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So don't make that kind of "real villain arcs". Make the comic book villain kind of arcs. |
Originally Posted by Crim_the_Cold
I mean think about it what if they had an arc were your villain approaches the Family with a plan to distribute Superdyne at a Paragon City Middle or High School. And I do not mean the Family asks you to help with their plan. I mean you come up with the plan, you approach the Family, you tell them your plan, you and them negotiate, you set up your dealers in the area around the school clearing out other dealers and or villain groups for being on your turf, maybe have to intimidate a few school administrators and police officers, and then at the end have to defend your distribution warehouse.
The problem with this type of arc is that it really isnt teen rated content and since it would be a part of the official game they risk a PR nightmare when some reporter with a cause or grudge decides to inflame parents because a teen rated game is teaching their children to be drug dealers. |
- Send Manticore chasing bombs across Paragon City while you and your 5th Column droogies rob the federal reserve.
- Take hostages in a skyscraper to fool everyone that you're a terrorist with political demands, when you in reality are stealing the 600M inf in US bonds kept in the vault.
- Place bombs on two ferries, one with convicts and one with innocent civilians, and force Miss Liberty to choose which ferry to blow up, just to prove a point.
- Make a Magnetic Positron Trap to, well, trap Positron, and provide free energy for Rogue Islands.
- Lobby Congress to pass draconian acts to protect your media empire, and that will also break the Internet.
- Blow up an iconic monument - the Atlas statue, for instance - because blowing up a statue is a symbol, and the people needs symbols more than they need a statue.
- Invent a miraculous 3D tv set that steals people's brain power and funnels it to you.
- Fluoridate the water supply as a stepping stone to the Communist take-over.
... you get the idea.
Still @Shadow Kitty
"I became Archvillain before Statesman nerfed himself!"
Quote:
What the ebil kitty said. A thousand times.
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Originally Posted by Shadow_Kitty
*Awesome stuff involving ideas from movies, real life and anywhere*
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The wisdom of Shadowe: Ghostraptor: The Shadowe is wise ...; FFM: Shadowe is no longer wise.
; Techbot_Alpha: Also, what Shadowe said. It seems he is still somewhat wise 
; Bull Throttle: Shadowe was unwise in this instance...; Rock_Powerfist: in this instance Shadowe is wise.; Techbot_Alpha: Shadowe is very wise *nods*; Zortel: *Quotable line about Shadowe being wise goes here.*
Quote:
i c whut u did thar.....
| Lobby Congress to pass draconian acts to protect your media empire, and that will also break the Internet. |
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
Quote:
Prove it.
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Originally Posted by Xanatos
I don't know where to start with this. There's just too much incorrect information, fallacial reasoning, and incorrect assumption.
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Character index
Quote:
What good is it to rule the world, when there is no world to rule?
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Originally Posted by Nalrok_AthZim
.... having to fight Darrin Wade so he won't destroy the universe because "it's the right thing to do"? What crap.
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Dark Energon, Founder of the Freedom Legion SG on Guardian server.
(SG founded on 12-08-'09, Top100: 08-17-'10, Top50: 12-23-'10, Top25: 12-11-'11)
Crab Spider Nephila on Titan Tracker
Weekly events on Guardian: W.A.V.E. & FNFN
I have been lurking the forums/boards for a few years and rarely felt an urge to make a post. After this, I will likely go back to quietly listening in, but at the risk of inflaming the general public...
Come on, folks. I am seeing this complaint all over the boards:
My villain can't be villainy enough;
My loyalist can't be Loyal enough;
or even be loyal after level 20;
My X can't be X'y enough;
My source of power is XYZ, not some ABC;
My character's backstory is This, and s/he would/n't do That;
As much as I enjoy CoX(Loyally paying my $30 per month for my wife and I to play for over 5 years), it is NOT an RPG. It is an MMO.
While it has some of the most player creative elements in any game of its type, and its Devs and community encourage player creativity, it is NOT a Roleplaying Game.
CoX is a teen rated console MMO. As such, it is limited to how far it can allow players to take their evilness.
