villains
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One Shots: Heroes beware
While we've given some column space to the heroes fighting crime in Gotham and Metropolis since the launch of DC Universe Online, today we wanted to spotlight one of the many villains who make it challenging. Why challenging? Well, if you play on a PvP server, you know all-too-well what it's like to get pounced while working toward a story object or when in the wrong place at the wrong time. That's the beauty of today's One Shots from Mourne -- it's just indiscriminate villainy. He writes in to explain: "I snapped this pic of my dual-pistol wielding villain, Slinger, ejecting brass. The graphics in this game look a lot better than I thought they would, and the cities are very immersive. My favorite part -- open world PvP is non-stop on PvP servers." Whether you're a hero, villain, or something else entirely, we'd love to see what you're up to in your favorite MMO. Just email your image to us here at oneshots@massively.com along with your name, the name of the game, and a description of what we're seeing in the image. Please make sure your image is at least 1024 pixels across and has no visible UI elements showing. It could wind up being the next one we showcase here on Massively! %Gallery-112285%
The Daily Grind: What motivates your faction choice?
Most MMOs have some sort of factional component, even if the mechanics and options aren't directly identified by a "faction" label. Whether it's heroes and villains in DC Universe Online, Alliance and Horde in World of Warcraft, or the Albion, Hibernia, and Midgard trifecta from Dark Age of Camelot, creating a character in an MMO usually requires some sort of alignment choice. Often this choice boils down to a good or evil stereotype, and while roleplayers and lore enthusiasts may argue that "the Horde isn't evil" (or similar arguments from other games and factions), the fact remains that the Horde's visual palette is filled with imagery and concepts that have signified evil throughout much of human history. In today's Daily Grind, we'd like to know why you pick particular factions, and if the visual or lore-centric baggage they carry influences your decision. Do you usually roll characters that are good? Evil? Neutral? Why? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Breakfast Topic: Who will be the ultimate boss encounter of WoW?
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. Illidan. Arthas. Deathwing. Gamon? In WoW, we kill a lot of things. From x number of boars to 10,000-year-old, demon-juiced night elves, we gear up for and defeat just about everything that comes our way, assuming we can stay out of the fire. But at some point, even WoW, as with all good things, must come to an end. Both for the game and for players in the game, a last boss will almost certainly arrive. For me, the last boss was simple: Arthas, the Lich King. As players, we've been following his rise, fall, and next rise for years. We watched him succumb to the dark side -- queue evil laugh -- and fall from his perch as a hero of Light into a twisted master of undeath. Then he taunted us throughout the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. Finally, we vanquished him, fulfilling years of adventure. Unfortunately for my ideal ending, I still enjoy and want to continue playing the game. Now we have Deathwing flying around, killing folks. Will he be the fated endgame boss? More Old Gods, maybe? Or perhaps even the Titans themselves will come back to purge the world of our meddling. Who do you think should be the last boss of WoW? Do you think there will be a last boss?
DC Universe Online turns the spotlight on Lex Luthor
Through all of Superman's adventures, there's one adversary that epitomizes everything he's not: Lex Luthor. A brilliant man with no special powers, Luthor has nothing but contempt for others, seeking control and power even at the same time that he seeks the destruction of Superman. It's a known fact that Luthor will be featured in DC Universe Online, after appearing in the cinematic trailer as both antagonist and ally -- but now we get to see the man himself in his now-familiar power armor. Marv Wolfman, writer for DC Universe Online, has plenty of history with writing Luthor, as he was behind the character's shift from being a mad scientist to the cold and calculating businessman he is today. And any veteran of DC comic continuity knows that Luthor might not ever come out on top... but he always makes for a worthy adversary. Take a gander at the gallery for a good look at an iconic character in the game -- a sometimes-ally, a dangerous adversary, and one of the motivating factors behind the game's overarching plot. %Gallery-103879%
Behind the Mask: It feels so good to be bad
Playing bad guys in an MMO is one of those features mostly unique to the superhero genre. In other games, there are factions and these factions are vaguely good or bad, but it's kind of rare to see players clamor about playing an evil faction as much as they do in superhero games. One of the reasons behind the lack of true villain factions in most games is that the hero factions in other MMOs are a touch more grey than the good guy factions in a superhero game. In World of Warcraft, both the Alliance and the Horde have their faults; the Alliance are stuck-up bigots and the Horde are ruthless and somewhat bloodthirsty. In Aion, the light and dark factions tread equally on the thin blue line that separates good and evil (although it's somewhat less obvious as an Elyos). One of my biggest grievances with getting into Champions Online was the lack of playable villain content at launch. I was unwilling to test drive City of Heroes at all until villains were playable, and over half of the characters I've made in Champions are bad guys. Even my non-villains aren't heroes (at least not in character). I have a certain infatuation with being a bad guy.
