Author Topic: Lore AMA 2014  (Read 41137 times)

Felderburg

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Lore AMA 2014
« on: February 06, 2014, 06:10:10 PM »




So after the first Lore AMA was posted in September of 2012, there was a second installment released on City of Heroes' ninth anniversary in 2013. Positron said he would keep making AMAs every anniversary as long as the questions kept coming - and I bet there's still a lot of questions out there! Positron has been made aware of this thread by Captain Electric, and says: "Tell them I plan on doing it a bit differently this year. Doc will only be up for a short window." We assume that means that there will once again be an open Google Doc to post questions in, so bear in mind that this thread is only a place to gather thoughts - there will most likely be an official Google Doc to post them in later!

We don't know what will be different about this year's AMA, but it doesn't hurt to be prepared. So start gathering your thoughts and posting things you may want to know about in this thread! Part of being prepared means reading the previous Lore AMAs, and making sure we don't ask duplicate questions. Obviously you can ask follow ups or ask for an expanded answer, but the second Lore AMA actually had a few duplicates, and hopefully we can avoid that this year.

I went through and collected in the second post here questions that were not properly answered (either because the relevant dev wasn't available or the answer was lacking) as well as general opinion type questions that few devs have answered so far.

For more information on the Lore AMA, and the previously answered questions, the wiki page is here: http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Lore_AMA It contains the text of both AMAs, as well as links to their original google docs. You'll have to click "show" for each one, but once you do, the questions are in bold, and you can always use "ctrl + f" to try and find things that may be relevant to you.
« Last Edit: April 28, 2014, 03:32:12 PM by Felderburg »
I used CIT before they even joined the Titan network! But then I left for a long ol' time, and came back. Now I edit the wiki.

I'm working on sorting the Lore AMAs so that questions are easily found and linked: http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Lore_AMA/Sorted Tell me what you think!

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Felderburg

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Re: Lore AMA 2014 Questions
« Reply #1 on: February 06, 2014, 06:10:23 PM »
« Last Edit: April 17, 2014, 09:00:30 PM by Felderburg »
I used CIT before they even joined the Titan network! But then I left for a long ol' time, and came back. Now I edit the wiki.

I'm working on sorting the Lore AMAs so that questions are easily found and linked: http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Lore_AMA/Sorted Tell me what you think!

Pinnacle: The only server that faceplants before a fight! Member of the Pinnacle RP Congress (People's Elf of the CCCP); formerly @The Holy Flame

Captain Electric

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Re: Lore AMA 2014 Questions
« Reply #2 on: February 06, 2014, 06:48:29 PM »
Bear in mind this thread is only a place to gather your thoughts. When Posi posts the Google document, you'll have to post your questions there.

Before posting, PLEASE LOOK TO SEE IF YOUR QUESTIONS HAVE ALREADY BEEN ASKED in the previous two AMAs. There is a link in the OP. No one is asking you to read the full documents before asking a question. The questions are in bold so it's easy to skim through. The documents are also searchable.

I sent Posi a message about this. ;D

Captain Electric

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Re: Lore AMA 2014 Questions
« Reply #3 on: February 06, 2014, 06:57:58 PM »
Positron said: "Tell them I plan on doing it a bit differently this year. Doc will only be up for a short window."

So it might be a REALLY good idea to use this thread to gather your thoughts.

Xieveral

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Re: Lore AMA 2014 Questions - Please Read OP!
« Reply #4 on: February 06, 2014, 10:27:09 PM »
Quote
Hugo Figures and Agent Gally. Were they ever going to be successful in liberating the Bane Spider network? If not, what ultimately happens to them?

Considering they were an homage to the manga Gunnm the outcome and would probably be similar to its story... which had a fairly stupid conclusion IMO >:(

Spoiler for Hidden:
Ending in the style of the original series:

In an effort to save Hugo and take out the BSN, Gally becomes an Arachnos agent. She is tasked with hunting down a rogue scientist with a fetish for flan and karma that has been developing his own bootleg version of the BSN. Stuff happens, Prof. flan reveals he is a former bane spider, Gally is outed as a spy.

Gally is assassinated then revived by Prof. flan for karmatic research purposes. More Prof. flan shenanigans ensue and the Bane Spider network has gone nuts and infiltrated a base on the moon. Prof. flan claims to be on her side and Gally reluctantly joins Prof. Flan in an effort to take it down. This is a precursor to the moon base patch.

She succeeds in taking out the BSN but in doing so the moon base poses a threat to Earth, and to save it she must sacrifice herself. The moon base turns into a giant space lotus because karma. Prof. flan is a senile living flowerpot that occasionally regains his senses and performs experiments to revive Gally who has fused with the base.

Meanwhile, Hugo never stopped searching for her and years later somehow made it to the moon along with a kid she used to babysit. They chase Prof. flowerpot down a chute and find a pod containing Gally. Thanks to the wonders of nanomachines powered by flan and karma, Gally was revived and lived happily ever after.

