TyrantMikey

You know, when I was writing missions for AE, what I wanted most was a Canon Bible. Sadly, there isn't one. The closest you can get is ParagonWiki, and, as Durakken has pointed out, the data is scattered all over the place.

If I want to locate everything there is to know about Crey Industries, its history, its operations, its structure, security operations, and so on, I have a lot of work ahead of me.

If I want to locate everything there is to know about Back Alley Brawler's past, from the day he started as a cop to when he retired to training heroes, and all the missions he undertook between, I have a lot of searching to do.

It should be easier.

Yeah, ParagonWiki is great if you want to know about a mission, a power, an IO, a map, or whatever. But canon? That's altogether different. Canon isn't organized into any system that's useful to mission writers who want to write stories that don't conflict with existing history.

What he's proposing would make that much easier. It would also help short story and novel writers.

The Star Wars story is interesting. It tells one of the oldest myths around: The universe was created, but there's somehow a schism that must be repaired. And so the universe creates its own solution to the problem: The Sacrificial Lamb. But the Lamb is raised from the dead in the end, and exalted.

But the twist in the end is that Anakin must repair the schism by perform some truly horrendous acts; and that's what makes the Star Wars story so different. In most tales of this nature, the Sacrificial Lamb brings peace, and lays down his life willingly after having lived a life fighting for the cause of good. Anakin's starts out that way, but it certainly isn't lived that way.

Nonetheless, he accomplishes what the Force created him to do. And make no mistake about it: he meets all the criteria of a messiah. Born of a virgin birth and the whole nine yards. He, however, falls to the dark side, and then, at the very end, turns against his dark master to overthrow him in an effort to save his son. In that one act, he redeems himself and restores balance to the Force (repairing the schism).

In my mind, his ascension as a Force Ghost was foreordained because the Force always intended for him to give his life to save his son. Jedi were always big on destiny and fate and looking into the future. And Anakin's ascension was just the Force's way of saying, "This is your reward for laying down your life, for being the Sacrificial Lamb we created to solve this problem."

In the Star Wars universe, The Force is God. Neither good nor evil, but struggling to maintain a precarious balance. And it'll do whatever's necessary to keep it in balance.

Just my two $currency.

I know this is ridiculously simple, but I've wanted it forever.

I want a mask that sits ON your face, and isn't painted onto it:




I want to be able to color it. I'm sick of my eyebrows showing through the darned thing when I choose the Rounded, Pointed, or Diamond masks with any color but black.

Many of these suggestions are pure win. I would also add the following.

Multi-level supergroup bases. Allow me to add multiple floors to my base, connected by elevators. Further, let me specify that only certain SG security levels have access to specific floors.

Seasons. Not just weather, but seasons. Snow during winter, leafless trees during fall, heat waves during summer, fresh growth during spring.

Pharmacies. Put pharmacists in hospitals to sell inspirations. AE gets really close to this with an inspiration vendor right outside the hospital. I don't see why we can't put one in every hospital in Paragon and the Rogue Isles.

Cell Phones for Detectives. There's no logical reason they don't have them or offer them, and it would eliminate pointless travel for bank missions.

A New City. Paragon is supposed to be Providence, RI. That opens up Boston to the North, or New York to the South. Or even New Jersey. Open up a whole new city, complete with zones. Make it a place where heroes and villains roam freely together, with their contacts intermixed. It's not a co-op zone, but not a PVP zone either. Their contacts simply exist in the same city together, putting everyone in the same place together. Don't get rid of the Isles or Paragon, just open up a new city.

Space Missions. We've hashed these over ad nauseum, so I won't go any further into them.

Underwater Zones. Same.

My mom plays. She's 63. And she has no qualms about tellin' ya her age. Most folks don't believe her, tho.

Evil is as evil does. And they'll always lose. Cuz they're fat, and they choose to be that way.

Plasma Fury
Fire/Fire Blaster
Incarnate of Vulcan

Tectonic Storm
Earth/Storm Controller
Incarnate of Jupiter

American Argonaut
Super Strength/Willpower Tank
Incarnate of Zeus

Debt? What is this debt of which you speak?

On a more serious note, all my toons have Self Destruct, Ninja Run, Mystic Fortune, and the LKT-1700 Rocket Pack (no idea where that came from). And yes, I'm a booster pack ho.

I explicitly remove Self Destruct from my tray every single time because:

1.) Its animation is insanely long.
2.) It can't be interrupted.
3.) Its accuracy is bizzarrely low (Sands of Mu hits more often, which says a lot).
4.) It's ridiculously easy to hit it when I really want to, say, rest or teleport to my base. Funny for others, not funny for me. A true "OH DAMMIT!" moment.

For me, personally, it's a useless power and needs some serious love.

It's a shame that there's no in-game mechanism to find the date that your supergroup was established.

