I just don't have it in me :(

Y'know I only have 3 villians compared to my 17 heros, I hear about the cool arcs in CoV and I dig the more insidous ones. However try as I might I cannot get into being a villian (moment of truth insert--> I bribed my nephew to power level a villian on my account so I could access the VEATs)

Anyways, last night it occurred to me why I can't seem to get into villany after completing this one quest in Dragon Age: Origins.

the scene in question involves going to a certain village and clearing out a certain castle and the finally of said quest involves the possible sacrifice of a certian NPC (anybody who has reached this point knows what I'm talking about)

I didn't like my choice but it seemed prudent given the circumstances, and honestly I sorta feel like a ****** for doing it

Sigh... and I so wanted to be the first global dictator in history

I can empathize with you. I'm just not a dastardly person. I tried playing Grand Theft Auto 3 (I think it was number 3), and I got to a point where I was supposed to do a drive-by, and I kept thinking "I don't want to do a drive-by!" It's about as far as I got.

It's not as bad in CoX because most of the time, I feel like I'm just beating up people, and most of the people I beat up are thugs anyway. One mission though had me collecting people from Paragon City to turn over to the Vhazilok, and I had a very bad taste in my mouth after completing it. Like you, it's why I have tons of heroes and just two villains.

My characters over all, and my characters that are 50 are divided almost exactly evenly between heroes and villains. Apparently I am neutral.

I only have more villains than heroes because I like all of the villain ATs versus the three hero ATs I like (Blasters, Scrappers, Controllers). That will most likely change with Going Rogue though (Yay for AT crossing).

Nothing wrong with staying on the right side of the moral divide

Even though I started Red-Side and got my first 50 there, I don't really have it in me to be evil either. Truth be told, none of my villains are really evil. They're either mad at the world, apathetic, have their own way of seeing things, or completely nuts.

None of them are really evil, at least by my definition. To me, an evil person is someone who knows that they're doing something wrong. They know that someone else will be seriously hurt by what they're doing. They know that they're causing pain and suffering for their own personal gain. They realize all of this, and they don't care. They go ahead and do whatever they were going to do, and other people suffer for it.

I could never even pretend to be that person, so I don't. Maybe my characters have "wimpier" backstories because of it, but I think I'd go crazy if I even tried to be evil.

i have more heroes than villians but i focus more on my villans than my heroes.
something about the escapist element i think.
after having to do the right thing at work all day its very satisfying to be able to come home and crush the weak and take what i want for no better reason than i can and i want to.

eh, you can dodge a lot of the worst stuff redside and just come across as mercenary, jsut for the love of all that's holy, avoid weston phipps. beyond that, most of my villsa re more a idea of how situations can drive good people to do bad things, the only character i have that's really uncaring is my crab spider, but the rest are too jaded, self tortured, or distrustful to go full good. longbow and wyvern arent exactly the best goodwill ambassadors out there really.

that said, gr comes soon, so i expect a lot of people going rogue/vigilante to be able to have a toe in each pond. or doing a full switch. the redside stuff is pretty well written, you owe it to yourself to give it a go at least. And you can look at it as more you dealing with evil people rather than you yourself being evil.

Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.

I find it easy to create villains. I just imagine them as rather amoral. They don't necessarily enjoy handing people over to the Vahz, but people are paying them to do it, and they don't care enough not to do it. I can deal with the idea of that kind of villainy. A lot of the dirtiest deeds you do in CoV are not really seen by your characters - you know its going to be a bad end for someone, but your characters don't actually do it themselves.

I couldn't build a character that's deeply psycho. Take the Vahz, for example. Their color text from Steel Canyon and whatnot suggests strongly they not only mutilate people alive, some of them really enjoy it. That's way beyond a severe lack of empathy/sympathy and right off the cliffs of sociopathic sadism.

