Sick of Praetoria? Well you come up with something better!

No, seriously.
In this thread, let us discuss, brainstorm, and leave pitches for the Devs (assuming they look at this thread) for new story content ideas. So stop whining and put your money where your mouth is, fellow CoX players and forumites!
I should note, this is mostly to present rough ideas, no pressure for elaboration.
To lead off I present some of the following possible hooks:

Villains: TFs, storyarcs, zones, etc. for the bad boys

(zone) The Mysterious Island- An island has been discovered not far from the Rogue Isles, it's impossible to say how it's been missed until now, but Villains will find themselves in a strange and winding plot as they seek to raid what resources the island may have that leads them to...

(TF) The Captain Nemo Strikeforce- A new man has taken the helm of the Nautilus as well as the mantle of Captain Nemo, and he invites you to join in him his crusade of revenge against heroes.

(Incarnate TF) The Corruption of Amatsu-Mikaboshi- Villains can learn to harness the power of the primordial Japanese god to corrupt and weaken their foes while strengthening themselves.

Heroes:

(Zone) Nemesis, California: Heroes will find themselves moving between past and present to unravel the strange mysteries of a city founded by Nemesis in the decline of the Gold Rush in a Nemesis plot that spans across centuries.

(Incarnate TF) The Legacy of Gilgamesh- Who better to learn about the true nature of the Well from than the first one to have imbibed themselves of it?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.

You're right, Praetoria's looking pretty good right now.

People have come up with "something better" multiple times, dealing with zone remakes, full zones, full sets of zones and the like.

See also S&I.

See my Guides and Tutorials

Anything I came up with would require a mass retcon of nearly everything after i10. The ITF could stay nearly mechanically identical, but I'd give it a point, and tie it to the Path of the Dark. Ouroboros would stay, but they wouldn't be trying to change the future anymore. They'd be observers of the past. I would establish how time travel actually works in the game universe, and stick to it. Silos would have to go. Origin of Power would go. Mercedes Sheldon....is completely irrelevant. She can stay because nobody cares. Darrin Wade would stay. The Lost cure would go. The clone and evil twin arcs would be rewritten. The Barracuda SF would be chopped to pieces, thrown into a deep pit, boiled in oil, and killed with fire.

Most importantly, the Well would go back to being just a "hotline to the gods"....and the gods saw what Statesman and Recluse are doing with all their god-given power and said "um, no. We're not doing that anymore. You found the Well, I guess that's an accomplishment, here's a buff. Now go out and earn your own damn godlike power. We aren't giving you anything. Really, it's better that way."

Here's my idea.

A complete revamp of the Shadow Shard. The Shadow Shard has such promise. It is one of the most interesting areas of the entire game, both visually and story-wise, and it's completely empty. Here's what I'd like to see done.

- Make it a co-op area. Redside players have repeatedly asked for more zones, and this would give them 4 new ones.

- Make the zone easier to get around in. Give everyone a jetpack automatically when they enter, and change the gravity geysers, so they work like teleporters rather than cannons. I imagine them working like the tram line, where you click one and you have a list of defined locations you can go to.

- Add story-arc contacts.

- Redo the shadow shard task forces so that they are actually fun and not exercises in tedium.

- Cap the whole thing off with a hami-style raid where heroes and villains team up to fight Rularuu the Ravager.

I could even see this tying in with the whole incarnate thing. The devs seem to like the whole 'good and evil must team up to fight off a bigger threat' trope, so this could be an excuse to stop (or at least put on hold) the war between primal and praetorian earths and fight Rularuu. After all, what is a bigger threat than an insane god who eats entire dimensions?

I don't hate Praetoria, infact I actually like it, but I don't like the direction it's taking either.

Cole was interesting because he was like a sort of tragic villain. Almost like he believed he was saving the world by doing these terrible things and that it WAS the only way, in his mind, that he could save the world. Personally, I felt quite torn over whether to serve him and help understand him better or to fight against him to ensure that his methods don't continue.

But... that was all just thrown out the window when it was announced that Cole was infact completely evil and he had the intention to take over all of existence. Great way to ruin an interesting villain.

