ICF_Zombra

For whatever it's worth, my original idea was not especially meant to be incorporated into PvP at all. While I think it would be cool in a way to have my alts fight as bots while I was offline or playing another character (or attacking as a villain! OK, how cool would that be?), and while there are valid arguments against it as well, that is completely beside the point.

Offline heroes should hang around in bases to make bases look cool, and to create an inspiring sense of being a part of something great. Agents or servants or whatever would be cute, but will not play up the "comic book supergroup" aspect of SGs anywhere CLOSE to actually seeing your SG mates hanging out there.

There have been many and varied suggestions on how to deal with having one's characters in the hands of the computer during a base raid. For myself, if all the offline heroes simply vanished into thin air when my base was attacked, I would still be completely, utterly overjoyed to see them strolling around the rest of the time. This "bare minimum" solution WOULD STILL BE AWESOME. Many creative and much better (and harder to implement) ideas have been mentioned above, and I invite Lord_Recluse to peruse them. But even if he doesn't bother, and just implements the bare-bones, C- version, it will be fantastic.

Positron
c/o City Representative, City Hall
1 Freedom Way
Paragon City, RI 02941

Dear Mr. Positron,
Are you a robot or a cybrog or a man in a robot suit? I am writeing a report on robots for school. You are the best robot hero. Tubby Terwiliger said that Statesman mad you move with an RC car controller but I dont beleve him. I have a dog and a cat and my dog is named Tyler and I named my cat Positron after you. Thank you for aresting the Dreadly Frogtones. They play fun records but what they did to those kids was wrong. Plese write back soon so I know what to put in my report.

Sincerly,
Bill Oleson
Busiek Elementary
Galaxy, WI

This is not a gratuitous bump to make sure the thread stays alive through the next board purge! Uh ... I just had another ... uh ... additional idea ... something about ... oh, I forget. Not a gratuitous bump, though!

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Permitting characters to become Evil, then Good is essentially a free character respec for Good, by turning evil and back, and a free respec for Evil by falling a second time.

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Actually, the fix here seems pretty simple. Just save the "Hero State" of the character when he Falls and respecs to his "Villain State"; if he then chooses to Redeem himself, he simply reverts to his previous Hero State (if he has levelled in the meantime, he can only respec his new powers not covered by his saved Hero State). And vice versa for Villains.

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It tracks status as a text item.

Putting in fully populated bases complete with the graphic load for them is potentially different.

Course the base doesn't get populated until entered assuming instancing but just one or two players hanging out in the base then loads in another 70 characters that would cause an impact on the servers.

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True. I was just debunking the implication above that the servers would have to track and plot the facing, stance, activity, costume, and everything else about every character in the SG 24/7.

The servers wouldn't have to pay any attention at all to the offline folks until somebody went to the base - then it would check to see who was offline and start rendering a few people. This isn't substantially different than going into a mission and the system generating 10 terrified civilians in the mission area running around like chickens etc. And it wouldn't have to place 70 people all in a huge chorus line in the gymnasium-sized entrance hall when one guy went to HQ to grab his keys. It would only need to track a few offline pals at a time for each live player in the base - again, not substantially different than systems in place now.

The only real system taxation would be dredging the costumes from memory, and that doesn't seem terribly overwhelming.

Hell, if system taxation is really a big deal, I'd be happy if there was ONE randomly selected offline member manning the comm center, and he ran out (despawned) to go turn on the force fields in a player-inaccessible room the instant that there was a base raid.

If we really want to have HQs feel something other than empty, though, I think multiple (not necessarily multitudinous, just multiple) offline heroes is the only way to go. Jumpsuited minions really only work for villains, and I can't really envision having 20 butlers as being anything but immersion-breaking (much more so than just having offline folks despawn inexplicably during raids - though, again, I covered the raid problem in an earlier post - search page 1 for the word 'fluctuate' if you missed it).

