Hertz

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perhaps rather than chaos or destruction, Insanity may be a better descriptor.

the concept seems to be villainy beyond reason. Harm for harm's own sake. ... no matter how you flavor the character, villains who's motives you'd consider describing as "Chaos" or "Destruction" are simply insane.

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I toyed with a motivation of Madness early on, and discarded it for a few reasons.

For one, there could well be villains who wish to transform everybody in the world into one of his sexy harem girls (a Domination goal: the remaking of society in your design). Anybody who wants that many wives is also clearly insane , but in a structured, makes-sense-to-him kind of way. A villain might wish to own all the money in the world, clearly an insane and unsupportable goal (if you have all the currency in the world, it becomes worthless, and people find other ways to exchange goods). Money villains can also be insane. I was therefore hesitant to lump all Insane villains into one particular kind of mission, that is, in the words of StrongMad, "breakin' stufffff!"

Second, Insanity is great for a character backstory, but it doesn't really rise to the level of a pure motivating force, because there are many different kinds of insanity. A bunch of characters who are insane (in different ways) will likely not agree on hierarchies, give missions, or cooperate with one another, because what is madness to one villain is cool reason to another.

If you simply think that Chaos and/or Destruction should simply be renamed to Insanity, I think that would mislead people into thinking all insane villains must take that Motivation.

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Gotcha, gotcha. My bad. I still think that these "ultimate evil"-motivated guys should be allowable - my whole deal is that they should be incorporated into Chaos/Destruction instead of either A) being excluded wholesale or B) having a whole Goal set that is exclusively theirs.

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No argument here, on the principle; I already said why I feel Destroying the World has no intermediate, achieveable goals.

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Please tell me if you seriously think that Heroes and Villains wouldn't be united to destroy something out to depopulate the planet.

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I see your point; you seem to be missing mine. No matter how many enemies a villain has or how earnestly those enemies wish to stop him, some villains will still find a way to survive. That's why they are called "supervillains" instead of "just some nut case".

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Hey, give me time to reveal my idea that all good supervillains should get a Last-Minute Deadman Switch Escap-O Teleporter. The bad guy always gets away, according to the comics.

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Very good point! I don't really have an answer. I guess really that world-destroyers in your system could be subsumed under the other Goal types depending on approach, e.g. a guy who wanted to kidnap scientists and build a giant laser out of gold that would punch through to the Earth's core would be a Money villain; a guy who wanted to gather an army and kill everyone he could that way, or gain control of all of Earth's nukes and detonate them at once would be a Dominator; and a guy who just wanted to bust heads one at a time would be Chaos.

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That model works for me.

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The giant-laser-building-guy is very organized, since he'd have to be a really sharp cat with a strong machine to even try to get the damn thing put together.

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Why does this make me think of the Gary Larson laundry room with a cat innocently following signs to the washing machine door, signs which read 'CAT FUD, CAT FUD?' And the dog behind the dryer thinking "Oh please oh please oh please..."

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I wanted to fit Ming the Merciless (who practically defines Lawful Evil) into your model. He is pretty much a Dominator though, just on a bigger scale than earth-bound villains. Also, I know, I know, he isn't a "real" supervillain; he's a serial villain. But there are enough parallels that he makes a good "example villain".

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Hey, the best way to test if this five-point system works is to try to categorize existing villains into the system. That's why I went with emotional motivations rather than monetary ones or specific origins.

The evil vizier from Aladdin is not a supervillain, either, but he would clearly be a Power villain: he wants power at his fingertips. Conceptually it is important that Power is bounded on one side by Domination and the other side by Chaos, for Power is a neutral thing by itself. Darth Vader would be a Domination villain, out to remake the universe into his own model, but the Emperor would also be Power. Any others to toss in?


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Sorry for making such a dogfight out of this small point for so long. Guess I was just in the mood to argue today. Overall, your plan is super cool. I get hung up on details easily. Forgive me.

