New Cape Mission

Hollows is i2, not i1. i1 was the expansion to level 50. i2 got us the Shadow Shard, Hallows, and respecs.
You ought to be more careful when stating absolutes, especially when they are blatantly wrong. The Hallows was revamped a couple issues ago in a very positive manner. I can't imagine you missed it. Sure, the story arcs didn't change, but "At All" isn't true.

You're saying there's no narrative in Striga and Croatoa?!? Wow, that's quite a claim since both have zone involved stories. Sure, Faultline and onward is better, but to lump Croatoa and Striga in with the original stuff is pretty ridiculous. Heck both even have well designed, quite TFs. I still think the Hess TF is one of the best in the game. When it came out it was to absolutely rave reviews.

You seem to have too many issues with content that which is fully optional. The Hallows trial is very much optional, so getting in a huff over it makes you seem very silly. It's a trial, as such it is supposed to be a bear.

As for Striga and Croatoa, I don't really understand your grounds for complaint. They have stories. They have decent TFs. Sure, there are some kill all missions, but heck that doesn't really kill you. To cite the redside missions as if they are the holy grail when they also have their share of kill alls is disingenuous.

Honestly the redside missions are a lot like Croatoa and Striga. They keep you in one zone as a rule, and tie the story into that zone. They have fedexes once in a while, and have their share of kill alls. You must have a very faulty rose colored set of memories if you think redside missions are that different.

You have an axe to grind, but not much to grind it on. Sure, the i0 content which we're subjected to (rarely) can be awful. But from i3 onward story content was vastly improved (and this includes Striga and Croatoa). The Hallows is a bit on the iffy side, but heck there's some nice named villain stuff (Frostfire is still a very good mission), and unique maps.

My bad. Doesn't change the time line, though.

I was under the impression we were talking about missions and arcs. As far as I'm aware, nothing changed in this regard. I guess you could count Meg Menson, but she's basically the "Police Scanner" of the Hollows. And as far as "zones are content," that has pretty much been dismissed by the development team in the past, admitting that it takes far too much resources to create new zones for what it's worth. Certainly the changes (or lack thereof) to the War Zone, as well as the added content in the form of "mini-zones" such as Ouroboros and Cimerora is pretty strong evidence in that regard.

So, yeah, if you want to reduce this to a semantics argument, then yes, "something" changed. Not anything that actually enhances the content of the game, since the stories and missions are still terrible, but "something" nevertheless. I appreciate War Witch's work very much, and she turned what was a zone of nightmares into a zone only limited by its crappy story, but that's quality of life pretty much on the nose.

There's about as much "narrative" as there is in Lineage II or any of the range of "free" to play Korean grindfest MMOs. That is to say, there is a story, and it's mentioned occasionally, but there is no "narrative" to speak of. Most of the time, you're doing missions unrelated to the plotline in anything but geographical co-location, and what storyline missions you do get are curt and apologetic. The Hollows lacks a storyline completely, and most contacts lack a story "arc" as a general thing. Let's look at Flux as the easiest example. He has you hunt Outcast here, beat up some Trolls there, save a few cops on the side and OH HEY! I can give you FrostFire! At no point in your interaction with him does one event lead logically into the next. This is not a story. This is a collection of random unrelated events and occurrences that, when you put them together, kind of resemble a story in the most loose interpretation of the word.

But that's not the worst of it. The one ACTUAL story in the zone, the thing that keeps being referenced the whole time, is Sam Wincott and his interaction with the Minions of Igneous. The only actual story in the zone, and you can't have it, because it's locked behind a Trial so fat no-one ever does it. I've never even heard a single person alive so much as mention it, not even in passing. Not unless I bring it up. I'm sure most people know it exists, but that's about it.

