Shadow_Kitty
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Posts
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Quote:There's an old saying, "never play an ace when a two will do".Originally Posted by MisterMagpie
...buh? No comprende.
Take for instance our friend Spidey. Sometimes, he save the world. Sometimes he team up with unsavoury characters to do so.
Most of the time, he doesn't save the world. He stops kingpins, drug dealers, bank robbers, the occasional spy, Captain America and other non-world-destroying nasty things. And sometimes he teams up with unsavoury characters to do so.
But even if Spidey himself does what he does because with great powers come great responsibility, the unsavoury characters do what they do for their own reasons. Even when they team with Spidey. -
Quote:Not given the context. BAF is a part of the ongoing war between Primal Earth and Praetoria. In that context, BAF is essentially part of saving the world. Without someone to stop the Praetorians, the world will change and probably to the worse by being invaded by the evil things from beyond the world.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Except, given that the heroes are supposed to be law and order types for the most part, why would they proactively engage and try to bring down Crey through extralegal means unless it was, in effect, to save the world from them. From the heroic side, won't such missions always be portrayed by the heroes as saving the world from the enemy? If so, won't that automatically conflict with the notion of not overusing the metaphor on the villain side, even if the villain side has an alternative possible narrative.
Isn't the distinction between "bring down BAF" and "bring down Crey" too fine for the point you're trying to make?
Crey on the other hand is already a part of this world. Unethical, powerful and downright unpleasant as it is, it already exists as a symbiotic part of this world. In the long run, the best you accomplish is cutting off another head of an all-too-familiar hydra. The world won't change that much, except that the newspapers get cool headlines for a few weeks. They get a new CEO, there are some unpleasant hearings, a charity ball, some token changes and a massive PR campaign. At worst, Crey collapses and files for bankruptcy and Arachnocorp takes the market shares.
It still may feel extremely necessary even for the most blue-tighted hero to take such action. Just add medical experiments on some unfortunate runaway white girls, and you have the moral implications for the heroes to act. Would Mr Superduperman just ignore that Crey is conducting painful cellular DNA X-factor essence extraction experiments on my pretty daughter?
There's another thing as well. What the heroes say is one thing; the difference is what the villains say. If the villains say, "we're saving the world too, cause otherwise we'll die too", you're doing it wrong. If the villains say "I want Countess Crey's head on a platter! NOBODY POACHES MY TERRITORY!" you're doing it... well, perhaps not right, but a lot better.
You can of course just not read the text in the trials and just imagine that "I want Countess Crey's head on a platter" was what the contact said, but I don't think it is particularly good design if I have to ignore "let's work together to save the world" and fill in the blanks with my own dark evil musings for it to fit the character. Especially not if I have to do it in every single co-op! (You can of course solve the problem by not doing the co-ops, but as solutions go, that's about as satisfying as decaf.)
As for the extra-legal matters, remember what Bats said in the Congressional hearings in Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns:
"Of course we're criminals. We have no other choice."
Which brings me to a final thought: the blue-tights boyscout law and order all-American heroes have some four co-op trials and task forces plus the iTrials catering for their do-goody mom-and-applepie feelings, but nothing for Bats.
I think it's time to throw a bone to the dark and edgy knights and jokers, if nothing else than for change. -
Quote:The "common enemy" gimmick is extremely broad. The "save the world together" gimmick is a subset of the "common enemy" gimmick, and hence is a much more narrow gimmick.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Actually, while I've had a problem with villain content for as long as villain content has existed, the one area I cut the devs some slack on is co-op content. Co-op content by its very nature has to involve goals where the two factions' interests overlap, at least nominally. And that tends to be "common enemy" interests: they may not like each other, but they decide to hate someone else even more.
And therein lies the problem: Lady Grey, Imperious, Tin Mage and Apex are all "save the world together" task forces. Although more proactive and a bit easier to shoe-horn into the "if I look at it this way and ignore the story it might be villainous" box, the Incarnate Trials also fall into this category as they are written (caveat: I couldn't be bothered about any Incarnate Trial after Underground, so I can't speak of those). The narrower gimmick is simply overused.
But you don't have to use the "save the world together" gimmick. If you have the villains and heroes infiltrate Crey Corporation to bring it down from the inside, it would still be a common enemy, it would certainly feel more villainous (at least kinda grey), and there wouldn't be another instance of "save the world together".
