random musings

So, the commute back and forth to RL employment has given me a lot of time to think over the years. Lately, for some reason, CoX has figured highly in my random musings, so I present to you the following for discussion and food for thought:


What if....

Approach Power Definition
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Power selection comes with a "type" associated with the main classification.

For instance, Blasters may be energy, elemental, device (guns, wands, etc.), etc., then with a flavored

More specifically, a blaster could pick Energy Blast/, then be presented a selection of radiation, light, negative, etc. Default color scheme & animations would follow. Mix of secondary effects, dmg, etc. would then be applied based on the picks (not custom - system defined/balanced - but a broader customization feel). The basic powers would be somewhat uniform, with set defining selections swapped out. Then, as with now you could customize coloration, weapons, and animations (only more so).

So far, I can see this working more easily with attack sets than defense or buff sets... so further contributions to this are more than welcome.

Contact/Arc Flow
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For Primal, instead of being assigned origin specific starter contacts (blue side) or Arachnos related contacts (red), what if your initial contact was a choice that was faction related?

You arrive in AP, and choose to talk to a...PPD contact (or LB - pick from a couple of choices to start), and then using the Praetorian 1-20 arc tech, you work through a series of missions introducing you to PPD and working your way up the ranks. You could be presented choices, that let you continue as "a PPD member" or, as an arc develops leave to join Longbow, Freedom Corps, Wyvern, Vanguard, or... etc.

There could be more depth of options as a villain obviously, working up through the Hellions, Freaks, Council, CoT, or what have you, but there would still be some intriguing lore/story options regardless I would think (revenge, betrayal, greater profit/power, etc..).

As you leave a faction's level range, there could be some nice 'you're tougher, moving on' arc completion stories too.

The main arcs could be spaced and supported by radio/tip missions from faction contacts rather than generically available ones.

Temp powers or costume options could be unlocked according to progress of a given character through a faction.

And rather than separate eblue/red zones, you could have a unified zone availability ach working contacts/missions (I'd keep PvP restricted to certain zones, maybe with some nice zone event options like used in Praet to spice/purpose things up).

Again using the Praetorian branching tech, you could use arc choices to drive (supported by tips) movement from hero to villain...

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Both are things I doubt we'll ever see in the game as we know it. A sequel, maybe. There's just too much to rebuild.

No strong feelings about the first one, but I do like the second one. It goes without saying that the contact trees blueside are an absolute snorefest, and there's not a lot of wiggle room redside either (sure, you can work for a separate group here or there, but your association with that groups is generally limited to that contact's missions).

Not sure how I feel about costume options being limited to a faction. It's bad enough we have ones tied to missions, not being able to choose a certain piece that would really go well with my character's costume because I picked Council vs. Freakshow would just suck.

As for PvP?

L

O

L

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"You don't lose levels. You don't have equipment to wear out, repair, or lose, or that anyone can steal from you. About the only thing lighter than debt they could do is have an NPC walk by, point and laugh before you can go to the hospital or base." -Memphis_Bill
We will honor the past, and fight to the last, it will be a good way to die...

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