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Oh,
access to the shadow shard! It's a freaking cool area with a mix of drop types for 40+ characters. I don't care if it's a PvP area... just don't make it co-op. Heck, just make a hero one and a villain one. Identical except that we can't meet each other there. That's would be fine. I needs my shard
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I was just checking out Monster Island earlier tonight. It got me wondering what other bits of Paragon City could also be available to villains.
The Shadow Shard is the most logical choice. For one thing, it is in
serious need of an upgrade anyways. If it were to be made available to Villains, I think the best option would be a Co-op zone. The Villains could get their own base in the Shard, with some unique contacts and missions. The Shard is a big, treacherous, wilderness zone completely ruled by a powerful, alien entity. Heroes and Villains will need to team up not simply to fight back a common threat, but to survive.
Striga Isle is already a great zone and it doesn't really need any improvements. That said, not only is there no reason villains would be physically unable to land on Striga, Arachnos already has an interest in it (but to avoid spoilers, I won't say how). Striga is already shady; the Heroes feel a bit out of their jurisdiction. By making the content a little more neutral, Striga could become a great, lower-level cooperative meeting ground for Heroes and Villains.
Faultline is the only place inside Paragon City to have an above-ground Arachnos base. I think Villains should get access to instanced outdoor missions in Faultline. Giving Villains access to the Hero instance of the zone would be problematic since Heroes and Villains are at cross-purposes in the zone, so Co-Op is not an option, and turning Faultline into a PvP zone goes against the CoX design strategy of isolating PvP zones from PvE content. The other options would be to create a Villain instance of the zone separate from the Hero instance, or making Faultline a "non-cooperative" zone, in which Heroes and Villains can see each other but cannot attack or aid each other (like the 30 second non-PvP period in PvP zones). While these are interesting options, they are also problematic. For one, the zone would be backwards for Villains, with the higher level content at the beginning. Secondly, Faultline is a Hero
City zone, with an open highway tunnel leading directly into Skyway.
One possibility is to make a Villain instance of
Overbrook Dam, but not allow access to the rest of Faultline. Yes, it would be a small zone, but it could have some decent level 20-25 missions to get Villains into the very interesting Faultline story. The more I think about this option, the more I like it.
Boomtown will probably (hopefully) be getting the Faultine treatment eventually, so it's hard to comment. As it is now, it would seem a little difficult for Villains to get into since it's surrounded by War Walls. And, honestly, until it gets upgraded there's not much reason they should want to except to street-hunt.
Dark Astoria faces the same issues as Boomtown. If Arachnos makes its way into either or both of these zones, there is more reason for Villains to have access to parts or all of these zones, or at least instanced missions of them.
Croatoa just plain doesn't work for Villains. The missions are all about saving a small town from being overwhelmed by malevolent, otherworldly forces. There's no real incentive for Villains to be there. That said, there's no reason to think that some of the enemy groups aren't active in other parts of the world. It would be interesting to see the Cabal somewhere in the Isles.
The Hollows has the same problem as Croatoa; no reason for Villains to care.
I don't see any of the
Other Hazard-Zones being updated any time soon. As it is, they're part of the reason people complained about Paragon City being too big. They end up being places no one goes except for street hunting and mission doors. City of Villains does not need this.
It's apparently not too difficult for Villains to get into the
Sewers and, by extension the
Abandoned Sewers, but would you really want to take a helicopter all the way to another city just so you could run around in its sewers? Some Sewer-type zones under a few of the Isles would be a better option. For instance: Snake Warrens in Mercy Island, Mines in Sharkhead, Oranbegan Ruins under the Primeva in Nerva, and Arachnoid Tunnels in Grandville.
The
Circe, Scylla, and Ithaca Islands north of Talos Island always reminded me a little of the islands north of Peregrine Island that eventually became Monster Island. They are distant from the main part of the zone and only inhabited by enemies. Unlike the islands north of Peregrine, these three are surrounded by war walls (how they built giant walls in the middle of the ocean I'll never know, but whatever). It wouldn't be too much hassle to port and instance of this area over to villains, although they would need to get some content for there to be any point in doing so.
