More Zones for Villains

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I'm finding this hilarious how you all accuse me of using a tired arguement when you are repeating yourselves as well.

My final response: I don't give a damn how un-immersed this game is now, there's not point in making it worse.

I'm a bit disappointed it ever turned into this, because I really like the OP's suggestion until Geko hijacked the thread, like he does with every other of this topic.

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You can accuse me of whatever you want. I'm completely consistent. Immersion is garbage and not a real argument for doing anything.

Open all the zones. That's not a hi-jack. That's on topic. That would immediately more than double villain game space. You pulled out the tired argument that makes no sense and now get annoyed when people point out the legion of holes in that argument.

And if you want to blame me? Sure go ahead.

I fought for loot when people told me it wasn't "immersive". Now people are arguing how to expand it.

I fought for a chance at unlimited respecs. "Not immersive Geko," the doubters said. Got that too and everyone was happy.

I fought for Flashback. Guess what, people like that too. Immersion be darned.


Reason, not calls to an amorphous "immersion" which doesn't exist win the day. I eagerly await your attempts to give a reasonable argument for why opening the zones isn't a good idea.

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Variety.

Level 2-5: Mercy Island. (Understandably.)
Level 5-10: Mercy Island, Port Oakes.
Level 10-15: Port Oakes, Cap au Diable.
Level 15-20: Cap au Diable, Mercy Island, Bloody Bay.
Level 20-25: Sharkhead Isle, Bloody Bay, Siren's Call.
Level 25-30: Sharkhead Isle, Nerva Archipelago, Siren's Call.
Level 30-40: Nerva Archipelago, St. Martial, Rikti War Zone, Warburg.
Level 40-50: Grandville, Rikti War Zone, Warburg, Recluse's Victory.


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Not disagreeing with the big picture, but those zones should be included.

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I eagerly await you attempts to give a reasonable argument for why opening the zones isn't a good idea.

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And I eagerly awaits your attempts to give a reasonable arguement why it is. Yes, villians need new zones, but opening up all zones to both sides would require just as much work, if not more work (tons of new contacts in all zones, missions, etc.) than just giving Villians some new, unique zones, so I just don't see it being plausible.

For the record, I was not one of those people who thought it was not 'immersive' to have repeatable respecs, or even loot. All those are perfectly fine with me. I just have to put my foot down at this, though.

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Open all the zones... That would immediately more than double villain game space. You pulled out the tired argument that makes no sense and now get annoyed when people point out the legion of holes in that argument.

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I know I'm sounding like a broken record here, but you can do the same thing without any complaints of immersion breaking by just giving heroes and villains their own instances of each zone.

I'm not a zealot for immersion, though, and if they did simply let villains and heroes cohabit the same zones w/o PvP, I wouldn't complain.

But there are a few things they'd have to deal with, and a few things that seem counterintuitive.

1) Spawns. Can villains attack PPD and Longbow spawns? And if they can, do hero buffs still affect them? Can a hero walk up to a villain fighting a PPD and heal or bubble the PPD?

2) Police drones. If villains can fight PPD, for example, do PPD now get zapped by police drones? If not, where do villains go to run when they're in over their heads fighting the good guys? Where is their safe area?

3) Do we let villains wander up to BAB or Posi to get trained? What about up to a hero corp store to sell their enhancements?

4) Which TFs in Ouroboros do the players get?

5) Can they walk into the PPD station and pick up a police radio, even though PPD are hostile toward them?

These are all problems that deal with immersion, but they're counterintuitive to the point of being problematic. So unless they do a large amount of work to make this happen, for example by implementing a faction ranking system that sets your standing with various spawns, police drones, trainers, etc, then I don't see them letting this happen.

Giving each side their own instances of the zone, on the other hand, immediately solves a lot of these problems. In the villain version of Atlas, for instance, they can remove Ms. Liberty, hero stores, field analysts, and contacts, make City Hall a red zone swarming with PPD and maybe some NPC heroes, put more PPD on the street and fewer Hellion and Vahz street crimes, give us new contacts in back alleys, access to a pawn shop for the market (which should be merged nonetheless), etc.

In other words, they could tailor each zone to each side without them stumbling over one another. And more importantly, they could do this and still gain the benefit of re-using an existing zone and all its art assets.

