A case against new zones
By
Blackhat_EU,
Posted on: 2009-04-28 17:14 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Wait for the Coming Storm 
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By the looks of it, I'd spend less time waiting for the second coming of Christ.
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Can I use this as my new sig ??? 
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Can I use this as my new sig ???
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I see no reason why not.
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When Faultline got its revamp, I distinctly remember people complaining that they'd rather have new zones instead of revamped ones. Even more so after the Hollows revamp.
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Well I thought the Faultline revamp was not too shabby, but with respect to WarWitch and her work, the Hollows re-vamp was no such thing (with the exception of adding a Med-station/trainers) it was changing the mobs and mob behaviours and adding/deleting mob groups and placements... not altering the map mesh, architectual details, enviromental effects etc.
To be fair there never was a hollows revamp
Officialy it was
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Hollows Zone "Gameplay Makeover"
Significant changes have been made to the Hollows zone to make it more fun! NPC encounters have been rebalanced, including new spawns, new villain groups, mission door improvements, and a mobile hospital has been added to the entrance of the zone. Additionally, Meg Mason, a new contact, has been added to give out repeatable missions.
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You call what they did to the hollows a revamp? You make me luagh! as TheMESS says above, it was a "Makeover".
I'd love to see more REAL revamps happening, especially in the lowbie zones.
My name is Imoba, and I approve of this message.
I think it's also important to remember that more exotic zones might be higher up the priority list, as the competition has them
So while a Boomtown or Dark Astoria remake would be awesome, especially for longer term players, they still wouldn't pack the same punch as a moonbase/jungle city/arctic research station/desert ruins/underwater city would.
I think zonal variety is more important right now than zonal completion - however good Faultline is, it's still "just another city zone" - which is what a remade Boomtown would be too.
If CO has more diverse scenery than we have right now, then I think that it makes sense to try and match that first, then take care of the incomplete zones later.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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To be fair there never was a hollows revamp
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Posi again stated tonight that they've done 2 zone revamps - so that'd be Faultline and RCS/RWZ.
Given that those are the two, IMO, it's especially odd how he finds new zones better than revamps. RCS was a waste of space - used in very few missions (probably used more for the 3rd CoH respec trial). RWZ is used just a little bit more...
By my mohawk shall ye know me!
my toons
Funny: Ee-Ai-Ee-Ai-Oh! #3662 * The foul-mouthed Handyman! #1076 * City of Norms #132944
Serious: To Save A Single World (#83744) * Marketing Opportunity (#83747)
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To be honest. It would not even take much to breathe life into the zones. All it needs is a few contacts and some arcs. With the new MA tools, a thing much easier to accomplish.
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Would you really want a few more contacts and arcs in Boomtown instead of a new zone featuring stuff we've never seen before? Can you not see what the forums would look like if that's what we got?
"Great, the competition is on the horizon and this game needs shiny new content and stuff to do. And what do we get? A couple of new contacts and few new missions in Boomtown. In BOOMTOWN! We need more than this... stupid devs... ignoring players... etc etc etc"
When Faultline got its revamp, I distinctly remember people complaining that they'd rather have new zones instead of revamped ones. Even more so after the Hollows revamp. That's the problem that developers have: different players want different things at different times, and, just to complicate matters, players also have short memories.
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What I say is that breathing a bit of life i to DA and Boomntown should not require as much effort and time as say the Faultline or even the Hollows. Nothing wrong wit the maps, What is wrong is that there is nothing to do in there.
They can do that easily while working on brave new zones with all kinda special goodies.
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I think it's also important to remember that more exotic zones might be higher up the priority list, as the competition has them
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A shards gameplay makeover (a la Hollows) could make great sense. Open (at least part of) it up to villains and actually start to use these visually striking zones...
By my mohawk shall ye know me!
my toons
Funny: Ee-Ai-Ee-Ai-Oh! #3662 * The foul-mouthed Handyman! #1076 * City of Norms #132944
Serious: To Save A Single World (#83744) * Marketing Opportunity (#83747)
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I think it's also important to remember that more exotic zones might be higher up the priority list, as the competition has them
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A shards gameplay makeover (a la Hollows) could make great sense. Open (at least part of) it up to villains and actually start to use these visually striking zones...
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Save those for the Coming Storm
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
but DA could be a exotic zone its prime to be turned into a zombie infected swamp land
and perz park could be converted into a completely overgrown multi layer zone with the surrounding buildings covered in trees and vines and creatures roaming through it all.
