Do you need to be the good guy?

[Super Firebug]

Does anyone else find it hard to conduct himself, in a game, in a way that he wouldn't in real life? I tried playing a few villains in CoV, and, as long as I was working against the other criminal groups, I could feel like I was still fighting crime. The Rogue Isles PD were (largely) corrupt, so I could bring myself to fight them. But I had trouble with missions where I had to attack Longbow or other crime-fighters.

And when I hit the Vendetti arc, it was bad enough that I'd gone ahead and hurt Worthington, who was just trying to help his niece. But when I found out Vendetti's plans for the niece, that was it. I could see doing that to someone who was part of the criminal world (part of The Game, to use a "Highlander" term). But using an innocent, and planning to heal her so that he could get her killed as his revenge.... It took me by surprise, and I was actually so sickened that I couldn't load CoV for months. I very much wanted a way to stop Vendetti, and rescue the niece (after she was cured, of course), as a way of correcting for the fact that I had helped him to set up that plan.

I know that lots of game-players can compartmentalize that sort of thing, and, for instance, commit vicious, people-hurting crimes in GTA. But something in me is wired so that I just have to be the good guy. To quote Bob the Guardian, from "ReBoot": "I guess I just can't go against my programming." Does anyone else experience this, to some degree?

I can imagine that someone will recommend that I try to break through that wall and "free" myself, but I don't want to. :shrug:

[Heroette]

That is the reason I hardly ever played "redside".  I just felt really bad beating up the good guys.  So, yes (for me).  My morality says for me to be good and so I am, even in my game playing (and I try in real life, which is harder to do, but not impossible).

[Tenzhi]

I've been a DM, so Evil comes as naturally to me in roleplaying as Good, though I prefer the latter (or better yet, a moderate "balanced" approach).

[JaguarX]

Does anyone else find it hard to conduct himself, in a game, in a way that he wouldn't in real life? I tried playing a few villains in CoV, and, as long as I was working against the other criminal groups, I could feel like I was still fighting crime. The Rogue Isles PD were (largely) corrupt, so I could bring myself to fight them. But I had trouble with missions where I had to attack Longbow or other crime-fighters.

I can imagine that someone will recommend that I try to break through that wall and "free" myself, but I don't want to. :shrug:

Well I suspect some people are not all that heroic in real life but had no qualms playing a hero and thus some probably had no issues roleplaying and conducting themselves differently online. And on forums I suspect most people that act like wild hooligans probably would say the stuff nor act like they do in real life face to face with a person.

Me, meh, I play either side with no qualms, what ever is fun with no reflection of who I am in real life. I'm not a super powered being nor a super powered villain nor would I randomly run over pedestrians and beat cops to death with a baseball bat. It's a game.

Even in games that come close to stuff I used to do in real life like certain FPS dealing with soldiers. In game, I have no qualms about robbing a dead body for weapons ammo and other items to use for myself even if I dont need it and leave the body laying there (unless I absoultely have to). Nor would I use a grenade to blow up just one person when a bullet would have sufficed or sneak up behind someone and shank them when I could get them to give up nor kill just for points and get on the high score board. But in game, anything goes.

[JKPhage]

When it comes to console games, where you have sort of an established avatar, yes, I find it VERY difficult to ever play an evil path. I've played all the Fable games, and when Fable 2 came out, I saw a pure/evil female screenshot and thought she looked really cool, but the only way I could stand to make myself look that way was by raising rent and prices way to high, haha. I couldn't bring myself to kill anyone, or steal, or anything else reprehensible. Same thing with InFamous. If someone was lying in the street, I didn't care if I had 50 transients on my tail, I stopped to revive them, and if I accidentally hurt someone, I'd do the same. Even if they're just digital beings I still just can't enjoy being a bad person.

COX on the other hand, I had no issues with at all. I'm a writer myself, and I enjoy creating characters and working out their motivations and such, and whenever I played COX it always felt like writing a new character's story rather than being evil myself. I was reasoning out how Diablofly wanted to make a clone army because she was psychotic and wanted to fill the world with her beautiful (mutant insectoid) face, or how Lily Wicked was willing to beat up on Doctor Aeon to earn some street cred with Arachnos, but when they went after her fellow spunky lady Amanda Vines, well... she was willing to ACT like she was trying to stop the broadcast, because she knew firsthand that you don't play around with demon magic. I viewed certain arcs and situations as sounding boards for "How would 'character' react to this?" Some of my villains were just money hungry, and they stuck to more bank heist/mayhem/jailbreak kind of crime, others wanted power and were willing to step on a few heroes and take a few hostages to get it, maybe even dabbled in a bit of dark magic, and even a few were severely mentally broken and honestly did terrible things for messed up reasons that defy explanation to anyone but them. I picked and chose missions/arcs based on what I thought that particular character would do.

