Marcian Tobay
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Posts
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Joined
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Quote:There's a difference between newspapers running smear campaigns and our king saying "You with the fat ankles! I'm sending you on a mission... to fetch... my coffee!"Originally Posted by Golden Girl
No - I think it's cool players can be villains as well as heroes - but they can't really expect the same treatment from the game, because the midnset of villains means their chosen path is going to be rougher than the heroic path.
Which is oft where we are now. Less Wormtongue, more Saruman. -
Quote:Someone took my "Pro-Loyalist" posts as proof that I am actually a facist. Boy, was that an awkward cord to untangle.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Yeah, that's an ever-present problem on these boards, and I'd lie if I said there haven't been a bunch of ******** who lend some credence to that supposition, but overall yes, one has to make a distinction between the player, who is generally a decent person, and the villain character for whom the story is written.
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Quote:Because rumor has it that the city is practically populated by heroes. One might even call it a City of Heroes.Originally Posted by Golden Girl
But then if you're that much more powerful than him, why wouldn't you go and take over Paragon City?
*Shrug*Quote:or leave the Rogue Isles and carve out your own evil territory?
The Rogue Isles have always been a base, not a an entire continent. Y'all Paragonians have to stay and rebuild that city, which is why they keep insisting that things that don't belong in a City are there ("It's not really a full fledged forest. It's a, uhm, a park. Yeah, that's the ticket.)
We leave to go on Mayhem Missions. We leave to go to the Shadow Shard. We leave to the future and to the past.
It's just where our bed is. It's always been that way. -
Quote:Rough proposal from myself, who doesn't fully grasp the lore: Lord Recluse, in particular, is the only reason parts of the island exist. Maybe they're connected to his life force, maybe there are certain key players like Dr. Aeon who would rather die than serve anyone else. Not really sure what it would be, but some reason that is a stalemate.Originally Posted by Golden Girl
Or is there a really, really good in-game lore reason we could maybe come up with here to explain away the restriction?
I'm reminded of the scene from the only episode of Dr. Who I've seen: Victory of the Daleks. In it, Dr. Who is on the Dalek's ship, and they have ninety different guns pointed at him. They have every upper hand. Even if they were completely unarmed, they are impervious to harm and he would literally kill himself from exhaustion before making a dent in their "Skin"...
... but he has the self destruct button to something very, very important. So even though he is arguably powerless, weak, mortal, and has nothing to offer, the Daleks are forced to stand down and have a pleasant conversation with him.
That's how I'd want Recluse to be. By the time we hit level 50, we realize how pathetic he is compared to our awesomeness. We won't ever kill him, because that would be stupid, but he's still nothing compared to us. -
Quote:No, I think you really nailed it there. We come into our own, but we're always in the shadow.Originally Posted by Golden Girl
For some reason, I've suddenly started picturing player Villains as JD to Recluse's Dr. Cox
But more seriously, .
Edit: Your entire explanation is exactly what people have been complaining about.
I would recommend making people Recluse's equals, but then adding a storyline reason that, for political or other purposes, it would be to disadvantage to challenge him. Like, say, he's the only thing keeping the Rogue Isles in check, and that's where we keep all our stuff?
There are other ways to make it work. -
Quote:Not necessarily.SPOILERS When I had only finished Dean MacArthur's storyline, I had no idea I'd be losing my cloning facility. I knew that I now owned something that was reaaaaaaaaaaallly cool but not actually relevant to anything. I was perfectly prepared to keep the entire damn thing as a nice lil trophy.Originally Posted by Golden Girl
But what you're asking for is for your own constant failure and imcompetence - if villains can't affect the game world, then their schemes will always have to end in total failure - your plan to take over the world, or build a moon laser to wipe out Paragon Ciity, or empty the vaults at Fort Knox will always end in 100% failure, because success would mean the game world would have to change, and failure would keep the game world as it is.
Prizes that work as vague concepts work, too. Some examples:- You have successfully destroyed that one planet that was lookin' at you funny.
- The hero you only saw in missions is now dead and will never be seen again.
- You are now this much richer. It's a shame that this game doesn't track money.
- "For the next week, the newspaper headlines will read only of the reconstruction efforts in response to your horrible spree".
- And even though Statesman will continue to fight on now, you know that you've destroyed his immortality necklace (or whatever), and that, one day, he will fall.
Off the top of my head. - You have successfully destroyed that one planet that was lookin' at you funny.