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: Both sides now
Back when Going Rogue was first released, I made a point that I wasn't going into detail on the alignment and tip system. As I saw it at the time, there were two major reasons not to go whole-hog into it, the first being that I was already writing an entire novel on the expansion, and the second being that Paragon Wiki was hard at work putting more details into place. Why try to reinvent the wheel in a weekly column? And there was also a third reason: I'd been spending more time in Praetoria than on my old characters. So I suppose in some way I ought to thank whichever designer gave my poor brute the chance to fight two elite bosses at the same time with three NPCs as backup in a single-player mission. It gave me plenty of incentive to spend more time with my higher-level characters. (Seriously, that mission is absurd.) That meant I started diving into the alignment system, and that means I'm going to spend more time detailing one of the centerpieces of City of Heroes gameplay at the moment: alignment.
Breakfast Topic: What enemy would you turn traitor to join?
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW.com. World of Warcraft puts players on a relatively fixed path in terms of loyalties. Sure, there are some very deliberate exceptions to this -- notably the Aldor/Scryer rivalry of The Burning Crusade and the Oracles/Frenzyheart feud in Wrath -- but in general, wherever a conflict arises in the game, the decision as to what side you're going to take is made for you. The rogue trainer in Northshire might tease you with the idea that joining the Defias is a potential option for you, but in reality, that can never happen. WoW is certainly not lacking for "evil" factions one could potentially sympathize with. The aforementioned Defias, whose whole issue stems basically from getting screwed over by Onyxia's meddling, stand out as one such faction. Illidan Stormrage has long sparked controversy as to whether he was really on the side of evil, although that might be a result of his almost hopelessly confused lore. I have read suggestions that Malygos has a large (if misguided) sympathetic following. And even now, I see some already looking to figure out how to take the side of Big Bad Yet to Come, Deathwing himself. Does this bother you? Do you wish sometimes that you could break the rules and side with a faction or villain you're not supposed to? What hostile faction or enemy character, if any, would you side with, given the opportunity to do so?
EVE Evolved: Outlaws of EVE
EVE Online's Community Manager CCP Wrangler once said that "EVE isn't designed to just look like a cold, dark and harsh world; it's designed to be a cold, dark and harsh world." That sentiment sums up the core philosophy behind the game, which permits such nefarious gameplay styles as thief, smuggler, scam-artist, pirate and market manipulator. Underhanded deals go on every day in EVE, with bounty hunters hired to ruin someone's day and spies tearing corporations apart from within. Many are drawn to EVE because it's one of the few MMOs that allows players to embrace their darker side. The opportunity to be a real villain in a sandbox universe can be intoxicating. Perhaps more intoxicating is the notion that the presence of tangible villains affords players a rare opportunity to play the role of hero. For every pirate gang lurking at a stargate in low security space, there's an anti-pirate squad somewhere planning an attack. For every thief ready to empty their corporation's hangers, there's a security specialist weeding out spies. The true outlaws of EVE are people who have earned their infamy through acts of ruthlessness in their chosen field. Over the years, we've interviewed and examined some of EVE's most notorious outlaws. In this article, I look back at four of EVE's most wanted, how they earned their infamy, and what they're doing today.