The Paragon Defense League (on Virtue) was established shortly after launch. And yeah, I'm still the leader, though with a different toon.

I got to thinking about "raids" in other games, and how TFs/SFs work in COH. I noticed that one of the big differences is that COH requires you to run from contact to contact, getting lots of missions that may require zone-to-zone travel. I wanted to imagine something *big* that could not be finished in 20 minutes, would require a coordinated effort between multiple teams and would be fairly challenging, on an epic scale.

So here, you essentially get a call to arms. Teams assemble at a contact, form their coalition, and enter an instanced map (probably at a tram), and enter this huge map where the gangs have started running amok. And it should be a mad-house. I mean, there should be so many enemies, so many hazards that you *really* have to work together. But the entire thing takes place on one large city map. There are hostages, explosives, trip mines, building fires, burning cars, smashed windows, fighting gang members, the whole nine yards. And you have to restore order.

I tried to make it as neutral as possible. If you're a hero, hey, it's what heroes do. If you're a villain, you're being paid to restore the order by Arachnos--or you're putting an end to this ridiculous nonsense that's interfering with your plans. (Unfortunately, some objectives just don't fit the villainous mold. What do you care if some John Doe dies in a burning building? Although this might be more enticing if the individuals inside the building were important: say, Dr. Geist, or someone similar.)

Anyway, I'm vetting this through you guys for refinement. If it has any merit, I'll promote it to the suggestions forum.

Introduction
The premise of this idea is that the gangs of Paragon are rioting in the streets, and that it's going to take a coordinated effort to restore order. This would not be a task-force of any kind we've seen to date. It would be something like a combination between a mayhem/safeguard mission, building fires, and rescue mission.





Details

• The primary objective of this repeatable mission is to restore order with minimal property damage and loss of life. The more property damage *you* cause, the lower your end-of-mission inf bonus.
• Primary foes in the mission blueside are Hellions, Skulls, Outcasts and Trolls. Redside foes are Snakes, Coralax, DE, Wailers and Arachnids. However, all foes have been scaled to support the entire level range. (New tech?)
• Multiple teams can participate in the mission, as a sort of "coalition." This would require new tech. They would all appear on the same instanced map, which is quite large, and the number and level of foes scales with the sizes of the teams.
• Safeguard/Mayhem Missions already involve destructible environments. Further, we've seen that certain objects, when destroyed, inflict damage on those within the effective casualty radius (ECR). This technology, already in the game, will be used. Essentially, if you destroy an explosive, it can kill a hostage you're trying to save, reducing your end-of-mission bonus. (You've failed a mission objective.)
• Explosives. The gangs will have piled lots of explosives against buildings, set traps and mortars, and used other means to cause as much destruction as possible. Players have two options: Use the explosives to defeat foes and increase the amount of property damage, or defeat the foes normally and disarm the explosives for additional XP. Explosives take damage from player attacks.
• Burning buildings. The rioting gangs will be setting buildings on fire, just as they do in Steel Canyon. The difference here, which would require a minor tweak, is that there are trapped civilians within the building. Once a building catches fire, a timer starts. Team members must get inside the building, rescue the hostages and get them to safety. If there are multiple teams involved, there may be multiple simultaneous building fires.
• Hostages. Hostages will be held throughout the map. Citizens must rescue them before they come to harm at the hands of the gangs. Number of hostages is variable, and depends on the number of teams participating.
• "Gang War" Ambushes. As the teams are trying to restore order, "gang war" style ambushes (lower level mobs of large numbers) will spawn and assault them to attempt to thwart their efforts.
• Restoring Order. As the team(s) defeat more villains on the map, order is progressively restored. PPD/RIP Cops begin returning to the streets. When the number of foes defeated reaches 95%, the big Finisher spawns.
• Big Finisher. Somewhere on the map, the big, final brawl spawns. This brawl contains an AV/EB from each of the gangs, plus his minions. The teams must arrest all the villains to restore final order. Once this is accomplished, all remaining villains will surrender or flee.

EDIT:
- Added Trolls to Blueside villain groups.
- Added Snakes, Coralax, DE, Wailers and Arachnids to Redside villain groups.

Extremely frustrating, that thing is.

I finally have the funds saved up to pre-order GR. I go to the Account Management page at PlayNC.com. Enter my master account credentials and password, as I have done time and again to keep my account current. It tells me, in no uncertain terms, that my credentials are incorrect, or that the server is unavailable.

Now, this experience is nothing new. It seems that the Account Management page decides, at random intervals, that I am not who I claim to be. Then, all of a sudden, it declaims, "Just kidding! You really are who you say you are!" and lets me through. It's annoying as all heck.

I can't tell if the problem is truly server outage (highly improbable given the the number of times this occurs) or that I am truly that fumble-fingered (also highly improbable, given that I can type the credentials into Notepad, see them in clear text, and then paste the correct credentials into the Account Management page and still be denied access).