So while I agree that immersion shouldn't be a deterrent for implementing fun game systems, I think we should avoid throwing it out the window completely, as it seems allowing cohabitation without additional work might do. And in this case, there's simply no reason to do it: separate instances accomplishes the goal of low-cost new content without sacrificing immersion a bit.

Well I have a couple of ideas that might work for having cohabitable maps.

First idea having three maps for all zones. A hero side map a villain side map and a pvp map of the zones. If you don't want to pvp then don't if you do want to pvp then do it. With only certain maps being co-op. Mostly for maps with a mutual threat similar to the shadow shards and such.

Second thought Co-op for all maps with ability to set yourself as hostile towards either faction. Such as say you are a hero and you attack a arachnos guards it would flag you as hostile towards villains and you would be open for getting attacked by any nearby villains. The same is true for Villains if they attack a Longbow guard they are flagged as a hostile for heroes to take out.


Btw for having villains in a hero zone you don't need to be having them use the same stores and such you could easily add different npcs to take care of villain needs. Same can be said for heroes in villain side.

Since we have a stickied thread about this now, I'll repost my suggestions from the other zone thread I posted it in:

One important type of zone that CoV lacks is what I refer to as 'theme zones'. These are the zones that have their own self-contained set of 4 contacts linked by an over-arcing storyline, ie: The Hollows, Faultline, Striga and Croatoa. Whatever new zones get put into the CoV side should be based on that model. Here's some examples of possible CoV 'theme zones':
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[*] The Docks - Level 10 - 20 zone
Ever wonder how all the villains get smuggled into Paragon City? They come in through this seedy, corrupt dockyard/warehouse area of Paragon. The Family has near complete control of this area, with the local government firmly in their pocket. Since the zone is technically part of Paragon City, Arachnos has no overt presence here. Villains will clash with Skulls, Hellions, Trolls, Outcast, Clockwork, Vahz, Paragon Police and of course, the Family. Finishing the missions of the last contact would unlock a timed Trial, which would basically be a tougher, more elaborate version of a Mayhem Mission where villains would have to complete specific tasks that lead up to breaking into the MAGI vault to steal the latest magical doodad put in there by Azuria. There's also a zone event where a random member of Freedom Force or the Vindicators enters the zone to 'clean it up'.
[*] The Island of Spiders - Level 15 - 25 zone
Look at a map of the Rogue Isles. There are some islands in the south labeled 'uncharted'. Well, this is one of them. Ironically, though the island bears the name of Lord Recluse's namesake, Arachnos pays little attention to the island since it appears to have no resources for them to exploit. There's a small shantytown with some Lost and maybe some Tsoo, large numbers of Banished Panthion (who quickly capture and devour any Circle of Thorns that set foot on the island, because they're as sick of CoT as the rest of us) cover most of the island and a dark secret is hidden on the far side of the island: and underground base housing the last splinter remnants of the 5th Column! The island story arc leads villains to discover the base and there's a Strikeforce where the villains lead a raid sponsored by the Council to kill the 5th Column AV leader and destroy the base.
[*] The Dark Forest - Level 20 - 30 zone
North of Salamanca is an area of forest that the Redcaps have successfully pulled into the spirit world. Why do villains care? Because to accomplish the feat the Redcaps focused their magics through a powerful crystal; a crystal that Lord Recluse wants to power his latest device, codenamed Project: MacGuffin! The same warring factions that exist in Croatoa also exist here up to and including the zone events, and there's a quick 1 hour Strikeforce where the villains attack a magical pinata that spits out rare recipes. (Ok, that last is a joke of course but no-one can say Katie's TF is especially time consuming or difficult)
[*] The Ruins of Atlantis - Level 25 - 35 zone
On the ocean floor in an unspecified location, part of the lost city of Atlantis has been found! Not wanting to get wet, Lord Recluse enclosed the whole site in a huge dome and pumped out all the water. The zone is a combination of high tech gizmos to reinforce the integrity of the dome and excavations of ancient ruins at the bottom of the ocean, the whole zone enclosed in water. Enemies include Arachnos, Coralax and Igneous and possibly Crey, Scrapyarders and Consortium depending on who Arachnos contracted some of the work out to. Mako has a Strikeforce here to retrieve the ancient Atlantian Thingamabob.[/list]
These are just examples, of course. Yet even if they put in all that, Villains would still need something like 7 more Strikeforces and 2 more Trials just to catch up to the Heroes in content. But at least it would be a start.

