I really hate dreaming. I hate dreaming about something so cool to only wake up and have it not exist. This is the case today.
I had a dream about a followup game to CoH. (No, it wasn't Heroes & Villains, unless I can see into the future with my dreams. If that's the case, then yay for me!)
The dream I had you started out with zero powers. Basically you were human living in a world where super powers were eradicated by an overlord that figured out how to deactivate super-powered genes that are inside everyone. it was set into the not-too-distant future of Paragon City. All of the signature heroes and villains were there, just that they were average people since being "deactivated." We all just had to get along doing average things while this overlord ruled with a firm hand.
There was, however, a rebellion forming of both former heroes and villains, uniting to take to battle against this overlord and his minions. By a secret contact method, you were recruited but you still were an average human. If you're not careful, you can die... permanently. (well, not really.)
You are given a series of tasks to help the former signature heroes regain their powers. In turn, you can have the powers of the heroes you helped implanted in you. So while you are restoring a former hero to glory once again, you can learn from them and take their powers. This allows you to help countless contacts while implanting their powers. So imagine a never ending chain of contacts that you could take powers from.
In essence, it would be free-form power selecting, changable on a whim, as long as you earned those powers by helping restore the powers to heroes and villains.
Along the way, depending on who you helped (heroes or villains) you would slowly turn from good to bad and back again, all the while affecting YOUR endgame. If you're not evenly helping both heroes and villains, those that you helped more will define who you become. But there is a price to aligning yourself too far to each side. If you follow the hero chain 100%, it can lead you to become arrogant and self absorbed. In a sense, you "could" become like Tyrant since you are allowing only heroes to prevail and allowing villains to be destroyed. If you become too evil from following the villain path, your mind could become warped into thinking that you should be the only true villain and would cause you to start destroying other villains to make that a reality.
All of the missions in the game revolve around what makes you, well, YOU. There are no "filler" missions. All content builds you into the character you choose to be.
After I woke up and sat through a bit of depression that this didn't exist, it made me think on how to expand this. Sure, there would be achievements/badges that you can earn, but there should be some kind of use for each. Like selecting a badge title would grant/remove a bonus so you could have your charcter live the way you want them to.
Costumes? Well, don't get me wrong, I LOVE costumes. But earning costumes would be done by completing bonus tasks within each storyarc. Possibly tied to thousands of badges/achievements. (No, I'm not saying that you're stuck looking like everyone else. But since you are starting as a non-super, you can't just don tights and a cape.) The costume pieces you earn won't be like 1 pair of tights from each arc. Basically, as you progress, like when you complete an arc and unlock new powers from your patrons (see, EVERY hero/villain contact would be a patron) you have more ways to make your costume unique. So, if you restored War Witch's powers, you would unlock things like her hair. If you restored powers to Ghost Widow, you could then earn her hair, but combine it with War Witches style so it would be long and flowing, but multicolored and have bangs.
Now imagine the customization possibilities if there were 600 NPC contacts to restore powers to. Not only would you have the ability to pick and choose what powers you want, but you'd also have the ability to combine the looks from all 600 contacts to make yourself unique.
The ongoing endgame would have you constantly becoming more powerful, taking powers along the way and your goal is to figure out what powers best help you to overcome the overlord.
There would be no hero/villain zone restrictions. If you are a villain and decide to go heroside, you just blend into the crowd. But you can do missions that help further your path. Break inmates out of prison, earn their trust and you can pick and choose from those you rescued to be your minions. Same with being a hero and going villainside. You earn heroes to accompany you and help you out when you are in trouble.
I still have a lot of ideas to make more out of this dream, though I don't know what the use would be. I'm no developer. I'm just someone with an overactive imagination.
:/
