Drama in the Isles

One of the thing I missed in the first year I played the game, which for me consisted of leveling almost exclusively, was the complexity of some of the mission story lines. On teams, we did whoever had that highest level mission. If it was mine, I clicked, "Accept this mission," or whatever, and never read further than that. Clues were things I wished other members of the team had, not something to read to figure out the next step in the story arc.

I've gotten the chance to pick up things that I missed previously, but a great illustration of some of the more interesting stories are the Vanguard missions in the RWZ. I hadn't really done any until the night before last when Fyre Hex and Keen Stronghold tagged along with Vagabond Mage on a few.

(Spoilers if you haven't done the RWZ missions!)

And what did we find out? Vanguard is crooked. And so is Longbow. Wait, we knew that second part already. But, anyway. And, okay, not all of Vanguard. Just a faction that doesn't like the Rikti peace negotiations, and plots the assassination of Lady Grey (which they managed! That was a stupid place to hide a hostage. And they killed her as soon as we got close, and damn! Is she squishy, or what?). Longbow has an entire huge base that they've been using to spy on Vanguard. They're none too happy when a group of heroes come in, sniffing around the base. In one mission, you end up fighting Longbow AND Vanguard, as a hero. (And Vanguard are tough as hell, by the way.)

Vagabond took it all in stride. He was a little surprised, but if anyone could claim to have seen it all before, it would be Vagz. Poor Stronghold was crushed. He'd been working with Longbow of late, and specifically with one of the Longbow lieutenants (Who has some sort of African name that I won't even attempt. Sufi something, maybe) that you initially fight along side in one of the earlier missions, and then you have to defeat in a later mission. After he was defeated, Stronghold knelt by his side until the hospital teleporter took him away. He told Vagz and Fyre that part of his work was to steal technology from Vanguard. He hadn't understood all of his job, but now that he'd seen the listening post and what Longbow was doing to and with Vanguard, it made sense. And he wasn't happy about it.

For Fyre, it just reinforced her idea that no one is trustworthy. She wasn't surprised that Longbow was on the wrong side, again. After what they've done to E and Jen, she has a hard time believing that anyone in Longbow is really one of the good guys. Vanguard, though, is supposed to be above things like that. They're supposed to be the ones who put aside petty concerns and protect the world from its biggest threat, the Rikti. Finding betrayal there of all places shattered one of the few illusions she had left. It made her angry. And getting the crap beat out of her by them didn't help in the least.

A little aside here. I'll admit, I sometimes play Fyre like a kamikaze. This is mostly just a game-mechanics stance, and not a character trait. Mostly. But, if death is coming, that's okay. If someone has to die, I'll try to get her to take one for the team. She's 50. Debt is just another badge. While her health goes down, Defiance goes up. It doesn't really kick in until the health bar is red. She's going to get a few good shots in, and if she does die, she has a self-rez, which also has the benefit of stunning and knocking back everything around her.

So, Vanguard killed her a lot. She was hurt and angry, and it was just a matter of time before she started taking it out on someone. Poor Captain Piett gave her the perfect opening, but Captain Piett's tough enough that he wasn't putting up with it, and shut her down pretty quick. (Which is why I love Captain Piett. I love tough guys, I admit it. And, hey, you gotta be pretty tough to hang with Fyre, especially now.) Unfortunately, Mason chose just that minute to join them. I almost felt bad for Mason, walking into that. I warned the player, but we all (players and characters) knew it was just a matter of time before Fyre and Mason got into it. And they did. But Mason wasn't in the mood to fight, much.