Ending in the style of Last Order:

Stuff happened, Gally ends up at the moon base in a future patch.

Thanks to a has-been cybercriminal and a vampire with mad wushu skills, she took down the Bane Spider network from the inside out. At some point between meeting those guys and taking out the network, she learned she had actually died on earth in an assassination attempt and was really an android built by a rogue scientist that had an unhealthy obsession with flan and karma. She became a catgirl and did some soul searching in a drawn out space karate tournament then left for mars.

Meanwhile, Hugo never stopped searching for her and somehow made it to the moon along with her dad and a kid she used to babysit. After a game of deadly space chess against Prof. flan, they retrieve her brain from a tank. Thanks to the wonders of 3D print technology Gally was revived from brains and leftover flan and lived happily ever after.

Robo-gally's story to be continued in a future patch. Some speculate that the story will focus on a Council base on Mars.
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LaughingAlex

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Re: Lore AMA 2014 Questions - Please Read OP!
« Reply #5 on: February 06, 2014, 11:07:21 PM »
Were we going to encounter the Talons of vengeance or even knives of vengeance more?  What about the knives of artemis, what direction were you guys going with them after the destruction of their then-taken-over-by-the-knives of vengeance dojo?

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JKPhage

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Re: Lore AMA 2014 Questions
« Reply #6 on: February 09, 2014, 06:02:40 AM »

Felderburg

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Re: Lore AMA 2014 Questions - Please Read OP!
« Reply #7 on: February 09, 2014, 04:25:01 PM »
« Last Edit: February 09, 2014, 08:46:49 PM by Felderburg »
I used CIT before they even joined the Titan network! But then I left for a long ol' time, and came back. Now I edit the wiki.

I'm working on sorting the Lore AMAs so that questions are easily found and linked: http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Lore_AMA/Sorted Tell me what you think!

Pinnacle: The only server that faceplants before a fight! Member of the Pinnacle RP Congress (People's Elf of the CCCP); formerly @The Holy Flame

Angel Phoenix77

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Re: Lore AMA 2014 Questions - Please Read OP!
« Reply #8 on: February 10, 2014, 09:09:57 PM »
my question  would be was there any plans for free to play players to play the new missions instead of paying for them?
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Kaos Arcanna

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Re: Lore AMA 2014 Questions - Please Read OP!
« Reply #9 on: February 10, 2014, 09:55:38 PM »
I was a little bummed by the idea of the Rikti going extinct. For the most part, they weren't EVIL, just victims of a colossal con job.

JKPhage

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Re: Lore AMA 2014 Questions - Please Read OP!
« Reply #10 on: February 17, 2014, 06:48:29 PM »
Thanks for the links Felderburg! I was unaware that old story bible had been released! Will have to go check that out. There goes my week, haha. I knew we had a good chunk of information regarding the "Angels" so I just wanted to make sure we didn't end up tossing out a question that we essentially had an answer to already. If someone wanted to ask for more specific clarification about them, that'd be another story though.

I was a little bummed by the idea of the Rikti going extinct. For the most part, they weren't EVIL, just victims of a colossal con job.

I don't know that the Rikti would have gone extinct per se. Knowing how the devs operate we'd probably have all the Rikti on their home planet wiped out and we'd end up with ANOTHER wave of refugees (after Praetorian Earth) pouring into Paragon, though this time from Rikti Earth, or rather, whatever Rikti were currently on Primal Earth being stuck there due to the annihilation of their home. I could very easily see that spinning into a whole series of story arcs with some kind of "Purist" movement on earth that's ticked off that we're turning into the multiverses homeless shelter, especially when those refugees are from groups that were previously doing their damndest to kill us. Plenty potential there.

saipaman

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Re: Lore AMA 2014 Questions - Please Read OP!
« Reply #11 on: February 18, 2014, 02:57:23 AM »
I was a little bummed by the idea of the Rikti going extinct. For the most part, they weren't EVIL, just victims of a colossal con job.

And that might be the basis for a future task force / strike force.  One to save them and one to damn them.

Arcana

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Re: Lore AMA 2014 Questions - Please Read OP!
« Reply #12 on: February 20, 2014, 06:30:51 AM »
The AMA does have two conflicting answers about the power of the True Rikti. In one, Positron says it's Tyrant -> Battalion -> Dimensionless -> True Rikti, in another it's True Rikti -> "Rogue" Dimensionless.
Probably because such things tend to be in flux until they get pinned down by an issue design decision.

