. Sadly, there's nothing in there. It saddens me that fixing it involves removing what made it awesome.

Worst news I've heard all week (which includes that my new PC will be delayed indefinitely)

Shouldn't be necessary. I've been watching old streams from their site without registering. If you don't see anything, it might not be up yet.

Curse my colleagues for bothering me before I could hit submit!

Good summary though!

Uhm. No.

To quote Synapse (here):

Literally the first comment from a dev on the stalker vs. TW issue was "big weapons aren't sneaky".

And while that may be true, there was, until now, nothing forcing stalkers to be a sneaky character concept. I mean, how else do you justify strapping light bulbs to your hands or cover yourself in crackling lightning storms? That's not exactly screaming STEALTH either.

In the end, they created a melee set to specifically not work for stalkers. Whether this was by design or accident I can't say (and honestly, wouldn't care. Done is done), but the concept excuse is just weak. I was just wondering if they are still clinging to that.

Is that the explanation they gave, or is it your rationalization?

Because is still makes no sense.

I think that's a really important. Guys? Be considerate.


Whaaat?

I'll join when the tour gets to Copenhagen.

They ARE going on tour, right? Paragon Studios devs are like rock stars, trashing hotels and only eating the green skittles. It's crazy!

Can't wait.

Corruptors had their chance to scourge severely reduced. Does that count?

Even my cold-hearted Mu assassin felt pretty bad about stuffing Katie back into the network.