Storyboard: The villain in me is the villain in you
I don't play any villains, and I never have. Not in their words, anyway -- they're always noble crusaders fighting against others who are sadly mistaken. Or just driven by pragmatism. Or suffering for the sins of another. They've always got a justification, a reason why the things they've done are somehow necessary. And even though I know (hopefully) that they're full of it, it makes them fascinating to play. So for today's Storyboard, I want to talk about villains in RP and how to make them work in your favor. Before we start talking in-depth, however, it's worth noting that villains do share one thing with in-character romance: they're flashpoints for drama. They're not as bad, since it's a lot easier to separate the player from the character, but they still have the potential. They're also not going to fit into every style of roleplaying, as not every group is going to be conducive to having a specific character antagonist to work around. At least for now, we're just going to take those facts as given and look into the most important part of the equation: making and playing an effective villain in the first place.
Champions Online tells players what not to expect
Sometimes it's very helpful to hear what you're not getting. It's never particularly pleasant, of course -- we usually like to hear about the cool things coming right around the bend -- but it's also useful to be told what isn't coming for your favorite game. The most recent installment of Ask Cryptic for Champions Online falls under that category, with several questions about upcoming features given a straight denial. There are no plans for four-armed characters, rotating and scaling tattoos, and a current push for more persistent content as opposed to zone-wide attack events. On the flip side, the answers do paint a few interesting pictures, such as talk about potentially adding a villainous counterpart to the game in the vein of City of Villains. The idea is discussed as something not in the immediate future, but on the list for future inclusion -- albeit with a much more sandbox style of gameplay, keeping in the vein of a supervillain romp. Champions Online is currently pretty well dedicated to getting its existing systems shored up and working well, however -- and while that might mean a few rejected ideas, it means that the team wants to build a solid foundation.
New Going Rogue video documentary hits the City of Heroes Facebook page
Having celebrated its sixth anniversary back in April, City of Heroes is a bit of an old dog in the MMO world. But it's proving quite adept at learning new tricks, with Going Rogue bringing out a big new trick in the form of its morality system. Allowing players not only to play heroes or villains but several intermediate forms in between, the ability to change allegiance is one of the expansion's biggest selling points -- as well as being the focus of the second video documentary, available on the game's Facebook page. While the video doesn't reveal every piece of system information on changing from hero to villain or vice versa, it does talk more about the choices that go into such a shift. We've been hearing for some time that players will be making choices within the missions of Going Rogue, and it's explained here as well. It also discusses in brief how Praetoria is a framework removed from the hero-villain dichotomy of Paragon City and the Rogue Isles, allowing players to make choices and shape morality from the ground up. City of Heroes players are encouraged to take a look at the documentary and leave their comments on the page, as the developers are due to check in there throughout the day.
City of Heroes: Going Rogue dev diary has a change of heart
Do you have any idea how tiring it is to be this evil all the time? It's like, we can only keep up this vault-plundering, mustache-twirling, damselnapping, puppy-kicking veneer before it gets a little long in the tooth, you know? We've long been thinking about seeing how the other half lives -- an opportunity that will soon be afforded to us by City of Heroes upcoming, massive content expansion, Going Rogue. Check out the developer's diary posted above to see the implications of the game's new alignment-switching feature, and to catch a glimpse at the new environments of Praetoria. We think it looks like a fairly renovated version of Paragon City, only with much more moral ambiguity.
The Daily Grind: What's your favorite villain group?