Content is not "optional" if it's part of a story you're already running. If I'm running Ubelmann the Unknown and suddenly I can't take the final mission because it's an 8-man Trial, then that's not optional. That sucks. If ANY part of a storyline is going to be a TF or a Trial, then the ENTIRE story needs to be a TF or a Trial. Not necessarily ONE TF or Trial, but even multiple TFs following the same plot line is better than solo arcs ending in a TF. What's more you're never warned that the Hollows storyline ends up in a Trial right up until you talk with Karsis, an the only reason Karsis even exists is because people complained that the final mission in Talshak's arc WAS the Caverns of Transcendence trial. That's right - you were locked into a story arc you could not escape from, and which you needed 8 people to do an 8-glowie simu-click.

But let's give this the benefit of a doubt. Let's say I've been around the block a few times and I know the whole Hollows storyline ends in a Trial. That just makes THE WHOLE DAMN ZONE optional team content. And, yeah, that's the reason I did it once back in I2 and I never did it again up until I7 or some such. The missions are terrible, the zone was (and is no longer) horrid and I can't even get a complete story for my effort. It's like renting a crappy movie and being told that the only way you can watch the final half hour is if you watch it in the cinemas. And it's no longer being shown. Great, thanks.

You really put yourself behind the 8-ball when you mentioned Striga. Easily half the missions from ALL the contacts are pointless "There are people over there, they are bad, go beat up 20 of them" hunts, with almost 90% of the rest of them having no logical progression, or indeed nothing to do with each other or anything else. Stephanie Peeble's entire mission set is completely pointless, both in relation to the rest of the city and the rest of the island, an in terms of correlations between the separate missions. A the end, all you accomplish is retrieving her ring. You learn nothing, you accomplish nothing, and it's basically a gigantic waste. Even the horrid story arcs of the pre-I1 content had more meaning than this, at least giving you some background information the factions involved, like the crime ring involving the Skulls, the Trolls and the Family.

In Striga, aside from the Hess and Moonfire TFs, you learn two things: One, the Council have super soldiers, magical wereolves, scientifically-created vampires and killer robots. Because that wasn't BLINDINGLY OBVIOUS without investigating it. Two, "something" is happening on Striga Isle. That's kind of like the news reporter from Spy Dogs. "Breaking news: Things are happening in places all over the world!" Unless you do the Hess TF, all of (tow missions of) build up account for nothing, since you don't get to see WHAT. And I've done the TF, and I still don't know what's going on, since no-one gave me the 5 minutes here and there to actually read my clues and briefings, just like on every TF.

Who ever said red-side was rosy? Most of the original content CoV rolled out with is utter crap, spoiled by a mistaken belief that if you jam all missions in the same zone, you don't have to do anything to actually make the missions themselves good. CoV has a few interesting missions here and there, some with unique mechanics, some with interesting writing, but a lot of them are garbage. Take Operative Kirkland, for instance. Oh, something is happening. Go have a look. I see. Go have a look at this. I see. OK, we're done.

It isn't until Faultline that mission designers finally pulled out something REALLY good, and good throughout the entire duration of the experience AND avoided the railroading storyline that plagues CoV. Faultline and the majority of the Grandville arcs are the beginning of the consistently good content in the game, with only pockets of it here and there before that. All of the I1-I6 content is practically doomed, and needs to be touched up a LOT. Some of the redside content is terrible, but a lot of it is good, and most content afterwards is above decent. But old content is still old.

No, the I3 and onward content was not vastly improved. Striga and Croatoa are a blight upon the game, and I'm all rainbows and unicorns that the developers have NOT repeated the same mistakes in their later works as they introduced in Striga and Croatoa. It petrifies me to think that the "Striga model" was actually considered good at any point in time, considering it's WORSE than the pre-I1 content the game launched with. The zones are justly lauded for their TFs, but everything ELSE is embarrassing.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

I'll concede the Hollows isn't the best zone out there with the best arcs, but it does have some variety in missions not present in i0 type content. It's an incremental step. It has some new maps and new enemies.

As always you lack context in your criticism. Is the Hallows content worse than the current stuff being produced. Yes. Should this surprise anyone? No, unless the Devs are incapable of learning. It is, however, an improvement over what was released with the game.

Context is key here. The content of what you speak is comparable to what was out in other MMOs of the time. They learned and improved. However as I said, i2 had stuff in it that was better than i1 and i0. i3 was better still.

