Loregasm 2013

[eabrace]

[Kaos Arcanna]

Posted a question. Maybe someday I'll get an answer about the Penny/Clockwork King relationship.

[Quinch]

-adds a question... or four-

-hopes he hasn't broken the "don't ask too much stuff" rule-

-also fun to watch people type their questions in realtime-

[SirKittles]

I added a question as well. I'm glad they're doing this, and it will hopefully tie up some loose ends lefts open because of murdering of the game.

[Empyrean]

Wow.  This is awesome!   Makes me a little sad, but awesome!  Man, I had so many questions back in the day--now I gotta go pick the one or two best.  Gonna be tough.

[Brightfires]

I had to ask about the moon base... That's one of the unfinished things that I really, really wish we'd have gotten to see.

[Captain Electric]

Do publicly shared and editable Google docs have revision control for rollbacks? There isn't a chance in Hades this will ever work if vandalism can't be rolled back.

[Quinch]

Do publicly shared and editable Google docs have revision control for rollbacks? There isn't a chance in Hades this will ever work if vandalism can't be rolled back.

-> File menu
-> See revision history

[Aggelakis]

Besides, the actual loregasm won't be put in the publicly-editable questions file.

[Captain Electric]

Thank you both for the answers. 

[saipaman]

I've put in my question.

[johnrobey]

I am still hoping to discover the answer to all Loregasm questions sometime in the future in-game, but this is simply my personal choice and preference.   

[saipaman]

I went with a power set question whose answer was only going to come from "real life".

[Kaos Arcanna]

I've been checking on a daily basis just to see what questions were asked... did someone just wipe out almost ALL questions?!

[dwturducken]

According to the revision history, an anonymous user made an edit at about 2PM CDT. At that edit, most of the questions disappeared.

[Kaos Arcanna]

There's always someone out there who has to be a jerk ...

Do you think we need to repost or could Posi recover the questions?

[Kaos Arcanna]

Woot. I tweeted Matt and he restored it. 

[blackjak]

I probably asked the most stupid question. It really bothers me though! It's a mystery!

[eabrace]

Whoever this "anonymous" guy who deleted all the Loregasm questions at 10am this morning... shame on you. FYI, it's restored now. -- @MMODesigner

[saipaman]

Agents of the MMO Killer in action?

[Rotten Luck]

I.. I just have too...

"It's a Nemesis Plot!" confess you smiled.

[healix]

[Mentalshock]

Anyone else unable to access?

[goodtime]

Anyone else unable to access?

Question-taking is over as of last night, they'll be answering it and we should expect it in about a week.

As per Matt Miller's tweet.

[Tiberian Fiend]

Missed it.    My laundry list of questions...

[dwturducken]

I end up not doing these. All of my questions are ones that I know won't get answers.

[Quinch]

Missed it.    My laundry list of questions...

There's always next time.

[Safehouse]

I wish I'd found this a couple days ago... I have some questions that I'm itching to have answered

[Maressa]

I don't suppose we know when we can expect to see the answers? Can't wait to give them a read!

[eabrace]

I don't suppose we know when we can expect to see the answers? Can't wait to give them a read!

On April 28th, 2013, Matt Miller and other members of the Paragon Design team will put answers to lore-related questions of City of Heroes to questions that are in this public document.

[Maressa]

Oh hey! Nice, Don't mind my noobishness. Nothing to see!

[Safehouse]

Oh hey! Nice, Don't mind my noobishness. Nothing to see!

I anxiously await the answers! And the questions of course, haha. Want to do the #9reasons thing too. What a way to celebrate the anniversary - if we can't be on the game we might as well be learning about lore!

[Kaos Arcanna]

Matt updated his twitter regarding Loregasm:

For those awaiting the #Loregasm document to be opened up... I am still chasing down some ex-devs who can answer some questions.

So hopefully the answers will come soon.

[Jetfire99]

Matt updated his twitter regarding Loregasm:

So hopefully the answers will come soon.

Cue the Benny Hill Music!

[Jachim]

So what happened to this? Any word? Am I blind?

[eabrace]

No update from Matt yet.  I figure I'll wait for Monday (giving him at least a week) before I ask over Twitter.

[eabrace]

The document is now updated with answers.

https://t.co/tFZeAWpnSd

(Haven't had a chance to look yet, myself, but plan to do so later tonight.)