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Quote:Agreed. The ending wrapped everything up and embarrassed "me". It was very "Team Rocket blasting off again"...Originally Posted by SpittingTrashcan
Spoiler: During the new villain arcs, you try to take over a cloning facility and grow an army of yourself. This does not succeed: the lab goes up in flames. But you tried! And in the end you come out a little bit ahead, and the one who ruined your plans got ruined right back. You bowed to no man. That's a satisfactory villain story.
... but it was still one of my favorite missions. I don't mind losing. As a villain in a comic book world, that's my destiny. I get that.
I do, however, like feeling like I had a fun night on the town before being shackled in. -
Quote:Yes, they do. At least, from what I've seen.Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
That's a stupid conclusion and a stupid rule. Heroes don't all have Statesman as a boss in any form.
Though they certainly have more independence than Villains do (Oh, cruelest of ironies!), every single Hero is someone that answered Statesman's spam email asking for help with the reconstruction effort. Not to mention the fact that Statesman is our Superman/CaptainAmerica/Positron, and that it's an inherent implication that we all hope to be as good as him someday.
It's a more willing and loving subservience, but it's always been my perception that it exists.
(Again: Haven't played that much Heroside compared to most of you) -
Quote:True, and if we must do filthy, let's have a Zozo themed area! It's still the same grim and filth, but a different enough interpretation to be a change in pace.Originally Posted by M_I_Abrahms
Grim and gritty doesn't have to mean filthy.
(Zozo: The town in Final Fantasy VI where it always rained, virtually everything was broken and all but literally held together with spit, and it was expected of virtually every citizen to be a pickpocket and con artist.)
Sounds a little like this... -
Increasingly irritated with the people that are referencing helpful clones.
Not really. More like looking at my Dog-flavored gumball why everyone else got "Vanilla", "Strawberry", and "Concentrated taste-bud oriented summation of what your first time would have been like if it was with that really hot person from chemistry class".
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Is this thread an imperfect clone?
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My villain is a sociopath that was raised on adrenaline, self gratification, and ego. When the guy who is completely subservient to him lands him a cloning factory full of mad science...
... hell yes, High Five. High Five that echoes throughout the isle. -
Quote:You'd be amazed how little of this game I've explored. Remember when I told you the other day that it's "excessive" if I play five hours a week?Originally Posted by Golden Girl
You've never done the LRSF or been to RV?
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Quote:True enough, but we're also a community that shapes the game. Less like artists to clay and more like stones in water, but still.
Those people are mostly the ones who can't, or won't, separate the character from the developer
As a hardcore villain I have never seen him in game. Ever.Quote:Originally Posted by Golden Girl
Statesman's presence in the game is so small that it's quite easy to totally miss him. -
This is the reason I wait a significant period of time before rolling an new power. I don't begrudge anyone else playing FoTM (It is delicious soup, after all), but it undermines my personal desire to feel truly individualized.
Except for Dual Pistols. 'Cuz they were dual freakin' pistols. -
Quote:Which is odd, as the vocal forum community has even turned on Statesman at this point. Those that care enough to post wish he'd just be downed, but there's no surgically sound way to excise the malignancy.Originally Posted by Golden Girl
They're the face of the game, so you're always going to see them somewhere.
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Quote:Finished it, and I still stand it wasn't that wicked. The story (which I adore passionately) is the tale of two parties acting like ******* to each other in a city that doesn't care how much destruction you can cause.Originally Posted by DarkGob
You should have waited to finish the second arc before making this thread.
"I'mma build a facility that can create cool stuff!"
"I'mma infiltrate it."
"Yeah? Well I'mma infiltrate YOU."
"Well, I'm, uh... I'm, infiltrating more..."
"Whu-argh! You're just doing what I just did! Fine. I shoot you."
"This game is stupid, and I don't want to play anymore. *Knocks down Lego set*"
"Wai-why!?"
*shrug*
"Fine. Bank."
"Wut?"
"I go to the bank and make things very inconvenient for you."
"How inconvenient are we talking here?"
"Rather."
"You ***!"
"You started it."
... It's not exactly stabbing babies for no reason. I would rate it around a 5 on the evil-o-meter. Just because you have the option to through a hissy fit in public doesn't really mean that we've hit the epitome of evil here.