I think you are spoiled by current content to the extent that you don't remember how things improved to the place they are now. Sure, compared to the latest and greatest, it's not wonderful. But this criticism is well over the top. I didn't much care for the Hollows, but with the revamp it is much more bearable. In any case, you are in the level range for it for a couple days at most. BFD.

It's a bad idea to claim numbers without checking. You are likely to be hoisted by your petard.

Four Striga contacts:
Peebles: one hunting mission out of 8
Long Jack (the likely source of your hyperbole): 4 hunts out of 8
Lars Hansen: 2 hunts out of 8 missions
Tobias Hansen: 3 hunts out of 8 missions

That makes 10 hunting missions out of 32. Your math is a bit off. You claimed half was hunts when only one contact is that bad. I know this won't convince you, but have some grounds for your criticism.

Dare I suggest something as radical as running the TF yourself? You know, in case you want to actually control the pace. Pshaw, but then you would only have yourself to blame if you didn't read it (then again since you haven't put the TF together yourself, you already are to blame now aren't you?).

Who ever said red-side was rosy? Umm, YOU:
Newer content, from CoV onward and especially from Faultline onward does much better with the narrative and with making missions easier.

So you moved the goalposts a bit back by throwing CoV content off the bus.

If you think Striga content is worse than the pre-i2 content, then you are delusional. Ranting about Croatoa is even more loony. Those arcs have a clear storyline which actually does progress with meaningful missions. The missions show even fewer hunts than before:
Gordon Bower: 2 hunts out of 9 missions
Skipper LeGrange: 2 hunts of 7
Kelly Nemmers: 3 hunts of 6 (low point for Croatoa)
Buck Salinger: 1 hunt of 7.

So for Croatoa, it's 8 for 29 hunts, which is a step up from Striga(27% vs. 31%), though one could say still a bit much.

However the story in Croatoa does progress and clearly. Bowen simply introduces you to the problems. LeGrange gives you the Skinny on the Firbolg in particular with a challenging mission at the end (arguably too challenging, but certainly different). Nemmers clues you in on what is happening behind all the obvious strife. Then Salinger shows you the real culprits and has you foil an ultimate plot. You can't really complain about that narrative (though I'm sure you will nonetheless). The TF for the zone is very easy to come by. It's quick, and has some interesting and challenging missions. By no means is the KTF a bad task force.

What... Does this have to do with anything? Each Issue's content is incrementally better than the content in the previous Issues, sure, but did you honestly think I was saying the opposite? A slap on the neck is an improvement over a knee to the groin, but I still wouldn't call it "good." How much better content was than content before it is irrelevant when it comes to updating content NOW. Fact of the matter is, how much of an improvement the Hollows was over pre-I1 content isn't going to keep a new player warm at night when it's still very much bad.

You're really determined to get me on semantics, aren't you? So, if I said half and it was 49 out of 100, would you still claim it wasn't precisely half? You know full well what I mean, and for someone beating me over the head with context, this is a pretty out-of-context argument. No, it's not half. I didn't count them and you know it. It's still too damn many, considering how very many people have complained of hunts over the years. In older content, you could at least skip the hunts, Security Chief notwithstanding, since the contact would always offer a hunt or another mission, and when he only offered a hunt, it meant he was out of other missions. With the Hollows, Striga and Croatoa, the hunts are lumped in with the "story" missions (and I use the term very loosely), such that you CAN'T skip them. Contacts only ever offer a single mission, and if they offer a hunt, a hunt is what you get.

I won't go into the myriad of problems with hunt missions. I'll only say that sticking them into story arcs has been largely avoided in recent years, and for good reason. Sticking them into story "arcs" is exactly what the I1-I5 zones do. It's as bad an idea now as it always was. Worse, in fact, in this day an age.

