Sparkly Soldier

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  1. (I probably won't be adding stories very regularly, but New World Daughter's premise inspired me, and hopefully it'll make for a fun read. I'm probably not the first person to turn this particular historical figure into a character; in fact, I'm really surprised the writers hadn't already claimed her as an NPC. If they had, though, then she wouldn't be free for our own stories, so I'm glad they left those kinds of plot hooks open.

    Despite the open ending, this really is the whole story. It's written as a prelude to the Croatoa arcs, so most of the bigger questions raised within the story are answered there, and New World Daughter being a blueside heroine makes what happens after the ending a foregone conclusion. The details of how that conversation might have gone, though, are left up to the reader's imagination.)

    Edit: I didn't think to post any pictures, but after Friday's news it makes sense to add a few in this thread, and to split the story up into two posts due to its length. I'm incredibly shy, log in unpredictably and I'm more of a solo player, but still, if anyone ever wants to meet her, she and the rest of my characters are on Guardian. Right now she's working toward level 30 to finish the Croatoa arcs. I wish she'd had longer...

    Re-edit: She's finished Croatoa, defeated Snaptooth and led the Katie Hannon TF on November 18th. There were a few more stories I'd like to have written about her, but she's earned her happy ending.)


    New World Daughter:
    Homecoming

    Part 1

    "Female patient, approximately 5' 6", 120 lbs, age might be late teens or early twenties. Pupil dilation normal, blood pressure's stable at 138 over 89. Heart rate's 51," one of the physicians rattled off a litany of vital signs to the group of ER nurses gathering in the waiting room around the pale copper-haired girl dressed in black and lying insensate atop a gurney, "usually I'd call that a little low, but she has a pretty athletic build so that could be normal for her."

    "And you said she was unconscious when your truck hit her," the scowling police chief asked a middle-aged, quietly panicking delivery driver waiting by the reception desk.

    "I didn't hit her," the driver waved his arms in frantic protest, "she's the one who hit the truck! She came out of nowhere... yeah, I know, everybody says that. But I mean she really came out of nowhere. I was driving back into town from the farm in New Connaught, this white light flashed in the sky overhead and then she just fell out of nowhere and bounced right across the hood of my truck. It was all I could do to slam the brakes and not run her over!"

    "Okay, but either way," the attending physician's assistant calmly interrupted them as she scribbled down notes on a clipboard, "was she already unconscious when you found her?"

    "No, she was awake for a second," the flannel-shirted man muttered sadly, "she looked up at me and tried to say something, but I couldn't make any sense out of it."

    "Like another language?"

    "It sounded sort of like she speaking English. But the way she pronounced things, I couldn't understand a word of it. Then she passed out and I called 911."

    The PA sighed and nodded wordlessly to both the driver and officer, and then called back over her shoulder to the rest of the staff: "we'll need to prep her for an MRI, stat. The witness said she had signs of confused speech, possibly aphasia before she lost consciousness."

    * * *

    My mother said I was named after the land of my birth, celebrated as the first Christian child of Virginia. I know not of that place, nor the grandfather she so often speaks of my having. It was he who led us to the New World, and it was he who crossed the ocean again to seek food and supplies for our settlement. Perchance the Almighty had a role yet for him to play, and so spared him from our fate - for he'd scarcely left our sight before unfamiliar shapes darkened the hillsides and emerged from the forests. They called themselves the Fir Bolg.

    They are among my first memories, people shaped from vines and pumpkins, strange of form but noble of mind. They said they had crossed an ocean of shadows to escape the Red Caps and find their way back to the mortal world. We feared them for a time, but they had been people like us once, bewitched by dark spirits and seeking now only a sanctuary from their oppressors. We soon made peace and welcomed them as our own.

    But the Red Caps followed.


    * * *

    "She has a mild head injury," the doctor breathed a sigh of relief as the technician finished sliding the prone girl back out of the sleek white MRI tube, "but there's no sign of brain damage. Frankly, that accident's probably the least of her troubles. The rest of these images show at least a dozen separately healed fractures, most likely scattered all over her lifetime."