Man, where is my popcorn. Watching this group of users argue about this particular design point is like watching blindfolded clowns battle for supremacy inside their tiny car.

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I eagerly await you attempts to give a reasonable argument for why opening the zones isn't a good idea.

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And I eagerly awaits your attempts to give a reasonable arguement why it is. Yes, villians need new zones...

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You answered your own question. Villains need more zones, and one of the easiest and fairest ways to reach parity between the factions is open all zones.

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Open all the zones... That would immediately more than double villain game space. You pulled out the tired argument that makes no sense and now get annoyed when people point out the legion of holes in that argument.

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I know I'm sounding like a broken record here, but you can do the same thing without any complaints of immersion breaking by just giving heroes and villains their own instances of each zone.

I'm not a zealot for immersion, though, and if they did simply let villains and heroes cohabit the same zones w/o PvP, I wouldn't complain.

But there are a few things they'd have to deal with, and a few things that seem counterintuitive.

1) Spawns. Can villains attack PPD and Longbow spawns? And if they can, do hero buffs still affect them? Can a hero walk up to a villain fighting a PPD and heal or bubble the PPD?

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Yup. That could be fun actually. Remember, immersion is a meaningless distraction to fun gameplay IMO, so I don't accept that there would be anything wrong with being able to fight via proxy. Interestingly you can do that in the PvP zones right now.

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2) Police drones. If villains can fight PPD, for example, do PPD now get zapped by police drones? If not, where do villains go to run when they're in over their heads fighting the good guys? Where is their safe area?

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They're criminals in Paragon, as heroes will be in the Rogue Isles. You know how you wind up in a council or CoT jail cell if you're killed in their missions? I think that would be a lovely result of dying in Paragon as a villain. Waking up back in Police Custody and having to bust your way out.

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3) Do we let villains wander up to BAB or Posi to get trained? What about up to a hero corp store to sell their enhancements?

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How does it work in the RWZ? Either have Arbiters and Quartermasters in secret Arachnos bases in Paragon or the villains can hoof it home to train.

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4) Which TFs in Ouroboros do the players get?

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If I really had my way, each character would have a good/evil meter and depending on their deeds would wind up on the bad or good side of the ledger. Until then, they get their "birth" factions Ouroboros.

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5) Can they walk into the PPD station and pick up a police radio, even though PPD are hostile toward them?

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No, but they can read their newspapers. Plenty of filthy lucre to be found in the shining city.

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These are all problems that deal with immersion, but they're counterintuitive to the point of being problematic.

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I see no problems at all personally.

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Giving each side their own instances of the zone, on the other hand, immediately solves a lot of these problems. In the villain version of Atlas, for instance, they can remove Ms. Liberty, hero stores, field analysts, and contacts, make City Hall a red zone swarming with PPD and maybe some NPC heroes, put more PPD on the street and fewer Hellion and Vahz street crimes, give us new contacts in back alleys, access to a pawn shop for the market (which should be merged nonetheless), etc.

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See, this is why I hate "immersion". How stupid is it to have two different versions of Atlas running at the same time. While a group of heroes are shaking their bootys under Atlas, there's this dark villain Atlas that exists at the same time. Somehow this doesn't break immersion, but just having one Atlas does.

I don't buy it.

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So while I agree that immersion shouldn't be a deterrent for implementing fun game systems, I think we should avoid throwing it out the window completely, as it seems allowing cohabitation without additional work might do. And in this case, there's simply no reason to do it: separate instances accomplishes the goal of low-cost new content without sacrificing immersion a bit.

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This is my point about immersion. It's an argument with no meaning. Personally, I think your idea would break "immersion" to a much greater extent than just having one Atlas. Immersion is in the eye of the beholder. It's dependent on what the individual believes is consistent.

Which is why I ignore the whole nonsense and talk about what's fun for the game because Immersion is, was and always will be BS.

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See, this is why I hate "immersion". How stupid is it to have two different versions of Atlas running at the same time. While a group of heroes are shaking their bootys under Atlas, there's this dark villain Atlas that exists at the same time. Somehow this doesn't break immersion, but just having one Atlas does.