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but DA could be a exotic zone its prime to be turned into a zombie infected swamp land
and perz park could be converted into a completely overgrown multi layer zone with the surrounding buildings covered in trees and vines and creatures roaming through it all.
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Like Eden? 
Locations away from the city are probably worth more right now than ones in the city - exotic locations widen the scope and feel of the game, so it really does feel like you're protecting the whole world.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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exotic locations widen the scope and feel of the game, so it really does feel like you're protecting the whole world.
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Protecting the world? Can't wait for the English seaside town zone - fighting rikti on the crazy golf course, new OAP civilian mobs and KB'ing Crey into washed up sewage FTW!
By my mohawk shall ye know me!
my toons
Funny: Ee-Ai-Ee-Ai-Oh! #3662 * The foul-mouthed Handyman! #1076 * City of Norms #132944
Serious: To Save A Single World (#83744) * Marketing Opportunity (#83747)
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but DA could be a exotic zone its prime to be turned into a zombie infected swamp land
and perz park could be converted into a completely overgrown multi layer zone with the surrounding buildings covered in trees and vines and creatures roaming through it all.
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Like Eden?
Locations away from the city are probably worth more right now than ones in the city - exotic locations widen the scope and feel of the game, so it really does feel like you're protecting the whole world.
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But just like UFO's only ever landing in the US, it seems that Super Villains only ever attack Paragon City
See, the problem with adding new zones instead of revamping older ones is that players will first see the old, tired, crappy zones and won't bother sticking around to see these new zones which will presumably be level 15 plus.
They should revamp the old, lower level zones into new, exotic, shiny zones because that's where the playerbase spends most of its time.
[url=http://vox-doom.deviantart.com]Take A Gander At This.[/url]
Low level zones can't be too exotic - they're for junior Heroes
The early sones should be in the city, then as you become more powerful, you can go to other places.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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Low level zones can't be too exotic - they're for junior Heroes
The early sones should be in the city, then as you become more powerful, you can go to other places.
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They can be as exotic as the devs want to make them. I don't mean that they could be all jungle or whatever, but something more interesting than red, brown and grey buildings would be nice. Steel Canyon looking like a proper bustling downtown would be a prime example. Millenium City looks way better than any of the city zones we have right now.
Also, there's no actual reason beyond you thinking it that players should only be in the city for their first 20 or so levels.
[url=http://vox-doom.deviantart.com]Take A Gander At This.[/url]
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Low level zones can't be too exotic - they're for junior Heroes
The early sones should be in the city, then as you become more powerful, you can go to other places.
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I thought that the heroes of Paragon were meant to have come from all over the world (and some from further afield)... if so, why on Earth do you think that they need to be restricted to inner-city Paragon for their early careers?
By my mohawk shall ye know me!
my toons
Funny: Ee-Ai-Ee-Ai-Oh! #3662 * The foul-mouthed Handyman! #1076 * City of Norms #132944
Serious: To Save A Single World (#83744) * Marketing Opportunity (#83747)
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Low level zones can't be too exotic - they're for junior Heroes
The early sones should be in the city, then as you become more powerful, you can go to other places.
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They can be as exotic as the devs want to make them. I don't mean that they could be all jungle or whatever, but something more interesting than red, brown and grey buildings would be nice. Steel Canyon looking like a proper bustling downtown would be a prime example. Millenium City looks way better than any of the city zones we have right now.
Also, there's no actual reason beyond you thinking it that players should only be in the city for their first 20 or so levels.
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Well, it sort of makes sense if you're a new Hero that you wouldn't be sent to very dangerous places - I think your contacts would try and keep you within easy reach of help, and it's really only in the city that you'd get that kind of support.
A contact that'd send a new Hero to the moon, or the South American jungle, or the South Pole just as easily as they'd send them to an illegal rave a few blocks away wouldn't be a very responsible one
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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Low level zones can't be too exotic - they're for junior Heroes
The early sones should be in the city, then as you become more powerful, you can go to other places.
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They can be as exotic as the devs want to make them. I don't mean that they could be all jungle or whatever, but something more interesting than red, brown and grey buildings would be nice. Steel Canyon looking like a proper bustling downtown would be a prime example. Millenium City looks way better than any of the city zones we have right now.
Also, there's no actual reason beyond you thinking it that players should only be in the city for their first 20 or so levels.
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Well, it sort of makes sense if you're a new Hero that you wouldn't be sent to very dangerous places - I think your contacts would try and keep you within easy reach of help, and it's really only in the city that you'd get that kind of support.