    "Look at her clothes," the PA murmured curiously as she leaned down over the girl, gingerly lifting up the edge of a black cloak between her fingers and then staring curiously over the young patient's dark tights and ash-gray tunic, "no labels, no synthetic fabrics, it looks like it's all stitched by hand. Where do you even get clothes like this? Maybe she's Amish?"

    "Maybe, but then there's the broken bones, the scars all over her..."

    "What do you think caused them?"

    "It might sound crazy, but my first thought was that she's been through a war."

    * * *

    They were mere rumors at first, whispers of goblins in the treetops and burrowing through the ground. The Fir Bolg knew their portent, and warned us to flee the island, to leave them to their fate and save ourselves. But we had sworn we would protect them. Then one morning we awoke to a sky the color of sulfur, surrounded by forests drenched in shadow and alive with terrible unseen things. We thought at first the world had changed while we slept, but soon we knew the truth. The world was as it had always been; we were no longer part of it.

    For a time, though, our lives continued much as they had, despite the amber sky and the wan, sickly crops its uncanny light offered. I know not how much time passed in those days, for our parents aged no more than the years they carried into this unearthly place the Fir Bolg called Croatoa, nor did we beyond the full blossoming of youth. Perhaps it's the nature of Croatoa that none should grow old within it. Or maybe this was another trick of the Red Caps, to turn the gift of eternal life into our prison warden. Later some of us began to seek death in other ways, only to find that it eluded us altogether. Unless, of course, the Red Caps wished it upon us.


    * * *

    "I figured Montague would be sending Percy," the police chief remarked, rubbing his eyes and gulping down another styrofoam cup of coffee as he looked over the young scarlet-haired woman in her matching black skirt and baseball shirt ensemble, tapping her fingers impatiently across the receptionist's desk as she glanced curiously around the waiting room.

    "Ashley McKnight," she grabbed and briskly shook the befuddled man's hand before he could think to offer the greeting himself, "Percy's going to be a little late. He's busy being captured by the Banished Pantheon, but I'm sure he'll be right over as soon as he's rescued."

    "Good lord!"

    "Kidding," she raised her hands with a quick shake of her head, "I'm kidding! He's in Steel Canyon helping Montague clean up the whole mess with the Malleus Mundi. That's actually kind of what I'm investigating too. The report said the accident happened at 3:14 AM?"

    "As far as we can tell."

    "Well, that's when Dr. Bierce reported the first thaumaturgical spike. Looks like your suspect's off the hook: that girl probably really did fall out of the sky."

    "Then where did she fall from?"

    "Good question," Ashley chirped brightly, "and I'd say the first step to answering that one is running a DNA test and seeing if we can give Jane Doe a better name."

    "Now hold on," the police chief ran his fingers back through his thin gray hair, "the university Occult Annex might be good with magic, but DNA tests take weeks, sometimes months. We've got cases backed up from last year waiting on the results from Washington."

    "Contact SERAPH in Paragon City. They can have it ready in ten minutes."

    "It's four in the morning... and besides, they're FBSA, super-powered affairs."

    "Who sleeps in Paragon these days? More to the point, I'm pretty sure that this is a super-powered affair, and SERAPH's going to want to find out if this is their turf."

    "All right, let's give them a try."

    * * *

    It may be that the Red Caps were busy with their other diversions, and so allowed us to imagine that we could simply continue to live our lives in peace. But eventually they came for us, just as they'd come for the Fir Bolg. At first they claimed that they were punishing us for trying to help the Fir Bolg escape their grasp. They soon forgot that lie, though, and instead gloated that they simply wanted new prey, a new sport to amuse themselves with.

    And so they did.

    Sometimes they'd drive us mad with rage, clouding our senses to make us rip each other apart, then laughing at us as we awoke to see what we'd done. Such tricks never truly brought death, but the pain and guilt never lessened for that. Imagine looking down to find your child's blood covering your hands, and their body limp and unmoving on the floorboards. Imagine being that child, comforted by the very arms that had torn you to shreds a few hours before.