How would I have done it? I would have still had the war between Primal and Praetorian Earth but I wouldn't have had it the main focus of the whole story, only partly. I also wouldn't make Cole all "HERP DERP TAEK OVA TEH MULTEEVERSSSSSS." Instead, I'd write arcs from the perspectives of both Primal Earth forces and Praetorian forces. Primal Earth sees the Praetorians as the real bad guys and reckons Cole really is a power-mad dictator bent on... well, taking over the multiverse, while the Praetorians see themselves as just defending their home and their way of life after sacrificing so much to keep their civilisation afloat. I just think that would make for a more interesting story.

About this whole Incarnate business? I'd tie it into Rularuu somehow. The idea of the Well being a sentient being of great power just seemed a little silly. We have multi-dimensional entities that can eat entire worlds and the main villain chosen to be behind all this mystical Incarnate business is a disembodied spirit that possesses people? Rularuu's been sitting in the Shadow Shard for a good long while, I'd pull him out as the main focus of the Incarnate system. We've even got Darrin Wade, who'd be a great plot device in this, to bring Rularuu's forces through to Primal Earth. You'd be arch-villain heavy with all of Rularuu's aspects leading the charge too!

So yeah, I'd seperate all the story telling and deep gray morality stuff with the Praetorian War and set all these raids and trials and whatnot against Rularuu. Could probably even expand some Shadow Shard lore while you're at it!

As for the OP...



Threw these together over dinner.

All of these are meant to be level 50 TFs with foes set at level 54, the same as Apex and Tin Mage. They are locked as Incarnate TFs but the contact will tell non-incarnates that they’re too weedy rather than some daft mumbo jumbo, anti-non-incarnate invisible debuffing ray. They’ll also drop shards and maybe threads.


The Captain Apollo Task Force (Heroes only)

Mender Lazarus has contacted you. It is time. A meteorite has been spotted, headed towards Paragon and although it is likely to break up in the upper atmosphere, Lazarus is convinced that it is a portent of the Coming Storm. In order for the onslaught to be averted, heroes must travel into space and take out each meteorite before they enter the Earth’s atmosphere.

Heroes must first secure the weapons required to destroy the meteors from the warheads in Warburg which means going head to head with the Rogue Arachnos there and their commander, Marshal Blitz. After which they must secure the launch pad which has become besieged by Malta who appear to be following their own secret agenda.

Once in space, heroes are granted a temporary flight pack power that covers them in a force field space suit and allows them to fly between the meteors as they speed towards the Earth. On each one, the heroes will fight Shivan powered enemies each with a unique boss. With no human bodies to work with, the Shivans can be seen in their true form, showing their true powers. However, their commanders do seem to hold a human body in each of them and are a horror to behold. The Shiva Strike team has finally been found…


The Sergeant Slade Strike Force (Villains Only)

The Freakshow, tired of being put upon have decided to seek out new sources of power. Declaring war on the Council, they are determined to seek the power of the Nictus shards for themselves. The Council, of course, are repelling them as best they can but it has led to running battle across the Isles. Villains are contacted by one of Arachnos’ enforcers determined to clamp down on this uproar and offering sizeable rewards for anyone who can help.

However, once the villains encounter the Freaks, they discover that they are already too late and have created a new breed of Nictus empowered Freaks already thirsty for more. They have begun assaulting the Coralax, decimating them with their newfound power. It is discovered that the Coralax have been building an underwater coral city off of the coast of Sharkhead and the Nictus powered Freaks have followed them there. Villains must fight an epic battle in the Coralax city where they discover that the Coralax have their own secret weapon: a crashed Shivan meteorite which they have been using to empower themselves and reawaken the Leviathan.

The final fight will have villains facing down the Shivan empowered Coralax leader who is turning into something… else. They must then defeat Dreck who, both bonded with a Nictus and having absorbed Shivan energy will be a very tough fight. And that’s before they must descend into the depths to destroy the meteorite before it awakens the Leviathan. The fight against the meteorite, which constantly spawns Pure Shivans takes place underwater with villains receiving an underwater breathing buff (and temporary flight/float ability) while they try to destroy the crashed meteorite.


The Sigil Task Force (Co-op)

(Lifted shamelessly from a plot I ran with my SG last year )

Darrin Wade has completed his nefarious plan and is planning to align several dimensions with the Shadow Shard. When aligned, Rularuu will be able to use them as stepping stones from the Shadow Shard to arrive in our dimension. The power from each of the dimensions will be enough for Rularuu to unite his fractured mind and unify once more before descending on each dimension in turn and devouring them whole. By the time he arrives at ours, he will be fully recovered and ready to enact his revenge upon our world.

