BeyondReach
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Posts
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I'm not a fan of it being a Co-Op Taskforce or it being Neutral. I always get the feeling that Neutral missions aren't very "refined" if you see what I'm saying, they don't really know where they're going, and Co-Op Taskforces just create the issue of Villains and Heroes working together, which I can only see plausibly working if it was in a REALLY ground-shakingly cataclysmic event. I'd much prefer this just stays Heroic, it will make it much more simple to get the story up to a good standard without any complications. (Though that reminds me that Villains are a bit short on TFs atm...but obviously War Witch wouldn't be a SF)
Yes, seeing as Ghost Widow already has the Patron Arc about returning to the living, creating another arc that basically has the exact same thing wouldn't be too original. I much prefer Seldom's ideas of rather than War Witch vs. Villain, it's more You vs. Villain Group. And I certainly like the idea of including Apex...Not a big fan of the Oranbegans though...Don't really have any ideas off the top of my head at the moment - which is a rarity - but whatever happens I definitely like the idea of including Apex. -
Yeah, I did, it's only for the first mission that only the Headmen and Scroungers can be used and thus I only put them in the custom group (as well as the Headman boss) but for all the missions after that every Lost works with the story...well...except for bosses making their presence known, that would probably damage the whole ambience of the story...Hmmmm, I could make another custom group with the only difference from the main being that it doesn't have Pariahs.
And thanks for the Kill All idea that would be a smart alternative, unfortunately I've already got a different clue at the end of the mission because unfotunately you can't get clues from say Patrols or things like that - the clue is of things found of the bodies of some of the defeated Scroungers - which is annoying. They should definitely add that, a clue for defeating a Patrol.
And the problem with the Aberrant Eremites I don't even understand. I looked at the list of enemies that I could add to the Custom Group from the Lost Standard Group, and nowhere did I see an Aberrant Eremite as a lieutenant and yet I still certainly fought one when I tested the mission. Because of that I'm afraid that it might be something I'm unable to change, but further testing will prove whether that's the case.
Thanks for your help. -
I think people are drawing too many analogues between Praetorian and Primal Earth. I think I read someone putting the lack of Nemesis there was some kind of ret-con that they were disgruntled about. There are massive differences between Praetoria and Primal and the Praetorian Guard/Freedom Phalanx offers one of the few analogues in terms of characters. However...
Quote:I've been following the news about the Clockwork and the Clockwork King on Praetorian Earth for some time now, and the news is...there is no news. As far as official information releases go so far, the Praetorian Clockwork are the creations of Raymond Keyes (who going on the so far established one-to-one relationship between Primal Earth and Praetorian counterparts) should be Anti-Matter the Praetorian counterpart of Positron.
Considering that Nemesis has kinda been 'written out' of Praetorian Earth (dying a humble toymaker) according to what we know at present, it's not too surprising that in the interests of making the new characters more fleshed out some of our old favourites have been cut from the team.
I'm absolutely certain though (read: this is just guesswork), that:
Praetorian Clockwork is PEOPLE!Raymond Keyes invented the Clockwork. *cough* ******** *cough* No offence to Positron, but either these guys aren't Clockwork, or he didn't create them. The Clockwork are not defined by the fact that they are powered by clockwork...because they aren't. They are powered by psychic energy, and not only the fact that even if Positron did make these Clockwork they would not be powered by Clockwork and thus there is no logic behind their naming, but Positron has no psychic power and consequently he would not be able to power them.Quote:That got a "no comment" from Hero1 at Hero Con
Silence on the issue only feeds my rabid paranoid fantasies that he has a huge role to play on Praetorian Earth but that its' being kept under wraps at the mo. What's my speculation you ask? That being the immense psychic that he is, he'll be able to hide 'under the radar' from Mother Mayhem and the Psychic Friends Network. The King is in the Resistance, hiding them from Tyrant and his cronies. What's that? You didn't ask for my opinion? Then what are you doing reading it?
