Greycat

No introducing grind for powers, thanks. The incentive to play content is the content. The incentive to play content is merit rewards. (And in some zones - like the Hollows, Faultline and Croatoa - a merit *bonus* reward for finishing all the zone's content.) The incentive for *some* people are badges. Now, there are longer stories in game that go over several levels (not just the Kheldian/SOA arcs.) Small ones like Shauna Stockwell/Eagle Eye or Keith Nance/Jenny Adair, and longer, less obviously or more loosely linked ones that have been around since live. If you wanted to throw in a badge/accolade/merit reward for "investigating" those links across multiple contacts? That would be a way to reward and incentivize people for doing *content,* versus just "Well, I need three more hunt badges for some number of badge reward, time to kill a hundred of these guys and street sweep Perez for Skulls."

... I mean, what, Habashy's arc takes 5-10 minutes, gets you a few levels and gives you some merits, you could always do that...

*sigh* Oh look, the "but the dev time!" argument. The devs are big boys and girls, they can decide for themselves what they want to spend time on. And do. If you don't like it, just say "I don't like it" and don't hide behind "Dev time! Dev time!" That said, I don't even want to think about what this would do and/or break. *Anything* transferable? Inspirations are. I have 100+ characters. Will my shiny new level 1 have access to probably thousands on thousands of inspirations? How, and how am I going to sort that? Billions of INF? Each character can carry 70 enhancements. Am I going to scroll through over 7000 each time I level up and have to place slots? Even if the idea is something like "well, I can tab through my other characters," for some of us that'd *still* end up with a lot of tabs. I think the closest we'd see to something like this is a sort of "account vault" you can throw things in. It'd be more limited in how much it would hold, granted, but it'd exist independently of having an SG, storage, permissions, etc.

And Everlasting's there for RP needs (and multiple mothership and hami raids most every night - Zone raid, and we welcome all levels for the Mothership Connection... ) That said, I'm disappointed. I was looking for something to put on my spaghetti tonight. Subject line is misleading!

Are you aware those missions have an effect on the zones? The selection text ("Raid base to affect resistance") isn't just there for flavor. While the zones were active, they were used for that little bit of "extra" (damage, resist, debuffs) ... not infrequently. (You can see if someone's been doing any that affect you by looking at your buffs.)

Serve a stint in the Army. Time's up, go enlist in the Navy. You'll then be wearing a naval uniform, not your army uniform. Army's still part of your backstory. Widows and SOAs = different branches of Arachnos.

I must be on enough MSRs to just tune them all out.... but yeah. The option would be nice.

*Ahem* Like... very first two sentences? I'm not sure why "This would be work" needs to be pointed out. Everyone seems aware of that.

That hasn't really held true since ... well, long before AE. I don't think it even represented it when I started it in i3, but when they merged the markets and introduced side switching with GR, any lingering idea that INF represented anything other than money went out the window, through the neighbor's window, out their back door and a good mile or two down the street.

Incarnates have come and gone. The Well - and this is buried in lore, I want to say in the novels - used to be depicted as... essentially Pandora's box in a sense, slowly collecting potential for humanity and releasing it from time to time, where we'd have explosions of superbeings/"gods/demigods" and the like. (I *want* to say the Renaissance would be an example.) Yes, at the end of Cimerora, Incarnates are gone, so they'd be crossed off as an origin. Darrin Wade refers to this in the SSA arc where he kills Statesman - same method, same place (IIRC.) (And other bit of interest - Incarnates were *supposed* to be another EAT way back when, along with Avilians and Coralax. And, of course, Blood of the Black Stream.) And you're looking for a definition of Incarnate? - Invested with bodily (usually human) nature and form. - Made manifest and comprehensible. Embodied. Verb forms being basically "to give form to." So an Incarnate would be giving form (in game) to the potential and power the Well represents. Can't say "ultimate" power, as we were being aimed at Ascended (I believe was Prometheus's category) and more beyond that with the "NCSoft only understands and wants grind, shoehorn it into the game" incarnate-and-beyond trees.

I'm ... 87% sure that was incarnates. Or tied to them and/or the well. Could be wrong. There are a number of possibilities. As mentioned, (1) Shadowstar was active in Ancient Egypt. Though she was, as I'm recalling, a Nictus agent at the time - need to double check that, but I believe that was mentioned in one of the AMAs. Seeing her turn to being what we now call a Warshade might be very interesting. (2) Yes, Blood of the Black Stream. Ties to both ancient Egypt and the modern world. (3) Nectambo. We don't have a lot on him, as I'm recalling, so it's fairly wide open. And of course, (4) with all the tombs, mummies, magic interest, etc. plenty of one shots, repeatables, short arcs and the like are possible. And if we need to jump back and forth between modern and ancient Egypt? We already do that with Cimerora, so ... precedent for starting something in one time, finishing in another.

