Sick of Praetoria? Well you come up with something better!

I love Praetoria. My big problem is the whole Well of the Furies thing that is such an unmitigatedly bad story it makes me wonder if I'll bother with the content and just do more runs from 1-50.

Also I doubt that there's any point in offering the Devs an alternative - they've had plenty already and came up with "Cole Smash Multiverse" as their best effort. I don't think we'll see many redeeming features forthcoming. It's not the gameplay I have a probelm with it's the madness of the well as a story.

One big problem they have overlooked I believe is the duality of this game. Time was you could only be a hero. Then you could be a villain and experience some great new content and once CoV arrived you could fight the other side in PVP.

Now Heroes and Villains are forced to team so much that the division has just been completely blurred and there's just a grey mess. Then you go to Praetoria and start a new toon and you think "Yeah I got a side that I can work with" but once you hit lvl 20 you get kicked out into the same old grey goo that exists for Primal characters.

We should have an option to stay in Praetoria and continue to serve our faction I believe, and if you remain a loyalist, then oppose the Primals coming to invade. Resistance could act as a fifth column in Praetoria helping the primals to overthrow Cole from within.

With the Well of the Dogpile story, I'd like to see something along the lines of Malta, realising there's more at stake than their crusade against meta-humans, discovering a bit about the incarnates and working with non-incarnate superhumans to take them down. They have some interesting technology and could maybe give a technological solution that provides functionally similar powers, thus reducing Dev work

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk

I think Praetoria is cool. I mainly stopped playing it because it is too hard for my tastes by comparison to other 1-20 content. But I'm not asking the Devs to change it, since they won't, and why should they? Plenty of players prefer harder content. I'm just telling you why I am sick of Praetoria. I don't expect anyone else to agree.

As another odd idea:

(TF and SF No, it's not coop, there's just equivalent versions between sides) Scirocco's Blood Trail: Scirocco never did want to be a villain, but his curse commands his best intentions be twisted to evil, but Imad Malik is a shrewd man, and he realizes a loophole. He has vowed that to become the greatest hero... He will become the world's worst villain, and his first plan is to bring the full wrath of the entire world against Arachnos and the Rogue Isles themselves.
Heroes will work to prevent Scirocco from assassinating key figures in International politics and military to keep the world's full ire off of the Rogue Isles for the sake of the innocents that do live there. (as well as getting more than a few refugees off as a bonus.)
Villains will attempt to cover up the damage, detract the blame on someone else, maybe even profiteer some top class military secrets and garner some blackmail material on the living politicians.

Both versions would come to a head when Scirocco takes a team of loyal Arachnos operatives with him and overruns Warburg, claiming the facilities in the name of Arachnos and the Isles as well as the entire world's scrutiny of a nation of villains now being a blatant nuclear power. Even Lord Recluse has become desperate in this situation and is begging villains to halt Scirocco's ambitions before his entire empire is reduced to radioactive rubble beneath the ocean, and here the alignment of the team comes into play, one way or another, Scirocco must go down, but anything that happens after...
Heroes will simply disarm the nuclear crisis, bring Scirocco to his senses, and even have a chance to work with him to stop a vengeful Marshal Blitz who intends to use this as a chance to make Scirocco and Arachnos as a patsy to his own nuclear assault on the planet.
Vigilantes will know there is no point in redeeming a man who is pathologically evil now, either from without or within, but there's no sense in letting a wretched hive of scum and villainy still stand either. So you can take this opportunity as a chance to have the Warburg nukes launch a full assault on the Rogue Isles in an attempt to cleanse the world, once and for all of the place.
Rogues will see the grand opportunity in this, they take down Scirocco, stockpile some of the nuclear weapons, and have the thanks and praise of EVERYONE (as well as them being in your debt), and while being seen as a 'hero' might call for a shower on your part, you can be sure that it'll be a nice shower in a five star hotel in Hawaii or some other nice little vacation spot.
For full villains, you can use Scirocco as your own personal patsy while you go and not only pocket some nukes, but you can even get rid of that own country that always stands in the way of your schemes. Well, if not get rid of entirely, you can at least put a nasty little hole in their infrastructure and force heroes to divert their attention to the latest tragedy. You tried your best to stop Scirocco, but it seems some madmen are just too far gone.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.