Alternate Praetorian Start: Refugee

[Alchemystic]

Praetorian characters are a rarity these days, and one of the major reasons for that is that the whole Going Rogue chapter of the game came to a close. Making a new Praetorian character means reliving the events of the past, nothing you do is considered part of the present narrative anymore, and until Praetoria gets restored in the story (which I dont imagine happening soon), maybe an alternative start for Praetorian characters could help bring them into the present setting.

 

So, how do we do this? 

 

I suggest we create a new second tutorial option for Praetorian characters (which can be skipped of course) where the character begins his career as a refugee on Primal Earth. You'll start in a slice of Khallisti Wharf where contacts will brief you on the events of the fall of Praetoria. You will have to visit each one in order to learn of the major events leading up to your displacement. 

 

Armed with this knowledge, you intervene in a fight that has broken out in the camp between former Loyalists and Resistance supporters, and depending on which side you defend will determine which one you will take as your alignment. You will be tasked with defeating X amount of Loyalist/Resistance extremists before returning to your contact once again.

 

After which, you will then be approached by representatives of your new faction, each presenting an idea to leave the camp and make their own way in the world, each one declaring that they're either going to remain in Paragon and protect their new home, or leave for the Isles where they can take what is rightfully theirs. Once you've decided on your path, you will leave the camp, only to be ambushed by a boss who chose the other path, and you will need to defeat him before you progress into the open world.

 

In addition to this new tutorial, Praetorian alignments will be tweaked so that they work much the same as standard ones, allowing you to retain your alignment and play it in Primal Earth and gain access to Alignment Powers, and later you can make the choice to take on traditional alignments (Null the Gull will allow you to swap back to Praetorian again after if you so choose).

 

Below is what I think works as a 'best fit' conversion of Praetorian alignments;

 

 

Resistance (Warden) = Vigilante

 

Resistance (Crusader) = Villain

 

Loyalist (Responsibility) = Hero

 

Loyalist (Power) = Rogue

 

 

Of course, this isn't to say you are locked into these choices, they are just representative of what Alignment Power and Zone access you will have until you change your alignment via tip missions or Null the Gull. It also means being able to retain use of the unique Praetorian titles that are otherwise lost when you proceed to Primal Earth.

 

Once situated in Atlas Park or Mercy Island, you will be able to progress through the core game as normal, but your badges, titles and alignment will be that of a Praetorian character from then on.

 

Of course, skipping the tutorials will prompt you with a choice of where you wish to start; Praetoria or Primal Earth, and you can enter the game right away with all the benefits listed above.

 

In addition, when playing through Praetoria and reaching the point where you journey to Primal Earth, you will be able to keep your Praetorian alignment instead of being changed to hero/villain as you would before. There will be a new contact situated outside the starting area who will allow you to change to hero/villain right away, and also change you back to Praetorian alignments if you prefer.

 

For Primal Earth characters, this character will not offer these choices to you, and neither will Null the Gull.

 

 

Edited April 24, 2021 by Tyrannical

[Take One]

I've been playing through the 1-20 Praetorian content 2 and a half times this past week or two, and each time I start a new character I keep thinking about how pointless it all is since I know how the story will end: with all my choices being made irrelevant, the dimension being lost to the Hamidon, etc. A new start, beginning as a refugee in Paragon/Rogue Isles sounds like a great idea. But then again, nothing is preventing us from doing this now. Making it "official" could be fun but then it would also lock that particular origin in, sealing it into the specific events taking place. There's nothing right now to prevent us from making a hero or villain and claim our origin is a refugee from Praetoria. Well, one thing might: level progression = time progression. At level 1, there are no refugees from Praetoria. At level 20 there are no refugees from Praetoria. Around level 30 we see them for the first time. The timeline is already mightily confused, I'm not sure this would help.

[Parabola]

On 4/24/2021 at 12:41 PM, Tyrannical said:

Resistance (Warden) = Vigilante

 

Resistance (Crusader) = Villain

 

Loyalist (Responsibility) = Hero

 

Loyalist (Power) = Rogue

Perspective is a funny thing. It's been a long time since I played through goldside but I remember feeling quite differently about the good/evil split between resistance and loyalist. It feels to me that goldside is set up to emphasise that there is no inherent correlation between following the rules and being good. That makes it very hard to map the goldside alignments to the rest of the game (which operate on a more simplistic moral scale) but it also makes the writing quite a bit more believable.

 

If I had to map the alignments my take would look more like:

 

Resistance (Warden) = Hero (taking a moral stand against the system)

 

Resistance (Crusader) = Rogue (stepping across that line between freedom fighters and terrorists)

 

Loyalist (Responsibility) = Vigilante (good intentions but keeping dodgy company)

 

Loyalist (Power) = Villain (dangerously close to fascism)

 

I feel the Praetorian alignment system is a lot more about 'who you are working for' than the main games 'who you are'. This seems much closer to the real world. We like to hang on to ideas like there being good and bad people but we're mostly all just people, and are capable of both good and bad depending on circumstances.