It's not necessary to have the option to defect or betray. All you need to do is to use the broader gimmick.Quote:Originally Posted by Arcanaville
The devs aren't going to make "co-op" missions where the villains have an option to defect or betray the hero side: that nullifies the co-op nature of the mission.
That has another advantage as well: you don't have to up the ante each time the gimmick is used. Instead of having to save something bigger than the world next time (the OMNIVERSE!!!), you "just" use another angle of the wider gimmick. Add a twist to the story, and you get a task force that feels fresh compared to the others, and no upping the ante at all. -
Quote:One is initiated by Mongoose, the others are initiated by the contacts that you just had to do five "someone else thought of it first" missions for.Originally Posted by DarkSideLeague
What about robbing the speakeasy in Port Oakes/Cap Au Diable and standard bank robberies after Mayhems were introduced?
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Broomstick.
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Quote:Well, as for that...Originally Posted by Issen
I like how "villain" must mean "I'm an Omnicidal Idiot", at least in the way you're defining it.
Nope. It's not a generalized experience. It is a heroic experience, with the "allow villains too" switch flipped to "on". No matter how much you twist the "you're an idiot if you don't want to survive Armageddon" argument, saving the world is inherently heroic.Quote:Originally Posted by Issen
Zwill said himself in the thread that they can't account for every single origin/backstory you come up with, so they provide a generalized experience.
And by the way, you're a bit late: the last 18 pages contain on the average one twist of that argument per page. And it's still moot. -
Why should I reroll? I'm perfect!
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Quote:Very interesting. Please remind me again how this is related to that villain stories are non-villainous too often.Originally Posted by Xanatos
You can say that you lack the belief that the devs planned PVP prior to the game, but you cannot say that you believe the devs did not plan PVP prior to the game. Sadly if you're going to assert the latter, then you have to prove a negative, which is impossible. The only alternative is to have a dev back you up. Which isn't going to happen. For this reason, you should stop making the claim that you believe the devs did not intend to put / plan to put PVP in CoH.
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Quote:Also a moot point, since the context is that villain players are a bit tired of having to be not-villainous every time the world is in danger, Darrin Wade being the latest example.Originally Posted by White Hot Flash
If you think every villain mission in this game has a goal of destroying the world, you haven't been paying attention to the story you've been told.
Yep, but not in the coops. There it's just "Stop being a villain and help saving the world! Fergawdssake, you live in it!"Quote:Originally Posted by White Hot Flash
Variations of everything you've rattled off have appeared in various arcs, both old ones and new ones.
Yawn.
For your information, you're talking to the cat that offed Statesman before he nerfed himself, for the sole reason that Lord Recluse thought States was a nuisance and the cat thought it was fun.Quote:Originally Posted by White Hot Flash
Besides, those alternate stories are small potatoes. An arc where one of the most powerful heroes on the planet gets his ticket punched deserves a better reason than stealing something, or pissing a hero off. The threat of world destruction is entirely acceptable and worthy of Statesman's death. Anything else would be cheap. -
Quote:Which brings me to another problem: awesomeness inflation.Originally Posted by Issen
I'm sorry villains, I realize you want your day in the spotlight, and so far in WWD you're getting it, but if you really want to side with the insane, world/galaxy/universe annihilating evil?
You're pancaked. And that's all there is to it.
Not that long ago, the Worst Fate that you could expect if The Devs let You Fail the Arc was that a part of the city crumbled down (again).
Then an evil mirror universe Statesman tried to kidnap the boy scout and take over this version of earth as well.
Then someone upped the ante. The worst that could happen was that Lord Recluse would ruin the world in 15 years on his way to become king. Next to that, the alien invasion was a bit peanuts, but cool anyway.
Then there was the annual Stopping Snowball Earth. That usually means mass extinction.
Then they upped the ante of the mirror universe threat and had a possible mass exctinction of two worlds - this and theirs.
And now, omnicide.
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This is Awesomeness Inflation. It has a tendency to hit just about anything that has been running for a while. When Star Destroyers is not enough, you use Super Star Destroyers and later Eclipse Star Destroyers.
And finally, when there's no chance of saving the story anymore, you are simply forced to reboot the universe.
Writers, if you read this, please calm down a bit. You don't HAVE to trump the potential-but-never-happening destruction of the last villain plot every time. Not even because Statesman dies. -
Quote:Just one?Originally Posted by Zwillinger
For those asking about Penny's new face, we're going to be introducing a new normal mapped Asian female face with the Imperial Dynasty costume set, so be sure to keep an eye out for that to hit the Paragon Market if it interests you.
