Lothic

Yeah that might be the operative phrase here. I haven't bothered doing much with a native Praetorian in Ouroboros so I don't really know how they might react to the unlockable redside arcs. Could be bug and/or a known issue with Praetorians. Is this same Praetorian having any trouble accessing any of the other badge unlockable arcs or just this one?

Yeah but I'd rather be aware of one of these things happening 6 months in advance than having only 3 or 4 weeks notice like the last one. At least this way more people could actually have some reasonable time to plan for it.

It's not really a matter of "preferring" to play heroes as much as most people thinking they are the "good guy" in any situation regardless of the way the rest of society would judge their actions. The curious part is that even though villains usually have no problem breaking the law of the land they usually do have a problem labelling themselves as being unapologetically evil while they're breaking the law.

I think that's why people gravitate more toward playing heroes than villains in games even on a subconscious level: it's easy to act villainous but it's strangely difficult to purposely pre-label yourself as a villain. That... and as we all know the Devs hate the redside anyway.

There are currently 3 Praetorian badges that a Primal character can't get: Moral High Ground, Resistance Member and Loyalist. The only way you can get to those badges is by doing Praetorian alignment missions and Primals have no access to those.

But if you wanted to get a bit picky about it there are 7 badges a Praetorian character can never get: Celebrant, Reveler, Pursuer/Elusive, Merrymaker, Entertainer, Jubilant and Exultant.

So while a Praetorian badge character started today could have more badges than a Primal badge character started today a Hero character started before May 2005 (the first anniversary of the game) will always be able to have more badges than anyone else.

Yep the "dumbed down" part was what I was trying to stress. I have no doubt there are plenty of neat games out there now that push the limits of what the current tablets can do hardware-wise. I'm simply suggesting that it's going to take a bit longer before the latest batch of tablets has enough processing/graphics power to match what I'm used to when playing a "non-dumbed down" MMO.

I'm just wondering if this show is going to be as savaged by the rabid comic book fans as Kelley's Wonder Woman pilot was last year. Already sounds like they are going to try to "re-imagine" this version of Green Arrow as much as they did Wonder Woman.

Yeah I was going to point out that the Beauty and the Beast show with Ron Perlman was to its time in the late 80s what the Twilight franchise is today. It was a sappy, romantic show geared towards the "tweener" audience with the same idea of a woman getting involved with a "supernatural" guy. But of course unlike Twilight it had Ron Perlman and was about a million times more bearable to watch.

And maybe in a few more decades when the Devs finally get around to doing more Power Customizations this'll be one of the first powers to get new animation options.

Well at the very least we appreciate that you are considering improvements in this area. Along the lines of what Cassie_Storm posted about I've been waiting almost 8 years for a new type of female bikini bottom that has the "shiny" texture to match the "shiny tights" top. I think whatever you add AFTER that must-have addition will be considered a bonus for everyone... hint, hint...

Unlike some of the semi-useless game-oriented squabbles this forum deals with from time to time there are occasional "political shouting matches" that are important enough to openly talk about because they have the serious potential to collectively affect -all- of us who enjoy playing this game. Obviously if things get out hand the Mods can always step in, but thankfully Zwillinger/Paragon Studios are willing to allow for special situations like this.

Yet with only the ONE path to alignment switching we are constrained to follow that lengthy hardwired process whether we want to or not. The Alignment Change token provides an alternative and a choice that we have been lacking.

I already clearly acknowledged that Paragon Studios will make some money from this. But you are almost desperately trying to make it sound like this is such a huge taxation on the playerbase that it'll be automatically unacceptable to everyone which simply isn't the case. If Paragon Studios was actually going to make "so much money" from this then why did they opt to go for the tip-based system first INSTEAD of this profit-mongering scheme back when they first introduced the system?

I believe it's a virtual certainty that the more money this game makes the more content they will be able to provide in general. But if you wanted to drill down to a specific case then I don't think it'd be a huge stretch to think that the money Paragon Studios gains from the Alignment Change tokens would be able to ultimately create more tip/morality missions.

You've randomly assumed in my case that "Science Girl suddenly turning evil between issue 101 and 102" is an isolated incident in that character's development. Far from it. Just so happens that I've been roleplying that character for years and I could probably spend an entire weekend at a convention telling that fanperson of yours her entire story and how her alignment shifts relate to it.

Again if you want to explain an alignment switch as a long, drawn out multi-issue arc then have fun with that. Sometimes people would rather roleplay other aspects of their character without having the game force them to stretch out one portion of that with bottlenecked content that you otherwise can't avoid.

I thought I already adequately explained the fallacy of thinking this new token is just a simple attempt at profiteering in my first post of this thread.

Sure there's no denying that Paragon Studios will probably make a few dollars with this new token, but making it cost a certain amount of real world money is -not- the primary reason for its cost. Connecting it to real world money enables it to serve its actual purpose as a control mechanism. As I explained it's pretty much the same reason why MMOs charge money for server transfers - they do it to encourage people not overuse the feature to an abusive degree.

Paragon Studios has no delusions that they'll actually make a significant profit from these things. But even if they actually -do- make a profit then it'll only be good for the entire game in general. Still seems like a win-win to me.

You talk of "immersion" being important for MMOs and in general I can agree with that.

But based just on my "science girl turns temporarily evil" scenario I mentioned earlier I could easily argue that a system of immersion that forces a specific path or method on its players can be almost as bad as having no immersion accounted for at all. I'm not saying that I dislike the tip-based alignment system we have. But I will say that the systematic method it imposes doesn't fit my definition of the way I'd want to roleplay my alignment switches in all cases.

This is why I favor the choice we will now have. If it makes sense to you to work though the hardwired tip missions the Devs have provided to accomplish alignment changes then by all means use them. But because that scheme doesn't fit all of my own ideas about the way individual characters might approach this I'm glad I now will have a choice in the matter.