Darmian

Katie Douglas's arc. Colonel Duray: Do you understand how ANNOYING it is for me to even be here?! Colonel Duray: I've got better things to do than clean up Tilman's mess! Colonel Duray: Like, say, invading a WHOLE DIMENSION!

I'll take someone who, for whatever reason, might be genuinely struggling in a team, over the douchebag who doesn't listen and runs off. Yeah I'm looking at you, Mr. Bomb Exploder in the UG! And was it you who used the grenades in Lambda? I bet it was. Stay away from ...oh, he's aggro'd all the DE in the DE Ripple in ASF. Sigh.

There are events and references peppered throughout the FW/NW arcs that place them later. Just one example, Praetorian Duray shows up and refers to the fact that he is not happy he has been pulled out of the invasion to attend to something there, which places that event post Sutter. There's more but I haven't access to my notes at the moment. Yes, the tendency to perceive level progression as time progression is an almost natural one, since it's pretty much how the game initially worked, but that was abandoned and then you get the little disclaimers saying such and such a thing happens before this or after that. We don't get enough of those unfortunately. The most egregious one beyond the FW/NW material is Marchand/Mr. G in Primal, where instead of being level 50 is 35 to 50. It is what it is.

Ah, I had elided Dilemma into the DA material, since you get an option to open it at the end of the DA material. I'll edit the above to place it properly.

Well, my Main (in pic) is a 24 Carat Gold Praetorian Loyalist, never left and been a 50 for a while now, so I had a vested interest in knowing this stuff 🙂 (To the point of creating my own bridging "canon" material set between Neutropolis and First Ward, in the AE at levels 19 -25).

Ok, this is excerpted from @TwoDee (and myself's) efforts to untangle the Praetorian timeline. This obviously has more than you need but AFAIK this is the order of events surrounding the Praetorian War. Original Maria Jenkins arc/A Hero's Hero happens. (Oh yes it does!) Tina MacIntyre's arc happens. The events of the Tip Missions happen, specifically as relates to Maelstrom and Desdemona. The events of Twinshot's arc happen Responsibility, Power, Warden and Crusader happen The Praetorian War begins when Terra Volta is attacked.(*) Maria Jenkins arc/A Hero's Epic happens. Apex's Alpha Strike TF happens. Tin Mage II's TF happens. BAF iTrial happens. Lambda Sector iTrial happens. Admiral Sutter TF happens. Keyes Reactor iTrial happens. First Ward (20-30) happens Concurrently with First Ward, the Underground iTrial happens, as do the events of Who Will Die? Night Ward (30-35) happens Concurrently with Night Ward, the TPN Campus iTrial happens. Dark Astoria happens, before the formal end of the Praetorian War, but Dominatrix defects to help the Primals/leave the sinking ship of Praetoria. Minds of Mayhem iTrial happens. Praetoria is falling apart. Dilemma Diabolique happens, capping out the Dark Astoria material. Belladonna Vetrano's arc happens. Praetoria begins to collapse from the inside. Magisterum iTrial happens. In an echo both of the destruction of Shroud City and of the nuclear suicides of several nations during the Hamidon Wars, Cole nukes Praetoria City, killing millions of his own citizens. Praetoria entirely falls, and refugees begin flocking through the former invasion portals into Paragon. The Major's arc happens. Provost Marchand and Mr. G's arcs happen contemporaneously to each other. The New Praetorians are founded as several Praetorian supervillains escape containment. Number Six's arc happens. And there we go.

Well, I did launch into a screed, which is partly my own soapbox, and I just wanted it made clear that that rantette was not aimed at anyone, just me spouting off 🙂

Why? Why not both? For that matter I want to see more stories set in Kings Row, I want to see more stories set in Mercy, and I want to see more stories set in Nova/Imperial/Neutropolis/First Ward/Night Ward. What's the difference? More stories is more stories. And I imagine having them pre War is a damn sight easier to build than a super Hamidon. "Well, we know how it ends." Yep. I know how Darth Vader meets his end but I'm still enjoying what I've seen of the Obi Wan Kenobi series so far. I know what happened in 1945 but I'll still watch "Saving Private Ryan". This isn't an attack on you, @El D or @Greycat, sure I want to see everything move forward, we all do. But I don't want to be in a situation where the only new content is now in KW. (Hopefully all that will be cool though!) I got a little soapboxy there. Calmer now!

I'd happily like to see "new" Praetorian content. However, that new content would be more easily developed by adjusting the level caps across Nova Praetoria to Night Ward so as to not lock out content so fast as you level and having more Pre War content. A better segue (or any!) from Neutropolis into First Ward would be appreciated.