I don't buy it.

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Versus what? Having Villains and Heroes under the Atlas statue, shooting the crap with eachother like they aren't separated by just about everything they believe in? "Sorry, Captain Justice, but as of today EVERYTHING's problems are bigger than your fight for truth and justice. Now go cook cocktails with Genocide-man."

Having to deal with some idiot's /duel spam because he knows he can victimize more people in Atlas Park than he ever could in those ghost town PvP zones? That's fun?

You think that just because you can point out some silly little blemishes on the world's continuity (most of which can be explained by story or gameplay needs) that it's okay to throw all pretenses of coherence out. You might as well stab somebody in the face with a knife because they got a paper cut a little earlier.

But then again, there'd be nothing like that to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Villains were a waste of programming tme in the first place. Heroes under red skies and nothing more.

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See, this is why I hate "immersion". How stupid is it to have two different versions of Atlas running at the same time. While a group of heroes are shaking their bootys under Atlas, there's this dark villain Atlas that exists at the same time. Somehow this doesn't break immersion, but just having one Atlas does.

I don't buy it.

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Versus what? Having Villains and Heroes under the Atlas statue, shooting the crap with eachother like they aren't separated by just about everything they believe in? "Sorry, Captain Justice, but as of today EVERYTHING's problems are bigger than your fight for truth and justice. Now go cook cocktails with Genocide-man."


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Yes, versus that.

And let me ask you all something. What the heck does my villain have against heroes generally. My main villain does not know my main hero and vice versa. They don't have any reason to fight. If my hero just happens to see my main villain wandering around Atlas, she would have no reason whatsoever to pull out the sword and start swinging.

In Siren's Call though, I see my main villain, helping Arachnos beat down on Longbow, I don't see any problem with there being a fight then.

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Having to deal with some idiot's /duel spam because he knows he can victimize more people in Atlas Park than he ever could in those ghost town PvP zones? That's fun?

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Umm... who said anything about /duel? Oh right, you did. Please don't strawman me. And even if they did create a /duel, they could just as easily create an option to auto-decline them like every other game with the option that I know of.

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You think that just because you can point out some silly little blemishes on the world's continuity (most of which can be explained by story or gameplay needs)

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They aren't silly blemishes. They're gaping holes. Immersion is a myth. You make light of them to reinforce your specious argument.

But OK, what's the story reason that my level 50 Brute, who's beat most of the Freedom Phalanx, Lord Recluse, and a couple of his patrons, can't just take a boat to Paragon. Who the heck is going to stop her? How does your precious immersion explain that conundrum?

It can't. My villain can't go to Paragon because the rules says she can't. That's it. Well, rules can and should be changed in this context.

I await a reasonable argument that doesn't resort to the specious, tired, and nonsensical immersion for why we shouldn't change this rule.

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Man, where is my popcorn. Watching this group of users argue about this particular design point is like watching blindfolded clowns battle for supremacy inside their tiny car.

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This fight is delicious. I've fought similar fights before just to see my ideas come into the game and the doubters slink away to enjoy that which they said they would hate.

Villainy doesn't have to be brainless SMASH THE HEROES. Unfortunately that's what Arachnos is about, and it's why City of Villains isn't as fulfilling as it should be. It's possible to be a villain without having to PvP with every hero you see passing, without carrying around the "I AM A SUPERVILLAIN" sign we must be carrying that so antagonises wandering Longbow spawns

Villains should be able to enter Paragon City, and heroes should be able to visit the Rogue Isles. You could probably only do arcs from your side (so heroes can't do existing villain missions, and vice versa) but contacts could be added that will cater for the other side (Longbow, Wyvern and Legacy Chain contacts to provide missions for heroes in the Rogue Isles, for example).

While you're at it, implement a "duel" option so that if a hero and villain decide to clash in Paragon or RI, they can - as fitting the story. Sure, everything I've said requires work, but nothing good ever came easy.