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Forgiven. Ideas for games have to be tested. I'm still not completely sold on Ego and Power as names, and the concepts need some sanding and polishing, but I've yet to see any suggestions that rise to the same level of raw motivational forces.

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Jeff Kuroi suggested: Destruction: Someone who doesn't wish to rule the world, but rid the entire population. The ultimate evil.

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In my opinion, this is entirely unworkable for several reasons, both on a story level and on a game mechanic level.

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I gotta disagree with you here.

Before I begin, I want to point out that I am advocating a general Destruction motivation type, not a type that, if you select it, automatically means that your character wants to personally cut the throat of every living thing in the world.

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You're being confusing. My response was to Jeff Kuroi, who was clearly advocating "rid (the world of) the entire population" and "ultimate evil."

You're taking about a person who just generally wants to destroy systems, governments, policies, laws, whatever. That is what my vision is for Chaos, based on the old "Chaotic" model from D&D. You say that your "Destruction" concept includes my "Chaos" concept but I think we are, after all, talking about the same thing, only with different words.

Are you advocating an Ultimate Evil motivation set, or are you advocating a villain who seeks to tear down what has been built by others?

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Once again, you're falling back on "The tough NPCs would just stop you."

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This was in reference to an Ultimate Evil character, not to a "breaking windows and breaking mailboxes at 2am" character. Please tell me if you seriously think that Heroes and Villains wouldn't be united to destroy something out to depopulate the planet. (At best, the Villains would seek to enslave or capture it, but I can't see anybody simply ignoring the end of the world.)

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I could go on about this, but what you're saying boils down to "Destruction villains are too evil to be allowed to exist."

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No, no, no, I'm saying that Ue-B4R, Eater of Worlds is a character concept that is too evil to code. It appears that you and I agree that anybody playing this villain type would have to learn to accept the limitations of any system structure put in place: just as it is impossible in a shared gameworld for any Hero to actually truly eradicate crime, it is impossible for Ue-B4R to actually destroy the world.

However, Heroes can fight crime one villain at a time. What lesser, intermediate goals will Ue-B4R have, short of destroying the world? Destroying a country, well, we don't have any. Destroying a state or county... don't have those either. Destroying a city ... well, there's only one city, and it's shared. Destroying a city block? Damned if I know how you'd permit that in a shared world; take away the buildings and there's no place to do door missions. You're left with destroying people, or destroying things in instanced missions.

So my question to you is how, exactly, would you implement Destruction as a villain goal? Who would be a Destruction contact and how would it be materially different from the Chaos model? What would Destruction missions be like, and how is that different?

I suspect we're talking about exactly the same thing, here, using different words. Chaos is where I put all the villains who strive toward destruction, death, and disorder; you appear to think it's the name which isn't punchy enough. Fine, imagine it as Destruction then: how would it be different?0

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Better just stick with a Chaos villain.

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Limited. For no reason.

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I think this is a semantic argument and I'm not going to pursue it. I believe that wanton destruction with no particular aim or goal is included in Chaos, and I said so when I described Chaos contacts; you seem to think that Chaos is a smaller subset of destruction. Call it whatever you like; the principle remains the same.

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One other thing - your comments seem to imply that you think that Destruction villains can only be "Mad Slashers" who immediately kill everyone they see. Nothing could be further from the truth. Blowing up the world, through scheming, recruiting, and the building of superweapons, is a STANDBY of supervillain goals.

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And as I said, in an MMO he cannot be permitted to succeed, so what lesser intermediate goals would be playable for such a villain?

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What about the idea of, instead of making Power, Greed, Ego, Money and Domination 'extra Origins' associated with existing Origins, why not make them something else entirely?

...

So you could be a Magic/Greed villain, for instance.

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Did I not already clarify this? I hope so. Yes, I think the origin of your powers is completely separate from what your missions will be. In fact, I'd throw out origins for Villains entirely; I don't see them as relevant.

