I have a confession to make: I was a City of Heroes junkie. Looking at City of Villains (CoV to those in the know) makes me want to have a relapse. <?xml:namespace prefix = st2 />Dave "Zeb" Cook was on hand at NCSoft's suite to show me some of the tricks to becoming a villain that all heroes may want to soon learn. CoV looks to expand the CoH universe in many cool and interesting ways. First off, it will be the jumping off point for supergroup base building, which has been eagerly anticipated since CoH's release over a year ago. Also, as a bonus there will be the concept of base raiding—this will really give your characters a good reason for having that auto-targeting turret near the sofa back at base.

Zeb told me that Cryptic had 3 goals when crafting CoV: 1) They wanted to make you feel like a villain, 2) They wanted to introduce PvP into general gameplay, and 3) Base building needed to be fun for Supergroups. Judging by what they had to show at E3 I'd have to say that they seem to be on target. One of the ways they felt they could make players feel like a villain was to provide cool costumes for them to choose from. I got to play around with this costume creation content on the show floor. Those familiar with CoH's costume design screen will be in familiar waters when they get their hands on this tool.

Of course looking like a villain is only part of the equation—there have to be many and various villainous deeds for the miscreant to engage in as well. Cryptic is bulking up their already impressive lineup with 7 more PvE zones and 4 PvP zones which will be unique to CoV. The setting is known as the Rogue Isles, which is ruled by the villain group Arachnos…and the head of Arachnos is the villainous Lord Recluse who has been the poster boy for CoV since it was first announced. The proving ground for new players is believed to be called Mercy Island, which is infested with snake-men, apparently. That Lord Recluse knows how to show newbies a good time, eh? As players explore more of the Rogue Isles, they will have the opportunity to take on missions such as robbing banks, kidnapping, working for various villain groups (including the Circle of Thorns from CoH), and just about any other villainous deed under the sun.

These missions will be challenging to those who take them on, however, because some familiar faces from the CoH side of the game may show up—to hinder you. These familiar faces include Positron, Minx, Statesman, and possibly some other heroes familiar to CoH players. These elements will be revealed in a new twist in CoH/CoV gameplay. There will be a very short cutscene as the hero arrives to foil your evil plans. This will heighten the cinematic feeling of the game.

Another new feature will be the introduction of real-time physics to the game. Finally those with Knockback on their powers can enjoy their foes flying away from them in a variety of ways! This will provide for some cool situations in gameplay, as well as make the world seem more real and vibrant. Explosions looked exceptionally tasty with this new technology.

In terms of the base building feature, it looked awesome, with many options to customize the space however you would like. There were many options for furniture, recreation, and automatic base defenses. Base building will not be cheap however…expect to spend Influence like mad as you throw in all the cool junk your heroes just have to have! All in all it's shaping up to be an excellent addition to the game. It's easy enough that the average gamer will understand how to begin building and customizing their base right away, yet seemed deep enough that players will have the opportunity to keep themselves entertained with the base building portion for quite some time.

All in all I eagerly look forward to the release of City of Villains. I've made many friends on several servers in CoH—playing CoV will allow me to show them the other side of my personality—all in good fun, of course. Mwuhahahahahahaaa!