Bored with the whole Praetoria schtick

I don't think we can classify any of the Praetors as good or even decent; pragmatic maybe. Some of them loyal - definitely. They're not completely devoid of good qualities, but White keeping the destroyers around by supplying them, not to mention some of the worst excesses he seems to approve of with Powers Division makes him selfish and uncaring at best, and purposefully corrupt at worst. Bobcat kills a bank full of people to prove to Neuron how mcuh of a resourceful woman she is. Anti-Matter seems to be the one who has the least issues, but, like Neuron, shows the traits of a prepubescent boy. And Anti Matter is still building Cole his invasion force.

Cole is overseeing all of this, and he is in charge of a system that disappears people, lets people die, lets his Praetors treat whole city zones like their personal playground, and wants to take over the whole multiverse for unclear reasons. I think that just about everyone in a position of power is shown to have little regard for anyone but themselves, or the regime that will keep them in power.

He's not completely uncaring.

Well yeah, the city's premier superteam should be held to some pretty high standards. That's why they're the premier superteam. That doesn't mean they shouldn't be flawed, or human, but it does mean they should be portrayed as clearly good people.

Do we ever really find out how any of them turned evil, besides Tyrant? Because it seems to me that most of the "they're evil now" explanations are ham-handed cludges to create an alternate universe where everyone is evil. How does Steven Berry, accountant become Steven Berry, mad scientist? Have we ever seen any indication that Positron is the least bit interested in Ms Liberty, or has ever behaved irrationally over a girl? Siege and Bobcat should never have existed since there is no Crey in Praetoria. Their Infernal is from....where exactly? All Praetorian Infernal does is make the CoH cosmology even more snarled. How did Cole recruit Battlemaiden from her dimension? It's implied that Praetorians stole dimensional travel from us. How did Vanessa find a mask in Italy in a world overrun by the DE? Belladonna Vetrano would be in her 40s by now but she doesn't look a day over 25. There's no Blue Steel to beat up Metronome and force him into a robotic body. And on and on.

Which they are

Praetorians can arrive at similar destinations to their Primal Earth versions, but via different paths.

One of the next Incarnate Trials they're working on is an attack on Anti-Matter's reactors on his power station island, so I think we'll see some more tantrums from him during that raid

He acts pretty mean on the Lambda Sector Trial

Same here.

I don't give a whoo-haa about what their motivations are or how they gained those motivations.

I just like crunching bad guys.

First off, Dragon Age 2 is a joke compared to Dragon Age 1 where choices are concerned. But that's an aside.

Still, every choice you make should have a consequence of some sort. The problem is knowing in advanced what a consequence is. In the example you gave, did your friend know what would happen before he made the choice?

Did he read a walkthrough or did the game spell it out for him clearly? If it was the latter, then that's bad game design. If it was the former...then he 'cheated' essentially by knowing what was coming.

But in the end, that's the problem with good, evil and 'in-between' choices that are clear cut.

Take The Witcher. Its choices are rarely ever a matter of good vs. evil. In one case, you are hired by a knight to search out his lost sister who he suspects has been bitten by a vampire and fled to spare her family.

You find her working in a high class brothel and eventually find out that the brothel is actually run by a Vampire Lady. However, she presents her case to you and tells you that she didn't arbitrarily attack the girl and force her to work there. The girl made the choice to get out of a forced marriage to a dirty old man and live a glamorous life of luxury(for eternity...drinking blood).

The knight then shows up and demands that you help him cleanse the brothel of the vampires(his sister included now...since she doesn't want to go back with him). You then have a choice of turning on the knight to save the vampires and the girl(they say they never actually kill their clients, who are unaware that they are consorting with vampires), or helping the knight kill the vampires as he is acting as his sworn code demands and appealing to your duty as a Witcher.

In the end, there is no 'good' or 'bad' outcome, someone has to die. Neither opposing party is particularly more evil or good than the other, they just want the other side eradicated so they can live on.

You broke into his place and trashed his stuff. What's he supposed to do, offer to bake you cookies?

Mmmmmm! White chocolate/macadamia ftw!

His "stuff" is going to be used to take over the multiverse - that makes him mean by default

I'd quote this whole long thing, but, sadly, I suffer from 'run on' syndrome, and if I added a long post on top of mine, it'd be crazy..

1st) I agree. It's a game. I give it it huge pass, even larger based on the MMO factor. It can't possibly tailor to everyone.. If it was a novel trying to evoke a specific reply, yes, it most likely failed..

