Darmian

Oh, "coloring between the lines" has a LOT of latitude! And I also do include new new new! I really mean I don't want to see a bunch of things that couldn't possibly exist in the game world, rather than "thou shalt only use Council!". So, no thinly disguised Orcs and Elves thanks very much, to throw a generic example in there.

I'd still advocate sort of coloring inside the lines re Lore though. Even as an advocate of AE I want the missions to at least feel like the fit in the world.

Well, there IS a stigma of some kind I think. And it boils down to Farms vs Story. And Farms can be great (I hear!). No, truthfully they don't do it for me but I've tried a few and I admire the good ones for their mechanics and design, I just happen to be a content lover and they usually have none. It's hard enough to get anyone who isn't a known SG/team mate to come with you on a story arc actually. Even harder to describe in the LFG as opposed to "AE Farm starting in Atlas LFM 2/8". And there are plenty of people who love content but don't do AE because "it's not real". I am lucky enough to have a tiny gang of team mates that regularly go through AE stories with me, and we ooh and aah, and wonder how things were done and then try to figure it out...or we go "ugh, ok, let's see what else this person did...no, still crap, no more of theirs!", but we play them. You can find stuff! Obviously the Dev Choices each month are to be looked at, then using the Search fucntion on "Hall of Fame + SFMA" and on "SFMA" alone. After that you're just scrolling. And @cranebump is doing an "Under the Radar" set of reviews for games that haven't got that many plays and posting them here too. But yeah, back to the topic(!). Sourcing tip mission content from the AE and then whooshing it a bit (since the AE lacks a LOT of stuff) could really add content that could be fun but doesn't actually need to contribute heavily to ongoing Lore, just stay within the lines so to speak.

Yeah, well, I have a set of 45 missions in AE that I'll happily donate to get reviewed and added and can add write ups if need be.

Slightly off topic but I was writing an AE where I had a scene where an Arachnos Flyer lands to facilitate one of their operatives escaping, bu I abandoned it because I don't want it to be the GM version that just murders the player, spewing out troops, that's not what it is for. And yes, you can make it a Friendly, but that is just weird!

A monster between Monster and Giant Monster?

8 for exploration badges. History plaques not so much. So while we might have missed a plaque it's also entirely possible we didn't. What IS interesting is that most, if not all (?) history plaques are cross zoned, so all the plaques we have in KW may not all be linked to each other.

I'd posit that that is correlation and not causation. Original devs being subject to getting as much "content" out as possible to feed the grind machine that a subscription business demands in order to retain incoming subs means that is how the game is built, and that's what you end up with and are used to. Of course it's more nuanced than that but not a lot IMO. You get genuinely creative devs fighting against the dictum of "how little can we give and get away with without losing income?" that is dictated to them by the paymasters. We're in a "can't please all the people all of the time" moment here I think!

Hmm. Tip missions adapted from the best of the AE material? Doesn't have to be "Lore Heavy" just not so far out there it's Elseworlds or What If... So you would be looking at a tip "arc" of no more than 5 missions , done and dusted. And I realize that as someone who doesn't know how to "only" write a 5 mission slot I've instantly disqualified anything I've done, I STILL say this could work. Parameters. Here's the Tip template. Give us up to 5 missions involving X group with Y maguffin and so on. And adapting the tip missions so that for example if I have the choice of hero or vigilante then choosing one of those could generate a follow on tip mission? (a) Send the miscreant to prison or (b) break his arm and send him packing, which leads to (c) vengeance on you!

As an advocate for more and better Praetorian material I agree with almost all your post except this one. Dear Stars, no! A thousand times no!

I'll post a proper and thought out reply later, but for now, tips to drop in co-op zones as well!

You know, from this entire discussion I still have no real grasp of what old school playing is! Other than it is apparently rare now. I mean is it this? Or what? I mean that seems interesting as a challenge but I can't say it's for me. Then there's this argument. Each have their adherents and live and let live I say. Personally? Levelling up is a thing that happens to my characters as I play the game, it's not the point of the game for me. So is that a third option there? I doubt I'm alone in that. But that's not "old school" either, I'm just a story hound and like to explore all the things all the way through. I mean I never played a WS on Live and now I'm working my way through all that lore. Fun times. There's room for everyone.

