going ...under ground

So i know i said i wouldn't post any more but i decided to give it one last shot. I had an idea today i thought was pretty neat so i thought i would share it with you guys. I know so many people want a moon base and heck i do to, but maybe this could be put in game alongside the moon base.


Under ground city

-lvl 45-50

Creatures/bad guys

-Igneous
-maybe a new faction ... the mole men! XD
I was reading fodder for the cannon (the manticore thread) and he said something about the igneous had many tunnels under the city (not sure how accurate that is, my memory of it atleast). but i think it would be neat if there was an underground city

it would be immense and would have the possibility of renting (or buying as a temp power) vehicles to transverse the huge cavern that is the underground tunnels of paragon

tell me what you guys think

I could see Circle of Thorn being there (after all, they have Organbega under Paragon). Could be interesting.

We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.

Why not have the zone(s) be 15-50 with scaling Igneous levels.

Why not throw in the Devouring Earth, and possibly create a more advanced culture under the ground with the Igenous. I mean they're slightly intelligent creatures so they should be able to create basic shelters or spires. Probably hvae another Trial down there detailing a story of war and history of the Igneous, Circe of Thorns and the Devouring Earth, a history that developed away from the knowledge we have of their world.

Probably have the entrance in the Hollows in the crater, but it would be guarded by a mystic from the Circle of Thorns (who's that one crazy guy in the Rogue Isles that can see the future? I forgot his name). Probably have him guard the entrance and require the Cavern of Transcendence Badge to access the world beneat Paragon. The world would need to be relatively seperate if it would be 15-50 having individual zone details the CoT/Igneous have sealed off, and by sealed off I mean invading Devouring Earth sectors that the Igneous/Circle are unable to repress with their every growing numbers.

Probably have a firendly CoT faction that were not controlled by the Demons, or maybe even have a truce between you and them because of the looming threat of the Devouring Earth.

The way I see it with the birth of the Hamidon his control did not just expand over paragon, it expanded under it. From this expansion the Igneous and Circle were threatened with loosing not only their homes, but their lives in the process to the Hamidon's minions. In desperation the mystics of the Circle of Thorns magically sealed off the inner sanctums of Oranbega and are completely at a loss on all sides. Those who weren't locked inside their inner sanctuaries slowly aliented themselves from the Circle and allied themselves with the strange, but slightly intelligent Ingenous creatures. Having one goal for survival they have both begun offensive assaults against the Hamidon but are still at a loss, and as such have sealed off certain areas from the main tunnel systems they now have intact.

By proving yourselves in the Cavern of Transcendence you have shown the Circle (and the Igneous) you are a powerful and kind force, but also a force that could potentially save this "Underworld" from a totaly take over by the Hamidon. In desperation the Circle guarding the access tunnel allows you to travel deep under Paragon City to battle with the forces of the Devouring Earth. Unfortunately they aren't the only problem as both Igneous and Circle Mages are still rooted deep into their history. With your recent victories against the Igneous some may feel resent, while the wild Igneous feel hatred.

Yes, there are even wild areas beneath Paragon City with wide open caverns (much like that of the Eden trial), expansive tunnel systems (enlargened to prevent players from feeling cramped, but to also be seen as a height change so that the Igneous themselves can get through).

There would be at least two Task Forces ranging from 15-20, and again from 30-35.

Finally I see a challenging, quite rewarding, and very in-depth Trial that takes you into the depths of Oranbega to release the Circle Mages and use their portals to travel to the Hamidon's influence deep within the recesses underneath Eden. Unfortunately all is not well as something strange has happened to the Circle Mages while being locked up inside the prison they caged themselves in. Discover the source of this unusual anamoly, battle the Hamidon at its root and potentially saving Paragon City (and the Igneous caverns along with the Friendly Circle Mages) from the cataclysmic intentions of the Hamidon itself.

It's all just a thought really, but I think Icould improve on it.


Hmmmm, back to the drawing board. I think the first Task Force could deal with the "Greater Troll Threat" underneath the Hollows that has been kidnapping Circle Mages and destroying Igneous.

The second Task Force would most likely entail the Hydra to a greater extent. Possibly root out the Hydra's angerous rage and devious plot the literally drop Paragon City underground burrying its citizens and hopefully returning home.

I'm better with endings, and I can already see the Hydra broken through a wall in the Sewers hanging down blasting out Mind bullets all over the place as Hydra minions pour from the ceiling while Circle Mages and Igneous repel them. Without the use of the Temporary Guns you get in the sewers I was thinking you'd have to protect Circle Mages while they concentrate on the Hydra beast using Dark Magic to weaken it for the heroes to stop it.

Yup, that's all I've got for now! I agree there should be an "under" zone for us to explore. Who knows, it may even be an expansion one day. (Not my idea but something to do with Oranbega or the Igneous).

wow, all that is a great idea, thank you for posting it
I'll update this thread as more people post what they think, thanks for the input

(QR)

I like how you slipped your vehicle request in there again.

