Darmian

Well, it's not a secret spot, but depending on whatever, usually on Fridays you can see Marauder or Dominatrix or Anti-Matter going clubbing in Studio 55.

And you've played "Give Me Liberty" @Clave Dark 5. The graveyard mission uses a variant on this.

No! No hints! ROFL

That's great news! Ok folks, get writing!! Let's see those AEs!!

It is and it isn't though. I mean I don't see it happening BUT...if you start a Praetorian character then they always start in Praetoria before the War (so not dead) and if the levels slid up a bit you could easily add in some arcs.

Oh totally. I'm just pointing out that that's the only connection that we know of where Praetoria crosses over with the Shadow Shard. First Ward and Night Ward have no connection to the Shadow Shard. A point of confusion is down to reusing maps perhaps. When players chase after Black Swan they're faced with a map of what appears to be the Shadow Shard, plus this "explanation". Shadow Earth is Black Swan's personal dimension. She created it using similar methods that the Midnight Squad created the Shadow Shard to imprison Rulaaru. Confusion aside, Shadow Earth is not the Shadow Shard. The weird thing with the kidnap of Statesman and later Positron is both happen! So another part of the "let's erase Statesman from everything but screw it up" that seemed to have gone on. I mean I'd be happy for both to exist. For example, if you do Maria Jenkins before Who Will Die? then you get the choice of "A Hero's Hero", but if you've done Who Will Die? then you get given "A Hero's Epic". What about that? And scoot to Ouro if you're a badger who wants all the goodies. "Maria Jenkins mentioned that years ago, Statesman was once before kidnapped by Tyrant. He was bound in a machine that supposedly had Praetorian Tech, which Statesman had no power against. That theory never held up, but further investigation showed that it wasn't Praetorian Tech, but Incarnate power from the Well of the Furies that bound Statesman. If that was true, there was only one place on Praetoria they could hope to keep Positron held up, the same lair Tyrant held Statesman in previously. You portalled in and were greeted by Manticore. In the end Tyrant didn't even have the gall to meet you himself, he sent one of his Olympian Guard clones to deal with you. Positron was thankful for the rescue and for stopping his robot-duplicate before it could enact Tyrant's plan.

Well, give it a go in test maybe. To be honest it's kind of a weird thing to have as a "boss"! But if you scroll through the choices (so many) there's some wacky stuff in there. And of course you don't have to have only one of those. Imagine...Portal engine damaged. Portals appearing around the place rather than in a "fixed" spot.

AHA! Well to steal something @Ankylosaur found, maybe it doesn't have to be a destructible object. It could be a boss! Voila! Have whatever enemies around you you like, whether Japanese soldiers or Rikti or whatever, instead of Longbow. And it looks like this in mission.

The ONLY thing with Rularuu and Praetoria is Mother Mayhem and Malaise appearing in the Shadow Shard in the Faathim TF, and THAT was pre GR and grandfathered in and never ever explained later.* So a total dead end storywise. I'm not overall disagreeing with you, just mentioning a thing. *I'd have liked an explanation but right now to do so would involve going backwards rather than forwards so I don't see that realistically happening at all.

And some are just...odd?

I'm completely on board with all of the above, except I found RTD2's (because it feels like a different man was behind 2005 -2010) giant middle finger as you put it, incredibly condescending to the point of stupidity. Frankly though, I'd prefer it if it WAS a middle finger rather than what I actually think, which is a delusional bubble of his own making that anything he put into Who was a Good ThingTM and that any criticism of it was by his definition practically fascism. Case in point. Even before RTD's second tenure proper we had a little mini episode where the 14th Doctor arrives on Skaro where Daleks are being made for the first time. Leave aside the continuity of all that (The Time War does a lot of heavy lifting in handwaving) but Davros appears. Fully able to walk. RTD's reasoning? We shouldn't associate wheelchair users with evil. I mean what? Ok, I've watched Who a long time. I know that character. Always been in his travel device. Never once did I or anyone that I know of assume that meant wheelchair users are evil. That particular guy was evil. Nothing to do with his wheelchair. If anything this takes agency AWAY from wheelchair users! And as some pointed out, it now means that an actor with a wheelchair cannot play the role! Cack handed. Perhaps well meaning but nonsense. Of course saying this was terrible apparently. And then it goes further. So D+ having issues? Yeah, they were going to have them. But a completely incoherent set of reasons from RTD and Bad Wolf wasn't going to help. Sorry, rambled a bit there.

Nyx told me how that works. It's pretty good actually.

Possibly adapting one of @Ankylosaur' ideas for outdoor maps would be to have an optional series of hologrammatic versions of the Mender that each lead to the next one in the chain, each one dropping some part of the needed exposition, until finally the last one leads you to the actual Mender. Fiddly to do but not impossible. As to maps? Oh, limits. Or...if you hand wave something about time being in flux and warping the surrounding area, you COULD use the Nemesis Shadow Shard Base. Maybe.

Totally off point but I've taken to referring to the 2004-2012 period as Retail rather than Live, since with the licence we effectively ARE Live now. Your mileage may vary!

Oh nice that Massively have picked up on it.

It's nice when you get that! I've had too many with frankly strange comments. "There weren't enough enemies, waste of time! Do better!". Ahh, what part of "Abandoned Base" did you not understand?

Don't ask don't get. It's like the lottery. You might never win but if you don't buy a ticket then it's guaranteed you'll never win!

Some pics of today's MASS. Team shot. Some rescuing! And some mid cave combat! We had an excellent team combo to take on this arc.

That is peculiar. Though the AE does throw up some peculiar things. Once I got stunned and was doing the staggery stun walk. Break Frees didn't remove it. Nor did Rest. Nor just the passage of time. I stun walked my way slowly after the rest of the team around that entire mission. When in combat I was fine, then it went back to stun walking. It DID clear when we finished though.

It came out pretty good though.

Since lots of people appear to be doing this I thought I'd join in. I did up a version of Halox Von Horn, since he's @cranebump's favourite member of the Meteors. And see below!

Well, depending on the Shard you are on (Excelsior/Everlasting/Torchbearer/Indomitable/Reunion/Victory) I'd join the COH:Homecoming Discord and say hello there. You'll get a faster response than here. Or announce it in game. Or, old school, just join a Task Force/Strike Force when it's happening and mingle and chat. You're going to get a few of those where no one speaks for some damn reason, it happens. But don't be disheartened. Welcome home!

Loved the generated art images.

HAH!

Having read through all the reviews (complete with all the screenshots) this definitely looks like Engineria. Or at least the latest/current iteration of her costume. Nice!.