I have only played up to Level 3 as yet, which I assume is not very far into the overall game, and I don't want to have spoilers about where the plot is going eventually, but I did want to ask COC2's creator about his philosophy and objective when creating this experience. It seems to me as though COC2 is designed to be very much a sandbox kind of a game, where the player has a lot of control over which direction the experience evolves in (with certain annoying exceptions mostly revolving around the kind of sex that happens, but I'll save that rant for my Pet Peeves mini-thread). Given this, I was contemplating the use of Kashyrra (spelling, sorry) as the game's antagonist, and getting the impression that s/he seems to be an example of what TVTropes calls "Orcus on His Throne"...meaning that the arch-villain has ultra-diabolical intentions, and is often said to be actively pursuing some nefarious plan, but never actually seems to be in any real hurry about it. If the players feel like charging toward the final confrontation, they will arrive just in the nick of time to stop the Big Bad's awful scheme, while if they feel like farting around with NPC interactions or the Craft system or a bunch of fetch quests (or, in this case, just screwing everything that moves), then the villain will never actually get around to destroying the world or whatever. Because ultimately, from this design philosophy, the story isn't really about the villain destroying the world or whatever, the story is about the hero, and if the hero isn't in a hurry to face the villain, then the villain will just kill time until they show up.
There are several works of fiction which lampshade the Orcus On His Throne trope, such as in "The Order of the Stick" where Xykon flat-out tells Roy "go gain a few more levels before you fight me, so that I don't just mop the floor with you". Other works seem like they actively avert this trope; watching a well-written show like Babylon 5, you never really get the impression that either of the series' main villains (who I will avoid naming in case anybody doesn't know who they turn out to be) would simply ignore B5 indefinitely if it didn't eventually move against them. In the case of the early seasons of Stargate SG-1, we actually see both of these happening; the Goa'uld are explicitly scenery-chewing villains by deliberate in-character design, so it makes perfect sense that they simply ignored the Earth for thousands of years because it wasn't a threat to them, and then suddenly within a 10-year period they scrambled to try and defeat Stargate Command and were instead basically wiped out.
So, given all this, without wanting to have the outcome of the game spoiled, I wonder if Kashyrra's mission to corrupt and debauch everybody is just going to be an ongoing backdrop throughout the game, regardless of how much time I spend playing with my Alchemist Kit (or, erm, other sources of amusement), or if Day 57 rolls around and I'll suddenly get a Game Over because I didn't stop him/her in time.
There are several works of fiction which lampshade the Orcus On His Throne trope, such as in "The Order of the Stick" where Xykon flat-out tells Roy "go gain a few more levels before you fight me, so that I don't just mop the floor with you". Other works seem like they actively avert this trope; watching a well-written show like Babylon 5, you never really get the impression that either of the series' main villains (who I will avoid naming in case anybody doesn't know who they turn out to be) would simply ignore B5 indefinitely if it didn't eventually move against them. In the case of the early seasons of Stargate SG-1, we actually see both of these happening; the Goa'uld are explicitly scenery-chewing villains by deliberate in-character design, so it makes perfect sense that they simply ignored the Earth for thousands of years because it wasn't a threat to them, and then suddenly within a 10-year period they scrambled to try and defeat Stargate Command and were instead basically wiped out.
So, given all this, without wanting to have the outcome of the game spoiled, I wonder if Kashyrra's mission to corrupt and debauch everybody is just going to be an ongoing backdrop throughout the game, regardless of how much time I spend playing with my Alchemist Kit (or, erm, other sources of amusement), or if Day 57 rolls around and I'll suddenly get a Game Over because I didn't stop him/her in time.