Of course, there could be an answer that both answers the question of Positron having invented them, but them still being Clockwork. Positron designed the robot workforce, but the incredibly, mind-blowingly powerful psychic that that humble, disshevelled young man is, is the power source for this host of robot soldiers....but if that were true it does make me frown
I had planned on creating a Clockwork based on the idea that the Clockwork were actually sentient, but it appears as though this makes much more sense.
The more I think about it, the more it seems to make sense. In Praetoria the Freedom Phalanx are "the bad guys" - well to some, to others they're the Lord and Saviour - so it would make sense for an arch-villain such as the Clockwork King to be a good guy, in a way. He has probably been captured by Positron ad forced as a kind of power source to control this army of Clockwork machines. But just think about it...if the Praetorian Empire consists of the world...there must be millions of these machines. That is power that can't be rivalled.
Well, except by Penelope Yin. Probably why he was so interested in her, she must be the only individual on Earth powerful enough to take his place once he's gone. But really, WTF is he trying to do?
But anyway I'm getting off-topic, the Clockwork King is probably another one of the Praetorian Guard's dark little secrets. Becuase of his capture and his power, for all we know he could be working with the Resistance to secure his freedom. -
Quote:Forgive the newbishness, but is that easy to get to for a character that is say, Level 1-5? Though I may have misunderstood the premise :S This is to form a team of players that intend to Level from 1-50 together only on MA right?Originally Posted by Tangler
We'd do it in RWZ, so faction-wise it won't be a problem. -
*quickly grabs some popcorn, sits down on the sofa and-*
Oh no, it appears the fights already over! Why? Because IT'S ON THE TELEVISION. You just can't win Dr. Aeon. How can you hope to face off The Television in a fight that's not televised? Because we all know, whatever's on The Television is duly controlled by The Television. Yes, you didn't think that those people who smash up their TVs when their favourite sports teams lost were so wise, but alas, you were wrong.
TELEVISION FOREVER -
I would be interested
Except I don't really have any character ideas at the moment that don't involve Going Rogue XD I could re-make one of my lowbies. Really it's not that much of a problem. Were you thinking Red or Blueside? My preference would be Red.
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Quote:You tune into a show where a megalomaniacal, narcisstic immortal - who was some reason 'ressurected' with bleached blonde hair - who can shoot lightning out of hands turns everyone on the planet into replicates of himself. And then they work together, with one of them actually ordering the rest around.Originally Posted by Lord Mayhem
<3 Firefly - now prove you can tune into something BBC-ish, preferably with a blue Police box and a 900+ year old time traveller.
I sat there staring at the TV screen with an indignant look on my face that said "Am I expected to believe this?" all the way until the end.
But yes, I would appreciate something nice and English the next time I tune in. -
UUUUUUUUUAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHHHHH! HULK ANNOYED!
This seems like a perfect opportunity to expel my creative juices - no matter how dirty that sounds - and I do love to do that, but unfortunately as I am known to do all the time, I have allowed myself to get snowed under by my own work...In fact I should be finishing off an essay right now...Meh, I may just get down to work and see how things progress.
You may be pleasantly surprised by a story in your inbox on Monday morning, but that eventuality has a very strong chance of not occurring. If I do get round to doing it, do you have a particular theme in mind? -
You'll have no shortage of finding fun mission to play trust me. Dev's Choice, Hall of Fame and Guest Authors are now thick with entries after like a year of Architect being around. For low-levels I would recommend Mercytown: The One With All the Fish #6017 and The Renegade Rebellion #117690 those are two who are in my opinion Dev's Choice worthy but aren't - but there are a lot that are. For other ways to find good missions other than Dev's Choice etc. I'd look at the 2009 Player's Choice Award winners and nominations in the Mission Architect main forum as well as review threads if you're really struggling to find some. But they're out there, there's no need to create farms.
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Quote:You mean like Villainous/Ruthless etc.? (sorry for the redside terms haven't actually got the point of changing it on blueside yet)Originally Posted by Not_Epsilon
Did you try it on different SRS difficulties? I beleive that could have something to do with it.
