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Actually, it's been a common complaint from people who play heroes, that villains does not have the variety or the zones that hero side does or alternatives.
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As opposed to the hero players who are constantly complaining that the blue side has too many zones and can't we please get rid of a bunch and have our contacts stop forcing us to see more of the city...
(shrug)
Can't please everyone, I guess. (Oftentimes, especially on this board, it seems like you can't please anyone.)
I am entirely in favor of villains getting more content as part of the natural development of the game. There are two sides; both should get love.
This is a pure guess, but I'd say the red side population is roughly 30% of blue side. No busnessman ignores one third of his customers. But why add red side only or blue side only content when you can release content for both?
Also, even if the Devs wanted to throw 100% of their development time behind red side, the accountants aren't going to let them do that until they can convince them that doing so will be profitable. That is to say, more profitable than doing content for both sides at once.
Conversely, if the accountants get convinced that Red side needs love, the Devs will follow the paychecks.
That said, I beleive there are too many rich story possibilities in Redside lore for it to go unaddressed forever.
But I'm not sure that giving redside more zones just so they can have as many zones as blueside and for no other reason is going to happen.
All I want right this second for redside personally is some new tilesets that will let me kidnap someone from their home, their job, the park, etc and not some cave where they have already been pre-kidnapped. And let me fight their personal security, elite bodyguards, fellow scientists/sorcerers instead of other villains.
Story Arcs I created:
Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!
Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!
Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!
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This is a pure guess, but I'd say the red side population is roughly 30% of blue side. No busnessman ignores one third of his customers.
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This is only true if you look at the people currently logged in to both sides. The real test is to see the actual subscriptions. Most of the people I know have both sides available to them at the moment.
If that is truly the case, then the question shifts to "Why are more people playing blue side?" Most cited reason for this is lack of "new" content (by "new" I mean content that they haven't done a billion or so times.)
Count the number of GM's, SF's, non-respec trials or any other measure of content. Villains are far behind.
Just adding new zones willy-nilly definitely isn't the answer and I think most of us can agree to that. But opening the outlying areas (Striga, Croatoa and the Shard) all make storyline sense and would require only new contacts and arcs to be developed. This would be the quickest way to get new content. Next step would be to add a new zone.
Heroes have gotten two reworks. I fully expect that Boomtown will get reworked next before the red-side gets any love.
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Actually, it's been a common complaint from people who play heroes, that villains does not have the variety or the zones that hero side does or alternatives.
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As opposed to the hero players who are constantly complaining that the blue side has too many zones and can't we please get rid of a bunch and have our contacts stop forcing us to see more of the city...
(shrug)
Can't please everyone, I guess. (Oftentimes, especially on this board, it seems like you can't please anyone.)
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I don't know about this. I read the forums every day and just don't see the claim of takeing away zones hero side. What I have seen is the complaints of Why aren't zones like Dark Astoria, Boom Town, etc. Given worthwhile mission content.
I'm not going to speak for anyone else but the reason I don't play my Villains that much anymore if at all, is because of 3 reasons.
Reason #1 No new Content that is Villain only. If I can do the content with my main Hero, thats what I'm going to do. I have a Dom at 50 and a MM at 49. The percieved repetition through one forced story line is what kills my enthusiasm to ignore #2 and 3.
Reason #2 The piss poor state of the Black Market.
Reason #3 The huge amounts of framerate lag I have to endure traveling those zones. I shouldn't have to drop 1000.00 or so, on a new machine to play that side of the game smoothly.
Bottom line is if they add new Villain only mission content via new Zones. I will play more Villains to see that content. Until then my Villains are an afterthought.
~MR
AE Arc: 305214 Blood Diamonds (Villainous)
Unleashed/Unchained/B.O.S.S.
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And if a villain were in, say, Atlas Park, what should happen when he gets within aggro range of a Hellion? Or more realistically, a level 25 Villain riding the sub to IP and then aggroing Family or DE. If that drops them into PvP mode, gank city. If it doesn't, it's time to killsteal.
Not to mention the group of level 50 heroes with maxed Perception that would hang out at the villain zone-in point(s) in IP and follow them around, waiting for them to go PvP.