Again, loved the story. Just deconstructing it in the context of this specific conversation. -
Quote:Naw, I loved him. He matched my villain's personality of "Somehow fails to understand how disgustingly depraved this all is". We shared an epic high five.Originally Posted by jwbullfrog
There are very few contacts I've wanted to slap. He's very close to the top of the list. You'll like him
But I loved that you could choose your dialogue to reflect whether you round him endearing or annoying. That was brilliant.
Also, agreed. I brought my main out of retirement to play these stories, and every step has been a blast. This may sound snarky, but I mean it sincerely: It feels like they took every complaint people have had about red-side writing and swirled together a perfect answer. I haven't enjoyed such a story in a very long time. -
Quote:I caught and loved that, as well.Originally Posted by Bystander
I for one like that its saying that us good loyalists are blueside and those horrible resistance are redside.
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Quote:I think you just summarized why the new arcs are amazing, even if the evil-o-meter on Dean's specific arc barely registers.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
The more I think about this, the more I feel that the game misses what it means to be "a villain" in this context by a mile. While it may be some people's "thing," I dare say that most of us don't log into a game to be belittled, abused, ordered around and made a servant basically constantly, and this is all City of Villains is. It's a game where we play someone's manservant butler. We're Recluse fanboys that the game assumes will do anything to "get brownie points with the Spiders" (you don't know how much I'd like to kick whoever wrote that in the ***) and nothing more. At all.
Basically, we're the short, fat, impotent third-rate villain in the story who spends a lot of his time plotting, a lot of his time acting big and tough and a lot of his time failing and getting his *** kicked. It doesn't matter how "evil" we are as long as we're mere lackeys of the bigger villains. In fact, the more "evil" we get, the more pathetic we become, like the disgruntled middle manager who's sitting on a dead-end career, but still tries to act tough by abusing his employees and playing big boss while at the same time shrivelling before the actual big boss who's off building a stellar career of his own.
A good villain is the protagonist of his own story. A good villain is the one you want to watch out for, the one who moves things, the one who creates all the trouble that the heroes have to face. That's what I want for my characters when I play the villain. I don't want to be second fiddle to someone else. I want to be the one the heroes are here to stop, I want to be the one who's setting down the death traps. I want to be the one's building secret military bases, I want to be the one who's managing his own evil organisation, I want to be the one who's running illegal businesses, I want to be the one who's looking for the ancient artefact that must not fall into the wrong hands. At the end of the day, I want to be the one who bosses people around and for whom people do missions. And CoV fails at this so spectacularly that it basically catapults me out of any sort of sense of immersion when I try to get into pretty much any mission on the Isles.
They talked about villains being proactive and delivered exactly NOTHING on that front. Oh, sure, we get self-starter paper missions... Half of which are mercenary work for other people anyway, and that's it. Oh, sure, we got the BAD side of proactive content, in that we have to "earn" our contacts, but the story simply ignores that.
I shouldn't be working for Angelo Vendetti for his scraps and blood money. He should come to me and beg me for my help. I shouldn't be asking Billie Heck for any dirty work I could do. I should be swinging him around by his jacket collar and "asking nicely" for information. I shouldn't be working for Westin Phipps. Period. I should be punching the guy's face in. And if recluse has a problem like that, he can kiss my ***. THAT is the kind of proactive villain that would get me excited about getting into the stories. Even when I play a villain, I still want to be cool and awesome. I do NOT want to be a slimy imp running errands for someone else.
Ah-MAZE-ING. -
Quote:Absolutely.Originally Posted by Golden Girl
This is why Tyrant will be an awesome villain
D'yah, I mean... Long Live Emporer Cole! -
Quote:No no no, the posts before Billz were excellent, and I love them. I bake them cookies. I'm saying that if no one else comes in to add.Originally Posted by SwellGuy
I thought my breakdown was productive...
I love you, Swells. <3 -
Quote:Mind if I flesh that out a bit?Originally Posted by sleestack
Members of other games' forums...look at your forum moderator.
Now look at Moderator 08
Now look back to your forum moderator
Now look back to Moderator 08
Sadly, your forum moderator is not Moderator 08
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Quote:If it's not productive in the next fifteen minutes, you start, and I'll see if I can beat it.Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
... I had to stop myself from turning this thread into a "What's more evil than that?" joke.
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Quote:I am literally laughing out loud.Originally Posted by M_I_Abrahms
I have no idea what powers my Bots/Traps clone had, because all he did was run up to Ajax and dance.
Making the A.I. that bad on purpose is just fantastic. MMOs are always smoke and mirrors, but the developers were freaking Zatanna with this one.
