Redside... Best side? Right??

[Rudra]

I don't get the hate for Longbow over their weaponry. Comparing them to the PPD in Praetoria? The place where the populace has been decimated to near extinction, disarmed, and drugged into obedience? They don't need lethal weapons to deal with the citizens they mostly deal with. The Clockwork have the lethal weapons and are used by the Praetors to deal with threats. The IDF have the lethal weapons and aren't the least bit shy about using them. The PPD's job is to deal with the unarmed, obedient populace. The lethally armed and/or super powered Powers Division deals with the Resistance, Syndicate and other armed/dangerous threats. And that is the closest analogy to Longbow Praetoria has. Not the PPD. The PPD is what you should be comparing to the PPD, because they have the same roles, protecting the populace and keeping them in line. Longbow, while heavy handed, is a para-military that stands to fight super-powered criminals and similar threats like Arachnos. Opponents they need heavy weapons, specialized weapons, and super powers for.

 

(Edit: And as one mission gold side shows, Praetorian PPD weapons are still very much lethal. It just takes more hits to kill. Which makes it more sadistic to me.)

Edited June 4 by Rudra

[Vic Raiden]

Okay, guns and flamethrowers work up until around level 30, but past that? They need something better suited for taking on high-end forces of evil. That includes choice of attire because there's just no way goofy plain spandex suits would be giving any protection at that level.

 

I guess the problem is less the mere fact of them carrying such equipment and more their eagerness to employ it even in populated areas, with no regard to collateral damage or even the flamethrower soldiers' own descriptions. As well as, of course, failing to have any credibility as a force of good.

[Rudra]

3 minutes ago, Vic Raiden said:

Okay, guns and flamethrowers work up until around level 30, but past that? They need something better suited for taking on high-end forces of evil. That includes choice of attire because there's just no way goofy plain spandex suits would be giving any protection at that level.

 

I guess the problem is less the mere fact of them carrying such equipment and more their eagerness to employ it even in populated areas, with no regard to collateral damage or even the flamethrower soldiers' own descriptions. As well as, of course, failing to have any credibility as a force of good.

We have super heroes, both PC and NPC, running around throwing attacks of mass devastation in the game with no regards for the people or property in the area. The game doesn't track damage to the environment or (most) non-combat NPCs, so Longbow gets a pass from me on that. However, I do agree that they need to be updated for higher level content. The Ballistae and Wardens can't be their only improved units for high level content.

[Chris24601]

1 hour ago, Vic Raiden said:

Okay, guns and flamethrowers work up until around level 30, but past that? They need something better suited for taking on high-end forces of evil. That includes choice of attire because there's just no way goofy plain spandex suits would be giving any protection at that level.

 

I guess the problem is less the mere fact of them carrying such equipment and more their eagerness to employ it even in populated areas, with no regard to collateral damage or even the flamethrower soldiers' own descriptions. As well as, of course, failing to have any credibility as a force of good.

The related issue to the weapons/disregard for collateral damage (and tip missions where Longbow says “screw the law, I’m murdering this person” and you as a hero have to stop them) is that they are NOT some government agency like Vanguard (UN sanctioned defense force) or Arachnos/Praetoria (government raised armed forced).

 

No, Longbow is a private military company funded by an NGO (Freedom Corps).
 

It’s the equivalent of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation deciding to assemble a private army and sending it into sovereign countries for military operations to seek their overthrow.

 

Their very existence is basically a war crime that only makes sense if you consider the complete chaos following the Rikti War and that the daughter/granddaughter of Statemen are the ones backing it.

 

The further the story gets from that point, the more one would expect questions to start being asked about Longbow and it’s authority/purpose.

[Rudra]

20 minutes ago, Chris24601 said:

The related issue to the weapons/disregard for collateral damage (and tip missions where Longbow says “screw the law, I’m murdering this person” and you as a hero have to stop them) is that they are NOT some government agency like Vanguard (UN sanctioned defense force) or Arachnos/Praetoria (government raised armed forced).

 

No, Longbow is a private military company funded by an NGO (Freedom Corps).
 

It’s the equivalent of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation deciding to assemble a private army and sending it into sovereign countries for military operations to seek their overthrow.

 

Their very existence is basically a war crime that only makes sense if you consider the complete chaos following the Rikti War and that the daughter/granddaughter of Statemen are the ones backing it.