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Really a nice idea, but the overhead would be huge. It would mean an occurance of every super group with a base to have its own area in memory at all times that any member was on line. It would have to track all SG members as to on or off line, and it would have to add or delete teammates as they came or went. It is not like a door mission that has a max of 8 people to be there for.
Sorry but my guess is it would be to cpu intensive to be viable.

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Er ... the servers already track all SG members as to on or offline ... ever open up your Supergroup window?

It wouldn't have to access all the really intense stuff, i.e. everybody's costumes, until the online members actually went to the base, and then all it has to do is "pretend" that the member came online in terms of data access - it would just make them into uncontrollable NPCs instead of controlled PCs.

Doesn't seem like that huge a task, really.

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I might have been wrong about the Circle of Thorns. All of their rituals with captured citizens have comments like "Soon you will be one of us" and "prepare for your transformation." Are they not Power villains, but self-transforming Ego villains?

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Spoiler ...

My understanding (At level 32) is that the COT use normal human hosts to bring more of their demon comrades to Earth. So they are not transforming themselves per se - they are empowering their pals (who then empower their pals, and so on, and so on). Somehow demons possessing humans doesn't strike me as Egotistical - if anything, I'd think it was demeaning. But they can't get anything done trapped in another dimension. As to their larger goals, I still don't know. There is a lot of squabbling over ancient artifacts between villain factions, though - offhand I would guess they're just building their numbers so they can have the best shot at getting all the loot. Whether they want the loot to increase their Power or enable their lust for Domination, I'm not sure. The two aren't really mutually exclusive. I'd vote for Power though.

Actually, I have thought about this a little more.

No, Kheldians are not really comic archetypes (small a). But they will be (Epic) Archetypes (big A) in COH, because they will be player characters that have powers, and the power sets that your character has are delineated by their Archetype. By definition, any discrete and exclusive set of character options is an Archetype in this game. So much for semantics.

Story-wise, here is a hypothetical comic situation (and I'm not a good DC geek, so some of my facts might be wrong; please bear with me): imagine that Krypton never went kaboom, and that Superman was fired into space because his parents wanted to spare him being tortured to death by Kryptonian fascists or some such thing. Of course Supe doesn't remember any of this; he was just a baby. The message crystal or whatever got lost in transit. All he knows is that he is from space and landed on Earth in some kind of alien escape pod. Still comic booky? A more lame story, but yes. OK. Now imagine that somebody from Krypton sends a message to Supes 30 years later. Krypton's sun has turned yellow or something and there's a big civil war going on at home, with everybody all superpowered and stuff and vying for domination. Maybe some evil guy wants to unite Krypton into a huge super army to take over the universe. So, the basic story line is that Superman, with his long experience using these powers, has to return home to tip the balance and make sure that Krypton natives use their new abilities for good, and whip the forces of evil. He decides to bring along a bunch of his friends, because even though they suck compared to him, they can still probably help. A big long limited series runs this story line, which all takes place on and around Krypton. You with me so far? OK, I know the concept isn't the greatest; I just thought it up as an example. The point is that it is still in keeping with the overall genre of superhero comics. Right? Right.

Now, in this series there are obviously going to be a bunch of new Kryptonian characters introduced. They may be great, or they may suck, but they are obviously going to be necessary for the story. If a GM wrote this storyline in a pen-and-paper RPG, some of the players would probably want to run Kryptonians while others would stick with their Earthling characters, brought along by Supe.

This is the situation with Kheldians in COH. There is actually a storyline going on in the game that introduces a significant new population element to the game world, and these Epic ATs allow the players to participate directly in that storyline (as opposed to: "Aliens are around! Well, they're all NPCs, but you can fight the bad ones.") Sure, it may be a egg > chicken situation where the storyline was written specifically around the idea of putting new ATs into the game, but what's wrong with that?

Now, if the story sucks, and the new ATs are boring, then we'll have something to get legitimately annoyed about.

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Being true to comics is good but being a good game is the most important thing.

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Dittos.

1) Is it fun?
2) Is it consistent with the world of comics?

... 3) Is it in exactly the same format that we've become used to?

Who really cares about 3?

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or use a giant laser to sign his name on the moon

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A Chairface reference! Excellent!