Yeah, Pacing I know what you mean. I chose Ramp Up which I assume meant that the spawn points increased in numbers as you progressed through the mission, but I may be wrong. They really should make them more clear, like wtf does Staggered mean? :SQuote:The spawn points are normally uniform unless you selected a enemy group arrangement(Forget what the actual option is called, in the begininng of a arc it gives you an option that lets you back-load the mission and other options.)
Ah! Thanks, I remember I had that idea when I was making this mission when I left the game before, but it must have slipped my mind between now and then. Do you know if using a custom group like that would create the same large memory cost?Quote:Try creating a custom group filled with the lost standard mobs, this allows you to cherry pick the lost you want in the mission. -
Quote:A writer is not a narcissist.Originally Posted by Sister_Twelve
I can think of several reasons why the community writing project is not good, but I'll stick to the primary one:
It's going to be bad.
Not bad as in, say, so godawful that it would be 1-starred by everyone who chooses to play it, but bad as in 'bland,' 'vanilla,' and/or 'unimaginative.'
The reasons for this are simple.
1.) Writers in general do not work particularly well with other writers. Why? Because our ideas are the best. It doesn't matter whether whether that idea is to re-write "Sex Slaves of the Andorian Moon" from the point of view of the third guardsman from the left or whether that idea is to turn "War and Peace" into a musical. As far as we are concerned, no one can execute this idea like we can and the results are going to be groundbreaking.
When someone comes along and tells us that our idea, well, frankly... sucks, we do not react well to it, especially if that idea is just in the formative stages of development. Our first reaction when our baby gets torpedoed is to torpedo the idea of whoever torpedoed us, no matter how good their ideas are or how bad.
This happens no matter how many people are on the writing team.
2.) "But, Sister, sketch comedy shows like Saturday Night Live work... in fact don't most TV shows and movies have teams of writers?"
Yes, they do. But in one case, the various writers on the 'team' in reality are not writing as a team. They are working on their own bits in the show pretty much on their own. Their bits go to the powers-that-be, who subesequently either approve or axe them. There is actually very little collaboration that occurs during the actual writing process.
In the second case, the division of labor is clearly delineated from the start. One guy is the head honcho. The rest of the guys are shield-carriers who are responsible for whatever scene it is that the head honcho doesn't feel like fleshing out.
Why do a lot of Hollywood movies suck? Often it is because they try the 'collaborative' approach that inevitably leads to sucking.
Even novelists who team write generally do not 'collaborate' most of the time. Most of the time, what they do is alternate. One writes a chapter. Then the other writes a chapter based off what the first has done.
3.) This medium is too short for a truly collaborative effort anyway.
It might, emphasis on might, work if the 'team' was as small as the MA group. It will not work at all if the 'team' consists of everyone in the community. Why? Because there just isn't enough content to go around in a 5 mission arc. The inevitable result is that ideas will be cut, feelings will be hurt, and the final product will not be a work of collective genius, but a mish-mash of watered down, collective mediocrity.
Go with the competition. I can virtually guarantee you that the finished product of the author that wins will be much better than whatever the community as a whole collectively produces.
There is a reason that art is produced in a singular manner by individuals who all have their own individual process.
Sorry, but as an amateur writer myself who has been involved in truly collaborative projects, I'm going to have to disagree with you almost entirely.
I know I am not the ultimate, I'm not an idiot.
People, and writers have their strengths and weaknesses, and accept them if they are emotionally stable adults. I'd imagine if writing teams are built that way, it is because of a single narcissist who forces the format. And the idea that writers who co-write books simply play off each other's chapters is...ridiculous. -
If other people are up for it I have no particular objection to the idea of specific roles. I'd volunteer for Assistant Writer because of constraints on free time.
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So I've started writing a new MA arc and have just tested the first mission before I move on and there are some irregularities.
The Lost are almost entirely the only enemy in this mission - I created a custom boss because you cannot make a regular Headman a boss (which is important to the story) and therefore cannot receive a clue from the defeat of one - and for some reason one group of enemies was wheeling around a wheelbarrow full of rubble or something like that. I don't have the slightest idea why seeing as I didn't set anything to that effect.
