So I'm going through this mission for Wardog, and thinking, dang, this guy is sick. I don't want to merely stop doing his missions and go take a shower, I want to lure him into the clutches of his enemies. I'd even turn him over to Praetor Tillman with a clean conscience, and I'd turn her over to Captain Mako with a warm fuzzy feeling in my heart.
I would like to see a couple "handler" contacts made available (one per faction) that I could approach at any time I feel like a contact I'm working for is worth less alive than dead. So here's how it would go...
I go to Inquisitor Stayne who's having a cup at Loyal Tea & Coffee in Nova Praetoria and strike up a conversation. I tell him "I know a guy" who's planning on doing something bad, and he asks me who. I get a context sensitive menu selection that allows me to choose any of my active Resistance contacts (except Calvin Scott, he's too paranoid to be caught in such a trap, like Marchand is too well protected to be caught in a similar trap by a Loyalist player and Rusty the Nail, a bum squatting near the resistance stronghold door in the Nova Underground). I get some dialogue from Stayne and am given a mission to lure the contact I selected into a trap.
I go lure the guy into a trap, end up having to get in a fight with a random group that was in the same location at the same time for a different reason, and eventually turn the contact over to his enemies. I go back to Stayne (or Rusty) and he gives me a suitable "attaboy" and tells me I'd be welcome to come over to the "right" side, but if I'd be willing, he'd like me to consider staying where I am acting as a deep cover agent and look for more targets to capture. If I choose to "Remain with the Resistance," he's conveniently got a good alibi for what I was doing when the contact was captured, clearing me of any accusations of betrayal... probably involving a PPD ambush and another mission to break out of jail. If on the other hand I take the opportunity to "Join the Loyalists" I'm ambushed by a Resistance hit squad that's been biding their time, looking for proof that I was behind the betrayal, and they dump me in a pit of ghouls.
If I return to where the contact I betrayed was located, I will find a "backup contact" standing near where the original was. This will be a barely named flunky of that faction, who has enough authority to introduce me to the next guy in the contact chain (unless the guy I betrayed was at the top of his zone's contact chain, in which case the flunky offers up a hearty "Good luck, now shove off!" ). Otherwise, the backup contact is capable of filling in for the original as someone to talk to if a later mission would have sent me to see the original as part of a mission or arc sequence (thereby eliminating broken sequence errors in story arcs). Functionally, he'd work the same as the original, except he doesn't offer any of his own missions, and doesn't have a "store" or background info (or if he does have background info, it basically tells how he's a flunky filling in for the other guy, who's gone missing).
There could be a badge for committing a certain number of "betrayals" or maybe even an accolade for wiping out an entire subfaction worth of contacts (all the Crusader contacts, or all the Responsibility contacts, for instance), and a real snazzy accolade for wiping out all four subfactions through Betrayal micro-archs [evil grin].
....................
In addition to this, those points where you get the notification "Those characters who are truly loyal... blah, blah, blah," should allow you to call the other side regardless of what faction you chose originally for two reasons. First, the mission goal Reese gives you can be confusing for folks who haven't been through it before, leaving you thinking that in order to be a Loyalist undercover operative, you are supposed to choose Resistance when given the option (the PPD LT in the mission even asks if "you'll follow your orders" which were to join the Resistance...). Second, it facilitates the concept of really changing sides, instead of, at most, being a deep cover agent for whichever side you chose in the tutorial, even if they start doing things that make you want to clean their base with mustard gas.
Dear NCsoft, if you go through with this shutdown you've guaranteed you'll not see another dime from me on any project you put out, ever.
So I'm going through this mission for Wardog, and thinking, dang, this guy is sick. I don't want to merely stop doing his missions and go take a shower, I want to lure him into the clutches of his enemies. I'd even turn him over to Praetor Tillman with a clean conscience, and I'd turn her over to Captain Mako with a warm fuzzy feeling in my heart.
I would like to see a couple "handler" contacts made available (one per faction) that I could approach at any time I feel like a contact I'm working for is worth less alive than dead. So here's how it would go...
I go to Inquisitor Stayne who's having a cup at Loyal Tea & Coffee in Nova Praetoria and strike up a conversation. I tell him "I know a guy" who's planning on doing something bad, and he asks me who. I get a context sensitive menu selection that allows me to choose any of my active Resistance contacts (except Calvin Scott, he's too paranoid to be caught in such a trap, like Marchand is too well protected to be caught in a similar trap by a Loyalist player and Rusty the Nail, a bum squatting near the resistance stronghold door in the Nova Underground). I get some dialogue from Stayne and am given a mission to lure the contact I selected into a trap.
I go lure the guy into a trap, end up having to get in a fight with a random group that was in the same location at the same time for a different reason, and eventually turn the contact over to his enemies. I go back to Stayne (or Rusty) and he gives me a suitable "attaboy" and tells me I'd be welcome to come over to the "right" side, but if I'd be willing, he'd like me to consider staying where I am acting as a deep cover agent and look for more targets to capture. If I choose to "Remain with the Resistance," he's conveniently got a good alibi for what I was doing when the contact was captured, clearing me of any accusations of betrayal... probably involving a PPD ambush and another mission to break out of jail. If on the other hand I take the opportunity to "Join the Loyalists" I'm ambushed by a Resistance hit squad that's been biding their time, looking for proof that I was behind the betrayal, and they dump me in a pit of ghouls.
If I return to where the contact I betrayed was located, I will find a "backup contact" standing near where the original was. This will be a barely named flunky of that faction, who has enough authority to introduce me to the next guy in the contact chain (unless the guy I betrayed was at the top of his zone's contact chain, in which case the flunky offers up a hearty "Good luck, now shove off!" ). Otherwise, the backup contact is capable of filling in for the original as someone to talk to if a later mission would have sent me to see the original as part of a mission or arc sequence (thereby eliminating broken sequence errors in story arcs). Functionally, he'd work the same as the original, except he doesn't offer any of his own missions, and doesn't have a "store" or background info (or if he does have background info, it basically tells how he's a flunky filling in for the other guy, who's gone missing).
There could be a badge for committing a certain number of "betrayals" or maybe even an accolade for wiping out an entire subfaction worth of contacts (all the Crusader contacts, or all the Responsibility contacts, for instance), and a real snazzy accolade for wiping out all four subfactions through Betrayal micro-archs [evil grin].
....................
In addition to this, those points where you get the notification "Those characters who are truly loyal... blah, blah, blah," should allow you to call the other side regardless of what faction you chose originally for two reasons. First, the mission goal Reese gives you can be confusing for folks who haven't been through it before, leaving you thinking that in order to be a Loyalist undercover operative, you are supposed to choose Resistance when given the option (the PPD LT in the mission even asks if "you'll follow your orders" which were to join the Resistance...). Second, it facilitates the concept of really changing sides, instead of, at most, being a deep cover agent for whichever side you chose in the tutorial, even if they start doing things that make you want to clean their base with mustard gas.
Dear NCsoft, if you go through with this shutdown you've guaranteed you'll not see another dime from me on any project you put out, ever.
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