I personally can't think of a single game mechanic that has anything to directly do with the origin of a villain's powers. You get Enhancements for your powers, yes, but if you get an Enhancement called 'Crowley's Ring' you're not actually wearing a ring, nor can you lose it or see it. It's just a name. If it's called 'Stolen Prototype Goggles' or 'Upside-down Cake' it doesn't actually change the way you play the game. Money villains should get any origin upgrades that money can buy; Domination villains can get any upgrades that one can coerce or blackmail away from its producer; Chaos villains get any upgrades that can be stolen. But in the end the're just names.

But hey, I'm not the designer of COV. Maybe they'll put in Villain origins. Me, I'm still wracking my brain to think of any reason why this is necessary. There doesn't seem to be any across-the-board comic-book rule of correlation between a villain's powers and what he wants to do with them.

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And the enhancements follow along those lines and make sense. What would a lvl 30 Damage increasing Money SO be? Doesn’t work.

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If you insist. However, the Enhancement loot as it now is in City of Heroes is pretty damn silly too, if you ask me. How is a Mutation person supposed to get... um, more mutated, simply because he feels like it? He's going to get born again into an even more mutated shape? How come anybody can't use Technology: shouldn't that be freely available? How can a Natural hero just walk up and buy months of karate training in the middle of a one-hour timed mission? How come there's an accuracy Enhancement called "Flash Grenades" but I never see them throw any?

There's really no justifiable story reason to have Enhancements, period; they're in the game to make powers more customizable and to add a reward/loot/benefit system, nothing more. Name them anything, whatever you like.

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Careful, your secret identity is showing, Fishwa -- I mean, Lord Recluse.

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I have no idea what you're talking about. I wish to make it completely obvious, I am not Fishwa... wait, I am not Lord Recluse. And I haven't looked at his notes. Recently.

ScrapHeap, I appreciate your comments. The way City of Heroes is currently constructed, there is absolutely no gray area with any Hero, in method or means or motivation. Although one is free to role-play a Punisher or a Batman, there are no specific game mechanics that allow us to blow away innocent bystanders or torture villains or throw out the rulebook. I think this is deliberate, because inside every gray area you will find griefers and exploiters. (I'm not suggesting that all people playing Punisher or Batman would be a griefer or an exploiter, only that such loopholes are a breeding ground for unfair play.)

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Tal_N says, One problem with those ideas of likening origins to goals for the villains. When it comes to the freakshow faction they are technology based however they have little or no interest in money. Above all else they're interested in causing Chaos. Which as your post states is clearly opposed to the Money one which you branded under Technology.

Drawing lines like that simply doesn't work.

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You're absolutely right. I did describe the 5th Column, in a later response, to show that they have the same goal of Domination, but they use some variety of means to achieve this (technology, natural, and whatever the werewolves are). I didn't want to give the impression that I envisioned an ironclad rule that all Money villains used Technology or that all Chaos villains were Mutants, because then the converse must be true, and I would be force-feeding a motivation to every player.

I got the five Goals by extrapolating the five Origins into what motivations I thought were most appropriate, but by no means should they be considered a lock for what kind of powers the villain must have. Mutants should be allowed to be Domination villains and take over the world. And Naturals should be allowed to wreak havoc. Technology villains could well be Egoists, and so on.

The Goals are somewhat analogous to Origins in that they are a pentagon of power (sort of like the Magic: The Gathering cards, now that I think about it), each side opposed by two others and somewhat supported by two beside it. Natural and Technology are directly opposite of Mutation, so I had to have origins that were similarly opposite (and apposite), and I chose Domination and Money to oppose Chaos.

As I said, I can't think of any specific game mechanic for villains that would make it necessary for them to choose an origin story or explanation for their powers. A Magic hero will be sent on missions to retrieve artifacts, rescue fortune tellers, etc; a Science hero will be sent on science missions. What role would a villiain's origin possibly play?

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Jeff Kuroi suggested: Destruction: Someone who doesn't wish to rule the world, but rid the entire population. The ultimate evil.

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In my opinion, this is entirely unworkable for several reasons, both on a story level and on a game mechanic level.