    Yet even that game was one of the more merciful they played. At least it granted the murderers and victims alike a few minutes of peaceful oblivion.
    ..

    * * *

    "We've moved her to her own room," the doctor explained to the the police chief and Midnighter pacing separately across the otherwise empty waiting room, "and the sedation should be wearing off soon. We also got the test results back from SERAPH and, well... Professor St. John-Smythe swears they're not a joke and that the only reason he was awake to call me is because the staff woke him up to verify it. You'd better take a look for yourselves."

    The police chief happened to be the closest to the doctor, and he carefully took the manila folder from the white-jacketed physician's hands and flipped through the pages. In another moment, he'd furiously flung the loose papers to the gray carpet with a curse.

    "Let me guess, some joker in Paragon thinks he can pull one over on us country bumpkins in Salamanca! Well you know what? This isn't just some stupid prank, this is impeding an investigation and I'm going to make damn sure they don't get away with this!"

    "What in the world," Ashley just muttered to herself with quietly blinking confusion over the older man's outburst, and started scooping the pages up from the waiting room floor to glance over them herself... and then gave a soft, startled "oh" at the name circled in ink.

    "He swore that it's not a prank," the doctor shook his head sympathetically, "they had to match the mitochondrial DNA against John White's wife Tomasyn and then cross-check the rest of it against the lineages referenced in the original manifest. He said they never would have found a match in a million years if they hadn't been using Rikti scanning technology."

    "Well," Ashley said slowly and cautiously after a moment's awkward pause, "maybe I should call the professor myself, just to make sure he's the one you talked to..."

    At that moment the glass hospital doors swung open to reveal a blonde pony-tailed man in a purple baseball t-shirt and dark blue jeans, his outline silhouetted against the faint scarlet hints of sunrise glowing along the otherwise cloud-swept rim of the eastern forest.

    "If that report says what I think it does," he announced, "then it's true. It's really her."

    "Gregor Richardson," the Midnighter explained to Salamanca's police chief, who'd welcomed the intruder with one silently raised eyebrow, "he's with MAGI."

    "Don't any of you Paragon people," the chief muttered under his breath, "wear suits?"

    "Technically I'm from New Haven. And if I'm hearing him right," Ashley shot an accusing frown at the goateed newcomer, "he's saying that... they already knew about this?"

    "Well, knew, had a head-splitting premonition. You know how these things go."

    * * *

    In time the men were moved to fulfill their vows as husbands and fathers, to rise up and defend their homes and families from our enemies. We begged them not to do so, that the only comfort they could offer us was that of staying by our sides, but they heeded us not. My father Ananias helped gather and lead them into battle, to fight the Red Caps when they came to play their cruel games once more. They could not win, and our captors, driven into a rage by such impudence, struck down and killed every last one of them. But though Croatoa's power could keep death at bay, it could not bring the dead back to life. The Red Caps quickly came to regret so rashly depriving themselves of victims. So they redoubled our sorrows instead.

    A handful of spinsters had lately confessed to us that they possessed a secret knowledge which would have seen them pressed with stones or burnt at the stake in less desperate times, but now might serve as a weapon against our oppressors. The men had hesitated to call upon their aid in battle, and for their pride they paid in blood. It was left to their wives and daughters to defend themselves with one final recourse: witchcraft, magic, sorcery.

    We studied their art, and those crones quickly marveled at the speed and power with which some of the younger women learned to command the elements, to summon the wind and lightning to our aid. When the Red Caps returned after a time to renew their sport, it did all that was promised. Our magic sent the them flying like leaves before the wind, cursing our names as they fled into the shadows. And so our eternal torment instead became an eternal war.

    A few of the elders said that we had paid a terrible price for such a victory, and that we were now damned. We heeded them not. After all, we'd already been damned.

    * * *

    "That's her," Ashley whispered by the sleeping girl's bedside, motioning for the MAGI liaison and Salamanca's police chief to keep their voices down as they walked into the hospital room to join the Midnighter and ER doctor. The girl's black uniform lay neatly draped over the foot of the bed, leaving her clothed in the white sheets, a blue gown and the electronic heart rate monitor clamped to one of her fingers and trailing back to a beeping readout screen.