Or, you know, I could take that "optional content" you keep clubbing me over the head with and not do it. I have neither the time nor the inclination to do multi-hour marathons in a single sitting, nor do I have the time and inclination to herd cats. For some odd, eccentric reason, this doesn't prevent me from finishing the story in Faultline, or the story in the Rikti War Zone, or any of the stories in Ouroboros. Sure, I can't really finish any of the stories in the Shard, but at least I can't even start them. Before you try to chastise me for preferring to solo, you may want to stop overlooking the flaw in design present here - you do not let people start tasks they cannot finish. And when a story ends in a TF, it's pretty easy tell a player won't be able to finish him just by virtue of TFs requiring a minimal number of people.

So, no, you might not. I don't ask you to play on my difficulty setting, you don't ask me to put teams together.

Yeah, I must need new glasses, because I still don't see it. I said new content has been better with the narrative. Since CoV, yes, but ESPECIALLY FROM FAULTLINE ONWARD. The reason I even included CoV is because it DOES have a lot of good content in it. Seer Marino's Oh Wretched Man, Marshal Brass' Echo Down the Aeons, Maros' Cult of the Shaper, Mu Drakhan's various arcs. There is a lot of good stuff in CoV, much better than anything in CoH, before or even since. But there's also a lot of CRAP in CoV, such as Operative Kirkland, Arbiter Leery, Kelly Uqua, the Shadowy Figure, Henry Dumont, that Cage Consortium CEO. It's a mixed bag. It deserves a worthy mention, as it IS the starting point, but I've gone on and on and ON about all the crappy design choices made there, something I've generally not done about Faultline, the War Zone or even Ouroboros, despite it not being a full zone.

Learn to read before you insult, please.

Why do you have it stuck in your head that "hunts" are the only thing I find wrong? Pointless, non-story instances are just as bad. "Ghosts have taken over a building. Go get rid of them." "Thanks." It progresses the plot not a single inch, it has no point whatsoever, and yet it's stuck in the middle of what's supposed to be a story. Show of hands - what, exactly, is the story Gordon Bower tells you? Because it comes down to "Croatoa is infested with walking pumpkins! Help!" In effect, Mayor Bower does as much for Croatoa as the Hazard Zone field operatives that meet you at every entrance - he tells you what the zone is about and that's it.

Croatoa has no story in it. It has a basic setting, and that's it. Noting in it ever happens, at least nothing that lasts more than one mission. There's a grand total of one revelation outside of the Kathie Hannon TF, and that's that the Red Caps broth the Tautha and the Fir out to fight so they can feast on their pain. Oh, and again, a suggestion that something else might be happening via the all of one Cabal mission, which is no revelation at all since you can plainly see and be attacked by flying witches just walking the street. WHAT is going on with them would have been interesting to know, but again, that's locked up with Kathie Hannon.

So you say. I've run through the Croatoa story over a dozen times, and it has never felt like a story. Bower's entire collection of missions can be summed up in one zone briefing, half of LeGrange's missions are you going out and finding nothing interesting, and it just drags on from there. I don't mind random side missions, not at all, but I want a cohesive story that follows a storyline, not just random clues scattered about unrelated missions. What you have in Croatoa is not cohesive in the slightest. And, frankly, tout its virtues all you will, that has never been repeated. I5 was the last we saw of that confounded storytelling approach, and CoV gave us a better one - short, episodic storylines that feed into each other and follow an order. What in City of Heroes would have been one long arc becomes several short arcs arranged as one split long arc. For instance, the World Wide Red could be cleanly split in at least three parts for three mini-arcs without loss of finality.

All of the Hollows, Striga and Croatoa feel like a bad version of To Save a Thousand Worlds. Each mission is essentially a part of the repeating cycle of "Explore fist dimension," "Explore second dimension," "Explore third dimension." Or like the To Save a Soul arc, where you go back to the spirit world no less than five times, each time to essentially do the same thing - find Vanessa's soul and get another clue from it. Or find nothing, as one of them is. There's no reason these need to be five huge outdoor instances when they could just be one instance with five ghosts of Vanessa, since we're in her mind, anyway.

