Discussion: Hollows Zone Gameplay Makeover
By
Aidalyn,
Posted on: 2008-03-19 09:38 in News, Events and Announcement Discussion
As for the 'meat' that everyone wants with the rest of I12:
There's a couple reasons not to do it right now, mostly among them the possibility of change.
From WW's post it sounds like the Hollows is pretty much done and signed off and isn't likely to change at all before closed beta, and unless some major flaw is found probably won't change before I12 goes live.
Powersets are much trickier and more likely to change even before closed beta, just look at the concerns over psi blasters. They don't want to put out a full feature article like WWs on something that is likely still in a very liquid state. They've given us a few powersets already and those are likely the ones that they're confident will make it to live pretty much intact other than some balance tweaking. Other powersets may still be getting worked on and 'subject to change without notice' so they don't want to talk about them yet just to have to change it and create a whole new flood of 'but you told us we'd get X' threads.
I suspect as things hit closed beta status we'll see more 'meat and potatoes' feature information. Level design, mission design, and costumes are less likely to change during the devclpment cycle than powersets, EATs, and other game mechanics items which have more potential for serious flaws to crop up in internal QA. I'm surprised we got as much information about what's in I12 as early as we did. In the past most issue feature lists didn't come out until a week or two before closed beta started and usually were more sketchy than what they've given us.
I suspect much of I12 is stuff that's been in slow development for a while that all just managed to finally get the 'finishing touches' in time for the 'filler' issue that I12 is supposed to be. By the time beta hits on this there may be even more things ready. There might even be stuff for bases that get included that just weren't at a state at the time of the initial feature annoucnement where it was certain they'd be ready in time.
I'd love to know what new powersets are coming even though right now I'm not making any alts as I have too many that never get played as is right now and I'm focusing on getting a villain to 50. But I'd rather wait and get an accurate list of powersets (and the powers within them to fit the new AT they're on) than a vague list that ends up with gaps and major changes between what they tell us and what goes live.
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So is there anywhere else to encounter Igneous since my last post was pretty much burried by the next 4/5 pages right after I refreshed the page when I submitted my post? >.>
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She did mention the Igneous still being in Grendel's Gulch, and not always buried and clustered so they'll be easier to spot. Also the Caverns area hasn't been changed at all and it is a mix of Igneous, Trolls, and CoT.
Danke 
I thought I misread it I was too busy looking for the name/word "Igneous" as that was an obvious issue or encoutering their content in the mid to higher levels that I know of.
Interesting. Perhaps my heroes will step foot into Hollows once again. Perhaps...
I do like that it was changed into another hybrid zone, and I like that a few more enemy factions have shows up in certain areas and at certain times. The biggest improvement, IMO, is the reworking of the door placement. That'll make me want to give it a shot again. I look forward to seeing the changes in-game and I will definitely leave feedback once I am able do so.
Cyclone Jack
-= idspispopd =-
[size=1]Arc ID: 3155 - Project Prometheus (Seeking Feedback, now with less invalidation)[/size]
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How does what you're asking for make any sense at all except that it fulfills our desire for instant gratification?
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What the heck is wrong with wanting instant gratification in this context? I'm not in the devs shoes, I'm in EvilGeko's shoes. I mildly interested in the Hollows, I'm greatly interested in Powerset Proliferation. Why am I unreasonable to ask about the information I'm interested in?
Not demanding, just explaining how incredibly disappointed I am in not getting any information about the features that I and from all evidence, the majority really care about.
I'll defend the devs anytime, but this is marketing BS. It's not selling me on Issue 12, I'm already interested and paying. What's the purpose? Create buzz? For what?
You tell us what sets are being sent over and there will be plenty of buzz.
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Perhaps you should read the rest of his post that you failed to quote, he explains it quite well.
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What you mean this:
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No one with any sense ever doles out information meant to excite people with the best, most interesting news first. You give out the little things and work your way up to the best, most interesting stuff last, closest to the main event.
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Doling out little tidbits would be:
Tankers get ..... Next week come back and find out what Scrappers get.
The Hollows revamp does not excite a great amount of people. It's just not getting the attention, Powerset Proliferation is. Thus we shouldn't consider every feature of Issue 12 as having equal amount of interest generating potential.
Giving information about the Hollows revamp is effectively giving no information about the features of Issue 12 that many want to hear. Give us a tidbit about what we do want to hear.
(Lastly, I had a pretty sarcastic response ready to go. Let's try to keep the discourse high. I did read UberGuy's post and responded to that point already. Let's not start being [Censored] to each other. We can disagree civily.)
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That's not how it works. Details are given on each aspect, not broken apart. It's very clear from a business prespective what Marketing and Research are doing.
Whether you agree or not is of no consequence.
I was never an [Censored], I just pointed out the revelant information you chose to ignore.