 

Anyway, enough philosophy! I like the idea of integrating Praetorian characters more with the wider game though.

[Alchemystic]

@parabola I wasn't trying to infer that each of the praetorian alignments have identical parallels in the 'true' alignment system, just that those alignments are likely a best fit for the  powers;

 

Wardens = Like to cause chaos and destruction, therefore villain's 'Frenzy' power works nicely.

 

Crusaders =  About exposing the truth with as little harm as possible, so 'Fear Incarnate' could work well here.

Responsibility = All about justice and being a role model, so 'Call to Justice' is a nice fit.

 

Power = Seeking control and manipulating others, so 'Duplicity' is quite fitting.

[Parabola]

12 minutes ago, Tyrannical said:

@parabola I wasn't trying to infer that each of the praetorian alignments have identical parallels in the 'true' alignment system, just that those alignments are likely a best fit for the  powers;

 

Wardens = Like to cause chaos and destruction, therefore villain's 'Frenzy' power works nicely.

 

Crusaders =  About exposing the truth with as little harm as possible, so 'Fear Incarnate' could work well here.

Responsibility = All about justice and being a role model, so 'Call to Justice' is a nice fit.

 

Power = Seeking control and manipulating others, so 'Duplicity' is quite fitting.

The powers maybe but in my mind I could never fit the Loyalists with being Heroes. It's not the most important thing about your suggestion - I just found it interesting to muse on!

[MTeague]

Just curious.  Why do people feel this is not also the case for Primal Earth heroes?

 

Do you really feel that Bonefire arc or the Vahzilok Plague Arc or Posi 1 or even talking to Stephanie Peebles on Striga really count as "part of the present narrative" in a way that Nova Praetoria does not count? It's all story arcs we've all done a bazillion times. Maybe you don't find some of them fun, sure, no problem, I can work with that. 

 

But I mean, it's not like your hero is the very first hero to ever help David Wincott or talk to Frostfire or handle Veles.

And if you say "well I'm the first character to do it in my character's narrative", well, okay sure, but then in that case, how is the Praetoria 1-20 not the same?

[MTeague]

5 hours ago, Tyrannical said:

@parabola I wasn't trying to infer that each of the praetorian alignments have identical parallels in the 'true' alignment system, just that those alignments are likely a best fit for the  powers;

 

Wardens = Like to cause chaos and destruction, therefore villain's 'Frenzy' power works nicely.

 

Crusaders =  About exposing the truth with as little harm as possible, so 'Fear Incarnate' could work well here.

You've got Warden and Crusader backwards. 

• Crusaders = Calvin Scott's Blow It All Up, Win At Any Price faction.  I'd say Villain or Vigilante.  Depends how focused you are on killing Cole (vig) or just blowing things up (Villain).
• Wardens = Vanessa DeVore's win the hearts of the people, try to enable change from within.  Honestly, more Hero than Vig. 
• Responsibility = the folks who know the Praetors are... jerks... but who still feel the human race would no longer exist if not for Cole and the Praetors.  They do believe in justice but they're also generally good people stuck in a complete lose-lose scenario. Trying to keep things together and hating what they have to let slide.  Like, Inspector Kang. Has to let his own daughter be taken and turned into a Seer, turned into a husk of what she once was, in the name of "helping hold praetoria together".  Very much a "Good of the Many Outweighs the Needs of the Few, or One" even if that means you have to inflict serious INJUSTICES on the Few, or One.   They probably would be Heroes if not completely surrounded by the lose-lose scenarios though. 
• Power = All about Fame, personal accolades, living large, and keeping the noses of anyone who might challenge them firmly pushed into the dirt. Villain for sure. Possssibly a more ruthless Rogue if they still have some lines they won't cross. 

[Alchemystic]

@MTeague Ah, so I did, good catch!

[Darmian]

As someone who mains Gold a lot, sure, a refugee status would be interesting and cool to see.  However, as is there's an existing thread dangling that is never resolved, and at the least could give something akin to tip missions/radio missions.  You cross the Rift, whether to Red or Blue, and you get the speech about attaining power or showing Primal that not all Golds are bastiches...and that's it.  A speech.  There's nothing after that even follows this up, no integration throughline at all.  Ok, the Rogue Isles slyly fakes a history for you and sticks you on the Destined Ones list, but there's a missed opportunity there.  And when I mentioned this elsewhere people talk of the "Praetoria-lag" the playerbase was getting.  I've searched and can't  find the players doing it.  There's plenty of talk from the OG devs saying the players are sick of it though, just damn all from actual players.

 

So, rant over.  I like this idea above. I'd also like follow through for the Rift Speech.*

 

*Mind you, I'd also like more pre War arcs added because Praetoria is just cool.