bzald

Originally Posted by Hallowed

Ok... I am entertained.

Carry on.

Originally Posted by The_Killbot_5000

I've been following the news about the Clockwork and the Clockwork King on Praetorian Earth for some time now, and the news is...there is no news. As far as official information releases go so far, the Praetorian Clockwork are the creations of Raymond Keyes (who going on the so far established one-to-one relationship between Primal Earth and Praetorian counterparts) should be Anti-Matter the Praetorian counterpart of Positron.

Considering that Nemesis has kinda been 'written out' of Praetorian Earth (dying a humble toymaker) according to what we know at present, it's not too surprising that in the interests of making the new characters more fleshed out some of our old favourites have been cut from the team.

I'm absolutely certain though (read: this is just guesswork), that:

Praetorian Clockwork is PEOPLE!

Originally Posted by bzald

LOL i twisted huh yet i was nice enough to point out that someone might say something like this. your a idiot etc etc for that one sentence. i then went on to give you a exsample of what they would say.

(Note: This is my thoughts/opinions/idea play for me? etc while i dont know how many people would agree with me i have a feeling that no one would play a game without story?)

personal im middle ground on the who deal, i really like the look builder BUT with out story content why would you play? Im not sure i would want to play city of sims nothing wrong with sims but im here to do two things.

A) save the world/destory the world/do something no one saw coming etc
B) look good

now while the custom creator does the look good part with out some sort of story line there would not be much for me too do.

Originally Posted by JDub

I didn't make it sound like that at all. You merely quoted one sentence from my post and twisted it with hyperbole.

There is plenty to do in CoX, but if you don't care about character customization....there are alot of games out there that are better than this one. If you took the character customization out of this game, I pretty sure it would have failed in it's first year. How many people would have stuck with this game for 5+ years if you had to choose from 20 premade characters?

Why do you think power customization and weapon customization were such huge success stories? Why after 5 + years is there still costume contests every single day?

It's not really an opinion. This game's biggest attribute is the character creation. This was true on release, and it's true now.

Originally Posted by JDub

Honestly, if you don't care what your character looks like.....why are you even playing this game?

Originally Posted by EU_Damz

Theres plenty to be excited about! The sheer quality of the screenshots/bio of GR compared to what we have live currently is reason alone to believe that the future is VERY bright [one might say its even orange hehe bad jokes ].

Its not so much the fact that we're getting overexcited about a new costume set. Its just that its opened our eyes to the possibility that maybe, just maybe, a lot of the current costume sets are upgraded too [would greatly explain why theres been a large lack of costumes lately ].

Even if it is just a place you'ld superspeed past, thats fine by me! If an area that doesnt hold any real value looks that good, imagine what the areas we would be in more would look like?

These are the pieces of information which i would want to see though within the next few weeks.

• An explanation into what the new low level zone is like [or possibly the tutorial]
• A sample of one of the missions
• Will praetoria hold the 3rd party for pvp?
• Any new game mechanics being implemented into this game apart from GR?
• New emotions?
• Will praetoria have its own market? If so, is it linked to heroes/villains or set on its own?
• A screenshot of one of the new mission maps.

Originally Posted by Thirty-Seven

It's a good thing your opinion does not represent the whole community then, isn't it?

Personally, I love costumes. Each of my characters has a costume in each and every slot available, and I get those slots as soon as I can. I have spent, almost literally DAYS designing costumes. It may not change your view on anything, but it sure as heck makes ME happy!

Costumes DO make this game. If it weren't for them, you can guarantee I would have quit a long time ago.

Originally Posted by Chad Gulzow-Man

None of your Heroes, maybe. Mine comes from another dimension altogether, and strives to right wrongs and rescue the downtrodden no matter where he is.

Make no mistake, he's not altogether happy with the way things are going in Paragon all the time, either. (For one thing, why is everybody always breaking right back out of the Zig? Come on, people, let's get some super-powered security guards in there!)

Originally Posted by Positron

Congrats to WarWitch on her new duties. In the short time she's been at the helm I have already been impressed with the way she has taken the ball and run with it. Of course, after she felt good about everything is when I gave her the debrief on the current crop of player concerns and things to keep a close eye on in-game, bringing the reality of the position crashing down around her. Heh heh heh.

And a lot of you caught the reference to the End-Game that I am now working on. WarWitch frees me up to be creative again (yay!) and my strike team and I are designing and implementing an all-new system for your max-level characters to participate in. Rest assured that my focus for end-game is FUN. I won't be able to give out any specific details for a while, but I think you are all going to be very excited with all the future plans for City of Heroes, whether it is Going Rogue or beyond.

So yeah, you all can now fill up WarWitch's PM box with all your suggestions/exploits/requests for info/general chit chat. I'll still be around and answer questions when I can, but she's the "go to girl" for all that stuff now.

Here's the torch, WarWitch... don't burn yourself with it.

Originally Posted by Yogi_Bare

Gave the Hero-Con vids a second look and they mentioned Career Paths for Praetoria; either the Praetorian Police or the Resistance. Is this similar to Hero/Villain? Are these CPs lost once you enter Primal Earth? Any mention of other CPs (if not the same as Hero/Villain)?