A few points about adding vehicles to the game vs existing travel powers.

-A level 1 character has to turn off Sprint while in school zones; otherwise they'll be ticketed for speeding.
-Without Swift, enhancements or set bonuses, Fly (the slowest travel power) is faster that (real world) city speeds.
-Without Swift, enhancements or set bonuses, Super Speed is faster than highway speeds.
-With Swift and enhancements, a Super Speeder can reach the movement cap - which is faster than the average speed on the Autobahn.

Most vehicles would go slower than the travel powers we already have in the game. Do you really want a car, when you can get out and run faster than the car goes?

Ones that should be able to go faster than existing travel powers, like high-end motorcycles or racing cars, or jet planes, wouldn't be able to reach their real-world speeds; the speed cap is there because that's the fastest the server can reliably feed data to the client - go much faster and you'll run past buildings before they have a chance to come into existence.

Then there's the animation issues, but I'm not going into that.

Here's one of Memphis Bill's cut and pastes on the topic of vehicles: Just ignore the "How to search" part. I'm too lazy to edit it.



Disclaimer

Yes. This is a cut and paste reply that I keep handy, as well as a quick bit of instruction on how to search. Neither are meant to cause fights or to be insulting. The search instructions are in, not just because forum rules say flat out to search, but to help you and anyone else reading this use the search tool effectively.

The body of the cut and paste reply is the way it is because we've seen these arguments numerous times before. They're a summary of the salient points that come up each time. They are not here to insult you, make you feel stupid or otherwise "bring you down a peg." Instead, they are meant as instruction and information. Please read through the points and the explanation behind them to see the issues that are commonly brought up in response. They may not always match your suggestion 100% - in fact, you may have explained around one or two of them - but they're there for consideration and refinement of your idea.

Yes, I do look forward to the time, with some of these suggestions, that someone not only addresses all the points, but does so exceptionally well. It'll probably be added to the end of the cut/paste reply, with credit. For now, though, read and consider the points. They really are just there to help you, and move discussion along to help ideas evolve.

If you're going to see this and say an "evil forum vet is just shooting down your idea," or "You think you're the last word because of your post count," you're wrong. Heck, if you say the second, you've just worried more about my post count than I have in the last four plus years. Tongue-in-cheek comments in here are meant as humor, not put downs.

Searching Effectively

1. Click on "Search" up at the top of the forum.
2. On the left, under "Forum(s) to search," select "Suggestions and ideas."
3. On the right, Keyword Search Terms. This is probably where your problem was if you did search. Try the following, exactly as typed:

+vehicle -"re: "

This will search for anything with the string "vehicle" in the title.The -re: portion of it removes replies, so you'll see the root of every thread that comes up, letting you see just how many threads there are on this. (The last helps for other subjects, as well.)

Be sure to put the space between the colon and last quote.

4. Click the "In subject" radio button. This is a search, not a cute blonde in a bikini. Here, you want to ignore the body.

5. Leave Username Search blank.

6. Date range, Newer Than, change the 1 to a 3, and the time to Months.

7. Result format doesn't matter. Click on "Submit."

The subject at hand: Vehicles.
Vehicles as travel powers. This gets brought up a lot.

Short answer, don't expect it.

Long answer:
There are a lot of problems with the idea.

1. Movement.

Forward and back,even turning - ok. But you can do things that a vehicle can't - such as strafe (direct side to side or angular movement.) It doesn't work with a vehicle. There are also issues such as drift and "realistic" handling. We can go side to side, as mentioned, and make immediate right angle turns. Cars... not so much.

2. Movement, part 2.

Go stand in the road. No, not you personally. Take your character out and stand in the road, if you're heroside. Or even in the path of civilians. What happens? You get pushed. While not as big an issue with a motorcycle, perhaps, a car would have issues. What happens if two cars meet head on - yours and an NPC, or yours and another player's? Do you just pass through each other? Would you be satisfied with that very odd result? Or would you get stuck? How about those NPCs, can they walk and push your car, or are they walking through it? Neither answer is very satisfying, and intelligent, dynamic pathing is too computationally expensive.

3. Terrain.

Not every place has roads, or even makes sense for "off roading." Go look at Founder's Falls. Go look at Crey's Folley. Or Eden. Try to get to the north islands in Talos. What, do you have a kubelwagen? Look at the Pit in Sharkshead. Try to use your travel power (car) to get up to some of the doorways in high caves. Cars and motorcycles would be more like Superspeed - horizontal movement, period. And look - I'll be blunt - flat out *stupid* tied with, say, Combat Jumping or Superjump.

4. Combat.

You get ambushed on the way. How do you fight? Just have your powers blast out of the rolled up windows? How do you buff or debuff? EVERY power would need a new animation. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. Then you want people with motorcycles instead of cars. Redo ALL the animations AGAIN. And they still wouldn't make sense - how do you use Footstomp in a car? Or Stalagmites?

