Oldeb

Vigilante at worst in that he doesn't care about collateral damage as he does the "right" thing.

Remember that Major Kong and the crew of The Leper Colony don't know they are initiating doomsday. They think that the USSR started World War 3 and believe they're defending what's left of the United States.

Though he is very cheery for a suicide bomber.

Anyway I did agree with the post where you had his picture. It often seems to me that, while the Devs don't hate CoV, they do hate villains.

Major Kong isn't a villain!

Meh. It's been heard before. Was it I13 that was the, "we almost decided to call it 'All Your Base Are Belong to Us' because of all the new changes"? That really came through.

Basically until something new actually comes out I won't believe bases are getting anything. The only previous attempt was not released to players because it made things worse and had to be scrapped.

There is no option and there was never a Redname comment on the coins. Clockwork 01 was kind enough to point out other new options people had missed, but studiously refrained from ever mentioning the coins.

The best for now is MTS's Coin-B-Gone. Not a perfect solution, but it seems Paragon Studios is happy with the coins.

To expand on this, they will be Tier 2 Premium accounts assuming you don't spend any more money on them besides just the box purchase.

Snow Globe's guide remains the best place to see the differences in the various tiers for non-subscribers.

Yes, really. You misunderstood what I meant on several levels. It has absolutely nothing to do with combat levels. I'm talking solely about mission levels. The meta-story of the CoX universe is told in pieces, contact by contact, and expanded with each TF/SF. It works in a nice, linear progression, with each contact a "chapter" in the overall book of game lore broken apart by mission level. Some contacts start a new story line, some continue and existing one, some provide a close. Some stories are never finished, some are spread out over time, and others are short and take only a single contact to tell.

Heroes have one "book", Villains another, and Praetorian have a different set of begining chapters before picking up one of the other two. Sometimes the two books contain identical chapters like in the RWZ or Cimeroria. Sometimes they present the same events from different viewpoints like in Sister Aralia's arc versus Daedalus's. Most of the time they are different. Switching alignment doesn't break the narative, it just provides you with a new book to read. A single character can't read every chapter on their own by design, at least not without using Ouroboros or shutting off XP. This was done to encourage the creation of new characters, so that as a player you could read the entire book.

This is how the game was written until I20 and the need for a counterpart to Mortimer Kal, a period of almost seven years. At no point is one earlier chapter dependent on the outcome of a later chapter. When new content created contradictions older content was ret-conned, such as what happened to Tina MacIntyre and Maria Jenkins in I19.

Without the Sutter TF it all flows together. Begining Praetorians know that an invasion is planned but no start date is given. In Adair's arc you defeat Protean's plan to use a clone army, and who or what is backing him is left unexplained. Just because it's someone from the Praetorian dimension doesn't make it the actions of the Praetorian government. In Tina's arc you learn about Praetoria (which Portal Corp is already aware of, even though you as a character may or may not be) and fight a few of the characters from that dimension. Tina's desire to monitor Praetoria rather than slam her hand on the panic button immediately makes sense. In Maria's you defeat the rest of the Praetors without your Incarnate powers because they don't have them yet either. Then Tyrant gains additional powers from the Well and uses it to kick off his invasion, fortunately just after you've become an Alpha incarnate to stop him in Apex and Tin Mage II. Apex and the Freedom Phalanx being unprepared for the Praetorians makes sense. Comments that Battle Maiden may have started the invasion ahead of schedule make sense. In later incarnate content you take the fight directly to Tyrant in Praetoria. It all fits together. Even if you don't like the story it's still a coherent progression.

Sutter causes problems. Either it's the only content in the game dependent on a later chapter (Apex TF) or it's the end of the first invasion with Apex the start of a second war. If the former it goes against seven years of writing, if the latter than Tina's actions, Apex's suprise, and the souvenir text make little sense.

Things like sidekicking or exemping don't change the story, just the order in which you (the player) have chosen to read it. If you want to be the sidekick to someone else's main character that doesn't change the story. If you want it to be an ensemble piece and run with a static team that doesn't change the story. If you want to jump all around in levels that doesn't change the story, only the parts you (the character) see.