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Villainy doesn't have to be brainless SMASH THE HEROES. Unfortunately that's what Arachnos is about, and it's why City of Villains isn't as fulfilling as it should be. It's possible to be a villain without having to PvP with every hero you see passing, without carrying around the "I AM A SUPERVILLAIN" sign we must be carrying that so antagonises wandering Longbow spawns

Villains should be able to enter Paragon City, and heroes should be able to visit the Rogue Isles. You could probably only do arcs from your side (so heroes can't do existing villain missions, and vice versa) but contacts could be added that will cater for the other side (Longbow, Wyvern and Legacy Chain contacts to provide missions for heroes in the Rogue Isles, for example).


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Take me and my arrogance and the justified scorn you all have for me out of it for a second. What is unreasonable about what this poster wrote?

Can someone stop saying "immersion" and just plainly explain what's problematic about this idea?

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First idea having three maps for all zones. A hero side map a villain side map and a pvp map of the zones. If you don't want to pvp then don't if you do want to pvp then do it. With only certain maps being co-op. Mostly for maps with a mutual threat similar to the shadow shards and such.

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I could get behind this, but I don't see it ever getting any use. The current PvP population is already strained between the 4 PvP zones. Having, what, 40+? zones all PvP-able will see almost no action.

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Second thought Co-op for all maps with ability to set yourself as hostile towards either faction. Such as say you are a hero and you attack a arachnos guards it would flag you as hostile towards villains and you would be open for getting attacked by any nearby villains. The same is true for Villains if they attack a Longbow guard they are flagged as a hostile for heroes to take out.

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This is how Star Wars Galaxies was originally designed. It was way too griefable, so they removed it. One of the VERY few smart things those Devs accomplished.

My answer may surprise some people.

I can get behind the idea of opening all zones to both sides. I just can't see what good it'd do, unless a tremendous and possibly wasteful amount of labor is thrown at it. The trouble is, there are a lot of roadblocks to making this work smoothly.

Problem: Transportation.
Heroes would need ways to get to Villain zones, and vice-versa. The trouble is, why would anybody bother crossing 2 or 3 zones from Mercy Island so they could level up in Atlas Park? I mean, jeez, by the time you walk from one to the other, you could have leveled up already.

Problem: Stores.
Villains would need to have Quartermasters tucked away somewhere in Atlas Park. It would be tremendously inconvenient to have to travel back across 2 or 3 zones just to sell.

Problem: Consignment Market.
Hero and Villain consignment markets are now separated. (Whether they should be joined as one is a separate argument.) Villains would need access to the Black Market in Hero Zones, otherwise it becomes counterproductive to hang out there. You'd have to run back across several zones to sell Villain-side (and vice-versa, of course). Of course, if by opening Hero-side to Villains you do combine the markets, you're not saving yourself any labor; work must still be done.

Problem: Hospitals Drones.
If police drones don't attack Villains, then you have given up your best tool for keeping PVPers from unnecessarily ganking lowbies, or from interfering in safe areas such as the Hospital. If drones do attack Villains, you need to construct redundant Villain-specific transport routes and basically rebuild the entire Green and Yellow lines for Villains. In either case, Villains would need their own hospitals in every zone. Redundant features just take up space that could be used for actual, you know, content.

Problem: Contacts, Newspaper, Mayhem, Missions.
Villains would need contacts and mission doors assigned to them. No Villain would bother to hang out in Atlas Park if they had to run back to the Fortunata in Mercy to get a new mission. What a drag that would be.

Problem: Badges and Teleport Beacons.
One begets the other. Teleport Beacons to Hero zones, inside Villain bases, would ease the transportation crunch we're talking about, but that means more time and effort to revamp every zone.

Problem: PVP.
The zones weren't designed for PVP. There are no safe places in Atlas Park or Galaxy City built for Villains. Recreating these zones with PVP in mind would be a tremendous burden on the art and design staff. It would not be a walk in the park, and it would put off further content development.

I've said this before, and I'll say it again. I personally don't have that much of a problem with PVPers being in Atlas Park, as long as there's no deliberate or accidental way that they can interfere with me, no exploits, etc. I also know not everybody feels that way. However, opening more zones for PVP doesn't seem to create more opportunities for people to fight — it creates less. It would dilute the pro-PVP population across a wider area, forcing people to look harder to find a good fight — and when people have to search harder for a good fight, then they start pestering passers-by, which is exactly what I wouldn't want happening to me.