There are some groups of enemies that are just there in any game. You have to deal with them, but you don't really think about them after the fact. Then there are groups you actively dislike, either because they're obnoxious to fight or because of meta-game reasons. But then there are those other groups. The ones that are just pure fun to fight against, the ones you always take quests or missions for once they become available. They've got interesting story elements, they look visually distinct, and they're challenging but not annoying. It's at that point which you almost want to be allied with the villains in question, just out of sheer awesomeness. (EVE Online might have had this in mind when they first let you do precisely that.) We ask you, our fine readers, what's your favorite antagonistic group? Are they a low-level enemy that you remember fondly, or a high-level group that you still fight against at the endgame? Have you liked them ever since you first encountered them, or did you slowly grow to like them as you were flung against them? What is it you like about them? It's silly, but we can't play a game for too long without forming attachments, so share yours with us this morning.
All the World's a Stage: So you want to raise up the shadows of doom
Today, All the World's a Stage concludes a series on "how to be evil," bringing the bad guy back into your fantasy roleplaying, complete with ideas, methods, warnings, and practical examples. Be sure to check out steps 1-3, steps 4-6, and steps 7 and 8 on the path to evil!Your friends keep telling you, "you can't play Arthas, man! Nobody's going to believe that your little human death knight is actually the Lich King in disguise. Get real!" But your idea just won't go away. You admit that creating a human death knight named "Ahrrthyss" might not be the best way to go about it, but you're in this guild which is devoted to fighting the Scourge, and you want Arthas to be a part of your story, not just an NPC who shows up in some quests and at the end of a raid.We've already discussed a number of ways to be a villain in WoW – so you look at them to see if you can get one of them to work for you: The most obvious is to just start a new character and designate it to be one of your guild's antagonists, but the problem here is that making Arthas as an actual player character is way too Mary Sue. Such a tactic usually only works for very subtle villains (more like flawed heroes really), or for short-term possession, and your guild has done 3 "possessed by the Lich King's power" type stories already. You need something new! Another choice is to create a disposable villain, perhaps, some agent of the Lich King, which could be interesting, but still doesn't put you in touch with Arthas himself. But there is another way, which many people have not thought of: to put the villain entirely in the shadows of the background, let him never actually be seen, but let his effects be felt based on what happens to the heroes. Arthas can indeed play a huge role in your story, without ever having to appear in person. It has been done to great effect before, even in novels. Sauron, anyone?
All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a disposable villain
Today, All the World's a Stage continues with steps 7 and 8 of a series on "how to be evil: bringing the bad guy back into your fantasy roleplaying," complete with ideas, methods, warnings, and practical examples. Be sure not to miss steps 1-3 and steps 4-6 on the path to evil! So, you want to be evil? It's not as easy as it seems. Perhaps you've watched a lot of movies or TV shows in which the bad guy has amazing powers, threatens human civilization, and nearly destroys the universe in his quest for domination. Perhaps you were playing Warcraft and saw characters like Arthas and Archimonde wrecking things up pretty bad and said to yourself, "I wanna be just like them when I grow up!" You open up your copy of World of Warcraft and find that you can't play a Lich King or Eredar Overlord, so you just click on the "forsaken" or "draenei" options as the next best things available. "Yup! I'm all ready to go!" you say to yourself. Everyone is just gonna love my idea about being an immortal demigod out to destroy the universe! But it turns out no one believes you're actually the Lich Prince instead of just another forsaken dude. And people just roll their eyes whenever you reveal your draenei's secret eredar affiliation. A lot of people want to play a raid boss, but the fact remains, you're just not. You're a generic adventurer like everyone else. That doesn't mean you can't be bad... it just means can't be 20 feet tall and out whole cities with a flick of your hand. Once you start thinking practically, about doing something with what you've actually got, then you can start getting somewhere. One of the most practical tools you can have for playing a bad guy is the disposable low-level character. Keeping your villain at a low level means you don't need to hesitate when he's been defeated, you can roleplay his glorious death and delete him. Your friends save the day -- you save a lot of leveling time. How is it done? Read on.
