Not on Virtue as far as I can tell. Granted it will always be more populated blueside, but I can certainly find teams redside.
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Let's see, that's... 3 - 7 PM PST, when I usually play. I'm sorry, but I still don't see any "anemia."
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Originally Posted by Antares_NA
M-F 6-10 PM EST and Saturdays more or less all day, EST.
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People still play red-side... I cross paths with them pretty often when I'm playing my own villains (Which include a tank-gone-bad, FWIW- 
) on Liberty and Virtue.
Of course, a lot of them are running around alone when I see them, and seem to be soloing. As am I most of the time... So, maybe it's not so much that there aren't villains anymore as it is a matter of the people who *are* around not looking to team quite as much as they used to.
@Brightfires - @Talisander
That chick what plays the bird-things...
Measuring the liveliness of a server by the amount of people you see in the open zones is a little misleading in a game tha relies heavily on instanced-missions. After halving the defeat debt in missions, the Devs herded everyone indoors, and now with the incarnate shiny carrot, everyone is flocking to the trials.
"Samual_Tow - Be disappointed all you want, people. You just don't appreciate the miracles that are taking place here."
I was talking to someone, I can't remember who, but they explained Redside vs. Blueside thusly:
Just after City of Villains was released, Cryptic Studios was in the process of losing the reins to the game. So there was no support or new content released. By the time Paragon Studios got a hold of it, interest had waned.
If you think about it, how many content updates have Villains seen since 2005 beyond VEATs?
Interesting version of history but not particularly accurate in it's language.
Let's try again.
After City of Villains was released, Cryptic slashed the dev team for the entire game to less than 20 people, so the studio could focus on new projects and still technically meet their contract with NCSoft. The dev team made a conscious decision that the things they could do should be things that had the biggest impact for the most players, so neither side got much in the way of specific development. NCSoft saw it was a money maker for them and a game worth improving, so when the time came they bought out Cryptic and took over the dev team and made it much larger.
That's a severely trimmed version of events, but it's more accurate than the slanted synopsis you were given. Beware oversimplification, the full story is often a lot more complicated.
"Null is as much an argument "for removing the cottage rule" as the moon being round is for buying tennis shoes." -Memphis Bill
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Sure. The point is Villains got screwed at the beginning and it hurt us later on. It's a case of life imitating art, too. Villains always lose at the end of the comicbook.
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Originally Posted by Lemur Lad
Interesting version of history but not particularly accurate in it's language.
Let's try again. After City of Villains was released, Cryptic slashed the dev team for the entire game to less than 20 people, so the studio could focus on new projects and still technically meet their contract with NCSoft. The dev team made a conscious decision that the things they could do should be things that had the biggest impact for the most players, so neither side got much in the way of specific development. NCSoft saw it was a money maker for them and a game worth improving, so when the time came they bought out Cryptic and took over the dev team and made it much larger. That's a severely trimmed version of events, but it's more accurate than the slanted synopsis you were given. Beware oversimplification, the full story is often a lot more complicated. |
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I play almost exclusively villainside and it's because the quality of the content is so much better, even if the quantity is smaller. So I don't feel villains are screwed at all.
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Originally Posted by Antares_NA
Sure. The point is Villains got screwed at the beginning and it hurt us later on. It's a case of life imitating art, too. Villains always lose at the end of the comicbook.
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@Quasadu
"We must prepare for DOOM and hope for FREEM." - SirFrederick
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It would be nice if people would spend as much time in Cap under Aeon's monument as they did under Atlas' statue.|
Originally Posted by Quasadu
I play almost exclusively villainside and it's because the quality of the content is so much better, even if the quantity is smaller. So I don't feel villains are screwed at all.
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It would be nice if Villains had as many supergroups as heroes.
Definatly not Dead... Active Redside Sg with a logg of 15-20 a day. And I am not the only redside SG on Union for sure.
- The Italian Job: The Godfather Returns #1151
Beginner - Encounter a renewed age for the Mook and the Family when Emile Marcone escapes from the Zig!
- Along Came a... Bug!? #528482
Average - A new race of aliens arrives on Earth. And Vanguard has you investigate them!
- The Court of the Blood Countess: The Rise of the Blood Countess #3805
Advanced - Go back in time and witness the birth of a vampire. Follow her to key moments in her life in order to stop her! A story of intrigue, drama and horror! Blood & Violence... not recommend to solo!
