Continuing the CoH Meta Story?

[mrdeeds7]

Ran Aeon yesterday for WST, I am never on red side and had only speed ran it a few times and just wanted to say what I'm not sure I properly appreciated what an achievement that SF is for the dev team. Well done. 

 

As opposed to reworking/updating old TFs would just be cool to see new ones like this added over time. Got me wondering, is it allowed under the terms of the server for the Dev team to continue taking the over arching story in a new direction? Is there a thread on this I haven't seen? 

[EmperorSteele]

There's not much stopping them, other than lack of interest, both from them and the players.

 

According to the various Lore AMAs that came out in the years post sundown, the story would have continued on via incarnate content (cue cries of people who are sick of high level and raid missions), as a justification for continuing to make new incarnate abilities and new reward currency for said abilities (cue people sick of new currencies and the widening power gap).

 

Reception of the story details was also mixed (bad guys were basically space vampires iirc?) and involved Cole being released from jail to be the new Statesman to help pull the player's bacon out of the fire.

 

Though the next SSA would have seen Scirocco finally defect from Arachnos (there's already-finished extracted cutscenes on youtube) so that would be nice to see.

[Crasical]

1 hour ago, EmperorSteele said:

Though the next SSA would have seen Scirocco finally defect from Arachnos (there's already-finished extracted cutscenes on youtube) so that would be nice to see.

 

Could you point me in the direction of those? A quick search didn't find them.

[Grouchybeast]

44 minutes ago, Crasical said:

 

Could you point me in the direction of those? A quick search didn't find them.

 

The various AMAs are on the wiki, although I'm afraid I don't know exactly where the higher level incarnate details are.

[Greycat]

Yeah, the whole "battalion" thing was just ... ugh.  It was "we need to shoehorn this in," lore wise (Lady Grey was a traitor the whole time! ... never mind there's nothing pointing to it, it's just pulled out o fsomeone's posterior) to keep up the (again, shoehorned in) Incarnate system with *yet more* ("Stay subscribed and keep paying us, please! Love, NCSoft") trees on top of what we have now, with their own salvage and types of XP. And after that you get to deal with Prometheus's sort of people (with yet more trees on top of the incarnate and battalincarnate ones,) and then a level of them past that...

 

Blech.

[TheZag]

Im sure if that story were to go on,  it could be done without all the extra incarnate stuff.  I would probably skip the lady grey traitor part though and have it worked from a different angle.

 

[Rudra]

Yeah... Lady Grey being a traitor after all she has done doesn't really make any sense. She is already in a position if she served Battalion to hand the world over to it. Given the Darrin Wade-Rularuu bit, the Rikti, Vanguard's already proven capabilities compared to Longbow or Arachnos, and her already disclosed but unrevealed status as an incarnate; she could have beheaded the world's defenses at any time.

 

I really want to see the Battalion bit. If only to finally bring an end to all the 'it's a secret you already know because we told you but you don't know' annoyance. And because with the Neo-Shivans already on Primal Earth, Battalion has basically abandoned the advance scouts (Shivans) and is more active in the story.

 

I also think the devs should finish the promised original 10 tiers of incarnate power, with the newer tiers only functioning in the newer incarnate content of Battalion and Praetorian Hamidon. Definitely drop the Lady Grey as traitor bit though. (If they want to tie in the other incarnate stuff, specifically Prometheus and Mortimer Kal, they can use them to enable the original 10 tiers' promised without bothering with the other incarnate powers the Live team was looking at.)

[EmperorSteele]

11 hours ago, Crasical said:

 

Could you point me in the direction of those? A quick search didn't find them.

 

Took some digging, but I found it. There's some buggyness and stand-in-models here and there (one hilarious one is when a dude just keels over dead for no reason), but, here:
 

 

[Xiddo]

21 hours ago, mrdeeds7 said:

As opposed to reworking/updating old TFs would just be cool to see new ones like this added over time. Got me wondering, is it allowed under the terms of the server for the Dev team to continue taking the over arching story in a new direction? Is there a thread on this I haven't seen? 

Piecemeal's arcs are a great fun an a bit of something different if you haven't seen them.
One is blue - The Graveyard Shift - and one is red - The Freakish Lab of Dr. Vahzilok.