    "She's actually in pretty good shape, considering," the attending doctor continued with a welcoming nod to the two men before glancing back down at his patient, shoulder-length auburn hair fanned across the pillows as her pale freckled cheeks gradually began to regain a flushed hint of color, "she's a little malnourished and she could use some sunlight, but her vitals are good and her blood tests came back fine. Her body's been through hell, though. It's amazing that, with everything it's gone through, she hasn't suffered any permanent damage."

    "New World daughter," Ashley whistled softly and shook her head in amazement as she glanced up to the others, "the first European child born in America, and here she is sleeping in a hospital in Salamanca. Talk about living in interesting times, huh?"

    "From what I hear, she's the first missing persons case in America too," Gregor murmured back, "maybe this is the answer. The Banished Pantheon screwed up their ritual, opened up a hole in time and pulled her four hundred years into the future."

    "But she was a baby when the Roanoke colony vanished," Ashley answered with a puzzled shake of her head, "she had to have grown up somewhere. And those injuries... I'm sure life was hard in colonial times, but I kind of doubt it was ever that hard."

    "You said before," the police chief interrupted them from the foot of the bed, "that she showed up during the first tharmu... thrae... thermal spike that you heard about."

    "Thaumaturgical," Ashley chuckled, and then she nodded more seriously, "right."

    "So how many have there actually been?"

    "At least three on my way here. Probably more since. Gregor?"

    "Our mystics had counted five," he replied, "before I got to the hospital."

    "So whatever brought her here," the police chief answered as he cast a worried glance out the window at the gabled rooftops of Salamanca, "it's still happening."

    * * *

    As I was born in the mortal world, I hold a place in the earth-born circle that rules our cabal alongside Mary MacComber. But as I was the last born, and so carry no memories of our home, there are some who feel my seat is undeserved. Perhaps it is for that reason that, while they govern through wisdom and guidance, courage in battle is the virtue that I find called upon most often. Sometimes I lead others into the din and throng of our endless war, while at other times I journey alone. I have never before failed to rise to such occasions, and so it was with a glad heart that I heeded Mary's call to seek out a rift in the sky that the Fir Bolg spoke of, to learn what I could of it and return at once with news of what mysteries it might hold.

    It twisted through the sky like a serpent made of light and tore at the forest with fingers of howling wind that even my spells could never overcome. It was those fingers that snatched me from the hilltop I'd chosen as a vantage point, that carried me aloft in spite of all my magic and screams of protest, to throw me into the radiance of its maw and swallow me whole. I have known death enough times to recognize it as an old friend, and so when the light and the hills and the sky all gave way to darkness, I felt certain that death had come for me yet again.

    But then I saw something else in the darkness. Dried leaves fluttered through the wind against an ebony sky sprinkled with diamond dust, crested by a shining pearl of light drifting silently above the treetops. My mother told me stories about them as a little girl. She called the ebon sky night, and the diamonds she called stars, and that pearl is the Moon. And as wonderful as I'd believed her stories, no words could ever have braced me for such beauty.

    Then I fell, and something hit my head, and the world went black once more.

    "Ms. Dare, can you hear me? We need you to nod if you can understand what I'm saying. Virginia, you have to wake up. Virginia Dare, can you understand us?"
  2. My meta take on it is that when you're exemplaring, you're not the star of the story. You're a special guest star in the other person's comic book, and the guest always take a backseat to the main character. It's not so much that your powers are weakened in-universe as that their role in the story can't be allowed to overshadow the regular hero. In game mechanic terms, that translates into being matched to their level.