Most importantly, as a console game, the stories and interactions are canned and preset. There is no true roleplaying interaction with the antagonists and allies.
In fact, as an MMO, it is actually more akin to a tactical wargame than an RPG. Granted it has a lot of bells and whistles, but it is a tactical simulation none the less.
If you want a true roleplaying experience and full creative control of your character's stories(Origin, source of power, actions and consequences), I suggest that you pull out the paper and pencils, dice, beverage of choice, snack foods, and folding tables and chairs. Call your friends over on Saturday, Sunday, M-F night/morning/afternoon and sit down to an old fashioned face to face session of roleplaying/storytelling.
In the mean time, since MMO's have become the mass market instant gratification medium of choice/replacement, I am going to suspend my disbelief and play along with the canned, spoon fed stories that my favorite MMO provides.
Sorry folks, off my soapbox now.
Please carry on and enjoy your day.
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Nah, that's not true at all. He's talking about a design intent for the game they were designing. Some design intents made it into the game. Some didn't. The Arena just happens to be one of the things that did make it into the game, even if the character creation system changed dramatically.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
That's a half truth, made a quarter truth by being a statement made before City of Heroes was refactored into the game it is now. Its essentially talking about a different game that happened to share the same name as ours, made by a developer that did not factor into the final design of our version of the game**.
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You're not required to change your mind on all design ideas just because some change for whatever reason. That's not how system design works (at least not system design that ever leads to a finished product).
Whether or not they tried to build a game system that could support PvP, or they were just really bad at designing such a system, is, at best, guesswork at this point.
Thought for the day:
"Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment."
=][=
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That might be true. And while that has been a fairly common complaint about CoV over the years, it's not really the crux of the complaint in this thread (at least not originally).|
Originally Posted by Kederren
Come on, folks. I am seeing this complaint all over the boards: My villain can't be villainy enough; |
The issue here is that co-op content is the most cost efficient content to add to the game. But no (or close enough) existing co-op content gives you much of a choice to actually play a villain. It's all about some vague excuse to bully you into saving the day and being a hero... if that's the kind of role I wanted, I wouldn't be playing red-side in the first place. I'd like to, at least see motivation that goes beyond "well, at least I get paid!" (which, you know, you actually don't) or "well, I guess I have to save the world because I kinda live here". Heck, recent content isn't even trying that hard.
Co-op content makes sense and is here to stay, but it'd be nice if red-side was occasionally acknowledged when this content was designed. Dismissing the concern or telling people to shut up about it, isn't going to help villains get content they're happy with.
Thought for the day:
"Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment."
=][=
City of Heroes is a comic book that has been inserted into a massively multiplayer online role-playing Game. For PCs, not consoles.
It's also a superhero arcade fighting game with RPG elements.
Seems to depend on who you ask, I've found.
Which is awesome, if you ask me.
Which, you didn't.
Sorry.
@Captain-Electric � Detective Marvel � The Sapien Spider � Moravec Man � The Old Norseman
Dark-Eyes � Doctor Serpentine � Stonecaster � Skymaiden � The Blue Jaguar
Guide to Altitis � A Comic for New Players � The Lore Project � Intro to extraterrestrials in CoH
Quote:
It's a moot point, since only a stupid mission designer would make MMO villain missions based on destroying the world. The smart MMO villain mission designer makes missions based on robbing the federal reserve, proving a point to Ms Liberty by forcing her to choose to bomb a boat with criminals or a bomb with innocent people, kidnaps a girl to force her dad the mage to be your servant, make Ghost Widow owe you one, or just piss off Statesman.
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Originally Posted by Dark Energon
What good is it to rule the world, when there is no world to rule?
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Still @Shadow Kitty
"I became Archvillain before Statesman nerfed himself!"
Shadow Kitty, those are all fine examples. But there is a well-established precedent in comic books for super villains who just want to watch the world burn.