In this dire hour of need, the Midnighters call on the strongest of heroes and villains to unite once more and take the fight back to the Ravager and his evil accomplice. Heroes and villains must travel to each of the dimensions and destroy the dimensional anchors that Wade has put in place there before defeating the villain himself. However, with the power of five dimensions flowing through the chain, every powered individual within the dimensions is empowered beyond their wildest dreams and have become mightier than the gods themselves. Characters will have to fight through Axis America, Praetoria, the Clockwork dimension and the world ruled by the Devoured Earth before finally taking the battle to Rularuu himself in the Shadow Shard before he can absorb enough energy to unify himself.

On each world, the foes have gained incredible strength and the only way to defeat them is to unify with the heroes of those realms to defeat the threat to their dimension. On reaching the Shadow Shard, heroes and villains will have absorbed much dimensional power through their exposure and will temporarily reach new heights of power that will enable them to fracture Rularuu’s identity once more.

Pitching ideas is easy. There's a whole forum for it. Convincing the developers to abandon a horrible storyline and pick a better one... Not so much.

That said, here are a few easy ideas I've thrown around over the last few months:

Option 1: The obvious. Rularuu the Ravager stirs from whatever Darryn Wayde had planned. The Shadow Shard becomes much more active, with all of Rularuu's aspects awakening and unleashing their own minions on the place. Ruladak the Strong gets to keep the Soldiers of Rularuu, who can be renamed into the Soldiers of Ruladak, Lanaru the Mad gets more forms of his storm elementals, renaming them to Tempest of Lanaruu, or some other synonim. Whoever it was that was in charge of the Shadow Shard reflections gets more reflections, renaming them to Memories of Whoever. Faatim the Kind could have the Shadow Shard survivors act as his followers, called Followers of Faatim. I don't know enough about the other aspects to comment.

Rularuu himself doesn't need his own minion faction. The reflections are his minions.

In the intervening years, FBZ's General Hammond has pushed for an increased presence, bringing in more modern US troops, armed with the latest power armour, energy weapons and meta-human enhancements, as well as reinforced by Peacebringer Corp and Psi-Ops commandos. This way, he has been able to take the fight to the Rularuu and set up secure Mole Points farther into the Shard. However, this has necessitated the dismantling of the Cop-Out (Copperfield Outlands Industries) teleporters that used to lead to indiscernible blotches of whitish energy, as they have proven to consume far too much power without a static receiver, and have proven to be far too dangerous to traverse besides. The Mole Points are now the only non-manual mode of transport between the zones. Mole Points are further equipped with distance-calibrated recilmators which "fish out" people who travel too far below the islands, assuming that they have fallen off.

New advances in the understanding of the Shadow Shard have revealed a fifth-dimensional link between the mystic geysers that litter the islands similar to the link that Horta Vines around the Shadow Shard share. This has allowed those equipped with Tachyon Calibrators to enter the geyser network itself and travel between geysers without the risks involved in the crude method of hurling one's self into a geyser's ejection stream and hoping this lands you on solid ground. This network is still not fully understood, so travel is only currently possible only to the nearest geyser along, meaning each one Geyser links to only one other such. However, extensive mapping efforts have been successful, and the locations of ALL geysers and their destinations have been added to the standard Shadow Shard map of known areas, replacing the previously unreliable and incomplete guess work. For those uncomfortable with entering a fifth-dimensional wormhole network, conventional jet packs are still available, though they remain slow and have limited fuel due to the Shard atmosphere's effect on rocket fuel combustion.

However, the Soldiers of Rularuu are no longer he only dangers the Shadow Shard has to offer. The denizens of the Rogue Isles have also gained access to a section of the Shard. Crey Industries recently patented their own version of a dimensional gate. Rumours abound that it is based on stolen Nemesis technology, but the few who've had access to the theories behind the flash metal plastered in Crey logos claim it far more resembles the Circle of Thorns' "Tower to the Heavens" research. Quick to capitalise on the opportunity, Aeon Corp have offered Crey facilities, resources, energy and, more than anything else, a safe haven from US authorities. As a result, Crey now operate their portals exclusively from their compound on Nerva Archipelago, offerring services to the denizens of the Rogue Isles and Lord Recluse's chosen, in return for a hefty profit from Aeon Corp at no operating cost, while Aeon Corp scientists are in turn always trying to reverse-engineer Crey's portal technology. Countess Clarissa Crey is unable to comment on the matter due to an ongoing criminal trial she is involved in.