And, no, I haven't changed my credentials.

I don't think my account's been hacked, because it will suddenly decide that the credentials are valid, after all, and let me through.

All I can say is, "ARRRRRRRGHHHHH!!! SMASH! BASH!!!!"

</vent>

Create a new Player's Guide and put it online. Keep it up to date, and make sure it covers every aspect of gameplay. Keep a link to it in the page that is displayed in the Updater when you first launch the game.

Hire a swath of editors to review all mission text for grammatical and spelling errors. Chain them to their desks until their work was complete.

Put a pharmacist inside every hospital that dispenses inspirations at the standard cost. He won't buy them, but he'll sell them. Create badges that you can earn that allow you to purchase larger inspirations from the pharmacist, or to purchase all inspirations at reduced cost (Paragon City/Rogue Isles HMO). These badges could be awarded based on how many times you've rezzed in the hospital, how many inspirations you've purchased through the pharmacist, or something like that. The idea here is to eliminate excess travel time when you rez in the hospital and need to get back to the mission quickly.

Vastly improve frightened citizen IQ. Especially indoors. Teach them how to use an Exit sign.

Vastly improve hostile mob animations. When they're standing guard, they should be carefully scanning the area. When patrolling, they should be following predefined routes, turning around, and going back the other way. Rinse, repeat. None of this silly crouching creeping emote. It breaks immersion just for the lulz. You want me to take the Council or the 5th seriously when an Adjutant is creeping around like a cat about to pounce on a stuffed mouse full of catnip? o.O

Change the nature of debris scattered about indoor maps. A chair laying on its side in the middle of the floor of an indoor map should not impede my movement; rather, it should tumble out of my way when I plow into it.

Revamp every contact to ensure that you were awarded a cellphone after completing the first mission.

Move every introductory contact for a zone out of red neigborhoods and into green neighborhoods, preferably close to the tram. Suitable examples include Justin Green and Amanda Loomis in Independance Port.

Give cell numbers to detectives.

Fix it so that zoning doesn't redirect you to a detective, even though you have a different contact selected when you start zoning.

Create so many new maps with new textures that it's mind-boggling. Create new tilesets for things like mausoleums, museums, shopping malls, university campuses (ours is way too small), executive office suites, biochemical labs, automotive factories, broadcasting stations, theaters, cafes, bookstores, software companies, game design studios, and so on.

Put an end to magical mystery doors. Warehouse missions should always go to warehouses. Office missions should always go to offices. Cave missions should always go to caves.

Fix hazard zone guards so so that you can click anywhere on them to gain entrance. As it stands, it's a guessing game as to where you have to click on them to gain entrance, and the blue gropy hand frequently insists that you click them in their naughty place. I'm sure the guards like it, but come on. Really? We can't fix this?

Add a Drop Contact feature. Somtimes, I just don't want to do your stupid darned story arc, no matter how peachy keen you think it is.

Rewrite any contact's arc that offers, as its first mission, a task that requires a team.

Eliminate missions that require you to click multiple items at the same time. (Forced teaming. In some cases, this is the only mission the contact will offer, and if it's a story arc, the player can't continue.)

Significantly reduce the number of Defeat X missions. Specifically reduce the number of Defeat X missions in hazard zones, as they put soloists at significant risk of great bodily harm. These missions don't really move a plot line forward. They just kill time.

This is kind of a tricky question, isn't it? I mean, what *exactly* falls under "War Witch's job?"

Is it just content? Does it exclude artwork, or is it inclusive of artwork required for new content? Is it new QOL systems? Is it new game systems (a la WW, AE, etc.)? Is it zone revamps? Is it new zones? Is it story arcs and task forces? Is it animations? Is it estalishing new canon? Is it all of the above and more?

Without a definitive notion of what her job is and is not, it's easy to create a list of things I'd love to see done, which don't fall under her purview.

First, and foremost, I'm /unsigned from the idea for all the various reasons posted before me.

But, something else has to be pointed out that may not have been. In order for a freshly minted Level 50 to enjoy access to Oroborous arcs, that purchased character must have a series of contacts from which to choose uncompleted arcs. But the purchased character is a tabula rasa, a blank slate. The character will never have selected any contacts.

This is important, because many times you are presented with several contacts to choose from.

Who's going to make those choices? The game client? Are you going to let it foist undesirable contact choices (and their arcs) upon you?

Thinking you can simply create a new level 50 character and hit the ground running is simplistic and naive. It's not just a case of leveling the character. It would require additional software to determine which contacts the character wants to interact with. That's new code, new user interfaces, and possibly new artwork.

Again, /unsigned.

o.O

Fire/WP Blaster
DP/WP Blaster

MOAR POWAR!!!!

(Seriously, tho, it'll NEVARR HAPPEN, and I know it. But omg, I can dream and drool.)