If you went to ParagonWiki and read all the 1-5 content, then the 6-10 content, and so on you can see the story in full. How you choose to read them when playing the game doesn't change how they are presented.

The best fix for Sutter would be to create a new counterpart TF to Mortimer Kal and alter Sutter into an Incarnate TF. I know this won't happen since it's basically creating one and a half new TFs and they don't have the resources to really do that.

Next, and my own personal approach, would be to ignore Sutter completely. It is the lone anomaly in seven years of writing. Shoehorning it in is possible, but rather messy as it seriously impacts Tina's arc and the Apex TF.

The last solution (and the one I fear Paragon Studios is going to take) is to simply make it so we've always been at war with Praetoria much like we're locked into an eternal war with the Rikti. This is a sloppy writing fix and presents Tina and Apex in a poor light.

There's no mention of Lady Grey or the Vanguard at all during the hero cape mission. It was opened because it was the seven year anniversary of the Omega Team's sacrifice. In fact the City Representative is suprised and puzzled as to why the Rikti would be interested in Hero 1's letter.

The only mention of Praetoria in the Villain arc is that Protean is going to travel there once he's wiped you out. That's not contradictory to anything.

Jenni Adair... I'll concede. She does tell you that he's planning an invasion with the help of someone in Praetoria. It's still an awkward tie-in because it's completely unlike anything else done by Praetoria, but it's there.

If Admiral Sutter is somehow aware of the world's shortest invasion in Adair's arc then it makes sense that he'd expect Praetoria's arrival at his fleet as a an invasion attempt. Which is then defeated by the heroes.

Apex and the incarnate content then becomes Invasion II. This make Tina rather nonchalant about discovering Praetorian activity and Apex out to be an idiot for being suprised, but it would make the timeline work. It also explains why the Freedom Phalanx got it's collective butt kicked, they expected a repeat of Sutter.

Protean's invasion becomes the Assassination of Ferdinand with Sutter as the invasion of Belgium.

Later Apex becomes the invasion of Poland and the start of an entirely new war.

It's clearly the Menders' fault. Or mine. Mea culpa.

Omega team was never a complete wipe. Ajax always survived. He never entered the portal at all. There's no contradiction in MacArthur's arc. If Glacia, Inferia, or Hero 1 showed up, that would be a problem.

It's 40, actually, with Tina MacIntyre. Her arc and Maria Jenkin's were changed with I19. Portal Corp is aware of Praetoria already in the new version. Anti-Matter is not a Praetor in the new version either. The updated arc does not contradict anything, even if you bring a former Praetorian through it. That character will know more than Tina, but she won't share anything that goes against what you learned in levels 1-20.

Yes, that's my complaint. The events of Tina MacIntyre's arc and Maria Jenkin's arc occur. Cole gets the Well and goes nuts. Battle Maiden kicks off the invasion, possibly early.

Nothing in that timeline goes against anything else, except for the Sutter content.

Even a Praetorian turned hero won't encounter anything odd. They knew Praetoria was planning an invasion in the level 1-20 content. Now they see it take shape in the 40-45, 45-50, and 50+ content.


You'll need more. Those three do not break the level range as a linear timeline rule.

What, exactly, is non-linear about Jim Tremblor -> Penelope Yin -> Doc Delilah -> Agent G?
That's the order they progress and they tell a story start to finish. There's nothing odd about their timeline.

The same with Levantera -> Serpent Drummer -> Gaussian -> Dark Watcher -> Lady Grey.
Each introduces the other in turn.

That is not what happens with the Sutter TF. Its placement is out of order with its story. To get the first part of the story you need to advance in level and unlock the alpha incarnate power, even though you've already completed the ending.

That there are higher level characters doing bigger things is a strawman. It's implicit to the setting. Similarly with lower level characters doing things that are beneath you. And yes, with sidekicking and the leveling rate it's very possible to jump around and miss contacts or parts of the story. It's even the expected path.