All vote for Mr. A. Rachnid-Spydir for mayor! Mayor Morales is old and tired, time for NEW BLOOD!

It's a bit of both though. The spirit realm overlapping First Ward. Hamidon has risen fully and by the way there's nukes going off just over there in Nova, you can stay here, or go to Primal...nope, too late for that. Night Ward? Two tickets please! Sense is relative in that case.

I don't know about First Ward, but Night Ward was, and probably remains, DE free. So Cole only knows what sort of a life anyone who fled there has, but there may be people still there.

Look, it depends on what the money wants in the end. It's always what the money wants. And it doesn't want RI taken out. Plus the political optics of it all. I mean the US mounted a war effort in Korea/Vietnam/Grenada/Afghanistan/Iraq etc, but couldn't invade Cuba? An island it HAD (and still has) A MILITARY INSTALLATION ON? So, the Etoiles remain, partly due to the fact that their ruler and his lieutenants are incarnate level supers, and frankly someone somewhere is getting paid off.

Well this has been a fascinating, though sadly NOT enlightening read. Once again we're all going in the same groove. Meh. Change SC/BB/W'burg to PVE and have done with it. RV remains the only PVP zone where PVP has a reason to even exist. That and the Arenas.

A bigger bugbear for me as a Praetorian, is not that these tips are undeliverable, they are unopenable, so you can't dismiss them either.

Praetoria. All of it. Still looks amazing.

That's still totally subjective though 🙂

Thank you kindly! Task Force Commander via Original Positron TF, Sister Psyche TF (both via Ouro), then Manticore, Citadel, Numina and Synapse. Still grants the Accolade. Next up, @cranebump, is the old Calvin Scott TF, A Mind in Danger. 🙂

Yeah, if you did the Cutter Cain arc then you won't see Steffard.

Hmm, I run a Goldsider as a Main. She's been 50 for a while now, so I *know* Praetoria. To the point of annoying my RL Discord gang by giving directions as if it were a real world place. "Yeah, that's down near Luna Palisades, just go round the corner, you can't miss it." Rogue Isles? I'd manage but I'd still get lost after a while, especially Grandville. There's that bit near Recluse's tower, where you can find yourself UNDER the street, and I was baffled as to how I got there. And eventually I ended up in The Web. I did find the old Dev area though. I'm a bit better with Paragon, and as for the Shadow Shard? Not a hope.

You know, I like this. Possibly a tweak here and there, since for example post Mot the CoT are decimated in numbers, so that's a thing. Not the spectres and demons, the "real" CoT members.

As anyone who has read any of my posts can verify I'm usually calm and restrained, but frankly this is nonsense.

We appear to then be "violently in agreement", as I heard someone say once! As has been pointed out there's been a definite eliding of retention and recruitment.

Yes and no. It IS the content and it is ALSO the players. HC's goal is to move forward with the game in terms of cohesive narrative/content/powers, and as a tiny volunteer team that is seen as slow by many, but it's a fact. The rest is on us. You can argue against the content point but anecdotally at least I personally have never joined a game where the selling point was how great the community is, (Come and join the seal clubbing community! We do horrible things but the community is a joy!*) and forget about the content. I've stayed with things because of the community, but I never joined for that reason. I don't think I'm alone when I say I've tried things I thoroughly enjoyed but ended up leaving because the community itself was toxic. Again, circles. *Obvious hyperbole. I'm not suggesting AE farming or whatever is this!

I'm going to throw a spanner into the machine here, sort of. There seems to me at least to be a disconnect between what, for want of a better phase, the purpose/point of CoX is, and how players play it. There's a lot of discussion on how all the various niche communities have their role and are entitled to that and they're hurting no one and that's how they get their enjoyment, and why not? At the risk of pissing off a lot of people, the original, and I think still under the current administration, point/purpose of CoX, is to play a super powered person in the world of Paragon/RI/Praetoria. It is not to spend your entire time sitting in the AE, however much fun that is and however much that is a chosen playstyle. Choosing to do so and enjoying such a thing is entirely legitimate - and as someone who mains a level 50 Gold(!) I do know about enjoyment of personal game play choices - but it seems to this player at least that going forward that any efforts to increase player retention or to advance the game world narrative or tools will definitely focus on the world at large, and AE farming/whatever is seen as a minor part of this. Now, as has been said, validly I think, we are a sort of echo chamber here. We're going in the usual circles. However, if it ever seems that removing AE from starting zones would somehow benefit the main game then I expect it will be seriously considered. Whether or not that comes to pass or not is another thing entirely.