5. Customizing.

Yeah, it would come up. Not everyone would want a sports car, or a mid-70s Buick boat, or an exotic, or a minivan, or whatever else.

6. Making "sense."

This was touched on in terrain - how do you get across water? How about the Shadow Shard? And if you want downright ridiculous looking, go do the heroside 25-34 Respec. Look at the Sky Skiffs inside of rooms or the reactor room. It makes no sense and looks *ridiculous.* Something that, yes, the devs try to avoid.

That's just a quick overview of why vehicles as generally envisioned aren't a spectacular idea for a travel power.

Further discussion

This I think merits a bit of extra commentary, honestly.

"Vehicles" covers a lot of different ground for different people. Some only consider cars/jets/motorcycles vehicles. Others add jetpacks, wings and the like. Much of the above considers cars and similar sized vehicles, with nods to motorcycle type vehicles.

Jetpacks and such, I don't see happening as travel powers. As costume options for Flight? Or as invented pieces that interact with Fly, similar to wings? Absolutely - but they don't need to be a separate travel power for that. I'm all for more jetpack and wing (or combination) designs. Besides, there are so many "temp" jetpacks, I don't see introducing yet another one as really being feasable - just my opinion.

But vehicles - cars, specifically - as a travel power, have issues.

One way to have them "somewhat" work.

For all that, I know some people *would* still like to pull up in front of a mission. So how do we do it?

A temporary power, based on the same tech from the Mac/Valkyrie pack Mission Teleporter. The temporary power would:

(a) be an invention - dropping from enemies. (A reward, because you saved... well, we'll get to that,)

(b) be a single use each time - you can only hold one at a time, not one of each, one total.

(c) use rarely used salvage, because... it's rarely used, and cheap. No Luck Charms here.

(d) come in multiple varieties.

How does this get around the various issues?


Terrain - It doesn't pass terrain. It just arrives.

It follows the same 'rules' as the mission teleporter - it's not indoors, doesn't go to contacts, etc. Just mission doors.

Customizing - It's not "your" vehicle. It's a temp power. You've called a cab, limo, or other transport.

Power animation - since you're skipping the space in between, no powers can be used 'til you arrive anyway.



The varieties?
- Limo: Stereotypical slightly stretched black limo.
- Checker cab: The classic yellow cab.
- Alien "drop pod" thing. Just for giggles.
- Burrower - Think mole machine, but not quite.

Now, part of the issue with these are still animating your character getting in or out. How do we deal with these?

In: Who cares. You teleport away. We copy the Mission Teleporter power. Not as "cool," but less intensive to work on. And you can use it to leave from inside the mission, base, Pocket D or wherever. It's an MMORPg. RP that you called a cab.

Exiting: You don't get animated.
- Limo: Pulls up. NPC driver gets out, opens door, flashes (or just bright light) from inside (think papparazi or some such.) You appear.
- Cab: It's an old cab. It pulls up in a cloud of exhaust when it stops. When the exhaust cloud clears, you're there.
- Alien drop pod - *Plop* - Steam - It dissolves, you're there.
- Burrower - Pops "out of the ground," releases steam, you're there and it's back underground.

No one will go there because AE is easier, more open, more profitable, and ultimately, more exploitable.

[ QUOTE ]
So i know i said i wouldn't post any more but i decided to give it one last shot. I had an idea today i thought was pretty neat so i thought i would share it with you guys. I know so many people want a moon base and heck i do to, but maybe this could be put in game alongside the moon base.


Under ground city

-lvl 45-50

Creatures/bad guys

-Igneous
-maybe a new faction ... the mole men! XD
I was reading fodder for the cannon (the manticore thread) and he said something about the igneous had many tunnels under the city (not sure how accurate that is, my memory of it atleast). but i think it would be neat if there was an underground city


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Redside needs more zones more than blueside. IMO, Blueside needs a makeover of some of it's exiting zones, particularly the Hazard Zones.

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it would be immense and would have the possibility of renting (or buying as a temp power) vehicles to transverse the huge cavern that is the underground tunnels of paragon

tell me what you guys think

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Vehicles? I already have an invisible boat-mobile. You just can't see it.

i hadnt thought of it but your right, originally i wasnt even thinking of travel powers, i do appologize i originally thought, hey vehicles would make it easier to move around in a big rocky place, but you are correct that travel powers would be better thank you for telling me this, and FP i hadnt thought about any of that when i suggested vehicles, you were right and i agree now, there shouldnt be any vehicles, thank you all for letting me know, i always appreciate constructive critisism thank you all for your suggestions. Yosef, it's true, most people would prefer to sit in AE all day and just farm, but ... well i dont really know what to say, i just hope that maybe cool things being added, and more things for that matter, would distract people long enough to check out the new stuff. BBQ it's true red side does need more zones, maybe this could be another co-op, though i realize this doesnt get rid of the more zones for red side problem since its for both sides.
Thank you guys for reading this post and telling me what you think.