@Captain-Electric � Detective Marvel � The Sapien Spider � Moravec Man � The Old Norseman
Dark-Eyes � Doctor Serpentine � Stonecaster � Skymaiden � The Blue Jaguar
Guide to Altitis � A Comic for New Players � The Lore Project � Intro to extraterrestrials in CoH
Quote:
Sure there is, but it's already well-established in this very thread and others that those plans cannot be made to succeed (at least not permanently, and then what would be the point?) in a persistent MMO.|
Originally Posted by Captain-Electric
Shadow Kitty, those are all fine examples. But there is a well-established precedent in comic books for super villains who just want to watch the world burn.
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Even if I have a villain character that's an incarnation of the Great Winter preceding the World-Fire, I simply have to bite my tongue and accept that Fimbulwinter will not be able to end the world. The reason that she can't end the world is not because of self-preservation. Believe me, she would if she could, even at the cost of her own life, because ending the world is the sole reason for her existence - she is after all the end of the world incarnated. It's because of meta-reasons: the devs won't allow their revenue source cut off by having a player destroying the game world (i.e. shutting down the servers).
In conclusion: villains wanting to end the world will not succeed. It's a waste of time and money to produce villain stories about ending the world. Hence it is a better choice to do the other comic book villains instead.
Oh well, Fimbulwinter has waited since at least AD 769. She can wait a bit more.
Still @Shadow Kitty
"I became Archvillain before Statesman nerfed himself!"
Quote:
Read the post. Haha.
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Originally Posted by Silver Gale
Prove it.
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ive always wondered this question as well, my toon is a villain! but lately all i do is team up with heroes to do heroic things, its stupid and insulting, are the devs. just trying to move everything to blueside now? with the "city of heroes" load up screen, the hero team ups and the lack of seeing any sort of villainy from lord recluse. give the villains some love! let them be able to do what they are suppost to do!
Shadow Kitty, a not small difference between our lines of thought is that you're reasoning from outside the game world, and I'm imagining from inside the game world. The other day, I saved the world from the Devouring Earth, who were attempting to bring about humankind's end. Of course they were never going to succeed. But then, it was just a story.
When asked for playable villains, Jack Emmert once quipped that the very idea of a "City of Villains" sounded like a ridiculous idea.
What you're saying can't be done well, I'm saying can be done well: a well-written story arc in which villains attempt to destroy the world. What I'm referring to is a good story where villains take a stab at ending the world. Of course they won't succeed. But what will they accomplish throughout the course of the story? How entertaining might the journey be? What if the heroes managed to save Primal Earth from your villain, but failed to save ten other parallel Earths, and untold billions of lives?
Let me put it to you a different way. Say I've just hired you, as a writer. Presumably you're interested in me not firing you. Your first assignment, due in two weeks, is to bring me an entertaining story arc wherein the player characters just want to watch the world burn.
I bet you'd come back in two weeks with a story.
@Captain-Electric � Detective Marvel � The Sapien Spider � Moravec Man � The Old Norseman
Dark-Eyes � Doctor Serpentine � Stonecaster � Skymaiden � The Blue Jaguar
Guide to Altitis � A Comic for New Players � The Lore Project � Intro to extraterrestrials in CoH
Quote:
I probably could. |
Originally Posted by Captain-Electric
Let me put it to you a different way. Say I've just hired you, as a writer. Presumably you're interested in me not firing you. Your first assignment, due in two weeks, is to bring me an entertaining story arc wherein the player characters just want to watch the world burn.
I bet you'd come back in two weeks with a story. |
Once.
But what happens thereafter? How well do you think I would perform if I were to match each "heroes saved the world" story currently in the game with a "villains tried to destroy the world but failed" story?
And how well do you think the players would receive those stories? I mean, the entire point of this thread is "oh, here we go again, we villains are never allowed to win".
The sole measurement of "entertaining story" is "are the players entertained?". Clearly, they are not now (at least not the villain players; hence this thread). I don't think they would be more entertained by repeatedly trying to destroy the world and not being able to. I think that they would be frustrated.
And yes, I'm still thinking outside of the game world, because when you are hiring me to make a job, you hire me outside the game world, and I presume that it is to entertain your customers, which after all, also exist outside the game world.