    For an in-universe explanation, I sometimes think of it as my character holding back so that nobody gets hurt by accident. For characters who have a no-killing rule, this make more sense (it's the same reason Superman never punches random muggers with anywhere near his real strength), and for the rest, it could be that they're worried about their less-powerful teammates getting caught in the crossfire.
  3. They don't have much in the way of a single villain to represent them, but collectively my vote goes toward the Red Caps. Most of the villains have some mitigating factor, or at least a motive: Mother Mayhem is insane, Emperor Cole believes the ends justify the means, Recluse wants to rule the world, Hamidon thinks the world's better off without humans and so on. None of which makes their actions any less evil, but it makes their characters a little more redeemable. The Red Caps have kidnapped people throughout history, grotesquely changed some of them into monsters while keeping their minds human, forced them into centuries of deathless combat (and that's only a small part of what they do to their victims, it's just the only part that's fully described) ...and the only reason they do any of it is because they think it's funny.
  4. Quote:
    this game is certainly not vibrate anymore if that makes you feel better
    ...I don't think it's that kind of game.
  5. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Nalrok_AthZim View Post
    New "Other Ranged Blast Set Change": NO CRASH NUKES! Normalized recharge:damage ratio for all 'crash' Tier 9 blast powers. "Slight decrease on max potential damage, but good amount of consistent damage increase. No more chance-for-damage, all nukes are now a consistent number. 50% faster recharge for PBAoE nukes, 75% faster recharge for Targeted AoE Nukes."

    Original Nova: 6m Cooldown
    New Nova: 2m25s Cooldown, damage increase, no crash, 27.72 endurance
    ...that is going to completely change the way I play my blaster!

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Nalrok_AthZim View Post
    Coloring Power Pools? "We can't talk about it." -Synapse
    Please, please let that be code for "we can't wait to see your faces when we spring it on you out of nowhere."
  6. ...because saying that spoils that the movie cuts to the present day at the end. -_-

    SPOILERS!

    ...


    ...while it does kinda look like Obama, the ending also shows the character texting on a smartphone with streaming video, so the ending's not set during Obama's early years. It looks like it's set in the right-this-minute present day, which makes it really unlikely to be him: it's hard to imagine the current president would be able to sneak off to a bar with a gun to get drunk enough to try to shoot a vampire.
  7. Quote:
    I like torrent myself, but its not available while mezzed on Blasters.
    Oh, I always just figured it was since it's one of the very first powers available (though not *the* first, now that I look at the chart). Erm, I guess I should really call it a "mez just ended and I gotta get rid of that pesky mob fast" power.
  8. Quote:
    I'm talking the guy doing the drinking. The guy doing the talking is pretty obvious. I could be totally wrong on who it is as I didn't really pay attention to the details of him, but it was the first thought that popped into my mind. And if it is who I thought of, it would be very poetic considering what Lincoln did/was in this movie.
    I know exactly who you're thinking, because for a split second when it showed the outline of his head, I thought the same thing. But, given some of the other stuff we saw in the ending, the timeline wouldn't really work for that to be him. I think it's just a random person who's also about to take up the call, though the casting resemblance might have been intentional, just to make the audience wonder for a second.

    Anyway, just saw it this weekend and I really liked it! It could stand to be a little longer: Abe's transition from vampire-slaying loner to politician and then president seemed a little abrupt, and the idea of the antebellum South being secretly ruled by a vampire aristocracy is one I'd loved to see explored in more detail. Still, it moved quickly, the fight scenes were great and the story works better than any movie about Abraham Lincoln the Vampire Hunter should (the biggest hurdle I had in convincing friends to see it was explaining that it's not a parody).
  9. My Energy/Energy blaster's found Energy Torrent to be really useful as a defensive move. It does decent damage against a mob, has pretty good odds of knocking them away like bowling pins without scattering them far and wide, and is available through Defiance for mezzing emergencies. But in general, I really enjoy KB effects anyway. They can cause problems for teams, but when you're playing solo it's just so satisfying to throw a punch and send an enemy flying off the ground, across the street and into a second-story window.
  10. Quote:
    Originally Posted by GloktheDestroyer View Post
    I should decimate you all for arguing words ancient usage versus the more modern.
    You're going to kill one-tenth of us?! ...not it!
  11. Sparkly Soldier

    COH: the TV Show

    I know it'd really, probably, be conceived as a dramatic arc-driven series in the vein of "Heroes" or "Torchwood," but I cannot stop imagining a sitcom starring Statesman and Lord Recluse as feuding next-door neighbors...
  12. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Nethergoat View Post
    My favorite zone in the game was always Dark Astoria.
    Discovering it had been re-made filled me with trepidation, which ended up being baseless- the "new" DA is true to the spirit of the original AND has content besides street sweeping team sized spawns. And "old" DA is available via Oro, should my fire blaster wish to relive his glory days of bombing spawns in Mot Cemetery.