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I really like the idea of open zones for both Villains and Heroes. Especially if there where Villain Stories added to those zones and Hero Stories added to the Villain Zones. The one thing that would kill my enthusiasm for such a thing would be PvP flagging and the occassional tell of TRN PVP on U NooB , DooL Meh !!!11!!!.
Nancy if you don't think that players will exploit this system to grief people your off your rocker. Players haveing been griefing since day one of the game. Hami Raid Griefing, PI Griefing, TPing people into spawns of Hydra and into the towers in PI. etc.
I can suspend my disbelief further to ignore the opposeing faction in these zones. If this open zone idea were to be implemented No PvP flagging should be apart of it.
~MR
AE Arc: 305214 Blood Diamonds (Villainous)
Unleashed/Unchained/B.O.S.S.
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What do you mean, "Which is it?" What I said and what you just said are the same argument. The red side has a smaller niche, therefore it's entirely logical that not as much developer attention is paid to it.
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It's not the same thing at all.
People don't play red side because the devs don't add new content, the devs don't add new content because not enough people play red side. It's a circular argument, a Catch-22 as someone said earlier, but it isn't the same thing.
The problem red side rests with the devs. It's their game, it's up to them to draw players to that side. The same way it's up to them to draw players to the game period. Marketing can only do so much with a crappy game. It's up to the devs to make it better and make it a game that people want to play.
This [censored] excuse that gets tossed out, that the devs don't, and shouldn't, do anything for red side because not enough people play there, is only feeding the agenda of the players that don't care to play a villain in the first place. They want all the attention on the half of the game they prefer, and screw the other players, even though that side doesn't need any more.
The second thing I fault the devs for is never telling the players what they're planning. I don't mean in the next issue, I mean in the long term. What, if anything, is going to be done for red side. If it's nothing, have the balls to tell us now so we can cancel our accounts instead of dicking us around. Not that I'll be back when my sub runs out, anyway. It's too little, too late for me. I feel sorry for the rest of the poor schmucks hoping they do something to revive red side. Good luck to them.
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I can suspend my disbelief further to ignore the opposeing faction in these zones.
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Well, I could too. But the whole PvP thing started because some people couldn't do that. Their immersion would be ruined if they saw a villain and couldn't attack it. I suggested the WoW style PvP for that reason. However, what they really mean is their immersion would be ruined if they couldn't attack, but they don't want to attack because they hate PvP, so don't merge the games/zones/factions or they'll look like a wuss.
I still say the zones should be opened up, the games merged, with or without PvP. But that's me.
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People don't play red side because the devs don't add new content, the devs don't add new content because not enough people play red side. It's a circular argument, a Catch-22 as someone said earlier, but it isn't the same thing.
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It's also not what I said. Of the two options there, I said repeatedly that I believe it's B where most posters here seem to be taking the stance that it's A.
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I can suspend my disbelief further to ignore the opposeing faction in these zones.
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Well, I could too. But the whole PvP thing started because some people couldn't do that. Their immersion would be ruined if they saw a villain and couldn't attack it. I suggested the WoW style PvP for that reason. However, what they really mean is their immersion would be ruined if they couldn't attack, but they don't want to attack because they hate PvP, so don't merge the games/zones/factions or they'll look like a wuss.
I still say the zones should be opened up, the games merged, with or without PvP. But that's me.
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I only confront your suggestion of WoW PvP because this isn't WoW, and WoW isn't grief free. I would love opening all the zones with some thematic, ungriefable PvP elements, but I just don't see such a system really being possible, with the number of holes that have been poked in your suggestion alone.
Also (and I'm not slamming on you here) it's not my intent with my suggestion (instancing entire zones as FFA PvP) to segregate the PvPers...I want the option to segregate myself away from the mixed player hero/player villain zone at will.
My idea is let the people who want that go to a place where they can get it when they want it. On days when they aren''t in the mood, let them opt out.
It's like having PvP servers and PvE servers, but easier on the Devs theoretically (no maintaining different code) and easier on the players (want to PvP? Just zone anywhere/anytime, no server hopping involved).