That's one reason I had such trouble playing through Praetorian content, honestly. I would finish a Loyalist arc and see something so utterly disgusting from them that I'd defect to Resistance, and by the time the next morality mish rolled around I'd have been so put off by their methods that I'd decide maybe the Praetors weren't so bad after all, then by the time I got to level 20 my poor characters were so messed up in the head from alignment whiplash that I didn't know WHAT I wanted to do with them, haha.

[dwturducken]

I never really had a problem changing sides. I actually had a lot of fun, years ago, in a D&D session where my character was replaced by a doppleganger. I even played a couple of evil characters, in other sessions. It's not how I am, but it's just a game. I wouldn't expect Harrison Ford to be able to carry on an in-depth conversation about archeology, because he's just an actor.

The problem I had was that, aside from a couple of new "gangs," you basically were doing the same kind of missions as on blue side. Sure, you were kidnapping someone instead of rescuing them, but the basic mechanic of the mission was the same. I spent a lot of time, over there. My only 50 was on red side, but I liked the archetypes better.

[saipaman]

I never switched a red-side character over to blue-side.

I simply could not suspend my belief that there was no hope of redemption for characters that were serial mass murders.

[Super Firebug]

Even if they're just digital beings I still just can't enjoy being a bad person.

I know this one will be hard to believe. I was playing "Search & Rescue 2" (a helicopter flight sim, where you, as a Coast Guard pilot, rescued people). The mission was to fly out to a cruise ship, take aboard an elderly passenger suffering from food poisoning, fly him to the hospital, and land on the roof helipad; just touching down (and maybe shutting down the engines? I forget) counted him as saved. On the way to the hospital, I kept getting updates from the medic, saying that the man was getting worse and worse. With each update, I tried to coax a little more speed out of the chopper. As we approached the hospital, I lined up my flight path, and set myself to charge in and massively dump off speed at the last moment. But I had overestimated how quickly I could slow down, and grossly overshot the roof. I turned around, and charged back to the helipad, but, before I crossed the edge of the roof, the medic said that the old guy had died. I actually felt bad about the fact that my actions had kept me from saving him.

Digital they may be, but that doesn't keep me from getting enough into the game to want to help.

[houtex]

As much as I enjoyed playing heroes and Blueside, and was ok with the Praetorian Gold... There was something viscerially satisfying for me when I was playing Cerise Dawn.  Out of all my redside characters, hers was as twisted up and evil as Wesley Phipps, or Joker in TDK.  She was insane with rage, and wanted... NEEDED... to have everyone else hurt.  That whole "Destined One" thing was but a stepping stone to her real conquest... Torturing and eliminating everyone on the planet, until she was the last one left, so that everyone would know her pain of loss.

Yeah, she was a little nutz.

But I loved it, because she was using her Mind/Psi powers for one purpose: Inflicting pain on you poor bastidges.  That she could also throw you around was bonus, but really she lived to literally liquify your brains in a horrific, agonizing fashion.  Or at least.. that's how I 'saw' her using those powers, although we all know they were proliferated from a 'Troller and 'Fender set, and weren't supposed to be that vicious in use.

Whatever.  Chick was mental, she was liquifying brains, and enjoying doing it, and that's that.

So no, I don't need to be the good guy.  I enjoy being the extremly vengeance driven psychotic bad guy.  Or gal, in her case.

[JaguarX]

As much as I enjoyed playing heroes and Blueside, and was ok with the Praetorian Gold... There was something viscerially satisfying for me when I was playing Cerise Dawn.  Out of all my redside characters, hers was as twisted up and evil as Wesley Phipps, or Joker in TDK.  She was insane with rage, and wanted... NEEDED... to have everyone else hurt.  That whole "Destined One" thing was but a stepping stone to her real conquest... Torturing and eliminating everyone on the planet, until she was the last one left, so that everyone would know her pain of loss.

Yeah, she was a little nutz.

But I loved it, because she was using her Mind/Psi powers for one purpose: Inflicting pain on you poor bastidges.  That she could also throw you around was bonus, but really she lived to literally liquify your brains in a horrific, agonizing fashion.  Or at least.. that's how I 'saw' her using those powers, although we all know they were proliferated from a 'Troller and 'Fender set, and weren't supposed to be that vicious in use.

Whatever.  Chick was mental, she was liquifying brains, and enjoying doing it, and that's that.

So no, I don't need to be the good guy.  I enjoy being the extremly vengeance driven psychotic bad guy.  Or gal, in her case.

yeah one of my "heroes" on CO just simply enjoy hurting people. When she was in Rogue isle, she liked it but wanted to be praised for it, and not constantly looking over her shoulder for both villains she ticked off and PPD,  rewarded for her work, given the key to the city and a penthouse. Thus she started a new leaf in MC and now she can hurt all the villains she want and no one get wise and people love her for it and she gets to do what she enjoys most- hurting people.

[Twi]

My first time through in games, I tend to play the villain where I can.