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Quote:I don't think that it has anything to do with RPing. I think it's about the concept of the game and the story of the game being out of sync.Originally Posted by Demetrios Vasilikos
I love all the QQ from wannbe RPers that complain about the game not fitting THIER character rather then trying to create a character that fits the WORLD.
Think of it this way: if you had a hypothetical game titled Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, but the game's story wasn't about girl having whimsical fantasies in a weird borderline lunatic dreamworld, but instead was about a tough armoured female space marine killing aliens called Snark, I have a feeling that you would feel at least a bit cheated. The experience that you have is certainly not what you expected.
So it's not about the game not fitting MY character; it's more that the game doesn't fit its own concept.
Now, it is possible to make a game named City of Villains that fits its concept. If nothing else, the Mortimer Kal trial, Lord Recluse task force, tip missions and mayhem missions that already exist in the game proves that splendidly.
The problem is that large portions of the game's content doesn't fit the concept. The coop taskforces and trials is one example; quite a lot of the regular content is another. We didn't get Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, we got Space Marine Alice Killing Snarks, or in this case City of Misunderstood Mercenaries rather than City of Villains.
This is a chicken-and-the-egg question. Does the game have low villain population because the villain content is watered down, or do we get watered down content because of the server population?Quote:Originally Posted by Demetrios Vasilikos
This game is not mature rated, so frankly be thankful they give even the watered down evil options. Especially when you look at the sheer lack of activity Red Side.
[snippety]
Devs can see the stats concerning server population and activity and no doubt have been aware for some time how little interest a game originally titled as a game of heroes managed to really attract with thier red side addition.
There aren't that many games that have a villain morality, but the few that has (sorry, forum rules prohibit me from naming them) have generally done it well and have mostly been successful. So I think that it's mostly from the former: the villain content is watered down, so villain players are not attracted to the villain-side content (quite understandable: would you want to play a boring game?), and hence we just get more watered-down content that works for vigilantes and rogues.
You get a death spiral pretty quickly that way, a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts. -
Quote:Like this or like this?Originally Posted by Captain-Electric
I think the writers could pull more than one good story out of their cans, but you're right. Endeavors of world destruction would grow stale. But is that all our villains are asking for?
[snippety]
There's not much more that can be said, unless you want to start brainstorming with a can-do attitude. -
Quote:I probably could.Originally Posted by Captain-Electric
Let me put it to you a different way. Say I've just hired you, as a writer. Presumably you're interested in me not firing you. Your first assignment, due in two weeks, is to bring me an entertaining story arc wherein the player characters just want to watch the world burn.
I bet you'd come back in two weeks with a story.
Once.
But what happens thereafter? How well do you think I would perform if I were to match each "heroes saved the world" story currently in the game with a "villains tried to destroy the world but failed" story?
And how well do you think the players would receive those stories? I mean, the entire point of this thread is "oh, here we go again, we villains are never allowed to win".
The sole measurement of "entertaining story" is "are the players entertained?". Clearly, they are not now (at least not the villain players; hence this thread). I don't think they would be more entertained by repeatedly trying to destroy the world and not being able to. I think that they would be frustrated.
And yes, I'm still thinking outside of the game world, because when you are hiring me to make a job, you hire me outside the game world, and I presume that it is to entertain your customers, which after all, also exist outside the game world. -
Quote:Sure there is, but it's already well-established in this very thread and others that those plans cannot be made to succeed (at least not permanently, and then what would be the point?) in a persistent MMO.Originally Posted by Captain-Electric
Shadow Kitty, those are all fine examples. But there is a well-established precedent in comic books for super villains who just want to watch the world burn.
Even if I have a villain character that's an incarnation of the Great Winter preceding the World-Fire, I simply have to bite my tongue and accept that Fimbulwinter will not be able to end the world. The reason that she can't end the world is not because of self-preservation. Believe me, she would if she could, even at the cost of her own life, because ending the world is the sole reason for her existence - she is after all the end of the world incarnated. It's because of meta-reasons: the devs won't allow their revenue source cut off by having a player destroying the game world (i.e. shutting down the servers).
In conclusion: villains wanting to end the world will not succeed. It's a waste of time and money to produce villain stories about ending the world. Hence it is a better choice to do the other comic book villains instead.
