what content should be the template for the future?
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2012-07-23 10:25 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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No. We, as players, expect more imaginative writing. This isn't an RP problem of "I can't explain my villains doing good." It's a customer problem of "the content you're designing isn't good enough." I get why they're doing it - it's cheaper and faster. Be that as it may, I'd prefer DECENT content over A LOT of content.|
Originally Posted by Aurora_Girl
Are your villains so evil they'd rather be dead than alive and doing evil things?
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Basically, I can explain away anything I need to, but the fact remains that sometimes, I wish I didn't have to. I don't WANT to have to explain some things away, and I don't WANT the writers to keep putting me in the position to do that. There's only so long I can pretend my villains are working for the greater good while having unmentioned off-screen evil plans before I throw my hands in the air, go "Aw, **** it!" and just stop trying to read the story.
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Originally Posted by Aurora_Girl
It's just incredibly difficult to describe something "adequately villainous" in a game that little kids conceivably play.
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You're using the old argument that "evil" is too vile to show for the game's rating, and it's an argument which never worked at all, specifically because so many of us have spent years outlining the many ways to do fun evil that isn't vile. Most people don't want blood and guts and murder and torture that make them feel icky for having played it. It's why Westin Phipps is infamous - because he's exactly the wrong kind of evil. What people want is a game that lets them have fun while being evil, and it's not that hard to figure this out if you actually pay attention to what's been said by people instead of hand-waving it away and jumping to convenient conclusions.
There are many reasons people in real life turn to crime, and "because I like evil" is rarely among them. People do it for personal gain, they do it for power, they do it out of ego, they do it because they believe it's the right thing to do, and all of those can be presented in a way that's fun to do. There's a reason old-style mobsters were seen as role models by young kids who didn't know better. They had the nice suits, the nice cars and the good houses, they had all the power to make others respect them and hurt those who would hurt them. They were glamorous when they were on top of their game. The poor people who worked their ***** off for pittance saw this as the better life, and that's exactly the kind of glamour villains need to capitalise on to have broad appeal.
What you and many others need to realise is that we don't want an objective lesson rubbing our faces in the mud and teaching us that evil is bad. I'm pretty sure everyone knows that already. What we want is a glamorous idealisation of villains as the kind of people we want to be when we're sick of the world around us and just want to punch the boss and go on to live a better life. It's escapism no different from playing a hero, only heroes offer relief from the frustrations of the good we can't do while villains offer relief from the frustration of the bad we really ought to not do.
And I'm sick and tired of repeating this exact same argument for six, seven years now, only to have people apparently just not read it and repeat what they were saying all along.
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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.
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Hero contacts are, by and large, heroic in nature.|
Originally Posted by dugfromthearth
Samuel - the problem is that you then lump all hero accessible content as hero content
remove any content with magic, where you fight against corrupt police / longbow / vanguard, where people are killed. I want 4 color tech content for my hero only. Nothing else counts. I don't want to play iron age content. I don't want to play magic content - my hero is tech. They barely put out any heroic content in the past 4 years, heroic being defined as content that suits my hero. |
Let me recount the villain contacts I remember being heroic in nature.
Hardcase
Willy Wheeler
Regent Korol
Timothy Raymond
Vernon Von Grun (you have to play mister cleanup hero after he orders you to break everything)
Diviner Maros (to keep the Leviathan at bay)
Slot Machine
Let me tell you just how many villainous arcs should have heroic actions in them: None of them. That makes them Rogue contacts, not villain. Don't make me list the contacts who treat you like a cut-rate mook-for-hire.
Redside is starved for content that is villainous in nature. Westin Phipps doesn't count; his arc gives people the heebies because he is, as Sam said, the wrong kind of villainous.
Let me give you a perfect example of what I'd like to see in an arc: You start with an idea you've concocted and end by holding Agincourt for ransom, asking Longbow to dismiss your criminal history or you'll blow up a quantum singularity bomb in their only major outpost in the Isles. Arc missions could include stealing the parts for the bomb, kidnapping a scientist to put it together for you, or even a mission where you disguise yourself as a Longbow Warden and waltz into Agincourt to find the perfect place to plant the bomb (maybe even getting discovered by a Longbow psion and having to fight your way out).
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I don't know....they're both scary movies... |
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
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Let me put this into perspective. Suppose I just watched Aliens and I really really liked it. I told you "Hey, I have another couple of hours before I need to get ready for work and I'd like to watch another movie. I really liked Aliens, can you give me another one like it?" In response, you hand me of The Princess Diaries, insisting that "It's still a movie, right?" Well, it is a movie that I can watch, but it's not a movie that's like Aliens, now is it? |
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| The simple fact of the matter is villains have enough content. They've had enough content since Experience Smoothing. What villains need isn't more quantity, it's more quality, and masquerading hero content offers quantity and quantity alone. |
And I'm totally fine with asking for more content that leans towards being evil but I just don't care for the "Villains don't have any content to run!" theme that seems to stick its neck out.
I don't care for global generalizations...just like it irks me when people say, "x itrial is never being run." As you (or others) may have seen before I always nitpick and say, "add "on the server I play on" to your statement please.
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When did we say that?
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Originally Posted by Energizing_Ion
And I'm totally fine with asking for more content that leans towards being evil but I just don't care for the "Villains don't have any content to run!" theme that seems to stick its neck out.
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Here's my main problem with the Greater Good angle for villains. If I was a villain and saw a global threat happen and then saw a bunch of heroes rushing off to save the day I'd leave it to them and go break into their homes to spraypaint "you suck!" on their walls and loosen the tops on their salt and pepper shakers. Or I'd go rob a bank, whichever I was in the mood for. I wouldn't think to myself "oh no, the heroes who always save the day might fail and then I'd really be in a pickle! I better go help!" rather it would be something like "well, they'll take care of it, and if they fail I'll hop in there and finish the threat off, it's a win/win situation."
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Originally Posted by Aurora_Girl
Are your villains so evil they'd rather be dead than alive and doing evil things? So utterly, incontrovertibly insane, demented or soulless they would prefer domination by the Rikti or massacre by Tyrant or assimilation by the Battalion to doing something preventing those?
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I guess I really am just a hero at heart then.
Evil and crime are not the same thing, as we've so thoroughly over-discussed. The scariest villains, to me, are ones who truly believe they're doing the right thing.
Robbing a bank isn't evil. Neither is kidnapping. Neither is holding an island hostage for money. It's not nice, or friendly, or anything even remotely good, but it's not evil.
Evil is cold-blooded murder for no other reason than because murder feels good. Evil is torturing a child. Evil is any number of truly dark, terrible things, but blowing up fire hydrants is not one of them. This is not a game for evil, which, again, is why Phipps feels so out of place.
Mission Architect is its own entity; if people want to create their own arcs with the above elements, more power to them but it's not something created and marketed to the customers as a whole.
"Villainy" in this game is just something I don't get, I guess. I understand the "not wanting everything to be about being an Arachnos flunky" and that's fine, just like Heroes are not all expected to be Regulators or a JV-Freedom Phalanx. I get it.
What exactly, though, is "having fun being evil?" Punching kittens? Setting grandma's tea kettle on fire? The (obviously sarcasctic) loosening of salt shakers?
That's not evil. That's mischievous, and last I checked we already have a leprechaun pet.
Sam, I get it. I do. The way you (and others) feel is completely understandable. As a villain, you're either a flunky for hire or you're helping defeat world crises "just because you have to for the greater good." There is a content vacuum, I agree.
However, I'm trying to say that the definitions of "evil and villainous" are different, crime is in and of itself not evil, and mischief for its own sake isn't either.
The holding Agincourt hostage thing? Great idea. However, what would happen if Longbow, like most American military groups, holds to the "we don't negotiate with terrorists" line? Do you blow up the bomb? How do you explain to the children who play this game that their character, through their own actions, murdered several thousand (if not more, who knows what a quantum singularity bomb is capable of) people?
Or, like most villains, are you not truly that kind of evil?
Carl and Sons @Aurora Girl (Pinnacle)
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Originally Posted by EarthWyrm
But I do understand that there is an internet rule that any bad idea must be presented by someone at least twice a year to remind everyone who hasn't already read every previous thread on the topic precisely why the idea is bad.
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If you are letting your child play plotlines that would lead to you blowing up thousands of people, you may want to step back and think for a moment. This game is rated T.
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If Masterminds didn't suck, they'd be the most powerful AT in the game.
But what the parent does on their side of the game isn't Paragon's problem. The game's rated T, yes, but that doesn't prevent children from playing.
It's an incredibly cyclic issue, I realize.
Carl and Sons @Aurora Girl (Pinnacle)
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Originally Posted by EarthWyrm
But I do understand that there is an internet rule that any bad idea must be presented by someone at least twice a year to remind everyone who hasn't already read every previous thread on the topic precisely why the idea is bad.
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The same way you explain this.|
Originally Posted by Aurora_Girl
The holding Agincourt hostage thing? Great idea. However, what would happen if Longbow, like most American military groups, holds to the "we don't negotiate with terrorists" line? Do you blow up the bomb? How do you explain to the children who play this game that their character, through their own actions, murdered several thousand (if not more, who knows what a quantum singularity bomb is capable of) people?
Or, like most villains, are you not truly that kind of evil? |
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Originally Posted by Westin Phipps
Desperation, deprivation and despair are floating through the halls of Haven House now that everyone has heard about what you've done.
I had a young mother bring her little children to me in tears. 'Oh, Mr. Phipps! My little Elsie and Sophia ate some of the food Character poisoned, and now they've gone blind! What will we do?' Oh, I tell you, it took all the control I had to stop myself from laughing. But I put on my most sorrowful and sympathetic face for them, and took them all in. You've made this dreary charity case a simply delightful situation. Now, whatever will I do with a desperate mother and her blind twin daughters? Hmmm... |
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I'm not excusing Phipps at all. It's an outlier, as several people have mentioned.
That's what I'm talking about, though. Phipps' arc is truly evil. Not mischievous, not criminal for the sake of money or power, just straight torturing children evil. No one is saying they want more content like that, right?
Right?
Carl and Sons @Aurora Girl (Pinnacle)
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Originally Posted by EarthWyrm
But I do understand that there is an internet rule that any bad idea must be presented by someone at least twice a year to remind everyone who hasn't already read every previous thread on the topic precisely why the idea is bad.
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I completely disagree with that. All three actions are, at the end of the day, hurting other people for personal gain. To me that is the very definition of evil.|
Originally Posted by Aurora_Girl
Robbing a bank isn't evil. Neither is kidnapping. Neither is holding an island hostage for money. It's not nice, or friendly, or anything even remotely good, but it's not evil.
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Now I think that someone who robs banks is less evil than someone who goes out and murders people for the fun of it but they are still evil.
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Right. Let's say that the singularity bomb I mentioned doesn't kill people-- it just blasts all organic matter into another dimension. Those Longbow soldiers are gone.|
Originally Posted by Aurora_Girl
I'm not excusing Phipps at all. It's an outlier, as several people have mentioned.
That's what I'm talking about, though. Phipps' arc is truly evil. Not mischievous, not criminal for the sake of money or power, just straight torturing children evil. No one is saying they want more content like that, right? Right? |
Hell, as far as doing nasty things with explosives goes, there's a Villain tip that lets you rig an experimental weapon to detonate when you pull the trigger; you end up sending it to Longbow with the final line of "Just wait till Lt. Demitrovich pulls that trigger..."
Stuff like that. Stuff that might not signify a bloodthirsty maniac, but stuff that makes you think "Wow, that guy is evil."
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"Dark Armor is a complete waste as a tanking set."
See, I see these things thusly:
"Doesn't kill, but blasts into an alternate dimension:" of what? Dinosaurs? Parasitic alien bacteria? Is there oxygen? They still might (and odds are good that they do) die.
Evil. Still murder.
I guess it just boils down to my OOC worldview and philosophy on life. I don't understand being mean. I've never been intentionally mean to anyone, ever, because I don't understand how that thinking operates. Selfish? Sure. Lazy? Absolutely, but never mean, or angry, or really confrontational at all. I identify more with heroes, and, frankly, as far as this game is concerned, villains to me are things that get in the way of my heroing.
DISCLAIMER: Yes I know this is a personal feeling for me, and hardly anyone thinks this way. I don't begrudge you your darker thoughts and inclinations, but they are as foreign to me as Sanskrit and this argument will never have a conclusion.
Carl and Sons @Aurora Girl (Pinnacle)
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Originally Posted by EarthWyrm
But I do understand that there is an internet rule that any bad idea must be presented by someone at least twice a year to remind everyone who hasn't already read every previous thread on the topic precisely why the idea is bad.
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It's not hard to write villain content. It's been done in game. This is not rocket science. People are simply asking for more of that.
Villain doesn't automatically equal killing thousands of people just cause I'm a psychopath. That's a silly and overly simplistic view.
EDIT: Not say there is not a place for those MORE of those types of arcs. They ALREADY exist.
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Then that's why you rolled a hero. Some folks rolled villain for other reasons.|
Originally Posted by Aurora_Girl
See, I see these things thusly:
"Doesn't kill, but blasts into an alternate dimension:" of what? Dinosaurs? Parasitic alien bacteria? Is there oxygen? They still might (and odds are good that they do) die. Evil. Still murder. I guess it just boils down to my OOC worldview and philosophy on life. I don't understand being mean. I've never been intentionally mean to anyone, ever, because I don't understand how that thinking operates. Selfish? Sure. Lazy? Absolutely, but never mean, or angry, or really confrontational at all. I identify more with heroes, and, frankly, as far as this game is concerned, villains to me are things that get in the way of my heroing. DISCLAIMER: Yes I know this is a personal feeling for me, and hardly anyone thinks this way. I don't begrudge you your darker thoughts and inclinations, but they are as foreign to me as Sanskrit and this argument will never have a conclusion. |
You just can't handwave away that there IS a City of Villains still in existence. Or what do you think Arachnos, Nemesis, The council do?
Play tea time?
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Well I think that's part of the problem, it's a lot harder to peg villains into any particular niches.|
Originally Posted by Aura_Familia
It's not hard to write villain content. It's been done in game. This is not rocket science. People are simply asking for more of that.
Villain doesn't automatically equal killing thousands of people just cause I'm a psychopath. That's a silly and overly simplistic view. EDIT: Not say there is not a place for those MORE of those types of arcs. They ALREADY exist. |
For heroes, their personality and motivations matter less, the goal is still 'saving the day'.
Villains, are all about their personality and motivations because they do range from the petty cat burglar to the megalomaniac mad scientist to the puppy kicking psychopath.
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That's pretty much what we're asking for, though - villainous content that feels villainous, for at least some definition of the word. What I and others don't like is co-op content being passed off as "villainous" content when, by its very nature, it's hero-themed. You really can't make content that appeals to both heroes and villains at the same time. The closes you can come is making content that's unappealing to both heroes and villains in roughly equal measure, and then nobody wins.|
Originally Posted by Energizing_Ion
And I'm totally fine with asking for more content that leans towards being evil but I just don't care for the "Villains don't have any content to run!" theme that seems to stick its neck out.
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The basic gist of it, when you get right down to it is "Enough with fighting for the greater good, already!" It feels like we've gone from one "larger than us all" war to another for the last few years, and it shouldn't be like this. Even from a pure storytelling perspective, the massive wars where everyone has to band together are starting to grow old. Swap a few names around and voilà! Here's your next plot that's more or less exactly like the previous one.
I know it's cheaper. I know it's easier. And you know what? It shows.
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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.
