Seriously, it's canon.
The enemy factions in City of Heroes are fantastically well realised. Each has a distinct array of powers and so the experience of fighting any one faction is different from that of fighting any other. Even the low level street thugs - the Skulls, the Hellions, the Outcasts and the Trolls - all differ in multiple ways from each other.
It goes beyond that though, with each group also being defined by their appearance and their behaviour, in and out of combat. CoH tells the player a lot about the enemies they face indirectly, through their dialogue, where they can be found, and what they're doing when they're not fighting heroes or villains. It's rare in the open world zones to encounter mobs that are just standing there waiting to be aggro'd, as is the norm in so many other MMOs. Whether it's Clockwork dismantling cars, Hellions snatching purses or Skulls getting shade from their girlfriends, all but the most instinct driven mobs are usually doing something.
(The Hollows is one of the best showcases of this aspect of the game, with the idling gang members passing their time in often hilarious conversations, and reacting with a mix of resentment and relief to the arrival of a hero to fight.)
It's no exageration to say that some of the enemy factions of this game are more fully realised than the playable factions of some other MMOs, and one effect of this is to make some of them surprisingly likeable - especially the more comedic groups like the Skulls and the Hellions, and the always entertaining Freakshow.
The Circle of Thorns, however, is not one of the more likeable groups, and in the Warshade story arc they are downright despicable.
That's not say the CoT are a bad enemy group - far from it. Their roster includes some interesting and unique enemy types like the Spectrals and Hordelings, and while often lurking in caves they are also found in the subterranean city of Oranbega, which offers up some of the most interesting maps in the entire game. Richly detailed and atmospheric, with interactive features such as teleport portals and outcrops of healing (and harming) crystals, it's a far different experience from the ubiquitous warehouse and office maps of so much else of the game.
The Circle are also one of the tougher enemy factions, ramping up at the point when the Spectrals first appear (and debuff character accuracy into the ground at the point where it's already the worst it will ever be) and also being the first group to make heavy use of sleeps and holds.
That's usually at level 15+, but as a Warshade I've started encountering them a lot earlier. The epic archetypes, like the Praetoria content that came much later, presuppose a certain degree of experience with the game, but even so being chain stunned at level 7 came as something of a shock, and a reminder that CoH throws tough encounters at the player at a far lower level than any other MMO I can think of.
The reveal of why the Circle are interested in Warhades is fairly nasty stuff. The other reveal - that they're specifically targetting Warshades because nobody likes them and nobody will miss them - has a rather meta quality to it, given the memetic dislike of the AT among (some) players.
Which is why you shouldn't hate on Warshades. The Circle of Thorns do, and they're bad guys. Not only that but they're not the fun type of bad guys. You don't really want to be like them, do you?
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