    So, I wouldn't get too worried.
    Well, true... I love the old Dark Astoria, was all kinds of frustrated by hearing about it being replaced, finally snuck into the new DA with a mid-20's character to get a sneak preview of it (stealth powers and lots and lots of running were involved!)... and the visuals, the ambient sounds, all of it is just jaw-droppingly eerie, beautiful and atmospheric. As long as the foggy old town's still in Ouroboros, it's definitely a trade up.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
    In fact, I'd really like to see the old Faultline as an Echo. That place was pointless, but it was ten times as visually impressive as new Faultline. I thought the deep cracks and the AMAZINGLY huge dam wall were some of the best sights in the game.
    It'd be great to take all the zones that have had historical changes and move them to Ouroboros, just to let people who came too late for them check out what they missed: the old Faultline, the Rikti Crash Site, the old Atlas Park are all things I'd be curious to see firsthand.

    There's one minor change I'd like to see to the Echo system, though. First, an NPC in Ouroboros should really explain what it is: just have them standing beside the crystal and say something like "Paragon City has changed quite a bit over the years. This pillar contains the echoes of city zones that are now part of the past." Then, when you arrive in the zone, a short pop-up message should give the context of that zone, like "Before the reconstruction of Overbrook began, Faultline was a dangerous wasteland filled with jagged canyons and wrecked skyscrapers."
  13. Well, true, turning those missions back on would be simpler...

    What that whole message above really amounts to is just "create a random mission pool for the FBSA contacts" and then building up on that idea to turn it into a third, FBSA-themed mission track alongside the radios and tips. All the other details (such as linking it up with the radio missions) is just an idea on how to get there faster. If they get their own sets of missions right from the start, that's even better.
  14. Quote:
    If you enjoy doing King's Row and taking your time, that's great. I enjoy it too, but the plain fact is that the appeal is to the old-timers. I would be unsurprised to learn that there are large numbers of post-Freedom players who have never set foot into King's Row outside of doing Montague Castanella's missions to cure the Lost. Those same people are focused on getting to the next mission door. They aren't focused on walking around the world and looking at things. They mostly don't know or care if they get ambushed. If they weren't already trained by other MMO's to follow the carrot to the next reward, the new streamlined version of CoH is teaching it to them.
    I started in October last year and I love Kings Row, so much so that I made Yuki a Kings Row native and the talk of revamping it (especially as a perma-night zone) now worries me. Really, as much as the thread talks about things existing for "flavor," what else is the game? Most of the missions amount to "run into building, beat up enemies and click stuff." The stuff that makes those missions come to life is the flavor. I just don't see anything gained by removing a zone from the game. The zone's there for people who like it, it's avoidable for people who don't like it, and a bigger game world with more to explore is always better than a smaller one with less exploration and freedom.
  15. A few other topics have brought up how redundant the FBSA contacts are now that Habashy and Twinshot are the sole opening paths, and how an important part of the lore, the FBSA and its departments' roles in managing superhero activity has fallen by the wayside for newer players since none of them have anything to say and only Azuria factors into any of the regular missions. There's been some talk about bringing their old missions back, but barring that (and if it were handled through Ouroboros, the lore would still be lost on post-Galaxy players), another way of working them back into the game and story crossed my mind: have each of them offer a repeatable set of origin-specific missions.

    Ideally there'd be a whole series of new, unique tip-style missions for each one, but since that'll take time, maybe there's another way to manage that without having to write a whole slew of new arcs right out of the gate. Imagine if, early in the game, a pop-up advises a low-level player to talk to the city representative, and when they do, she gives a little briefing on each FBSA branch and representative and tells the player to talk to them if they're interested in working some cases. Each rep would then have their own intro text (and both the Galaxy and Atlas contacts could be used for the same thing, just with slightly different intros), and then they offer a rotating choice of radio missions (I like the tip missions more, but they're restricted content and centered around the alignment changes, so the radio missions would probably be simpler).