Also, I had set the boss to be accompanied by an "Easy" group of comrades, but instead he was alone. Is that what is means by "Easy"? On that note, for some reason a large proportion of the enemies were blue and green, under my level which I found odd; is there any way to change this?
Finally, the spacings of the enemy spawns was irregular. The start of the mission had a large number of them, but the middle was virtually empty. Does each map just have a particular selection of spawn points? Is the only way to tell if they have this affliction to actually test the map?
P.S. This isn't something specific to MA really, but does anyone know if there's a level range for The Lost that doesn't spawn Aberrant Eremites as Lieutenants? Because their appearance was really annoying and would be a blow to the story also... -
The Television > Aeon. And all the blasted blues who call themselves rednames put together.
I mean sure, Dr. Aeon does make a lot of in-character posts like a true former player should, but is unfortunately damaged by the fact that he has a character who is just...not better than the Television. That's a nice way to put it.
THE TELEVISION FOREVER. -
Well in regards to how the project would work, why do we have to divide in an ordered manner? It could just be one big forum discussion. There are an ordered list of entries we know we have to fill out to make an arc, so we could just discuss them all together and then just translate into an actual arc.
Personally I'm more in favour of it being a TF rather than a series of missions like a regular contact. -
Well I can see the advantages of both.
First of all, the Community Project would involve a lot less work from each individual player and thus more would be inclined to get involved - I certainly would - not to mention the fact that putting up one each would take up one of our precious Story Slots, and a large number of people this late in the game already have all their's filled up with stories they are attached to which have ratings that they will lose by taking them down. Plus, if it were to be a contest it would just be the work of one player beating the others, whereas the Community Project would be the work of the one player who would hypothetically win the contest bolstered by many others to create a TF superior to what he could make alone.
And um...Well I can't really think of reasons for why the TF contest would be superior to be honest. The Community Project advantages are rather overwhelming XD -
Quote:At the point where he is doing it to save Primal Earth. I hate to bring you out of the game, but believe or not, for a large proportion of the people on this earth, it is a horrific place to live, for a massive number of people that they don't live in the developed world - and even some that do - life is just a persistent round of suffering. If I were to create a single Loyalist, his character aiding the Praetorian would be simply be because he wants to stop the suffering on Primal Earth, irrelevant of whether he thinks that the Praetorian system is justified. He would just see the suffering in our world, compared to that of his world, and he would want it to stop. And that character, if I were to give him an alignment it would be Chaotic Good.Originally Posted by EmperorSteele
BR: At exactly what point along the moral horizon is kidnapping Statesman and trying to invade another dimension considered "right"? At exactly what point is it okay to turn people into insane mind-slaves? At exactly what point is it okay to have a granddaughter, named Dominatrix, take care of your "every need"? (btw, do we even have an AGE for Ms. Liberty/Dominatrix? She's short in-game and comes across like a teenager in the comics...)
People aren't turned into insane mind slaves. The fact of the matter is that Tyrant doesn't need to do that. He gives them utopia. The insane ones would be those who see utopia and try to fight against it (but of course you're not insane if you realise that everything isn't perfect and fight against it, but I don't think that that decision is right either. As I said before, it isn't simple.) I have a feeling, even if Dominatrix did "take care of his every need" in that way, that part would be retconned.
Above I just gave you a reason for why the invasion of Primal Earth is entirely justified, and would be the action of someone who believes in Good. No ret-conning required. Unless Tyrant and his Guard are portrayed as particularly megalomaniacal in that mission I don't see them needing to be changed past the character models (which we know will be changed).Quote:Unless Nemisis invaded Paertoria with FP automations to goad them into striking here ALSO, the Praets made the first stike, and we're going to need some major retconning in order to put any positive spin on their actions. And I actually wouldn't mind the retconing and re-doing of the original arcs, just as long as everything fits together.
Your thoughts are monitored, yes, and I'm not saying that is justified, but the thing I keep repeatedly emphasising is this: the Praetorian citizens live in utopia. They live in a world where they are guaranteed jobs (which they only need to work 4 days a week), a home, food and where peace reigns across the earth and the human race continues to progress at a staggering level thanks to this. The thought of betraying their saviour, the God among men that is Emperor Cole doesn't even cross their mind. The question is: what price do you put on eternal harmony?Quote:That's not quite on the same scale as creating a world-wide dictatorship that's so repressive that even your thoughts are monitored -
I think people are quite clearly misunderstanding what makes the Resistance grey.
