Is it time to move on from Recluse and Statesman? (non-doom post)

I just wanted to say, the only time I've actually felt like an evil villian/mastermind in recent times on any of my villians was during the Mane Company arc.

You know, the worst part of actually liking Lord Recluse and Arachnos is that all the criticism about them makes perfect sense.

You do realize good and evil is based on public perception of your actions and not your own perception. Any writer worth anything knows that there is no such thing as a person who views what they are doing to be evil. They either view their actions as good or a necessary evil that will lead to good. Good and evil are relative terms... and clearly when we are calling someone good or evil in the game we are basing it on their relative position to Paragon City's "heroes". If we look at things from a more global stand point Paragon City could be considered the villains far more easily than the Praetorians, The Rogue Islands, or the Rikti.

I think the real flaw in the concept design for Arachnos is that it's set up like it's a super-mafia without the back story that makes actual organized crime syndicates work.

Recluse is the don/capo/godfather/whatever. He's got these four lieutenants who are each jockeying for position and they each have hundreds or thousands of soldiers working for them in a hierarchy of power. Your character is a soldier trying to work his or her way up the ranks of the organization while paying respect to those above you, until you can theoretically take their place one day.

Through it all, there's this idea that for better or worse, you're locked in to the organization and it's your first, best chance for fulfilling your personal ambitions.

The flaw is that the Arachnos concept does not imbue or even imply a common connection between you and all these other crooks. There's no real reason for all of you to be in the same boat together, unlike for example, a bunch of immigrants or low-caste people who have a common culture, a need for protection and few choices. It's just sort of expected that you'll go along with it for no particular reason.

I kind of like the four-factions approach to Arachnos mentioned earlier. If I could wave my wand and re-design CoV from scratch, I'd have four primary contacts in each level range, one for each faction. You initially choose which faction you want to join coming out of the training scenario, which would be redone as a "demonstration" of your power and will to get things done. Whichever faction your character has greatest standing with when they hit that range, that's the contact who offers you a primary story arc for those levels. BUT... I'd design each stage of each arc so that you can talk with EACH contact from each faction, who will each offer you different incentives to either complete the mission for the original faction or sell out in some fashion to one of the rivals. Standing with the faction would influence the offers/threats made or received.

The part I do not like about Arachnos is that they are inconsistent. Arachnos is supposed to be an oppressive, totalitarian state but people with powers (including Natural origin) are allowed to do whatever. The player is a "destined one" but Arachnos troops still attack on sight, except in pvp zones where they act like they were always allies. Lord Recluse is stated to have a "hands off" and "survival of the fittest" approach to government but all the zones have a large Arachnos presence, keeping the order. And the contacts are all over the place in their attitudes, from "outside contractor" to "lackey of our great organization". Which is it already?

On a side note, we could really use a "All things writing" thread for discussions like this. Most GR content is probably locked in by now but there will be issues after it. And the storyline part of the new end game system is probably still up for change. Perhaps David Nakayama can bite the Story Lead to infect him/her with awesome ?

While some people might not like the flavor of CoV Story, it is a consistent storyline from level 1 to 50, which City of Heroes does not have. And the story makes sense. As a little Level 1 Villian yes, you are not very powerful compared to the major players in the story, but as time passes you become stronger and stronger until you exceed Recluse himself. Unfortunately for that story, at that point the story ends, so you have a difficult time seeing that you are now a powerful figure beyond the powers of Archanos.

Seriously, if you want your Villian to be ultra powerful from level 1 at the beginning of their career with no need to sacrifice anything for that...well we call that a "Mary Sue" in the roleplaying world...

"My happiness is good. You think I'm evil. If i kill you that makes me happy, thus my killing you is good.

This is basic ethics and story writing stuff. "

...except by killing another, you remove their potential to provide for the species, which is as basic as it comes. Our individual needs are an illusion when it comes to the needs of humanity as a whole and thus evil is that which conflicts with those needs.

It's really great to come back to this thread I started and see such robust discussion going on. Thank you to all those who have posted so far!

The main thing I seem to be getting from the responses though is that it's not so much time to move on from Recluse and Statesman so much as it is to grow them up a bit and give them some moral complexity, which is interesting given both the T for Teen rating for the game and the upcoming release of Going Rogue.

Is it just that this playerbase in particular or the broader audience have started to see beyond the black and white perception that used to linger about superhero themed stories? If so, I'd probably be pointing at Dark Knight as one of the major tipping points. Not only did it financially succeed, but it also scored an Oscar for the late Heath Ledger. And it was genuinely morally complex. A true grown up comic book story.

So if we are 'moving on', what should we be moving on to?


S.