Quote
It's my opinion that the Dimensionless would be more powerful, given that based on the answers, the Battalion as well as the True Rikti are not inter-dimensional beings (they are interstellar, however, and according to the story bible that's actually much harder than crossing dimensions (not that that's easy either)). But I guess that's sort of open to interpretation, depending on how advanced the True Rikti would have been. However, the Dimensionless exist outside of time / space and created the Wells of power, so the True Rikti would have to be ridiculous, in my opinion, to beat that.
That would have been my guess also, although either way it opens the door to serious questions about how to meld the obvious power creep of the storyline and the almost impossible task of representing that level of power in-game.  In fact, if I remember to do so, that would probably be my question for LoreAMA2014: how did the devs plan to represent "galactic empire" levels of power followed by the "trans-incarnate power of the dimensionless."  We had pretty ridiculous levels of power in the incarnate system up to I24 already, and maximum incarnate power was still several slots away.  Power intended to be not just a little higher, but completely transcendent to that would have basically required handing out admin access to the servers to everyone that finished the Dimensionless Strike Force.  That seems very challenging from a game design perspective, short of just punting the problem entirely and handwaving it away.  Which I know practically every lore-commenter on the forums would have ripped on (I'd probably be one of them myself).

As an aside, rereading the AMAs its amusing to note that I got a surprising number of things kinda close in the Immortal Game event backstory, among the several glaring things I got totally wrong about the (at the time unreleased) backstory of the game.  Its amusing because at the time I thought how I wanted things to go seemed so totally out of sync with how the devs tended to script the backstory and cosmology of the game.

Felderburg

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Re: Lore AMA 2014 Questions - Please Read OP!
« Reply #13 on: February 20, 2014, 04:18:44 PM »
Thanks for the links Felderburg! I was unaware that old story bible had been released! Will have to go check that out. There goes my week, haha.

I know, right? I still haven't sat down and read through it all - just pieces I happened to be interested in at certain times.

I don't know that the Rikti would have gone extinct per se. Knowing how the devs operate we'd probably have all the Rikti on their home planet wiped out and we'd end up with ANOTHER wave of refugees (after Praetorian Earth) pouring into Paragon, though this time from Rikti Earth, or rather, whatever Rikti were currently on Primal Earth being stuck there due to the annihilation of their home. I could very easily see that spinning into a whole series of story arcs with some kind of "Purist" movement on earth that's ticked off that we're turning into the multiverses homeless shelter, especially when those refugees are from groups that were previously doing their damndest to kill us. Plenty potential there.

There's a answer in the AMA that sounded like that was actually planned for the Rikti, but then the refugee thing got implemented for Praetorians instead. I do like the "purist" storyline idea.
I used CIT before they even joined the Titan network! But then I left for a long ol' time, and came back. Now I edit the wiki.

I'm working on sorting the Lore AMAs so that questions are easily found and linked: http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Lore_AMA/Sorted Tell me what you think!

Pinnacle: The only server that faceplants before a fight! Member of the Pinnacle RP Congress (People's Elf of the CCCP); formerly @The Holy Flame

Felderburg

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Re: Lore AMA 2014 Questions - Please Read OP!
« Reply #14 on: March 13, 2014, 03:16:34 PM »
Just an FYI, a little while ago I started trying to sort the AMA questions by topic: http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Lore_AMA/Sorted I don't know if that will help people, but it was something I wanted to do.

Also, doesn't anyone else have any questions? Or are they being saved for the "official doc" to go up?
I used CIT before they even joined the Titan network! But then I left for a long ol' time, and came back. Now I edit the wiki.

I'm working on sorting the Lore AMAs so that questions are easily found and linked: http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Lore_AMA/Sorted Tell me what you think!

Pinnacle: The only server that faceplants before a fight! Member of the Pinnacle RP Congress (People's Elf of the CCCP); formerly @The Holy Flame

Golden Girl

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Re: Lore AMA 2014 Questions - Please Read OP!
« Reply #15 on: March 13, 2014, 09:11:53 PM »
These are the 3 questions I'd be msot interested in getting answers to:

1 - Did Katie Douglas survive the destruction of Praetoria - and if she did, was she going to appear in any further content?

2 - Where exactly was Kallisti Wharf located?

3 - Which zone would the shuttle to the moon-base have been in?
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Little David

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Re: Lore AMA 2014 Questions - Please Read OP!
« Reply #16 on: March 15, 2014, 04:53:19 AM »
There was something I remember I wanted to ask for AMA 2014, but I can't find the AMA 2013 thread to verify what it was ...

Blondeshell

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Re: Lore AMA 2014 Questions - Please Read OP!
« Reply #17 on: March 15, 2014, 01:03:37 PM »
There was something I remember I wanted to ask for AMA 2014, but I can't find the AMA 2013 thread to verify what it was ...

Magic, I say. Sheer magic!

Little David

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Re: Lore AMA 2014 Questions - Please Read OP!
« Reply #18 on: March 15, 2014, 06:17:51 PM »

Peacemaker

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Re: Lore AMA 2014 Questions - Please Read OP!
« Reply #19 on: March 16, 2014, 03:00:01 AM »
Within the first novel "The Web of Arachnos" written by Robert Weinberg and if memory serves me right, the Furies lived in Paragon City with Marcus Cole.  Were there every any plans to make them part of the game as NPCs?