 

The further the story gets from that point, the more one would expect questions to start being asked about Longbow and it’s authority/purpose.

Freedom Corps is a group of heroes and auxiliaries that formed an organization to coordinate hero activities. They help others free of charge, as contrasted to Hero Corps which is a corporation sponsored group of heroes for hire. Longbow is the active or expeditionary branch of Freedom Corps established by Ms. Liberty, not by Statesman. Statesman and Miss Liberty set up Freedom Corps, but Ms. Liberty set up Longbow. It is very much her super hero army. However, it does work from within Freedom Corps, following their ideals to the best of their ability while following a more aggressive method of dealing with super powered criminals, with a major focus on Arachnos. And it does seem to get at least limited government support. Which was why they were (almost) successful in replacing Vanguard during the schism in the RWZ when Ms. Liberty took her case to the UN that Longbow should absorb Vanguard.

 

The thing with the tip missions with the Longbow setting up traps to lure in and murder rogues or going out to murder vigilantes and villains is that as per the tip missions themselves, those are rogue operatives. There are a few tips, that are at different level ranges if I remember correctly, where the Longbow agent in charge of the entrapment and murdering is the same specific named Longbow Agent. (Officer James I think?) And also per those tip missions, Longbow would be happy to know about that agent's additional activities because they themselves will happily arrest him for doing so. (Just like the Rogue Isles traitor in that other tip mission.) And in some of those tips, Longbow actually do arrest their rogue operatives if you choose the correct version of the tip, but that only happens in the blue side ones. So you can't use those tip missions as evidence that Longbow is evil just with good PR any more than you can say Arachnos is good just with bad PR because a few missions have Scirocco or Ghost Widow lending you a hand or giving you warnings about problems you will encounter or turning a blind eye to you taking down Arachnos in their presence before lending you a hand.

[Vic Raiden]

Either way, the amount of rogue Longbow operatives giving their force a bad name is staggering.

[mistagoat]

For me, I really dislike the zones. They are dreary, dirty and worst of all hard to navigate. It's like they were designed with the assumption that you have chosen flight as your travel power, Grandville is a nightmare for a super speeder! The red side zones are just not places in which I enjoy spending time.

Then there are the enemy choices, Goldbrickers and Luddites are fine but I seem to find myself facing a never-ending stream of Arachnos and Longbow. As a low level solo bad guy they are unpleasant to fight and I'd much rather go fight Trolls/Skulls/Outcasts/Warriors on blue side.

 

Every now and then I get bored of doing the same blue side stuff and I feel like I should go play some red side. I play a couple missions, get frustrated, and head right back to blue side.

[Chris24601]

2 hours ago, Vic Raiden said:

Either way, the amount of rogue Longbow operatives giving their force a bad name is staggering.

Indeed, it’s about the only time you see them.

 

”Let’s mind control people into being heroes because that’s TOTALLY ethical” is literally one of the story arcs.

 

And even if they’re all registered under the same act that lets heroes operate in Paragon City, they’re still a military NGO operating unsanctioned in a foreign sovereign territory which by the Geneva Conventions makes them unlawful combatants and war criminals.

 

“I’m a HERO and they’re the VILLAIN so that makes whatever I do okay” is for toddlers.

 

It’d be one thing if Arachnos were itself an NGO seeking to overthrow the Etoile Islands legitimate government and Longbow was a UN peacekeeping force headed by Ms. Liberty and working with the legitimate government to stop Arachnos.

 

It’d also be another thing if Longbow were say, associated with Interpol and comfined their operations to the pursuit of criminals wanted in other countries who’d fled to the Rogue Isles (and used methods appropriate to that purpose).

 

But it’s not.

 

The Rogue Isles are recognized and has a seat in the UN. Longbow is an American NGO conducting illegal military operations in a foreign country (and other dimensions in defiance of UN charter where that’s the perview of Vanguard) specifically seeking the overthrow of that government and should, realistically, be causing no end of headaches for the US government and its foreign relations.

 

Longbow also unilaterally decides it should be able to shut down a sanctioned UN military operation just because they don’t like how it’s being run. Their core argument is “I (Ms. Liberty) am popular so I should get what I want.”

 

Imagine Elon Musk thinking that he has the right to take over running the Ukrainian war because he didn’t like how it was being run. Yes, it is THAT stupid.
 

Longbow is THAT stupid.