It lets heroes and villains see all areas in the game and interact with the content there.
Unfortunately, it does allow the players to segregate themselves if they so choose. But then, that's the player's choice.
in any case, it still opens up all the zones to villains, which is the point.
Story Arcs I created:
Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!
Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!
Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!
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I can suspend my disbelief further to ignore the opposeing faction in these zones.
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Well, I could too. But the whole PvP thing started because some people couldn't do that. Their immersion would be ruined if they saw a villain and couldn't attack it. I suggested the WoW style PvP for that reason. However, what they really mean is their immersion would be ruined if they couldn't attack, but they don't want to attack because they hate PvP, so don't merge the games/zones/factions or they'll look like a wuss.
I still say the zones should be opened up, the games merged, with or without PvP. But that's me.
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I only confront your suggestion of WoW PvP because this isn't WoW, and WoW isn't grief free. I would love opening all the zones with some thematic, ungriefable PvP elements, but I just don't see such a system really being possible, with the number of holes that have been poked in your suggestion alone.
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This game is grief free?
Do you play WoW?
Because I do, and I play on both PvE and PvP servers, and I have never been griefed on a PvE server which does allow me to engage in PvP if I choose to do so. I have never accidentally turned on my PvP flag.
The only holes that were poked regarding my suggestion were in the misconceptions of the readers here. The fact that some people wouldn't like it doesn't mean it can't be done here. If they figured out a way to add PvP after the game was made and launched, they can figure out a way to incorporate it in a more realistic way so as not to ruin immersion. Unless of course, you're saying the player base here is not intelligent enough to understand a system like WoW's. You don't seem to understand what I'm saying so I guess it's possible.
You don't think open zones without PvP is realistic but you dislike world PvP.
I suggested WoW's PvE style PvP, which is not world PvP. Maybe you don't understand what world PvP is?
You think heroes and villains in the same zones means they can "pal around" when no one is suggesting that at all. That's what you've been taught by this game because the only way they allow heroes and villains in the same zone is for the purpose of palling around. That is more "immersion breaking" than anything I suggested.
World PvP should only be offered if it's on a separate server, and there aren't enough hardcore PvPers in this game to warrant that, imo. It could always be added later, if the game attracted more PvPers down the road. As it is now, people that don't want to PvP but want to do missions or get badges in PvP zones feel like the PvP is forced on them. To keep those people happy, a compromise would be in order, and that's the flag on/off type of PvP. It allows those that would attack a character of the opposite faction to do so, and allows those that don't want to the ability to avoid it. Considering it works in other games, there is no reason it couldn't work here, other than engine restrictions or dev disinterest.
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Actually, it's been a common complaint from people who play heroes, that villains does not have the variety or the zones that hero side does or alternatives.
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As opposed to the hero players who are constantly complaining that the blue side has too many zones and can't we please get rid of a bunch and have our contacts stop forcing us to see more of the city...
(shrug)
Can't please everyone, I guess. (Oftentimes, especially on this board, it seems like you can't please anyone.)
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especially when you do not develop the product that they bought as a stand alone game. Imagine if the roles were reversed and the Blue side had not gotten a major content update while the red side was being made over. Would you be pleased?
walk a mile in the shoes, stop looking down your nose.
"Sorry bucko, but CoH and CoV are the same game." -BackAlleyBrawler
"Silly villain, CoX is for Heroes!" -Saicho
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especially when you do not develop the product that they bought as a stand alone game.
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Oh, come now. Anybody who believed that transparent marketing fiction...
(shrug)
Would anyone like to invest in some swampland? I'll let you have it at cost.
Does it matter? I play villain side almost exclusively since I dislike hero side. Why do I dislike heroes? Well many reasons, but some of the reasons are I just like villains overall more. I'm going to use a 'gasp' immersion statement into this, see, I like the anti-hero, the villain, the morally corrupt rival, the revengist, the bad guy that comes in just to cause trouble for the hero at the perfect moment. Bad guys are more appealing because they usually have to have more reasons then 'for justice'
Does this game cover all of that? Heck no but it gets some right and those are the great moments and the rest I can usually fill in the blanks with my own RP or with friends.