Before I start - Yes. This equals a lot of work which I'm not sure we have the tools to do, or do easily. That said: We already go back to ancient Rome. Let us go back farther to ancient Egypt. There's already plenty of reason to do so (aside from just a new environment, which would also lead to more base building pieces to play with.) 1. Kheldian-wise, Shadowstar has been here since Ancient Egypt. A little exploration back there might be fun. 2. Magic-character wise, Nectembo - remember him? Name's on a bunch of standard enhancements? - was in Ancient Egypt. Ancient Egypt and magic tend to go hand in hand. Lots of story potential back there. As well as modern times with stolen artefacts, lost tombs and the like. 3. Yes, I'm going to go on about the Blood of the Black Stream. There are several bits of lore pointing to them already. Mr. Bocor (as I recall) mentioning Gadzul Oil. Oh, and go redside and look for the sinking tanker in Port Oakes. Float up. See that oil slick? Look carefully. Eye of Horus... because of Gadzul and the BotBS, a sort of tech/magic group. I *know* we aren't getting what they originally were - a shapeshifting EAT. That's even *more* work (much as I would like to see it.) But c'mon... new enemy groups to fight against (and with,) plenty of possibility for arcs from 1-50 and task forces and the like! 4. Just making the world as a *whole* feel larger. And, yes, there's reason (if done *well*) to have both Arachnos and heroic representatives there without wondering why the Isles haven't been slapped down due to *invading the US.* Granted, this more overt presence would probably be more of a "Modern Egypt," but still. 5. We have mummies, but we don't have Egypt? C'mon... 6. And this is just the esoteric-game-history side of me... a player on live won a contest (not me) and had *their* character, ancient-egypt-based Ahnek Rah-zul, turned into a CCG card - and, yes, had their story changed slightly to fit the BotBS. Don't know if that player's here or even alive - it's been 17 years - but it'd be nice to give them that little bit of payoff, hmm?

Lorewise - - Twilight son's arc mentions the Batallion using Kheldians as living batteries to power starships (part of why I'm frankly glad the devs didn't do more with Kheld lore, since that's just one MORE ridiculous bit of nonsense that makes me not like the whole Batallion thing and dance with joy at it never getting done,) - Winslowe's Cosmotron (Kheldian arc, Striga isle) is what talks about the Nictus siphoning off Kheldian life across the galaxy if it were completed. - And yes, Nictus formerly ruled the Kheldians, and fed off of them to extend their life - believe it's the lore bible that goes into them making some offer to older Kheldians and cannibalizing them instead, one of the things that kicked off the Kheldian war. And no, there's really no in between "I stopped partway" to becoming a Nictus. Elsewhere in the lore and in game they're described as shadows, not just "dark energy," which they had to do to survive Peacebringer assaults. They're changed to *radically* different beings. There are also, frankly, rules about the melding with beings. One at a time, quite simply. The Peacebringers stopped a forced takeover of people by explaining what was going on and binding with them. When the Nictus arrived, they couldn't do anything except be slapped down by the combined Peacebringer. I'd see this as being an issue with the whole "shards" idea, interesting as that is. If things went that route, I'd frankly want to see a different set of story arcs going 1-50 for them, since it'd be a *completely* different POV, it wouldn't make sense to learn of N-fragments partway through (since you... would already have some in you,) for instance. It wouldn't just be a "copy-paste, open up the other one's set of powers" without doing a disservice to the whole idea of a lore-based (Epic) archetype. (Yes, I *do* give a very big damn about that. It's why I compiled and kept updating the Kheldian backstory guide. Which I keep thinking I have to do a fresh version of for here. And also why the "we need Recluse's towers, but make them Nictus!" annoys the hell out of me in hard-mode ITFs. Part of why I kind of don't want the devs touching Kheld lore, and haven't since I saw Twilight Son's backstory on live.) Mind you, I say all this as someone who *very much* plays some "nictus have experimented on..." characters that *do* show some sign of hybridization, usually taking advantage of existing powers or ability, or using chemicals or tech of varying sorts - but they're not true fusions. Dominators especially shine in this, as do some sorts of Sentinels. (Energy/Dark Armor, for instance.) So my objections have absolutely nothing to do with mechanics... they're solidly lore based, and that's *extremely* important to me. (Oh, as far as the comments on Kheld vs VEAT arcs? The Kheld arc hasn't "gone anywhere" because it's done. You start as a newly merged being, you end with helping stop a Nictus takeover and basically kicking them off the planet, with the PBs sending troops to follow them. The VEAT arcs... just suck, frankly, so I'm not surprised people don't realize that story's done, too, but it's personal versus big-backstory-you-participate-in.)

Don't like the idea at all. Though with the way the game's going, it'll probably happen, and come with an extra nuke you can use every 30 seconds.

... who said to do that? I simply pointed out that you can make a Peacebringer and have it ready to go for base building immediately instead of leveling. Never said "And delete those others."

... if you're just using them for base building, who cares? You're not going to have quantum base pieces showing up to whiff at you.

Use a Peacebringer as your base builder and you don't even have to get to 4... inherent flight at 1.

I have the same reaction with some regular size characters. The fix is simple - "So don't look at them."

When ED was implemented they were planning the system they scrapped that IOs replaced. I don't think we ever had information enough on that system to say they were new enhancements. Edit: See the below. Pretty sure this was the sum total of what we were told.

They likely didn't want to avoid perma because IOs weren't a big thing (or ... well, anything) when they were introduced. You got perma by (a) being on a team (b) with kinetics of someone else who could boost your recharge, so it'd encourage team play. (There were other little interactions between classes, too - I want to say extra damage if a Stalker AS'd a held target, for instance, but it's been a while.) Don't forget, inventions didn't exist until issue 9. The devs had been working on some *other* system which evolved into that. So they didn't design doms (or anything else) with the expectation players would be hitting perma-anything on their own. So, no, I don't think "you can permadom on your own" was what they were waiting for people to discover.

At worst it looks (from a quick scan) that you'd break even on each by selling the superior (catalyzed) ones, at best, might make twice what you need for the regular versions. So, yeah, I'd agree - sell them and buy the non catalyzed versions you can use right away, then.

Honestly, with the direction things seem to be going, my opinion right now is a depressed, cynical "hell with it, why not."

Next up - all powers available from level 1, because it's still not fast enough. Including incarnates.

No, you don't need to get Tough or Weave without any prerequisites.

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