 

It’s hard to sell “Rogue Longbow Agents” when their whole operation is a violation of international law.

 

Which is why it either needs to be acknowledged as an off-the-rails villain group with good publicity that needs to have real heroes stop it -or- it needs to be fixed so it’s not a massively criminal organization that realistically would be labeled as terrorists by any nation not the USA.

 

Here’s a simple, text only, fix… make Longbow a division of the US Military, remove UN recognition of the Rogue Isles government, and have Longbow’s actions in the Rogue Isles be a sanctioned UN operation to overthrow what the world has declared is an illegitimate regime.

 

Now Longbow are uniformed combatants in a declared war and when they seek to get Vanguard shut down, it’s because they’re the US Military and it’s US Soil that Vanguard is operating on (and doing black ops stuff without coordinating with the actual government).

 

Their level 35+ troops could still seriously stand some revamping (make

their uniforms more obviously armor, use energy weapons, more jet packs, etc.), but that’s a separate issue.

[Rudra]

3 hours ago, Chris24601 said:

The Rogue Isles are recognized and has a seat in the UN.

Not as best as I can tell? As far as I can tell, the Rogue Isles enjoys limited recognition from the world. They are considered sovereign territory, but to the best of my knowledge, not an actual country. Rather they seem more to be considered neutral territory. And as an independent region, are able to raise their own police force, establish their own military, and lay down their own laws.

 

They are more protected by lots of deals with other (actual) countries that predate Arachnos that gets the nations of the world to not just go in and take over. They have been a haven for pirates and other troublemakers for pretty much their entire history, and that isn't something the various nations of the world are normally inclined to accept. Only the occasional display of punishments such as the necessary hangings of some pirates to keep the countries of the world relatively appeased pretty much kept the countries of the world from simply shredding those deals and one of them invading to pacify the islands and make it their territory. Even Marchand before Recluse was known to be less than virtuous when it came to dealing with the criminals that come to the islands. He just had the support of lots of his citizens and the various deals that had previously been made with the nations of the world keeping him in power.

[Eiko-chan]

7 hours ago, Chris24601 said:

Longbow also unilaterally decides it should be able to shut down a sanctioned UN military operation just because they don’t like how it’s being run. Their core argument is “I (Ms. Liberty) am popular so I should get what I want.”

Their core argument is actually "they keep letting known terrorists and mass murderers join their ranks just because they have super powers." Though in Lady Grey's defence, I am, in fact, just as good at slaughtering bio-engineered, extra-dimensional humans as I am at slaughtering the regular ones. 😇

Edited June 5 by Eiko-chan
wrong "extra-" thing was in there

[Rudra]

23 hours ago, Chris24601 said:

The related issue to the weapons/disregard for collateral damage (and tip missions where Longbow says “screw the law, I’m murdering this person” and you as a hero have to stop them) is that they are NOT some government agency like Vanguard (UN sanctioned defense force) or Arachnos/Praetoria (government raised armed forced).

 

No, Longbow is a private military company funded by an NGO (Freedom Corps).
 

It’s the equivalent of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation deciding to assemble a private army and sending it into sovereign countries for military operations to seek their overthrow.

 

Their very existence is basically a war crime that only makes sense if you consider the complete chaos following the Rikti War and that the daughter/granddaughter of Statemen are the ones backing it.

 

The further the story gets from that point, the more one would expect questions to start being asked about Longbow and it’s authority/purpose.

I just realized something. Longbow has 2 real world analogs (that I can think of). There is an American unit and a Russian unit that come to mind that are basically private armies that hire themselves out. So using that as an example, Longbow isn't inherently a war crime or illegal. It depends on how they are set up and run. And since they are not being decried and called for seizure by the governments of the CoX world, then they are most likely set up in a legal manner in the CoX world. Like how the actual mercenary Hero Corps is and to an extent the Paragon Protectors (which are apparently hired out by Crey per the lore given in some missions).

 

(Edit: Actually, when you get down to it, the friction between Longbow and Vanguard reminds me of PRIMUS and UNTIL from the Champions universe. Not the CO game, the pen and paper game.)

Edited June 5 by Rudra

[PeregrineFalcon]

22 hours ago, Chris24601 said:

Their very existence is basically a war crime...

No, it isn't. Academi, formerly Xe, formerly Blackwater, is a private corporation that hires out mercenaries contractors all over the world. They've even worked for the US Federal Government. It's not only not a war crime, it's not even illegal in most nations.