2nd) I play Praetoria to a certain point, then my heroic types must go their own way. I just leave when certain storylines start. I can't picture picture a hero acting in some ways. But that's just me..

3rd) Yes, I love the Praetoria world. I do appreciate all the effort the devs put into it. It's beautiful, and has a lot of story behind it, which is a nice change of pace.

4th) It's still sadly shallow. I have tried to pretend it wasn't based on my appreciation as stated above. But, it really is. I've tried every storyline as a hero, and every hero I tried to play as one had to walk away from the whole thing...

5th) I feel I have to weigh in on the issue of morality of Cole vs Scott. Both bankrupt, in my opinion. Argue for losing your money in oil investments or losing it in land speculation, you end up broke either way if you bank on a loser...

I like my own wordplay, but I'll try to make my case better than through analogy..

One of the most used standards of morality if the 'Golden Rule'. Many belief systems acknowledge it, and use it...

Well, if I were being dominated by a tyrant psychologically, I would want someone to do something...
But, if their idea was to wake me up by killing my neighbor, I'd be less thrilled with their idea.
If it was to wake me by killing a family member, I'd be even less sympathetic.
If it was to wake me by killing me, well, I'd consider their robbery of my choice in my life to be a far grander theft than the hypothetical tyrants..

We all, I think, hate a hypothetical tyrant. But, if such a tyrant is so powerful as to be unassailable, then killing the people that work for him that you hope to free isn't the most moral action. If your motive is power, then killing his powerbase is wise, but if your motive if right action, then killing his innocent pawns isn't a justifiable position..

Any tyrant or regime can only hold power while the people will it so. If all the people decide not to follow, then the regime is over... And, regimes only last so long.. If you really want to see people gain freedom, perhaps patience might be the best strategy.

Ghandi or Jesus or the Stoics are good examples of winning without even fighting. OF course, they make pretty crappy video games.. Which is why I'm ok, but not all that thrilled, with the games current direction..

*Cough.*Ghost Falcon!*Cough.*

Fortunately it isn't. But I don't think it failed as badly as people are trying to make out either. It just did things differently than some people would have liked.

That's just it though. In Praetoria, you're not a hero or villain...yet. You're just a guy/girl making their way through a conflicted and twisted world.

Are you sure you like the actual change of pace? It seems like you'd rather have the same formula this game had been using forever.

I have a query here. Is the Praetorian content shallow because you can't be completely goody goody every step of the way and have to actually do things you find 'morally questionable'? Because that's not being shallow...it just doesn't always present you with options you like.

That has nothing to do with depth and everything to do with the fact that Praetoria isn't actually supposed to be about heroes vs. villains. It's supposed to be about discovering the truth behind the twisted society you live in while aligning yourself with one group or the other which represent its factions. You choose what you'd like to be at the end of the road. And even up to the very end, you can still choose hero or villain regardless of what you did in Praetoria.

Now that part may be shallow...but I bet that most players would be even more ticked off if they found that they couldn't choose between Rogue Isles and Paragon because they decided to explore certain story lines.

That's fine. Except that there is no real world analog to Praetoria that we can use. Its a society where people are controlled through brainwashing, covert drugging and psychic watchdogs patrolling the streets. I'm pretty sure that 'waking up' folks from that kind of thing would require some kind of jarring shock. And maybe it would have to be the unpleasant kind of shock that makes them question if their benevolent overlord can actually protect them.

In the end though, I suspect that this isn't about morality or lack thereof among the opposing faction leaders. It's just about you whining that you can't play a 'hero'. And again...I don't think Praetoria was ever meant to be about heroes versus villains. Whether that is a good idea or not is something else entirely...but so far, I've only really heard any protests from vocal people on the forums. I suppose a dev poll among players or something like that would help.

OK. True. Not what I expected. But, if it wasn't what anyone expected, in a decent way, then, not so good. But, if it's just me, well, mia culpa. I'll get used to it. Or not.

For my comic book games I do generally like to stick to the heroic, or vaguely heroic... Perhaps I do want the same old choices. Perhaps I don't want to choose be-twist horrifying evil, and mortifying evil. Phrased less biased toward my point of view, yes, perhaps a purely morally ambiguous choice is great. But I don't feel that one has been given. And most others don't think so either. Most think the choice is betwixt horribly bad, and irredeemably bad. Or at least that seems to be what I gather from my very unscientific poll.