I could name you list of reasons I don't like heroes, starting with ATs and zone jumping every mission with days before the jerk gives me their cell number. I chose to ignore hero side because it just doesn't do it for me. I do have heroes and I've gotten them pretty high but nothing manages to keep me there beyond friends now and then. Faultline was great! croatoa was neat for the atmosphere and the RWZ was amazing *even if I did do it as a villain*
So while I don't mind them fixing hero side, hell I encourage it! But due to low people power, funding, whatever the reason, they haven't been able to address what I like and it's depressing sometimes how long it takes. Inventions are fun, the RWZ was masterfully done if sadly basically a hero zone though, I never have time for Hami but at least the Ouroborous SFs are fun if still slightly confusing why we should care about Recluse's needs half the time.
They're getting better, and while I'm not springing for joy over Arachnos V.EATs, at least they are V.EATs and I will happily play them.
I guess my point is, whether you try to pretend the games are separate or together, At least keep both sides in mind and try to fix their weaknesses. Revamp hero zones and TFs but give villains new zones and SFs so that my one go through the stuff isn't all there is to offer 
I am sorry but that sounds like BS. COH and COV are small small small games compared to almost any other mmo available. I just can not believe people complain about it being too big. I think the overall feel and look of CoV was done very poorly. Everything I have seen so far just has that same grungy garbagey wasteland look to it. I wish things would get spiced up a bit.
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I am sorry but that sounds like BS. COH and COV are small small small games compared to almost any other mmo available. I just can not believe people complain about it being too big. I think the overall feel and look of CoV was done very poorly. Everything I have seen so far just has that same grungy garbagey wasteland look to it. I wish things would get spiced up a bit.
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See that would require like real work on the devs part instead of slapping crap together and saying they're working.
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Actually, it's been a common complaint from people who play heroes, that villains does not have the variety or the zones that hero side does or alternatives.
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As opposed to the hero players who are constantly complaining that the blue side has too many zones and can't we please get rid of a bunch and have our contacts stop forcing us to see more of the city...
(shrug)
Can't please everyone, I guess. (Oftentimes, especially on this board, it seems like you can't please anyone.)
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especially when you do not develop the product that they bought as a stand alone game. Imagine if the roles were reversed and the Blue side had not gotten a major content update while the red side was being made over. Would you be pleased?
walk a mile in the shoes, stop looking down your nose.
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I still don't get this 'Villians are getting ignored' hooplah. Issue 7 was almost entirely Villian, and every major addition after that was available to both sides (Inventions, Ouroboros, Rikti War Zone, Cimerora in I12...). The only exception I can think of is Faultline. Issue 12 is actually giving some noticable updates to one specific side or another in the form of a Hollows hotfix and VEATs. Everything else is for both sides.
I have yet to see any favoritism from any update from I6+.
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Heroes have zones that they rarely use... villains don't have a lot of zones and seems Village like... hmmm...
How about taking a few of those zones and converting em to VILLAIN zones!
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I disagree with that, as I use all of the availible zones that are available to Heroes, with the exception of Baumtown, I have a level 50 and I have been there twice. Once for a TF and the other because I needed to kill Clocks. I want more zones for CoV because it would add a rather large amount of new content as well as making sense. Arachnos wants more land, why shouldnt we give them some?
"NO....No clowns" - Positron
50s: Smasha (SS/SD Brute), House Rules (Mind/Thorn Dom), Wind of Mind (Illusion/Storm Controller), Coraxa (Kat/Inv Scrapper), Summer's Dream (Fortunata)
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especially when you do not develop the product that they bought as a stand alone game.
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Oh, come now. Anybody who believed that transparent marketing fiction...
(shrug)
Would anyone like to invest in some swampland? I'll let you have it at cost.
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I believed it. That's is the only reason I came here in the first place. I never wanted anything to do with being a Hero. had the marketing been truthful, then I would have kept doing what I was doing before.
Not everyone started with City of Heroes
"Sorry bucko, but CoH and CoV are the same game." -BackAlleyBrawler
"Silly villain, CoX is for Heroes!" -Saicho
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Open all zones to both sides.