Fyre has a bad habit of forgetting all the things that Mason has done to her, and those around her. She wants to believe that he's not a bad person, and it usually works for awhile, until he tries to kill her, tries to get someone else to kill her, admits how much he wants to kill her, tries to hand over a little girl to an evil mastermind.... stuff like that. Even through Mason's impression of a psycho serial killer, she's been able to talk to and joke with him. She needed to remind herself that he'd kill her or betray her at a moment's notice. Captain Piett, however, sees Mason only as a threat and didn't need reminded of any of that. Fyre does not like the idea of turning Mason in, because she figures that would reveal her own presence in the Isles. She's not under threat of imprisonment in the Zig, but she hates the things she's doing. She hates the isles and everything about them. (In fact, she actually hates it so much, I'm having a hard time keeping her from finding an exorcist for the demon and hoping the doctors can keep E alive without its help, or just giving in to the inevitable. A real hard time.) She and Mason had a conversation some time ago, where they both claimed to not be heroes. But, Fyre's seeing that she's not a villain, either. The injustices she sees in the Isles make her sick. It's almost killing her to ignore them, or worse, enforce them. She's trying to ignore things, and it works for her for awhile, but it works a little less each time. Captain Piett's matter-of-fact attitude helps her some, too. How much longer can she continue to pull it off, though?

In the middle of a cave Circle of Thorns mission, Mason chose to ask after E. That set Fyre off again. Had he actually cared about E's condition, he'd have chosen a quiet moment to ask. In the midst of fighting, Fyre knows what his real motivation is. He's trying to get her worked up, to make her feel guilty for running around the isles while E suffers the coma in Paragon. She remembers the "maternal" comment that Mason made once before. (See June 1st's post if you need a reminder) She knows he thinks she should never move from her chair next to E's hospital bed, and he wants her to feel guilty for not being there. She was there. She would be there. But sitting in that chair doesn't get anything done, and Fyre is not one to sit idly by when there's something to be done.

Mason leaves to work with Futura eventually, and they all wonder if Star will manage to kill him this time, with various degrees of interest. We ran one of Havoc's mayhem missions with him sk'ed up to Fyre and Will's level. Wow, can we do that again? It was just mass destruction. At one point, we had 36 minutes on the timer, and that was just the biggest amount of time that I actually noticed. Keen got his contact and we all made progress on our Mayhem badges, and had a blast doing it.

Captain Piett wanders off to take care of some business (the player had pesky RL stuff), and Fyre and Havoc are left together. Fyre likes Havoc. The normal definition of "like," not the grade-school-Mason definition of "like." She already sort of knows him through Stronghold, but more from working with him now. Like she told him, even though she worked with Stronghold longer, she feels like she knows Havoc better. Havoc's much more talkative and open. Does she trust him? Probably not, but then, that's standard for her. He makes a comment and winks at her during the mission, but Fyre's pretty oblivious. Men smile at her, and stare at her, and flirt with her (and run up to her in the middle of the street and stand next to her for long periods of time just slowly spinning in a circle). That's just how it is. She doesn't take it personally. She'll smile back and laugh, but she doesn't mean it personally, either, not as encouragement or as rejection. Unless, of course, the person is repellent for some reason or another, then the rejection will be quick and obvious.

Which brings me briefly to Luna. Luna's been thrown into situations that are beyond her. She feels bad for Bomber. She knew Bomb was dead, or at least not quite alive. It really should have been obvious to all of them, but Luna's got a couple of extra senses to pick up on things with, anyway. She doesn't know how to deal with him, though, or even offer sympathy that he would understand or accept. Kain, as far as she's seen, may as well be a robot. He hardly talks, and rarely shows a reaction to much of anything. She does have issues with Ryu. No, I certainly didn't plan it this way. Ryu represents authority, privilege, and a section of society that she not only doesn't have experience with, but resents, for reasons we may or may not get into. She doesn't hate him, she doesn't want to kill him, but she doesn't especially like him. And the demon freaks her out, especially after he gave the "demons should be destroyed" lecture.

I'm not going to call it "angst," yet, but... we have drama, people.

