I think it'd be great if they just focused on some minor tweaks and slight revamps for the low level material and zones - you know, the first thing new players in the door see and may very well use to form their judgment about the game on.
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A 5th Column takeover of Boomtown would be really neat, especially considering who's buried under the old Freedom Phalanx base there.|
Originally Posted by Kierthos
Man, I would love to see a revamp of Boomtown. Throw in some heavy fortifications manned by the Fifth Column, have them clean the Council out of there, and make it their headquarters.
heck, I'd love to see a mini-TF in Boomtown which has missions to assault the Fifth Column presence there... culminating with storming the gates of their secret underground bunkers. |
That, and it would be fun to watch the Mek Men and Clockwork smash each other
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He's actually no longer buried.|
Originally Posted by Godpants
A 5th Column takeover of Boomtown would be really neat, especially considering who's buried under the old Freedom Phalanx base there.
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And I could just be miss remembering But I think in one of the Hero-con pod casts, one of the devs says they have plans for Boomtown.
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Well, it doesn't have to be an "it's either one or the other" type situation. For years now I've been proposing that the devs make a small group - or take even just one new person - and give them the assignment of revamping and renewing old content. I think one person could make a significant amount of improvement in a year's time.|
Originally Posted by ZachsMind
There's a couple problems with investing energy into revamps versus focusing on new content.
First off it's a marketing thing. NCSoft is gonna get a lot of mileage out of Going Rogue. It's an entire new set of zones that didn't exist before, new baddies, new power sets. New kinda character you can play. New everything, while still keeping the original game. So it's both releasing a new game AND expanding the old one. |
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| When they put all that energy into revamping Faultline, it was great for we fans because it was a long time coming, and the results were awesome at first but after awhile the novelty wore off, and for all that effort, the PTB couldn't go to the general public and say "look what we did! We took this part of our game that wasn't as good as it coulda been when we first introduced the game, and we cleaned it up and made it better! Come take a look!" From a marketing standpoint, it's a much harder sell to anyone not already playing the game. |
Also, speaking of marketing, remember that not all of the game's efforts should be spent on acquiring new players. Some need to be spent on retention, which should be an easier and more efficient strategy.
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| Even a 'mini-vamp' like The Hollows which didn't involve dramatic changes to the zone did still mean a lot of manpower and time. Every corner and crevice of Hollows was looked at and stuff we probably don't even notice was done to it. It still cost, and the end result in the big picture was the same as before. Hollows is still where you go when your toon hits its preteens. I pretty much try to get on someone else's Frost Fire arc for every toon I have if I can, but aside from that I try not to hang too long at Hollows. Even though the facelift was in my opinion necessary, it doesn't make me wanna hang there. |
I think what The Hollows needed was a leveler, a store, and a field hospital. It would probably take a couple of hours to add those things; certainly it could be done within a day. Yet The Hollows went for years without these things, which could be so easily added. It is hard not to be completely frustrated with the devs, in my opinion.
At some point, when the devs have actually committed to revamping, all the content for the zone should be redone. However, I would leave the artwork there the same, so all that would change would be about a half dozen arcs. That's not a big deal, really. One person could fix it up nicely in just a couple of months, probably leading to tens of thousands of hours of subscriber playtime.
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| So if you were the developers and you're looking at your finite resources and you can either focus your next project on making Boomtown what it shoulda been five years ago, or creating City of SpaceTime the next expansion, Boomtown's not gonna win. UNLESS you completely revamp Boomtown to make it the zone players now use to access space. That way you kill two birds w/one stone. But of course then you're gonna tick off all the players who have fond memories of Boomtown as is, so you might as well just leave Boomtown alone and create an entirely new zone that'd represent the CoH universe's equivalent of NASA. |
Also, to revamp a zone you don't have to actually change the zone. Just the player activities in it.
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I'm saying this and I disagree w/it. I want the Devs to focus on the zones that already exist and make them better. I think adding more zones spreads the player base too thin and the community that used to make this game so cool is kinda dying, unless you have built up a complex network for yourself. I never did. I was too lazy. So now if there's anybody who still plays the game that I know? We're both like twenty characters later and wouldn't recognize one another. I want a new Boomtown. I want a new Perez Park. I never go into Galaxy City to start a hero I always use Atlas Park. Why? Cuz I can never get a team together in GC. Everybody's over at Atlas, except for ppl who don't seem to want to team. I think GC should get more reasons why ppl would wanna go there. I think Independence Port is built the way it is for a reason but it's annoying as all get out to traverse, even with decent travel powers. It's very unfun. KR is getting better, but could still use some tweaking. Steel, Sky, Talos, and Peregrine are pretty much perfect far as I can tell. I like em fine. I'm sure there's others who could see fault where I don't. The real problem is the developers could waste all their resources on what's already there, and we'd never be satisfied. We'd always want something better. And then the Devs would have nothing significant to show off to potential new players but what they already had with a new paint job. Sometimes you just gotta let the past go and move on. New content over old just wins out. Cuz when you make the old stuff new, it just turns back into old faster for some strange reason, and in some ways it never stops being old no matter how new you try to make it. Don't look back. Ever forward. |
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The main airport is near Boomtown, isn't it?
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Originally Posted by Shadow State
He's actually no longer buried.
And I could just be miss remembering But I think in one of the Hero-con pod casts, one of the devs says they have plans for Boomtown. |
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