[TITLE EDITED]: Not Just for Pocket D Anymore!

Mr. Caldoun. A villainous "paper mission" contact in First Ward. He's evil, I get it. Go start a protection racket on a tough person running a tough place, fine. People trying to make some downtime in a rough piece of crater and you go in to extort, yeah, that's evil. Destroy their supplies and leaving them hungry in a war zone? That would take it "too far" enough for villainous purposes.

But then it crosses a line. Given the very real, very horrific kidnapping and forced sexual servitude trade going on in the world, especially in war zones, I have a very hard time accepting that a 'paper mission' is the right place for treating this topic so... so...

I'll just record it and see if other people have their own adjectives.

He's more of a red side contact rather than a Praetorian contact - the FW storyline lacks any really evil stuff, so he's there to satisfy the moustache twirlers.

I was just putting this out there, but if that's the first reply...

Seriously? You look at beating up sex trade victims and say "moustache twirler"?

Examples of twirlers in the game:

Protean, Darrin Wade, Westin Phipps, Dominatrix.

Examples of non-twirlers in the game:

Tyrant, the Hamidon, Scirocco, the Clockwork King.

to help people with my new Golden Girl Translator, I think what she's saying is that she sees Mustache Twirling evil as any sort of villain who's evil deeds see so over-the-top they come off as more ridiculous than offensive, motivation being an additional factor.

For example, as noted, tying women to railroad tracks if mustache twirling evil because there's honestly no point when you consider that there's better, more efficient, faster, and practical ways to kill people, and the motivations of the people who do this range from "rejection" to absolutely nothing.

Just as, to her, Westin Phipps' lack of real motivation (other than just to be a jerk to the world) and over-the-top acts of villains that are effectively bullying (worse, actually; having others bully for you) in extreme, pointless ways.

I suppose it can be understood, at least in a fictional media standpoint, but it feels jarring from someone like Golden Girl who'd probably treat petty theft the same as arson, and will casually label anyone who happens to be in the Rogue Isles a monster of a person who must be locked in jail no matter what their actual motivations or reasons for being there are. (One year old born in the Rogue isles because his pregnant mother was kidnapped by Arachnos? Better hope they have clean diapers in the Zig, BABY.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.

I don't drink

OK, just a side note I'd like cleared up...


Pocket D?

Have I been missing something potentially important there?

You may not realize this, but CoH is not real life.

Maybe referring to the caged dancers? >>

This attitude that sex crimes are the be-all end-all of horrific villainy has always irked me. Look, they're terrible things and all, but they're far from matchless in the psychological damage they do to people. Any kind of slavery or longterm imprisonment is actually going to have similarly debilitating effects on the human psyche unless effort is made to mitigate them. And none of them carry the irreversible totality of murder, which is something which happens pretty often in-game.

There is actually some content in this game that makes me freak from trauma to the point where I'm deeply uncomfortable playing it. I can make myself do it, but I will spend the next several hours in a state of semi-panicky heightened awareness. This content has absolutely nothing to do with sex, and it's also my problem. I don't particularly mind that it's included in the game, because it's clearly not endorsed by the narrative and I can skip it if I want.

Why should a different flavor of trauma be treated differently?

As a small note: some years back, I recall running around Port oakes when I noticed two female NPCs on a balcony. one called to me with the following: "Having a good night? Wanna make it even better?"

My exact thoughts were: "Wow... they really managed to get that past the radar."

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.

I haven't done these missions...
Is there content/text that hasn't been posted here that makes it out to be sex trading victims?

I see a vague presentation of a "dance hall" and "entertainers" and an OP taking the leap on what that means.

Regardless, I don't have any issues with harsh and repugnant issues being used for content, if done well enough (including a good deal of respectfulness in the writing and the approach).

I'm probably missing something, but where exactly did sex trade come into this? Is the dutchess a wring leader or something?

I knew I felt a disturbance in the force when I wrote that... now I see what the problem is.

But seriously though, is she the ring leader as well as a wring leader?

I just see this as another instance of the mixing up of what makes a good antagonist and what kind of villain people actually want to play as. While opinions obviously vary, my experience has always been that if you force people to do something very distasteful as a villain, they'll balk.

As far as I'm concerned, a good villain we want to play as is the kind of villain we secretly want to be but have the good sense not to. It's the glamorous villain who's cool, who gets his way, who no-one can touch and who can steamroll anyone who opposes him.

Player villains should not be a lesson of morality. Player villain missions should not be designed to make us feel ashamed to play out villains. There's nothing wrong with writing missions that make peoples proud of themselves for being a villain, nor is there a problem with writing villain missions that put an evil grin on people's faces. There's nothing wrong about letting people enjoy being evil in a game where you play the villain. And I remind you - not a lot of people enjoy being truly repugnant.

Quote:

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.

An evil villain doing something evil? Stop the presses!

After reading this thread I came across a Valentine Tip where you can misdirect a Valentine to Crosscut. Setting him on a woman was genuinely a little disturbing.