In a more abstract way, the CoT are actually much worse. If you read some of the color text they say to the many victims they so often have floating bound in a ritual, you'll find them talking about casting the person's soul into eternal solitude in an empty void, and then they joke about enjoying the victims that struggle. That's pretty off the charts evil, IMO.

I don't imagine my villains as anything like that. They're cold enough to let something like that happen, which is certainly pretty awful, but they don't look for ways to do that sort of thing themselves. It's a fine line, but one that lets me deal with the idea of them.

It certainly helps that I don't imagine any of my MMO characters as me. That's something that took me a while to get used to, as my avatar in FPS games was definitely meant to represent me. Here I'm creating a character and working in the game's framework to create a story for them.

I love redside. There are very few arcs where you actually feel villainous. I can count them on one hand... there are several more where you feel amoral, but more mercenarial than anything, something an anti-hero could probably be seen doing.

Basically, it's heroes without the poncy and hoity-toity snobs. It's ridiculously easy to avoid the arcs that are squicky.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

I have always felt a sort of pull toward the villains in a story. I feel bad sometimes when they lose, especially if they only lose because they are the "bad guys." And my favorite comic characters were the morally reprehensible like Sinister and Apocalypse.

And yet, it took me some time to start playing redside in this game. Perhaps it was due to the computer issues I used to have with the somewhat more graphically intensive zones, but I just hated the look of it. At some point, I decided that I would get a 50 over there at all cost, and so I did. And I haven't really looked back. Now, I love redside, and have been spending a LOT more time there. Especially since moving our VG over to Justice.

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Originally Posted by Golden Girl Nothing wrong with staying on a single side of the moral divide

Fixed.

I have a lot more heroes than villains, but now I am playing mostly redside, just because I think the arcs there are so much more well thought out than the blueside ones.

There are some great arcs redside

i know what you mean. i have loads of villains over didnt levels. but out of my 48 months i have only been able to lvl one hero to 50 and that was a blaster. i tried the heats- naa. i tried others, but got soo bored. and i only lvled a hero cos i wanted archey. but now i find it hard going to enjoy my new hero. i think its cos i love the evil more darker side of life then the bright happy in ur face hero side.

i have a friend whos the same. shes just not a villain person and doesnt like villains for that reason.

I have far more heroes than villains, but it isn't about good vs bad, its about teaming vs soloing. I prefer the social element and villain side ATs just feel much more suited to soloing, they don't need each other. Perhaps with the new Going Rogue thing I'll be spending more time villain side.

I also can't get around being a villain for several reasons.

I know why some people think that villains and anti-heroes are "cool". It is because they perceive these people as breaking the rules and acting independently of society and the like.

Of course, in reality, while they are reacting negatively to the outside influences, they are still being driven by those outside influences. They're letting themselves be controlled by something other than themselves. There are very, very few villains that are acting out of Free Will.

Darth Vader is reacting to a desire to never be powerless again, his one major act of Free Will was shortly before his death.

Lex Luthor is reacting to the fact that Superman is more popular than he is.

Sauron is a slave to his own pride and fear of final destruction.

Most versions of the Joker are driven by a mental defect that makes it impossible for him to relate to people.

And so on.

Heroes, by contrast, look like they're bending to the will of society in general. However, the bounds of society exist for a reason. If you sit down analyze and consider your actions for their overall benefit, most of the time, you will find that the manner in which accepted society wants you to behave is the most efficient and effective way to behave. However, since loads of other people are taking the same action merely because "that's what you're suppposed to do" it tends to bury the people that are making the actions out of Will rather than expectation.

It's one of those cases where it is rather hard to tell whether someone is acting out of Will or not because so often the choice of Will mirrors the choice of Expectation (someone acted out of Will in the past to lead society that way, however).

It is very easy to do the selfish thing, the thing that benefits just you and only for the short term. It is very hard to do the right thing all the time.

Villainy is sort of like driving the wrong way down the highway for no better reason than because you were told not to. They're the ultimate victims of reverse psychology. And, eventually, their petulant attitude will catch up with them.