Problem: Duel Me, Noob.
If I could have a button that said "auto-ignore all of the opposite faction, and auto-ignore anybody who has their PVP flag on, don't even draw them on my screen, don't accept tells from them, don't even look at their broadcasts, don't accept gifts from them or anything," then that'd work for me. And it defaults to On.

See, I don't really care if there's Villains in Atlas Park. It's not about immersion. It's about the tremendous amount of work it'd take to make Atlas Park a zone friendly to Villains, and is that really what we want the developers wasting their time on? It's not like they can flip a switch and boom, suddenly Villains have 30 zones more content. It's an extraordinary amount of work to do it right.

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I've fought similar fights before just to see my ideas come into the game and the doubters slink away to enjoy that which they said they would hate.

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Such as... ?

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This is how Star Wars Galaxies was originally designed. It was way too griefable, so they removed it. One of the VERY few smart things those Devs accomplished.

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Never knew that. How did they grief the system and how did the devs fix it?

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so I don't accept that there would be anything wrong with being able to fight via proxy. Interestingly you can do that in the PvP zones right now.

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The big difference, as I see it, is that people PvEing don't generally want to worry about PvP in any form. All of a sudden I'm up against a buffed, healed mob because of someone from the opposite faction. That's de facto PvP, but I'm powerless to do anything in retaliation. I'm guessing most people don't want to have to deal with it, which is why PvP is relegated to specific zones.
The very separation of the game into two sides will cause people to be competitive with the other side. This type of griefing under your proposal, then, seems inevitable.
When you're in a PvP zone, you a) are expecting competition with other players, and b) can directly do something in retaliation. In fact, I'd be surprised if there's any "proxy fighting" in PvP zones when I could just fight directly instead.
IOW, I think people would bust a nut if the devs allowed this.

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See, this is why I hate "immersion". How stupid is it to have two different versions of Atlas running at the same time. While a group of heroes are shaking their bootys under Atlas, there's this dark villain Atlas that exists at the same time. Somehow this doesn't break immersion, but just having one Atlas does.

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This already happens, most notably in Mayhem and Safeguard missions, and in a bunch of other missions besides.
No one complains now that this "breaks immersion" because their personal experience is completely consistent - I would call it verisimilitude. I walk into Atlas, I see some stuff, I do some stuff, and there's nothing dissonant (you could argue that the blue force field boundaries break "immersion," but I would argue that they're not dissonant). If you're "in character" you have no way to know that there's another Atlas. The only way I'd know that there's another, parallel Atlas Park is via the global chat or tell system, which is an OOC system anyway.

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What the heck does my villain have against heroes generally. My main villain does not know my main hero and vice versa. They don't have any reason to fight. If my hero just happens to see my main villain wandering around Atlas, she would have no reason whatsoever to pull out the sword and start swinging.

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You're right, but if you see that same villain beating on some PPD, I think most Heroes would jump in. Under your proposal, they can't. That seems dissonant to me, in other words, I'd expect to be able to jump in, and I wouldn't expect a hero to be able to "proxy fight" me if they can't fight me directly.

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Can someone stop saying "immersion" and just plainly explain what's problematic about this idea?

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No, because you're exactly right that the argument is about verisimilitude and "immersion". There's a fundamental impasse here that we can't argue our way out of. "Immersion" is more important to some and less important to others. It's obviously less important to you.

Look, I don't even RP and I don't care all that much about immersion. I do care about verisimilitude. Like I said, if they implemented your proposal, it's not like I'm gonna cry about it. I just think that separate instances provide a solution amenable to more people. If they did separate instances, would you be upset? Would you quit? I doubt it. But if they implemented your proposal, every person fundamentally opposed to PvP (which I think is a lot of people) and every hardcore RPer (which, OK, maybe not that many of those, relatively speaking) would at least hover their mouse over that "cancel" button.

If possible, I think they should avoid implementing things that piss off large groups of subscribers. And in this case there's simply no reason to do so. It's a risk not worth taking because there's another solution with the same benefits and (probably) the same cost.

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Take me and my arrogance and the justified scorn you all have for me out of it for a second.

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I don't know if you're including me in this or not, but for the record I think this is a pretty civil discussion and my posts are being written dispassionately. I don't even feel that strongly about this, honestly. I just love to argue about game design.

