Can you play as a villian or hero?

[Brickbat]

I've been intermittently lurking here and just wondered what the latest is on playing as a hero or a villain?

I assume your nemesis would be the opposite as you (although a villain could have a villain nemesis).

[Kynlore]

The game at this point is heroes only.

[AkumaMishima]

villains were discussed as something that could be added in with an update, however, there's been no recent villain talk.

[PicusB]

That will probably come out as VO :)

[General_Maximus]

Yup, what those above me said. Villains will almost certainly not be in at launch, but if I recall correctly they did say they planned to add playable villains at some point.

[Mithros]

There is a market for villain characters, and the system doesn't need for a whole seperate playtesting and balancing act. Powers are powers, they are out there for everyone to grab, so they save time and money by covering both sides every time they make a new power/framework.

The biggest thing would be figuring out how to fit super-villain characters into the world of Champions. I suppose Dr. Destroyer could take over Bermuda and all the villains could start there. :cool:

[PRAF68]

Yup, what those above me said. Villains will almost certainly not be in at launch, but if I recall correctly they did say they planned to add playable villains at some point.

No, they didn't. They said they looked at it, but CoV is considered epic fail*, so if it happens it will most likely be anti-heroes (Punisher types) as detailed in the Dark Champions expansion.

*reasons given:

1) Players wanting to play heroes significantly outnumber those wanting to play villains. Which leads to an invevitable lack of parity between the two factions.

2) Players who did want to be evil wheren't satisfied with gameplay whichis the same as heroes but with different text. A significantly different style of gameplay would be needed to make player villains work.

[General_Maximus]

No, they didn't. They said they looked at it, but CoV is considered epic fail*, so if it happens it will most likely be anti-heroes (Punisher types) as detailed in the Dark Champions expansion.

Welp, I stand corrected then. Though, I for one would still like playable villains in some form or other. And if it takes them a while to do it properly (as in, not just heroes with different text and a red UI) then I can wait.

[Damentia]

I for one hope that they seriously look into the Dark side of the game.
How exactly will PvP work when everone is good?

I can ignore game content to reach a goal of a high level toon, I can make my toon as Evil looking as possible, But I can not make a Villian that robs banks and captures heroes, tortures them, and kick puppies.

The melding of the Dark Side is natural there is NO GOOD without Evil.

Power are powers either good or Evil the coloring of the power set makes that an easy transition as well. Ok so the problem lies stricktly in content only. Well if not taking a short cut like COX did how hard is it to develop Dark themed missions.

IMO let there be 2 sides a good version and Evil and make the PvP truely live action areas let Villians rob banks and let the Heroes try and stop us. So no heroes in zone today guess i'll have to beat a few cops up to escape heroes loose this day. What Mr fantasticly Uber Heroe just caught me in process, Can he stop me and take me to jail? or will i defeat him and leave with my spoils, or capture him and torture.

I don't believe COV was an "Epic failure" I believe the melding of the 2 is what failed. Surley due to bean counters and a rush to get it to market. The true leading force in villiany.

Ok so there may be more Heroes then Villians out in the world, but who exactly will you be fighting without us???? :eek:

[Sin_Stalker]

CoV was actually regarded as an epic fail. They assumed it would bring more people back to the game and more first time tryers. Instead it divided up the already established community.

Yes it did expand the lore of cox alot more and it was great but finacially it was a fail. Epic fail.

Also, villains constantly complain about not feeling like a villain. The only thing you can do really is rob banks and mayhem missions, thats it.

In the open zone you cant attack bystanders. You get carbon copies of hero side missions (besides what i just put above) and the text is just different. Case in point, you are always kidnapping people who were already kidnapped by another group, ie:

"The Skulls have kidnapped Britney Spears. If you go take her from them, you could rake in the reward."

It was horrible crud like that. You were doing favors for other villains to get "something back" but the gameplay was the same.

For villains youd need to do something new for instance, perhaps one or both of the suggestions below:

1. Allow yourself to kill, torture, beat up and more.

2. Have it open play and have them all in the same city. Have of course a very small starting area like an underground whatever. Then you are in the open zones with the rest of the other heroes. There are a few places that are "safe zones" but for the most part its open.
This of course is a problem for pvp and ganking and flamers and all kinds of crud.

Perhaps next time a game that is neither villains nor heroes. But based on which contacts and missions you gain... based off of the things you do, you earn a character that goes one way or the other but still in the end are intermeagling.


But anyways, CoV was an epic fail. NCsoft/devs even said it was a huge finacial mistake.

It is still also a problem for game updates. Because you have a split in the community, you have too much hate if you give one side something new without the other side. So now the devs have to, with each update, make sure they pay equal attention to both sides. TF here, SF there. Power prolif here, power prolif there.
Its the main reason all of the new content over the last 2 years has been co-zone areas. Its also why there replanned issues were pushed back (they had the first 20 already arrangedin there heads for story and content and such) and now are only starting to get back to finally freaking bringing the Nazis back and preluding to the coming storm.


