What old plot threads could we pick up on?

When learning about Project: Locke, Gordon Stacy said "I thought Dr. Vahzilok had the market cornered on this kind of mad science!" This got me to thinking... Yeah, he does, doesn't he? What happened to the guy? I mean, I know we defeat him in the 15-20 arc the Vahzilok Plague, but is that the end of him? Then I remembered an old suggestion I'd had - to have Dr. Vahz make a comeback in the 40s, complete with brand new engineered abominations. No longer slow, dumb, stitched-together corpses and instead fast, deadly, perfected killing machines like what you'd see from the tougher Resident Evil creatures.

But then it occurred to me that Dr. Vahzilok is just one plot which has potential, but goes just about nowhere and sort of ends, and there are so many others of them. I realise each new writer for this game seems to regard his or her predecessor's work with contempt, but I've said enough about this in other threads. Instead, let's see if we can't come up with a collection of old stories that never got told which probably really should.

*Blood of the Black Stream and the story behind Gadzul Oil. Obviously. That's the first thing anyone thinks of. Even without an Epic AT attached to it, that storyline would probably be worth telling.

*The Clockwork King. If he's supposed to "die" in the Synapse Task Force, who's powering the Clockwork who protect Penelope Yin, and who's the one who shows up for her in the Lady Grey Task Force? Clearly, the guy survives, but I want to know what happened to him in the intervening time.

*The Luddites. Who are these guys? Why do they dress like medieval peasants? Why do they hate technology? Why do they shave their heads? Why do they use swords and crossbows? They seem to hate Dr. Aeon because of his PTS, but how do they know about this?

*The Goldbrickers and King Midas. A long time ago, someone mentioned that the Golden Roller was so obviously King Midas inside his car and... Um, is he? I don't know. I've never seen King Midas and I've never heard a description of him. Why would he be hiding inside a car? And why does he know so much about technology? What IS the Goldbrickers' deal, anyway?

*Tub Chi. In Praetora, Tub Chi Tan is a co-leader of the Syndicate who respects honour and loyalty above all else, and that's a pretty cool story. But we've never seen Primal Earth's Tub Chi that the Tsoo and contacts keep talking about. What does he look like? What does he want? What kind of story can we tell about him?

*The Skulls and the Petrovic brothers. I may be misremembering, but I understood that the Petrovic brothers are the founders of the Skulls. I don't know if they show up anywhere, but I haven't seen them. I don't know why they decided to start a gang, I don't know if they had black magic powers before they did, I don't know how they found them, I don't know what they want... And considering the Skulls just sort of "stop," it might be a good story to tell.

*The Hellion Girlfriends from Hell. A while ago, I complained that these were just ugly unfunny gimmicks, but one of Twinshot's missions actually has a VERY cool twist on that: The Hellions don't know they're demons. We see the horns and the wings and the tail, but as far as the Hellions can tell, these are just perfectly normal hot chicks. They don't know these succubus demons are using them, they don't know their girlfriends are plotting to summon their demonic masters... They just don't know. And that's a very, very cool story that I really wish could be told proper, but it just isn't. Also... Who IS the leader of the Hellions? I know it can't be 3K Kelvin and I KNOW it can't be Duke Mordrogar.

*The Trolls, the Outcasts and the Warriors. Wasted potential is all I'll say. All of these gangs are so cool, but nothing much is ever made of them. Yeah, the Trolls and Outcasts get some spotlight in the Hollows, but Frostfire isn't the Outcasts leader, just their founder and not all that powerful, and Atta doesn't seem to be the Troll in overall control. And the Warriors have such potential, but they're turned into Iliad cosplayers. Who IS their leader? Odysseus? Heracles? I forget BECAUSE IT DOESN'T MATTER! It almost never comes up. Mercedes Sheldon has a cool arc with them, but you can swap the Warrior names around and nothing will change. Oh, sure, it won't match the Iliad word for word, but the story itself won't change. All of these factions can do with so much more fleshing out and I'm sure there are plenty of stories to be told about them. The Trolls are dumb but violent, the Outcasts are cunning and always on the hunt for members and the Warriors are obsessed with honour and combat, plus they're powered by magical artefacts. There's room for story here.

*Dreck, Bile, Clamour and Upstart. Where are these guys? Dreck is supposed to be the leader of the Freakshow, but he shows up all of once, and in a mission that doesn't matter. He's supposed to be this opportunist who plays the Freaks for fools and uses them for his own ends by selling their services to Crey. And what of Bile the Technophile? How does a guy who hate technology accept drawing his strength from technology? There's room for a good story here. And what of Clamour? Yes, the Sister Psyche TF is about her, but she could show up again, especially in place of "Clamour Boi." And what of Upstart? He doesn't even exist anywhere in the game. There are only about two references to him being in jail in the whole game, and that's it. Dreck fears him. He sold him to the cops and wants to keep him in Jail. The Freakshow love him because he's supposed to be charismatic. Isn't that the perfect opportunity to start a civil war within the Freakshow?