But, with the exception of the Sutter TF, the content is all written such that if you did shut off XP and play each contact as they are introduced by level range you move linearly through the metastory of CoX.

Every character in this game, whether hero, villain, or praetorian, is at once the main character of the entire CoX world and a bit player as perceived by everyone else. Even when I think they've done a terrible job at writing the story (and I don't think that Sutter is the worst in that regard), the developers have kept that central to the design of the game. With this one exception.

Yes, and the reason he doesn't for the Sutter invasion is because, what? He just didn't feel like it? He didn't consider Earth Prime a threat until the Apex TF? Which, again, happened either before or relatively close to the Sutter TF in timing. If it's as Lemur Lad says and after the Apex/Tin Mage II, why would he send troops he knows will get slaughtered?

Are there other faceless, non-player, non-signature characters that defeat the Freedom Phalanx? Arachnos doesn't. Nor does anyone else to my knowledge. Heck, Blue Steel seems to walk in and out of Grandville releasing any prisoners he wants, whenever he wants. And yet even before Cole's magical power drain the fighting was described by Apex as, "tooth and nail."

No... See the Sutter TF comes first. It's the lower level. The game lore is not designed so that characters of one level are working concurrently with characters of another. The whole game lore is written so that as one character progresses through contacts they learn more and more about the world. It's why not everyone knows that the Lost are turning into Rikti, what the Rikti really are, and that Crey is evil.

Lets start with a basic Prime Earth hero. In the Sutter TF you learn that we've always been at war with Eastasia, er... Praetoria, and they've raided Sutter's fleet. At level 20 this is going to be the first time you've heard of Praetoria.

Once you are an Incarnate, you fend off the Apex invasion. Apex tells you Preatoria is invading and acts like this is a new thing, despite you having been at war with them 30 levels ago. Furthermore the souvenir raises the question that Battle Maiden kicked off the invasion early, which makes no sense since we've always been at war with them.

"One thing stuck out to you during the fight with Battle Maiden; she mentioned that Provost Marchand was too 'weak-willed' to start the invasion, hinting that perhaps this invasion was done against his orders."

In Tin Mage II you take the fight to Praetoria for the first time and according to the souvenir, "...putting a halt to the Praetorians' initial invasion plans. The war may not be over, but now Cole knows there are forces in Primal Earth that he can't easily swat down."

Then you go on to raid Praetoria some more in the Incarnate trials.

So how were the events of Apex/Tin Mage II the initial invasion plans if I've fought them through one TF and two story arcs previously?

Except for the IDF, who are level 54 otherwise and hit you with an additional -4 levels debuff if you aren't incarnate. They curbstomped the Freedom Phalanx (except for Statesman) without any Praetor help according to Apex at the start of his Task Force.

Yes, I'm sure you can come up with a handwave reason why they didn't turn on their incarnate power for Sutter. I'm not really interested, since there is no canon explaination for it yet. Like I said, I remain optimistic that someday it'll be explained. But then I feel that tying Incarnates to Praetorian content was a massive mistake, lore-wise. The goatee universe just allows for too many comparisons of power levels. They would have been better off using something else. Unfortunately that ship sailed years ago.

It's more the defend city zone -> fight in sewers -> fight outside against an enemy boss dropping bombs from overhead rather than a map comparison. The plot is what I feel is very close to Apex, not that it uses identical maps.

Look, I'm not saying that anyone is wrong for enjoying the Sutter TF. I'm not saying people shouldn't play it. By all means if it works for you go nuts. Run it like crazy. It's just that I, individually, have absolutely no desire to ever run it again.

This.

Don't you remake them all fairly soon after a new issue hits? You'll have at least a couple weeks, maybe a month, to get them all set up. Of course, if it's not fixed by I22...

PvP is not worth focusing development time on because not enough people want to do it.

Raids are worth focusing development time on because not enough people want to do them.


Ha ha.
Maybe Paragon Studios should try gating emotes and costume pieces completely unrelated to PvP behind PvP content. Otherwise the people who enjoy PvP will (gasp) never get to do it.