Going Rogue - a year later

Alignment changes and the Alpha slot + Tin Mage/Apex were all-around terrific ideas, but Praetoria has always been lame and the trial-centric incarnate grind has sent me on a four-month hiatus that won't be ending anytime soon.

I think my biggest beef with GR is the lack of Day Job locations that could have been there, like the one for the tailor and other non faction locked ones. It wasn't too annoying but it was a constant irritant whenever I was getting ready to log out.

Praetoria seems to me now like it was intended as a method for higher level primal characters to switch sides. Then they decided that it was going to be low-level content, and side-switching got another system.

The tutorial in Praetoria makes me feel like I've completely lost all my memories of living in Praetoria all my life and becoming a member of Powers Division, or like I've just arrived from another world and don't know anything about what is going on.

Recently (?) we learned that the whole Loyalist faction was a late addition to the GR experience. Apparently we were supposed to all be Resistance and the morality choices would only reflect Warden or Crusader mentalities.

If they had introduced Praetoria as level 30+ content where Primal Earth characters are sent there to undermine Tyrant's rule, not letting us play Loyalists would have made perfect sense. Now we are instead stuck with a problem in the opposite end of the GR path, where Loyalists are suddenly forced to abandon or even oppose their home world.

I think the whole idea of being forced to leave Praetoria could have been made much more palatable if we learned in the final story arc that Tyrant was about to give up on his Powers Division project, since it seemed to cause more problems than it solved, and was planning to kill off every super-powered being in Praetoria (possibly through his connection to the Well).

If that had happened it would have tied into previous high-level canon content where we had learned that Tyrant and his lieutenants had killed every other super in their world and now ruled unopposed. It would have given our characters, loyalists and resistance alike, a perfectly good reason to want to escape that world.

As it is now, when I play a Praetorian I usually get to level 20, enter Primal Earth, and then I abandon the character. Until recently they were abandoned indefinitely and usually deleted after a couple of weeks. Now at least some of them will be going back to First Ward to check that out. I'm thinking that not many of my Primal Earth characters will have a good reason to visit First Ward so now there's the same problem but in reverse.

For me the most jarring issue comes to light after you leave.

1-20 I was having a blast! Going solo on my eng/eng blaster was a breeze. (I'm guessing the mobs get harder in groups) and I was really getting into my character. lite rping him as secretly working for Tyrant, then learning Tyrant planned on destroying everything in the universe and deciding to explore the Isles for enough power to take him out.

The problem?

Once I left and zoned into Redside, I was treated like I'd been there the whole time. No mention is ever made of me being Praetorian. No further story arcs to tie it together (discounting the lame raids) This worked out for my villain, as he would be 'undercover' regardless. For my 1st heroic MM however, coming to Paragon to warn everyone, I just felt abandoned by the story. Going straight into getting the Keith Nance arc popup and running his arc doesn't help. I've been in this world for all of an hour and he's already heard of me and apparently I have a double...

I really do like the atmosphere and story of GR. At the same time though it feels very linear. Almost like you are on railroad tracks. Rolling blue or red I have numerous options open to me, I can go anywhere and do stuff for so many varied contacts that even when I repeat them on new alts it still feels like I have a choice. GR eliminates that choice and shoehorns you into 1 of 4 with little leeway. That isn't because it's new and the other sides have had years of content added. It's by design. Blue and Red had a more 'open world' feel to them right from the start, as oppossed to the you must do this feel of GR.
This is why I haven't been back to Goldside in 6 months. I did all 4 arcs, played around with the undercover bits and then realized I'd be reading the same things on every new toon. Where as if I roll blue or red I have much more leeway.


Also, I'm pretty sure Fredrik is right about the original vision for GR. Intended to be a 40+ jumping off spot for Primals to get into the story and switch sides in the process. Any number of reasons they could have then decided to make it 1-20 instead. Possibly with the idea that GR would be a new box on the shelf and they wanted new blood to be able to see their best work 1st, without having to play 40 levels to get to it. This ended up leaving it feeling half finished, with the final arc that sends you on your way to Primal coming almost out of the blue.

The only, but huge {huuuge!} thing that's been keeping me out of Praetoria are the mobs.

Unmezzable, unstoppable, rock-flinging Big Dogs?
Burnpatch spamming blast masters?
Instadeath-from-range sword masters?
loldefense clockwork?

They don't belong in a starting area. I consider them Lv30 mobs on a vacation, certainly not something to be fought when your options are "punch" and "punch a little harder".

Balance, please.

An open letter to NCsoft