Kitsune9tails

This is the theory:

In order to qualify as a Villain (capital V), your character must intend a vast change to the status quo. You have to have a plan that "Must be stopped!"

This change must be either destructive to society by it's very nature (and I mean destructive to society as an entity, not just to a particular society) or if well-intended, not worth the cost/unjustifiable means.

In short, all Villains either turn into Lord Recluse, or "Wastelander-type" (ruling over destruction and disorder ranging from constant social unrest to a barren wasteland) or Emperor Cole "Iron Fist-type" (with something that looks like a society or even a paradise, but which is populated by zombies/constructs/no one at all).

There is also a matter of scale: some villains would legitimately stop at the Peer level (recognized as equivalent to a world power), Supreme level (recognized as master/destroyer of Earth), Ultimate (recognized as master/destroyer of all sentience).

This applies to all media and literature.

Count Dracula would ultimately rule over a world divided into servants/food and fellow subservient vampires as evidenced by his attempt to expand into England.

Emperor Palpatine (movie version) apparently wanted to rule the entire galaxy through overt fear and manipulation; running a successful shadow government that the Jedi could not even pin down wasn't enough.

Lex Luthor, on the other hand, is ultimately just a thug. He really has everything he wants, except for Superman's head over his mantle. Multiple alternate versions of Lex have proven ultimately heroic, so long as they are given a world where they are seen as the ultimate power.

Of course, there are those guys that just want some variation on "give me booze and the respect of people of the appropriate sex and leave me alone", but those are 'small v villains".

And some Villains would ultimately actually improve the world; but at some cost that ultimately isn't worth it: the destruction of another equivalent world, genocide, the sacrifice of education and creativity in perpetuity, etc. "Price-type" villains. Mister Glass from Unbreakable could be seen like this: he proved the existence of supermen, but at what price?

The final type of villain is the as one of the above, but the thrust of the story is unseating them from power: they have already won, and the heroes must restore the world or lead a successful rebellion.

If your character intends to improve the world, their ultimate plan would improve the world, and the cost isn't too high/unethical to pay, then they by definition aren't a Villain. Perhaps a misunderstood hero.

...

Anyway, am I way off base here?
Do your red side characters fit in the above categories?
Is this a fun way to think about things?

I'm looking forward to your feedback. I think a good part of the "villain experience" that could be added to this game would be the ability to define an ultimate goal for your villain that would essentially fall into the category of "Conquer the World" "Destroy the World" and possible "Fix the world at too great a price". You would be able to work toward this goal throughout levelling, and ultimately be rewarded with the ability to create a alternate world reachable through Portal Co that was to some extent personalized (via AE tech).

Of course having 'won' to some extent doesn't mean your villain would not continue to wreak havoc in Paragon, Praetoria and the Isles...

...what do you think?

It could be Speed Racer
Or it could be Dragonball Evolution

Been here since original Beta, in time for the second Rikti Invasion, before they had their accents

This is the best MMO, best Dev team, and best community on the Internet.

Here's to another decade!

Which do you prefer?

The situation is that you are playing through a mission, and have encountered an NPC that you can talk with. To progress in the arc, you have to convince this NPC to give you a McGuffin. You cannot actually fail to do this, but the writer has decided to at least give you the illusion of choice.

Would you prefer the resulting dialogue choices to look like:

(Threaten Him)
(Charm Him)
(Trick Him)

OR

"Place the McGuffin on the floor and flee this room. You have 10 seconds to comply."

"NPC, You have nothing to fear from me. I'm on your side in this. Please, hand over the McGuffin, and I can make this work out for both of us. Help me help you.

"How do I know that thing is even genuine? Let me see it; if it's real, then we can deal."

Please try to think in terms of several of your characters on both red and blue side, then post your answer. In this thread, I am only asking about 'illusory choices'. Actual branching dialogue that affects the outcome of a mission or how you character is addressed in the future is a different subject.

There is also Architect Entertainment. Despite its' problems, it is effectively infinite content (there are more AE arcs than you can play on any character, and indeed arcs are being created faster than you can play through them).

Sturgeon's Law applies.

Alfred, does this mech make my butt look big?

What Tenzhi said.

Thanks! Worked for me.

I understand your concerns, and fully defend your right to state them and hope they will be addressed in a way you find satisfactory by empowered red names.

I think that people are looking for the EULA to unequivocally specify "we will never do x, and if we do, you can sue us for all of our money and we won't fight it. Unless we are lying liars."

I just don't see that happening.

As a project, it would seem to have merit.

One downside is that the site might also introduce new hacking methods which would then be applied to unprotected sites with disastrous consequences.

Another is that hackers are likely to be leery of putting their skills in an acknowledged place that the government and corporations will be easily monitoring.

You'd probably have to put in some kind of escalating reward for hacking/protecting the site to create incentive for it to be hacked/protected.

That is correct of you.

My point is that the new EULA does not actually say anything new.

[QUOTE=SlickRiptide;3873226]

1) The EULA doesn't say anything about how NCSoft goes about its monitoring. There's nothing to prevent them from intalling a Sony style root-kit or using something that acts like GameGuard or NProtect only worse. Whatever they want to do is okay. [QUOTE]

My understanding (IANAL) is that the Freedom EULA does not impact their rights in this area whatsoever. They are not expressly promising that they will not install a rootkit, nor are they asking for permission to do so.

Of course, they do have the "right" to change their software in any patch however they want. Technically, after Freedom installs we could find ourselves playing in the Marvel Universe, and if we didn't like that, our only recourse would be to uninstall.

Even more to the point, if it were to be discovered tomorrow that a rootkit had in fact been installed way back with Going Rogue, the EULA would have no impact on our legal recourse regarding that fact.

I will now attempt to get this thread back to discussing the new EULA rationally.

To my understanding, the new EULA (and the old EULA, and essentially all EULAs) boil down to: "We can terminate your service anytime you want. You were warned."

It is worth it to check whether a EULA expressly gives the corporation permission to install a rootkit or summat, but I don't beleive this one does that.

Therefore I don't beleive this particular EULA is a concern, because I don't beleive it actually does anything other than speak in somewhat clearer language than the previous EULA.