It happened AGAIN.

Basically, players who play villainside pay the same monthly cost (and. like me, spend money on paragon points) and have been told by the playerbase on these forums, more than once, 'just accept what you're given or you know where the door is'.

I accept, from a cost/benefit perspective, the studio gets the most benefit from developing either hero or co-op content (which is inevitably 'save the world', as it's conceivable that a lot of hero players would be crying 'dooooooooooommmmmmmmmmm' if they did more than 'arrest' a bunch of pixels). However, until they shutdown villain zones completely, they've said they will write 'villain' content on parity with heroside content (the amount of content, anyway). I am pleased that paragon studio do this and don't take the easy way out, which would be to eliminate villain content completely (yes, there would be an outcry - I would be one of those complaining - but they wouldn't lose a large percentage of players, I believe, particularly now that all a/t are available to all).

I've come to believe that a lot of the people posting on these forums wouldn't give a toss if City of Villains was shutdown tomorrow, as it doesn't impact on their game experience (or, like GG, they object to villain content for philosophical and/or other reasons). At the end of the day, I agree with others in this thread that the majority of 'villainous' content really isn't villainous (as in The Joker in Dark Knight - I consider that villainous behaviour), but I do believe that, apart from the latest episode, the SSA was well-written and 'villainous' and much darker than legacy villain content (some of the alignment missions are also very dark). This makes me believe that, even if it's just out of obligation, paragon studios doesn't want to shutdown villainside.

Sorry about the tangent in the above paras... I acknowledge it was rambling and may not be directly linked with the OP's intent.

I've only read the first and last page, so I apologize if this has already been covered...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nalrok_AthZim Next thing you know Wade's monologuing and you have to fight him. FOR THE GREATER GOOD.

The dialog options I got had nothing to do with "for the greater good". They were more like "you thought double-crossing me was a good idea? Let's see how that works out for you. I hope you don't think I'll be impressed by Incarnate powers" and ended with Wade running away throwing half-hearted empty threats. Yeah, I guess I'll end up stopping him from destroying the world, but that's not at all why I'm hunting him down. It's not even self-preservation, just personal revenge, which isn't as good as world domination, but still a valid villainous motivation.

Villain content has often been a letdown in the history of this game, but I don't feel this arc was an example of that at all. We're not even done with the story yet.

You know...this got me thinking. Why not have a zone, or a zone event, that gave the villains the option to win and do something dastardly? Give the heroes the chance to win and do something good OR vigilantiesh. Preferably PvP, but maybe even just PvE, where you rush around trying to arm/disarm some doomsday device. Then at the end of it, give the winner the option to do what they want. Say villains can either destroy the zone, or hold it hostage and dominate it. Or the heroes can protect the zone, or...ask for a large sum of money or some such. Not holding it hostage per se, but demanding payment first. If the villains win and destroy it, the zone becomes unavailable until its next cycled time.

I realize that's probably not quite what the villains are asking for, I just thought it'd be a neat idea to see implimented.

RV is kinda like that

A few things I've thought about while muscling through all eight pages of this thread.

Yes, creating an MMO where villains can actually destroy the world is hypothetically possible, but no one has any idea how to make it work even in concept here in the real world where games are actually made, so what on earth makes you think Paragon owes that to you?

That being said, not every villainous plot needs to be destroying and/or taking over the world. I mean, I've got a Villain and a Rogue right now, the first of which does what he does mostly out of loyalty to a higher power and the second of which mostly just wants to be left alone (problem being that as she takes more and more drastic action to drive off her enemies, the more they, especially the heroes, redouble their efforts to end her reign of terror once and for all). I could also make one who just wants to be absurdly wealthy and/or powerful without explicitly wanting to own all the things, or one who's on a quest for revenge against the world that wronged him, or a scientist whose ideas have been mocked because of academic politics and now plans to show them, show them all!

In all of these cases, success of the villainous plot comes down to killing a handful of people, blowing up one or two buildings, and/or stealing a few hundred million dollars, none of which has to have permanent effects on the game world. Particularly if we could go to other cities besides Paragon. The idea for an alternate dimension where you can blow it up, conquer it, or save it doesn't actually have to be another dimension, it could just be Tokyo or wherever. A single, instanced zone far enough away and with little enough to do with Paragon that it will make no difference to the main plot what happens to it.

Also, more things along the lines of the paper, mayhem, and tips missions. The contact isn't your boss, he's either a peer ("I've got an idea for a heist, but I can't do it alone") or a lackey ("hey boss, I was watchin' things down at the Arena District like you said and you'll never guess what I just saw"). Even if the only thing you ultimately end up accomplishing is stealing fat stacks, intimidating the local gangs into being your lackeys, or whatever.

I posted this in the suggestions thread a while ago, but enemies who con grey shouldn't attack your character unless they're attacked first. Then have them add in some dialogue about how Villain Name Here totally owns this turf, and you NPCs should make sure to stay out of his way or we'll all suffer for it. Blueside could do the same thing, where grey enemies will occasionally talk about how Hero Name Here has made it practically impossible to make a dishonest living in this neighborhood. On that note, do things like muggings and break-ins have to be quite so ubiquitous? There's just no way you can end them all, and it doesn't feel very heroic to ignore a serious crime in progress. Can't more criminals just be loitering around, doing drugs, tagging walls, or whatever? Things which, while illegal, aren't the sort of thing the average hero is ever going to feel too bad about turning his back on to deal with more important things?

