A background cast of costumed villains/heroes

[aethereal]

I think it would be neat if Paragon had more of a presence of a population of actual costumed villains (not just gang members), and the Rogue Isles had a mixed group of heroes/villains who operated out of it.  These wouldn't be big important, central figures, just people where you'd be like, "Oh, yeah, I saw that guy before."

 

Here's how I'd do this:

 

1.  First generate a fairly large population of these characters.  Crowd-source it on the forums.  Tell people to post costume files, level ranges, powersets, and one paragraph info blocks for characters, with the understanding that they were assigning the copyright for such characters as were selected to Homecoming.  Encourage people not to use their best material here, these people are supposed to be C-listers.  Ask players to police each other on making sure there are no IP violations, and to vote for characters they think are cool with reactions.  Then harvest the thread for let's say 50ish villains for Paragon, and maybe 25 characters for the Rogue Isles.

 

2.  These characters would be ordinary Bosses, not EBs or AVs, with probably level ranges that are something around 15 levels.  I'd omit most of them from the very low levels, since in modern play people spend so little time below level 10 or 20.

 

3.  Now, get those characters into the game.

 

a.  For Radio/Newspaper missions that involve a named boss, make it be a 50% chance that the named boss is, instead of a generic member of the gangs, one of these C-listers.  Yes, they work with the existing gangs -- the lore is that like Darkmaster The Darklord is temporarily working with the Council this week, and then next week he's hired by the Outcasts.  If feasible, we can make it so that each character has a list of groups they will/won't work with, but it's not really a big deal if they'll all work with everyone.

 

b.  Make them a possible, if rare, street-spawn in zones in their appropriate level range.

 

c.  Then in a slow-but-sure way, take an opportunity each page to see if there's a place to put them into various arcs in non-starring roles, just as like a random boss spawned in certain missions.  And obviously they'd be available for considered placement in any new content developed.

 

d.  Maybe make them show up randomly in Safeguard/Mayhem missions, not as the robber/hero, but as a spawn somewhere on the map.

 

The idea here is to create more of a sense of, like, "Oh, yeah!  That guy!  I put him in jail one time!"  Generate some of that grist that you get in classic superhero comics where people say, "The Lady Frog!  I remember she showed up in the X-Men!  Kinda a fun character!"  Just add a little bit of personality that we don't get with the generic gangmembers.

[GraspingVileTerror]

https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Rogues_Gallery

[aethereal]

5 minutes ago, GraspingVileTerror said:

https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Rogues_Gallery

Yeah, I know.  It's a small number of characters who appear in a small number of missions.  And I like those missions!  But just 17 characters would, I think, get over-exposed if they were in massively more missions.  It'd start to feel like, "Jesus, fuckin' Blast Furnace is everywhere, man."  So I'm proposing considerably more characters to cycle through the world, but to break out of "just tip missions and one or two other places."

 

The Rogues Gallery and the Shining Stars can be the B-listers, as opposed to the C-listers that I'm proposing.  The C-listers don't get an arc or the same importance as the B-listers -- they're basically there to make the world more colorful.

Edited August 29, 2021 by aethereal

[Tiger Shadow]

30 minutes ago, aethereal said:

It'd start to feel like, "Jesus, fuckin' Blast Furnace is everywhere, man." 

 

It already feels like this.

[Greycat]

Well... yes and no.

On the one hand, some of those characters appear everywhere because they have a story being told through those tip missions - Doc Quantum going more and more off the rails, Frostfire's turn (and supporting cast.) People shouldn't miss those.

 

On the other, yes, more of it (including people staying just as they are) would be welcome, absolutely.