Darin Johnson <darin@usa.net> looked up from reading the entrails of the
porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the signs say:

>On Aug 29, 2:03 pm, Amigoid <lbrown-amig...@comcast.net> wrote:
>> A lot of players get routed through the Hollows.
>
>Luckily, my friend was questing there at the same
>time. He claimed it was harder than it actually was.
>He went into some mission with 4 other players and
>they all got killed, but when we did it with two it
>was pretty straight forward. The hard part was the
>"kill 10 trolls" and such, where they're outside, in
>large groups much higher level than I am. Getting to
>the missions involved just running blindly in the
>direction of the arrow trying to avoid any hostiles
>and not get trapped. It felt wrong to play this way.

You don't actually have to do any Hollows missions, although, since it
was a later addition, it has a unified story arc that is kinda neat, but
a bit of a pain.

Your second contact will generally send you to see Wincott in the
Hollows, but you can circumvent this by just going there and talking to
him once before getting the second contact.

It used to be that everyone was sent to Perez Park, but now it's the
Hollows - the hollows is actually easier over all in my opinion since
it's more spread out.

>> but even if I don't, there are always the
>> Police Scanner missions.
>
>What is this?

It's a retrofit to coh.
When CoV was released it had a different contact system in that contacts
did refer you to new contacts but only in the same zone. When you went
to a new zone (starting with Port Oakes) you saw a broker and did
newspaper missions. Once you had done enough news missions the broker
sent you on a mayhem mission and on the completion of that you got a
contact.

Starting in Kings Row you'll have a detective contact in each zone that
will give safeguard missions (the reverse of a mayhem) and instead of
newspaper ads it's a police radio you are getting these random missions
from.
You have to visit the first detective to get the radio, and radio
missions will appear in your contact list at the top.

I bind it to n instead of going through the contact list (and this
really shows it's a retrofit, since the window is called newspaper as it
is in CoV. /bind n "newspaper")

In CoH it's actually quite easy to forget the radio exists, since it's a
retrofit and contacts pass you to other contacts.

But it's a good idea to do them, because on successful completion (the
first time) you get bonus temp powers.
Atlas safeguard gives you a sky raider jet pack good for 90 minutes of
use, KR safeguard gives a jump pack (like superjump) for 90 minutes,
etc.

>> I think the Negotiators badge comes with breaking up a rumble between
>> the rival street gangs.
>
>But how do you get this mission chain, and do you
>get it "normally". That is, do I have to go to the
>web and look up documentation, or will my contacts
>lead me there naturally, or am I expected to bump
>into this person while wandering around aimlessly
>and think "I wonder what happens if I talk to
>this guy"?

It's a normal mission chain, and it's between skulls and clockwork as I
recall (did it just the other day on my new controller.)

>So far, all the missions feel very strongly like
>they're random, sort of like Daggerfall style.
>There's no back story, minimal information given,
>no clues or hints, and so far it's all "kill X
>guys" or "kill all guys inside this building" or
>"kill all guys in this building and click on 4
>things while there".

Most of the older missions are very much like this, but there are story
arcs - chains of missions that have a story to them.
These are indicated by a sort of scroll/book logo that appears on the
contact window after you do the first mission of one.
Faultline has a bunch of these that are intertwined.

>I want to play as if the game is going to lead
>me along correctly, and I'll get appropriate
>encounters and see a sizable portion of the
>game's backstory and "content". That's the role
>playing side of me. But I'm worried that I have
>to break out and search the web before doing
>anything, lest I miss out on interesting content,
>and that turns the game into a boring tactical
>simulator instead of an immersive role playing
>game. (granted, most MMO players only want
>the tactical stuff)

Just playing along normally will run you through the storylines - the
only way to miss it is to street hunt (as the power levelers do) instead
of doing contacts.

>I don't want to have to do this, to check badge
>sites to find the name of the person to talk to.
>If doing this mission is considered a "normal"
>part of the gaming experience, then I also expect
>to run into it naturally. If this is just a
>neat-o easter-egg mission that most players never
>discover, then I'm happy skipping it.

The only thing you really need to visit sites for is badge locations and
other metagaming stuff.
Some of the mission badges, like the spelunker badge for the rescue
fortuneteller mission are requisites for accolades that have nice
effects.
Playing normally will generally run you into these missions anyway, but
it's possible to miss some if you level too fast.
Even then you can always group with someone else who has that mission
and get it that way.

Xocyll
--
I don't particularly want you to FOAD, myself. You'll be more of
a cautionary example if you'll FO And Get Chronically, Incurably,
Painfully, Progressively, Expensively, Debilitatingly Ill. So
FOAGCIPPEDI. -- Mike Andrews responding to an idiot in asr