No, that part I actually like. I just wish it wasn't as restrictive.. You seem to be saying that you support the 'freedom' aspect of it. I can get behind that. But where is there the freedom to say, "Nope, don't feel like blowing up a bunch of children. Don't feel like doing any of that crap. I'll stick with attacks against adaults, thanks.." Bugger off to both the psychos in charge and the psychos that wish the were in charge... That's how I wish I could play it..



Nope, sorry. At least in this case, I believe, based on what little I've heard, that you're pretty wrong. Some of the people that may have some affinity for the resistance are people that just want heroes regardless, but, from what I've seen, most people seem to just want to be able to choose for themselves. So, at least as far as I've heard, the complaint isn't about not being able to be a 'hero', but rather about not having any choice at all. Your choices are villain, villain, villain, or somewhat naive villain.. From what I've heard, that's the complaint.



Ah geez. Sorry, it may be a week before I get the whole html action of the post all sorted out... Do your best in the meanstwhile

Haha...that is kind of funny. And I agree to a certain extent that they are pushing a lot of Praetoria at us.

In their defense, we did get Roy Cooling and Vincent Ross. Neither of those arcs had anything to do with Praetoria. Not a whole lot, but its something.

The major problem here is: How does the playerbase feel about the focus on Praetoria? Is the player population as a whole tired of it or is it just some of the more vocal and discerning forum members.

From what I'm seeing, server populations are still elevated and that may just mean that people are happy to grind away at high level content for the sake of advancing their 50s and have no real care for the story behind it. If that is the case...we're probably screwed as far as the devs mixing it up is concerned. They'll get the slots out that much faster...

Why is it if you're happy with the current set of content, you're not discerning or you don't care about the story?

Roy Cooling's arc has quite a lot to do with Praetoria, actually

Ok granted...but there is no direct Praetorian involvement. You fight groups that are familiar and there are other things going on. You don't interact with Praetorians in the arc...unless I miss something.

It's connected, yes, but it's far more of a story about Paragon City and the issues it is facing around the attacks from Praetoria.

This last choice just renders everything you did in Praetoria meaningless and shallow. No matter how horrible you were, all is forgiven the moment you step through that portal.

This would be a valid complaint if players couldn't switch sides once they hit the Rogue Isles or Paragon.

How is it "whining" that you can't be heroic? Praetoria presents you with Villainous options, Rogue options, and Vigilante options, the one thing it lacks is a heroic option, and pointing that out isn't whining.

Did anyone say you weren't discerning or don't care? Cause it seems to me the complaint was that there is no way to tell how many people are happy vs how many people don't care. In other words, datamining can't tell the difference between you and xXxshardfarmerxXx.

I disagree vehemently.

I am certain there are enemy group worth years on end of development time.

Just because a small portion of the vocal forum minority does not like, or is bored with, a certain group does not mean that there are not (possibly thousands of) players that love it and that want more of it.

Personally, I would love a years worth of development spent on the Rularuu alone, for instance.

Anyway, the only documented mass exodus periods of the game have been around changing systems, specifically systems that made our characters less powerful. The biggest exit poll complaint seems to have been 'no end game' as well. So, they are adding systems and end game.

Story lines or, more specifically focusing content around certain groups, does not gain, or retain, more than a small portion of the player base; I'll wager my mortgage on it. All it does is make a few detail focused players happy or unhappy. The masses do not care about the story from all the evidence I have encountered.

Is this the new go-to to avoid needing a decent argument?

Because, judging from this thread, the "small vocal minority on the forums" with criticisms about Praetoria isn't much different than the "small vocal minority on the forums" defending it. Funny how the pro- group is so many times larger and yet only a handful have managed to find their voice.

Well the devs are wagering their mortgages on it, or more precisely they're counting on the new endgame attracting/retaining more people than it drives away. Only time will tell, of course, but the game has lasted 7 years with no endgame to speak of, so what has the 'silent majority' of players who've been clamouring for one been doing all this time?

At this stage in an MMOs life cycle a significant leap in population is just not going to happen. If they're going on the 'build an endgame and endgamers will come' principle they're in for a disapointment. If they squander a year of development trying that to unimpressive results then they're going to be in a worse place than they are now, as they'll have burned a lot of bridges with the 'story content minority'.

And endgamers do not care about anything except the next shiny. How long are two trials going to last? Until I21 in 4 or 5 or 6 months time? I doubt it.

As for the 'vocal minority', the biggest thing I've noticed about the negative reception to I20/All-Prae, All-the-time/Endgame is that there's a lot of people attacking it for different reasons - for the story, or the grind, or the forced teaming, or the nature of the powers (hello, Lore slot) or a mix of all of the above. How many minorities does it take to make a majority?