Still @Shadow Kitty
"I became Archvillain before Statesman nerfed himself!"
...Haven't read the whole thread, but here's my take: In comics in general, the "greater good" alliance happens every now and then. Its pretty rare.
In CoX, its pretty much all upper-level villains ever do. You know what I'd like?! I'd like to see HEROES have to be EVIL for once. Yeah, not happening.
Quote:
Like this or like this?
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Originally Posted by Captain-Electric
I think the writers could pull more than one good story out of their cans, but you're right. Endeavors of world destruction would grow stale. But is that all our villains are asking for?
[snippety] There's not much more that can be said, unless you want to start brainstorming with a can-do attitude. |
Still @Shadow Kitty
"I became Archvillain before Statesman nerfed himself!"
I deleted my post a few moments after making it (oh my, you are quick). I don't want to be a hypocrite, but I have neither the time or inclination this morning to...basically sacrifice my morning.
But I do see how you snipped the part where I complimented all of your ideas. Not fair. 
@Captain-Electric � Detective Marvel � The Sapien Spider � Moravec Man � The Old Norseman
Dark-Eyes � Doctor Serpentine � Stonecaster � Skymaiden � The Blue Jaguar
Guide to Altitis � A Comic for New Players � The Lore Project � Intro to extraterrestrials in CoH
I think part of the frustration, for me at least, is that the devs have shown themselves capable of writing suitable villain content when they put their minds to it. The villain tips, for instance, give you good opportunities to be evil. Or Vincent Ross's arc. Or the earlier installments of the SSA.
This only makes co-op content more jarring, though. I recently finished up the RWZ arcs on one of my masterminds, and it felt just a little out of place to have the likes of Dark Watcher and Faultline treating me as a hero when I'd, you know, killed Miss Liberty in cold blood not too long ago.
34 heroes,
20 villains, Victory, Justice, Infinity, Virtue, Triumph, Exalted -- some more active than others
Quote:
Completely agree. |
Originally Posted by Nalrok_AthZim
According to the recent interview with Positron, the players involved in the SSA "will be at the vanguard of stopping [Darrin Wade] from destroying the entire planet."
Seriously? For four arcs, villains get to be actual villains instead of someone's errand boy/a greater villain's lackey/the fall guy. Now it looks like we're being corn holed into "the greater good" AGAIN. I'm getting really sick of this pseudo-evil garbage the storywriters keep jamming down the throats of myself and my villains. We only get to see the fruits of our labor in the success of other villains. It even happened with Wade! Villains spend all this time with Wade while he says "Just do this thing for me and you'll get some seriously awesome power later" and, once again, the contact turns it around on us. Now, we'll be "at the vanguard" of stopping Wade. Great! My villains always wanted to play the hero! Wait, no. They don't. THAT'S WHY THEY'RE VILLAINS. Where have we seen this before? -Heroes fight the Rikti to save the world. Villains can aid the heroes for the greater good. -Heroes fight the Fifth Column and the Cimeroran Traitors to stop their meddling with power and save the world. Villains can aid the heroes for the greater good. -Heroes can stop Snaptooth/Lady Winter from keeping the world in eternal frost and frozen time and save the world. Villains can aid the heroes for the greater good. -Heroes can fight Praetoria to stop their invasion of Primal Earth and save the world. Villains... can... aid the heroes... for the greater.... ugh. Is anyone else getting tired of being labeled a hero at the last minute? Some REAL villainy would be nice. Killing Alexis Cole-Duncan? Hell yes. Roughing up Johnny Sonata so he'll record a song capable of trashing Sister Psyche's brain? Alright then! Firing a warhead at Paragon to get the attention of big-name heroes just so they'll look the other way? DAMN RIGHT! .... having to fight Darrin Wade so he won't destroy the universe because "it's the right thing to do"? What crap. |
I have many villains that would want the invasion of the Rikti or Praetoria or bad stuff to happen, not because of the greater good, but to take advantage of the turmoil.
Or maybe my character is an archaist and I want all government and installations destroying each other.
Or maybe my villain really enjoys murder, torture and other evils.