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Silly person. Reliable sources indicate that it was none other than Charo who was behind that (fortunately thwarted) scheme.

I agree that Insanity doesn't work in this system (though I think I suggested it earlier).

Really, the model is about motivational goals, not motivational mediums. Domination villains want to take over. Chaos villains want to destroy. Money villains want to get rich. Power villains want to make themselves personally strong. Insane villains would want to ... what? They might want to do any of these things. Being insane doesn't automatically make you Chaotic. Ego (while I think it is the weakest suggested Goal category) clearly caters well to the insane. Chaos is a good bet too, but it's different. And clearly you can have an insane guy trying to take over the world.

Money, Ego, Power, Domination : Insane | food, paint, ink, cloth : red

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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."

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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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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.

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Agreed.

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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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I advocate a broad set of motivations that are still tight enough to be lumped together: someone who tears down society fits, someone who just likes to hurt people fits, someone who wants to blow up the Earth fits.

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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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No, no, no, I'm saying that Ue-B4R, Eater of Worlds is a character concept that is too evil to code.

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Point taken! Plus, that is a hilarious sentence.

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... 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.

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Right. But the heroes in COH try - why can't Ue-B4R try as well, even though the player knows he can never succeed?

(Whoops, you address this later.)

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However, Heroes can fight crime one villain at a time. What lesser, intermediate goals will Ue-B4R have, short of destroying the world? ... 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?

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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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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.

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The point is that, for some villains, destroying the world IS the "particular goal".

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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.

I suspect we're talking about exactly the same thing, here, using different words.

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We are very close. Not on the same page, as it were, but on the same shelf. So close as makes no nevermind.

On reflection, I think that my main problem with the name "Chaos" was the same problem I had with it in D&D (thanks for bringing that up): it equates destructiveness with disorganization, which is bogus. 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. 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".

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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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. Maybe he will want to, in the same way that a Science hero may have been bitten by a radioactive animal to get his powers. There are other Destruction types - those who want to destroy the government, or who like blowing up cities, or who just want to beat the heck out of the good guys and each other, or those who like to break lots of windows and knock over mailboxes at 3 AM. Basically, Destruction contains your Chaos model but allows for broader range.

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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.

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Once again, you're falling back on "The tough NPCs would just stop you." First it was Sister Psyche, now it's Statesman and Recluse. It's true that "normal" villains and heroes would all be opposed to you (once they learned of your goals). But I think we've already covered the facts that A) Heroes will be against your villain characters anyway and B) Villains will fight each other anyway. Statesman wants to stop all burglars, too, but he can't. Other villains will be after you, but they can't kill you any more than you can kill them. World Destruction villains will be playing the same game, just for higher stakes.

As to "dead, dead, dead" - the COH idiom already eschews "real death". It is a fact that nobody dies in this game, regardless of whether or not someone really, really, really wants them to. (Unless it is already written in as part of a story arc.) I could go on about this, but what you're saying boils down to "Destruction villains are too evil to be allowed to exist." I don't see why really, really evil, evil villains can't exist in COV, no matter how sincerely others might want to stop them.

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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.

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Yes and no. I think you are positing that Destruction advocates want new game mechanics instituted. I, for one, don't. Right now, in COH, I have a Broadsword Scrapper whose goal is to kill the Circle of Thorns wherever she finds them, and maybe take a part in exterminating them once and for all by finding the Big Boss and cutting his head off. COH is structured such that this is totally OK, and she is doing a great job. She "defeats" (not "arrests") COT left and right, and due to the (intentional!) vagueness of what defeating mobs really means, I am perfectly satisfied in my imagination that they are dead. So, yes, there is death in COH - but it is implicit. "Defeat" means what the player of a given character wants it to mean - nothing more, nothing less. If I wanted, I could extend her idiom and say that she is bent on killing all criminals (including all COV player villains). No new mechanics would have to be implemented to make this work. Yes, PvP will be consensual, and the game may not cater to my every whim in terms of murdering whoever I want. But it is still valid for me to say that my "hero" is a killer. The fit is blurry, but it works well enough. For villains, it will be the same way. No, they won't be able to blow their contacts or whatever away whenever they feel like it. But this will not break immersion any more than consensual-only PvP is broken for my Scrapper right now. I'm cool with that, and other players are cool with it, and hopefully they will continue to be cool with it in COV.

