CoV – neglected stepchild or whinging players?

I mentioned this article to a few people over the last couple of weeks, so I should probably link to it. The gist can be summed up in the following:

CoV is definitely the weaker cousin to CoH. It has some better features – the majority of missions being in the same zone as the contact who gives them is a big one – but it has a lot less content and seemingly fewer players. Sure, CoV is a newer title than CoH and it did get one issue since that was a big content update, but it still lags behind. I’ve noticed that the majority of dev focus seems to be on CoH […]

Part of the problem is that CoV is tied to a storyline that makes perfect sense (well, close enough if you pay any attention to the schemes of supervillains – “find the Destined One who will eventually kill you” is par for the course) for the Rogue Isles setting where villains are based, but at the same time hamstrings much further development. There isn’t a lot of leeway in the Destined One metaplot to do something different or to spin things another way while still keeping it part of the narrative. CoH doesn’t
suffer that fate – because its lacks one overarching story that holds everything together, new storylines can be patched in without disrupting anything. As an example, Striga Isle and Croatoa both are additions to CoH that don’t require a lot of explanation. They are just there for heroes to enter and get drawn into the in-zone story arc.

Villains don’t get that kind of freedom. Everything tha that happens in the Rogue Isles happens under the purview of Lord Recluse and (at least in part) according to the Destined One prophecy. While a zone could be added that provided additional insight to that prophecy, that particular storyline has a fixed beginning and end while the middle is pretty well defined. More zones could be added to the middle act of the metaplot, sure, but it would mostly likely appear shoehorned in and / or not contribute much to
the overall narrative.

There’s something to be said for that. Part of it is part-and-parcel trying to justify a “City of Villains” — well, in the Rogue Isles you have have a meta-villain organization running the shots and keeping things (conspiracies notwithstanding) from completely melting down. The “Destined One” bit provides some focus and potential conflict within that structure.

In contrast, nobody needs to justify a “City of Heroes” — you don’t have to have all super-heroes working for the government more-or-less (“Civil War” notwithstanding). There’s much more literary basis behind CoH; CoV had to be bound by a storyline to give an excuse for a realm of super-powered criminals and evil-doers. (In fact, that’s something of a justification right there — CoV is really a sop, and properly a second-hand one, for those folks who have to play super-villains, an unsupported
aberration in the genre that the CoX franchise is dereived from.)

On the other hand, one reason why there’s been so much focus on CoH in the last issue or two is … well, it was more broken, or further behind the times. Faultline was a badly-needed boost to the 15-20 range, which was otherwise stuck in the most primitive (RP- and art-wise) zones in the game. Adding some new, broad plots (the Fifth Column, the Return of the Rikti) would help freshen up CoH material that’s been around for three years, rather than a year or so for CoV. And some of the potentially
most profound changes — the whole (bleah) crafting/inventions system — will be for both sides of the CoX house.

Whatever. I’m still having fun.