One, if there were someone bent on destroying all life on the planet, this would perforce include all villains, too. Such a character would be a threat to everyone and would draw equal wrath from villains and heroes. Lord Recluse and Statesman would fight side-by-side to beat you to a bloody mush, and they would kill you dead, really properly dead, no barmy crossed fingers, no click to go to the hospital, dead.

Two, the game mechanics would be completely out of line with this philosophy. Killing everyone in the game a) violates consensual PVP, b) includes killing stores, trainers, and contacts, and c) introduces the concept of 'killing' to a game that currently doesn't have it. Villains are arrested. Heroes are defeated. Nobody dies.

Last, any possible less-than-complete way to implement the 'kill everyone' philosophy of Bad Guys would raise the question, "Hey, why can't I kill everyone? Ripoff!" Like it or not, a no-rules character simply can't fit into a videogame of this nature. This is only my opinion, of course; I am not a developer.

Better just stick with a Chaos villain.

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Vengeance is an obvious motivation for such characters, but there are others--obsession with a particular person, a never-ending search for the ultimate challenge, or even the well-being of a loved one who can only be saved by leading a life of crime. Such characters may join (or be forced into) a criminal organization, but only as a means to their own ends.

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I agree. This would be an excellent motivation. However, barring each player creating his own list of contacts and missions specific to his RP background, I'm not sure how this could be implemented on a mass scale. Everyone's revenge backstory will be different. Something like this, as I said in the previous post, is probably best left up to the individual player.

Let me say it plainly before I respond to anything: I'm not selling the idea that all Money villains must be Technology villains and vice-versa. Frankly, I think the idea that Villains need an explanation for their powers is pointless. Villains do what they do no matter how their powers originated.

Heroes can pick an Origin but their motivation is purely an RP mechanic. Villains are different; I think they should pick a motivation -- because what they mean to achieve will dictate the kind of missions they get -- but their origin is purely up to their individual player. Read on and I will explain more fully.

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An anarchist who believes the only way for people to be free is to topple the "establishment", a religious fanatic who wants to "cleanse" the city, an iconoclast who wants to make everyone equal by tearing down the most established heroes, an eco-terrorist who wants to stop pollution by any means necessary.

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Eco-Terrorist, Anarchist = Chaos. They wish to topple the established powers without regard to the consequences for human life or society. In the Eco-Terrorist case, they believe the world would be better off in a natural, unspoiled state, no matter how many people will starve and die in the absence of industry, mechanized agriculture, and petroleum fuels. The Anarchist believes people will be more free without the presence of government, military order, borders, laws, and security; he does not care whether destroying these things makes life better or more tolerable, so long as it is "free" by his definition.
Religious Fanatic, Iconoclast = Domination. They wish to re-make the world according to their own philosophy. However, I note there are no churches, synagogues, mosques, or temples in Paragon, so I hesitate to make villains of the first and only Paragon holy men.

I'm not sure how specific Villain ideology should get, given that every ideology will have to have a full set of missions and contacts. It would probably be as things are with Hero contacts: you meet Jill Pastor in Skyway, who is with the FCC, and she has specific missions about broadcasting devices, and the missions she gives you all have this take-back-the-airwaves angle. For a Chaos villain, one contact may be Crystal Beth the eco-terrorist from Greedpeace, who sends you off to destroy the Elwood Blues Memorial Spraypaint Factory, and other eco-related capers.

To have one full set of contacts and storylines devoted only to eco-terrorism would be a huge amount of missions, and one wonders if it would be worth the time to develop seventy or eighty specific full sets of contacts and story arcs; how different would they truly be?

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Why move them immediately? Why can't they be in the hero mix still? Um.. lying.. .yo!

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Yes, your idea is good fodder for a story, but it makes a lousy videogame. For one, the Hero powersets and the Villain powersets will likely not be exact duplicates, so some changeover period is required. Also, I would love to hear your method of programming that would enable the game client to understand 'lying.' Me, I can think of about a hundred different ways to exploit the opportunity to be a Villain right in the heart of Paragon, especially if one only has to push a few buttons to become Evil, and suddenly one is a level 50 Villain although, and this is the part you appear to like, nobody knows you're evil, nor can they do anything to you until you decide it's time for the Big Reveal. Let's see... a perfect disguise, unlimited ambush/first-strike capability... no, I don't think it would work. Call me crazy, but there are far too many ways to exploit this.

