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The Gadroon - Qularr War

bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User
The issue of new content for this game comes up frequently, but most players are probably aware by now that the Champions Online developers currently have limited resources, and aren't really in a position to create all-new zones or mobs of new characters. The new Qliphothic Warzone just announced is an example of the devs trying to add new content by adapting existing material. In looking forward to potential future projects along similar lines, I would like to bring up something that's already part of the official background of the setting, which could be expanded on in Champions Online with little to no original creations.

As described in their respective chapters in the PnP source book, Champions Beyond, the Qularr and Gadroon are currently at war, although no human on Champions Earth is yet aware of it. The Terrestrial theater of this war is at the moment in a "cold" state, with both sides gathering intelligence and monitoring each other. What if that were suddenly to heat up?

The Gadroon could attack the Qularr base on Monster Island; the Qularr could retaliate against the Gadroon in northern Canada (or vice versa). Both alien civilizations ultimately plan to conquer Earth for their own purposes, so the attacks could spill into other areas of those zones as each side tries to seize territory. Any of the other factions in either zone could be drawn into the conflict, to defend themselves, to help defend Earth from the aliens, or allying themselves with one or another of the invaders.

The climax of the conflict could be the meeting of the Qularr and Gadroon armies and fleets... at Millennium City. (Convenient, I know, but comic books are full of such improbable "coincidences.") ;) PC heroes may be called in to help defend "good guy" forces at any of these locations. The action can be staged using existing zones and factions, but in combinations never seen in the game before. And as revealed in Champions Beyond, there's an even bigger player behind this war with plans of its own, which could be hinted at or revealed as part of missions or in the aftermath, as desired.

How does the community feel about this? Is it something you'd be interested in? If so, how would you suggest it play out?

Comments

  • soulforgersoulforger Posts: 1,649 Arc User
    I like this idea a lot, wouldn't require much work, just copying locations. But, I guess this would happen only if the new zone is a hit.
  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Posts: 4,915 Arc User
    or maybe riff off of the Nightmare invasion and just throw mobs at us like confetti. :p
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  • beerbanebeerbane Posts: 197 Arc User
    edited August 2016
    I like this idea a lot - particularly if we get to continually fire Ironclad out of a cannon (would be a fun callback to the tutorial).

    Edit: I'm still vague on the lore, but in the broad strokes Qlarr are organic/hive oriented technology and Gadroon use a lot of force field technology? Would either of them have something that could be cobbled into a raid boss like the Nightmare Collossi from the Invasion event? Giant Mech or Dinosaur-sized insect thing?
    Post edited by beerbane on
  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Posts: 4,915 Arc User
    You could fight a space ship. They have those.

    Maybe for extra fun throw in the Roin'esh? Those guys are... interesting and not seen often.
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  • battybattybatsbattybattybats Posts: 777 Arc User
    I LOVE this idea!
    It's a great bit of lore and there's great designs already.
    It'd really add a nice opportunity for player vehicle vs enemy vehicle combat fighting Qularr and Gadroon ships in great locations (Don't forget the desert!). Each fleet would have big Motherships that'd make for great bossfights.
    Rewards could include the Alien Organic weapons that haven't been available to unlock for a looooong time as you used to unlock them by equipping power-replace items. And there were a lot of those alien weapons that have never been available but were modeled as they are in the hideout tailor displays! The existing Alien Organic weapons could be unlocked for the other powers as is excellently becoming the standard for weapon costumes (submachine gun, sniper rifle, energy weapons) and the costume pieces on the Qularr not yet available to players and the ones stuck on only being available for one gender could be unlocked.

    It'd be great to let players get hold of the super-cool Qularr and Gadroon vehicle designs and i'm sure the team could come up with some simple and cool variants too. (Might i suggest a free 'damaged' appearance version of each as characters take over damaged vehicles to take the fight to the skies as well as the z-store for standard versions with lockbox/drifter/questionite variants). I love the free Qularr Ship action figure in the first time buyer pack (even with it's bug of sliding slightly in the ground instead of flying about like the helicopter AFs) and would dearly love to have my Bio-Soldier characters flying round in one-person-size Qularr scoutships! Fighting these in the air would also be very cool. In the invasion the ships fly above, drop some troops off, but dogfighting with them with our own vehicles would be so much fun (like with the Exocets in the Lemurian Invasion).