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Sing it with me now!
"That'll be the day-a-a, when pigs fly!"
Give us Dark Astoria. Heroes hate it anyways.
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I believe the number of players on the red side has nothing to do with developer attention or inattention; that's just the average number of players who prefer a villain-themed experience, and adding more neon lights to the Ferris wheel of evil isn't going to get any more people to climb on.
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I think you believe wrong. Because I have 36 characters, only 10 of them are villains, and it is very specifically because there just isn't as much to do redside as blue. I would love to have more to do redside, and I would play there more often if there were more content.
Now, that said, I also think you're at least partially right. There probably are just more people who want to play blue than red. So while a significant boost in redside content would increase the number of people playing villains, the question is, by how much? Obviously, the devs don't think enough to justify a major outlay of resources for villain-only content, particularly at the expense of CoH. They might be wrong, but it's their prerogative to make that decision. It is, in turn, our prerogative, if dissatisfied with the results of their decisions, to go play another game, no harm, no foul.
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Ironically part of the reason why CoV has so few zones (compared to CoH) is that one of the major "lessons learned" from CoH was that many people didn't like just how 'big' CoH was. People complained about long travel times and multi-zone missions. Supposedly CoV benefited from and corrected that mistake by having a more linear, compact zone structure.
I guess the Devs are damned if they do and damned if they don't over this. 
With that said I wouldn't be against the idea of giving CoV more zones. There's really no argument that the redside needs them at this point. I personally call CoV "Village of Villains" because right now it seems so tiny to me compared to CoH.
The real trick to this is seeing whether or not the Devs ever make this a priority or not...
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That simply isn't true. CoV was a rush job, they had to get it out in a set amount of time. They did NOT learn from CoH that people didn't like having so many mission choices or the ability to get hunting badges reasonably easily, which is what we have in CoV.
The real issue isn't # of zones specifically it is lack of choice in missions and certain villain types who just don't appear in any quantity (except possibly in PvP zones).
I'd settle for 25% more missions whether they are in an existing zone or not. Badge hunting is a harder thing to fix because it spans all levels.
----------------------------
You can't please everyone, so lets concentrate on me.
I still say this ... make the Shadow Shard accessible to Villains and Heroes like the RWZ. Shadow Shard is a very very well thought out and great story-lined place that is used very little. The 4 TF's that take place there are also pretty fun (excluding the first one that takes like 28 hours...). Other then that idea. I wouldn't mind seeing something different on Red side, most of the zones look the same ... with different names until Grandville. OH, and a new Pocket D would be nice!!! :P
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I think the people who take the "fewer players play villains than heroes because the villain side gets less developer attention" approach are confusing cause and effect and, as such, are just advocating that the development team waste a lot of time swimming against the current.
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And yet, the red side players that have been advocating more content for the last year are told, by players like you, that "the reason red side gets less developer attention is because there aren't enough players there".
So which is it?
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What do you mean, "Which is it?" What I said and what you just said are the same argument. The red side has a smaller niche, therefore it's entirely logical that not as much developer attention is paid to it.
Think of it like a bus route. If a bus on a particular route is always half-full, adding more seats to the bus isn't going to attract more riders. That's just how many people happen to want to go in that direction on that stretch of that street.
Similarly, I believe the number of players on the red side has nothing to do with developer attention or inattention; that's just the average number of players who prefer a villain-themed experience, and adding more neon lights to the Ferris wheel of evil isn't going to get any more people to climb on.
[/ QUOTE ]Actually, it's been a common complaint from people who play heroes, that villains does not have the variety or the zones that hero side does or alternatives. It's pretty linear, even if the hero side is only a perception of choice, the villain side is blatantly obvious that we really have no choice on our progression or path we choose. Between levels 1 and 35, every villain character you create will see the same 6 zones, with practically no deviation. The contacts might be varied, but there does need to be more scenery added to the villain side, as it were, with options and choice.
The new Cimerora and Midnight Club, if they are even accessible to villains that is, won't be accessible till level 35 at the earliest.