21 August, 2012

failing that, she wanted lies and vivisection (pt. II)

And the second part, picking up where we left off:

[Looking For Group] Tyrannicus: Also attacking role players on Virtue, the role play server, is like attacking PvPers on Freedom.

*laughs* To be fair, it is rather ridiculous, considering Virtue server holds the bulk of RP, and Freedom holds the bulk of PvPers.

[Looking For Group] Accalon: I can tell you exactly what happened to end CoV: Masterminds can be heroes.
[Looking For Group] Grandmaster UO Thief: because the way people whine to keep the RP together and have it easily available lead to Going Rogue


They've obviously dealt with vastly different RPers than I have. Because this just makes no sense to me.

[Looking For Group] Trix Lupescu: Accalon: So, why can't a good person build robots to help fight crime? Why must all robots be evil?
[Looking For Group] Grandmaster UO Thief: which then lead to just slapping all the classes accpet certain ones in both sides


Spell check! Look into it!

[Looking For Group] MUCHO MAS: Ummm...no....
[Looking For Group] Tyrannicus: That is...amazingly stupid to say.
[Looking For Group] Techenos 3: Frankly, I play Redside MORE now that I can have Rogues/Vigilantes that are free to go between sides.
[Looking For Group] Accalon: The point is not story. The point is that we as Villains had a bitchin' AT that was one of the few reasons anyone actually set foot into the Rogue Isles.


Again, I don't think that's the issue. Sure, giving anyone the right to make Corruptors, Dominators, Brutes, Stalkers, and Masterminds--whether they were a hero or not--that drove up the total character population on blueside. But that doesn't mean OMG no one plays redside whine whine whine is the answer, either. Want more content on redside? Turn in suggestions. Find a good supergroup. Find friends. Make your content.

After all, that's what folks on blueside do.

[Looking For Group] Janna Fortune: They mught be better written... but the problem with red side.. the problem that's always existed... is villian motives and what sort of villian you wan to play (thief/assassian/world dom whatever) isn't as easily supported

I think Janna's right on this one. Villains are murkier characters. Do you want there to be a thread of sympathy? Do you want them to be unrelentingly evil? For the most part, we make up a superhero, it can pretty much be a single aspect of us, with very little effort involved. For example, one of my characters controls time, but also gravity. She shrank when her powers came on, so she calls herself "Eternitwee".

And literally, the whole character is in the name. She's pale purple, she has a wolf tail, she has big furry ears, she's very cute--hence the name. She's dead easy to play, pretty much zero effort involved.

Conversely, Influenza Annie is my main bad guy. She's a living virus, brought to her own form of mutating life by a scientist bent on world domination. Her favorite trick? Hover overhead and set things on fire.

And while the actual killing-things business is routine and commonplace, some of the missions really make me ponder. What would a living virus do if asked to kidnap someone? Or help someone? Take me as the player out of it--what would Annie be motivated to do?

I like both characters, or I wouldn't have them, but playing Annie is definitely the more challenging role for me.

[Looking For Group] Grandmaster UO Thief: they removed all of the Incentive to be a villain

See above. I disagree.

[Looking For Group] Trix Lupescu: Accalon: If Masterind was the only reason you played red side i'm sorry. I love red side and it has nothing to do with being a villain

Me too.

[Looking For Group] Techenos 3: Masterminds were by no means the only incentive to play a villain.

No, the incentives to playing villains are in the story arcs, crawling through abandoned buildings, fighting off naga, rotting corpses, Eidolon, other Arachnos operatives, various spiders, Coralax, Family, and a slew of other problem children that must be continually beat down to gain breathing room. There's also some really pretty scenery on villain side, surprisingly.

[Looking For Group] Tyrannicus: except for better missions, more believable characters, better looking zones etc

Exactly.

[Looking For Group] Wrath Talon: if u need incentive for people to make a villain then... idk that in itself is not going to work

Or put another way--playing villains isn't for everyone, and that's okay. In fact, that's rather the point.

[Looking For Group] Magitek Knight: guys, i know it's late on a saturday night and we've probably all had a few beers, but can we make, say, a "Virtue" chat channel and take the convo there... or just go to help.. or the forums

Gods, if only this were to happen.

[Looking For Group] Grandmaster UO Thief: the reason people dont play the redside now is because its empty. and the reason its empty is because they removed any real incentive to stay there

No, Grandmaster. You're wrong. You're wrong on both reasons. Redside isn't empty, it just depends on when you go, and there are lots of incentives to stay there.

[Looking For Group] Wisp Rider: ((Anyone wanna do a mish team Redside?))

I rest my case.