[LadyWizard]

He does say a few didn't get answered

[Golden Girl]

The Malta answer was epic

[Thunder Glove]

Aaaaaand I'm sad all over again.

[Golden Girl]

Villains only being 20% of the player base seems even lower than expected.

[dwturducken]

I'm intrigued by the question answered by "@Neiltyson." Joke or coincidence?

[Omega Force 1990]

Huh, I guessed right about how Silos was getting around the Carbon Law. 

And the lore bible has an answer for Dr. Mechanor about the inanimate DE monsters:  Hamidon created telekinetic mold.  The psychic mold uses the rocks it is on to fashion a useful body.

I think Star Strider would have fit better in Vanguard than the Dark Cowboy.

Vigilante Widower Manticore + Countess Crey?  Yeah, I'd read that comic.

[Golden Girl]

Vigilante Widower Manticore + Countess Crey?  Yeah, I'd read that comic.

That might have been the rumored "50 Shades of Crey" storyline they were planning.

[saipaman]

Looks like I can claim "the last" first post after a 'red name' unless their is a Loregasm 2014.

[Tiberian Fiend]

Villains only being 20% of the player base seems even lower than expected.

That's a lot higher than I expected.  I would've put it at 10%, especially towards the end.

I hope you social network types bug them to do one more of these Loregasms.

[Little David]

Aaaaaand I'm sad all over again.

You and me both.

I especially felt the desire to do a German Suplex on an NCSoft suit after seeing that Paragon was in the middle of working with Rooster Teeth on the Freedom Phalanx deal.

[Safehouse]

The definition of bittersweet... I miss this game. I would have loved to fight Battalion and the Dimensionless, not to mention possibly creating a new Freedom Phalanx character to actually appear in game. To see what AMAZING stuff they had in store for us...

[Cold Bob]

Loregasm 2013 was well worth the wait. (I missed out on contributing questions to the original AMA.) I got good answers to all four of my questions, and there was a lot of juicy information throughout the entire document, almost as much as the original exercise back in September, in terms of quality.

I'm not going to hold my breath for Loregasm 2014, but then again, I don't need to: I finally got an answer about "Elysium", an itch I've wanted to have scratched since hearing rumours about its existence in 2005.

Thanks Positron, et. al., for taking the time and making the effort to acknowledge what would have been the 9th anniversary of CoH with the Loregasm 2013 document.

Thank you, thank you, very, very much!

[saipaman]

And I forgot to ask my essential question:

"Why didn't the Rularuu Invasion event ever return?"

[srmalloy]

And I forgot to ask my essential question:

"Why didn't the Rularuu Invasion event ever return?"

Judging from the board commentary when it was going on, it never came back because it was too intrusive. Remember what it was like to be on the receiving end of a puke volley from a bunch of Vahzilok in the low levels where no one had any Toxic resistance; being on the receiving end of a Rularuu attack felt like that, except that it was because none of them ever seemed to miss; their inherent accuracy bonus rendered them able to ignore pretty much any level of Defense that characters would have at lower levels. Small groups of Rularuu were routinely dropping characters several levels higher than them. Players would be zooming through the streets to get to their next mission, come around a corner to discover a spawn of Rularuu, and would be on the ground almost before they could react. The devs would have had to do a redesign either on the mobs themselves or on the way that they spawned so that lower-level heroes would have a better chance against them, and their focus was always on other things. Remember that this was back before we got many of the QoL improvements that we were accustomed to in the later years of the game; there was less ability to tweak the way things worked back then.

[Golden Girl]

I'm not going to hold my breath for Loregasm 2014

That'll be the 10th anniversary

[saipaman]

I missed it because it was a "lost" part of the game.

[General Idiot]

I think if they'd ever gotten to revamping the Shadow Shard they'd probably have given us another rularuu invasion, likely in a modified form though.

[saipaman]

It would have been good to have the invasion tied to the Shard TFs.

[TimtheEnchanter]

Villains only being 20% of the player base seems even lower than expected.

The trouble is, it was never really City of Villains. It was more like City of Lord Recluse Lackeys.

[Kistulot]

The trouble is, it was never really City of Villains. It was more like City of Lord Recluse Lackeys.

They had started to do a lot to rectify that, but honestly, what villain worth their salt would want to live on a dump like the isles?

[Tiberian Fiend]

The trouble is, it was never really City of Villains. It was more like Islands of Lord Recluse Lackeys.

Fixed.

[Little David]

Villains only being 20% of the player base seems even lower than expected.

