Andreah

Yeah, as I understand it, the weekly rotation isn't automatic, it's set up and rotated by hand by GM's. The notice is awarded once until the cycle rotates, and you can't earn another one until they get it done.

Can confirm; it's still showing the respec trials. It should be: However, the post I linked was "Edited 9 minutes ago by GM_GooglyMoogly" and I expect he's working on it right now.

He set out a methodology and followed it where it took him. I give him props for that -- it resulted in a different kind of video. He could have broken them into groups of still running, not running, miss-classed, and never released. That would have made it easier to follow. Also, the video class of "ranked lists of MMO's" itself was less common back in the early days, and I think that works against games like CoH.

Within the context of the game, absolutely. I'm not sure there's a supernatural force of Evil in the game, but there may well be. Certainly if someone has it in their background I'm not going to tell them they're wrong.

His methodology is the reason.

Can you even imagine "War walls" ? :D Some parts of the game world just make no sense at all. But it's comic book logic.

Whole sections of the city are in total ruin and overrun with chaos and crime, with no hope of restoration.

Isn't a very convincing argument a sort of mind control, too? :D It doesn't work on me though, I see them on those soap boxes and if I'm not in a hurry I just blast 'em.

They do, and you can see them recruiting all around the city. In the back of my mind, I imagine they're using mind-control and a lot of their recruits aren't voluntary. (Otherwise it just doesn't make sense to me.) And this also justifies my not using lethal force on their run of the mill minions -- they wouldn't be in their right minds and acting on their own volition. The groups that are there with "Blue and Orange Morality" that I can't necessarily say is good or bad, just different and rightly opposed; yeah, that's a hard one. They're sort of like the weather -- sometimes it's bad and hurts people. And unlike the weather, we can stop them when they do it. From the Rikti perspective, they're just trying to get home, right? And we're in their way, with our scary magic and superheroes.

I agree. They have a visceral effect on us as an audience since we're still historically in aftermath of WW2, and which also means even while that visceral reaction can be touched on by them, the writers have had to tread carefully in order to stay within the bounds of good taste. This, in my mind, lessens my perceived evil of those game enemy groups, because they've been merely cartooned up to it and I'm expected to just take it on faith from there. The other groups you mention have objectives which are arguably just as bad and perhaps worse.

The CoT are still near the top of my list for the most villainous. I don't know how they choose their victims, but they do displace or obliterate those peoples' souls. And we get to see those ritual soul theft/kills in progress all over the lower level zones, too.

And they're completely lacking in any empathy. They look on people like some resource to be dug out of the ground. It's in a service to a twisted ideal of Dr. Vahzilok's that he can defeat death; and I believe, in game canon, it's given that he is insane. Of the game enemy groups, they're the ones that give me those heebie-jeebies the most.

I concur. Your classical vampire is a criminal, but only on a very small scale, and doesn't come pre-packaged with a vastly greater threat. He may have one, but so could anyone else, it's not intrinsic to his condition.

I don't know that they are, in this setting. Both are tightly tied up with space aliens; and as I read it, their motivations aren't well aligned with mere human ideology any more. In contrast, Arachnos is more clearly a human ideology to me (And still a very bad one).

For me it comes down to means and ends. What is the group trying to accomplish, and how bad is it? How broadly does it apply? To one person, or a city, to the world? The universe? Just for now, or for all of time? Then, what means are they willing to use to achieve it? I mean, if they want to enslave everyone in the world, but only hold up signs and hand out pamphlets, that's less villainous than another group with less ambitious ends, say, for personal profit, but who're willing to resort to widespread deadly force to get it.

If you are still alive, then there is still the possibility of hope. Those are fair responses, and I'm not saying they're wrong. Are there other groups that rise to similar heights of what you consider to be the worst? Banished? Rikti? Devouring?

I'd put Circle of Thorns above the various fascist themed groups (council, arachnos, fifth-column). CoT actually obliterate souls.

I've been thinking about the various villainous groups we encounter, and it's struck me that some of them seem a much worse than others. I'm not talking about which groups are the most annoying to fight, but rather which ones in game lore seem to have the most evil goals and cause the most suffering. We've got a wide variety of bad actors to choose from. Some seem primarily motivated by personal gain, like the Family or the Outcasts, while others, like the Circle of Thorns, seem driven by a desire to corrupt or pervert good, often through pacts with demons or forbidden magic. Still others, like Nemesis, engage in complex schemes that involve deception and manipulation. And of course, there are groups like the Rikti, whose invasions cause widespread destruction. Then there are groups like the Devouring Earth or the Banished Pantheon that seem to have a kind of alien and horrifying motivation. Clearly, it's more than just actions, but also motivations and wider collateral harms. I'm curious to hear: Which villainous groups do you personally consider to be the most evil, and why? What specific actions or motivations make them stand out as particularly heinous in your mind? Do you think some villainous acts are inherently worse than others, and if so, why? I'm really interested to hear your perspectives and understand how you all interpret the different shades of evil within the game. Let's keep it to game lore evil and not real-world. I look forward to reading your thoughts.

It's time to upgrade to "Snarkier".

This really is why our community distinguishes itself above from a lot of the other ones I've been in. I wish I could remember names to praise, but I see people helping newbies out in Atlas Park or in /help or even /general all the time. Sometimes I see people spend extended periods doing nothing but hanging out around Ms. Liberty giving out free advice, costume help, joining DFB's on their 50s, dropping prizes and Inf on new characters, and so on. I really don't see that much elsewhere -- in fact, it is not only better than the community on Live was, I feel it may be unique among MMORPG's of any kind.

Same, I really don't do that much. I think this shows that people who contribute to the community as a whole, in whatever ways, make a difference.

One thing you can do it run a few pick-up-group radio missions. Even if you don't have a lot of time, you could advertise a "quick-couple-missions radio team" and fill almost any time of day. Advertise them as "RP" or "RP-friendly" and you'll get get some lite RP chatter too. You'll have some fun, get some drops, vet/incarnate xp, meet people, put villains in the lockup, etc.,

Got you covered, here's Bopper's post:

I recognize most all these people, and easily, so they're probably not well described as 'unrecognized'.