    Unlike the radio, the contacts would offer the missions by enemy group or mission theme rather than just zone and level. So MAGI would offer radio missions revolving around the Circle of Thorns, the Tsoo and Banished Pantheon stealing artifacts or kidnapping sacrifices, SERAPH would offer missions that involve stopping the Trolls, Freakshow and Devouring Earth, DATA would focus on technological groups like Nemesis, the Council and Arachnos stealing prototypes and so on (with lots of overlap, since some enemy groups are involved with multiple origins).

    All the zones and level ranges would be available from the contact. It might go like this...

    ---

    Azuria: "I sense a soul in search of a mission. The Modern Arcane Guild of Investigation has these open cases on file..."

    (Click "Review the Case File")


    "We have confirmed that Karn has escaped from Zigursky Penitentiary.


    Karn has escaped the Zig? No doubt with the help of cronies among the Circle of Thorns. The streets won't be safe until you've brought the escapee back to the justice.


    Zone: Steel Canyon (10 - 19)


    OR


    All units, be on the look out for the Amulet of Doom. Owner reports it was lost on the train.


    You have to wonder how anyone could lose the Amulet of Doom on a train, but that does match the rumor that members of the Banished Pantheon were claiming to have it. A lot of cops could get hurt if they try to get the Amulet of Doom from the Banished Pantheon.


    Zone: Kings Row (5 - 10)"


    ---

    If you try to select something from too high a zone, the contact will protest it ("At your current level, this could be a very tough assignment. Are you sure you want to try it?"), but allows the player to accept it, since some people might want the extra challenge without having to fiddle with their difficulty settings. Alternately, the player might be allowed to select the zone they'd like (presented with the question "which zone's cases would you like to work?"), or the game would auto-select the zone based on the current level (or, the most sensible but boring option, they all happen via Atlas Park instances, like the tip missions ). But either way, each time you talk to the contact they would offer a new pair of random missions, just like the radio does, so the player could keep browsing through them until they find something they like.

    In essence, the FBSA contacts would work like the radio, except with a filter on the enemy groups and mission types to make each one fit into that department's theme. It'd bring the contacts back into the game world, it'd give the player a way to focus the radio missions around their own character's origin, and, most importantly, it'd create a framework in the game for gradually slipping new, FBSA-themed missions into the list as they're written, and perhaps even special badges (like "Agent of SERAPH" after completing so many SERAPH cases) and unique, origin-themed missions offered after a certain number of cases, the same way the tips have morality missions and the radios have bank heists.

    If there's something already in the works for those poor neglected souls in the FBSA offices, nevermind, but if not, I think this would be a great way to give them something to do in the game without demanding too big a revamp all at once.
  16. Happy (increasingly belated) birthday!
  17. Quote:
    Taken from one of Maria Jenkins' missions, "Penelope Yin's Praetorian counterpart is called Praetor Tilman by those who back Cole's regime, and Mother Mayhem by those who oppose it. The reason I'm telling you this is that SHE'S ATTACKING PARAGON CITY RIGHT NOW!"
    I knew it! Praetorian Penny's been the real enemy all along!
  18. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
    There's nothing specific to Skyway City because all of the old Launch contacts are interchangeable between the zones. You can get the Vahzilok Plague arc from a number of contacts between the zones. That doesn't mean the zone is "superfluous." It adds variety and it adds a feeling of size to the city, something the game sorely lacks, especially villain-side. The last thing we need is to drop meteorites on another zone and reduce our levelling path options yet again.
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Nethergoat View Post
    Even so, I don't think it needs to be axed- folk who like it for whatever reason can still hang out there, for everyone else it's easy to skip.
    Totally agreed on both of these. There's really nothing to be gained from axing a zone, and even if there's nothing new and exciting going on there, just having so many different zones to explore, badge stories to read and events going on adds so much history and atmosphere to Paragon City that it otherwise wouldn't have. Making a choice between a few high-traffic zones or a bunch of quiet zones isn't really necessary: even out of dozens of different zones, a few will naturally emerge as the populated hubs while the rest lie on the outskirts of the game, so nothing would really be changed by removing those empty zones except to reduce the diversity of its setting. And particularly with Skyway City, it makes narrative sense that it's been left behind: it's a failed urban development project that's gradually becoming a slum. I'd love to see more contacts and stories no matter what the zone, but if nothing else, just exploring it and learning about its past makes its existence worthwhile.
  19. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Obscure Blade View Post
    I imagine an employee and his boss looking out a window at swarming hordes of Banished Pantheon zombies.