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I've fought similar fights before just to see my ideas come into the game and the doubters slink away to enjoy that which they said they would hate.

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Such as... ?

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Loot
Crafting
Flashback
MoG fix
A way to earn unlimited respecs


I'm not saying I'm the only one who fought for those things, but many of those things are so deeply associated with my posting history that Arcanaville quipped that I must have blackmail material on the devs.

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IOW, I think people would bust a nut if the devs allowed this.

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Fair enough, I think you make a good point on that topic.

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This already happens, most notably in Mayhem and Safeguard missions, and in a bunch of other missions besides.
No one complains now that this "breaks immersion" because their personal experience is completely consistent - I would call it verisimilitude. I walk into Atlas, I see some stuff, I do some stuff, and there's nothing dissonant (you could argue that the blue force field boundaries break "immersion," but I would argue that they're not dissonant). If you're "in character" you have no way to know that there's another Atlas. The only way I'd know that there's another, parallel Atlas Park is via the global chat or tell system, which is an OOC system anyway.


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I think no one talks about how it breaks immersion, because immersion is almost always brought up to down an idea, rarely to support one. Just show me how much of a nonsensical argument it is.

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But if they implemented your proposal, every person fundamentally opposed to PvP (which I think is a lot of people) and every hardcore RPer (which, OK, maybe not that many of those, relatively speaking) would at least hover their mouse over that "cancel" button.

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Yeah. Many people said that about loot and crafting too. (ZZmdude being one). Zen Concern actually did quit over loot...for awhile. But then they came back.

[ QUOTE ]
I don't know if you're including me in this or not, but for the record I think this is a pretty civil discussion and my posts are being written dispassionately. I don't even feel that strongly about this, honestly. I just love to argue about game design.

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EvilGeko was kidding.

[ QUOTE ]

Loot
Crafting
Flashback
MoG fix
A way to earn unlimited respecs

[/ QUOTE ]

Hmm... well, on my personal scorecard, that's two Lames, an Okay But Awkwardly Implemented, a No Data (don't have any Regen Scrappers above the mid-20s) and an Indifferent (never had a particularly burning need for respecs). So, uh, well done, I guess.

[ QUOTE ]
EvilGeko was kidding.

[/ QUOTE ]

james_joyce is sleepy.

(u_u) zzzzZZZZ

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Loot
Crafting
Flashback
MoG fix
A way to earn unlimited respecs

[/ QUOTE ]

Hmm... well, on my personal scorecard, that's two Lames, an Okay But Awkwardly Implemented, a No Data (don't have any Regen Scrappers above the mid-20s) and an Indifferent (never had a particularly burning need for respecs). So, uh, well done, I guess.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, but you're surly!

My point is, many people have converted over to our Lady Loot. Perhaps someday you'll accept her tender embrace. She gifted my Brute with an Armageddon proc for her 50th birthday and she can help you too.

Sounds like your hero and villain aren't really either, just people who happen to have powers. I'd think that your hero would want to apprehend the villain simply for being a Ziggurat escapee, and the villain would want to take out the hero to gain credibility with Arachnos. What I know however is that heroes and villains aren't neutral towards eachother, much less palsy. Any exception to this is either a circumstance that "is bigger than the both of them," or a joke comic.

Consider my duel commentary future proofing against the only other way of having villains and heroes in the same zone without faction instances or PvP free fire. Also consider it a subtle, stealth jab against the posters here who already have directly suggested this. Doesn't look like you tried very hard to distance yourself from the notion, though.

Your 50 Brute has gone to Paragon City multiple times, and has been treated like a villain in Paragon City multiple times. Hunh, if anything it's the heroes who are rarely sent to the Rogue Isles.

Also:

That your list of issues went your way is not a commentary on your efforts, more than it is a showing of the developers folding like cards to the MMO traditionalist set. Cards in slow motion! Regardless, they still capitulated to the same old band-aids designed to distract people from monotonous maps and mission design.

Finally, it was not by my hand that I am once again given flesh.* I was quite happy with being MMOless and getting hyped over some other game that was on the horizon. However, one of my e-buddies (who I actually convinced to play CoH shortly after launch, hunh) told me I should come back because he had one of those 15 bonus days codes. I guess I'll see in a week or so if I want Samurai armor that bad...

*Only cool people recognize that line.