In essence, the Hollows, Striga and Croatoa is 90% filler with a mission here and there that has some meaning. As far as I'm concerned, any mission that has you go somewhere, kill all and find NOTHING that advances the plot in ANY way is a complete waste of my time and doesn't need to be in the story. And yet that's the bulk of what these zones have - missions just there to provide excuses for instances, and yet which advance the plot not in any single way. That's all the stories there are - filler after filler after filler with maybe one meaningful mission at the end. And even then, I fail to see how returning Stephanie's wedding ring was "meaningful." It was a good deed, sure, but are you trying to say that this is the culmination of her story? All of her missions are basically "The Council are doing something bad. You need to beat them up." There is no story behind them.

This surprises me, actually. Who decided this storytelling approach was a good idea? We already HAD consistent, persistent story arcs in the game since launch. I've already quoted a lot of them, but just to restate - World Wide Red. This is an arc that's probably 20 missions long, just in itself more than most of these contacts we're talking about even have. And maybe it's because it's a big conspiracy theory, but even though there are probably three separate subplots taking place the entire time, the whole thing has a constant, uninterrupted train of though. Either you find what you're looking for, find something you didn't expect, or don't find what you were looking for but learn something else important. At no point is Crimson pulling random tasks out of a hat just to have you do maintenance. Even when you have NO IDEA what's going on, there's still a storyline to follow.

By comparison, Croatoa makes me feel like I'm playing Lineage II. "Here, you're in a town. Now go find something to do."

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

It's not as bad if you pay constant attention, but yeah. A lot of the older story arcs are pretty poorly executed, basically "things are happening in places all over town, go interfere." A lot of backstory is talked about, but it never actually comes to anything. For instance, we know the Family is selling Superadine to the Skulls, who then sell it to the Trolls for use and distribution, and that the Hellions get artefacts from the Outcasts, who in turn work for the Warriors. None of that ever comes to play. You don't see missions where the Skulls are dealing with the Trolls, and while you DO see the occasional Button Man in Steel Canyon, no mission ever makes a point of it.

Compare that to, say, the Rikti/Lost connection. It's hinted at a few times, it's explored in the Organ Grinders, it's explored again by the Dark Watcher in the Benjamin Deckar story arc, becomes relevant for Angus McQueen's own backstory, as well as Division: Line, where it plays a part several times. It plays a large role in Timothy Raymond's story, it affects Kelly Uqua. It's there, it's mentioned a few times and it's all over the place if you're a little more observant. It matters. The Family/Skulls/Trolls crime ring, on the other hand, does not. It's hinted at I think once, mentioned one more time and that's it.

Newer content, from CoV onward, tends to be a lot better about giving you complete stories, or at least completing the incomplete ones. For instance, Maros spends a lot of time talking about the second coming of the tower, but his content ends at level 30. Scirocco's Time After Time returns to that storyline, however, and explores the Tower to the Heavens. The red coral crystal is also mentions all the time, even out of context. Arachnos want it, the Cage Consortsium wants it, the CoT want it. Even Psymon Omega wants it. It matters. And the ultimate example, of course, are the persistent characters in Faultline. Even though I hate Jim and Anette, and I'm not a fan of Sands, they feel like persistent characters, rather than plot devices invented for one mission only.

For one, Grendel is dead. He was the previous leader of the Trolls, I believe, with Atta being their current leader. One has to wonder why he's, at most, level 15 when the Trolls go up to 20, but that just goes on to suggest the Hollows was intended to be a higher-level zone than it ended up being.

As for the Magmite master, I believe you fight something like that in the Caverns of Transcendence. I wouldn't know. I'd sooner give a lecture to a full class or stay at work a full work day than her cats for that nonsense.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Boccor Redside gives missions in any ol' order.

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk

Yes, actually I did think you were saying something different, and you have continued to do so by claiming i0 content beats that of Striga and Croatoa. I find it amusing how you make arguments which you latter dismiss in the same post.

Semantics is a use of words. I'm not nitpicking words. I'm nitpicking facts. You claim that half of a story arc is hunts, and it's under 1/3, you are presenting disinformation. You can try to weasel out of it if you like, but the facts remain.