    Boss: "Sure, but you wouldn't believe how cheap office space is out here!"


    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Scythus View Post
    What window? There are none in office maps.
    That would be the above boss at work again...

    "Look, we all know windows let people look outside, and that just hurts morale. You want outside windows, go work for AE! Here we have nice sensible windows that overlook random hallways and atriums, so people can focus on business."
  20. I still don't know what's worse: that the Echo redirects come across like the contact's inexplicably sending you back in time, or that some of these pre-i22 arcs seemed to have some really random instanced missions set in Astoria. "The Freakshow have taken an office building hostage. Go to Dark Astoria and rescue those poor office workers - I mean, they already have it bad enough with the fog and the zombies!"

    Talk about your commute from Hell...
  21. Quote:
    Secondly, the reason hostages can't see through stealth is an intentional balance mechanic. Non-combat hostages are not targetable by enemy NPCs, so they never aggro on them, meaning an invisible hostage-leader can lead the hostage right past all the enemy soldiers and they won't bat an eye. This is not good, you need to clear a path for the hostage out, not just rely on meta-game quirks, hence why you're forced to fight enemies instead of running past them. It's a disappointing side effect of the system.
    I thought that was actually pretty cool the first time it happened to me. It took a minute to figure out why the hostage kept getting lost every three steps, but when I finally realized it's because I'm invisible and he can't see me, it added a nice bit of immersion to the game.
  22. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Positron View Post
    The "what if" scenario is the "Really Hard Way" badge. Defeating him without exploiting the weakness. This badge/method is an integral part of the trial lore. It shows that it IS possible, just that the odds are stacked dramatically against you. Until Black Swan shows up serendipitously (is that a word?) that is, and you realize the same weakness used to take down Diabolique can work here as well.
    Now, to just become strong enough to solo Tyrant the "Really Hard Way!"

    (Hey, a hero's gotta have goals... )
  23. Quote:
    The problem is that unpaid inactivity used to mean someone who didn't have an active account. There is no such thing as an inactive account now, and so it's likely the concept of name purges is, if not gone, at least scaled down considerably.
    I'd define it as both not being VIP and not logging into the account. If someone's paying the subscription fee it's not really fair to take away their lesser-used characters' names, and if they're free but logging in, same goes. But if it's been a year and the account's apparently abandoned, the names could go up for grabs again. I'm on the status quo side, but I do agree that unused names shouldn't keep piling up forever.
  24. Quote:
    I will say though, there are creative limitations with our current system and pretending they're not limitations doesn't make it true. It's not all about creativity, but if one willingly accepts the game's limitations or at least tolerate them.
    It's not just a limitation. The advantage is that, when you do come up with a name, the name is uniquely yours on that server. The question that's entirely subjective and at the core of the issue is whether the hassle of having to come up with an unused name is worth having that name, with no modifiers, be yours alone once you do. Personally I think it is, though having names become available again after a year of unpaid inactivity isn't a bad idea (if something like that doesn't happen already).
  25. The single player game works great for me! I'm never on long enough or consistently enough to be much good for team content, most of the story arcs are written around a single hero and solo'ing ensures you'll get to read the whole story, and running them is a great way to learn all the ins and outs of a character, for that faraway day when I've run through every last story arc and start joining the trials and task forces.