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Well the Red River goes from the bay just outside of Talos Island (a bit NW of the NW corner of the zone) and into the Hollows. This is near to PI and from what I understand the Rogue Isles are N/NW of PI with Mercy Island being the closest to Paragon City (hence why escapees from the Zig are dropped off there). The lower level coralax from the Rogue Isles could easily have swum down to the delta for the Red River and followed the river up into the Hollows area. The rest of the coastline along that area isn't in a zone or is part of Talos Island and the more powerful DE along the coastline would wipe out the coralax that came over. Maybe in time we'll see higher level coralax take over some of the coastline of PI, Striga, or Talos.
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The Coralax showing up in Hollows makes me think of the Digger history plaque #3:
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This building once housed the lab of Dr. Calvin Stewart, who pioneered Eastgate Bay's Seaview project. Since the Hollowing, Dr. Stewart has been forced to abandon the lab, and communication with the Seaview project has been erratic. Very little is known by the public about the scientists' activities in Eastgate Bay.
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I always thought this Seaview project had something to do with the Coralax but cna't remember why. Maybe somewhere else in the game or from a forum post.
Have we ever been told what the Seaview project was?
Another thing that makes me scratch my head from the WW piece:
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The Legacy Chain have a presence there too, a heroic group of mystical heroes who are there to help, not hurt the heroes of Paragon City. They want to get to the bottom of the Circle of Thorns threat as we do. There might another reason, too, but they won't even give that up to Longbow.
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What is the "other reason" Legacy Chain is there?
Neutron-Star
lvl 50 Inv/EM tank
<AR>
Very nice, glad to see the changes and really appreciate you telling us.
But it's MY sadistic mechanical monster and I'm here to make sure it knows it. - Girl Genius
List of Invention Guides
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I'll have to admit the Coralax are a surprise to me... how did they end up there?
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I'm wondering this, too. If Coralax were to show up in Paragon City, Talos, Independence Port, Striga or Peregrine would have been better choices. Most fish don't handle changes from salt water to fresh well. I guess Coralax are salmon/trout hybrids.
The rest of the changes sound very nice, though. 
Will the Hazard Zone designation be removed?
Gothika (Grav/Kin) Marionette (Ill/Rad) Terra Firma (Earth/Storm) Alana Dale (Arch/Nrg)
Iceblink (Ice/Dark) Fantasia (Mind/Fire) Shadow Minx (Claws/Nin)
--Virtue
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I was never an [Censored], I just pointed out the revelant information you chose to ignore.
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Actually, that's my point. I didn't ignore it. As I explained in my post. However, you accuse me of doing it. Which is lowering the discourse.
One can make a contrary point without accusing the other poster of ignoring certain information or anything else. You didn't really respond to my point. I invite you to do so now.
Because:
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That's not how it works. Details are given on each aspect, not broken apart.
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Is patently untrue. We know that Controllers are getting Plant. Blasters are getting Psi and a new secondary. Brutes are getting Axe and Mace. So I don't see that your point is valid. They very well could and do, give us tidbits about certain features piecemeal.
The City of Heroes Community is a special one and I will always look fondly on my times arguing, discussing and playing with you all. Thanks and thanks to the developers for a special experience.
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Each of those features has more posts just in the dev corner than the rest of the other features COMBINED. And if we counted all the various threads out in the other forums, it's clear that interest in those two features dwarfs anything else.
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You're absolutely, 100% right, EvilGeko.
So, those will almost certainly be the last topics to get more detail. Because they want us speculating and discussing and frothing about it, building buzz in the process.
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By this logic, we'd better hope the Major Gameplay Improvements thread suddenly grows exponentially or else next week's "tidbit" will be "How to Convert Inspirations."
Disclaimer: Hellguard does not really think that the size of any thread is what determines the release date of issue 12 info. The above should be seen as purely a joke.
meh
I guess I am one of the few people that likes The Hollows as it is now. All it needed was a hospital to make dying less of a bear. The only part that is tricky is Grendels Gulch in my opinion (OOOGA LOOGA = death).
How long will it be before the worst performing zone in either game gets looked at? Please don't take as long as it did to dehazardize this hazard zone.
"Sorry bucko, but CoH and CoV are the same game." -BackAlleyBrawler
"Silly villain, CoX is for Heroes!" -Saicho
Much <3 for the War Witch. It sounds like she put in some real intense effort into changing the Hallows. Thanks for the article; it's cool to get this kind of longer-format inside information. And I can't say often enough how cool of a dev team we have. They're friendly and open with us here on the forum, and also at the Meet and Greet events. Big thumbs up, and hope to say "hi" to WW at the next M&G.
Proud member of the Paragonian Knights
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Those all sound like really great changes to the Hollows. Now how about setting War Witch loose on the Shadow Shard?
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Why do you hate War Witch?
Gothika (Grav/Kin) Marionette (Ill/Rad) Terra Firma (Earth/Storm) Alana Dale (Arch/Nrg)
Iceblink (Ice/Dark) Fantasia (Mind/Fire) Shadow Minx (Claws/Nin)
--Virtue
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And even though I think players will miss putting their Hero on Hover while they go for coffee and wait to get to the Frostfire entrance, theyll be happier that hes much easier to access now.
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This is so True!! Be honest how many of you have done this?? My first experience in COH after hitting lvl 6 was getting hover, hitting the hollows and doing exactly what War Witch just discribed. 
