Lore AMA 2015

[Eskreema]

I'll start.

Was there any more going to be any more explored on Brother Abelard Vernoux, the school in Galaxy City(?), and would we ever meet more Inquisition (see the beginnings of carnival of shadows).

Was it harder to write back story for "good" or "evil" as powers became more and more grand in scale.  I can see power-mad evil types, but typically good peeps with high level power are fewer.  Yes, no?

[Fescu]

I have one too.

As far as I know there were never any actual retcons when Going Rogue went live, and the old lore states that Praetorian Earth did have a Rikti Invasion. A few of the new missions even have war walls in them. So how come the populace doesn't appear to know about the Rikti?

[Kurrent]

I'll add my single biggest unanswered question at this point.

At one point during your Incarnate character's multiple lengthy dialogues with Prometheus, he clearly states that Earth's Well was originally a person.  Who the heck was it (and if can get a second question, how did this person wind up as a Well?)  Promie also stated that it was a man at one point, I think, but he wouldn't give any other clues.

Seriously, this question has bugged me for about five years now.

K

[Blackout]

Ok obscure one; Is Eisensturm still alive? Its implied Panzer's predecessor was a member of the storm korps, and we know several of them survived to be judged, so is their leader still kicking in prison? Or did he die at the hands of the first hero brigade? Speaking of which, the storm korps are kind of weird in how little they are mentioned; after all they are implied to have seriously injured statesman at Normandy and they kidnapped the king of England in addition to being the 5th column of WWII so the fact that they are only mentioned like twice is kinda' strange.

Also Requiem. Seriously. Requiem. Whats up with Requiem? Did he allow the dirge to take him over? Or is Ridolfo uzzano being held against his will like Arakhn's Nictus test subjects?

Finally, was there any gonna' be anything with Eochai and the tuathe? Or were they just the sort of one time note fantasy/Halloween group that were exclusively for Halloween and croatoa?

[Captain Electric]

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[Blackout]

I've been particularly interested in some of the more obscure and fridge lore of the game so hopefully The AMA can help with answering some of the questions I've been swirling around in my head.
More specifically I've been looking into the 5th Column vs Council, Riddolfo Uzzano vs Dirge of entropy, and Eisensturm.

First Column; Are they technically still under the control of the council? They've already tried to stage a major Coup against the center during the Shadowstar arc, Requiem now has incarnate troops, and not only is the Reichsman walking around again he seems to be against Requiem and the rest of the column not with them, be interesting to know whether they're considered fully autonomous at this point.

Second Requiem; Kheldian lore has established that Peacbringers and Warshades mutually merge with their hosts whilst Nictus forcibly possess them. Riddolfo Uzzano (Human part of Requiem) ended up becoming Requiem after the Dirge of Entropy (A Nictus) Possessed him, but its also implied that Uzzano willingly and knowingly sought out the Dirge. SOoooo....Whats up with that? Did he allow the Nictus to forcibly possess him so he could use it as a mental screen whilst he pulls the strings from behind the curtain? Did the Nictus willingly merge with him? If so is he technically a Warshade? Or did the Dirge just fully take him over and obliterate Uzzano's autonomy completely? Personally I'm of the opinion that the first is true and that sometimes the Dirge has more control, sometimes Uzzano does, which explain Requiems odd outbursts from time to time, and the reason for his doing so would be to A.Gain power, and B. put up a mental screen in the form of Dirge in order to ensure that his enemies are unable to ascertain his true motives, but eh, I could be wrong but I'm interested to know for sure, after all I could just be reading too much into it.

And Finally one of the most obscure lore characters in the whole CoH universe, and arguably one of the most interesting and important. He's described as being the leader of the Storm Korps (The sort of Nazi 5th column equivalent during WWII, the column, whilst German were involved more with the Italians than with the Nazi's back in the day). Furthermore, what little lore there is one them places the at Normandy on D-Day, and the Statesman is described as being injured during this battle to the point where he was unable to take part in the rest of the war; Did they do that? Did Eisensturm and the Storm Korps beat down the most powerful superhero on the planet so badly that he was hospitalized for months? That's kind of significant for such an overlooked character. In addittion to this they also kidnapped the King of England (again pretty significant) and nearly succeeded in escaping with him. Finally the last piece of lore regarding them describes all but five of them being killed by the First Hero Brigade in the Black forest of Germany at the very end of the war, but it doesn't actually specify who survived. Did Eisensturm survive? If so is he still alive in a prison somewhere? Another thing I considered in regards to this was the hero Dreadnaught:"Son of the supervillain Panzer, Thomas Fall has modified his father's armored suit to serve Paragon City as the unstoppable Dreadnought!" Was Panzer a storm korps member back in the day? Or just a German supervillain?

Anyway sorry for the text wall, I've just  been meaning to ask these questions for a LOoooonnnNNggg time.
Let me know watcha think, but interesting to hear other peoples thoughts and questions :)

[FatedTitan]

Ok after browsing through all the previous AMAs, I wanted to throw a few in here and hopefully get an answer :D


1.  The Shadow Shard was by far my favorite location.  In fact, I claimed the minionless island off to the side of The Storm Palace as my home, logging my two mains out there, staring into the sky, as my final hoorah to CoH.  So here are a couple SS related questions for you:

A. I remember looking into the .pigg files once (sorry I broke ToS) and noticed there were some zone ideas like The Factory Cubes and the Garden of Memories that were never fully realized.  Were there any plans to explore these areas?

B.  Ruladak, Faathim, and Lunaruu were all very interesting and distinct personalities in the Shadow Shard.  Did you ever plan to include Chularn the Slave Lord, Kuularth the Scavenger, Aloore the Watcher, or Uurular the Mirror? 