It reads well as a story, yes. As a game mechanic, it needs work.

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I think you're forgetting an important one: Ideology.

I think that deserves equal billing in villain motivations. Not even villains within a single organization need to have the same motivation.

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Precisely what do you have in mind with Ideology? In what way would you implement this for players? I didn't want to get into the idea that any player-formed Villain Group would have to be the same Goal/origin. They could, conceivably, be made up of villains with multiple Goals. It may be an uneasy peace, but there you go.

Even a group such as the 5th Column uses different means to its end of domination: it uses technology, and werewolves, and vampires, and the master race, and so on. It has the take-over-the-world endgame goal but it has different gambits that it uses to achieve this.

Can you elaborate?

Hm. I would say that a Fallen Hero task force within City of Heroes would be very difficult to do right.

For one, in the context of a story, would Lex Luthor give Superman eight or nine chances to become Evil? I doubt it; Lex isn't a fool. If Superman is given one big, end-all opportunity to betray Good and eight or nine times in a row, he fails to do so, why would he continue to get second chances?

Second, the idea that a Hero can fall from grace should immediately move him into the City of Villains villains-only zones. The Fallen Hero should no longer interact with regular Heroes or spend time in Paragon's drone-protected zones. His former allies would no longer trust him, either!

Third, if Heroes suddenly could become Fallen Heroes (or pre-Villains) in the regular COH zones, you'd have an instant PVP team roaming around Founders' Falls or Independence Port or whatever. We don't know if Villain vs. Hero PVP within the Paragon City zones is something the dev team is planning on.

If there is some kind of Fall, it would have to simply be to leave Paragon cold turkey and transfer your toon to COV. Given that COV will have different powersets, it's likely that any hero-to-villain conversion will involve something like the respec, only pre-login: your Blaster becomes a Destructor and you sit around with the level 35 (or whatever) powersets, making up stuff until you've got what you like. You'd throw out your Hero build and make a Villain build using Villain powersets. Once you build your character, you log into City of Villains. This isn't well-suited to a multi-player experience; imagine how tedious it would be to have to spend an hour re-building your toon and then wait on four or five others doing the same thing before you can even begin.

You shouldn't be able to have a Fallen Hero become a Hero again, though. It should be one-way and permanent, otherwise it essentially becomes a free respec.

Power, Chaos, Ego, Money and Domination can indeed be factions in the City of Villains, if I were on the design team.

At the low end of the scale, there is some synergy. Money and Ego villains can work together, to a degree, because one philosophy begets the other, to an extent. Scientific research requires money to succeed, and good science can make a profit in return. Villains on this level can sometimes cooperate with evil NPCs, or at least ignore one another as long as nobody throws a punch; they are focused on a common goal, more or less. This will allow low-level Villains to PVP against each other without too much threat from evil NPC villains.

As the villains rise in power, however, the philosophies purify and the syndicates become increasingly fractured. Around the time that DOs are available, a villain becomes Kill On Sight for the two opposed factions (that is, Chaos is opposed by Money and Domination). Villains can still PVP with each other, but Villains of opposing Goals will have to watch out for groups of NPCs that oppose them (or would assist their PVP opponent).

When SOs become available, the villain goals are completely separate, because the pursuit of money is fundamentally incompatible with ruling the world or seeking scientific perfection; the seeking of chaos requires one to throw out the rules of scientific study and ritual magic. At this point the Villain is surrounded by factions trying to kill him. PVP here is much more difficult and dangerous, because most of what's on the street is going to try to kill you, with the occasional safe haven among allies. (Well, safe as long as you don't attack them.)

Around level 35, a Villain is a target even to his underlings. This is PVP free-for-all, and nobody is safe from attack by any NPC from any faction.