Oh really has it? First mission in the RWZ arcs is a hunt.
The Cimerora contacts you get have hunts (and kill alls).
Your precious Faultline contacts give you hunts (Penelope Yin) and kill alls since you dislike those too. (considering Yin only gives 5 missions, that's 20% hunt ooh aaah).
While they have fewer hunts, they still have hunts.

You just have some sort of grudge against the older content when it is only marginally worse than the new stuff. It's been incremental improvement, while you seem to think there was some form of night and day seeing of the light by the devs.


Multi-hour marathons? Yep, you surely haven't done those TFs. Hess and KHTF are both quite short and full of good stuff. If you don't bother with them, it's your loss. And yes, they are optional content. Then again so is every mission in the game.

Also if you actually think you've done the whole RWZ storyline without doing the Lady Grey TF, you are sorely mistaken.

How about you don't whine about missed stories if you don't want to do the content that contains them? The option is there, you don't choose to do it (based on constraints you create).

As with everything else in the game, things develop over time and not every part is of equal quality. Why this is something noteworthy escapes me.

Learn to be consistent and factual before you rant.

You claim to have played the arcs multiple times, and yet you make inane commentary like the above? Gordon Bower introduces you to the situation in the town. It's infested by a number of supernatural warring factions. It's the start of the story, you aren't yet supposed to resolve it. You rant a great deal about poor storytelling, but don't seem to understand the basics of how a story is told in different parts. As for the ghosts, that's part of how the town is slipping into the spirit world. You sure you bothered to read all the story? Heck, I generally only breeze through it and I get the point.

If you, for some obscure reason, decide that the story told in Croatoa isn't a story, I can't change your obstinacy.

So the fact that I, and others are able to glean a story out of the Croatoa arcs makes us either some form of perception wunderkind or maybe the issue lies with you?

I hate to break it to you, but this is an MMO. I know that comes as a shocker, but MMOs are full of filler so people can gain levels without street hunting. Granted, changes in XP progression have shifted things such that it's not that way any more (also appreciably more content), but back in the starting days of this game, you could easily chew through the story arc content and be left with level gaps where you had to street sweep to finish up levels and get to new contacts. As such, each arc had to have filler or the situation would have been even worse. It is worth noting that the Faultline arcs which you find so wonderful are extremely short. In an earlier age of the game, they would have been a roadblock if all content was so terse like that.

The Striga arcs are basically an introduction to the place and its enemy groups. No, you don't really resolve anything. The TF offers that opportunity. That's how the Devs did things back then because that was how MMOs did things. Heck the fact that this game was soloist friendly at all was a big innovation. Placing some of the story content in the area of team effort was par for the course in the industry. It doesn't make the content crap, it makes it normal for the standards of the day.

A classic Corvette from the sixties does not match the handling and performance of the current model, but that doesn't make it a crappy car.

Repeat after me, this is an MMO. MMOs have filler.

Set the way back machine to when these issues came out. There was only so much content, and no repeatable mission filler in the game (scanner missions were way off, much less AE or Oroboros). If your model of tight, focused stories had been the rule, then people would have been street sweeping even more levels than they were stuck with as it was. Granted, on teams it wasn't as much of an issue since you could just do someone else's arc, but you are a soloer, so you would be screwed.

Yes, some of the original content was good. Some of it was also bad. Much of it was filler because MMOs need that.

I can't change your perceptions when they are obviously fixed. I and others get the story in Croatoa without a problem.

Its a slow start to his arc, but the misions 'chock full of ghosts' actually have the key reveal of it.

Skipeprs
The stop 30 Fir Bolg seems like a bit of a random end to his arc, but in his briefing it is well laid our
Kelly
Her arc is about breaking the connection that is holding the Tuatha (and other spirits here)

Bucks is the final last gasp attempt by the redcaps to reverse what you have done and draw Salamanca into the spirit world

if we had the technology of course it would be wonderful is as you progressed through the arcs, the zone chnaged for you. The Tuatha becoming peaceful and then vanishing, the red caps being banished forever, and Croata really did become Salamanca and the peaceful sorrounds again. We dont have that level of instancing for zones (unlike say Guild Wars)


To me Croatoa is a complete arc, that does seem to all tie togther. The village IS saved, through your teams efforts and the Katie TF isn't required to follow the story. (unlike Striga where the Hess TF is the final piece).