 

On 6/4/2024 at 2:41 PM, Rudra said:

I don't get the hate for Longbow over their weaponry. Comparing them to the PPD in Praetoria?

Longbow uses flamethrowers against civilians. The UN Protocol On Incendiary Weapons forbids using incendiary weapons on civilians. So they could be prosecuted either under terrorism or war crimes statutes.

 

Now I'm going to guess that in the Paragon City universe there's an exception to this for civilians who are super powered. Or perhaps people who are super powered aren't considered civilians. It's also likely that both Freedom Corps and Longbow have some kind of authorization from the US and/or the UN.

 

None of which is to say that I consider Longbow to be the good guys, because I don't. I view them more like I view police in the US. Most try to be good guys, but ultimately they're just cogs in a bureaucratic machine.

[Rudra]

21 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

Longbow uses flamethrowers against civilians. The UN Protocol On Incendiary Weapons forbids using incendiary weapons on civilians. So they could be prosecuted either under terrorism or war crimes statutes.

To the best of my knowledge, flamethrowers have been illegal for use as weapons even against enemy combatants ever since the resolution of WWII and is only cleared for use in clearing vegetation. That said, we have fire-based heroes and villains flinging fire everywhere without a care about anything that is ignitable or flammable in their vicinity in the game. (Edit: Seriously, sooooooooooooo many buildings in the game should have burned to the ground from the fire-based characters using AoE fire attacks in them. [Edit again: Or just from the missed fire attacks hitting anything in said buildings.]) So my guess is that the rules about fire as a weapon wasn't established in the CoX universe because that would make any fire-based hero an automatic war criminal just for their super powers unless they only use them as directed for fire-based weapons in our world.

 

Add to that a world with super powered beings in it tends to view those beings as not civilians in most presentations of said world I have read/seen. If you have super powers and you are using them? In many fictional worlds that have them, you fall under a different classification than 'civilian' even if you aren't part of any military organization. In other worlds, you are automatically a criminal. In yet other worlds, you are automatically a weapon, not even granted consideration as a human. So on and so forth. So I'm going to go out on a limb as far as CoX goes and assume that fire-based weapons being used against beings designated as 'super powered' isn't a crime in that world for whatever reason.

Edited June 6 by Rudra

[UltraAlt]

10 hours ago, mistagoat said:

It's like they were designed with the assumption that you have chosen flight as your travel power, Grandville is a nightmare for a super speeder!

 

They were specifically designed to be vertical intentionally.

I agree, and if superspeed wasn't restricted to horizontal surfaces it wouldn't be nearly as a bad.

Even jumping to get to where you want to go is more difficult in the Isles than it is in the rest of the game ... especially in Grandville. (But I would be remiss to not to point out the Shadow Shard)

 

10 hours ago, mistagoat said:

Every now and then I get bored of doing the same blue side stuff and I feel like I should go play some red side. I play a couple missions, get frustrated, and head right back to blue side.

 

[biostem]

1 hour ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

Longbow uses flamethrowers against civilians. The UN Protocol On Incendiary Weapons forbids using incendiary weapons on civilians

Do the laws against things like using flamethrowers even exist within the CoH universe?  Even sanctioned groups, like the PPD, use heavy weaponry openly and at times, within mere feet of civilians.

 

For me, it's CoV not having hit the mark, with respect to allowing our villain characters to pursue their own machinations;  When you create a villain, it should give you a few basic "tracks" as far as what your character's motivations are, such as power, madness, wealth, etc, with systems in place to switch said motivations, with all but a few contacts serving to help you further your goals, not theirs...

[Vic Raiden]

In regards to the Longbow war crime digression, I'll just add that international law in a setting where superheroes are commonplace is a whole other rabbit hole. You gotta account not only for people with superpowers, but also for countermeasures against them for use by "normal" people, and then you remember mundane weapons may or may not be technically also superpowers alongside martial arts, and ultimately it gets so confusing that you go 'screw it, there's no such thing as war crimes anymore' because it's easier to just not care than to try and make sense out of any of that.

