Jophiel

Heh... that and snarky civilians on the street who say things like "My, aren't you looking villainous today?" rather than running away or cowering in fear. I bet if I could smack them with my axe, they'd run away

Man, even lvl 1 Hellion minions manage to scare off passing civilians...

Sure, but how am I supposed to get model sheets if people can't read my screenshots, huh Smartypants??

Maybe I'll draw my own. Stick figure model sheets!

Nonsense. It's both. There's two ways to gain the shards needed to complete the mission, both of them equally valid. I don't know why people can't just admit that it's a PvE and PvP mission. It's as though people are afraid that if they admit that there's a legitimate PvP component integral to the mission, they won't have an argument any longer for not wanting to fight.

I disagree with the attempts to compare it to, say, getting attacked by a player while trying to get the Men in Black badge. Yes, anything occurring in a PvP zone has a chance of PvP occurring as well, but the Shivan mission has a direct PvP component. PvP directly affects the mission. Not by slowing someone down or just by happening but you can complete the mission by entering PvP. You'll never complete the Men in Black badge by defeating players, no matter how many you go after. You can complete the Shivan mission by engaging in PvP. PvP is an intrinsic part of the Shivan mission. Perhaps not a necessary part but it is intrinsic to it.

None of this means that you have to enjoy PvP or fight back or anything but it seems kind of absurd to insist that the Shivan mission isn't both a PvP and a PvE mission.

But PvP is directly related to the Shivan shards. It's not essential to it but it has a direct effect on the mission. You can collect shards directly by defeating other players and ignore the meteors entirely. That's much different than "Collect shards and someone might make it take longer by sending you to the hospital". You can't just take the mission and move it to Steel Canyon without changing it -- you'd have to edit out the text and code that says "Defeat other players and take their shards". It's not a PvE mission that happens to be in a PvP zone, it's a mission that has both a PvE and a PvP component, even if you personally chose to ignore one facet of it.

You can collect shards by drilling the meteors or by taking them from defeated opponents. That sounds pretty PvP related to me. You don't have to fight other players but there is a direct PvP component to the mission. It's not just "Drill the meteors and if you want to beat some folks up purely for giggles along the way, go for it."

I'm not a PvPer. Don't really have the mindset for it and want to worry about the perfect mouse/keyboard combinations and hopping like a meth addled squirrel all over the map to make myself harder to target and all that. But I can understand where the OP is coming from -- PvP in CoX is pretty benign and I'd probably at least give it a go if I was attacked while collecting shards. Back in games like Everquest where you'd lose gear or risk having your corpse camped by someone... nah. But in CoH there's really nothing to lose so why not.

I understand the "why not?" of "Because I don't want to ever!"... well, I understand that that's your reason and respect it. I just can't wrap my mind around it.

I was only posting to give you access to my characters! They're in my sig!

His lazy eye comes close.

Actually (I'm guessing you meant me), I said that I *don't* feel like I'm playing a bad guy. I don't want to get too much into it because it's been hashed out in other threads but most of the red content feels like hero content with a thin coat of paint. Instead of "Rescue Suzie Pimpleton", it's "CoT mages kidnapped Suzie Pimpleton so you should go... ummm... kidnap her from them and then, I dunno, I guess you ransom her after you've logged off or something." There's a few exceptions but I mostly just feel I'm either running hero missions or acting as a chump to some contact who's having me do his grunt work for little reward (at least as a hero, virtue is its own reward).

So, if I'm going to be a wannabe hero anyway, I might as well be in Paragon City.

I admit that I'm envious of the Virtueverse thing.