There are also a couple of other new arcs the HC team added.
Bobby Curtain (rogue) - https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Bobby_Curtin
Shauna Braun - https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Shauna_Braun

 

The Bobby one is really good I think. The open map fighting the police is really fun. 

(sorry if you know about these!)

Edited September 7, 2022 by Xiddo
spelling

[Xiddo]

7 hours ago, EmperorSteele said:

 

Took some digging, but I found it. There's some buggyness and stand-in-models here and there (one hilarious one is when a dude just keels over dead for no reason), but, here:
 

 

This is amazing to see. Do we know if the mission files every existed in live? Could they, hypothetically, be finished?

[EmperorSteele]

Iirc, the files were pulled from the last patch that had gone to beta before sunset. You can see in the video what looks like a dev interface, with the player running around as Scirocco.

 

I think that if one DL'd the i25 SCoRE package, they'd find a barely playable mess of mission files... Also, I remember Matt Miller (Posi) petitioning NCSoft to push what they had to Live so players could see it, but that got nixed as Ncsoft didn't want to deal with all the bug reports from unplayable missions. As for HC finishing/releasing it, well, I'd hope it's just a technical hurdle, but otherwise, yeah, why not, guys?!

 

[EDIT] ok, i thought about it over breakfast,  and came up with a plausible answer: the Scirocco arc would have been an SSA, which were usually like 5 mini story arcs, with a red side version and a blue side version, so you're talking basically 10 story arcs (with mostly copypasta'd missions). So, that's probably why!

Edited September 7, 2022 by EmperorSteele

[mrdeeds7]

The piecemeal arcs are cool, to me the coolest part of the game is the lore. I'd love to see it go in any new direction. Ideas like Cole being released and taking on the role of Statesman would be super interesting. Maybe then we get a Cole TF? 

[Coyotedancer]

3 hours ago, EmperorSteele said:

Iirc, the files were pulled from the last patch that had gone to beta before sunset. You can see in the video what looks like a dev interface, with the player running around as Scirocco.

 

I think that if one DL'd the i25 SCoRE package, they'd find a barely playable mess of mission files... Also, I remember Matt Miller (Posi) petitioning NCSoft to push what they had to Live so players could see it, but that got nixed as Ncsoft didn't want to deal with all the bug reports from unplayable missions. As for HC finishing/releasing it, well, I'd hope it's just a technical hurdle, but otherwise, yeah, why not, guys?!

 

[EDIT] ok, i thought about it over breakfast,  and came up with a plausible answer: the Scirocco arc would have been an SSA, which were usually like 5 mini story arcs, with a red side version and a blue side version, so you're talking basically 10 story arcs (with mostly copypasta'd missions). So, that's probably why!

 

Additional complication with Scir's SSA... It would have removed him as a contact in-game. (Red Widow IIRC was slated to take his place-), So, not only would they have to finish the SSA arcs for both sides, they would ALSO have to build a set of Patron arcs for Red.

[Jiro Ito]

There was also the mirror to Scirocco's arc with Manticore losing it after Sister Psyche dies, finding comfort in Countess Crey's arms and going full Vigilante.  Maybe someday!

[Grouchybeast]

35 minutes ago, Jiro Ito said:

There was also the mirror to Scirocco's arc with Manticore losing it after Sister Psyche dies, finding comfort in Countess Crey's arms and going full Vigilante.  Maybe someday!

I like this one, because it sounds like it could lead to the opportunity to punch Manticore in his smug, annoying face.

[starro]

i would like to see the Red Widow free of Recluse and causing some strife for villains and heroes alike levels 20-50.  Praetoria was nice, but get back to primal earth.

[Heavensrun]

I honestly would like two things from the story in this game.  

 

1)  Give us a 40-50 praetorian zone.  I know, I know, "ugh more Praetoria" but it really bugs me that you can get MOST of the way to max level on a Praetorian character.  (I know you can get there with the AE and with exemplaring, but I'm talking about *content*.)  Surely at SOME point enough time has passed for people to get over their burnout?  Praetoria is an entrenched part of the game lore, I can't be the only person in the fandom that still loves it there.