[biostem]

1 minute ago, Vic Raiden said:

In regards to the Longbow war crime digression, I'll just add that international law in a setting where superheroes are commonplace is a whole other rabbit hole. You gotta account not only for people with superpowers, but also for countermeasures against them for use by "normal" people, and then you remember mundane weapons may or may not be technically also superpowers alongside martial arts, and ultimately it gets so confusing that you go 'screw it, there's no such thing as war crimes anymore' because it's easier to just not care than to try and make sense out of any of that.

Well, IIRC, the Rogue Isles are technically a sovereign nation, so Longbow are invaders, there...

[Rudra]

2 minutes ago, biostem said:

Well, IIRC, the Rogue Isles are technically a sovereign nation, so Longbow are invaders, there...

To the best of my understanding, they are sovereign as in independent of any nation in the world, but not a country or nation. They were first a French holding, then they claimed independence and got Britain to support them as a protectorate, but even that stopped as the leader of the Isles back then made deals with several other countries that helped secure their independence from any/all nations. I'm pretty sure the Rogue Isles are not a country in the CoX world.

[Chris24601]

13 hours ago, Rudra said:

To the best of my understanding, they are sovereign as in independent of any nation in the world, but not a country or nation. They were first a French holding, then they claimed independence and got Britain to support them as a protectorate, but even that stopped as the leader of the Isles back then made deals with several other countries that helped secure their independence from any/all nations. I'm pretty sure the Rogue Isles are not a country in the CoX world.

At a certain point you are what you demonstrate yourself to be. For all China’s insistence that it is not, at the end of the the day Taiwan is an independent country because everyone else treats it like one.

 

If unanimous consent of the world were required to make something officially a sovereign nation then Israel wouldn’t be a country. Most of its neighbors still do not recognize it as a sovereign country.

 

The Rogue Isles are a nation because Arachnos has been in control for more than half-a-century and behaves as if it were the legitimate government of the Rogue Isles and no one in all that time has been able to change that.

 

To try and drag this back to the topic at hand; one of the problems with Red Side is that the Rogue Isles, Longbow, etc. don’t actually hold together conceptually very well compared to Paragon City or Praetoria.

 

You don’t even think it’s a real country; I think it meets every meaningful criteria (and I swear somewhere in one of the missions or other bits of canon there’s a line about Arachnos having a UN representative… I can’t find it presently, but that’s way too random for my mind to have whipped it up out of nowhere… maybe it did, but until I finish my Ahab-like quest for the White Whale/Arachnos Ambassador through all the lore I’m not giving it up yet).

 

Basically, Paragon City makes sense as a post-invasion metropolis that is basically an American city except where specific events have altered it (in their Pre-CoV form Freedom Corp were just the vendors that PCs visited for early level enhancements and selling enhancements/inspirations which fits the original description as a private organization committed to assisting heroes). Registered Heroes were specifically set up as an adjunct to the police with laws that granted them a security level and police powers. The structure of the government and the role of various elements like Freedom Corps makes sense and the villains are criminal organizations acting within the city.

 

Similarly, Praetoria makes sense as a fascist dystopia in which the PC is a registered member of the Powers Division (and may or may not also be a member of the Resistance). The leadership again makes sense and within the game even the Resistance PC is undercover within Powers Division.

 

The Rogue Isles are just a mess. The relationship between Arachnos and RIP is weird. You have a clearance card and get training and enhancements through Arachnos, but also get attacked by Arachnos mobs just because the PCs need hostile mobs to fight. Longbow seems there mostly just to stir up trouble (and concoct awful schemes like using mind control on villains to make them your army) and give PCs another group that are actually ostensibly heroes to fight. Various corrupt corporations are present along with the Mob and…

 

… I’m just going to say it. The main reason Redside doesn’t work is it’s a Theme Park not a place built to actually function. It’s easy to plug conventional economics and politics into Paragon City and pretend it’s something that actually works.

 

Real care was taken in the Praetoria revamp to make it into a place that wasn’t just a bombed out mirror universe (i.e. more akin to The Justice Lords instead of Earth-3’s Crime Syndicate; the latter of which only isn’t a crater out of sheer narrative fiat that it be Prime Earth’s perfect mirror).

 

The Rogue Isles lacks that. It’s a Darwinian anarchy one moment, a tyrannical military dictatorship at others, a crony capitalist dystopia and an crime-ridden urban hellscape all smushed together into something that is trying to be all things to all villains at once. It would literally make more sense as some sort of villain theme park or Hunger Games type competition for who gets to live long enough to join Arachnos’ ranks than as any sort of even-remotely functional society.