All the World's a Stage: So you want to be possessed
Today, All the World's a Stage continues a series on "how to be evil," bringing the bad guy back into your fantasy roleplaying, complete with ideas, methods, warnings, and practical examples. Be sure to check out steps 1-3 on the path to evil here.It's been said that the secret to writing a good story is not having a really interesting hero, but rather an interesting villain. The hero himself is defined by the villain in many ways, just as a sports team becomes famous only once they've defeated the last year's champions, or a runner breaks the world record for speed, a hero needs someone to test himself against, a great obstacle for him to overcome or destroy. If the villain is interesting, then the hero will be interesting too.It is natural, then, for a roleplayer to want to test his own heroes or those of his friends against some obstacles as well. Many of us sit down with the intention of creating a really interesting challenge for our guildmates to overcome – but in our creative endeavor we must remember that danger lurks behind every corner, and creating a villain in itself is a task with significant obstacles to overcome. In fact, one might say that the greatest enemy of such a roleplayer is none other than his own self, the ghost of cliché lurking just outside his field of creative vision.
Anti-Aliased: Things that make you go kweh
So this week wasn't an easy week for me. Darkfall seems to be slowly consuming all of my free time, because I sure as heck don't want to have Tasos Flambouras kicking down my door with his server logs and curses of inappropriate reporting. (Although at this point I'd love to see my server logs because they're probably long enough to trip him when he carries them down hallways.)Anyway, that's not my point. My point is that I just couldn't think of anything to write about. Nothing would come into my head no matter how hard I tried. Then, last night, when I was munching on some Milano cookies, it finally hit me. (I'm totally being paid for that Milano cookies reference, by the way. The truth is coming out -- I'm rolling in Pepperidge Farm bribe money and I don't care who knows how corrupt I am!)I should write a column on things that drive me batty about MMOs! Things that just, well, never quite made sense to me, yet we do them. There are lots of examples of this, of course, but let me show you some of the things that make it to the top of my list.
An early peek at the DC Universe Online storyline
DC Universe Online is a superhero MMO in development at Sony Online Entertainment, but one that we didn't get to see much of at E3 2009. That's not going to be the situation with Comic-Con International which is happening this week in San Diego. The DC Universe Online team will be on hand and will hopefully reveal more about the game. While you won't get to play as Superman, Batman, or Wonder Woman, you will begin the game as a hero who fights alongside such comic book icons. In fact, once you roll a character you'll choose a specialty from among super powers, tech powers, or magic powers. That choice will determine the storyline you begin with, according to info revealed in a Variety article. Sony Online Entertainment gave Chris Morris from Variety's 'The Cut Scene' an exclusive on how players will begin the game.
Batman: Arkham Asylum baddies profiled, illustrated
"vines on her body make a type of organic 'henna tattoo'" Not a Batman fanatic? We suppose that's entirely possible, you tasteless, soulless fool. Fortunately for you, Eidos and Warner Bros. just sent us a comprehensive biography and art for each of the classic Batman villains featured in its upcoming stealth/action title, Batman: Arkham Asylum. They're all listed in the gallery below -- keep in mind, we've got a month and a half before the game comes out, so there's plenty of time for other nefarious additions. We probably won't see any Meeester Freeeeze, however -- no modern console could possibly handle all those puns.%Gallery-67855%
Cryptic's Bill Roper on balancing powers in Champions Online
When news came in of the Champions Online launch being delayed to September, a few of the writers at Massively were despondent. It's always better for a game to launch once it's solid rather than release in a buggy state, though. While we wait for the re-scheduled September 1st launch, we're keeping up with the news and interviews surrounding the upcoming superhero title. In fact, we've just come across an MMOCrunch interview with Bill Roper, executive producer of Champions Online you might be interested in. Roper gets into how some of the game mechanics in Champions Online will play out, and explains a bit about how travel powers like flight and teleportation can be countered by those without such capabilities. (For example, how does a ground-based melee character engage a kiting opponent in flight?) He also touches upon the game's sidekick system, which will allow newer players to temporarily boost their powers to keep up with higher level friends. Alternately, the sidekick system will give advanced characters the ability to tone their powers down to the level of their appallingly weak lower level buddies.