Personally, playing someone that is doomed to be caught in a metaphorical and spiritual head on collision is not my idea of fun.

As people have said, you can always avoid arcs you don't want to do. Just do papers in their place.

Contacts to try out in the Rogue Isles:

Mercy Island
- Kalinda (prove yourself to Arachnos, take down a traitor, beat up snakes and infected
- Mongoose (deal with snake infestation)
- Seer Marino (fascinating insight into Arachnos)

Port Oakes
- Billie Heck (beat up Hellions, stop infighting between two mafia groups)
- Veluta Lunata (ghost busting)

I'm sure other people can make suggestions for later contacts.

I have waaay more villains than heroes but that has to do with the way CoV was built upon the learning experience (and mistakes) of CoH. I prefer the ATs, the zones, etc.

I'm not normally one to pooh-pooh morality concerns, but the play between the two doesn't feel all that different to me so I just go with what seems to work better.

I have always been disappointed that the story lines Villain side were not evil enough for my tastes.

While I don't begrudge there being many mercenary arcs, I do wish there were more arcs that came across as truly reprehensible.

I know I can make them in the AE; it's just not the same when I made it and know what's going to happen.

So, I guess I have it in me.

Meh. While I have more heroes than villains, I don't have a problem playing them at all. I seem to beat up on the same people and most of them shoot at me first anyway.

So it's self defense! Honest! (That's my story and I'm sticking to it.)

There is a reason why I only have one villain that I played to 50. And even he isn't really evil, just "misunderstood".

Initially, I had a big problem creating and playing villains I didn't hate, but I found a pretty good way around that. I don't enjoy BEING a villain, but as we all know, a good story needs a good villain, and creating one of those is what I use City of Villains for. It takes a certain level of detachment from the character (e.i. it's not me doing those things, it's him because he's just like that), but it does work in a big way. In essence, I create villains I actually hate, or rather love to hate. They're bad, they're nasty, they're clearly evil, but they HAVE to be in order for there to be a decent story.

That's one part. The other part is finding a kind of evil that is reprehensible, yet NOT disgusting. A kind of evil with a sense of style that, if it weren't for all the bad things it did, you would actually like and admire. A kind of evil that, if you had a story where it had to team up with good to fight a greater evil, you'd think it was a kickass team. See, there's... Let's call it cool evil, and then there's disgusting evil. Cool evil is seductive, in that it's cool and you kind of want it, but it's evil, so you shouldn't want it. Disgusting evil is disgusting, so you hate it, and it's also evil, so you hate it even more. Playing something that is disgusting AND evil is unpleasant, but playing something that is cool and evil is actually kind of fun.

I'll admit to one thing - I hate "kid" movies, that is movies where the protagonists are kids facing off against an adult evil. I hate them, for the most part, because they pass injustice off as justice. Here you have this cool, powerful, capable villain who's spent his life plotting, building up his forces and installing himself as the greatest threat the world has ever seen... And he's defeated by an arrogant brat because by pure accident because the plot says so. You see this carefully-constructed house of cards by someone who put so much effort and thought into it he deserves if not to win, then at least to fire all his guns and go down in a crowning moment of awesome... And he's defeated through sheer suck by "protagonists" who are both unlikable and undeserving of such a victory. That is simply not fair. So I enjoy villains like this, I tend to root for them, and I tend to be disappointed when they get taken out by a smiling with little effort because he was the chosen one. Screw that! All that tells me is that no matter how hard you work, some "chosen" brat can just come on over and ruin it all for you.

Those are the sort of villains I enjoy - those who are capable, thoughtful, ambitions and driven enough to deserve SOMETHING, while at the same not going too far across the line just for the sake of being jerks. Convincing villains who actually do have a point, and whom you can't really shout down by showing the error of their ways. The kind of villain that makes people think "Might I do the same if I were in his shoes?"

Basically, it comes down to finding a really, really cool villain

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Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.