*The Freakshow in general. At one point, the Freakshow were taken seriously. They were a crazy, frightening, unpredictable and extremely violent gang, something like your typical Raiders in your typical post-apocalyptic or cyberpunk dystopian future. They were insane, and thus their antics were somewhat funny in a cynical way, but they were still incredibly dangerous. They just don't seem to be relevant any more. If they aren't showing up just to be goofy and serve as a parody, they show up as "insert faction here" mercs for other people. And... Didn't they rebel against Dreck for selling their services for money once already? I'm sure Clamour's faction of anti-corporate militants might have something to say about that. I'd really like to see the Freakshow become relevant to the game once more.

*The Rikti Traditionalists. This was a great idea - the homicidal alien race we thought we were fighting turns out to be a peaceful, enlightened people cut off from home, fallen on hard times and consumed by a violent dictatorship. The fall of wisdom, if you will. Tragic, poetic and unexpected. But they never actually do anything. They show up once in Division: Line that's ostensibly about them, then once in Serpent Drummer's arc that's once more about them, but they don't really seem to have any effect on events following these. In fact... There ARE no events following these, just about. Gaussian's arc isn't about the Rikti and the Dark Watcher's arc is about Hro. But there really is no resolution to the Rikti on Earth, no trip to the Rikti homeworld... We don't even know how the Traditionalists helped us.

*Cimerora. Why did we go there again? I mean, I get that that's where the Well of the Furies is supposed to be, but we don't know that when we first go there. And what did stopping Requiem have to do with anything? I get that the Letter Writer knew about the well and gave the Midnighters the crystal in an effort to mask his removing of the well from Ouroboros by a torrent of heroes and villains, but I never got why heroes and villains wanted to go there in the first place. What does Montague have at stake in Cimerora?

*Croatoa. Again - what happened to this place? Will something come of it? Winter events, I guess, but will something MORE come of it? Almost every other place and storyline in City of Heroes ties into something more, but Croatoa just feels like I stepped into a whole other game for 10 levels then came back. Nothing from the rest of the city matters to Croatoa and nothing from Croatoa matters to the rest of the city.

*Bat-Zul. Yeah, him. Is he content to soak his plucked chicken butt in a lava hot tub for all eternity? What did he hope to achieve by animating the Clockwork around the PTS? What's the significance of the Cap Au Diable demons? Shouldn't that story either lead to something or at least be mentioned somewhere? Shouldn't Virgil go on to do something more than fail to trick still more villains?

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Of course, all of these are just me. That's what I remember off-hand. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe you don't care, maybe you care about something else. So, let me know. Which old, abandoned storylines would you like to see picked up on? "The Shadow Shard" and "The Banished Pantheon" probably don't count since those are almost certainly already in the works, but if you want to discuss them, go for it. But aside from those, what other storylines would you like to see revisited?

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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.

Y'know, I like these ideas. Especially the Vahzilok, Luddite and Golbrickers ideas.

Concerning the Petrovic bros, though... they appear in the Bonefire arc and they turn out to not be any different from the regular Bone Daddies. They're Marrowsnap and Marrow Drinker.

I'd take any of these over more Praetoria.

I had forgotten a lot of these which is a shame as one of the reasons I fell in love with CoX was because of its rich and detailed background. Unfortunately, I doubt we'll ever see many of these stories explored mostly due to the Lorekeepers behind them now having left Paragon.

The coralax. Aside from Calistyx trying to awaken the leviathan, they don't seem do much. Just show up in parts of Port Oakes, and in the hollows (speaking of which, what are they up to so far from the isles?).

And what about the Banished Pantheons' presence in Striga? The closest thing we get to an explanation is the "the unnamed" exploration badge...

Point of order - A technophile is someone who loves technology.

That said, I'd like some kind of story followup to Unai Kemen's arc. At the end of it, werewolf world blinks out of existence. And then we never take the time to figure out how or why this happened, we're just satisfied because we beat up Requiem in a different dimension. Why not? This could easily be an Incarnate-level story outside of the trials. Find the mastermind behind the dimensional ruptures, find the cause of the ruptures, figure out how to prevent a similar instability from obliterating Primal Earth. Stuff like that.