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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.

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True. Players would have to cope with the existing system. See above.

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Better just stick with a Chaos villain.

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Limited. For no reason.

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. Blowing it up is right up there with taking it over. Such a villain wouldn't TELL all his underlings that that's what he's trying to do, or they wouldn't work for him. But that sure as heck wouldn't stop him from trying.

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Also, when you mention 'powers with fear' does that include Rain of Fire, Ice Storm and Burn?

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If you see a little white screaming face appear on the mob, then that mob has been hit by a Fear effect. If you don't, they haven't.

Martin, please grab a new hotmail account, register with PayPal, and post the address. Then we can love you with money.

I thank you. Thank you all.

Actually, it just occurred to me why you would want to link Goals with Origins - for Fallen Heroes. A Technology hero would automatically become a Money villain.

Cute, but I say nah. The reasons for falling will vary from hero to hero. No reason that a Magic hero wouldn't turn to crime simply to get rich. A Fallen Hero should simply choose his Goal (/Motivation!).

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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.

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I like "Motivations" instead of "Goals". Motivations are broader.

Power

A natural. What villain doesn't want to be all-powerful? Linking it with Magic seems bogus though. There are many, many means to achieving personal power (as opposed to personal influence) in a superhero universe.

Chaos

Seems too narrow. As stated above, I think it should be broadened into Destruction. Whether a given villain really wants to destroy the universe, destroy the government, or just kill lots of people and break lots of windows would be up to the individual player to decide. Again, linking it with Mutation - why?

Ego
Overlaps way way too much with Power. Junk it.

Money
Seems a little too narrow. I'd say broaden it out into Greed or Avarice or something. Some highfalutin' villains might want to own the greatest works of art in the world. Others will want to own magic artifacts (though usually as levers to gain personal Power or to Dominate others, etc.) But good, good. Technology fits pretty well with this one, actually, but only for certain villain types. Then again, robots do not want money more than anyone else.

Domination
Of course, another natural. This is "Power" in the sense of influence. A keeper, definitely.

What could we replace Ego with if junked? I agree that there should be five Goals/Motivations to parallel COH's five origins. I don't know. It seems like there should be maybe a 'catch-all' one, but Other sounds lame. I guess Insanity might be good, since I'm having a hard time coming up with any other rational reasons to be a criminal but 'the dog told me to do it', mentioned above, should definitely be an option.

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Destruction: Someone who doesn't wish to rule the world, but rid the entire population. The ultimate evil. Someone who doesn't need minions, but has them because the unworthy underlings serve you in some dire hope that you won't destroy them as well.

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I think that this overlaps a heck of a lot with the OP's Chaos goal. Actually, I think Destruction is a better name, though - it covers a wider range of individual motivations.

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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?

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Well, by the same token, you should only get one chance, ever, to save the Terra Volta reactor, and all chat in COH should be monitored such that no one is ever capable of communicating to anyone else about how they failed to save the reactor and the city was destroyed, and once you fail, your account should automatically be cancelled because, for you, the city was destroyed.

It's a simple question of Realism vs. Playability. Realism is only a good thing when it doesn't step on Playability's toes.

Of course, if the plotline can be shaken out to take mission failures into account and branch a storyline that way, I'm all for it, as long as no rewards are taken permanently out of any player's grasp. To use your example, Lex may never let Supe work for him after a failure, but Mr. Mind's Monster Society of Evil might snap him (and his Task Force) up, after giving them a totally different test.

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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?

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Preposterous.