Of course, the implementation of this is going to be tricky, depending on what kind of PVP that City of Villains will have: in-mission only, by duel only, free-for-all zones, level-restricted, faction-restricted, guild-restricted, whatever. I readily admit that there is a lot of room here for unfair play -- lurking among allies and taking potshots at a player, for instance, or luring a player into a mob of his enemies -- but it's tough to propose specific solutions until we know more about when PVP will occur and how success (and failure) will be tallied. (That is, if you wait until a Villain is 99% dead from fighting mobs, and you get in the killing blow, should you only get 1% of a PVP kill? Less? More?)

I only hope that we can learn more about Cryptic's plans for PVP in City of Villains. We do know it will be by consent in City of Heroes, but how much consent will Villains get? How much structure, how much monitoring? Where will PVP take place, and how would factions fit in, if at all?

Only they know, now, what plans if any have been laid. If anything here sparks an idea among the devs, by all means, I give them my blessing to run with it.

Face it -- any crime in Paragon City is going to be organized crime. The disorganized kind just doesn't last long. How is an average supercriminal to get away with the most minor crime in a city where Sister Psyche can read minds?

The organization of crime in Paragon, in my dream model, would be around Goals. Goals for Villains are like Origins for Heroes. Instead of Magic, Mutation, Science, Technology and Natural, the Villains will pick from Power, Chaos, Ego, Money, and Domination.

Power is personal power over the forces of the universe: magic. It adjoins Domination and Chaos (natural and mutation), and opposes Ego and Money the same way magic opposes science and technology. Power villains are Hellions (who steal magic artifacts), the Circle of Thorns, and so on. Power missions will be to seek out artifacts, relics, and spells in museums, or seek to rescue a captured sorcerer to learn his secrets; they oppose Ego and Money by robbing banks, destroying labs, and so on. Power contacts can be evil sorcerers and wizards, alchemists, scribes, and those who keep the Secrets Man Was Not Meant To Know.

Chaos is a philosophy of ignoring the boundaries of society and civilization, embodied by the chaotic process of gene mutation. It adjoins Power and Ego nicely, and opposes Money and Domination. Domination opposes Chaos for obvious reasons, and in a world without rules and structure, the artificial construct of Money is meaningless. Power villains include Outcasts and others. Chaos missions will be to undermine everything in society: rob banks, kidnap politicians, dump diamonds in the river for no reason, and so on. Chaos contacts would be warlords, gang leaders, and other lunatics out to destroy for no reason.

Ego is a desire to become a figure of power, not in what does or learns or owns, but in what one is With advanced scientific techniques, and Ego villain remakes himself. It adjoins Chaos and Money and opposes Domination and Power. The perfect Ego villains are the Clockwork King, a man who planted his brain into a machine to become all-powerful and built an army of robots in his image, and Dr. Vahzilok. Ego missions would be to learn new scientific secrets by capturing top researchers, stealing information, and so on; or to thwart the evil Domination villains who would try to enslave the Ego villain. Ego contacts could be mad scientists, twisted doctors, and so on.

Money is a desire to accumulate wealth and property and technology. It is a very structured kind of villainy, for the value of money depends on a world structure to support an economy. It adjoins Domination and Ego, both good matches, and opposes Chaos and Power. Chaos is anathema to financial stability, and Power cannot be confined to civil norms. Money villains would include the Crey Corporation. Money missions could be to leverage real estate grabs, seize assets, repossess on loans, acquire buildings or valuable artwork, or to destroy the evil bases of Chaos and Power that oppose them. Money contacts could be bankers, financiers, investors, Cryptic's shareholders, etc.

Domination is the old take-over-the-world schtick based on learning the best techniques and having the best equipment. It is extremely structured, as is Money. It adjoins Money and Power and opposes the two forces that epitomize individuality and independence (Ego and Chaos). Domination villains can include forces like the 5th Column. Domination missions can be to plant mind-control devices, brutally curb uprisings against the command structure, or to simply oppose the dastardly Egos and Chaoses. Domination contacts can be corrupt lawyers, crooked politicians, bribed judges, militant dictator-colonels, and so forth.