Wasn't applicable to CoH since I started pre CoV, though.

[Rust]

The only game I've played a bad guy and actively enjoyed it was Star Wars: The Old Republic as a Sith Warrior.

Turning the Jedi Padawan to the Dark Side is so deliciously sadistic.

But for the most part, I play the goodie-goodies. Heck, I try to obey traffic laws in GTA.

[FatherXmas]

In GTA 3 I thought of myself as being deep undercover.

It's probably one of the reasons I couldn't really get into CoV even though I liked the Rogue Isles, I'm just to darn LG.

[Ceremonius]

Well nothing against Villains, but in CoV I just managed to get 1 (in word ONE) character to 50.
Somehow I didn't liked how it felt to be villianous in CoV. Also I do mostly play the evil guys, or at least characters who serve their own vigilantism.

Means in SWG I was a high ranking soldier of the Empire, also torturing the suspicous. Yeah I did lived in a hardcore roleplaying city in that game.
Server: Farstar
Planet: Naboo
City: Sunrise Beach

Back in Ultima Online I served as evil'ish minion of a Vampire Lady. Plotting, scheming, and corrupting the lawful citizen in the nearest town. Also fighting the holy order . Also no one knew that I was her servant.

Somehow CoH/V was the first game I didn't managed to play a evil character. Maybe because I felt somehow always way to powerless for being an "super"-villain.

[FlyingCarcass]

Whenever I play a villain in a video game, I find it fun to go full "MWUHAHA!". Of course, it would be nice if more games allowed villainous characters to do more than just randomly slaughter folks.

On a side note, I wish my copy of Evil Genius would work on my current computer without constantly crashing. Now -that- game was "Mwuhaha!" worthy, mostly due to the trap-making.

[Dollhouse]

Never had a problem playing bad guys. Although I'm an "immersion junkie roleplayer," my characters are most definitely not me. I try to make each character a distinct individual...and some of 'em ain't so nice.

[dwturducken]

The only game I've played a bad guy and actively enjoyed it was Star Wars: The Old Republic as a Sith Warrior.

Turning the Jedi Padawan to the Dark Side is so deliciously sadistic.

But for the most part, I play the goodie-goodies. Heck, I try to obey traffic laws in GTA.

Oh, now I have to make a Jedi and make all Dark Side choices, just to see what happens...

And, obeying the traffic laws is just good sense. You have to keep the heat off when you're in a hot car. unless it's a tank. You can't drive nonchalantly in a tank.

[Felderburg]

I prefer being the good guy. Probably because most of the stuff I read or played growing up was about good guys. In the KOTOR games, I went light side; Mass Effect, paragon. In CoH, I could never get into being a villain. Part of it was the powers, I guess, and part of it was the fact that there was only two starting contacts I did over and over whenever I made a new villain, but mostly it was the fact that I vastly preferred hero side. Even when I finally found a villain whose powers and costume I liked (created by a friend of mine, which might be telling) I made it up to 50 mostly because I was determined to get to 50 to experience the content, rather than because I enjoyed being a villain. I mostly had fun smashing things, and did *not* enjoy Phipps at all.

I actually vaguely remember a conversation with my college roommate and @Victim51 (RIP) who lived down the hall from me. @Victim51 noticed that I was stopping to save people being mugged in Atlas, and started poking fun at me for saving fake people. I wish I could recall exactly what my roommate said, but it led to @Victim51 saying "And we're real!" It was funny in context, but it goes to show that I do prefer being the good guy - even if it means stopping my rush from one thing to another to help an NPC in Atlas.

[Heroette]

I would stop in Atlas to help the NPC that was being robbed all the time.  I just like to help (even though the NPC's were pretty dumb.  I mean, what were they doing alone on the roof top in the first place?).

[Thunder Glove]

Never had a problem playing bad guys. Although I'm an "immersion junkie roleplayer," my characters are most definitely not me. I try to make each character a distinct individual...and some of 'em ain't so nice.

This, exactly.  I love my villains, but I am not my villains.  Or my heroes, for that matter.

And my villains aren't all the same.  Thunder Glove was a relatively deep character, a Hero-turned-Villain in backstory, and later (thanks to the alignment system) Villain-turned-Rogue, when Arachnos ordered him to murder children; Dr. Bodog, on the other hand, was a classic Golden Age mad scientist, cackling as he sent his robots out to destroy everything in their wake, and god help the hero who gets in his way, who gleefully did even Weston Philips' missions without hesitation.

Of course, I sometimes (okay, frequently) broke character if there was just an arc (heroic, villainous, or otherwise) I wanted to do with them.  (Because, yes, it's just a game, and I liked them as much as piles of powers and numbers as I did characters.  Even then, I could justify it through Thunder Glove's remaining heroic impulses, and Dr. Bodog's enjoyment of being in the spotlight, demanding awe and fear from onlookers)

... dammit, I miss this game so much.