1) "Realism". Sure, Sister P is fighting crime all the time. But can she really scan every mind in the city, constantly, for villainous behavior? Can she snap her fingers and send a SWAT team anywhere in the city at any time? Obviously not, since there 9000 Hellions in Atlas Park right now, for crying out loud. We have to assume that her powers are limited. And for every heroic Sister Psyche, there is a villainous Mind Mantis (dibs on the name!) obstructing her abilities and generally making life hard for nice psychics everywhere.

2) "Comic Book Realism", which is more important here. It is perfectly OK for "real realism" to be thrown out the window if it makes for a good comic story (or game). Two writers across the hall from each other at (insert big comic company of your choice) can write two totally contradictory stories in the same universe and have them both published. Nerds will attack the inconsistencies, and the writers may try to fuse it all together later, but continuity doesn't matter if the stories are great regardless.

Loner villains are a MUST. It is OK if, in COV, low level villains have the opportunity to run missions for organized crime syndicates. But if the assumed goal for ALL supervillains is to "impress the big boys", well, that sucks. Villains by their natures are arrogant and combative. Evil sows the seeds of its own destruction. All the great comic villain teams are constantly fighting, splitting up, and re-forming again. I have no problem with their being 5 big syndicates or whatever that my villain characters can work with (work with, not for, except at first when I'm weak). But most villains hate authority, and I am hoping that there will be lots of opportunities for missions I do for MYSELF. Bad guys use one another as pawns all the time, but if I spend all my time running errands for Villain Corps or the Malfeasance Phalanx, I will be sorely disappointed and will not feel like a real supervillain.

(Note that COH does a great job of making the "slave to the system" idiom very transparent. We are working for the good of the city, but it really feels like we are taking care of everything ourselves most of the time. Heroes have contacts, Villains can have informants (as opposed to crime bosses that they report to) - I don't see a problem.)

I agree with Tal_N. I like the idea of have Motivation types instead of Origin types - it's an interesting parallel to the fact that Villain ATs will be different from Hero ATs. But trying to shoehorn Motivations into the existing Origins seems like overdoing it and counterproductive.

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Edit: The idea of disabling xp & debt for offline heroes is a tidy solution.

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Oh yeah - for the record - my assumption this whole time has been that when you are offline, you get 0 xp and 0 debt.* You are just there to look cool and make your SG members feel cool. The costume creator (and what I have done with it) is so awesome, I just want all my characters strutting around like living trophies all the time. Then again, I also like the suggestion above of enabling your character as a "defense turret" when you are offline. Hey, I can go either way with offline combat status, and would love to see "fully functional" offline hero participation. I can just see how that opens up several cases of cans of worms.

*Though I lovvve the idea of still being at HQ while offline sooo much, I'd happily endure permadebt on all my characters if Lord_Recluse will make it happen! I'm serious!

Speaking of trophies - a hall of portraits, with mug shots of all the members lining the walls, and statues of a few of the highest-level members, is a neat idea, too ... but it would be better to see the members themselves, hanging around playing ping-pong and baking cakes when they're not out fighting crime. Portraits/statues in the trophy hall just seem a little ... vain ... for superheroes. Villains, well, of course they should be all over it. Villain SG leaders, at least, will probably demand graven images of themselves.

Yes! YES!!

SUMMARY FOR EASY DEV CONSUMPTION: OFFLINE HEROES CAN STILL WORK GREAT! NEW AND IMPROVED, IN FACT!

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The problem with off-line characters being present in the base is what happens if the base is raided (by players or possibly PvE, who knows)? Do you really want to come back on and find out your hero was defeated while you were away?

Servants on the other hand is an interesting idea.

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Wow! Thanks for the response, Lord_Recluse!

I hope that your initial "eh, that doesn't seem workable at first glance" reaction doesn't mean that you won't continue to consider it as we keep spinning it around here.

Egos_Shadow said it pretty well:
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I assume (but could be wrong in this) that base raids will be a different "mode" from normal "just hanging around" mode. You could have logged-off heroes present in "normal" mode for scenery purposes, and only have the logged in members present for an actual Versus raid.

