Official Going Rogue Discussion

I wonder if whips could be customized like other weapons, so you could swing a chain instead, for example?
Or maybe it'll be part of the mutant booster pack, as glove costume parts that turn your arms into tentacles?

What this means is that for the next seven issues, people will ask for a whip powerset. Can't give one AT fancy new toys without other ATs getting jealous, you know?

Do you think it might be overkill for people to ask for Whip Armor or maybe Whip Master Mind Henchmen?

j/k :P

Whip Blast

Whip domination !!!

Leady Leather be your ruler

It will be interesting to see how they handle SGs. I can understand you get kicked from your Hero/Villain SG when you change sides but what if you had a solo SG? You kick yourself out for betraying your ideals?

That said will there be Neutral SGs that take characters of either side or possibly those who's good/evil ratio is in a certain range?

There are a few ways they can go with all this and no doubt many will be unhappy with anything they choose. MMO definition is "You can't make all the people happy all the time."

As far as open Beta goes there is a real risk to Open Beta's. Auto Assault sold almost no units because they had an open beta where everyone played pretty much as much as they ever wanted to. It probably still would have gone broke but it would have taken longer if more people had invested in it.

I vote for party Whip...

I've been wondering how they'll handle the SG issue myself, maybe it will all rely on upcoming Base additions that we've yet to see.....either that or SGs will be merged with VGs and allow cross pollination of members.

Maybe bases will gain an Alignment feature which says that if you go rougue you'll be kicked, but if you stay rouge you'll become more powerful then anyone could imagine...and have lots of storage space.

Speculation is speculation, and is usually fun, so I'll be quite intrigued to see how they handle everything relating to GR.

I just want a fox tail for my kitsune, and my friend who has a raccoon.

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

I realize that the "Desdemona looks like Bettie Page" argument has been put to rest, but I felt compelled to point out that the first link in TJ's post is not actually Bettie Page. It is Gretchen Mol http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001543/ as she appeared in the film "The Notorious Bettie Page" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0404802/

That out of the way, I would really like more information on the "morality slider" or whatever the mechanic for switching from hero to villain and vice versa will be.

1. Is it 1 time only or can you constantly slip back and fourth like Magneto or walk the line like Deadpool or Venom.
2. I would hope that super group memebership is not static, as in if you go rogue you are auto-kicked from your group. Dark Phoenix was technically still an X-Man when she was flying around the galaxy killing people... just a bad one. Other examples exist of heroes going through a "dark period" where they were not nice people. It could make for an interesting roleplaying dynamic (if such a thing exists in an MMO) with the former allies attempting to redeem the fallen hero or corrupt a redeemed villian.

Also, DP really needs to be available for at least corruptors, if not defenders as well.

as far as the "Loyalty Program" Closed Beta stuff, I understood it to be thus.

Closed Beta WILL START in mid to late Nov.

Tier 1 will be anyone who has earned the 60 month badge as of Nov 15 (at least I'm hoping that's the case as I will get my 60 month badge on Sept 1 if I remember correctly)

Tier 2 will be anyone who's account was active from July 15 to Nov 15 with no breaks in service (therefore anyone who is paying month to month but paid for July, Aug, Sept, Oct, and Nov would qualify)

Tier 3 beta testing will begin roughly 1 month before launch when preorder becomes available.

I'm not exactly certain, and they didn't have Veteran Reward Badges then, but I seem to remember the CoV beta going something like that.

Originally I stood the other way on this, thinking that villains should be auto-kicked from hero groups, and vice versa. But you make a fair point. Whether the GR side-switching mechanic is a slider, or has an numeric value, or what have you, what I would like is to have that value displayed for each member in the SG panel. Then if a group decides that they're not going to have a certain type of character its easy enough to kick them. And it doesn't limit the options of the groups that want all types.

I'd like to see WhiPlacate.

Lewis

A few guesses of my own, in answer to your questions.

1. If you look at your missions list in game, you'll note that since I 13, some have been labled "Hero" and "Villain." At a guess, they could add light/dark points to those missions, in a similar way to how some missions now award Merits. If fact, if they use the same mechanic, that also solves the problem of people who just want to run missions without getting "Rogue-jacked" and ending up changing sides when they didn't really want to. Merits are already set up so that only the mission owner and players who also have the same mission can get them. Everyone else just gets the standard mission completion goodies.