Originally Posted by golden girl

they'll probably make it 10,000 now, to punish you for your insolence.

Originally Posted by Golden Girl

You know, standing there in your glowing armor, with dual pistols visible in holsters at your hips, and then turning on Walk and hearing the sound effects of your footsteps on the hard concrete as the only noise in the silent shadows of the under city could quite possibly overload your computer with badassery, causing it to shut down until the badassery has been brought back down to a more managble level.

Originally Posted by treboreleets

I've been thinking about the Resistance pieces and the Preatorian Clockwork pieces and I came up with a theory of how they will be unlocked.

The Preatorian Clockwork pieces will be tied to a defeat badge (possibly defeat 100 Preatorian Clockwork) or a Task Force completion badge. I doubt they'd be unlocked for joining the Loyalists, since they would only fit tech-based characters.

The Resistance pieces will be unlocked by going through an "initiation" arc for the Resistance.

Another costume set (probably the Preatorian Police) will be unlocked by completing an "initiation" arc for the Loyalists.

It's just a theory, but it's plausible.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville

I'm referring to a lot of things. For example, I like the blocking mechanic: it fits with the unrooted combat and allows for a better way to add complexity to the damage/defense equations of combat. I like the shift to activity-based endurance (although I'm not as crazy about the concept of specific endurance-builders specifically). Combine those two with a zero-recharge power system (with minimal cool down) though, and you can end up with a system where the sweet spot for combat has just enough blocking in it that you get virtually unlimited endurance "for free" as part of your general defensive strategy, and can therefore cycle your most powerful attack(s) almost indefinitely. This then can eliminate endurance as a balancing factor, and by extention eliminate the cost/benefit balancing factors in attacks in general. Then you have people simply gigabolting their way through the game.

And bear in mind these are features I *like* combining in potentially design-breaking ways in the launched game. There are also features which have materially affected the evolution of the game in constraining and deleterious ways. One side effect of the "open" powers system is the fact that initially, you could take any *or all* of the defensive powers. I actually sent a PM to Weirdbeard with basically one sentence: this is broken. I think they thought they could get away with that because Champions "gets away with that" but that's mainly because Champions GMs don't let that get out of hand. This prompted the need to create the "passive slot" and with it the passive system, and with that the offensive passive problem (namely: they suck). It also severely constrains defensive diversity: all characters with strong defense basically have the passive-block-heal tuple. They tried to compensate by packing mechanical diversity into the passive defensive mechanisms, but that then created the problem that novel mechanics are not trivial to balance, and I'm still not sure they have or can.

Another casualty of the "open" powers system was the melee archetype. In CoH the melee archetype is justified by granting the melee archetype higher defenses. This not only compensates for "being in more danger" but it also provides a tradeoff justification for surrendering range as a gameplay option. People play scrappers even though they are giving up range, because scrappers offer a completely different gameplay experience. In CO, there is no unique gameplay option that melee focused characters provide, unless you count dying as a gameplay option. Melee offense in CO gives up a lot intrinsicly just by not being ranged. But that option comes with no counterbalancing options unavailable to non-melee characters. So they've essentially created a game which penalizes the conceptual choice of not using range - which is what melee is in CO: its the voluntary choice to not use range.

The rule here is: if choices have no downsides, all the upsides must be identical.


Some of these things I publicly predicted on the closed forums, but some I didn't anticipate at all which makes them interesting learning opportunities.

Originally Posted by Golden Girl

Somehting I was thinking of - I wonder what nightime will look like in Praetoria? With dynamic shadows and no war walls to provide a glow, it might be quite dark in the places away from the street lights, which would be cool.

Originally Posted by Thirty-Seven

I get what you meant, but regardless of when they were "expected" they were projected to be in Q1 of 2010... so they won't even be "late" until well into Q2, as it was only a projection of the time line, not a promise.

Originally Posted by Thirty-Seven

They aren't late. It's still Q1!

Also, it is spelled "sincerely."

Originally Posted by Dark_Respite

I can see the ad now...

[ad opens with Sir Patrick sitting comfortably in a chair, a la Masterpiece Theatre]
"Hello... I'm Patrick Stewart, and I play CITY OF HEROES. I find it refreshing to enjoy a game that allows me to play almost as many characters as I have on stage and screen."
[cut to various looking toons of various archetypes]
[back to Sir Patrick]
"There's a strong sense of satisfaction, being a hero-"
[show character doing something heroic]
"... saving the day..."
[show more heroic stuff]
"... all that crap."
[hero goes on smacking stuff, then pauses... what did he just say?]
"But TRUE satisfaction comes from villainy..."
[villain strolls in and beats the crap out of a hero]
"True deviousness..."
[mayhem mission, blowing up statues, etc]
"... and of course, the lowest of the low... the depths to which one can sink..."
[now all the characters are looking at the camera, waiting]
"... catgirls."
[AAAAGGGHHHH!!! Mass panic in-game as a four-foot-tall catgirl zombie mastermind strolls in, as cute and as psycho can be]
[back to Sir Patrick]
"It gladdens my heart as only true drama can."
[cut to logo]

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite