Not particularly. Aside from robbing a few banks and bashing in the skulls of whichever D-Lister showed up to stop me, I really didn't DO anything that seemed evil. And yes, I ran all of the CoV content. We were all glorified lackeys at best.
Nope because in CO theres always an over zealous RPer that turns up to "STAHP MY REIGN OF TERROR!" ..infern-ONOES! are so easy to kill with a well aimed trash can to the face.
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
nope, only went for cov because it was 1. new content and 2. had new classes/powersets...including plants. the concept of villiany has never appealed to me, its depressing to play a villain for me, if you have a agency in game, i just cant see the appeal of making things worse.
now i DO miss the concept of different types of heroes, vigilantes, rogues and "true" heroes. one thing i and others have thought would be nice for the game is to have different types of quest chains for heroes. street levels, classic spandexers, mystics, military, spies, super science heroes, that kind of stuff. there were hints of this with the old crafting, but it didn't get fleshed out and was eventually removed.
You can be evil in DCUO.
And i think Marvel Heroes got some playable villains.
And you can dress in spikes, and Other Sharp Objects and put on DarK Aura in CO and not help the distress citizens.
And most of the times in CoV you were evil against other Villains anyway.
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And playing by myself since Aug 2009 Godtier: Lifetime Subscriber
I didn't play CoX as long as I wanted to, so I just miss it, period.
I never minded playing super-lackey or Dragon to a bigger villain. In fact, that was going to be the driving force behind my villain's eventual switch to the Hero side, the fact that he was just being used to do everyone else's dirty work. Heck, I just miss alignments, period. :P
And you can dress in spikes, and Other Sharp Objects and put on DarK Aura in CO and not help the distress citizens.
And most of the times in CoV you were evil against other Villains anyway.
Turning on a magic circle makes you scary in the eyes of the citizens too.
In CoV? No, aside from a small selection of missions there wasn't much evil to be done.
DCUO was the closest in capturing being a villain...in the early levels. Their end game content is regurgitated hero content with a villainous spin (but not really).
I am sad that there isn't a villain faction in CO (95% of my characters are villains), but I understand that it's not something that would be popular enough to support.
My CoX main was a Necro/Dark MM that could solo almost everything.
Really I never understood the complaints that CoV was just lackey work. If you go to a person for work, as a villian, in a nation that breaks out and harbors villians, you're likely going to be hired to do someone else's evil work.
That's why I always did my own thing, killing GMs, soloing AVs in RV, that sort of thing.
However, even in the end of the main CoV storyline you would end up being shown to be the biggest threat to the supposed big bad's plans, because if he succeeds in taking over the world, you fight with him over who -actually- rules the world, which ends up bringing the end of the world.
And what do you do to prevent him from trying to kill off his newly discovered rival?
You kill him in another dimension, bring his still bloody helment back to him, and tell him "Don't @#$! with me."
And he listens
Lackey my ****
*Goes to RV and kills Penny Yin and Ms. Liberty at the same time*
villains in city of where just glorified heroes, take a few kidnapping missions during the mission they didn't try and fight back or even run away, they just follow you like a lost puppy. truth is nothing in villians made you feel villainess.
I personally wouldn't mind being able to be a villain, but I honestly don't think it could work without either gating the zones (which I would hate and would never happen anyways) or forcing PvP on people who doesn't want it. --Under no circumstances would I like seeing heroes and villains standing in the middle of Rec Center chatting it up and having tea on a daily basis.
However I do wish they would allow you to decide whether or not you got along with the npc factions, and I think it would just take some new dialogue, without any real mission changes. (I.E. "Normally I would haul scum like you in, but you are the only one close enough to disarm the psi bomb that is going to fry your brain too if you don't get a move on.")
Not every super is good or evil though, some are sort of in the middle and mean well but for their own reason may wind up being evil at points. This is what I like about CO, my characters aren't truly heroes although they will try to help people in need sometimes, they also aren't really villains as they only really do impish things such as throw rocks at people for fun and trip people over before running away with some G.
I'd like some sort of choice in everything we do, possibly including a moral compass of sorts. My character is true neutral, so he just does what he thinks is best at the time. I don't always want to be good or evil.
In the small time I did play CoX, my main was a villain. Yet he wound up being some sort of weird anti-hero or vigilante because of the choices I made.
I wouldn't say CoV had "lackey" play. It was more "mercenary" play.
DCUO is closer to "lackey" play.
Still, current generation of mmos can't do a full supervillain experience. At least not for mastermind type villains.
A next gen game would be needed, something less based on quest hubs and more sandbox-styled.
Nope because in CO theres always an over zealous RPer that turns up to "STAHP MY REIGN OF TERROR!" ..infern-ONOES! are so easy to kill with a well aimed trash can to the face.
Tell me where to find those trash cans. I must have one - NOW! :eek:
Superhero genres Villains Online would be like GTA, with Orbital Cannons, Meteor Blitzkriegs, Ugly Big Monsters, Zombie Horde, 4 Horseman of Apocalypse, Wrath of God, Earth Quakes, Tidal Waves and Stuff. Civilians dying.
CHAMPIONS ONLINE:Join Date: Apr 2008
And playing by myself since Aug 2009 Godtier: Lifetime Subscriber
Superhero genres Villains Online would be like GTA, with Orbital Cannons, Meteor Blitzkriegs, Ugly Big Monsters, Zombie Horde, 4 Horseman of Apocalypse, Wrath of God, Earth Quakes, Tidal Waves and Stuff. Civilians dying.
Still, current generation of mmos can't do a full supervillain experience. At least not for mastermind type villains.
A next gen game would be needed, something less based on quest hubs and more sandbox-styled.
And frankly, my experiences with CoV, and to a degree SWTOR, have shown that playing a villain's main appeal is either playing "Teh Evulz" for XBox Live CoD/Halo Kiddies in PvP ("Why are you corpse-camping me?!"; "lol i am the evil n00b suk it lol"), or to experience new content not available to the good guy side. Once players have made it through the content once, they go back to their mains as heroes.
As for RP, villains invariable never get along, or don't get along long. Everyone wants to be a mastermind, or a goofy (but psychotic) killing machine that is too zany and loony to be around anyone for long (but certainly doesn't take orders from anyone). There were a few exceptions, but they were usually of the 90's Anti-Hero Bloodkillgrim Tortured Past Vigilantes... who almost invariably wound up being just heroes playing through new content.
I'm also of the opinion that for any super-MMO to be what anyone would call "villain content" it would either be super-cheesy Adam West Batman "theme villains" (which would lose it's appeal startlingly fast) or way break the Teen rating by going into Killing Joke territory.
"This game has you kidnapping, torturing then murdering people! FOR FUN!"
Yeeaah, I'd love to see the PR spin to make that a MMO that will potentially have kids playing it.
I need to rob banks and cause chaos. I need a gang full of thugs at my command throwing molotavs and shooting submachineguns while I chill in the back with my shadow draining the life from my enemies.
I miss making peoples lives miserable while those goodie heroes clean up my mess.
I'd like some sort of choice in everything we do, possibly including a moral compass of sorts. My character is true neutral, so he just does what he thinks is best at the time. I don't always want to be good or evil.
In the small time I did play CoX, my main was a villain. Yet he wound up being some sort of weird anti-hero or vigilante because of the choices I made.
One of my Characters, strangely enough my namesake in both City of and recently remade (with a slightly different name) in Champions isn't strictly evil (in City of he went through many lifestyles, from mad scientist having to cobble together inventions using salvaged junk to corrupt businessman (when one of his non-evil inventions actually took off and people bought it) and even Mad Scientist who happened to BE a corrupt businessman).
For example his company can give people superpowers by manipulating genetics, tinkering with their brains and so on. They also provide it with affordable payment options. Admittedly his private hospital/lab island operates in international waters just outside of the United States. While the programs are fairly benign in nature (if rather morally dubious) the villainy comes in when he simply doesn't care who it is as long as their money is good.
He also keeps up this fascade of being a decent person by engaging in low level heroics (as in fighting street gangs, he is more 'The Shadow' and less 'Superman' in powerlevel) in Millenium City and donating money to various charities.
He is a Lex Luthor style villainy instead of the 'stabs orphans' type villainy, he isn't squeaky clean but at the same time he isn't revelling in 'evil', he does what he does because it both makes him money and he genuinely thinks that what he is doing is a good idea. Everybody should be superpowered, everyone should be able to take or defend whatever it is they desire and not be bogged down by being 'normal' like he is, without the need to have to go through years of training to even stand a semi-decent chance against the average gangbanger with a gun. Yet he wont subject himself to his own companies processes, thinking that he might just lose everything if it all went wrong (as it has done in the past).
He currently believes that one of his NPC business partners is selling out his company secrets to VIPER (who continually try to steal his research) but he can't prove it without evidence so he can't actively call in the Psi-cops of UNTIL just yet since that would be an invasion of privacy and get the case thrown out of court. He needs to do things the old fashion way of hiring a normal PI (or at least one that specialises in Corporate Espionage/Sabotage) to do the leg work.
What a lot of people forget when writing/playing villains is this, unless they're a psychopath, people will not consider themselves evil, everyone is the hero of their own story. A good villain is someone who can actually get the audience to at least partially agree with their agenda, even if the way they're going about it is completely wrong. Thats why in my opinion characters like the Joker are decidely one note, "oh look he is killing lots of people again...woo..." while the Batman Animated Dr Freeze was sooo much better, "I do this so I can keep my wife in suspended animation/actually cure her of her terminal illness, I simply don't have the funds of Bruce Wayne so I have to steal everything and I'm too arrogant to ask someone like him for help, only my genuis can cure her!"
One note villains CAN be fun, they can be entertaining but that doesn't hide the fact that they're simply cardboard cutouts, there for the hero to punch in the face.
Except when the "cardboard cutout" starts punching back. Killing hero's 'Trusty Sidekick', members of the family, friends, best friends second cousin, pets, nice old lady downstairs....And all the hero can do is punch the villain in the face. Or wrap him into a bubblewrap and deliver to police.
CHAMPIONS ONLINE:Join Date: Apr 2008
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I personally fall into the camp that Batman's hands are stained with the blood of every innocent the Joker has killed after Bats realized that nothing in Gotham could possibility contain him but Bats still refused to put the Joker into the ground.
Except when the "cardboard cutout" starts punching back. Killing hero's 'Trusty Sidekick', members of the family, friends, best friends second cousin, pets, nice old lady downstairs....And all the hero can do is punch the villain in the face. Or wrap him into a bubblewrap and deliver to police.
Fun for awhile maybe...but after you do all that then what?
You get punched in the face and bubblewrapped for the police.
Or you kill the hero and take over the world...
and every leftover hero or villain rises up to overthrow you, or becomes your henchman.
This is starting to sound like Villains Online...fun I suppose, but a different sort of game entirely.
Honestly I never got the hate for Redside that some had. Its content had a different flavor, and its zones as well making it great fun to at least dabble in. Some of its Strike Forces where amazing especially compared to some of the more popular hero side TFs.
However ultimately it was like so many aspects of CoX a key RP tool. some might not know or forget but in CoX your character level was actually an in game RP concept directly relating to your characters security clearance and threats your powers could be up to snuff to take on. The alignment system was no less useful as I hated those who would RP as bad guys but stay blue side because they loved the content, or had built up a blue side SG base for years and didnt want to give it up to be on the right side as far as RP went.
I was a Virtue Server native for pretty much the life of that glorious game. And unlike many wannaRPers I spent time even from the moment the game launched learning the lore, reading the history plaques, reading all the in game clues and mission briefs. Thus I became aware of things like names in CoH lore that made for great starting points for RP character concepts that bound me ever tighter into the gameverse I was embracing.
My oldest character on that game was named T'Keron Valmaz. Often equal parts loved and loathed by the RP community of Virtue for he alone had the right to claim the title High Lord of Demonkind. He was also pretty much in concept the original rogue of CoX before it even was a twinkle of an idea in the eye of a dev team.
For while Valmaz was Lord of Demonkind, T'Keron was if abit vain and competitive at his core a good man who had risked everything to try and end the war of demonkind upon his variant earth.
For years I RPed him as a man who lived in the shadows, who skirted conflict due to not knowing how much of his demon power remained, and being a katana/Super Reflexes struggled alot after the end of the era of perma Elude.
Then with the evolution of the game, it seemed like everything added was made just for this character.
From the addition of multiple builds to fit different needs like solo and group as I did, or as some did a pvp build etc, to the coming of the alignment system, and even the incarnate system all felt RIGHT! for this character to go through. He became a rogue as soon as possible, and frequently ran Strike Forces, especially the first one which RPwise again felt made literally just for this character.
This wasnt unique for my characters, all that I had made based upon CoH lore frequently would encounter content that felt more like custom AE content made specifically for my character background. It was this frequent personal feeling that motivated me to continue the practice with characters like Bentley Berkeley, Invisible Falcon, Demetrios Vasilikos, and Alphonse Crey. And before anyone asks, I communicated frequently with in game admin before making each of these characters to be sure I was not breaking the rules. Numerous uneducated, ignorant, or outright jealous wannaRPers refused to grasp. Most often wannabe demon king concepts that just like in CO plagued CoH from launch.
It was in fact the very reason I first made T'Keron Valmaz. I was so sick of seeing these wannabe lucifer characters all claiming to be kings of all the dark forces of creation and not one having a single clue of the lore of demonkind in the games Multi Verse.
So I made a character to shut them up, one who could not be argued with in his position within the ranks of the hellish hordes.
He became so fun to RP that I deleted the other half baked largely no different from some long established comic hero characters, and focussed on being part of the game world I was playing in as fully as I could. I helped show many young RPers that being a demon did not have to mean being a douche bag emo nightmare to humanity, and instead not unlike how crowley the king of hell on Supernatural behaves, putting the deal first and foremost, and showing that in a way it wasnt demonkinds fault that humanity only had flesh,blood, and soul to barter with for thier powerful aids.
Infact it was this lack ever coming to pass on CO that kept me far more loyal to CoX despite first being on the side of hope thinking Co would be the CoH 2 some had hoped it would become.
For me having proper in game lines in the sand drawn for characters to stand behind only aids in solid RP among complete strangers who happen to meet during a pug.
Well rambling mode off for now. Thanks for a thread that made me need to recall some of the best years of MMORPing I ever have found.
Superhero genres Villains Online would be like GTA, with Orbital Cannons, Meteor Blitzkriegs, Ugly Big Monsters, Zombie Horde, 4 Horseman of Apocalypse, Wrath of God, Earth Quakes, Tidal Waves and Stuff. Civilians dying.
With Cryptic's god-awful writing, it certainly would be poorly executed.
Keep in mind also, that not every 'villain' is just some child-eating monster that wants to litter the streets with bodies because he has Mommy issues.
One of the first things I learned in the military is that one nation's terrorist is another nation's freedom-fighter. America's founding fathers were considered violent insurgent criminals at one point.
My character is not a 'hero' in his own mind, he's just 'doing the best he can with what he's got, for the right reasons'. Depending on who you are- might make him anything from an ideologist rogue, pragmatic hero, or a violent extremist with his own agenda that should be locked away.
He does not think that Superhumans should have a say in laws that govern non-powered people, more so than the everyday human. He does not think they should be allowed to intervene in legal matters, to include law enforcement. He actively uses their own actions to discredit them publicly. He refuses to be disarmed if persons with super-powers are allowed entry into the establishment. He has no problems at all using lethal force when it is justified legally and morally. He will break the law to save a life or stop a threat. He will lie, cheat, and steal to protect innocent people- and he doesn't give a damn what the self-righteous cape thinks about it- and if one tries to stop him, he'll clip him just as fast as he would the enemy.
That, in and of itself- is more than enough for the roleplayers in CO to consider him a 'villain', or at least a 'rogue'.
Villains may see things differently than the average person. The idea of 'villain' to me is not so much about 'law', especially since the 'law' in one place may not be the same in another. For example, a masked activist for the right of women to drive in Saudi Arabia is pretty much a villain to that particular standard. Another villain may want to crush the US Government and rebuild it without corruption, and therefore could be considered a radical extremist villain.
Mind you, the average roleplayer thinks a mercenary is a 'villain', despite the fact that mercenaries have been used countless times through history to resolve dangerous conflicts where a nation's military forces would not have been able to operate because of international law- or lack of national interest. Yes, mercenaries have been heroes.
I personally fall into the camp that Batman's hands are stained with the blood of every innocent the Joker has killed after Bats realized that nothing in Gotham could possibility contain him but Bats still refused to put the Joker into the ground.
Agreed. And why? Because he believes his own personal code is more important than the second and third order effects of eliminating a dangerous threat.
Interestingly I played on the EU RP server, Union.
Now Union was different to Virtue in one rather key difference. On Virtue it was basically groups of different characters from different tabletop games occasionaly meeting. Each had their own story but rarely did it interact with anyone elses. By contrast Union (perhaps because of the smaller population) was a shared universe like one large tabletop game all unto itself.
This allowed for differences, one of the main ones is that villains could become known, they could become these big threats or simply just well known. Dr Mechano started off as some cranky old mad scientist who called himself a villain because that was the role he felt like playing (and one of his old quotes was almost shameless stolen by the Megamind film "the difference between a villain and a thug is manners.").
At his heart he was a good man, he cared for his robotic family, even his prototype genetic experiment daughter (who was a hero) wasn't treated as a foe but merely as a daughter "going through the hero phase", they still saw each other during the traditional family holidays and got on much like a normal father and daughter.
One of his points was that he actually employed undergraduate Mad scientists in his company for both Research and Development and to work on the genetic engineering side of things. He was also one of the biggest provider of jobs in Sharkshead Isle, employing unskilled labourers to work in his factory to mass-produce the Walkie-Talkie toaster. He treated his employees incredibly well, knowing that he needed them as much as they needed him.
He was a nice man who happened to have no objections to creating made to order genetically engineered assassins for whoever paid him and was willing to use villainous means to obtain new research material. It also gave the heroes a moral quandry, if they took him out then not only would these mad scientists he employed nolonger be focused purely on R&D for someone who realises a miniature Black Hole Gun isn't a sensible idea (he infact banned his employee from firing that thing within several solar systems just to be on the safe side) but straight back into the hands of the more obviously evil Arachnos. They would also be directly responsible for the loss of several hundred jobs.
In a straight fight, virtually any hero could have taken him, he was a 62 year old man with weak knees and an almost as weak bladder with one fully cybernetic arm and a cybernetic hand on side and if anyone did decide to fight him they would have assuredly won but he was in a position that meant that 'doing the right thing' might have had more consequences than "a rather miffed villain is behind bars."
Then it comes down to question raised earlier, will you stick to your heroic convicitions by putting a villain away whose work has resulted in the deaths of innocent people but by doing so will inevitably cause problems? Or will you do like most more sensible heroes and let him be yet still try to stop his creations that people bought from him causing havoc, dealing with the problem but not the source because the source is too entrenched and too well liked by those around him.
I didn't play red-side a whole lot. My primary server was Protector (see "City of Soloists"). While I could almost always find a team, finding a team that wanted to do redside stuff was tougher.
The atmosphere of redside could be depressing (uniformly overcast, everything's dirty/gritty, etc). Still, there were times when you could just cut loose and mow down everything. Making Evil FUN!
So yeah, I miss being a villain.
I miss the affably evil cads and ladies who were no ladies.
I miss the id monsters whose chief power was always to make enemies and civilians crap themselves in sheer, primal terror.
I miss the screwball villains, along the lines of Vernon Von Grun (LAUGH WITH ME!) who would/could/should be world beaters, were they not totally ****ed in the head.
I even miss the calm, ruthless, efficient villains just looking to get ahead in the world.
I say bring on the villains! My main in CoX was a villain and I spent most of my time on the red side. For every person who wants to be Batman there's one who thinks the Joker is cool and wants to be him. And I see just as many Joker ripoffs in game as I do of the Dark Knight. Lets face it folks this game is struggling and needs an infusion of new material to breath some life back into it. Giving players the choice of whether they are a SuperVillain or SuperHero maybe what it needs to revitalize it. I think it can done but it has to be done right, here's how I think it should be done.
-On creation player has the choice of whether their character will be a villain or hero. The choice can be changed through retcon.
-No new areas/zones need be made just for the villains. Keep them in the same zones so players can interact if they wish. We already have a challenge/duel option so there's no need for players to fight if they don't want to.
-No contacts with missions need be made, instead design a plot system similar to the alert system where villains can do their evil deeds. Lower lvl villains will have more mundane crime and as the lvl the more grandiose these crimes will be. I would like to see an option for a player character hero to be able to try and thwart the villain's scheme/crime. A stipulation for this option would be a gap of 2 lvl difference between the two. Plot system should be flexible enough to allow for several choices of crimes for their level and should incorporate a series of criminal activity, example rob various laboratories to acquire chems to make some heinous substance.
-No new or separate powers for villains, they will use the same AT's and freeform choices the heroes have.
I'm too tired to think of more so feel free to add your own ideas if you wish. I will add that if they include villains PVP will make more sense.
Is that what the kids are calling them these days...
"Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"
Superhero genres Villains Online would be like GTA, with Orbital Cannons, Meteor Blitzkriegs, Ugly Big Monsters, Zombie Horde, 4 Horseman of Apocalypse, Wrath of God, Earth Quakes, Tidal Waves and Stuff. Civilians dying.
I personally fall into the camp that Batman's hands are stained with the blood of every innocent the Joker has killed after Bats realized that nothing in Gotham could possibility contain him but Bats still refused to put the Joker into the ground.
I guess you dont grasp the simple reality that Batman DID try to kill the joker after the death of Jason Todd, Superman pulled a mach 10 super fly mode to get there in time to stop him.
And it highlighted a truth mirrored by the two most iconic extremes in comicdom, That the alien god and the mortal man, both feel that the day the other takes a life directly, and intentionally, is the day that one has to be ended before they become a far greater threat to the world.
Just think back to Darkwing Duck, and what became of Saint Canard in the possible timeline we witnessed when Goz got lost in time. Darkwarrior Duck is that possiblity that Both Bats and Supes recognize in one another as the GREATEST of threats to the world. Great enough that for two who love each other as dearly as any siblings, they will risk much often to prevent the other from taking the first step onto that path.
zer303606
Posts: 124 Arc User
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Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
nope, only went for cov because it was 1. new content and 2. had new classes/powersets...including plants. the concept of villiany has never appealed to me, its depressing to play a villain for me, if you have a agency in game, i just cant see the appeal of making things worse.
now i DO miss the concept of different types of heroes, vigilantes, rogues and "true" heroes. one thing i and others have thought would be nice for the game is to have different types of quest chains for heroes. street levels, classic spandexers, mystics, military, spies, super science heroes, that kind of stuff. there were hints of this with the old crafting, but it didn't get fleshed out and was eventually removed.
And i think Marvel Heroes got some playable villains.
And you can dress in spikes, and Other Sharp Objects and put on DarK Aura in CO and not help the distress citizens.
And most of the times in CoV you were evil against other Villains anyway.
And playing by myself since Aug 2009
Godtier: Lifetime Subscriber
I never minded playing super-lackey or Dragon to a bigger villain. In fact, that was going to be the driving force behind my villain's eventual switch to the Hero side, the fact that he was just being used to do everyone else's dirty work. Heck, I just miss alignments, period. :P
Turning on a magic circle makes you scary in the eyes of the citizens too.
DCUO was the closest in capturing being a villain...in the early levels. Their end game content is regurgitated hero content with a villainous spin (but not really).
I am sad that there isn't a villain faction in CO (95% of my characters are villains), but I understand that it's not something that would be popular enough to support.
But...
I would love the ability to create custom nemesis content (i.e. Foundry).
Consolidate the currencies! (Please!)
Does your Champion have a theme song? (share it!)
Got a funny in-game screenshot? (share it!)
Please fix the Overdrive energy unlock! (Should help promote thematic build diversity!)
My CoX main was a Necro/Dark MM that could solo almost everything.
Really I never understood the complaints that CoV was just lackey work. If you go to a person for work, as a villian, in a nation that breaks out and harbors villians, you're likely going to be hired to do someone else's evil work.
That's why I always did my own thing, killing GMs, soloing AVs in RV, that sort of thing.
However, even in the end of the main CoV storyline you would end up being shown to be the biggest threat to the supposed big bad's plans, because if he succeeds in taking over the world, you fight with him over who -actually- rules the world, which ends up bringing the end of the world.
And what do you do to prevent him from trying to kill off his newly discovered rival?
You kill him in another dimension, bring his still bloody helment back to him, and tell him "Don't @#$! with me."
And he listens
Lackey my ****
*Goes to RV and kills Penny Yin and Ms. Liberty at the same time*
However I do wish they would allow you to decide whether or not you got along with the npc factions, and I think it would just take some new dialogue, without any real mission changes. (I.E. "Normally I would haul scum like you in, but you are the only one close enough to disarm the psi bomb that is going to fry your brain too if you don't get a move on.")
A Playlist of my CO PvP video's (starting from post nerf PTS team duels)
In the small time I did play CoX, my main was a villain. Yet he wound up being some sort of weird anti-hero or vigilante because of the choices I made.
DCUO is closer to "lackey" play.
Still, current generation of mmos can't do a full supervillain experience. At least not for mastermind type villains.
A next gen game would be needed, something less based on quest hubs and more sandbox-styled.
Tell me where to find those trash cans. I must have one - NOW! :eek:
And playing by myself since Aug 2009
Godtier: Lifetime Subscriber
That sounds hype.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
And frankly, my experiences with CoV, and to a degree SWTOR, have shown that playing a villain's main appeal is either playing "Teh Evulz" for XBox Live CoD/Halo Kiddies in PvP ("Why are you corpse-camping me?!"; "lol i am the evil n00b suk it lol"), or to experience new content not available to the good guy side. Once players have made it through the content once, they go back to their mains as heroes.
As for RP, villains invariable never get along, or don't get along long. Everyone wants to be a mastermind, or a goofy (but psychotic) killing machine that is too zany and loony to be around anyone for long (but certainly doesn't take orders from anyone). There were a few exceptions, but they were usually of the 90's Anti-Hero Bloodkillgrim Tortured Past Vigilantes... who almost invariably wound up being just heroes playing through new content.
I'm also of the opinion that for any super-MMO to be what anyone would call "villain content" it would either be super-cheesy Adam West Batman "theme villains" (which would lose it's appeal startlingly fast) or way break the Teen rating by going into Killing Joke territory.
"This game has you kidnapping, torturing then murdering people! FOR FUN!"
Yeeaah, I'd love to see the PR spin to make that a MMO that will potentially have kids playing it.
Isn't that basically how they sold Grand Theft Auto?
Hell, the name of the game itself is a crime...
GTA also isn't a mass-marketed MMO.
I need to rob banks and cause chaos. I need a gang full of thugs at my command throwing molotavs and shooting submachineguns while I chill in the back with my shadow draining the life from my enemies.
I miss making peoples lives miserable while those goodie heroes clean up my mess.
I miss the Isles.
no, they sold gta as "you can sleep with hookers and then kill them" and okami sold under 200k, i love gamers :mad:
One of my Characters, strangely enough my namesake in both City of and recently remade (with a slightly different name) in Champions isn't strictly evil (in City of he went through many lifestyles, from mad scientist having to cobble together inventions using salvaged junk to corrupt businessman (when one of his non-evil inventions actually took off and people bought it) and even Mad Scientist who happened to BE a corrupt businessman).
For example his company can give people superpowers by manipulating genetics, tinkering with their brains and so on. They also provide it with affordable payment options. Admittedly his private hospital/lab island operates in international waters just outside of the United States. While the programs are fairly benign in nature (if rather morally dubious) the villainy comes in when he simply doesn't care who it is as long as their money is good.
He also keeps up this fascade of being a decent person by engaging in low level heroics (as in fighting street gangs, he is more 'The Shadow' and less 'Superman' in powerlevel) in Millenium City and donating money to various charities.
He is a Lex Luthor style villainy instead of the 'stabs orphans' type villainy, he isn't squeaky clean but at the same time he isn't revelling in 'evil', he does what he does because it both makes him money and he genuinely thinks that what he is doing is a good idea. Everybody should be superpowered, everyone should be able to take or defend whatever it is they desire and not be bogged down by being 'normal' like he is, without the need to have to go through years of training to even stand a semi-decent chance against the average gangbanger with a gun. Yet he wont subject himself to his own companies processes, thinking that he might just lose everything if it all went wrong (as it has done in the past).
He currently believes that one of his NPC business partners is selling out his company secrets to VIPER (who continually try to steal his research) but he can't prove it without evidence so he can't actively call in the Psi-cops of UNTIL just yet since that would be an invasion of privacy and get the case thrown out of court. He needs to do things the old fashion way of hiring a normal PI (or at least one that specialises in Corporate Espionage/Sabotage) to do the leg work.
What a lot of people forget when writing/playing villains is this, unless they're a psychopath, people will not consider themselves evil, everyone is the hero of their own story. A good villain is someone who can actually get the audience to at least partially agree with their agenda, even if the way they're going about it is completely wrong. Thats why in my opinion characters like the Joker are decidely one note, "oh look he is killing lots of people again...woo..." while the Batman Animated Dr Freeze was sooo much better, "I do this so I can keep my wife in suspended animation/actually cure her of her terminal illness, I simply don't have the funds of Bruce Wayne so I have to steal everything and I'm too arrogant to ask someone like him for help, only my genuis can cure her!"
One note villains CAN be fun, they can be entertaining but that doesn't hide the fact that they're simply cardboard cutouts, there for the hero to punch in the face.
And playing by myself since Aug 2009
Godtier: Lifetime Subscriber
Fun for awhile maybe...but after you do all that then what?
You get punched in the face and bubblewrapped for the police.
Or you kill the hero and take over the world...
and every leftover hero or villain rises up to overthrow you, or becomes your henchman.
This is starting to sound like Villains Online...fun I suppose, but a different sort of game entirely.
I think drmechano is onto something...
However ultimately it was like so many aspects of CoX a key RP tool. some might not know or forget but in CoX your character level was actually an in game RP concept directly relating to your characters security clearance and threats your powers could be up to snuff to take on. The alignment system was no less useful as I hated those who would RP as bad guys but stay blue side because they loved the content, or had built up a blue side SG base for years and didnt want to give it up to be on the right side as far as RP went.
I was a Virtue Server native for pretty much the life of that glorious game. And unlike many wannaRPers I spent time even from the moment the game launched learning the lore, reading the history plaques, reading all the in game clues and mission briefs. Thus I became aware of things like names in CoH lore that made for great starting points for RP character concepts that bound me ever tighter into the gameverse I was embracing.
My oldest character on that game was named T'Keron Valmaz. Often equal parts loved and loathed by the RP community of Virtue for he alone had the right to claim the title High Lord of Demonkind. He was also pretty much in concept the original rogue of CoX before it even was a twinkle of an idea in the eye of a dev team.
For while Valmaz was Lord of Demonkind, T'Keron was if abit vain and competitive at his core a good man who had risked everything to try and end the war of demonkind upon his variant earth.
For years I RPed him as a man who lived in the shadows, who skirted conflict due to not knowing how much of his demon power remained, and being a katana/Super Reflexes struggled alot after the end of the era of perma Elude.
Then with the evolution of the game, it seemed like everything added was made just for this character.
From the addition of multiple builds to fit different needs like solo and group as I did, or as some did a pvp build etc, to the coming of the alignment system, and even the incarnate system all felt RIGHT! for this character to go through. He became a rogue as soon as possible, and frequently ran Strike Forces, especially the first one which RPwise again felt made literally just for this character.
This wasnt unique for my characters, all that I had made based upon CoH lore frequently would encounter content that felt more like custom AE content made specifically for my character background. It was this frequent personal feeling that motivated me to continue the practice with characters like Bentley Berkeley, Invisible Falcon, Demetrios Vasilikos, and Alphonse Crey. And before anyone asks, I communicated frequently with in game admin before making each of these characters to be sure I was not breaking the rules. Numerous uneducated, ignorant, or outright jealous wannaRPers refused to grasp. Most often wannabe demon king concepts that just like in CO plagued CoH from launch.
It was in fact the very reason I first made T'Keron Valmaz. I was so sick of seeing these wannabe lucifer characters all claiming to be kings of all the dark forces of creation and not one having a single clue of the lore of demonkind in the games Multi Verse.
So I made a character to shut them up, one who could not be argued with in his position within the ranks of the hellish hordes.
He became so fun to RP that I deleted the other half baked largely no different from some long established comic hero characters, and focussed on being part of the game world I was playing in as fully as I could. I helped show many young RPers that being a demon did not have to mean being a douche bag emo nightmare to humanity, and instead not unlike how crowley the king of hell on Supernatural behaves, putting the deal first and foremost, and showing that in a way it wasnt demonkinds fault that humanity only had flesh,blood, and soul to barter with for thier powerful aids.
Infact it was this lack ever coming to pass on CO that kept me far more loyal to CoX despite first being on the side of hope thinking Co would be the CoH 2 some had hoped it would become.
For me having proper in game lines in the sand drawn for characters to stand behind only aids in solid RP among complete strangers who happen to meet during a pug.
Well rambling mode off for now. Thanks for a thread that made me need to recall some of the best years of MMORPing I ever have found.
With Cryptic's god-awful writing, it certainly would be poorly executed.
Keep in mind also, that not every 'villain' is just some child-eating monster that wants to litter the streets with bodies because he has Mommy issues.
One of the first things I learned in the military is that one nation's terrorist is another nation's freedom-fighter. America's founding fathers were considered violent insurgent criminals at one point.
My character is not a 'hero' in his own mind, he's just 'doing the best he can with what he's got, for the right reasons'. Depending on who you are- might make him anything from an ideologist rogue, pragmatic hero, or a violent extremist with his own agenda that should be locked away.
He does not think that Superhumans should have a say in laws that govern non-powered people, more so than the everyday human. He does not think they should be allowed to intervene in legal matters, to include law enforcement. He actively uses their own actions to discredit them publicly. He refuses to be disarmed if persons with super-powers are allowed entry into the establishment. He has no problems at all using lethal force when it is justified legally and morally. He will break the law to save a life or stop a threat. He will lie, cheat, and steal to protect innocent people- and he doesn't give a damn what the self-righteous cape thinks about it- and if one tries to stop him, he'll clip him just as fast as he would the enemy.
That, in and of itself- is more than enough for the roleplayers in CO to consider him a 'villain', or at least a 'rogue'.
Villains may see things differently than the average person. The idea of 'villain' to me is not so much about 'law', especially since the 'law' in one place may not be the same in another. For example, a masked activist for the right of women to drive in Saudi Arabia is pretty much a villain to that particular standard. Another villain may want to crush the US Government and rebuild it without corruption, and therefore could be considered a radical extremist villain.
Mind you, the average roleplayer thinks a mercenary is a 'villain', despite the fact that mercenaries have been used countless times through history to resolve dangerous conflicts where a nation's military forces would not have been able to operate because of international law- or lack of national interest. Yes, mercenaries have been heroes.
Agreed. And why? Because he believes his own personal code is more important than the second and third order effects of eliminating a dangerous threat.
But, don't get me wrong- I love Batman.
Now Union was different to Virtue in one rather key difference. On Virtue it was basically groups of different characters from different tabletop games occasionaly meeting. Each had their own story but rarely did it interact with anyone elses. By contrast Union (perhaps because of the smaller population) was a shared universe like one large tabletop game all unto itself.
This allowed for differences, one of the main ones is that villains could become known, they could become these big threats or simply just well known. Dr Mechano started off as some cranky old mad scientist who called himself a villain because that was the role he felt like playing (and one of his old quotes was almost shameless stolen by the Megamind film "the difference between a villain and a thug is manners.").
At his heart he was a good man, he cared for his robotic family, even his prototype genetic experiment daughter (who was a hero) wasn't treated as a foe but merely as a daughter "going through the hero phase", they still saw each other during the traditional family holidays and got on much like a normal father and daughter.
One of his points was that he actually employed undergraduate Mad scientists in his company for both Research and Development and to work on the genetic engineering side of things. He was also one of the biggest provider of jobs in Sharkshead Isle, employing unskilled labourers to work in his factory to mass-produce the Walkie-Talkie toaster. He treated his employees incredibly well, knowing that he needed them as much as they needed him.
He was a nice man who happened to have no objections to creating made to order genetically engineered assassins for whoever paid him and was willing to use villainous means to obtain new research material. It also gave the heroes a moral quandry, if they took him out then not only would these mad scientists he employed nolonger be focused purely on R&D for someone who realises a miniature Black Hole Gun isn't a sensible idea (he infact banned his employee from firing that thing within several solar systems just to be on the safe side) but straight back into the hands of the more obviously evil Arachnos. They would also be directly responsible for the loss of several hundred jobs.
In a straight fight, virtually any hero could have taken him, he was a 62 year old man with weak knees and an almost as weak bladder with one fully cybernetic arm and a cybernetic hand on side and if anyone did decide to fight him they would have assuredly won but he was in a position that meant that 'doing the right thing' might have had more consequences than "a rather miffed villain is behind bars."
Then it comes down to question raised earlier, will you stick to your heroic convicitions by putting a villain away whose work has resulted in the deaths of innocent people but by doing so will inevitably cause problems? Or will you do like most more sensible heroes and let him be yet still try to stop his creations that people bought from him causing havoc, dealing with the problem but not the source because the source is too entrenched and too well liked by those around him.
Not in CoH... in that other game... Minecraft.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Starbound or go home!
did you say, "bee," ing evil ?
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
The atmosphere of redside could be depressing (uniformly overcast, everything's dirty/gritty, etc). Still, there were times when you could just cut loose and mow down everything. Making Evil FUN!
So yeah, I miss being a villain.
I miss the affably evil cads and ladies who were no ladies.
I miss the id monsters whose chief power was always to make enemies and civilians crap themselves in sheer, primal terror.
I miss the screwball villains, along the lines of Vernon Von Grun (LAUGH WITH ME!) who would/could/should be world beaters, were they not totally ****ed in the head.
I even miss the calm, ruthless, efficient villains just looking to get ahead in the world.
"Champions-Online and Star Trek Online contained hundreds of hours of mediocre content!"
and "nothing was polished".
--Jack Emmert
Couldn't find a Big Boss verson of that so lets just pretend its him and not that pansy do gooder Solid Snake.
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
-On creation player has the choice of whether their character will be a villain or hero. The choice can be changed through retcon.
-No new areas/zones need be made just for the villains. Keep them in the same zones so players can interact if they wish. We already have a challenge/duel option so there's no need for players to fight if they don't want to.
-No contacts with missions need be made, instead design a plot system similar to the alert system where villains can do their evil deeds. Lower lvl villains will have more mundane crime and as the lvl the more grandiose these crimes will be. I would like to see an option for a player character hero to be able to try and thwart the villain's scheme/crime. A stipulation for this option would be a gap of 2 lvl difference between the two. Plot system should be flexible enough to allow for several choices of crimes for their level and should incorporate a series of criminal activity, example rob various laboratories to acquire chems to make some heinous substance.
-No new or separate powers for villains, they will use the same AT's and freeform choices the heroes have.
I'm too tired to think of more so feel free to add your own ideas if you wish. I will add that if they include villains PVP will make more sense.
I don't play video games to use my imagination... that's what graphics are for u3u
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
You have no soul :I
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
You have no Unicorns :I
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
I have a 12 inch Twilight Sparkle model. So you fail :P
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
Get out.
I told you I was evil.
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
12 inches ey? You know where I'm goin' with this.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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Oh also, pics plz.
Is she pre or post princess-op?
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
But, that's just one of the features I miss about CoX...
Alas, poor Statesman! I knew him, Defender.
It would be armageddon everyday.
Yessssssss.....he got him....this.....so guud.
I guess you dont grasp the simple reality that Batman DID try to kill the joker after the death of Jason Todd, Superman pulled a mach 10 super fly mode to get there in time to stop him.
And it highlighted a truth mirrored by the two most iconic extremes in comicdom, That the alien god and the mortal man, both feel that the day the other takes a life directly, and intentionally, is the day that one has to be ended before they become a far greater threat to the world.
Just think back to Darkwing Duck, and what became of Saint Canard in the possible timeline we witnessed when Goz got lost in time. Darkwarrior Duck is that possiblity that Both Bats and Supes recognize in one another as the GREATEST of threats to the world. Great enough that for two who love each other as dearly as any siblings, they will risk much often to prevent the other from taking the first step onto that path.