2. Let me flip the question - if it *isn't* called "alignment," does it actually matter?

3. Pure speculation, but at a guess, Going Rogue would include:
* At least two brand new powersets, Demon Summoning (MM) and Dual Pistols (blasty types. Probably.)
* There is a strong probability that there will be Powerset proliferation for the ATs that don't actually get new powersets. This is what happened in I 13 when Villains got Pain Domination and the melee classes got Shields.
* A new series of Praetorian themed zones, contacts, missions, and task forces. It has been hinted that this would include a new Rogue starting area, where all AT can start from level 1 with no preset alignment.
* There is also a good chance that it will include new costume options, emotes, and temporary powers.
* There may be new features for base builders and/or PvP. Nothing has been hinted at, but if they're going to do anything at all for either group, this would be a good time to at least announce that it's being worked on.

4. Release time frame - Soon! (tm) Realistically, it probably won't be out until early next year. A November or Christmas release would be totally amazing. But for that to work, it would have to be basically finished and in private beta testing already. I'm not sure how that could be possible, since all indications are that the amount of manpower needed to get Power Spectrum running was quite large, just for the coding and graphics updates required. (Over 1,200 powers have been altered to be customizable, and there are still a few normal powersets, almost all Mastermind primaries, and all the Pool, Epic, and Ancillary powers that aren't being included.)

5. Depending on how much is included, a full expansion will probably be at least $20 US, and somewhere from $29 to $39 seems likely. Anything above that is currently the domain of brand new games, and even then it's normally only Collector's Editions that go above $49.

6. I don't see why they would force an arbitrary limit. If they end up using something like Merits to keep track of your good/evil standing, it would likely take a fairly decent amount to "purchase" a side switch. Also, it's a good bet that depending on how far you've shifted, you'd have to at least go to a new area to find contacts that are willing to give you further missions. (While I'm certain that Lord Recluse would be happy for every new minion... er.. ally that decides to follow his glorious example, even he isn't stupid enough to give a copy of his "Top Secret plan to humiliate Statesman and Conquer the World" to someone who was punching him in the face the previous evening. He'll only give it to people evil enough to punch him in the face and steal the plan for themselves. )

7. As far as what happens to your stuff, that's currently completely unknown. One way to handle it would be to merge the markets and turn all the "currency" into a single type, rather than influence and infamy. (Listens for a moment to the collective screaming from the marketeers.) A more likely method would be that influence and infamy remain seperate, and your character can earn both. The Going Rogue areas could quite easily have merchants that will only take one or the other (or both, for truely shady merchants.) They could also borrow a page from "the evil, other MMO" and have a neutral market that can be accessed by characters from either side, but that charges much larger fees. If they go this route, then when you switch sides, you keep all your stuff. After all, both sides use IOs, and both sides use salvage, so there really isn't a good reason to strip items from the character. (And there's a lot of reasons why taking away a character's "stuff" would be a really bad idea.) You keep your influence/infamy, but unless you're in the new "grey zone" areas, you can't spend it unless you switch sides again. (Arachnos Quartermaster - "So you're the Master of Statesman's Task Force, and you were best friends with Manticore. Good for you. I'm impressed, really. And what have you done for Lord Recluse? Nothing. Which is exactly what I'm authorized to give you. Now leave, before I decided to make sure that the disintegration beams on the Defense Drones are working properly.")

These are wise words.

The PvP community made the mistake of annoying the Devs; they got i13. Learn from this my friend and be much the wiser.

Pain Domination is not a proliferated set, sets that are proliferated are either sets directly from other ATs or combinations of powers from existing sets like /Psi for blasters and /earth and /elec for Doms.

Also just wanted to know does anyone else want those extra 10 enhancement slots? I would hope that they are included in GR also.

Reading comprehension is your friend. I said that the powerset proliferation was for the classes that *didn't* get new sets. Pain Domination and Shield Defense = new, not a lot of proliferation on the ATs that got them. Everyone else got at least one power set that they didn't have before though. I'd still expect Going Rogue to do the same thing.

That certainly explains why melees have gotten Dual Blades, Willpower, and Shield Defense. And why in addition to Brutes being the only class that got three new sets last time, half of the melees are getting two sets this time, and one of them is getting a new epic! PLUS some of them got new stuff in i7 as well.

Not only that, but Doms and Controllers, who haven't gotten any new sets since the last proliferation, are only getting one new set each this time.

I don't think there's any relation between new sets/proliferation.

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

I13 did not contain any powerset proliferation. While 5 ATs got new powersets the other 5 got nothing. I'd also be very surprised to see powerset proliferation in GR. New sets that you have to pay for are one thing since they represent a significant development effort but I think the devs will avoid powerset proliferation that you have to pay for for PR reasons.

Blasters as well,