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"as far as this game is concerned, villains to me are things that get in the way of my heroing"
Maybe I wasn't clear enough. Villains are things I punch/kick/shoot/etc to get them the hell out of my way.
I'm not handwaving anything! It exists! I'm not that dense. I just don't understand the draw of it, is all. Never have. I'm aware there are people who glean great joy from punching kittens and burning down orphanages and all other sorts of tomfoolery, but I'm not one of them.
Carl and Sons @Aurora Girl (Pinnacle)
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Originally Posted by EarthWyrm
But I do understand that there is an internet rule that any bad idea must be presented by someone at least twice a year to remind everyone who hasn't already read every previous thread on the topic precisely why the idea is bad.
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The other side of it (at least for Incarnate content) is that it opens up the teaming opportunities. As long as the content focus is on large 12-24 man teams co-op content makes it a LOT easier for Villains to get leagues.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I know it's cheaper. I know it's easier. And you know what? It shows.
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That's actually a good question. Let's take Dean/Leonard and break that down to show why it's good. I think it may be helpful.|
Originally Posted by Aurora_Girl
What exactly, though, is "having fun being evil?" Punching kittens? Setting grandma's tea kettle on fire? The (obviously sarcasctic) loosening of salt shakers?
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First of all, Dean McArthur, and to a lesser extend Leonard. Dean is a stooge. He's a small fish and he knows it. Dean doesn't try to control me, Dean doesn't talk down on me, Dean isn't using me. Dean is pretty much offering to serve me. He's the little puppy weaving between my legs as I go do grown-up stuff, and there's noting wrong with kicking him out of the way once in a while. By making Dean small, it paints my villain as big, and that counts for a LOT.
Secondly, this is an arc that's all about ME. Sure, Dean is still the contact and it's still the game system feeding me the mission objectives, but the narrative is presented such that it's MY ambition working towards MY own benefit. Dean is a source of information and a cruncher of information. He's the guy who says "According to what you did and what I know, this is the next logical step." His dialogue is presented as a reasonable course of action, rather than orders. This makes my villain feel independent. I'm not working for someone else, I'm not taking anyone's orders, and when other people do get in my way, I just step on them and keep going. That counts for a lot.
Lastly, it's vindictive. Revenge may be the most worthless of causes, but that's because it usually comes from deep loss that can never be healed. On the flip side, revenge against annoying people who have gotten in your way but not hurt you meaningfully can be VERY satisfying. I'm referring to Protean here. Protean is an *******. He's arrogant, he's self-assured, he's insulting, and he's such an insufferable jackass that beating his face in is very satisfying. And not only that, but the final mission has the sentiment of "Protean might have taken your clone lab, but you can get back at him by taking all of HIS money!" And I love it! I can just imagine Protean finding out he's broke now and angrily stomping on his hat. What's satisfying here is putting one over on the guy. He's so irredeemable that there's no way to feel sorry for him, so being able to hurt him is just bliss.
Why the Dean/Leonard arc work is because they allow us to experience emotions normally considered "wrong" in an environment that makes this sort of thing OK and actively cheers with us. It's fun because it allows me to be a petty, vindictive, arrogant bully and not just get away with it, but be praised for it. It doesn't get any better than that.
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Now, granted, you can say that that's not "evil enough," and it probably isn't. Evil can get a lot darker, and there are ways to do that even with Dean/Leonard. Saving your clone only to kill it, to the cries of "Why? I just wanted to meet you!" is one of the most unpleasant things I've done in this game, and I don't intend to repeat it. So the option is there, but if I choose to not take it, I'm still allowed to do very bad things and have fun doing them without feeling guilty about it.
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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.
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You know, right at this point, I'm convinced that the game would lose absolutely nothing by just opening up both cities to both sides in the same way it works for Rogues and Vigilantes and just letting those factions gather hero/villain merits anyway. I'll never argue for reducing teaming opportunities, but in this case I feel they're better handled out-of-character meta-game as opposed to trying to justify them via storyline. Just come up with a reason for why villains aren't attacked on sight in Paragon City and vice versa, and I'm pretty much on board.