Emperor Cole and the Praetorians are not Black. Therefore, the Resistance fighting them cannot be White. Really, it is a massive deal to do with opinion on whether the Praetorians are "bad guys". I accept everything that's in Cole's bio as fact. I have no doubt that that is exactly what happened, it's not like Statesman magically turned evil in another universe. Exactly like Statesman, he believes what he is doing is right.
It is the opinion of the Resistance that he is a "Tyrant". I'd imagine that he sees the Resistance as the bad guys.
The greyness of the Resistance, possibly even darkness, comes from the fact that it is hard to build a case for Emperor Cole being "evil". Countless millions of people are content with his rule. It's not like they're all secretly suffering but wandering along regardless, because the existence of the Psychic Friends Network inherently contradicts that. The regular citizens DO NOT have thoughts of dissent. Otherwise they would be eliminated. They live a utopian lifestyle and consequently they would have little cause for concern.
I'm not saying that everything is perfect in Praetoria, because we know it isn't. We also know that if the Resistance were to bring down Cole, it would cause the world to descend into anarchy, become a worse place even in the world we currently live in, where suffering and inequality is rife. Praetoria vs. Resistance is no simple moral battle. It is an extremely complex ethical issue.
Quote:I'm very interested in this as well because Neuron's minions are reminiscent of the Clockwork we've seen so far. But checking CoH wiki it does say that Anti-Matter created the Clockwork, I suppose that Neuron's minions were never actually meant to be Clockwork, they just resembled them.So It's official. The Preatorian Clockwork are made by Raymond Keyes (AKA Positron on Primal Earth). This leads to a bit of speculation:
Are Neuron's version of the Clockwork being retconned?
I could not find anything that officially said that Praetorian Raymond Keyes became Anti-Matter. Is it possible that Dr. Keyes is the Praetorian Clockwork King and someone else is Anti-Matter? -
Well, I'm pretty sure I played Mission 2 before you added any enemies whatsoever, so it really was a yawning crawl through the mission. The riddles would have been a nice idea if you could have actually placed them in specific places, but seeing as that isn't really possible I didn't really need to look at any of them, I could just use every glowie I saw. Because of that, after I finished Mission 2 I was literally tired out through boredom and stopped there for the night.
However, I did finish. I agree with the above poster that the motivation at the beginning is questionable. How and why did Luke contact you? I understand why he couldn't do it himself because he was virtually dying - or at least that's the impression I got - which was I was surprised when he accompanied me in the final mission. Plus a lot of the plot is glazed over without details - though I understand that they are difficult to make in a 5 Mission 100k MA arc - and because of that I felt that the whole thing's grandios was significantly damaged.
Overall, I gave it four stars. Mainly because I know you can't vote twice, because if you could change it I probably would have given you a 3, but I gave you 4 because I knew that it could easily manage that and it had the potential for 5 as well. But when I played it, it was a 3. -
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A question on the 5th Column.
Are they from our world? When did Reichsman declare himself their new leader? Why did Mueller suddenly decide to follow him?
A question on Tyrant.
If Tyrant's powers are derived from the same thing as Statesman - Well of the Furies - how come he is much weaker? I know Praetorians are weaker than their Primal counter-parts, but surely Tyrant has some form of lightning-based powers like Statesman does? (Zeus' Lightning Bolt, Hammer of Justice)
I might have overstepped the limit a bit, but oh well.
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First one, I have no idea who Mueller is, but the 5th Column is a villain group that is from our world. At some point in history Arachnos was separated into Arachnos, The Council and 5th Column.
In Reichsman's alternate dimension, the Nazis won the Second World War and so Marcus Cole became a Nazi and because of his power and the Nazi ideals he quickly became it's leader. The ruling government in the Reichsman's dimension might be called the 5th Column, but it's really an entirely different thing, they're just similar.
