Why is the Malta Group out in the open?

Keep your friends close. Keep your enemies closer?

I thought Malta was organized in cells, or am I confusing them with the Sky Raiders?

(And isn't there a mission that shows that the Sky Raiders and Malta have fairly close ties? Or am I confusing that one, too? Guess I might need to go replay some of those SR/Malta mishes...)

Malta has a board of directors that sets general policy, but each individual group is organized in cells.

It's also, IIRC, not a single organization but rather several closely aligned ones.

That's the mission that everyone complains about because it doesn't make any sense given previous lore.
The Sky Raiders are tied to Nemesis, not Malta.

And you think the secret super-american organization is disloyal to their Emperor!?

No

Sadly, that's how I feel, as well. I've always wanted a good story experience, but recently it seems we've been getting so much "story" that we're left with barely a game at the end. It's like if I went to watch a movie but spent so much time window-shopping at the mall that I missed half the movie. At its core, City of Heroes is a fighting game. Text should supplement that, not try to replace it. Fancy mechanics should try to spice that up, not avoid it completely.

Here it is in a nutshell - if I've played for half an hour and in that time fought a total of about 10, maybe 15 enemies... Something is terribly wrong.

Since I haven't embarrassed myself lately, I figure I should confess something - I haven't read a book in my life. Not a whole one, anyway, just chapters and self-contained stories here and there. It has more to do with me not liking the drawn-out narrative almost all writers like to use, but my point remains - I don't like to read books. I still love to read stories in City of Heroes. I just prefer those stories to be mixed in with actual gameplay more often than not, or else I might as well just be reading a book anyway.

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.

The Sky Raiders are mercenaries. Nemesis provides them with stuff and uses them as pawns in some of his plots, but that doesn't mean they're in any way loyal to him.

Not only are the Sky Raiders not loyal to the Nemesis, they don't even know they're working for him. As far as Duray is aware, he's working with Tyrone Lockheart on creating a new Vigilance unit to carry out "dirty" jobs for the US government and that he's using Lockheart Aerotech as a front. That Tyrone is actually a Nemesis agent and that Lockheart is actually a Nemesis front isn't something any of the Sky Raiders know, which is a point that The Eternal Nemesis arc makes about mid-way through.

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.

Hence use of "tied to" not "working for".
Yeah, they're just be unwittingly used by him via Lockhart. I didn't mean to imply otherwise.

Oh the IRONY!

But Malta SHOULD know. I mean they're EXACTLY the kind of people who would know.
And really, you'd think Malta would do the neighborly thing for their fellow Bitter-At-Meta-Humans-former-legit-military-guys group and TELL THEM THEY'RE BEING PLAYED.

Then again, Duray seems to have thrown out his scruples about meta-humans with the Admiral Sutter arc when he decides to work with Praetoria, a land... controlled by Meta-humans.

...

How many mission story writers HONESTLY bother to read the damn lore?

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.

That's really what bugs me the most. I can deal with changes to lore and even unashamed ret-cons (like Praetoria) as long as it feels like it's an intentional, aware change. A lot of the problems we're discussing here don't at all feel like the writer wanted to change canon. It much more feels like the writer simply DO NOT KNOW. That's not room for creativity. That's simply not doing your research.

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.

NO-PRIZE time!

Primal Duray, while seeming to work with Praetoria, is really working with his Praetorian Counterpart Colonel Duray, so that the two can eventually team up to perform a double-cross against Emperor Cole, and thus pave the way for normal humans to take over both worlds.

(Now, I still have sadly not played through the Sutter arc, so I don't know how/if this holds up, but it seems the likeliest theory to me.)

I've just sort of assumed that Sutter takes place after all the other Sky Raider arcs, including the Silver Mantis SF and the 20-30 Vigilante mission, and Duray's basically just said "**** it, burn 'em all, I don't care anymore."

But you did imply otherwise. That's one part that does make sense to me--that Malta would use the Sky Raiders as cannon fodder or stooges. What doesn't make sense is the way they go about it. There should be no "Peter from Malta" or whatever the guy's name is, there should be no Zeus Titan. There would just be some mysterious employer who is never heard from again after your hero foils the plan, and any investigation as to his identity leads nowhere after numerous false leads....possibly with Indigo popping up and telling you to come talk to her when you're level 40 because if the people behind the plot are who she suspects they are it's too big for you to handle.

Malta? Neighborly? And maybe Recluse will do the neighborly thing and send all those Longbow at Agincourt a "welcome to the neighborhood" gift basket.

Malta tell you things on a need-to-know basis, and the Sky Raiders don't need to know. Besides, this arc clearly takes place after the Eternal Nemesis arc chronology-wise, even though it's before it level-wise (as in all instances where this happens, a bit of mental gymnastics is required), so Lockheart is gone. Nemesis may not be actively backing them at all anymore.

If I made myself too easy to misunderstand, then my apologies on that one.
Honestly, I do like your solution as well, though there would definitely have to be a link back at higher levels, or some way to make the connection later.

Hmmm, I must have missed that aspect. My solution would've been to replace the Titan with a Warhulk and a little nod of "but this shouldn't be possible, this tech hasn't been used in over half a century...!" Cue dramatic music and lead-in to The Eternal Nemesis. But if that's fouled up too, then, well, erm, yeah...

Okay, good, point. Though I would think being able to get the Sky Raiders working under Malta as a more public front on their attacks would work out quite well for them.

Then there's this point too. Though I think I would have liked Lazarillo's proposal of foreshadowing into Eternal Nemesis.

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.

Wasn't the Sky Raiders problem essentially that they felt they were being ignored in favour of metahuman troops?

And here's Cole, another government of the US, comes over and shows that having metas in the army doesen't neccessarily mean you need to ignore your old pals.

I think it was more that they felt that people were relying on super-powered individuals too much. Which would end up with the supers making a power grab and taking over as a "Ruling Class"

I makes me curious about Praet Durray, and how he got Primal to agree to help them, because that Ruling class fear is embodied in Praetoria.

Am I the only one who read the bios of Prae and Primal Duray when I got to them before the rest of my team? Primal's working with them because he believes they're our best hope for defeating the Rikti - a pity no one mentioned to him that the Praetorian's are about to work with the Rikti to kick start their invasion ("Battle Maiden's Offensive" [Apex Task Force] is mentioned in the cut-scene as the reason they're leveling Skyway).

Originally Posted by Shubbie Im very good at taking a problem and making it worse.