2)  Some kind of resolution on the Batallion/Coming Storm plotline.  It could match the story dump stuff, or be completely different, I honestly don't care.  I'd just like some kind of resolution.

The little story arcs have been cool and all, I haven't played all of them, but the ones I have done have been great, but I'd like a little more of the epic stuff.

Edited September 7, 2022 by Heavensrun
Clarification

[Darmian]

12 hours ago, Heavensrun said:

I honestly would like two things from the story in this game.  

 

1)  Give us a 40-50 praetorian zone.  I know, I know, "ugh more Praetoria" but it really bugs me that you can get MOST of the way to max level on a Praetorian character.  (I know you can get there with the AE and with exemplaring, but I'm talking about *content*.)  Surely at SOME point enough time has passed for people to get over their burnout?  Praetoria is an entrenched part of the game lore, I can't be the only person in the fandom that still loves it there.
 

Agreed. (But you can get to max level on a Praetorian, it's just fiddly).  I've bolded that particular sentence because in my own entirely aneccdotal experience (including much chat with others, still hearsay I know) the burnout wasn't with Praetoria so much as with the Incarnate Trials being almost the entirety of the max level content in the game. People might be equally "burned out" on Kings Row if the same were true.

 

As an intermediate step I'd look to loosen up the level constraints on contacts in Praetoria so that you could properly team up with others without suddenly missing half the story when you go from level 7 to level 11 over the space of a few missions.

Edited September 8, 2022 by Darmian

[Heavensrun]

48 minutes ago, Darmian said:

Agreed. (But you can get to max level on a Praetorian, it's just fiddly).  I've bolded that particular sentence because in my own entirely aneccdotal experience (including much chat with others, still hearsay I know) the burnout wasn't with Praetoria so much as with the Incarnate Trials being almost the entirety of the max level content in the game. People might be equally "burned out" on Kings Row if the same were true.

 

As an intermediate step I'd look to loosen up the level constraints on contacts in Praetoria so that you could properly team up with others without suddenly missing hald the story when you go from level 7 to level 11 over the space of a few missions.

That'd be great, too.  It'd also be nice if we could access Ouro and do the Praetoria flashback missions.

[Darmian]

10 hours ago, Heavensrun said:

That'd be great, too.  It'd also be nice if we could access Ouro and do the Praetoria flashback missions.

You can't access Ouro but you CAN place a Pillar of Ice and Flame in your base and do them from there.  Can't team with non Golds though.

[Jiro Ito]

20 hours ago, Heavensrun said:

2)  Some kind of resolution on the Batallion/Coming Storm plotline.  It could match the story dump stuff, or be completely different, I honestly don't care.  I'd just like some kind of resolution.
 

 

Definitely this.  So much build up with the Mendors and the Dream Doctor/Rularuu and so on, it'd be nice to see all the pieces put together and resolved.  They wisely changed their mind about traitorous Lady Grey and brought in someone else, I can't remember who.

[Heavensrun]

14 hours ago, Darmian said:

You can't access Ouro but you CAN place a Pillar of Ice and Flame in your base and do them from there.  Can't team with non Golds though.

Oh ho, I didn't know that, thanks.

[Coyotedancer]

6 hours ago, Jiro Ito said:

 

Definitely this.  So much build up with the Mendors and the Dream Doctor/Rularuu and so on, it'd be nice to see all the pieces put together and resolved.  They wisely changed their mind about traitorous Lady Grey and brought in someone else, I can't remember who.

 

Sheridan, IIRC

[Cybersbe]

If I could pick just one element from the original plans to be implemented in Homecoming, it would be the "Scirocco successfully becomes a hero" story. Mainly because the plans involved Scirocco bringing with him a means for Heroes to access the Patron Power Pools without having to go red side first.

[KingCeddd03]

On 9/7/2022 at 12:02 PM, Coyotedancer said:

 

Additional complication with Scir's SSA... It would have removed him as a contact in-game. (Red Widow IIRC was slated to take his place-), So, not only would they have to finish the SSA arcs for both sides, they would ALSO have to build a set of Patron arcs for Red.

Can you say Red Widow is that powerful to take a patron spot?