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Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
The other side of it (at least for Incarnate content) is that it opens up the teaming opportunities. As long as the content focus is on large 12-24 man teams co-op content makes it a LOT easier for Villains to get leagues.
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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.
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I will say that I see a lot of this in the new SSA for Villains. You get a prologue which acts like a Tip mission where you follow up on leads you hear about and pull someone's can out of an Arachnos fire. At that point, the person basically swears fealty to your character and the arc begins in earnest with "OK, you want to do X well, here's the best ideas I can come up with to work toward X given the information we have thus far."
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Secondly, this is an arc that's all about ME. Sure, Dean is still the contact and it's still the game system feeding me the mission objectives, but the narrative is presented such that it's MY ambition working towards MY own benefit. Dean is a source of information and a cruncher of information. He's the guy who says "According to what you did and what I know, this is the next logical step." His dialogue is presented as a reasonable course of action, rather than orders. This makes my villain feel independent. I'm not working for someone else, I'm not taking anyone's orders, and when other people do get in my way, I just step on them and keep going. That counts for a lot.
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/tactical facepalm|
Originally Posted by Aurora_Girl
I'm not handwaving anything! It exists! I'm not that dense. I just don't understand the draw of it, is all. Never have. I'm aware there are people who glean great joy from punching kittens and burning down orphanages and all other sorts of tomfoolery, but I'm not one of them.
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Okay, look. HERE is why I play villains:
It's not to stomp on kittens. It's not to blow legions of heroes into a fine red mist. It's not to help Westin Phipps gas orphans and burn books so children can't learn. It's not because I am inherently evil somewhere in my brain.
Way back when I was just a tike, I watched Disney movies all the time. After watching Aladdin, I asked myself why the good guy always won even though he was way less powerful and/or intelligent than the villain. That grew in to a great desire to see how 'the story' of things would pan out if the bad guy got his way. Heck, I've always wanted to know what would have happened if Jafar stayed the all-powerful sorcerer he was rather than getting Genie-shackled.
The Good Guy Wins and Gets the Girl formula wore itself out early on with me. I always thought the villains had more charisma, more resources, and more dedication than the heroes. Some of my favorite "What would have happened" villains include Jafar, Ganondorf (from Z64), Rotti Largo (Repo), Volkov (MGS3), Magneto, and countless others who not only believed in their cause but pushed with all their might to finalize it.
Since my youth I've wanted to be that guy. The guy with the black cape and the legions of followers and the impossible amounts of money, fighting to protect his investments and power and hold on the world from one guy with a moral compass and unexpected potential.
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Yeah, I've enjoyed that so far, even though Lastri gives off a huge "Nemesis Plot" vibe for me.
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Originally Posted by M_I_Abrahms
I will say that I see a lot of this in the new SSA for Villains. You get a prologue which acts like a Tip mission where you follow up on leads you hear about and pull someone's can out of an Arachnos fire. At that point, the person basically swears fealty to your character and the arc begins in earnest with "OK, you want to do X well, here's the best ideas I can come up with to work toward X given the information we have thus far."
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So...I guess I just don't understand all the hatred for "the greater good."
Are your villains so evil they'd rather be dead than alive and doing evil things? So utterly, incontrovertibly insane, demented or soulless they would prefer domination by the Rikti or massacre by Tyrant or assimilation by the Battalion to doing something preventing those?
Is it maybe a bit over-used? Yes. Do villains probably need better-written arcs just for them? Absolutely. It's just incredibly difficult to describe something "adequately villainous" in a game that little kids conceivably play. ****? Out. Murder? Difficult to do without lots of whitewash and insinuation. Genocide? Difficult as well. These things are alluded to, referenced, but there are no Call of Duty-esque scenarios where your villain character waltzes into a preschool and slaughters children.
At some point, you have to ask yourselves, *why* do you want to play someone so evil?
Carl and Sons @Aurora Girl (Pinnacle)