Perhaps it was the original plan to have multiple variations on the zone. Certainly, it seems odd to have the situation we presently have where the invasion of the zone has been relieved, and yet there is clear evidence all around that the invasion is still ongoing.

It seems like something of this nature could be accomplished, kind of like combining the methods used on the interior of the Eden trial along with the methods used for shops and safeguard/mayhem side missions. I wonder what the game engine's limitations are in this regard.

I don't think we'd want to use the method employed in RV though.

BOTHERED BY SPOILERS? DON'T READ THIS.

According to Seeker of Monsters badge, Grendel was defeated by Atta in a contest of strength. That does not mean he is dead, though that of course is a possibility. When Atta fought 7 Troll leaders, 3 of them (Ram, Triton, and Boxer) eventually died of wounds. So Grendel may not be dead, and perhaps the exploration marker is more of a clue than an epitaph. I suspect that there is more going on here than meets the eye.

Consider, for instance, that Atta is considered to be a conspirator in the Hollowing Event, yet the depression is called "Grendel's Gulch." Does Grendel still live there? Did Atta's rise to power coincide somehow with The Hollowing? And was someone helping Atta? If so, why?

As for Igneous, the Magma Master, no, you never meet him - unless he changed his name. You meet Koago, who is the monstrous pumicite in the Caverns of Transcendence. I've bumped fists with him a few times in the last week or so, as well as over the years, and he does not appear to be the Magma Master.

The Magma Master was Inglebert Maahs, a geologist with metaphysical interests (a midnighter?). He wandered into the Cavern back in the '20s and was changed by its magic into a man of living lava. So in terms of visuals, I'd expect him to look an awful lot like a stone tank with brimstone armor on.

In the tale of The Hollowing, the idea is that Atta and other "conspirators" set charges in an attempt to turn some condominiums into ruins and then move in before authorities could respond. (It sounds weak, but there's probably more to it.) However, the charges accidentally broke through the ceiling of a network of tunnels dug by the Minions of Igneous. The Trolls took the blame for the destruction in a bit of misdirection by the writers, but it's doubtful the Trolls (or their slaves) actually dug the tunnels, because they all radiate out from the Cavern at their center. And it's the Minions of Igneous that relate to the Cavern.

And, furthermore, who is more likely to dig caves: uncontrollable dyne freaks or rock people who live underground?

As for the Family, I gather they are connected with Nemesis and the Sky Raiders, and they are also the higher part of a connection between the Family, Trolls, and Skulls. This latter grouping is called "The Superadine Connection." The strange thing here is that the Family is being paid to make and distribute Dyne, and they are paying the Skulls to make and distribute Dyne, and the Trolls must be basically getting it for free, just to keep them addicted. But why? Probably there was more to the original story (like the part related to portal technology), but whatever that is was never revealed.

Likewise, the Warriors, Outcasts, and Hellions are all part of a group called "Smuggler's Run." Possibly this coalition first began when Odysseus Hill made a deal with a demon and drank something resembling water from the Well of Furies, gaining immense power, a power shared with the rest of the Warriors. Perhaps this demon is the same demon that has empowered Tempter, the jailed leader of the Hellions. It's hard to say, especially since aside from prominent appearances in 4 of the game's lowest zones there are no real Hellion arcs.

Has this demon also made a pact with FrostFire, leader of the Outcasts? Perhaps not, but consider that he must be getting power from some other source. Sure, he's a powerful mutant, but his men seem to acquire the same sets of powers as they move up in rank: elemental powers. That seems odd for a gathering of mutants. Where are the ones with claws, laser beam eyes, metal bodies, teleportation, magnetism, and mental powers? Nope, these mutants all have varying degrees of earth, ice, fire, and electrical powers. It kind of reminds me of the Circle of Thorns mages ... not that there would be any kind of connection there.