Just re-read that part ... that certainly explains a lot, like why it seemed impossible to earn any zone event rewards redside, at least on Guardian. I always thought that most villain players were just uninterested, whereas it was a lot easier to get heroes together for a zone event.

Tangent here, but as much as I loved the concept and mechanics behind zone events, the fact that it required a "critical mass" of participating characters to get the full rewards bothered me. Would've been nice if they had a mechanic to adjust for the general population likely to participate.

[dwturducken]

I was always under the impression that villainy was less a team activity than heroism.

[eabrace]

I was always under the impression that villainy was less a team activity than heroism.

There's no 'I' in "hero".

"Villain", however...

[blackjak]

I mainly played blueside, but my redside characters felt odd when teaming. I even ran an arrows defender redside and needed the teamups! He was a bounty hunter so it didn't feel too odd. My other villains were a possessed teenager (who would have teamed more if I would have played her more) and a character that I (for some misguided reason) decided would be completely mute and only use emotes to communicate ingame. That didn't help with teams at all. 

[JaguarX]

Just re-read that part ... that certainly explains a lot, like why it seemed impossible to earn any zone event rewards redside, at least on Guardian. I always thought that most villain players were just uninterested, whereas it was a lot easier to get heroes together for a zone event.

Tangent here, but as much as I loved the concept and mechanics behind zone events, the fact that it required a "critical mass" of participating characters to get the full rewards bothered me. Would've been nice if they had a mechanic to adjust for the general population likely to participate.

Yeah, there didnt seem to be many villains players hanging around, especially on the likes of Victory server. If I wanted an accolade that required a team to get in all or portion of it, had to go to hero side, switch to virtue, and get the hero side equivalent, switch back to villians go back to Victory to have it on a Victory server character.

[Xnarl]

So, if Lady Grey is a Battailion mole. and Mender Tesseract is an important redeemed Battailion agent...
Is Tesseract Grey's future?

[Little David]

So, if Lady Grey is a Battailion mole. and Mender Tesseract is an important redeemed Battailion agent...
Is Tesseract Grey's future?

...

Welp, we've got something to ask for Loregasm 2014!

[JKPhage]

I wish I had noticed this earlier so I could have submitted my own question. Of course, it wouldn't have dawned on me by that point so kind of moot I suppose. Since we have a slight bit of speculation going here: Whilst exploring the Antimatter personal story map (Underground tunnels infested by Hamidon and apparently intended to house an encounter with the Avatar of Hamidon) I noticed a section of the tunnel that looked like teeth/a mouth and suddenly had this moment of clarity. I'd always taken note of the fact that all of playable Praetoria pre-First/Night Ward was situated on a man-made island and populated by artificial plant-life, and seeing that mouth-like opening made me wonder: Is it possible that, being the Incarnate of Earth (or whatever he was incarnate of), Praetorian Hamidon was THE EARTH ITSELF? Slightly crazy notion, I know, but keep in mind, Praetorian Hami was unbelievably/immeasurably powerful, to the point that it was never contained but merely convinced to give humanity a very small chance to live after what I can only assume was pleading on the part of the most powerful metahuman on the planet. *Shrug* Just a thought I had and figured I'd toss out for the lore-minded among us since we're on the topic.

[Zombie Hustler]

Can't believe I forgot to check back in on the answers until now. Very interesting, although perhaps not quite as informative as the previous Lore installment.

All of this info on Lady Grey as a deep cover agent of the Battalion is curious, though. I find myself going back and trying to think if there were any hints of it beforehand; the only thing I can think of is that whole scene between Lady Grey and Nemesis during Serpent Drummer's arc takes on a whole new depth in light of this revelation.

[saipaman]

It's not surprising there are fewer revelations this time around.  After all, memories fade and at some point, all that can be said, has been said.

[srmalloy]

And I'm kicking myself for having spaced on the question I'd had for some time... The Kronos Titan looks like a scaled-up Zeus Titan; since the Zeus Titans are the result of two Hercules Titans combining, are the 'giant monster' Kronos Titans the result of two 'monster' Titans combining (i.e., two Ouranos Titans combine to make a Kronos Titan)? And if so, would we ever see the 'component' Titans in-game?

[General Idiot]

Should've been a trial or taskforce boss at some point. Like the Siege/Nightstar fight in the BAF, but instead of them reviving if you don't kill them at the same time, they combine into something bigger and meaner.