CoV is just City of Heroes that are misunderstood...
Need help making your own CoH comics or read other's comics at cohcomicindex.com
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Storylines:
Introductions, Obey,
Quote:
Okay:|
Originally Posted by Xanatos
Read the post. Haha.
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
That's a half truth, made a quarter truth by being a statement made before City of Heroes was refactored into the game it is now. Its essentially talking about a different game that happened to share the same name as ours, made by a developer that did not factor into the final design of our version of the game**.
The truth is the devs always told themselves "one day, we'll add PvP" but they did absolutely nothing to ensure that the game could actually support it, either because they deliberately didn't bother, or because they didn't even realize you can't just trivially retrofit PvP into a game that isn't designed to support it. In other words, the devs statements that they always intended to add PvP have as much value as dev statements that they always intended to move the corporate headquarters to the Sun. The most accurate statement that can be made is that the original developers intended to *try* to add PvP at some future date. However, they had no idea what that would entail, or how they would go about doing it. The arena concept is just the setting for PvP: there was exactly zero thought put into whether the powerset and archetypes had any chance of being viable in a PvP setting. The unequivocal evidence for this fact comes from the fact that the devs made many radical PvE-based balancing decisions leading up to launch with no regard for whether the original powersets were proper for PvP, or the altered versions were proper for PvP. ** The game Rick Dakan is talking about never saw the light of day. Here's his answer to another question: That game, to the best of my knowledge, never existed. In many ways, the pre-Beta paper design of City of Heroes was the Battlecruiser of MMOs. It was a set of features that even a well-funded dev team with modern technology would have a hard time delivering in a coherent game today. People talk about wanting to see "City of Heroes 2" but I'd love to see City of Heroes 0. I'm just not sure any dev team in existence today could pull it off, anywhere. |
Character index
Quote:
I did, and I'm afraid I don't see the misinformation and fallacies that you're seeing.|
Originally Posted by Xanatos
Read the post. Haha.
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Could you help me out? I don't see what you're seeing.
I sit in my zen of not being able to do anything right while simultaniously not being able to do anything wrong. Om. -CuppaJo
It is by caffeine alone that I set my mind in motion. It is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed, the hands acquire shaking, the shaking becomes a warning. It is by caffeine alone that I set my mind in motion.
Looks at OP...
A lot of leaping to conclusions... *decides to wait for the actual SSA release*
City of Heroes was my first MMO, & my favorite computer game.
R.I.P.
Chyll - Bydand - Violynce - Enyrgos - Rylle - Nephryte - Solyd - Fettyr - Hyposhock - Styrling - Beryllos - Rosyc
Horryd - Myriam - Dysquiet - Ghyr
Vanysh - Eldrytch
Inflyct - Mysron - Orphyn - Dysmay - Reapyr - - Wyldeman - Hydeous
The truth is the devs always told themselves "one day, we'll add PvP" but they did absolutely nothing to ensure that the game could actually support it, either because they deliberately didn't bother, or because they didn't even realize you can't just trivially retrofit PvP into a game that isn't designed to support it.
In other words, the devs statements that they always intended to add PvP have as much value as dev statements that they always intended to move the corporate headquarters to the Sun.
The most accurate statement that can be made is that the original developers intended to *try* to add PvP at some future date. However, they had no idea what that would entail, or how they would go about doing it.
The arena concept is just the setting for PvP: there was exactly zero thought put into whether the powerset and archetypes had any chance of being viable in a PvP setting. The unequivocal evidence for this fact comes from the fact that the devs made many radical PvE-based balancing decisions leading up to launch with no regard for whether the original powersets were proper for PvP, or the altered versions were proper for PvP.
That game, to the best of my knowledge, never existed. In many ways, the pre-Beta paper design of City of Heroes was the Battlecruiser of MMOs. It was a set of features that even a well-funded dev team with modern technology would have a hard time delivering in a coherent game today. People talk about wanting to see "City of Heroes 2" but I'd love to see City of Heroes 0. I'm just not sure any dev team in existence today could pull it off, anywhere.