Speaking of The Hollows and all the dangling story fragments that are all over the place, my impression is that the Coralax - now found in Port Oakes and Sharkhead missions - originally spring from backstory for the Seaview Project, which had a base in Eastgate and a research vessel that traveled between Eastgate and Striga ... which a few years back found the sunken remains that are the basis of the Ghost Ship of Talos and IP.

In fact, the first in-game reference to an unnamed Coralax appears to be in the clues given in Flux's missions. Later on, a Coralax corpse appears in a crate on a mission from Stephanie Peebles.

Additionally, there is the Backwoodsman badge in The Hollows. The Circle's magic is thought to be causing some strangely rapid growth in the woods. I think I know what that is about.

I still have no idea how to react to this.


I'll just point out that Striga's arcs are character-based. They purposefully don't have a strong interconnected narrative.

I'll also say that while Faultline has a really good presentation, I find its actual core story and the overall implications of it godawful. And prior to the second XP smoothing, it was far too easy to finish Penelope Yin by 18 and be stuck waiting another 2 levels to continue with Doc Delilah. It was too streamlined.

Even if a strong connection doesn't exist between the separate contacts, it's be nice if any connection at all existed between the missions coming from a contact, more than just the contact himself or herself. This isn't the case with Striga. To me, it feels like each contact is nothing more than a glorified Scanner mission giver and that's it. There's no story to them, no narrative. It's just contacts giving out almost completely random missions. Some random missions to a contact I can understand, especially those you'll be levelling out of in another hour or two. But a contact in the 20-25 range? That ought to have SOMETHING to offer beyond just one-off missions.

I'll agree with you that the story of Faultline, in its core, isn't spectacular, but the quality of the writing was never in question here. It's the quality of the implementation that really makes a big difference, and that's key here. In Faultline, the missions are interesting and diverse, there is a narrative you can follow, which gives you missions in a logical storyline, and what you do actually matters in a real, tangible way. In Striga, none of that is true. The missions are BORING to hell and back. Even hunts notwithstanding, I'm going to kick a puppy if I get sent to another ship to click a few glowies or beat up a guy at the end with nothing in-between but a sea of mute, identical thugs. There's no point to any of the missions, because their outcome does not affect the next mission in the queue, and a lot of them are just maintenance busywork, in terms of concept.

One big thing I've tried to keep to when making Architect arcs is to never, ever, have pointless, meaningless or useless missions, tasks or events. You never go to a building and learn nothing. If a mission requires you to get to the end, it's either short or littered with secondary objective or interesting encounters along the way. If you find something important, it's never forgotten by the next mission, and even if it is, it comes back to play a part later on. Just slogging though enemies for the sake of slogging through enemies is not something I need pseudo-story-arcs, or indeed even contacts to do. That's what the Rogue Isles Protector and the PPD Scanner are for.

And, yeah, it's true that you could level out of Penelope and not be level enough for Doc Delilah. Just as you could run out of missions for Julius the Troll and he'll tell you to come back later, and how you can run out of Long Jack missions before you can speak with Tobias Hansen, or how you almost always complete Skipper's missions long before Kelly Nemmers will speak with you. It's a fact of life in all of the newer zones, and it was a fact of line in the old zones, as well. For instance, you can run the Library of Souls, but then you won't be able to follow its next phase, which is the Envoy of Shadows, until you level into the next level band.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Didn't it get released somewhere (possibly Herocon) that the devs had a system that would show you the locations of enemies on a map after a certain number of them have been defeated and everyone is going to get it automatically as a QoL improvement? I'm not sure, but I think it is supposed to be a GoRo release.

Much like the new cave maps from Cimerora, no?

Well, to be fair, most of those ARE Cimeroran ruins, so it makes sense they'd use the tileset. We just got an issue that had missions which took place in Cimeroran ruins almost 90% of the time.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Maybe Striga is secretly made of boats?!

From where did you get this information? I don't remember Odysseus even having another name, let alone anything involving demons or magic water. I haven't seen anything like this in an arc or in backgrounds on the website.