Oh well, Fimbulwinter has waited since at least AD 769. She can wait a bit more. -
Quote:It's a moot point, since only a stupid mission designer would make MMO villain missions based on destroying the world. The smart MMO villain mission designer makes missions based on robbing the federal reserve, proving a point to Ms Liberty by forcing her to choose to bomb a boat with criminals or a bomb with innocent people, kidnaps a girl to force her dad the mage to be your servant, make Ghost Widow owe you one, or just piss off Statesman.Originally Posted by Dark Energon
What good is it to rule the world, when there is no world to rule?
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Quote:So don't make that kind of "real villain arcs". Make the comic book villain kind of arcs.Originally Posted by Crim_the_Cold
I mean think about it what if they had an arc were your villain approaches the Family with a plan to distribute Superdyne at a Paragon City Middle or High School. And I do not mean the Family asks you to help with their plan. I mean you come up with the plan, you approach the Family, you tell them your plan, you and them negotiate, you set up your dealers in the area around the school clearing out other dealers and or villain groups for being on your turf, maybe have to intimidate a few school administrators and police officers, and then at the end have to defend your distribution warehouse.
The problem with this type of arc is that it really isnt teen rated content and since it would be a part of the official game they risk a PR nightmare when some reporter with a cause or grudge decides to inflame parents because a teen rated game is teaching their children to be drug dealers.
- Send Manticore chasing bombs across Paragon City while you and your 5th Column droogies rob the federal reserve.
- Take hostages in a skyscraper to fool everyone that you're a terrorist with political demands, when you in reality are stealing the 600M inf in US bonds kept in the vault.
- Place bombs on two ferries, one with convicts and one with innocent civilians, and force Miss Liberty to choose which ferry to blow up, just to prove a point.
- Make a Magnetic Positron Trap to, well, trap Positron, and provide free energy for Rogue Islands.
- Lobby Congress to pass draconian acts to protect your media empire, and that will also break the Internet.
- Blow up an iconic monument - the Atlas statue, for instance - because blowing up a statue is a symbol, and the people needs symbols more than they need a statue.
- Invent a miraculous 3D tv set that steals people's brain power and funnels it to you.
- Fluoridate the water supply as a stepping stone to the Communist take-over.
... you get the idea. -
Quote:Not really. But it would be quite easy to fix. Don't have a doomsday device as the goal. They goal should be one that can be obtained without breaking the game world. No deus ex machinae needed.Originally Posted by GlassGoblin
How would you feel about this scenario? Your villain makes the choices he likes, fights his way past the obstacles to his goal, and then gets to push the red button to destroy the world. You won, in that you got to do what you wanted. However, the Doomsday Device fails to work (or some other deus ex machina), maintaining the world's (and game's) status quo, and you have to make a hasty exit to your lair to plot anew. Would that work for you?
In fact, let's extend the idea a bit:
- The villain picks a choice from a list of goals. Doomsday devices and end of the world is not on that list.
- Make it a bit of a journey, not just one mission, because you need several things. Each thing you get in a mission. The things can be hostages, kidnapped scientists, control of a city block, artifacts, relics, tech stuff, rubber duck, whatever.
- Then iterate: pick one thing from the list of things still needed. Then list a number of random template-based missions from which to get that particular thing. Pick one of those. Do that mission and get that thing. Repeat for the other things.
- As you get the things and come closer to your goal, you get the attention of a hero. He starts to ambush you as you try to get the things. Generally, he fails, because it's not the end of the story yet. But if he wins, and you fail, you have to try to get the thing in another way (i.e. pick another random template mission).
- Finally, you have the things you need, and you set up to complete your Evil Scheme. Then the hero jumps in and tries to stop you in a Final Showdown.
- If you win, you win the goal that you set out to get, laugh and gloat at the inept hero, apply science or magic to your evil character, and decide to do it all over again.
- If you lose, you get thrown into the Zig, and have to escape from the Zig (an excellent time to get the Jailbird badge, if you don't have it). When you get out, you do not get the goal, but you get some other but smaller reward and you get to vow revenge for the dishonor of being thrown behind bars!
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Okay, here's something to ponder:
Antagonists ("villains") usually get to do two very specific somethings that we're not allowed to do in this game. Well, not very much, anyway.
1) They're proactive. They set out to do something because they want to. Protagonists ("heroes") on the other hand are reactive. They set out to do something because they have to - basically, the villains forced the hero to do something.
Consequence: the most villainous thing in the game is the mayhem missions, followed by the tip missions. Because in those two types of missions, we get to choose what we're about to do. We set the ball in motion!
