Luminara mentions a big factor regarding why Redside just doesn't interest me. Some people say it's because "we don't want to play bad guys", but the truth is a bit more complicated. Let's get into the mindset of someone who's not a long-time player for a second, and talk about the experience of someone playing a new character for the first hour or so: Blueside has a relatively bland, but readable first area, something that doesn't have a strong identity and therefore doesn't railroad you much. It has quest givers with various enemies depending on what you fancy beating up, you can play the kind of hero that you want to play, from the street-level vigilante who beats up thugs to the benevolent alien that fights against robots. Then you've got Redside: Mercy is a much more complicated map with sinuous streets and culs-de-sac, a strong aesthetic theme, grey and brown, darkness and bleakness everywhere, already under the thumb of an evil dictator. And contrary to Blueside, you just don't have *that* many possibilities when it comes to playing a bad guy at first. Hell, out of the three initial quest givers, two order you to kill snakes in dark ugly tunnels. Apart from a handful of factions, you don't get to fight good guys, you just fight other kinds of thugs and baddies. While City of Heroes is amazing at giving you the hero experience you want, City of Villains struggles to offer a setting open enough for you to thrive in it. It gives you a very specific type of villainy, but that's not the one you might expect in the first place. Add the confusing starting map on top of it, and the new player who just joined Redside is going to be put off by the experience.
It's not that I don't want to play a bad guy, I'd love to. It's just that I think Redside doesn't give me the room to do so in an enjoyable manner. I don't think throwing more rewards at players will change that feeling.
