Royal_Guard

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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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you're making up archetypes essentially. (in the jungian sense rather than the game term) and while one archetype is dominant in your personality, other motives are very likely to show up from time to time. the motivation is a generalization of their behavior and generalizations aren't hard and fast. you're describing what their core motivation is, not their sole motivation. You make an example that money villains can be insane, but i don't think that invalidates insanity as a motive apart from greed. money villains can also lust for power. Power villains can have dreams of domination, Dominators can often be ruled by their egos. People aren't just one thing, you're merely generalizing what their main motive is. Your chaos classification is villainy without reason. that's insanity. as far as there being very different kind of insanities, that's just character flavor. some of your contacts may be madmen, some deluded, some detatched and nihilistic. all of these NPCs would have one thing in common. destruction for it's own sake, be it destroying the universe, human lives or even just the status quo. You commit evil for no reason other than it's ends.

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. Evil that strives toward no tangible motive. That is all covered under the blanket of insanity. It can be chaotic in nature, like creating mayhem and destruction for it's own sake. Or it can be very ordered and calculated, such as a cold nihilistic agenda to bring an end to existence.

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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(flame)Some one find out they're ugly and alone in the world with bad breath and VD this morning?

That's not a productive post. The others here a putting a lot of thought into this. Did you read the pleasant request in the original post not to flame the writer just criticise his ideas? You could return the courtesy or shut up yourself.(/flame)

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i apologize for the tone. i was pretty frustrated at the time. fallen heroes topics pop onto this forum numerous times daily. i find the whole notion pretty preposterous in an online gaming context. people seem pretty cavalier in demanding some shortcut past the effort and content of what promises to be a very fun and exciting game. despite the flippant tone of my post, i feel my points are valid. Hero to villain conversions wouldn't support the direction cryptic has been taking but rather just be a blatant motion to appease a vocal and misguided portion of the player base.

that aside, i like the notion of motivation serving as the "race" category for the villain game just as origin does for heroes.

the classifications you've (EvGen_88) listed are interesting but they don't really jive with the game's theme so far. CoH is a world of four color heroics more than grey-morality modern comics. They picked a simple and cosistent thematic and stuck to it, which in my opinion is a good decision. to paraphrase Statesman (or possibly another dev) in an early interview: "a game trying to be too many things rarely excells at any of them" filling paragon city with all the themes you describe would muddle the feel in my opinion.

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When it comes to the freakshow faction they are technology based however they have little or no interest in money.

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then why are they selling speakers in brickstown? listen to some of the freakshow dialogue. they take their role in the paragon black market.


seriously though people. what is wrong with playing the new expansion when it comes out? what's so hard about that? you bought a game about superheroes. if you made a villain, then you made a poor financial decision. the villain game comes out in 2005. it's like you went to the store and wanted pie. they were out of pie so you bought cake and took it home. now you're all screaming that the store is somehow obligated to transform your cake into a pie.

shut up already! play the game when it comes out.

PvP hounds: chill out! you won't be able to pwn on day one. build your character, follow their pvp content as it's intended.

alleged Rpers: delete your characters and use the name for your villain. you can post all the little story developments in your livejournal or wherever you seem interesting, and your audience can catch an earful. if you feel that you HAVE to be able to trade in your level 50 character for a level 50 villain then get honest with yourself. Roleplaying is not your motive if that's the case, it's powergaming.

continuity nerd: it has happened in comics. on very frigging rare instance and it's always a plot device to either kill off a hero or a temporary situation. so you want to get true to the books? your hero suffers permanent death a month after your fall from grace. you may be resurrected in 4 years when a new editor's staff takes over. or you get to be a villain for a half hour and then the story wraps up and you seek counseling. Once again, the continuity nerds only seek to try and justify their self interest. and weakly so.