Just brought back found mamories of what Rl friends and I considered to be "Hollows" training.
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Its nice and all but please dont tell me we waited a whole week just to hear something we already knew about? Please tell me there is more to come later today?
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Well, while I understand your frustration with lack of information on I12 so far, let's at least give props to Melissa for taking time to fill out the Dev Diary and let us get a glimpse of how she went about re-tooling the Hollows. I thought it was a fascinating insight into how one person / developer can make a significant difference to the game.
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I'm saddened but not surprised to see the Hollows get further emasculated. The zone was great in its first incarnation, before the Outcasts and Trolls had their superpowers yanked. There should be places people complain are too hard. They separate the players from the poseurs.
The arrival of the Coralax in Paragon was foreshadowed way back in i3 and the Striga arc.
Power proliferation and/or the villain epic fail ATs will be the last things "previewed". As a previous poster mentioned, those features will likely be tweaked right up until the producers taser the live team and push i12 onto Test for closed beta.
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
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I'm saddened but not surprised to see the Hollows get further emasculated. The zone was great in its first incarnation, before the Outcasts and Trolls had their superpowers yanked. There should be places people complain are too hard. They separate the players from the poseurs.
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Man, I remember when the Outcasts had their powers at level 5. They need to get them back now that we have solo spawns. I have to admit, I'll miss the old Hollows, but it's still for the good of the game not to have a newbie zone so hard.
The City of Heroes Community is a special one and I will always look fondly on my times arguing, discussing and playing with you all. Thanks and thanks to the developers for a special experience.
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Those all sound like really great changes to the Hollows. Now how about setting War Witch loose on the Shadow Shard? The huge villain population in the Shard is entirely too static, too rooted in place. The Shard has such enormous unrealized potential.
How about:
- a few wandering space "dragons"
- a few wandering rikti spacecraft
- a 50-hero Hamidon-raid-level arch-villain
- hollow out some asteroids for us to explore
- more complicated "one-off" missions
- an accolade power earned by completing the four Shard TFs
- access to the Shard for CoV (co-op mode like the RWZ?)
- actually place the Ski Chalet and Pocket D somewhere in the Shard
- black holes, small meteors, vision-obscuring nebulae
- a wisp city
- random rare rularuu raid on FBZ
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I'd settle with "a reason to BE there" personally, but otherwise QFT.
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How about the fact that a couple years ago, rularru were marching down the street of steel canyon in very large groups killing the crap out of anybody that came near? Is that reason enough for a counter-invasion? ;p
Seconded on the need for a SS revamp, too. If nothing else, it needs a better way of navigating than the hero mortars. They're a cool idea, but they're waaaaay too touchy for speedsters, and some of them are downright -hidden-. (and you -have- to shut off superspeed to jump in, or it screws immensely with your trajectory, for reasons which I don't totally understand)
Jason Heavensrun
Swift : Freedom Server
http://www.bladeandepsilon.com/CheckmateStudios
Check out my first Architect Arc, "Bring Up the Sun", arc #339507, and let me know what you think!
I'm truthfully kinda 'meh' about the whole Hollows thing. I am, however, surprised nobody's said anything about the typo in the subject. 'They're giving the Hollows legs!'
bah was hoping for different information 
I have long since abandoned any interest in the hollows
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I'm saddened but not surprised to see the Hollows get further emasculated. The zone was great in its first incarnation, before the Outcasts and Trolls had their superpowers yanked. There should be places people complain are too hard. They separate the players from the poseurs.
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Man, I remember when the Outcasts had their powers at level 5. They need to get them back now that we have solo spawns. I have to admit, I'll miss the old Hollows, but it's still for the good of the game not to have a newbie zone so hard.
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Yeah, I'm all for "ironman" challenges being in the game.
But not at level 5.
Great info!! This is something I am looking forward to.
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I love War Witch, but I was willing to accept "the Hollows will be better" as all the info I needed.
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Seriously. This was a bit of a letdown. They know the information we really want. 
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Great article about the Hollows makeover.
***Secret Lord Recluse Marketing strike force team managed to exchange powerset proliferation announcement with Hollows Zone Makeover announcement. Muhahahaha brilliant! There was great rejoicing in Grandville.***
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Again I am not trying to take away from what WW did, it is just like everyone else has said we either want to know about the stuff we want or just hold it all to the end because the suspense is going to kill us either way.
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I suppose it's a credit to the game that the suspense over VEATs and powerset proliferation might kill some of you. But seriously... manage it. It's not like you can really do anything with the information when it hits, anyway. I really don't see the point in getting all worked up over something you can't control or change, even when you do get it.
Generally, my belief is that some information, even it's "we don't know yet," is usually better than no information. But they ARE giving us information, so it seems to me that complaining about the order it's being given in is just silly. You will get it sooner or later. Provided you're still alive after that terrible suspense ordeal, of course.
~Missi
http://tinyurl.com/yhy333s
Miss Informed in 2016! She can't be worse than all those other guys!
So is there anywhere else to encounter Igneous since my last post was pretty much burried by the next 4/5 pages right after I refreshed the page when I submitted my post? >.>