    The Champions Beyond book has a host of extra detail that would allow for expanding each faction too, though this could likely all get done with existing models and locations which is neat.

    The other thing i really like is the idea of an event that would encourage fighting in more than one location. It'd have parts in Millenium City but the dailies could include travelling to Canada, the Desert and Monster Island. And can have some quite varied mission types. That'd be really cool and break up the monotony that farming an event can end up with.

    If they went all-in they could even allow players to back one side more than the other, support Gadroon or Qularr, put two different currencies and rewards up, one pro-Qularr the other pro-Gadroon.

    Why if we really go for broke the rewards could include a Hideout. Gadroon Qularr and Roin'esh all have some great interior and exterior decor items and Qularr and Roin'esh have those awesome interiors in some missions. A re-skinned moonbase or basement or cave using those furnishings and walls... yeah that'd be amazing.
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  • roughbearmattachroughbearmattach Posts: 4,784 Arc User
    Oh yes!

    A sci-fi themed series of missions would be very welcome. Many folks would love the prospect of battling alien invaders in a big event.
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  • bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User
    edited October 2016
    I'm gratified to see the suggestion has been positively received; and the proposals you guys have made would add a lot. Battybattybats, I appreciate all the thought you put into yours. :)

    Beerbane, I apologize for missing this question and not responding earlier:
    beerbane said:

    Edit: I'm still vague on the lore, but in the broad strokes Qlarr are organic/hive oriented technology and Gadroon use a lot of force field technology? Would either of them have something that could be cobbled into a raid boss like the Nightmare Collossi from the Invasion event? Giant Mech or Dinosaur-sized insect thing?

    Most of the giant monsters on Monster Island were created or imported by the Qularr for their first invasion of Earth in 1965. Such creatures are a well-established component of their military. The MI menagerie is only the survivors; other bizarre gigantic beasts were killed by Earth's defenders during the invasion. The Qularr also built the enormous robotic pseudo-therapod, Mega-Terak, to help keep their biological monsters under control. So there's plenty of precedent not only for them to regain control of the MI monsters, but to bring in all-new horrors for an event like we're discussing.

    As written in Champions Beyond the Gadroon haven't typically made use of mecha, but they definitely have the technology to make some if desired (although since the destruction of their home-world their manufacturing capabilities are limited). OTOH the lore does describe "super-class" combatants among their forces, with special technology and training, who haven't been seen in the game yet. Those include the unique soldiers, Commander and Sky-Knight, the Gadroon equivalent of Captain America and Iron Man respectively; and the rare but powerful AVAR-7 combat androids, with abilities not unlike those of Marvel Comics' Vision.
  • bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User
    edited October 2016


    The other thing i really like is the idea of an event that would encourage fighting in more than one location. It'd have parts in Millenium City but the dailies could include travelling to Canada, the Desert and Monster Island. And can have some quite varied mission types. That'd be really cool and break up the monotony that farming an event can end up with.

    If they went all-in they could even allow players to back one side more than the other, support Gadroon or Qularr, put two different currencies and rewards up, one pro-Qularr the other pro-Gadroon.

    Why if we really go for broke the rewards could include a Hideout. Gadroon Qularr and Roin'esh all have some great interior and exterior decor items and Qularr and Roin'esh have those awesome interiors in some missions. A re-skinned moonbase or basement or cave using those furnishings and walls... yeah that'd be amazing.

    I don't know why I didn't think of using more of the other locations in the game. But this conflict is potentially global, so could go almost anywhere. Since both alien civilizations are spaceborne, it could even spill onto Gateway or Moonbase Serenity.
  • jaazaniah1jaazaniah1 Posts: 5,424 Arc User
    Could be used as an excuse to add more mods to the store. Seems like sci-fi stuff would be the best way to introduce mods that buff particle damages, for example. Might also be a chance to add some defense mods that are worthy having. Does anyone use any of the new defensive mods?
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  • corniviccornivic Posts: 199 Arc User
    I like this idea, all new missions would be nice.... I bet it wont be solo-able....
  • roughbearmattachroughbearmattach Posts: 4,784 Arc User
    bulgarex said:


    Since both alien civilizations are spaceborne, it could even spill onto Gateway or Moonbase Serenity.

    Imagine an expanded space-zone with low gravity to fight the aliens--Imagine it!!
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  • themightyzeniththemightyzenith Posts: 4,599 Arc User
    There could also be a possibility here to introduce the Star Guardians. They could help us in the battle.

