Watched an old interview with Posi yesterday in which he mentioned the problems that arose with developing new content in a post-City of Villains world. Things I'd heard before, and which make a lot of practical sense, particularly from a business standpoint- what kinds of choices do you make in developing new content for, effectively, two different groups- do you create Hero only content, Villain only content, or try to find a middle ground somehow (usually by creating content for both sides). When you have only limited resources and time and a large player base, the decision is tough.
It got me to thinking about what I call the Praetorian Dilemma- in creating Going Rogue, they effectively made their job even more difficult, by providing yet a third "faction" demanding content.
Don't get me wrong- the Praetorian content is my favorite by far in the game, and I wish they'd been able to continue the Loyalist/Resistance throughline for First and Night Ward, all the way up to level 50. That, and proliferate similar story elements- going undercover, story-arc associated side switching (as opposed to the Morality Missions)- into both the Hero and Villain sides.
It made me wonder, though, given the limited resource pool problem, if they wouldn't have been better served by putting the Going Rogue elements into the existing Hero/Villain factions rather than creating Praetoria.
I'm not sure if it would have been more difficult to do (retrofitting, effectively)- particularly with the spaghetti code of the game- which may have had something to do with the choice to create a new set of zones to play with, but maybe it would have been a better solution overall?
On top of that, it got me wondering- where/how would they have been able to incorporate elements of the Praetorian storyline into H/V?
I'm guessing that organizations like Longbow (or, perhaps more likely, Wyvern) would have been used for the Vigilante faction- heroes operating in the Rogue Isles and/or Paragon City who walk a grey area between hero and villain, and who might end up turning completely in one direction or another. Hero Corps could have been another, though given their lower profile, they might have worked better in a series of story arcs echoing the character's and showing corruption and/or heroism.
I'm not sure what a suitable Rogue organization might have been, though. My first thought was Crey- an organization that is ultimately run by villainous types, but that clearly must have heroic (if naive) people working for it in humanitarian fashion. Another one that came to me that might have worked was the RIPD- Rogue Isles Police Division. It would have been an organization that would certainly have been rife with corruption but that also featured people who were genuinely interested in the well being of the citizens of the Rogue Isles. Perhaps a big storyline reveal might show that the founder/benefactor of the RIPD was actually a heroic personage of note or something.
They could also have worked some of the Co-Op zones into the storylines somehow- Warburg in particular comes to mind as a "grey area" zone where the machinations and goals of Marshal Blitz might have come into conflict with the Rogues/Vigilantes.
