Aurora_Girl

Had a great run last night! Thanks to everybody for coming out. Wasn't a race, but we did get a bunch of people some levels and had a *very* smooth run.

Man, I have just really pissed a lot of people off, and I couldn't be less concerned about it.

I've stated the reasons I don't like the set. *I* don't like it. I thought this was a "discussion" forum where we could express our opinions and discuss. Yes, I was a little snarky. Yes, I was a little "dismissive" of "all" the people who play villains.

For that I honestly, sincerely apologize. I'm not that type of person, usually. I LOVE getting new content of any kind, because it proves the Paragon team is still investing in the game. This specific thing, which is already going to happen and my expressing my dislike will do nothing to change it, is irrelevant. Zwil and his team take note of how many posts are made, and what the general opinion of things are, so I do feel it's important to pop in and express my opinion of things one way or the other.

If you're happy with hockey masks and chainsaws, go nuts! I'm glad you've gotten what you've asked for and wish you all the best in your future Mad Max-ian endeavors.

I, personally, am not. *shrug* Like you've all (so splendiferously) said OVER AND OVER again, can't please everybody all the time.

"as far as this game is concerned, villains to me are things that get in the way of my heroing"

Maybe I wasn't clear enough. Villains are things I punch/kick/shoot/etc to get them the hell out of my way.

I'm not handwaving anything! It exists! I'm not that dense. I just don't understand the draw of it, is all. Never have. I'm aware there are people who glean great joy from punching kittens and burning down orphanages and all other sorts of tomfoolery, but I'm not one of them.

See, I see these things thusly:

"Doesn't kill, but blasts into an alternate dimension:" of what? Dinosaurs? Parasitic alien bacteria? Is there oxygen? They still might (and odds are good that they do) die.

Evil. Still murder.

I guess it just boils down to my OOC worldview and philosophy on life. I don't understand being mean. I've never been intentionally mean to anyone, ever, because I don't understand how that thinking operates. Selfish? Sure. Lazy? Absolutely, but never mean, or angry, or really confrontational at all. I identify more with heroes, and, frankly, as far as this game is concerned, villains to me are things that get in the way of my heroing.

DISCLAIMER: Yes I know this is a personal feeling for me, and hardly anyone thinks this way. I don't begrudge you your darker thoughts and inclinations, but they are as foreign to me as Sanskrit and this argument will never have a conclusion.

I'm not excusing Phipps at all. It's an outlier, as several people have mentioned.

That's what I'm talking about, though. Phipps' arc is truly evil. Not mischievous, not criminal for the sake of money or power, just straight torturing children evil. No one is saying they want more content like that, right?

Right?

But what the parent does on their side of the game isn't Paragon's problem. The game's rated T, yes, but that doesn't prevent children from playing.

It's an incredibly cyclic issue, I realize.

I guess I really am just a hero at heart then.

Evil and crime are not the same thing, as we've so thoroughly over-discussed. The scariest villains, to me, are ones who truly believe they're doing the right thing.

Robbing a bank isn't evil. Neither is kidnapping. Neither is holding an island hostage for money. It's not nice, or friendly, or anything even remotely good, but it's not evil.

Evil is cold-blooded murder for no other reason than because murder feels good. Evil is torturing a child. Evil is any number of truly dark, terrible things, but blowing up fire hydrants is not one of them. This is not a game for evil, which, again, is why Phipps feels so out of place.

Mission Architect is its own entity; if people want to create their own arcs with the above elements, more power to them but it's not something created and marketed to the customers as a whole.

"Villainy" in this game is just something I don't get, I guess. I understand the "not wanting everything to be about being an Arachnos flunky" and that's fine, just like Heroes are not all expected to be Regulators or a JV-Freedom Phalanx. I get it.

What exactly, though, is "having fun being evil?" Punching kittens? Setting grandma's tea kettle on fire? The (obviously sarcasctic) loosening of salt shakers?

That's not evil. That's mischievous, and last I checked we already have a leprechaun pet.

Sam, I get it. I do. The way you (and others) feel is completely understandable. As a villain, you're either a flunky for hire or you're helping defeat world crises "just because you have to for the greater good." There is a content vacuum, I agree.

However, I'm trying to say that the definitions of "evil and villainous" are different, crime is in and of itself not evil, and mischief for its own sake isn't either.

The holding Agincourt hostage thing? Great idea. However, what would happen if Longbow, like most American military groups, holds to the "we don't negotiate with terrorists" line? Do you blow up the bomb? How do you explain to the children who play this game that their character, through their own actions, murdered several thousand (if not more, who knows what a quantum singularity bomb is capable of) people?

Or, like most villains, are you not truly that kind of evil?

So...I guess I just don't understand all the hatred for "the greater good."