Invasion Pictures, and A Litte Info

Okay. One picture of... Team 3.1? The front guy is the Circle mage we were supposed to "rescue" from the Scrapyarders, who are, by the way, my current least favorite group. "Rescue" is in quotes because even though we freed them from the Scrapyarders guarding them, it didn't matter if they immediately died or not. And they did. Except for this last guy, only because he didn't have to fight anything. While we were there. We left him in the cave. That's Keen Havoc and the Tokyo Trio plus one, and Will's Boys. Out of the shot are Will and Schlachtfeld (and yeah, I had to go to Mason's blog to see how to spell that. German is not a language I'm familiar with.)

In the revamped RWZ, there are "pylons" that have popped up. First of all, don't get close on your own. They are perfectly capable of one-shotting. And they've got *range* There are... eighteen? in the zone. Once all are destroyed, the shields on the mothership will drop. The pylons will reappear after a certain amount of time, so the only way this is accomplished is with multiple teams taking down the pylons.

Once all the plyons are destroyed and the shields drop, welcome to the most chaotic Hami raid you've ever been on. There are TONS of Rikti on the ship. Teams will head toward the center of the ship, hopefully after planting at least one bomb per team. Bombs can be placed in the "duct work" of the ship by destroying "door" placed around the outside of the ship. Once you plant a bomb, RUN. They explode, you know. At least three bombs must be placed to spawn the ship's security chief, who'll appear as a GM with a name I can't remember. Supposedly, once the GM is defeated, there will be access to the inside of the ship. This, however, didn't occur while I was there.

Of course, there's lots more Rikti activity than just in the RWZ. You must be at least level 35 for RWZ, anyway. I saw level 54's on the ship itself. And given that Blaze cycled through over 400k in debt there, I recommend taking a 50, or at the very least a character you don't expect to level quickly. Expect debt.

This is an Invasion in Peregrine Island, while the Rikti were teleporting in. There was some lag during this, but nothing like the first night. I don't know if this was due to the time of day (late afternoon/early evening), that it was a high level zone, or that two days have given the shiny time to wear off, and there just aren't as many people out and about.

Blaze in the center of an Invasion. The nifty new shield graphics still entertain me. Also, the only good monkeys are dead monkeys. (Please, save the PETA warnings. PETA doesn't care about Rikti monkeys.)

A slightly less chaotic phase of the battle. New shields, some crazy invention set wings, and dead monkeys.

Blaze posing with new friends in the RWZ. The guy in the purple on the left is a Vanguard Soldier. The guy on the right is a Vanguard Wizard. (*watches as Vagz drools.)

Which brings up another important point. Some of the Vanguard costume pieces and some other things (which I haven't investigated much yet) are available to players. You can buy these things with Merits. Merits are earned through Vanguard by fighting Rikti. Merits will occasionally drop fighting Rikti during the Invasion cycles. However, EVERY Rikti defeated while on the Mothership will drop a Merit.

VERY IMPORTANT: You must do the first set of Levantera's missions until you get the "Member of Vanguard" badge before you are eligible for Merits.

My first run on the mothership, I must have missed out on hundreds of Merits. After we were teleported off of the ship when the raid failed-- after the GM appeared and resulted in the repeated of deaths of dozens of heroes-- I ran back and did the missions. It's mostly running around and talking to NPCS, and one Defeat 10 Rikti. Very quick.

So I10's... okay. I guess. I'm happier with I10 than I9, at least. The Lady Grey TaskForce does interest me more than most of the other TF's. And repeatable missions in the RWZ make me much happier than repeatable missions in the Shadow Shard. Costume pieces make me happy. No, not inventable wings or boots. There are 2 new costume pieces available that aren't armor. I have one character who might be interested in the Vanguard armor, and she's level 27, and likely to stay there for a good while. So, costume-wise, the issue is disappointing. Am I disappointed with the issue? No. Blaze and Blaster-Fyre will probably be spending a lot of my newly acquired free-time in the RWZ in the next few days. Did I hope for just a little more? Yep.