 

Longbow is just a symptom of that lack of cohesion and decision to make CoV it’s own separate environment instead of an underlay of the criminal underworld to an otherwise functional city (ex. Gotham doesn’t have Mayor Bane or Joker except as a brief aberration).

 

“Shoot, we made it a setting where the villains are actually in charge, but need to give players the chance to punch heroes in the face. I know, let’s have the heroes conduct a military invasion of the isles!”

 

Its one thing for the government to be too weak and ineffectual to stop criminals. It’s another when TPTB actually want you to commit crime sprees to prove yourself worthy of membership.

 

The foundation of Redside just doesn’t work and that makes it hard for other elements of it to work.

[Rudra]

The bit about the UN you are referring to, if I remember it correctly, is that the Rogue Isles have an observer spot but not a voting spot in the UN. Setting that aside:

 

11 minutes ago, Chris24601 said:

The relationship between Arachnos and RIP is weird.

The relationship between Arachnos and the RIP is actually pretty defined. The RIP only have a presence on Mercy Island where they are a subordinate group but not part of Arachnos giving the impression of law enforcement. They only have a presence on Mercy Island because they are not the actual police force of the Isles, Arachnos is. The RIP's primary purpose is to test the newest villains arriving in the Isles. Yes, they are the police force in Mercy Island, for so long as the Arachnos presence on the island deems them sufficient for their assigned task, but their presence as law enforcers in the wasteland that is Mercy Island is superfluous. Beyond Mercy Island, Arachnos troops maintain the peace of the Isles. The RIP are just the initial test for new villains for Arachnos to see how the new villains deal with low threat problems like them.

 

The rest of your post? I pretty much agree with. Not all of it, but the differences are minor enough even to me to leave alone.

[Vic Raiden]

This read makes me wonder if the Rogue Isles have always been part of the plan for CoV, and whether the devs weren't considering indeed going with Paragon City's criminal underworld instead.

 

As things stand now, I feel like redside lore would need a LOT of retconning before it could actually start making sense.

 

Digressing a bit, but I've been doing some pure for-the-heck-of-it exploration of redside zones, and I have a newfound appreciation for how much more distinct eacch zone feels compared to blueside's monotonous cityscape.

[Chris24601]

17 hours ago, Rudra said:

The bit about the UN you are referring to, if I remember it correctly, is that the Rogue Isles have an observer spot but not a voting spot in the UN.

Thank you. Genuinely. It was driving me nuts.

 

So observer status currently includes the Holy See, Palestine, Taiwan and similar that are either very small or contested. That makes sense.

 

It’d still be nice to have something about Longbow’s invasion of a country having some sort of backing by another nation(s) and not just some hero with a private army unilaterally deciding it’s a good idea to try and overthrow a country.

 

I think part of the problem is it feels like it’s a “dog catches car… now what?” sort of situation. Just what is Longbow hoping to replace Arachnos with once they’ve completed their military campaign to completely excise Arachnos from control? Free elections among a population that is utterly dominated by super villains and criminal organizations? An oligarchy of Cage and Crey and AeonTech? Reforming RIP into a legitimate police force?

 

Or are they going to do the US standard of occupying it indefinitely while propping up a friendly government they picked, suffer ongoing attacks from local resistance until it gets too expensive in money and lives and they abandon it and any allies they had to a power vacuum where the successor is as bad or worse than the one they overthrew?

 

It may have made sense when it was written in 2005-6 when Ms. Liberty was an overly idealistic teenager (and the audience bought into America as the unabashed good guys bringing democracy to the world at the end of a gun)

 

But if it’s 2024* then Longbow’s efforts aee a near two decades long operation led by someone now pushing 40 and the audience for the story has long since grown sick of American military interventionism and its disastrous consequences for the people they’re ostensibly trying to save. 

 

Regarding the being more a theme park than something that actually functions I think the LiveDevs arguably made things worse during the Praetorian Invasion event when they broke the illusion by having Lord Recluse pronounce “Protect the Shrimping Industry! Do you think we survive on an endless cycle of crime!?!”

 

And now you’re left with that either being a non-canon joke by a dev poking fun at how stupid the Rogue Isles are as a concept -or- it’s a serious statement and… and that’s almost worse because now you have to justify why Arachnos tolerates ANY crime within its borders (outside of say a Hunger Games-ish arena for potential recruits to prove themselves) given it now actually has a real economy it needs to support to keep its military arms going.