So in the end again, CoV, epic fail. In what way? Finacially.
It was a nice thing to have lore wise and diversity wise but it wasnt diverse enough to attract new customers and it failed money-wise.

[Mithros]

I for one hope that they seriously look into the Dark side of the game.
How exactly will PvP work when everone is good?
Arena/duel type PvP.

I can ignore game content to reach a goal of a high level toon, I can make my toon as Evil looking as possible, But I can not make a Villian that robs banks and captures heroes, tortures them, and kick puppies. If you think that there would be opportunities for you to torture anyone, I think you would be in for a disappointment. This isn't Grand Theft Auto: Millenium City*. The game is going to have a "T" rating. "T" isn't for torture.

The melding of the Dark Side is natural there is NO GOOD without Evil. There are villains in the game. I don't need you or anyone else playing a villlain to have a villain. I get to make a nemesis for my hero. And I question that concept anyway. Maybe good wouldn't have a name, but it wouldn't need one, it would just be the way things are.

Power are powers either good or Evil the coloring of the power set makes that an easy transition as well. Ok so the problem lies stricktly in content only. Well if not taking a short cut like COX did how hard is it to develop Dark themed missions.

IMO let there be 2 sides a good version and Evil and make the PvP truely live action areas let Villians rob banks and let the Heroes try and stop us. So no heroes in zone today guess i'll have to beat a few cops up to escape heroes loose this day. What Mr fantasticly Uber Heroe just caught me in process, Can he stop me and take me to jail? or will i defeat him and leave with my spoils, or capture him and torture. Again with the torture... :rolleyes:

I don't believe COV was an "Epic failure" I believe the melding of the 2 is what failed. Surley due to bean counters and a rush to get it to market. The true leading force in villiany.

Ok so there may be more Heroes then Villians out in the world, but who exactly will you be fighting without us???? :eek:
Again, I will have plenty of villains to fight. Grond, Viper, Dr. Destroyer, Mechanon... And either CoV was or wasn't an "epic failure". The reasons why it failed don't make it not a failure.
And if you believe that CoV failed because they melded it with CoH, why do you think that "Enemies" would succeed if they merged it with Champions?

Look, I am all for them making a villains game if they can make some money and put out a product worth havng. If they couldn't make a quality product whatever money they make short-term may not matter.
That being said, you seem to want things that are not that likely to be included in a game that has a "T" rating and are under the impression that Champions needs "Enemies". It absolutely doesn't need "Enemies".
I could play CoH happily without ever going into a PvP zone. I barely played the villains that I made after I bought CoV, and they never went into PvP zones, either.


Edit: *I have never played any of the Grand Theft Auto games. If there has never been any torture in any of those games, then pick one more appropriate. :)

[Grit]

That will probably come out as VO :)

Last interview video i saw they said they have no plans of a villains expansion. Could change in the future but they said they planned more on expanding on what they have then going the cov route.

[Bulldawg]

I think I can provide a bit of an answer re: Hero v Hero. There doesn't always need to be a Villain in the mix. Good can fight Good. Do you ever watch professional wrestling? There's really not much closer to comic books on television nowadays, in my opinion. With the larger than life characters and personalities, the "finisher moves", and the clear sides of good and evil drawn, it's essentially a realized comic book scenario.

Even with the clear good (John Cena, Triple H, Batista) and bad (Randy Orton, Edge, Chris Jericho) characters outlined for us, you sometimes see good guys going up against one another. All you need to do is provide a scenario in which they're invariably on opposite sides of an important issue. John Cena fights Shawn Michaels, even though both are good guys: John Cena wishes to win because his title is extremely important to him and he won't simply hand it over, Shawn Michaels wants to win because it will nullify the contract he is bound to under his evil boss.

In fact, we saw heroes going against one another very recently in the comic book world. In the Civil War storyline Marvel created, people very clearly split themselves into two groups based upon their beliefs and their allegiances. You wouldn't call Captain America nor Ironman a "villain". They simply represented two sides which could not coexist with one another. They, along with numerous other superhumans, duked it out to see which way of life would win.

You don't need to have a bad guy to have a fight. All you need is a dispute. And when the dispute encompasses people who ultimately hold the same moral standard, that dispute becomes all the more interesting.

[jwka]

it would be cool to play as a villian,, but they made the game for hero's at this point, and it would make it soo weird cause they would have to change text boxes. Make a villian city,,, and the people u fight are basiclly villians, so it would be villians fighting villians. maybe if they made a new area to fight good people etc etc would the villians work. But in the end,,, so many would be invested with there hero character that i doubt there would be a balance of hero's and villians. But i doubt they would have to change/add powers to the villians. Just keep it 100% even,, or maybe give villians a power that hero's cant have, and hero's a power villians cant have, but basiclly u know make it even.