Throughout the Praetorian zones there are little incongruities. In reality I think they are the equivalent of not thinking things through or seeing a wristwatch on a character in Ben Hur, HOWEVER, storywise they throw up ideas and theories. Here's one. There's a small airfield in Neutropolis across from the reactors, mainly small aircraft, and plenty of Syndicate guys around. So far so mobs with cash dealing and so on. BUT...where are they flying to or from? And how? The area is surrounded by the Sonic barriers. Over the barriers? If they can fly over how do the barriers stop DE things getting in? Things to ponder.

You're going to have to just go with a "Time Tunnel" effect (anyone remember that TV show?) and have them either set in the past or thrown back, if you want to use those areas. (Which you kind of did in #31353 Policemen vs. Aliens - Heroic - 45-54.)

I'm currently working on two Praetorian AE stories.* One, concerning the war against magic and the second, simpler, about Chimera's hunt for whoever is sending people to Primal Earth. Both of which are proving difficult due to the visible lack of things like outdoor maps of Imperial City, First Ward and Night Ward in the AE, not to mention having to build specific NPCs that really should be in the AE as well. As for the Resistance? Every now and then I get the feeling that the Resistance exists only because Cole permits it to. Regimes of that nature need active enemies to oppose, and the DE isn't really present in Nova to Neutropolis, the most you really hear about is the "disease" that citizens can contract and they have to be sent to the BAF. The disparity between Resistance presence in Praetoria "proper" and the Wards is notable. Even in the normally Resistance themed markers for a history badge, where in the main areas it's all "Don't drink the Cole Aid", and in the Wards its "Cole might be a power mad egomaniac but he's all that stands between us and the DE". And while Praetoria fell, it's definitiely not empty or dead! The latter stories of Last Bastion prove that. (Currently campaigning to have those added as actual Gold side content via Number Six talking to you via the Static and entering via Night Ward portal or possibly the Rift Enclosure in Keyes, because what Goldsider wouldn't stand against Hamidon?) Ah. I've gone back and read as much as I can around this and frankly I think it was the developers burned out on it, NOT players. They didn't finish out the arc properly and got fed up of players demanding that it be done because they wanted to "move forward". So many cool ideas half realised. I mean we have the Shining Paths pushed on us with Meredith and Hellewise and they were supposed to be important, but you don't even need to use them! So no, the player base were/are interested, the devs were burned is how I'm calling it. *Ended up not doing a War on Magic arc (yet) as rather fiddly and the maps aren't there. Have two trilogies, one Loyalist and one Resistance, set just at the end of Neutropolis and before you take the Rift/go to First Ward, so levels 20 - 24)

Posi got rebuilt into two TFs. Maybe Dr Quaterfield could get the same treatment?

Tough is good, but you don't actually need it to survive, you just need to be smart or you'll get overwhelmed. Did it with my Mind Control/Empathy troller, and yes, you sacrifice XP because you don't hit as hard but you don't get killed as much, "you and you fight to the death while I run away and snipe you". And when mass confusion drops it's just fun times!

Thanks for this! I missed that one in the stadium!

Kings Row again 🙂 [NPC] Death Head Gunner: This is crap.

What about doing classic Posi from the ouro? I mean literally ONLY going to the ouro for that mish?

I think we should!

TWO of the pretty machines! On the Helipad too!

There are 7 plaques in Kallisti Wharf that I know of. Here's the LOCs I have for them. (1) 7204.4/46.8/3580.3 (2) 7135.9/56.7/2649.5 (3) 5873.6/97.6/2107.7 (4) 3270.8/102.8/2714.3 (5) 1867.0/57.5/3607.1 (6) 404.3/66.1/4053.1 and (7) 5783.7/47.2/4698.6

It might be a checklist, but it's no more a system than needing to do six different TFs to get the TFC accolade is a system.

And my point is if you happen to pick up stuff along the way while you're playing in the world, that's cool too. No checklists but there might be a "while I'm here I may as well grab that badge".