    Hey, I can dream, can't I :)
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  • battybattybatsbattybattybats Posts: 777 Arc User
    The Mechanon event gave us a great little taste of Champions in space, a fully fleshed out space zone might take a while to build, but perhaps something like this might be a great way of building it in little bits, slowly expanding. Certainly giving us a bit more to do up there would be great!

    Perhaps the Gadroon Vs Qularr war coming to earth could be built up in stages too. Rather than one big thing a series of them with some foreshadowing (well, more foreshadowing as the game already builds this up if people read the lore perk stuff) would be cool and it'd be nice for a longer chain of missions that would feel more epic.

    Something like:
    Mysterious Disappearances mission: An investigation one like the Nighthawk one, with some dialogue and interaction. Some key citizens in Millennium City have disappeared your hero goes first to their workplace for clues, then to their home, finding evidence they were a holographically disguised Gadroon or brain-chip controlled Qularr agent. After a couple or few of these it becomes clear: The spies of each side are starting to be found and taken out.

    Break-in at Champions HQ, someone steals some alien tech housed in the Champions building. Players fight their minions and partially foil the robbery.

    Trouble in Area 51, researchers from two different hangars are attacking one another! Each has been influenced by a piece of mind-control tech snuck into the alien technology they've been reverse-engineering. It turns out to be a super-villain who has predicted the coming conflict and wanted to steal what they could beforehand to give themselves an edge to survive.

    A daily could involve a ship from the opposing faction showing up at: the terraformed part of canada, the crash site in the desert, the site in Monster Island and drops off a small squad that start attacking the other side and hovers adding some shots from above. The open missions in those areas could have some better rewards added perhaps.

    It could ramp up from there adding some new fights into somewhat empty areas. Find an empty spot in Canada or the Desert, have a group of fighter craft in each and some infantry on the ground and have them clashing.

    Next thing you know there's a giant monster rampaging through that Gadroon area in Millenium City and both Gadroon and Qularr are attacking the Champions HQ for the rest of the tech there.

    UNTIL or some specific organisation launches a series of attacks on various underground bases of each faction, players get to choose which one they do, Gadroon or Qularr, when they get there the other side is already attacking, great opportunity for some cutscenes as an alien commander explains a bit of their sides motives before the bossfight.

    Then it's up to the space station for a series of battles and a big fleet clash between the earth and moon with an obligatory doomsday weapon or two (one per side perhaps) so players can get that 'Saved The Earth' feeling, hmm that or a variant could make for a great perk Title! The mission could start with fighting their way through mostly Qularr fighters, blow a hole in the side of the new Qularr mothership, fight through it's insides with it's gravity going on and off then deactivate the biological plague weapon that kills humans and gadroon but not Qularr, then the Gadroon prepare to unleash their mass-terraformer weapon so it's fight through their fleet into their mothership and take that out, while getting more terrible hints about the Empress.

    Finally at the very end, just to be a bit poetic and bring you back 'down to earth', you rescue Reggie the Cat for Martha, stuck up a tree after being scared by all the big explosions. ;)

    The flying vehicle dogfights and giant monster beatdowns might also make for some more variety in Rampage alerts, particularly having some more that work well with vehicles and fun vehicle gameplay. I find the lemurian invasion exocet component such fun because it involves more chasing around in the air whereas the skycarrier battle is more hovering in place. The tutorial having qularr scoutships flying past is always a superb atmospheric visual, an event-mission-turned-alert that involved those and Gadroon weaving through the desert canyons or trees of Monster Island could get a lot more motion in and be a lot of fun as alerts go.

    Items players could get which shouldn't be too hard would include the existing costume pieces (especially the Alien Organic munitions and melee weapons you can't get the unlocks for anymore and those you never could that i'm always on about), existing Qularr/Gadroon devices, unlimited versions of those devices, vehicles, summon qularr/gadroon devices, temporary and permanant Gadroon, Qularr, Firebug and Overseer sidekick, action figures (Champions Beyond says that Firebugs can come in different colours, so throwing in a couple colour variants of those would be cool) and maybe some Star Guardians stuff :)
    ___________________________________
    While she has been rescued
    what diabolical mastermind
    was behind the devious brain-napping of
    the Volterrific Dr Cerebellum?
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