Maybe I should just switch realms. Honestly, I'm pretty much fed up with the hero-centricity.
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I wish I could be all rainbows and lollipops, but I've come to accept that this is 'City of Heroes' as a fact of (virtual) life.|
Originally Posted by Antares_NA
Maybe I should just switch realms. Honestly, I'm pretty much fed up with the hero-centricity.
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Realistically, this was always going to be the case, due to the bulk of player population being in Paragon and GR giving people access to traditionally villain archetypes which they can then take to Paragon. it's basically a catch 22 ('Redside is dead, so I'm not going there'... there is an amazing irony to this).
I view it in a similar vein to when I hear people at work talk about a certain very large fantasty MMO 'I got into it because X and Y were playing and I wanted someone to play with'. When I mention 'City of', the response is 'never heard of that, I wouldn't want to play if I couldn't get a group'. Of course, if several of my colleagues who play MMOs tried 'City of', we'd have a group, but they won't join in the first place.... it's a cyclic effect.
This was brought home to me last night while badging in RV and being killed by a Stalker (I was on my ill/ff troller, who is villain). Admittedly, only my Stalker comes anywhere near close to being a PvP build (and even then, I did it in Mids and probably made a mess of it, as I know little about PvP), but my point is that what was the 'villain pvp a/t' can now be used as a hero, so why wouldn't people do that?? If there's no need to level up a Stalker in the Rogue Isles to PvP, why wouldn't people level them up in Paragon?
(As a note, I am not complaining about being killed in RV - it is a PvP zone and I was near the hero base, so it's just a part of being in that zone. If it helped his rep and self-esteem, that's great!)
I used to get extremely annoyed by this 'hero-centricity', and Paragon Studios/NCsoft effectively dismissing the 'City of Villains' brand in any media or public forums (it's rarely, if ever, mentioned in any of the media interviews, although sometimes the terms 'villain' and 'Rogue Isles' are used). Now, I continue to be annoyed, but just accept that this is the status quo.
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I got pissed yesterday: The Redsiders|
Originally Posted by SlackTech
I used to get extremely annoyed by this 'hero-centricity', and Paragon Studios/NCsoft effectively dismissing the 'City of Villains' brand in any media or public forums (it's rarely, if ever, mentioned in any of the media interviews, although sometimes the terms 'villain' and 'Rogue Isles' are used). Now, I continue to be annoyed, but just accept that this is the status quo.
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Kudos to you and your Hero AT Villain. City of Villains needs more players like you!
Some of the posts on these forums that state 'red side is dead' are key reasons WHY red side is dead. You get those that stealth the forums and see 2-4 posts a week of 'red is dead' and they start thinking 'hmmm...maybe they're right...I might want to go shift alignment blueside with my villains so I can have more folks to play with'.
This is the same issue with the 'build of the week' posts in the Archtype sections; 'go shields, it's better now'; or, 'tried fire/fire tank for first time in 3 years; everyone should do this build!', and then everyone reading these forums posts figure that whatever is posted is the flow of the game and (a fair share) sheepishly follow it.
My input is simply this; the game is what you make it.
You like villains? Good, play villains. Not seeing a lot of villains wandering the streets and want more villains around you? Find a way to GET the villains out and about.
- Host a unique redside event
- Host a redside multimillion Inf prize Costume Contest (when was the last time you saw that?) with forum posts telling everyone about it
- host a holiday event with the Cape Radio (et al) covering the action with the DJ's avatars hanging out redside
- subscribe to a new applicable global channel and post that you are forming redside teams, badge hunts, GM hunts, etc on there
- recruit more for teaming or for the VG; send out 'LFM' broadcasts instead of waiting for them to magically appear
- encourage other 'vigilantes' and 'rogues' to do something redside that'll earn them a badge, an accolade, tip missions, etc.
We all want to go where the action is; no qualms there. The issue is, does one continue to perpetuate the problem by stating 'red is dead', or instead, be a bit more dynamic and be part of the solution and bring the 'action' to redside?
Aside from of the suggestions above, positive comments here in the forums about redside can have an impact just as strongly as 'red is dead' posts.
It seems the OP is on the right track with redside; the question is, how do we, as a community, get people excited to go (and more importantly, stay) redside?
Just my 2 Inf(amy).
My unregenerate, never-gonna-repent villains all moved recently to a higher population server, so they can actually meet some other evildoers.