The Fallen Hero could use his contacts to quickly advance through the ranks of the crime syndicates which have these philosophies. Or he could hunt on the streets until he has proved his evilness, but this would take longer (no fat mission bonuses here). In any case, a lone-wolf villain would need a structure of this kind to help support him and provide the kind of mutual protection and goal-seeking that he and his evil overlords need.

"Hey," you say, "these sound like factions." You're pretty bright. Let me elaborate a little in the next post.

I've been thinking about several game mechanics for COV and for entertainment purposes I'm going to throw them out for you to enjoy and critique. If you don't think my ideas will work, please propose solutions instead of attacking me personally -- PVP hasn't started yet.

I began to think of this only as how to allow a Fallen Heroes mechanic, but it branched out to cover villain factions and contacts, which all tie together nicely.

Falling from grace and turning evil is one of the oldest concepts in our literature base. Anybody ever heard of, um, Lucifer? The Fallen Angel? Yeah, thought so. Western literature is ripe with stories of this kind and COV must allow this. However, it should not be easy and it definitely should not be a repeatable thing.

Think of the difficulties of the following comic-book situation as Superman tries to turn evil:
LEX LUTHOR: Welcome to my Secret Evil Base, Superman, and may I congratulate you on choosing Evil for your superpowered needs.
SUPERMAN: Thanks.
LUTHOR: We have to get a copy of your drivers' license and finish your new hire paperwork, but in the meantime, here's a copy of my secret evil passkey.
SUPERMAN: And the self-destruct code for the base, the computer access for all your upcoming evil plans, and the combination to the vault where you keep suppressed evidence?
LUTHOR: Here you go. Okay, I'm off to steal some groceries for the super-refrigerator. Don't go blowing up my base while I'm gone, ha ha!
SUPERMAN: Ha. Ha.
LUTHOR: Ha ha!
SUPERMAN: Ha ha. (pulls out a crumpled script from his pocket) No. I would? Not. Blow up, your face. BASE! Not face. I would not blow, up? Your base.
LUTHOR: Waaaaiiit a minute, something is fishy here.
SUPERMAN: What?
LUTHOR: You have pockets?

This would never, ever happen. Any hero who decides to turn evil is going to have to prove himself to any villain before he'll be trusted. He's going to have to labor under a cloud of suspicion until he's demonstrated his commitment to evil ways. This may mean harsher penalties for mission failure (for the evil overlords would see this as betrayal).

Most of the missions of this kind will be timed, and tough. Some of them will be complete setups: he is pitting you against another (possibly NPC?) Fallen Hero who thinks YOU are the target. The evil overlords may even send you along with a team of his minions who will attack (ambush) you in an instant if you fail -- they'll jump right into the mission with you and start beating the tar out of you. "Hero! Lickspittle! I knew we couldn't trust you!"

Failing your evil masters may set you back quite a long way and you'll have to work harder to overcome it. Falling from grace, in other words, is like a Trial that goes on until you've recovered your former Good level.

Not at the regular XP progress, heavens no. You'd get the same XP per mob, but as a Fallen Hero your mission bonuses would be huge. They'd have to be, since your risk of failure is also huge.

Your evil overlord may clamp power-suppressant cuffs (or a weakening spell, or a necklace of Ottercreekite) on you or something, so you don't have your full array of powers. If I arranged it, a level 30 hero may have to "fall" as low as 10th level to start, but he'd have more than just his level 10 powers: maybe 12, or 14 (so he can travel). When he completes a mission and bumps up to level 12, he unlocks more of his previous powers.

With them a Fallen Hero couldn't exactly breeze through each mission -- he'd only have one or two powers more than an equivalent level Villain and on those, his damage is scaled down -- but succeeding at a mission would reward him well enough that leveling back up to his previous place wouldn't be a chore. Once he makes it to his previous level, he's just a Villain (but maybe he gets a Fallen Hero badge).