[Looking For Group] Tyrannicus: It's not empty by any means.
[Looking For Group] Master of the Fates: Please guys your killing us here who are trying to use LFG to build teams


Yeah, really. The Looking For Group channel is for...do I even have to say this out loud?...looking for players to form temporary groups with. For missions, for strike forces, for simple leveling, for AE excursions...whatever, whenever, that's what it's for.

It's not meant for anything else.

[Looking For Group] Lightning Brenden: And the reason it emptied in the first place was due to the devs turning redside the cold shoulder.

When? Seriously, when? When did this happen?

[Looking For Group] Wrath Talon: maybe people simply prefer to play a hero

Yeah. Because as previously stated, heroes are easier to play.

We could even put it in fandom terms: ANYONE can play Captain Hammer. He's self-involved, overconfident, conceited, pretty capable at beating things up--he's just this big dumb guy, you know?

But it takes a special soul to play Dr. Horrible and make him likeable. Here's a guy who wants two conflicting things: the love of the girl of his dreams, and world domination. World domination is going to involve killing people. Can we, as players, play that conflict out, can we kill without remorse? And remember, we're doing it in a setting where the strong survive, and the weak perish. In Paragon City, as heroes, we're attacked by gang members, but rarely by our own fellow heroes (Flambeaux notwithstanding).

But in Mercy Isle, Sharkhead, Grandville? We are not safe. In fact, that's part of what makes villain side challenging--that at any moment, you could be set upon by gang members, huge mutated snakes, or your fellow Arachnos soldiers. If Arachnos thinks it can take you out, it will--and it will keep trying until you kill them, or die yourself.

That in itself is a fascinating dichotomy, but that's also why City of Villains is somewhat more rarefied as an experience. It's not as approachable, and that's by design. Not everyone's going to be good at it; not everyone's going to succeed at it.

[Looking For Group] Grandmaster UO Thief: and its not like this just on this server
[Looking For Group] Grandmaster UO Thief: its like this on almost al the servers
[Looking For Group] Grandmaster UO Thief: the red sides are dead
[Looking For Group] Grandmaster UO Thief: in a situation for every 100 heros there is maybe 20 villains on a good day
[Looking For Group] Seer Tournoux: The reason people play heroes has nothing to do with the game. Most people just don't want to be the bad guys.


It's a fair point. But City of Heroes wanted to provide players the option. Options are important.

[Looking For Group] Grandmaster UO Thief: i go to the blue side because i actualy like getting a group together and not having it take 20-30 minutes due to a lack of people

And I've had moments where it's taken twenty to forty-five minutes to coordinate a group on blueside, so it happens everywhere. Just depends on when we play.

[Looking For Group] Doc Eldritch: I have never likes Arachnos and that's all there is to villian side really, you can't escape it.

And if a player really doesn't like Arachnos--well, yes, that would make redside less enjoyable. If you don't like spiders, if you don't like black and red as a nearly universal color scheme--stick to blueside.

[Help] Techno - Destructo: I think if there was more than just an aesthetic difference between blue and red side more people might play redside. we fight all the same bad guiys basically.. you can fight the same ones blue side

....but there is more than an aesthetic difference. Look! I took pictures!

[Looking For Group] Trix Lupescu: So go to a higher population and NOT an RP server. Especially with the stuff you've said about RPers being the problem, you're insulting many of the very people you are trying to get to agree with you. After saying we're the problem

The difficulty with this argument on Virtue in a nutshell. It goes like this:
  1. RPERS SUCK
  2. WE'RE RPERS HERE
  3. ...oh.
[Help] Tyrannicus: The thing is, you don't exactly do *much* evil in CoV

How so? You beat up the good guys, break legs, infect cops with an untested mutagen, poison food supplies for the poor, destroy educational materials...and those are just in various story arcs, not personal RP strains, Architect Entertainment missions, or strike forces. How can you call any of that 'not doing evil'?

[Looking For Group] Victory Viper: I'm sure you all can find a better place to talk about this than cluttering the LFG channel, right?
[Looking For Group] SPICE GIRL: This is the "Looking for Group" Tab [[[ Not a CHAT line ]]] Hello


And lo, it's been said, many times, many ways...

[Help] Grandmaster UO Thief: well last time ic hecked having villain only special classes made people gravitate to the villain side
[Help] Grandmaster UO Thief: and even then they can switch sides
[Help] Tyrannicus: Going rogue was not made to please one faction of the fanbase.
[Help] Grandmaster UO Thief: i remember people made villains so they could play a new cool class such as a mastermind
[Help] Supreme Champion: more people makes more people, I hear everyone always say they like red this or that better, but play blue since red is empty


...and we're back where we started. Honestly, this conversation happens twice a week. Haven't we hashed all this out already?

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