Are your villains so evil they'd rather be dead than alive and doing evil things? So utterly, incontrovertibly insane, demented or soulless they would prefer domination by the Rikti or massacre by Tyrant or assimilation by the Battalion to doing something preventing those?

Is it maybe a bit over-used? Yes. Do villains probably need better-written arcs just for them? Absolutely. It's just incredibly difficult to describe something "adequately villainous" in a game that little kids conceivably play. ****? Out. Murder? Difficult to do without lots of whitewash and insinuation. Genocide? Difficult as well. These things are alluded to, referenced, but there are no Call of Duty-esque scenarios where your villain character waltzes into a preschool and slaughters children.

At some point, you have to ask yourselves, *why* do you want to play someone so evil?

It seems almost like we become pariahs for asking for things that make our characters in a super-powered concept game look more like, well, superpowered comic book characters.

Sure, Lobo's cool and evil and metal and PANCAKE, but you know what? I prefer Green Lantern and Superman and Captain Marvel and Nova and HEROES and I'm not ashamed or afraid to admit it.

*clears throat*

Ahem.

I have villain characters. Have since CoV launch, thank you very much. The Arachnos-trained assassin, the unwitting demon summoner taken over by her charge, etc. etc. I sympathize with the villain lobby, certainly.

Will some people be able to "conceptualize" a fugly, dirty hockey mask and chainsaw into a kitty-saving hero? Absolutely. Thus is the power of this community and the imagination of superpowered fans.

However, will the vast majority of everyone else make Jason Voorhees and Casey Jones? Yes. Overwhelmingly yes.

Mad Max: Crazy dude with a gun.
Ash: Crazy dude with a bigger gun. (Don't get me wrong, I love Bruce Campbell. Marvel Zombies appearance notwithstanding, Ash is not a superhero. He's a heroic character. There's a difference.)
Casey Jones: Stoner with a hockey stick who somehow manages not to get killed fighting ninjas.
Jason Voorhees: Badly psychologically damaged serial killer with mommy issues and a big knife who hunts white people who act like they, too, are mentally damaged.

Maybe I'm having a crisis of inspiration because of my recent glut of well-conceived magical/technologic/science-based character creation and my creative juices are momentarily tapped, but I stand by these costume themes as not the best use of Dink's significantly amazing design abilities.

"Well, Timmy, you can have any super power you want! You can fly, set people on fire, move stuff with your mind! What do you want to do?"

"I wanna crawl through a dumpster and hit things with a golf club!"

...works better if it were released during the Halloween event. This is a "Zombie Invasion Survival" set, if anything.

So...the fans voted for Casey Jones?

*facepalm*

I'm wildly unimpressed, Dink. Not in your talents, in whoever decided this is what you should be focusing your incredibly amazing talents on.

*chuckle*

While I appreciate the constructive criticism and understand its merits, is it so inconceivable to people that I would move in and out of melee range? Not stay stationary?

So, my options of pre-20 characters are:

Lvl 18 Bots/Time MM (My 1st MM EVER, mind you, so it may not be a great choice.)
Lvl 19 Arch/MM Blaster
Lvl 14 StJ/Energy Scrapper

I was also thinking of taking a brand new character through the Goldside arcs as well, to get more background story built up as well; I've only run a Prae 1-20 once, and that was about six months ago.

Stroke of Death?

Dead Aeon?

Necronaut?

Temporal Ending?

Cyclic (nature of time and death and rebirth, etc.)?

Oversoul Clock?

Because it's a great debuff? Because it stacks magnificently with defense? Because nothing in the game limits me from using my attacks while in melee range?

Yay! It was a good time!

If only Sutter didn't suck quite so much in comparison, people might run it more. Also, Sutter doesn't give a bad-booty temp power, so there's also that. I took some screenies as well, I'll have to post them when I get home from work.

lol Stalker

So, I've done all the Night Ward arcs on my Dark/Dark controller on her journey to 50 a few weeks ago (and BOY, was that a cluster foxtrot of ghosts and Lassies), and I did the 1st 2 First Ward arcs on a different character, but I have yet to complete the whole journey on one single character in order to fully understand the story.

That being said, I'd like to take a completely new character through both zones' arcs, starting at level 20. Getting to 20 shouldn't be an issue between DFB and friends running +4 DA arcs, so my question to you all is this:

What would be the most soloable, most successful power combination (entirely subjective) that would be the MOST FUN for these two zones? AT doesn't matter, but I would like to avoid: Super Strength, Dark anything except Blast, and something I'd have to invest heavy INF into to be fun. This is just a story explanation journey for me (and yes, I know you can Ouro it, but why do that when you can get all the arc completion XP bonuses on a new character?), so I'd like it to be relatively simple.

...

How is it helpful?

I don't know, how do you think a -To Hit, -Damage, -Recharge aura would be helpful for a build that relies on Defense to survive?