Crey forces in the Shadow Shard routinely clash with General Hammond's expedition force soldiers, causing no end of tension, and opening many opportunities. Hammond has been authorised to sanction the assistance of any Paragon City heroes in the defence of his installations and in the containment of Crey expansion, in return for Freedom Corps supplies "Infulence," while Hero Corp operatives, always looking for the next big opportunity, have taken to handing out bounties and hiring Paragon City heroes to aid in the effort in exchange for cold hard cash. Of course, heroes who just wish to help are always welcome to assist the rest of the expedition force officers. In response to this, Crey have taken to hiring mercenaries from the Rogue Isles, though largely to swell the ranks of their own forces and to use as cannon fodder against Hammond's expedition force, as well as to distract the Soldiers of Rularuu. Arachnos forces have have also been station at Crey's Shadow Shard facilities, though largely to deal with the up-and-coming destined ones and their ongoing tests. They are not above handing out simple mercenary work, of course, as Arachnos forces in the Shard are badly understaffed due to acting as liaison and not the controlling force. Though they will usually attempt to pay in Arachnos supply credits, they will still pay real money as long as the job gets done.

For those uninterested in a struggle with their own, there is always the greater threat and opportunity presented by the unusually aggressive Rularuu forces. Research personnel on both sides are constantly working at understanding their nature and motives, as well as untangling the mystery behind the Shadow Shard and the spirits within it, with no help from the Midnight Squad, as per usual. There is always more than can be learned about Rularuu and his aspects, and there is always more to do to keep them from scratching at the doors. However, simple containment may not be enough, as recent discoveries are revealing concerning threats.

There is no known "bottom" to the Shadow Shard, but there is uniform gravity pulling "down" all throughout. Portal Corps and Crey have so far mostly explored the upper islands, the ones closer to what can be described as the "sky" and "sun." However, there are floating islands lower down, mired in fog and obscured by the interlocking shadows of islands above. Exploration of these has been poor, both because of their remoteness from established footholds and because they house far more ferocious monsters than the islands above. Theorists suspect that there may be something sinister and dangerous lurking at the bottom (or centre, depending on how you look at it) of the Shadow Shard. Speculation has suggested everything from Rularuu himself to a black hole to the beginning of time and space. Considering chances of exploring the very "core of the world" as the locals call it are slim, however, making the confirmation or dismissal of such rumours unlikely.

All throughout the recent happenings, a certain group of mystics have questioned just how "real" of a world the Shadow Shard is. There have been many aspects of that word that could be interpreted as symbolic representations of abstract concepts, and the laws of physics there act in ways unusual and inexplicable, though only ever so slightly. Some have theorised that the entire Shard may in fact be an illusion, or the physical representation of a mind. No concrete evidence to any of these allusions have ever been found, but many who have been in the Shard for long will tell you that it wouldn't surprise them is this were true.

Whatever the case may be, one fact remains: The Shadow Shard has become an incredibly dangerous, hostile place. Survival is a trying affair, but actually facing the horrors that lie beneath the surface of this strange world will require power on an entirely new level to anything that Paragon City has seen. The natives fortell of a time when men will need to stand against the gods, themselves, and it is not clear whether they mean the Aspects of Rularuu, Rularuu himself, or something even greater. If one must fight the gods, then one will probably require the power of the gods to do so.

Quote:

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.

All great ideas! Keep em comin.

thanks
Cal

Hero-
(Story Arc) A Tale of Three Kingdoms: When the psychic powers of the clockwork king extend his consciousness to other worlds, he encounters other versions of himself, namely Metronome who makes a simple proposal, that they all merge as one and use their power to keep all Penny's safe from harm. And while heroes might be tempted to take him down, with Cole and Nemesis beginning to take interest in the Clockwork Princess his fears may be justified and you will have to defend the Princess from the Wrath of Three Kingdoms.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.