 

Redside is a mess that isn’t coherent and exists only because back in the day Jack decided to make the CoV setting into something based on Doom’s Latveria (which in the Marvel Universe has ZERO crime because Doom crushes anyone who attempts it) instead of being Gotham to Paragon’s Metropolis.

 

I think it could mostly be fixable with some text changes and revamp of the RIP into a real (if Gotham-tier corrupt) police force (shifting certain contacts that are more “law and order” focused like Marshal Brass into the RIP… Brass is totally the Commissioner Gordon type trying to keep the corrupt cronyism of his bosses from blowing up the city) and then reframing Arachnos as just the top villain organization with their fingers in everything (i.e. puppetmasters who fixed the elections to keep Doc Aeon in power instead of just appointing him as Governor) and Grandville as essentially Arachnos’ Volcano Lair that only high level villains are allowed to visit.

 

Now you reframe Longbow as still a private army, but one hired by some of the few legitimate authorities of the Isles who know the RIP are completely outmatched in the war on crime. They’re not there to take over, they’re there

to keep things stable for the legitimate government.

 

You’re still broken out by Arachnos and dumped on Mercy Island (restore the original arrangement where you start in the wastes and have to work your way up to the city) because they’re actually looking for recruits/the Destined One, but now they’re more hands off until you get strong enough to be recruited by an Arachnos Patron though various underlings like Kalinda and existing Arachnos contacts can still make use of your abilities in the meantime… just not as an authority of the island; the actual authorities (RIP and Longbow and even Wyvern and the Legacy Chain in some places) are universally out to get you.

 

Basically, make the Rogue Isles into Gotham and Arachnos into the premiere villain group (akin to the Council or Nemesis, but bigger) and slowly rewrite the contacts from people treating you like lackeys to people offering you opportunities for profit** until you’re strong enough for Arachnos to reach out to you again (in the meantime you check in with the Arbiters to level up who evaluate you on your progress to be worthy of joining the organization).

 

* even if it’s decided that it’s officially still 2013 in the verse it’s still been nearly a decade and Ms. Liberty has long since stopped being a teenager… which is to say it’s stopped looking like an ill-conceived teenager’s plan and looks a lot like doubling down on stupid out of pride with no clear exit strategy nor plan for what to do if they actually won.

 

** A decent Redside perk I could see adding would be single-use summon powers for some of the contacts you’ve finished the story arc of. You did them a solid, so now they’ll do one favor for you in return. Yes, it’s unfair compared to hero rewards (where you’re helping out of altruism), but Redside is all about seizing the opportunities you care about… so it makes sense the rewards would be more tangible.

[Vic Raiden]

• I'm all for giving the Rogue Isles Police a greater role than just low-level thugs.
• Ousting Arachnos from the position of the Isles' official government would probably require a good number of map changes, if only to get rid of the omnipresent Arachnos banners or replace them with a new Rogue Isles flag.
• Summoning contacts from past arcs is already in the game, kind of. You can call upon your NPC teammates from Sgt. Schorr's arc once you complete it and satisfy certain requirements for each of them, and Mr. G's arc has some other folks summonable like that, I think.

[Chris24601]

So, I’ve been thinking of how to reframe Redside into something that makes more sense with a minimum of effort and retconning and I think I’ve hit on something along the lines of the Tina McIntyre and Maria Jenkins arcs that could work.

 

The gist of the concept? Through something akin to the Death of Statesman (i.e. the arc that retroactively removed Statesman and Sister Pyche even from the early game; everything Blueside now essentially happens AFTER WWD?)…Longbow “wins.”

 

By “wins” I mean Arachnos is successfully pushed out of the majority of the Rogue Isles*.

 

For Mercy Island this means reverting to the old map layout. Fort Cerebus is the last stronghold of Arachnos outside of Grandville and used as the launching point for their insidious plan to retake the isles (and the world) - Project Destiny. New villains scooped from the streets of Paragon or liberated from the Zig are dumped there and told to “prove themselves worthy” of being contacted by Arachnos in the future.

 

Now new characters have to fight through to the elevated walled city now guarded by RIP with Longbow advisors trying to keep order (and stretched thin so there’s plenty of opportunities for new villains to start their careers). Replace the texture maps of any Arachnos flags/signs with a new “Free Etoile Isles” one and maybe the Arachnos wall textures with something a little less shiny and a bit battered.