Tyrant is more powerful than Statesman. In a one on one fight Tyrant would defeat Statesman. The Praetorian counterparts to the Freedom Phalanx are weaker because Tyrant made sure they were kept weaker so they couldn't challenge his authority. The Freedom Phalanx defeated Tyrant's group because OVERALL they were stronger. I believe Tyrant is stronger than Statesman because he strives to always become stronger, while Statesman sees nbo reason to increase his strength seeing as he is already basically the most powerful being on the planet.
And my own question, The Lost are the Rikti right? It is HEAVILY implied, but is never confirmed. When I say The Lost, I mean the mutated homeless refer to their leaders as The Lost, rather than themselves, and these leaders are the Rikti, so-called because they are lost in this world with no way to return?
I'd also appreciate it if you could tell us anything about The Lost we don't already know, even if it's just something small. Oh! For example, why are the Lost still here? If they are the Rikti, surely during the second invasion they would have been able to go home, correct? -
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My broadcasts were ever few mins for about 5mins
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That's frequent enough to be annoying, and I would have considered that spamming.
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Me too. But as long as you don't blind invite me to an SG I won't eat your head. Well, the first time I'll tell you not to blind invite people to SGs. Then when you do it again I'll question your memory. If you do it again after that I will eat your head. -
I completely disagree that the AE should be removed from the starter zones. It's actually quite difficult tog et the AE building in higher level zones if you want to play completely player-created content to play your character or if you just want to start off with a few lowbie arcs to skip the dribble at the first ten levels. Getting the Mercy AE was a challenge that got me killed. I do understand your reasoning for wanting to do this, but it does hurt those low-level characters who actually want to use the AE for playing player-created STORIES instead of random exploits and farms.
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P.S. The suggestion part of this is HINT put Mesmerise/Mass Hypnosis in Fortunata Training HINT.
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if putting in a sleep power0 which unless use wisely isnt as good just for IO's i perfer to say no. as i think confuse is good enough really
but for other toons...maybe
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My point isn't that it's useful (even though it really is, and you don't have to be smart to use it tbh) it's that it's utterly preposterous that Fortunata don't have a sleep power. The fact that you can't put Fortunata Hypnosis on a Fortunata defies logic. -
I haven't seen farming quiet down on Union. Maybe slightly, but it's still going strong, I know quite a few people who still do it regularly.
If you're a villain I suggest you try "Mercytown: The One with all the Fish".
P.S. No, that isn't mine. Mine's in my sig
It's also low-level And Heroic, if you're a hero.
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yes but it comes down to do you believe demitri if you follow his logic there is no such thing as a mutant origin instead each and every mutant is a hole new species (which dose infant make more sense than the marvel X gene logic but never mind that) so if demetri is correct then so is Sister Psyche as Psionics would be a new species as would any other ability that arises that ability could then be passed down from generation to generation so its entirely possible that every Psionic user out there could trace there ancestry back to a single individual.
But the mutant debate asside there's still powered individuals and groups before the opening of the box from the time line
there was plenty of magic on the go as well as i mentioned earlier Giovanna Scaldi was using magic to expand her powers, the banished pantheon were active 1861 - 1864, the Cult of the Shaper were also active
What changed with the opening of the well and the coming of statesman was the number of what we would view as super heroes increased until that point super powered individuals if they were active worked as part of larger organisations such as the church but states served as a inspiration to would be heroes to rise up and fight wrongs.
Any ways shoving all that to the side i like the OPs idea sounds interesting and who cares about would it wouldn't it work on natural technological origins that question doesn't seem to bother people when there psionically confusing a mechman.
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You can psionically confused a Mechman because he has an artificial intelligence. Your psionic attacks are less effective on him because your powers are tuned to work on human minds, but he does have an intelligence that you can affect psychically. You can read his mind. It's unlikely unless you were an expert in AI that you would understand what you are hearing, but you could still read his mind.
Also, I see Enhancements as an in-game mechanic rather than something directly relative to your character. The origin specific enhancements are just too random and unbelievable for me to see them as actually a proper part of the hero/villain.