Spyte

/brianblessedvoice "Vin Diesel's Alive!"

....and still making movies

Grrr this wont do at all.... I want the game all to myself

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Well.. as there are many anti-heroes (and villains) in comics I don't see why not.

The Hulk is a brute AT
Kitty Pryde of the X-Men could be considered a stalker... or Batman... Although both are good scrappers too

Same counts for villains...
I am sure there are villain tankers in comics for instance.

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My real concern is that 'what it means to be a hero' or more particularly 'what it means to be a villain', something I believe is already 'undernourished' in definition or distinction will pretty much dissapear altogther..... I like the idea of the expanded versatility and diversity but fear the character of the game (something far more delicate) will suffer.

While I agree Hulk is a typical brute such hero characters are a significant minority. Some AT's are open to both sides without compromising the theme but for me Brutes, Stalkers and Defenders add much needed stylistic defninition to their side by their existence and allowing them to cross to the opposite 'team' would adversely affect what that side supposedly represents

Are they saying when you change alignment you continue with your existing AT so we can end up with Hero Stalkers and Villian defenders? That might sound good on one level but it removes one of the very few distinctions between the two classes and as so much of the villian missioning experience is IDENTICAL to the hero's identity and immersion will go out the window.. Stalkers and Brutes are a typipcal Villian class whereas Defenders are really Heroic in their philanthropic support, wouldn't like to see those cross over tbh.

1. Rikti/Nemesis/the Cimoreroara guy I cant remember - Any Generic common enemies out there; we pick hero and villians characters in order to be different, to face different challenges, to be good or to be evil, we dont need content that see's them on the same side, we need events and content that set them against one another (not just pvp but bigger and more varied issues). The threat to Paragon should be the villians not handlebar headed aliens or steam powered rejects from an aborted sequel to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

2. Yeah the mismatched clothing in the tailors is a pain,but what is the point of clothing when its obliterated behind the intrusive aura created by the power you use... click a toggle power and whoosh you become blurred behind some sickly coloured fog, click another and bright sparkles destroy the contrast...pick Inv as a powerset and you may as well play a silhouette as you lose visibility of all material detail...grrr maybe that should have been number 1.... grrr and then you get some temporary power like the speed boost and you have to wear lime green hoops on your feet, grr that looks sooo ridiculous, have you seen those silly hoops spiraling at you feet....GET RID OF THEM!!

3. Kicking moves/animations...too few in the game every powerset should have a cool kick style move to break up the monotony of upper body strikes. Of the ones we do have outside MA the animations are poor (kick in Fighting looks like you got your leg caught on something rather than dishing out pain).... I'd like to see some grab moves too but I guess that is beyond the game engine......

Issue 13 brings the prospect of player designed missions....in many ways Villians creating challenges for heroes is the perfect jump off point for ongoing rp, we need more info on how it will be implemented but I see a lot of potential there and its something the RP community can really embrace.

I think the design of the game seriously undermines villian RP. A hero is a protagonist defined by his actions and reactions, saving someone, beating up a villian, putting out a fire etc etc all of these reenforce the hero character.... villians are antagonists but there is noone to really antagonise - they may do dastardly or selfish deeds but as everyone around them both player and npc is braodly doing just the same there is no real focus or definition... The world needs more integration so one group can play off and in turn create content for the other.

We really need some dedicated rpvp areas - zones that present locations and buildings some of which allow pvp and some which restrict it (with accompying excuses such as the busy bar where you can go taunt your opponent but out and out combat would simply draw too much heat or too many innocents are at risk etc). Whereby a variety of different interactions are encouraged and promoted beyond the one dimensional slugfest.

I'm not saying villian rp is impossible as we have it, but its more overtly challenging and filled with more obstacles than the hero side.

I'd love to see more and engage in more myself but as has been said I think you need Heros present to forge a reason for villians to cooperate.... while every enemy in the game has the facility to be labelled a villian for hero's the same is not really true of villians. Ideally an rp villain needs an rp hero or SG to play off of???

Meh I think the Defiant Population is fine usually a fair few about. I dont like masses of people herding about and spamming chat or invites etc....in fact a smaller number of active villians works well for me, seems more realistic, what we want are some content changes that inspire a bit of contetious hero villian conflict (real bankraids into paragon....and real counter espionage into the rogue isles) rather than more boring Rikti npc's spawns....too bad we cant have a shared union defiant pvp zone tho. defiant Villians Vs Union Heros and Union Villians Vs Defiant Heros would be a nice twist.

Other than that I would welcome a merge with the US servers, it means a more even distribution of population 24/7 (I tend to play late).

I would hope there are builds which can provide some degree of soloability, but the design is definitely team based.

Not sure about the Widow, but even there I believe solo will be a challenge by other AT standards.

Hopefully in time some people will offer some build combinations to bais the character one way or the other.

I'll be interested in the responses here, only got my crab to 30 atm but the difference between running solo or in a team with other VEAT's is very very significant.... Solo they just dont seem that impressive and I would doubt I could solo an EB without a mass of Insps and a bigger accumulation of debt , run with a couple of other VEAT's and you seem to be able to steamroller anything almost too easily....

They are only easier to control while they are less effective than their super powered counterparts, level per level they are demonstrably just as potentially threatening.

Anyways I guess it is what it is, I now have to go and decide whether to train my Arachnos Soldier in that inherent 'natural' ability to fly or to develop everyones 'natural' ability to teleport

Not a bug its armour compatible with the soldier model and hence offered to give some variety, it doesn't function as crab armour which you have to wait for level 24 so its purely superficial...makes sense that you might be given it to acclimatise to carrying the larger armour at a later stage.

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The origin restriction of VEAT's still seems very arbitrary, I concede we have previous information in regards to background, but we also had previous evidence that all Widows were female, the same shape and size and only wore a limited set of colour combiniations, surely I12 marks a new era of villian lore where old restrictions were removed.... in a world heavily populated with super powered beings does it make sense to recruit a force without any powers.

I can understand the need to have one of your character slots as an uniform...tho the extreme colouring of some will make that look more than faintly ridiculous. But there is no consistency in the implementation...we never see an NPC widow without a helmet, yet player widows can show their faces, We do see soldiers without helmets yet the player soldier (female at least) is stuck with one. (even more bizarre is that under that helmet is a range of mask options that the exposed face widow characters dont have.)

As for the natural origin it may be down to my own perception of what an origin means Arachnos clearly uses science and technology to buff its soldiers... the origin of fortunata and mu seemed logically to be magic...meh the core content may be complete but the philosophy behind that core is what needed more time in development imo.

I'm completely underwhelmed

Costumes are a definite disapointment, not that they dont look good, just that for a game that really excells at customised appearence its a real culture shock to find how limited our choices are and how similar everyone will end up looking.

Even more bizarre is why, I can understand the need to keep a crab soldier to a specific set but why cant widows have any outfit, why can't soldiers...why on earth can't faces at least be seen in the female soldier outfit...aside from making the most distinctive mouth and chin everyone will resort to lurid and lumiescent colours to attempt some distinction.

And only one Origin...not only that but conceptually the most difficult to convince at an rp level 'Natural', I12 is interesting in a lot of ways but it definitely falls short of what it should be....was it just rushed to hit before AoC began?