| Do you want to feel like this guy? |
Antagonists in stories have always interested me, especially the ones portrayed in a way that you see they were just one choice away from being the hero. I think that's why I always liked running good content in City of Villains, particularly ones that handled villains who fit this characteristic. It also drove me towards a theory as to how you can make a player in a game feel villainous, specifically a player who is on a faction or side that is supposed to be villainous. The rub of the theory is that giving the player an option not to be villainous is the exact way to make them be villainous.
The idea behind it comes from a conversation I had with a friend in high school regarding the nature of sin (Catholics!). Basically, it boiled down to sin being something that is a choice to do what was evil when you knew what the good was. Very simply, this is what makes good villainous content - making your villain have an out to not do what's wrong, what's evil.
| You know he's evil because of the goatee. |
An example of this was from my very early arcs in City of Heroes. The player villain has a cloning facility that is being destroyed. They're fleeing from the burning wreckage and come across a dying clone. The villain has the option of killing the clone, saving the clone, or leaving it to die. Now, there were two ways of writing this. There could've just been one option, "kill the clone", since you're supposed to be the villain. The second way of doing this was providing choice. I believe by providing choice, the player character can feel more villainous by consciously choosing to do what is wrong; on the other hand, they could also feel really good by consciously choosing to do what is good. The feedback I received from the arc helped to emphasize this.
This isn't a be all and end all solution, however. Some games do well with making the player feel villainous, others need a more grey moral quandry, like we did for our expansion, Going Rogue. A lot of complaints have been levied against games for having black and white moral choices; this theory doesn't really solve that. What it does solve is when your game outright creates the "bad guy" race and is trying to cement those players who want to play them.
I'll actually be making this a three parter, something which I decided one minute before typing this sentence! The topic of making compelling/interesting choices in a game is one that's really fascinating to me, and I would hate to just leave it be. Tune in on Friday for my theory on making players feel Heroic, and on Monday for my theory on making difficult decisions in your game. See you all then! Maybe?
| Find out next time if I still have anything useful to say! |
This was actually one of my primary complaints about City of Villains -- lack of choice.
ReplyDeleteSpecifically, you didn't have any. You were the punchclock thug lackey for a number of villains who DID have and make choices, your contacts. "Ramirez Syndrome," basically. You never had a say in the matter, they were never YOUR schemes, it wasn't your villainy.
Being a hired gun is one approach to evil, true, but there's just so much more which was being neglected in favor of telling the story of the NPC instead of telling the story of the PC.
It's not like branching quest technology was needed here -- all that had to be done was to have the contacts written such that they were working for you instead. They were picking up hot tips on where you could smash-and-grab to get something, or who to kidnap to help you assemble your macguffin, etc. I did a ton of that in my villain Mission Architect stories.
Fortunately, when you started working there I saw more of a sea change in this direction. Contacts worked for YOU. You had some say in the direction of the story. New tech let you make microdecisions within the overall story. You were finally working on your OWN schemes, even if they were picked in advance by the designers, and you reaped the reward. That was considerably more fun than some low tier badguy like a Sky Raider bossing you around.
As the game progressed the villain stories got more sophisticated with more of a feeling that they were at last YOUR stories. The sig arcs and new zones helped boost that content. Shame we won't see what was planned for the Wharf.
I loved the Clone arc.
ReplyDeleteThe start of City of Villains got villainy very wrong, sadly. Fighting snake-men as basically a government sponsored Merc, while said government also inexplicably busts you out of jail and then tries to kill you just never sat well with me.
I'd love to see you write much much more on the theory of making a good villain here, because I think the constraints of a game environment led to very interesting choices.
Heroes tend to be mostly reactive. The villains initiates a masterplan and the hero has to uncover and put a stop to it. Villains on the other hand are much more proactive, seizing opportunities or crafting said masterplan in the first place.
Getting that into a game design is tricky, but even harder is catering for all the types of villain. A brutish Rhino type just wants to smash and grab, whereas a Doctor Octopus is much more into building the pieces of a complex plan to bring the city to their knees.
On top of that, villains in a game can't ever really "win big". They don't get to dominate the world, level the city and eat a puppy.
It's a very difficult balance and I think because of that some of the most interesting theory and design can be mined from the topic. Sadly the best proving ground MMO for these concepts is about to be shut down, but I'd still love to hear more in-depth thoughts on how you and the studio approached these challenges.
On City of Heroes' final day, I played SSA1 for the first time as a villian. I was villainous enough in the villain content, but was horrified when Wade offered me the opportunity to kill Alexis. I declined and that absolutely cemented going hero. It was very well written and choice is a powerful tool for those willing to immerse themselves in the moment. That was really well written ( ' :
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