A contact that'd send a new Hero to the moon, or the South American jungle, or the South Pole just as easily as they'd send them to an illegal rave a few blocks away wouldn't be a very responsible one
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Why does an exotic area need to be massively dangerous? Besides, they send everyone to the bloody Hollows at level 5, that area is a death trap.
Also, just because you start out at security level 1 doesn't mean that your character's concept is 'new hero'.
[url=http://vox-doom.deviantart.com]Take A Gander At This.[/url]
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Commenting on the following comment by Positron:
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Right now, we'd rather add zones, since a revamp takes almost as much time.
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That it takes as much effort to revamp an existing zone as it takes to make a brand new one is no doubt true. It is also irrelevant and misses the point: a zone revamp gives a better result than a new zone does.
There are several reasons why this is so.
First of all, the game -- and particularly hero-side -- has too many zones as it is. The more zones there are, the more you spread the players out among them and the emptier the game appears.
Next, revamping an old zone will get rid of an eyesore. The old hazard zones are ugly, and they're also bland, boring and dull. Players are still sent into Boomtown and Dark Astoria by the mission system, and they still spend a lot of time in King's Row, the Hollows, Perez and Skyway. More importantly, people will judge the game's graphics as much on its ugliest zone as on its prettiest one.
Then, there is the fact that the existing zones have a presence and, for lack of a better term, "cultural baggage." People care about them; there's a sense of "here" to them: they're tied into the game world in a way that a new zone just can not match. And people like that. It makes the game feel more real. Ask a player which of Perez Park and Blood Bay feels more connected to the rest of the game, and I'll bet you dollars to dimes that 80% will answer Perez.
Further, revamping an existing zone brings with it a feeling of change and evolution that adding new zones lego-like to the rest of the game can't match. When zones change and develope it makes the city feel alive. It makes us feel that things are happening, that there is history. It help build the game's character. It strengthens the feel of Paragon City and the Rogue Isles. It is good storytelling.
Finally, just ask yourself which were best received and turned out to be the more popular: the revamped Faultline and Rikti War Site, or new zones like Cimeroia, Recluse's Victory and Croatoa?
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I am Miss Chief, and I approve of this post. (and would desperately like someone to sig me! :P)
Also, if the city is being rebuilt as part of the ongoing effort after the original invasion, it's better to rebuild than create new zones. I'd love to see Boomtown getting a bit of a clearup, they could remodel the RWZ tanks into bulldozers and stick a few giant cranes from Skyway into the zone and have the bad guys moved away from the zone entrance a bit but leave the rest of the zone alone. Something that should be a relatively simple thing to do and wouldn;t take much time but would help so much in the immersion.
Defiant 50's
Many and varied!
@Miss Chief
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IMO opinion, you are far to dependent on this game to let it affect your emotional state so much. You need to get away completly for a while and get a fresh perspective.
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I'd take issue with that on a number of levels, not the least of which is that unless I'm mistaken you don't know anything about FFM that he doesn't put out here.
But, and it is an important point, when the place you go to "get away from it all" whatever that may be, is screwed over by powers that not only do you have no control over but seem to refuse to listen to you... then it's always depressing. Same as when you took the wife and kids to the new restaurant and they served you dog droppings on a plate. It can get to you, and there's nothing wrong with that.
Thelonious Monk
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You call what they did to the hollows a revamp? You make me luagh! as TheMESS says above, it was a "Makeover".
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Revamp, makeover, whatever, it doesn't matter people complained about a lack of new zones no matter what was done to make old zones more interesting.
The devs are never going to win by trying to give the players what they want because players don't all want the same things.
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You forgot the Hollows as a rewamped zone, Leif. Personally i prefer Croatoa over RWZ any day. Can't say much about old Faultline as i didn't know it.
As you said Hero side have many zones and Villians need new zones. So adding a co-op. zones will be best idea. Not the ones like Cimerora tho', that place is too tiny and serves good for its purpose. In my opinion a in city co-op zones will be a better choice, like some coastal city zone (as they can't add new islands to the game according to game maps) or some other places like long wanted Moonbase/Space Station, Underwater area.
So in the end New Zones is better than Rewamping old ones. That doesn't mean a re-wamp to Dark Astoria or Boomtown will be nice but devs need to please both sides so co-op new zones is the easiest way to please players.
I agree with this. I do wonder how bad the old zones look to new players, especially if they start out villain-side, which doesn't suffer from the dated, older hero-side zones. Especially for someone not knowing the history and how old some zones are, I'd think it'd look really shoddy.
I can see the benefits to both, and I know opinion will be split, but it'd be nice if they maybe looked at alternating between new zones and revamps.