Tired of Praetoria?

Let me be clear: I have no actual problem with cheap story devices to drive the punching. This is a comic book game, so yeah, I'm not expecting literary genius. I'm expecting flimsy excuses to beat up spiders.

I'm more concerned that anyone thinks this one particular story device is interesting enough to become part of every high-end Incarnate in lieu of the free and open conceptualizing that, among other things, makes this game great.



That's fair to a point, but I consider it something of a Bad Sign when the concept as described doesn't come close to fitting my conception of any of my high-level characters. As things stand that is exactly what I'll be doing - Not using it.

I'm not exactly ecstatic about having to choose between breaking and twisting concepts, and forgoing whatever powers the Lore pets provide. I'm no developer, but forcing players to decide between those things sounds like it isn't a good idea in a game where concept is important to some.

I have been thinking something like this for a while. It feels more like a D&D type game or some military/fantasy game hybrid; this is totally within the comic realm but maybe not as significant as it is here. Praetoria is not my idea of super hero comic stuff - it is nice background and there are some great aspects but this has been the focal point for too long. Also our very super incarnate powers are heavily based in P. too? Ugh.

These were some of the main reasons I suggested these One-Shots.

It's been the focal point for......2 issues. Issue 18 and 19 have focused on Praetoria, and issue 20 will be doing the same.

Translated into real time, it has been the focus for......6 months. The focus shifted to Praetoria in August. From August to March is hardly what I would consider "too long".

The devs have focused on Praetoria for 3 issues out of 20, and 6 months out of nearly 7 years.

Would you prefer they devote one issue to any given focal point and never revisit it again? If they did that, Praetoria would forever be just 1-20 content and nothing else would ever be done with it.

I kind of like the fact that they are sticking with something long enough to tell the whole story for a change, instead of telling the first half of the story and leaving us to guess what happens from there.

Ancient Rome, we defeat Romulus and history just stops there, with nothing noteworthy ever happening again? The 5th Column are back, and.....the story ends with them being back, hasn't been expanded on since. The Rikti invaded again....and got stuck in a perpetual state of invasion with nothing ever really being resolved.

All that happened because they didn't make any of those things the focal point for more than 1 issue. This time they are trying to actually finish telling the story, and you're complaining that they've been focusing on it for too long. "Too long" in this case being 6 months and 2 issues.

Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.

Generally, I consider it a bad point when a features greatest selling point to me is "You don't have to use it."

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.

I18, I19 and I20 actually constitute three Issues, but that's besides the point.

The problem with Praetoria is less how LONG it's been used, or how MANY things it's been put into, so much as the impression that every single thing to do with Incarnates will pass through Praetoria. Few people would have a problem with Praetorian Earth if Emperor Jack Emmert hadn't completely monopolised the entirety of the Incarnate system.

I remind you - to this day there are many of us who still feel the same about Longbow and Arachnos. Focusing on one particular storyline is a good thing. Signling out only ONE faction to the exclusion of other, often more interesting factions is not.

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.

Well said! Let me add that Praetoria has been in CoH canon for far longer than the last few issues. Let me also add the GR expansion was all Praetoria as well. GR is far more than a typical issue.

It also looks like the TF and SF is going to be Praetoria based. You also get to deal with Skyraiders - another very dull faction in CoH. Why couldn't we get some new super villain team TF where we take them out for whatever said reason; a group far more compelling than the Praetorian stuff. IMO the i20 TF/SF could have been the perfect way to add something else to the game. The raids/trials further the Praetoria stuff and then we could have seen something completely different! No more factions...maybe just a rival super group...5 or 6 other supers and their plots etc to deal with...you know...like they do in comics.

I guess i20 comes out in April so, depending on what it's like, it might be time to break after April from this game. It seems to be the same old, same old issue after issue. I will say the new raids might be fun and are a bit different from the usual (giant turrets to take out our incarnates...yay...or not).

I hope War Witch et al add something very different in each issue. The stuff here, after 7 years, is overly repetitive and beyond stale.

If you really feel that way, maybe it's time to quit playing and find another game that isn't so repetitive.

Oh, wait, ALL MMOs are repetitive. If you want to play an MMO, at some point you are going to realize you are doing the same things with a slightly different facade, over and over again.

If you don't like this facade anymore, maybe it's time to move on.

Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.

I really miss the time when you were a nice guy and didn't resort to sarcasm and prods so much. I mean that.

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.

Does it occure to you that there can be no coming storm, that this menace is only a easy way to lure super being to connect to the well. And what if somebody (surely Nemesis) was able to take control of the well, and of all the superbeing that are connected to it ? It could an interresting twist that Cole is just trying to invade primitive earth to stop this.

And I like praetorian content. My only disapointment is what we are not able to join this faction. I have a toon that would gladly help Cole in his conquest. Praetorian are far more interresting that Arachnos which I never seized the purpose in the lore.

Im still a couple posts behind so someone may have already addressed this but...


The coming storm ins't Marcus Cole's invasion. The clues very clearly state that the coming storm hits at a time when we were so engulfed in another war that we couldn't defend ourselves. The Menders were trying to help us be able to withstand the storm, and I think the war we were fighting that weakened us to the point where we otherwise wouldn't have been is the war we're in with Cole right now, and the Rikti.

The prophecy of the menders says that as the tempest dies, the lightning shatters the mirror, and as the storm clears, the shards cut and bleed those who handle them. Ramiel expresses worry that the actions of the Menders has had unforseen consequences, and while they MAY have let us "survive the storm" but I think that at some point in this war another, larger threat will emerge. THAT is the coming storm, and with Cole having weakened all three races via his war, we would be wiped out if it weren't for the incarnates. The problem is, the incarnate power comes with a cost: ties to the well.

