Intriguing Massively Article

Quite possibly the -last- Praetorian content though.

The devs have said they feel the fanbase is sick of Praetoria and wants out so I really get the feeling they're just boxing up Praetoria. I don't believe the Magisterium trial and Night Ward etc were actually planned to be the wrap ups. I kind of get the feeling they intended there to be more but seeing how unhappy people have been with the trials and war, they're capping it off quicker than they would have and we're moving on to the Battalion.

Praetoria in general just feels like a project of great ambitions that have sloughed off and now they're just trying to finish it up quick and let it die quietly while they dazzle us with more new shinies. Like, the alignment system dies at 20. The only thing in First Ward to cater to it is the repeatable contacts. I don't think Night Ward even has that much.

There's a lot of cool discussion that made me think a bit about Praetoria and what could be done to make it more open to players/more popular in general.

But first, after what someone mentioned about how F2P has been used to "save" games and what might have happened to Tabula Rasa, I now regret that the model wasn't around when Earth & Beyond was getting canned. Ah well.

Anyways...

Like others have mentioned, Praetoria is too closed off. I kind of like that in some ways, but I acknowledge that it's an odd decision in an online game. I think it needs to be opened up to people in two ways:
1) It needs to let both heroes and villains enter the zone and initiate the storylines under the guise of being undercover/infiltraiting the regime. Sure, they can already go to Praetoria and assist in content at any levels, but they can't initiate anything aside from zone events on their own. Change that, and find a way to add them to some kind of flashback system for those that are too high for it, and I think a lot of characters outside of Praetoria would give the content a look.
2) It needs to let Praetorians leave Praetoria BEFORE level 20, without changing their alignment, and visit BOTH Paragon and the Rogue Isles. I think being a Praetorian should make it so you're the equivalent to a rogue/vigilante rolled into one. Not able to start most content on either side (except for news/radio missions, to help with missing out on those if you roll a Praetorian and participating in DFB or something) but able to explore the zones and team up with Primals for whatever you like.

I think with those two options, you'd enable a lot of crossover. Now Primals have a new starting option beyond what they already have by being able to run Praetorian content if they want without having to start there exclusively. You could have Praetorians go to Primal and run content there if they want.

I also acknowledge that the Praetorian enemies can be annoyingly difficult for their level range. Destroyers, for instance, are a huge pain to fight before you get some kind of protection against what they can do. Seers as well, with their constant knockback. Not to mention ghouls and their heal-death-aura. These are cool enemies to fight, and don't get me wrong - I like the challenge - but they might be better off saving some of those more advanced abilities for higher levels.

As for the FUTURE of Praetorian content, well - I believe that it's pretty much going to be over after i24, and that makes me sad, but oh well. But if they WERE going to continue to expand it, this is what I would like to see, and how I would like to see it done:

1) Getting a direct continuation of the resistance/loyalist arcs IN Praetoria proper seems like it's just not going to happen at this point, and so, I'm not really going to take that into consideration. It's a shame, but there's not much I can do about that. So...

I think what they need to do is add Resistance/Loyalist content to Primal Earth. It needs to establish a story of "you're new in Primal Earth, and now your job is to get support for the Resistance/Loyalists, and/or cause trouble for the villain groups here, or the hero groups here, or gain power for yourself to achieve X" and so on. Start out by establishing your character in Primal Earth, either in Paragon or the Rogue Isles. It can evolve from establishing yourself to trying to achieve certain goals or whatever - like, for instance, First Ward and Night Ward. Since the 'leave Praetoria' mission pretty much always takes place BEFORE First Ward, send a Praetorian to Primal Earth at 20, have them establish themselves, then say, hey, you're kind of needed in Praetoria again, go take care of that.

This should ALSO be open to heroes/villains to run as well - with slightly changed text to acknowledge that they are Primals seeking to help the Praetorian cause, and not vice versa. Once again, this will help make it open to everyone and not lead to the same problem of isolation and exclusion that we currently have.

2) At some point, I'd like to be able to go BACK to Praetoria. I know earlier I said that a direct continuation won't likely happen, but this is mostly just my wish list, so I'm going to include this anyway. Basically, at level 40 or 45, I'd like the ability for a character to go back to Praetoria and run new content there.

I'd also like for Heroes/Villains to be able to change their faction to Loyalist/Resistance as well, once again, treating them like a vigilante/rogue hybrid. (Also, and this is important, making them able to run all the TF's, SF's, and Incarnate Trials even if they are Praetorian).

They don't even need new zones for this. I'd be happy if they just included some new contacts in the three established city zones and added more storylines that included content that leads DIRECTLY to the trials that happen later in the game. (In a perfect world, I'd like to see a Praetorian perspective on the Maria Jenkins missions, where you either attempt to stop or aid the Praetors in their plots. I can't see that happening, though.)

Beyond that, I'd also like their to be some missions dealing with the aftermath of the trials. I think Dark Astoria has spoiled me in that regard, but I want story epilogues to open up after running the trials that lets you see and experience some of the aftermath, like Calvin Scott after the Minds of Mayhem trial and so on.

Apologies for the wall of text.

Yeah, it really doesn't feel like a natural from from the 1-20 content into First Ward. When you hit 20 you get separate messages of "YOU NEED TO GO THROUGH THE PORTAL" And "oh hey, there's this other place too, might wanna check it out and stuff". But the two are pretty mutually exclusive and even just doing First Ward (and eventually Night Ward) you still end up going back to those portals eventually. It's more about just putting the choice off than feeling like a natural flow.

Not to mention that so much of what was built up in Praetoria with the alignment system and all that is tossed out the window into the co-op storyline.

Going Rogue was okay. But even in the first 48 hours I remember being a little annoyed with it. The game seemed to be built for what a solo character would want and not a team. Prior to Going Rogue I was already rolling characters and hitting level 20 on the same day by doing (old-style) Sewer runs, followed by Kings Row, followed by Steel Canyon. It was a mystery to me then and still is why the game keeps adding more low level content.

In addition, in Praetoria we have:

Task Forces: 0.
Radio missions: 0.
Tip missions: 0.

The one thing GR did add were Tip Missions to regular zones.

What I personally wanted (and still want) were more interesting equivalents of radio missions. Content that is easy to access, not very hard to explain, tends not to send you out of the current zone, and respects Super Sidekicking (which rules out ANY of the incarnate level content).

On a side note as of Freedom I have introduced many people to this game. Many quit for various reasons. But what strikes me that is that no one cited "stories" or "characterization" as their reason for quitting. It was mainly inability to understand game mechanics, the impression that low level combat is representative of later gameplay, and frustration related to inability to communicate with other players to find teams. That's anecdotal evidence, but its what I observed none-the-less.

I should also add that the "ah-ha-ness" of the characters in Praetoria seems to depends very strongly on familiarity with the "prime" universe. Someone who knows nothing about the primal areas would have no reason to care about whoever "Praetor Duncan" is a clone of.

For a lot of made up BS with no actual facts, I suppose it could be true but it all seems a little unlikely.

Business plan things out in years not weeks. Heck look at the latest interview with Black pebble. He said they know what's going to be on the market, when it's going to be on, when it will be discounted, when new stuff will be added out to 12 months. So no. Pretty much all conjecture with no basis in fact.

I grantee you, despite what Zwill says, they know exactly when they are going to have the Retro Sci-fi set on the market. They don't want to commit in case they miss their target date. Trust me these people, the dev's, all have their projects scheduled to the day if not the hour.