Discussion: Live stream at MMORPG of the upcoming Issue 23 Incarnate Trial

Join Matt "Positron" Miller and Melissa "War Witch" Bianco for a live stream of the upcoming Issue 23 Incarnate Trial, Magisterium today on MMORPG.COM!

Click here for more details!

Hopefully i can stay awake to watch this.

This should be interesting...

From the name, it sounds as if we might be finishing or close to finishing the "fight Praeotrians" portion of the endgame. If you're not a huge Praetorian fan, this is good news. And, of course, if you are a huge Praetorian fan, you're probably happy to see a trial that advances that series of events.

One thing that I think would figure nicely in a trial about destroying the heart of an organization, like the Magisterium, would be to have some buildings collapse. Not have them destroyed in the trial and as they are now in the game world, but to have them fall over within the trial. I mention this not because I expect to see it here, but because it might inspire some developer who happens to read this thread (or an OCR person summarizing it for them) for purposes of future content.

Yeah they explicitly said the 'climax' of the war, not 'the conclusion'.

They said on UStream that while I23 is meant to tie up the Praetorian storyline, everything won't be wrapped up, and we'll eventually find out what the deal is with the Hamidon there.

Still waiting for them to get the sound working, but the trial they are previewing is apparently the final battle against Tyrant.

Beta will open later this week.

The Trial is 12-24.

Chimera and Shadow hunter fetaure in the Trial, and the new AV is called Pendragon - which is surely their Hero 1

Shadow Hunter has had a total revamp - he looks like a staff/BM, with special pets - he also transforms into a giant dog at 40% health.

Pendragon uses TW - it's Excalibur, and it fights on alone after he's defeated.

Black Swan uses the Quills of Jocas to siphon our Incarnate power - she will turn off our powers form time to time.

The nuked Nova Praetoria map looks pretty epic

Tyrant nukes Nova Praetoria, and becomes giant sized - we have to cut his links to the Well.

He calls on the power of Tartarus to nuke the place, as he got it along with the power of Zeus at the Well.

The Dream Doctor is our main guide in this, instead of Prometheus.

...I don't like this Grakulen guy on the stream. He obviously did no research before getting this stream up, and with no dev audio working on the stream, the advertisement value for Paragon Studios seems really low.

That said, the new iTrial looks amazingly epic.

I almost feel bad for the guy playing. Well, except he is playing, and I am watching.

If it can be relied on, it looks like the 4 Hybrid branches will be Assault, Control, Melee, and Support, providing damage increases, damage vs controled foes, defence, and buffs respectively. Sounds good to me.

Looked pretty cool, the nuke was awesome, and the AV fights look fun.

They just commented on the hybrid slot,

Support tree is going to be like all the leadership pools rolled into one.

They mentioned the other trees also but I wasn't really paying attention when they said those.

Yep, here are my notes from the stream:

Trial name is "Sic Semper Tyranis" -- Latin for "thus always to tyrants!," which was, if memory serves, what the conspirators yelled when they stabbed Julius Caesar in the back.

Before phase 1: Dream Doctor gathers everybody in the Astral plane, we overhear (from there) the IDF slaughtering the last of the Talons of Vengeance, then we teleport in. Dominatrix and Praetorian Aurora Borealis are there to defend us.

Phase 1: Defeat 250 IDF. No different from the IDF anywhere.

Phase 2: All through this phase, Chimera (initially off screen) targets a couple of random people every so often and drops the tier 9 archery power on them and everybody around them. Hug the healers. Fight 1 of phase 2 is a tank-and-spank against Shadowhunter (Praetorian Woodsman). Fight 2 of phase 2 is a tank-and-spank against Pendragon (Praetorian Hero One). Fight 3 is a chase-and-hunt against Chimera, who teleports all over the map, so bring a jetpack if you don't already fly. At end he "pulls a Nemesis" (my phrasing) and says, in effect, "you fools, getting defeated by you was part of my plan!" and teleports out.

Phase 3: For this phase, Chimera (off screen) uses Quills of Jocasta instead of the standard archery tier 9, which turn off the targeted player's incarnate powers briefly. Defeat Black Swan, who every 15 seconds or so summons 3 more portals to her shadow realm, which buff her while they're up, but are easy to spot and defeat.

Cut-scene: Tyrant chews you out, says "look what you made me do!", Dominatrix and Aurora pull an inexplicable "Penny Yin" moment and tell you to hug close so they can shield you, because Tyrant detonates a hydrogen bomb over Nova Praetoria!

Phase 4: If you fly up, you can see that it is destroyed buildings all the way to the horizon; everybody in Praetorian City is dead except for you and Cole. You get new temp power in the APB bar, Quills of Jocasta (which presumably suggests that Chimera died in the blast), PBAoE click power that when fired next to a glowing "Well of the Furies link" pillar blows up that pillar. They respawn fast, keep killing them while the rest of the team tank-and-spanks Tyrant, who has roughly the same powers as Statesman and Lord Recluse combined. At end of fight, he gets back up, as a level 50+0 non-incarnate, and you kill him dead dead dead. Congratulations. You won the Praetorian War.

Ok so the rundown of the Magisterium Incarnate trial:

Phase 1: Defeat 250 IDF.
Just like it sounds. You see tanks and barricades and hordes of IDF.

Phase 2: Defeat Shadowhunter, Pendragon, and Chimera.
Shadowhunter summons up big anubian jackal looking critters and turns into one himself at 40% Health. Apparently when you kill him he phases someone for a short time so they can't help in the battle.
Pendragon's sword keeps fighting after you beat him.
I didn't really see any of Chimera's tricks.
It seems like the order you kill them in matters as they offer up buffs and effects when you defeat each of them.

Phase 3: Defeat black swan.
She uses the Quell of Jocas, which is the Praetorian counterpart to the Dagger of Jocas and it can sever someone's connection to the well. Apparently it affects us by sealing our powers but didn't get a lot of detail on what that meant. Portals will pop up periodically to buff her and have to be taken out.

Phase 4: Sever Tyrants connection to the well.
Cole shows up and is -pissed-, Nuking (at least) Nova Praetoria. He then grows gigantic and we see several pillars of light. We also have the Quell of Jocas temp power we can use to nix said pillars. He has several text prompt powers including a Beam power where light surges down all around him.

Phase 5: Beat Cole
With his connection to the Well gone he becomes a standard 50. Meaning he cons grey.

That's it. Basically just a lot of bossfights, most without many gimmicks. There's some details lost just because we couldn't get the devs talking and it was just hard to read everything flashing by the screen or the resolution just prevented us from reading everything.

Looks like a "tank-n-spank"....we'll see if that holds true.