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With all the talk about consensual-only PvP, my assumption is that if you are just going to your base to put stuff in the vault, write on the message board, or whatever other features bases will have, you won't suddenly be plunged into PvP with no warning. When a PvP base mission happens, it is therefore going to be instanced, right? So, during such an attack, simply don't spawn offline PCs in the instanced version of the base. Servants or agents can be there, sure, whether as mob support or as chicken-with-head-cut-off window dressing.

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(by players or possibly PvE, who knows)

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Aha! I didn't see this the first time through! Sorry if I spoil any surprises but of COURSE there will be PvE ambush-type attacks in bases! This would be trickier but still doable. Actually it will make it more cinematic! Check it out:

Normally, the HQ is a fairly active place. Heroes here and there, agents maybe, secretaries, what-have-you. Of course, the lives of heroes are busy and unpredictable ones, and often times an HQ will be pretty much empty (think of Iron Man at Avengers Mansion after a meeting, ruminating that he has no other life to go back to). Naturally, if a bunch of ninjas want to bushwhack somebody, or a major villain wants to stage a kidnapping, they will naturally target the HQ as the only place that they can be sure the hero will show up at sooner or later. Likewise, they will observe the comings and goings of the other heroes, and will have a good idea of when nobody else is around. THESE times will be the times that they choose to strike.

To reflect this, the offline hero presence will fluctuate dramatically (after all, we can't expect these extraordinary people to spend most of their time mooning around at home) throughout the course of the day. Only some of the time (20% or so?) will the majority of the group actually be present - most of the rest of the time, there will be a "medium" staffing level - a few random members around watching the Trouble Alarm or whatever (and I like the idea of guys stopping what they're doing and leaving the base periodically, or other guys showing up at random - though this might be harder to code than it is worth). Occasionally (20% again?), the place will be pretty much empty. You might come in the front door and no heroes will be around. You leave the reception area and go to the inner sanctum and there are just one or two capes in the rec room watching TV. Passing by them, you head down to the lab to test the new plague samples you just picked up from some hapless Vahz. It will be during moments like this (with no offline heroes on-camera) that the ambushes (or whatever) will spring! (And if you run back to the TV room for help, the offline heroes in there will have discreetly gone to bed or left to go patrol (i.e. despawned) while they were 'off-camera'.) If you keep HQs 'abandoned' 20% of the time anyway, the ambushes will still be a surprise.

Ambushes right now do a great job of spawning off-camera. No reason that offline offline SG members couldn't despawn in the same way!

Re: servants: yeah, cool idea there as well. I am actually pretty much assuming that decent-sized or high-level villain SGs will be entitled to have SMG-toting minions swarming around in their bases all the time. Superheroes don't seem to really pack in hordes of agents, though, traditioinally (though a case could be made).

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Do you really want to come back on and find out your hero was defeated while you were away?

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Me? Absolutely. I have no problem with this at all. I would consider this to be a 'team-up' type of hero situation, where my guy was just a sidekick to the featured (online) hero (or a super-tough mentor type that the newbs in the SG come running to when some ambush is whipping them - kind of the HQ equivalent of Police Drones, only cooler and personalized! Hm!). Please, by all means, make me a full-fledged mob NPC when I am offline, whenever you want to. I realize, however, that this is probably a minority view, so unless there is a huge groundswell of support for, I agree that you should probably forget allowing offline characters to participate in fights. But see above and keep them in the HQs!

Oh! Oh! I had another idea! Maybe different skill-specialized characters will do different things around the base! Science characters will be working in the lab, Communication specialists will confer on the wall-sized video conferencing screen with their contacts or the mayor (or offline members of allied supergroups!!), Security characters will man the camera monitors, Scholarship specialists will cram in the library and pore over computer records ... of course all characters could spar, argue, or just be sitting around reading the paper.

My initial thought for this was to be able to set an "attitude" for each character so that they'd do appropriate things - I don't want my big dumb Tanker rewiring all the electrical systems or curing cancer in the infirmary (and other players might have Tankers that are science geniuses). But adding an extra stat selection interface seems a little overboard. However, skills will be implemented by then and that would dovetail nicely!