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Originally Posted by Venture I'd never use a nuke in a superhero universe. You nuke a city, you kill 1.5 million people minus one. The last guy not only gets superpowers from the explosion, but ones that let him survive a nuke...and wow, is he torqued off

We had a thread line this around this time [url="http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=243232&highlight=plot+thread&page =5"] last year.

There was another one much like it that was much larger. A redname commented in it.

I can't remember who it was or what the thread was called.

Everything that's been posted in this thread was posted in it.

Sam, sometimes I really wish you were the one in charge of things for this game.

I want them to have Dr Vahzilok reappear in the 40-50 level range as the leader of an off-shoot of Freakshow. Freaks already have Meat Doctors in Redside content, so I want that built upon.


Cadaver underlings with bombs attached
Reaper Minions with chainsaws
Freakshow Minions with Eidolon implants for small Dark or Rad attacks
Meat Doctor Lieutenants
Mortificator Lieutenants with 'Chemical Waste' toxic damage flamethrowers
Eidolon Lieutenants
Freak Eidolon Bosses, Dark or Rad Eidolons with Freakshow implants for a Super Stunner ressurect and claw arm
Meat Tank Bosses, a classic Freakshow in a (albeit smaller) Dr Vahzilok meat suit, high natural health regeneration, lots of cone/AoE attacks and the usual chance for self rez
The good Doctor Vahzilok himself, complete with Freakshow armour over his meat suit. Keep his gatling gun/grenade launcher arm, replace the other with a Freak claw which can grab chunks of flesh off himself to throw and spawn large groups of Cadaver pets, plus act as a lethal weapon. Add on the Super Stunner self ressurect and that's an AV to be afraid of.

I only wish they'd used Dr Vahzilok for the Halloween trial.

I want the Outcasts to come back in starting from 20 on up.

Here's why: They have superpowers.

The entire group is based around the mutant archetype, they exhibit numerous elemental abilities. And then, they just up and disappear. From 20 on up, they could organize, suit up with themed tights and bulk out their numbers with Psychic and whatever else is missing that can be kludged in to work as super powered enemy group. Give a number of their bosses dual themed powers like Frostfire, and throw in a SupaTroll for flavor.

We have cultists, military, voodoo, psychic high-class circus, horror, scientists, time travelers, sorta mirror-verse, aliens, other dimensional beings, Romans and Nazis. Can we get an entire villain group built and based around legit superpowered beings in tights ?

They don't even have to have a major agenda, other than crime, they could just be Radio/Newspaper fodder madlib style.

Seeing as how Sharkhead Isle is one of my favorite villain zones. I just like fighting the scrapers and the guards. I really wish we knew more about Kirk Cage. (http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Kirk_Cage) Who is he? Where did his money come from?

Anyone know anything about this?

Some interesting plot threads are mentioned in the old lore, such as the implication that Pandora's box was first opened back in ancient Babylon, possibly even implying Gilgamesh was the first Incarnate.

@#$% Prometheus, I want my god king to be guiding my through iTrials, and to be honest, when Prometheus talks down to me, it's annoying, with Gilgamesh, it's understandable given who he was. Besides, if he gets uppity I can just ask him "How's Enkidu?"

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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.

When I first saw the Girlfriends from Hell, I chuckled because I thought it was a clever character. Then I realized I was in a mission. Then I laughed. Then they hurt me. And I stopped laughing.

Personally I think the Girlfriend from Hell is a continuation of the "Hellion Girlfriend" and "Skulls Girlfriend" characters you see around every once in a while. Hilarious in hindsight to think that they're actually calling the shots, manipulating the Hellions like that and you don't even know at first, either.

Now personally I think there are concepts that SHOULD end after specific level ranges. I thought it was awesome that the snakes just stop appearing after mercy island, with very rare appearances in port oakes. It's cool that you can say you helped completely destroy them, and that they only exist within a certain timeframe.

This game's "level range equals time" mechanic is very cool and it's one of the things I like most about leveling. You actually CAN get the message "Sorry, you took too long, someone else handled it or it never got done" or somesuch message. That's neat. I like that. And sometimes entire groups of baddies can be classified that way too.

I think the Tsoo were essentially just a mystical oriental version of The Family.

A cartel from the east newly appeared in Paragon City with their RAGE drug that was actually a healthier alternative to 'Dyne (hey, it doesn't turn you green and fill you with the urge to go live in caves in the Hollows...) and trying to muscle in on the Family's turf.

It's been YEARS since I ran the Tsoo arcs, I can't remember if they were also the ones responsible for the Freakshow's Excelsior supply or if the Freaks manufacture it themselves/get it from Crey Corp