2) They're a catalyst for the protagonist. If you're into the Campbellian mushroom soup, you notice that the villain's role is to cause a change in the hero. The hero must come out of the story a different person - "the master of the two worlds" (the two worlds being the normal world and the world of adventure), "the bringer of the elixir" (whatever was needed to heal the normal world) in Campbell's words. Basically, all hero stories are about coming to terms with one's own self.
The villain's story is quite different. It is not the villain's role to change or to find out who he is (unless he's the anti-hero, i.e. Vigilantes and Rogues). His job is just to challenge the hero. Not to lose. To challenge the hero. There's a very important difference there.
Consequence: again, the most villainous thing to do in the game is the mayhem missions followed by the tips missions. The mayhem missions always has a hero turning up (because you forced him by robbing the bank). The tips missions sometimes has a hero that you set out to foil (but not always - sometimes you just screw up the life for another villain). And we never change! We do it happily over and over again!
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There are not that many villain stories at all. Basically, it's Mortimer Kal's trial, and there's Lord Recluse's Task Force to a certain degree as Recluse is the instigator, not you. Also, it will probably be different in the future when States disappears from it.
Do you notice something? There's a distinct lack of "saving the world because you have to" here - those are inherently heroic missions, because they a) are reactive, and b) forces something of a change in you. Well, what else would you call having to stand side by side with those pesky heroes and not try to kill them straight? There's a certain insight there, which Campbell definitely would call "the elixir".
Conclusion 1: As soon as you set out to save the world, that's a hero story, a redemption story, no matter how you justify it for the villain.
Conclusion 2: Villain stories don't have to be about the end of the world, or world domination. Villain stories simply have to be proactive. -
Quote:Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle
How about because you live in the universe?
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Quote:Not necessarily. You can do a lot of fun things with transparency.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I'm not sure if they can give us different chest bodies, but assuming they could (they can give us different looking arms and legs after all) wouldn't that mean every kind of neckline for the "stretched" look would need a different body part, since the upper part of the "stretched" part would be different in each case?
Have a bunch of polygons shape the breasts and the space between and beneath them. These polygons are "naked", i.e. only skin texture.
On top of those, have a bunch of polygons shape the fabric covering the cleavage. These polygons use the tights texture.
Then use the existing tights textures on the fabric polygons, and use the "skin" part of them as transparency map. Add a bumpmap to create wrinkles and depressions fitting that specific cleavage.
Voilá! There you have it: (almost) any cleavage you want using only bitmaps rather than geometry. -
Quote:Please have the revamp include an upres, thankyou.Originally Posted by Noble Savage
--revamp original tights w/ subtle folds, seams
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Quote:I'd simply like to see quite a lot of the old patterns up-rezzed and with an optional texture layer. The main problem with the existing Golden/Silver age patterns is resolution and compression artifacts, so people tend to avoid them in favour to the newer shinier pieces, which have attributed to the perceived lack of Golden/Silver age pieces.Originally Posted by Noble Savage
Hey, folks. There's been some interest in the basic tights category lately, so let's talk about it in depth. If we were to make some new BASIC TIGHTS options for the game, what would you want to see?
In addition to that, I'd like to see assymetric patterns. It looks like a lot of the old patterns are not only low-res and hard compressed, but also covers one quarter of the bodypart (e.g. front right) and is then copied, flipped and stretched to fit the other quarters. We have on average about 30 times more computing power today; a full bodypart texture would only be 4 times as big (2 times if you cheated and mirrored front to back), leaving about 7 times more power for textures and higher resolution (15 times with mirroring).
Some very specific things I'd like to see:
- Please split up Detail 1 into Face Detail option and Detail 1 option, like you did with Ears.
- Speaking of Ears, add a "no ears" to it, please. As in completely covered by the full mask, like Batman. While at it, make "no human ears" an option to the existing non-human ears.
- Also, please make a pass on the clipping rules - there are still a lot of older cossie pieces that we can't combine because someone other than us thought it looked ugly (Trenchcoat and Large Robotic Gloves comes to mind).
- Speaking of trenchcoats, please add a Cloth texture to it.
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I like the emotes, cossie pieces, auras and trail auras locked behind the iTrials. I just wish they weren't.
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Quote:5 Creepy Ways Video Games Are Trying to Get You AddictedOriginally Posted by Golden Girl
If the game's not fun, then why would people be interested in getting rewards from it?