 

At Port Oakes replace any Arachnos patrols with RIP and ditto for the signage. Any Arachnos contacts are now out of sight instead of the middle of streets. The ghost fortress still has the same contact, but with a little dialogue tweaking they’re dealing with the rogue ghost Arachnos not as an authority, but as an operative trying to complicate RIP/Longbow’s attempts at uncovering Arachnos’ many experiments regarding the ghosts there.

 

In Cap Au Diablie, Doc Aeon is overthrown (and has withdrawn to a hidden lair somewhere on the island… I’d personally make it one of the doors on the Architect Entertainment building) and Marshall Brass is now working with RIP to clean up all the potential ‘landmines’ left behind (including pretty much the same missions as before). The BaneSpider Reuben mission becomes one of figuring out HOW Longbow turned all the Cap villains against Arachnos and ends with you freeing the villains and destroying the Longbow base… handing Longbow its first big setback in a long time.

 

As you can see, a LOT of the needed changes are more contextual than requiring entirely new missions. Sharkhead and Nerva require little actual adjustment… for Nerva leave Arachnos doing it’s experiments out in the jungles and swap out the small amounts of Arachnos on both for RIP** and repeat the pattern of swapping out the texture map for any Arachnos flags and walls.

 

The only place I might do a serious revamp to is the Arachnos base on Saint Martial (with the large one on Sharkhead as a stretch goal) or, at least, relocating the arrival ferry to closer to the Golden Giza and main strip of the island.

 

The final physical change for all the islands would be to remove Grandville from the Ferry Lines and make it accessible only via the Black Helicopter line (with a beefed up troop presence around the flyer indicating it’s basically only there long enough to pick up villains and ferry them elsewhere… for serious bonus points make the flyer invisible and clicking the nearby Arachnos agent causes it to “decloak” as part of the animation before you jump aboard it) and the Submarine line. Park a sub several flyers on the dock where the Ferry used to be.

 

The story holding everything together becomes the Rogue Isles are a fragile and corrupt government. Arachnos seeks to regain control over the Isles and has relaunched Project Destiny to try and overwhelm the isles with crime and to seek powerful operatives to fill their ranks after their loss to Longbow.

 

You make your way through the Isles committing whatever crimes you care to and staying ahead of the local authorities and the supergroups (Longbow, Wyvern, Legacy Chain) backing them (plus all the other criminals working from the shadows) until you have done enough for Arachnos to reach out to you on behalf of the Patrons. You then learn of Recluse’s true plans and must prove yourself even stronger… marking you as an even greater villain (or more clever rogue) than even Recluse.

 

In terms of genuine new content; open up Red and Blue to all alignments, add some hero missions to the Rogue Isles and villain missions to Paragon City (establish a villain hub in the Paragon sewer network akin to the Resistance bases in Praetoria). Then fill in Kallisti Wharf with level 40-50 hero and villain content for a place for those who want to avoid Arachnos to find mission content.
 

* for ease of art/story assets Arachnos maintains control of Grandville as its “Volcano Base” that only elite (high level) villains are invited to visit.
 

** To require less revamping of general models, higher level RIP should use re-purposes Arachnos gear (bits of body armor and weapons akin to Grant Creston in First Ward using bits of IDF armor) just repainted because that’s what’s most readily available.

[Lunar Ronin]

I was perusing the archive of the old blue boards tonight (thank you @Michiyo ), when I came across an old post of mine quoting some game statistics Paragon Studios released in April 2011.  Unfortunately, the game statistics Paragon Studios released appear to be lost in the sands of time.  However, according to my post from thirteen years ago, City of Heroes had a roughly 60% hero/40% villain population, per the statistics Paragon Studios released.  Granted, I'm biased, but I think I'm a pretty reliable second hand source.

 

According to a Reddit AMA, when the game sunset a year and a half later, the game's population was roughly 80% hero/20% villain.  That's a pretty big drop in villain population.  Why would that be?  That's easy.  Side switching (which became available a few months before the statistics were released), and the ability to create all ATs blue side several months after.  So it's pretty clear that the red side ATs were a big part of the draw that red side once had.  I'm not sure, what, if anything, can be done to make up for that.  That was a mechanical game advantage or draw that red side had, not a flavor one.