C.  We fought an Aspect of Rularuu in the Cathedral of Pain trial, but that was taken offline soon after release.  I actually think my SG (United Heroes Brigade represent!) completed the trial all of three times before it was never seen again.  Why did it get taken down, especially since it gave us an Item of Power?  And was there a plan to bring base raiding back online when this problem got fixed? 

I suppose it never did get fixed since that was 2006 and we both know it never returned.  That was a really fun experience to do with my SG going against another to obtain our IoP and we successfully defended it.  It also gave new meaning to how you designed your base.

D.  We fought an Aspect of Rularuu in CoP trial, but we never actually fought Rularuu the Ravager.  Was this planned to ever happen?



Now for non-SS related questions!


2. What was your favorite trial to work on?


3.  Did we ever file those TPS reports?


4.  Is Manticore's true identity Oliver Queen?  If so, who would he believe most has failed this city?


5.  What was the least-acquired badge in CoX history, outside of the Gullible badge mentioned in a previous AMA that no one found?


6.  I loved the Paragon City Dance Club back when it was hidden away in a warehouse, a secret to all those who didn't know about it.  Then, with the revamp, DJ Zero seems to have gone public and made easy access for anyone who would like to come in.  While I don't think the change in scenery was a bad thing by any means, I do wonder if you think that giving it a map icon and it no longer being a secret was the best idea.



On a less CoX related note, do the devs still keep in contact with each other for the most part? 


And lastly Matt, if you are reading this, I saw above you were looking for a job.  I have no idea the job climate or anything on the West Coast, but you should check out Riot Games.  They seem to always be hiring and your resume has to be pretty impressive, though I'm not sure if that's the style of game you're desiring to work on.

[exclius]

What can you tell us about the Star Sentinels? Were they basically just an analogue for the Green Lantern corps? What kind of powers would they have?

[Captain Electric]

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[TonyV]

It's a miunderstanding, that's all.  I want to emphasize a few things, and then hopefully we can continue with the questions.  :)

- Although I'm fairly certain that Matt will probably be happy to answer these questions, please keep in mind that he's focusing right now on landing his next project.  The games industry is an extremely volatile one, and frequent layoffs and shuffling are an unfortunate consequence of getting to work on really cool projects.  I guess what I'm getting at is that is that while Matt has been very gracious in answering these things, for right now, please give him some space and be understanding if he can't get to these right away.

- There was some speculation in whether I or the Titan Network were questioning the credibility of Captain Electric, "throwing him under the bus," so to speak.  That's not the case at all.  He's been a really active and valuable member of the Titan Network forums for a long time, and I really appreciate all the hard work he's done in keeping the community engaged, including driving the effort this year in putting together another AMA for 2015.  I think he's a cool guy, really.

- If you're sensing "drama", there's not really any.  It was just kind of... well... you remember that show Three's Company, how someone would tell someone else something, and it would be misinterpreted and hilarious hijinks would ensue, but at the end of the day everyone would hug?  Well, take out the hilarious part and substitute confusing in its place, and you get the idea.  Oh, and technically we're not hugging.  There were actually multiple wires crossed, with Massively OP originally calling our forums the City of Titans forums (undoubtedly because Justin has put out several entries lately on City of Titans, saw something CoH-related, and probably just typed it up out of habit).  Point is, there was never any malice or ulterior motives going on, just a bit of confusion.

So anyway, whether you've come here from Massively OP or just follow the forums on your own, throw out some questions, and we'll prevail upon the good graces (and the ability to make time) of Matt to answer them.  Carry on!

[ukaserex]

In the Magisterium trial, it's a little fuzzy, but I recall seeing Tyrant during the initial "Defeat 250 IDF", before  Chimera, Nega-Pendragon and Shadowhunter make their appearance. Was this an Easter-egg, or part of the story line? Could he have been defeated at that time if engaged? I could never get to him fast enough to try..

[CzarBal]

Who is Black Heart and why are all the hospitals in the Rogue Isles named after him/her/it?

[Captain Electric]

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[Jaybonaut]

What questions could people still have?  We have their lore bible and have several years of questions answered, so I'm curious.

[Blackout]

What questions could people still have?  We have their lore bible and have several years of questions answered, so I'm curious.

;D I still have plenty, although I'd imagine the Developers wouldn't continue the AMA simply for the sake of my curiosity, but this thread has already proven that others have questions.
Speaking of how bout another Question?  :P

What Exactly were the pilots within the Nemesis War-hulks supposed to be? They almost look like Black Suit spider-man if he was mummified. Are they automatons? Was there any particular reason that the pilot needed to be in a tank of liquid? Or was it purely for the awesome factor (They are awesomely designed by the way.)

Also a bit more of an out of game question; Was Hero One ever considered as a candidate to replace Statesman after his death? I know Tyrant was considered, but I figured Hero One might have been a quite likely option considering he's established to be (Roughly) on the Statesman's power level (He is an incarnate after all) and in addition to that whilst he is tainted by the Rikti, he is also very much still alive.

[Aggelakis]

What questions could people still have?  We have their lore bible and have several years of questions answered, so I'm curious.

Did you even read the thread? You already have examples of questions.

[Aggelakis]

Removed a bunch of posts that had nothing to do with brainstorming questions for the AMA.

[SilverDemon66]

What sort of future power sets/power proliferations were in store for us for the upcoming issues?

[Rejolt]

What was the thinking behind the proposed Electric Hammer set? I'm curious because coh's strength came from the sheer number of different flavors you got to attack the same content with. EH never happened but paragon studios did a wonderful job of making each new set standout without (much) power creep.

Did you ever come up with a storyline and think: "ok, we need x power if we're going to write it like that..."

[OminousVoice]

According to lore, the giant hero Talos is entombed beneath his namesake zone. Did you ever consider unearthing him as part of a zone event/plot/arc/thingy?