Finally, creating a computer program that can tell an effectively endless series of interesting and unique (if simple) stories is actually hypothetically doable right now. You don't need a computer to actually be sentient to be a good GM, nor to handily beat out the average human GM (though such a feat, unlike straight storytelling, is not currently within the realm of our understanding).

Read the OP..Skimmed the rest as there's so many posts, read Zwills tho

Still my view remains anyway of yer, it's sick'n to be screwed over soo many times, at least let our actions destroy a zone or something

I think outside this game only Mortal Kombat (tv series) do i see a villain truely win...Lets hope some day soon...we get to be...villains.... :/

Even if Blue Steel thwarts my plot for world domination, I'd still be satisfied if I got the chance to punch his lights out afterwards.

Honestly know what I think would be cool?

If the final story for dealing with darren wade awarded you with an accolade passive that gave a small boost to a bunch of things.

For villains the story goes with them beating darren wade and stealing statesman's powers for themselves (accolade)

For heroes they beat wade and are tasked with holding on to statesman's power for safe keeping (accolade)

the essential mechanics end up the same for both heroes and villains but the story allows both heroes and villains to play as appropriate to their faction.

The accolade could be something nifty like 5% resistance to everything, 5% global recharge and 5% more damage. Pretty potent but considering this is supposed to represent statesman's power (or as much as the player can access of it)... I'd say it seems warranted.

In a co-op mish I would love the following possibiliy...

One of my choices end up joining the big enemy.. and from that moment I am in PVP mode on the side of teh main villain vs. the rest of the team who vhoose to fight him.

And if he and I (and possible others who picked my choice) wins we get a temp power.

Will also make PVP have some sense again.

My villain wants to:

1: Take over the World
2: Secretly move to a secluded island
3: Retire
4: Smile, sip tropical drinks, while being fanned by local inhabitants who see my villain as a Goddess.
5: Giggle as the world's power houses all begin vying for control, remain on the island for the rest of the days avoiding the anarchy and chaos created for lulz.

Or, just to blow up the world out of boredom.

I think that, ultimately, on topic point regarding the destruction or conquering of the world at large, there is one simple point that must be remembered: this is a comic book MMO. That means that it takes its cues and such from that which has come before it. Now, extrapolating from that, let's take a look at the two big comic companies, and how successful the villains are at destroying Earth permanently. ...they're not. At no point is the villain ever the permanent victor. For that reason, it's not a fair assumption to think that any comic-based MMO would ever give you the option to push the button and end Earth as it is. There's no precedent. Ultimately, this argument is moot.

NOW. Two things can be said with that in mind. The first being that there IS no reason the villains can't win like in Sharkhead arcs mentioned earlier and in the SSAs. I think those have been great steps to letting villains be real villains, and there's no reason they can't keep going here. Hopefully, the Devs will keep making more content like this for higher-end villains so, even if they can't make any world-shaking moves, they can at least have some form of win the heroes can't take away. I'm all for the addition of locales outside Paragon that would be much easier for a hero to conquer, small countries and such.

Secondly, for the ones that want to destroy the world/conquer it? Design an arc that allows them this...but as is so common for this kind of a story, don't make it permanent. The heroes do something to overthrow or restore the planet. Maybe they go back in time and change some critical event right before the button is pressed and the world is saved. This has been done in so many comic book settings (Nemesis even took over the US after WWII, and that didn't last!), I see no reason not to make an instanced mission where the villain has the world where he wants it...until the mission is over. :P Villains will never get to keep their cake, this would at least let them eat some and leave them hungry to get it back!

The problem to me isn't that villains are saving the world once again.

Its that player villains are never the main enemy. The Rikti are a big threat, so we must go out and protect ourselves. The Praetorians are a big threat, so we must fight them to save ourselves. The Shivans/Battalions/Rularuu are big threat, and we ...

Why can't a player villain be "a big threat?" Player heroes get to save the world, but villains never get a chance to be proactive and destroy it. It makes player villains seem far less competent than their hero analogs, and even more so compared to actual NPC villains, even if that NPC villain is our future self (who apparently CAN plan and succeed).

See, what everyone doesn't realize is that one of my villains wanted to destroy the world and attain Godhood by absorbing the released energies.

He did do it.

He destroyed the world, the Heroes failed to stop him and he unmade the universe by his will alone.

So I deleted the game from my computer.

No world, no game-world to play in, no Heroes to stop him, no other villains to topple him from his pedestal, no nothing but him and him alone.

Then my God-villain got bored with nothing to do and remade it all for everyone else to play in.

And I got to re-install the game.

Sucks when my villains succeed in destroying the world. It means I can't play the game anymore.

If you're going to play the "you can't destroy the world because if you do you won't be able to play the game anymore" card, it's only fair to look at it from the other side. The villain du jour can't destroy the world either, because if they do we won't be able to play the game anymore.