Now we all know that one aspect of Rularuu, lanaru (sp?) wants to be free of his master. He is Rularuu's rage, and is called the storm. He lives in the storm palace. He was defeated in one Shadow Shard TF, but at the end we are distinctly warned he is eternal and will come back. His will is direct, focused, and on one thing, being free of Rularuu and the shadow shard.

What IF the well, which we know is drawn to strength and will alone, becomes drawn to/linked with Lanaru, and with the barriers between the dimensions being weakened as we've learned in several arcs, Lanaru is somehow able to link with the well AND get free. THAT could be one bad a$$ problem to face. Especially if the sentient well is fighting on the side of Lanaru.

You still have the "scouts" being Shivans to deal with, and whatever the race was that used Khelds to power their star ships.

Ive always thought that its kind of cool how the well seems to "Recycle" roles and powers. Zeus seems to have been reborn in Imperious and later Statesman. Positron is really just like Daedalus. What if, somewhere else in the universe, on another world, another "Hamidon" became an incarnate just like ours and the one on Preatorian Earth, but it actually took control? What if the Shivans are its scouts? They're kind of devouring-earth like, being the result of the remnants of the meator shower merged with human bones. What if this hamidon is headed our war, and Shiva was just its scouting party. It arrives and finds us having just finished the war with Cole, only to realize that it can now infest not just the rest of our (its) universe but ALL of the omniverse, and via Oro, all of time itself. In fighting that back, we end up unleashing lanaruu, who finally breaks free of Rularuu, which reigns destruction down on us all. That would explain why the Oro of our future vision looked hamidon infested, yet also filled shard reflections and the storms from the Storm Palace where Lanaruu dwells.

Meh, just a thought.

Not sure about that, OR about the Lanaru stuff, but I -am- fairly strongly convinced that the battle we're in with Cole now is what weakens us BEFORE the real "Storm" arises, and by our using incarnate shards to survive that storm we shatter the mirror (the barrier between dimensions) and open up a whole nother mess we need deal with as a result.

I'm not.

I feel like they're building the investment for an Incarnate crescendo. The Praetorian angle is an effective vehicle for that.

By applying a little bit of retcon to the Praetorian timeline, they have a useful starting point. The Praetorian arcs were quite limited originally to only a few instances, leading up to an AV sweep, with no real side-street story arcs or group involvement to worry about. As high level as the encounters were for combat difficulty, there was really very little there that couldn't be explained away or improved upon.

What about other high level enemy groups? Nemesis, well, reinventing him would require rewriting COH, because everything in the game is a Nemesis Plot. Devouring Earth is fairly widespread in the game. Malta Group, same thing. Arachnos is practically half the game. Shadow Shard is pretty saturated for high level content (maybe not as deep as we'd like, but we'll see what comes next with any upcoming sto- er, nevermind. ). Revamping any of these would be a heck of a lotta work.

Praetoria, though, represented an alternate world they could reinvent (in concept, at least) another PLANET from the bottom up to suit their purpose: Give new players a fresh option for gameplay (I love the alignment checks growing a Praetorian toon, and the environment and story lines), and lay the groundwork for an Incarnate Ultimate Showdown from the only group who could do that: The cohorts of the otherdimensional Incarnate (Tyrant).

This isn't a single update where "Hey, you get inventions" or "look, Flashback". It's a building thunderstorm. So far, in my opinion, all we've heard right now is just a few rumbles of thunder.

Wait for the lightning to strike.

(And rednames, if you screw this up after my buildup for it here, ima gonna kill you all dead. Capishe?)

@TURGENEV - Freedom Server / IRON / B.A.N.E / HORDE

Turg Fiction: Ghost in the Machine Acts III & IV coming 2012!
Turg Fiction: IX is now LIVE on Architect Entertainment!

This reminds me of a conversation with a dev at herocon where they reflected how they were tired of writing "comic book" stories and wanted to start to do something different. Said they wanted to explore the parts of CoH that weren't typical comic stuff.
Well, since then that has pretty much been the case.
Boo hiss indeed.

My postings to this forum are not to be used as data in any research study without my express written consent.

There are MANY MANY things in the non-Praetorian storyline that could be used for the Incarnate crescendo.

There's absolutely nothing that says they had to stick it to being related to Praetoria.

And there's nothing that says they DON'T have to stick to it either. There's obviously a difference of opinion with the playerbase. I'm on the side that likes where they're going. That's the best part of discussions: Everyone gets to state their likes and dislikes.

Besides, who's to say that your "many many things non-Praetorian" won't be touched on either? The process is still ongoing. Maybe we WILL find out that the Well of the Furies is actually Dr. Vahzilok!

@TURGENEV - Freedom Server / IRON / B.A.N.E / HORDE

Turg Fiction: Ghost in the Machine Acts III & IV coming 2012!
Turg Fiction: IX is now LIVE on Architect Entertainment!

Or you are the well or more accurately, the collective will of everyone that has been affected by the well.

I really kinda think we need something fresh and new. Recluse has a huge presence in game. I think some new enemies would be good. Having them in one shots would get their story told and be something new all at the same time. Come back to them later if need be but we won't be waiting years for it to unfold.

Marshal Jason Blitz, obstensibly rebelling against Recluse while kicking it in Warburg. Dude's been dying of cancer since Issue 6. Really good meds, or secret Incarnate-fueled Nemesis automaton seeking to destroy the world by sheer misdirection? Discuss.

@TURGENEV - Freedom Server / IRON / B.A.N.E / HORDE

Turg Fiction: Ghost in the Machine Acts III & IV coming 2012!
Turg Fiction: IX is now LIVE on Architect Entertainment!