But wait! I hear you cry. Evil overlord? I'm eeeeeeevil, I don't need no stinking Kingpin or Lex Luthor to trust me or to give me favors! Evil people don't have to follow a structure or join a faction or participate in a hierarchy!

See next post, sunshine, I'll tell you all about it.

I have been playing COH for a few months and while my highest character is only level 25, I have to say I have enjoyed my time here. I am very heartened by the behavior of this development team and their attention to fixing a problem without necessarily swinging a nerf bat at it.

Regarding the number of balance issues in the game, or those things which players perceive as imbalance ("im not ub3r, i shuold never die in this gam!!!"), yes, I'm sure the devs are aware of them. I just disagree on how they should advise us of this.

I don't want them to tell us. Not precisely, not address every issue personally, not drop hints or anything. The way Statesman handles this now is exemplary: "We're looking into a number of balance issues, with the top priority being how tankers handle aggro, and the effectiveness of AOEs." It tells me that the team is on it, and doing other things, and working on a solution.

You see, I came here from SWG, and spent agonizing months watching their boards. The rednames would occasionally drop into a thread with a non-informative comment such as "we're looking into it. This is a known issue."

Instantly, I say instantly, the thread metastasized into a raging mutant rancor beast:
- The thread now shows up on the Dev Tracker.
- Half the posters on the original thread said, "Yeah, we've heard that for two months, and where's the fix? Tell us WHEN you're going to fix it! I'm holding my breath! Tell me now now now now now now now now now now now gasssssssp now now now now now now now now now! Okay, I'm canceling my account."
- The other half of the posters on that thread said "Yay! I can die now! Our prayers have been answered! On the fifth day a dev stepped down from heaven and nodded at my thread!"
- Other players saw the thread on dev tracker and began hopping in to say "What? You're looking into Smugglers? Where's the love for Carbineers? We've been broken for months and you haven't once ever looked at a four thousand page thread of whining! Waaaahh! Read our four thousand page thread and talk to US or I'm quitting right now!"

The results of this constant affirmation:
* If the devs actually responded with their plans and studies and statistics, the players wanted to know WHEN, right NOW, don't give me an ESTIMATE, hotpatch it TOMORROW.
* If the devs ignored them, there would be endless threads and petitions begging for a redname to nod their way. Begging for the response of a redname became a board pastime.
* If the devs proposed ANY solution, any at all, thousands of people would threaten to quit because it wasn't the solution they wanted, or it was too little too late.

In other words, I do not think that rednames responding to posts with specificity is the model of good community management. The SWG team gave its players too much information. Too many stats, too many charts, too much analysis. The players used the charts against the devs as a bludgeon: "There are more Rifleman than Smugglers, you have to fix Riflemen first!" "No way, there aren't any Smugglers because we are BROKEN! Fix US first!"

It is a very hard line to walk, to serve a multi-headed beast community like MMO players. Always, always remember that we aren't "the players" but we are "the blasters" and "the tankers" and "the veterans" and each one of our groups has different demands. That's what I do. I think they're handling the boards just right.

That same griefing happened to me about five times, just last night. Fortunately for me I was able to catch the names of some of them and they were reported.

I watched one of them on my Friends list to keep track of which zone he was in (so we could move to a different zone) and I saw that immediately after I sent the petition, he had a loonnnng delay where he didn't zone at all, then I could see that he went off to do missions. (My guess: a mod chewed him out. We only caught this guy once.)

The other one was a complete idiot. I could tell from my Friends list whether he was within click-range. (You know, click on the friend's name, and if they come up in the Target window, they're within, oh, 200 feet.) When he buzzed by, we backed away from the door and all got a clear view of his repeated griefing. That guy got two petitions and minutes later, his status changed to OFFLINE. (My guess: axed. And good riddance. We caught him twice.)

It's a shame, too, because we might not get this event next year unless they can figure out a way to keep that from happening. Maybe they fix it so the Trick doesn't aggro people unless they're in the same group as the one who knocked?