All Things Art: Building Edition

I was commenting on the Atlas Park revamp in the beta forum and decided most of these comments belonged here rather than there.

I like Atlas Park's resdesigned buildings; they're "futuristic," which fits a superhero story nicely. However, I think it might have been a better design choice to go with a more Art Deco feel to Atlas Park's look, both to distinguish it from Nova Praetoria and the Imperial City and to highlight the importance the Deco period (post World War I through roughly the 1950's) had in the development of superheroes. This has even been worked into the Paragon City background; read through the old Paragon Times article "Rudolf Augustus Seifert and the Birth of Heroes."

For examples of the sorts of buildings I have in mind, think about some of the tentacle-draped towers in First Ward. If you're looking for visual reference, I suggest Rediscovering Art Deco U.S.A. by Barbara Capitman, Michael D. Kinerk, and Dennis W. Wilhelm. If you want something where you can go see the actual buildings, Deco by the Bay by Michael F. Crowe focuses specifically on the San Francisco/Northern California area. (These may be out of print, unfortunately. I'm just going by what's on my bookshelf.)

I realize, however, that the decision to go with a more International/Postmodern design might not have been purely aesthetic. I imagine that once you've got the technology to make a reflective windowpane, it's a lot easier to model a building made entirely of reflective windowpanes than to create an Chrysler Building-like skyscraper, with all its fiddly little projections, individual windows, tiered forms, and ornamental sculptures. It's one of the same reason you don't see Art Deco buildings being built in the real world these days: ornamentation is too expensive and time-consuming.

Assuming this is the first of several zone visual redesigns, here is how I'd handle them were I the Chief Architect of Paragon:

Atlas Park: well-maintained Art Deco cityspace. The original heart of the city.
Kings Row: industrial/lower-class brick residences. Basically, the zone as it exists now, but with more impressive factories, perhaps some of them shuttered and showing signs of neglect.
Steel Canyon: extremely modern, "downtown" skyscraper design. The current heart of the city. Since Atlas Park ended up with this look instead, maybe you should make Steel Canyon the "deco land" instead. (For the sort of design that might work for this idea, see the '90's Superman: the Animated Series. While it isn't up to the level of the Batman series in terms of character and prop design, the buildings are interesting, done in a style the art directors described as "ocean liner deco.")
Skyway City: poorly-maintained '60's and '70's international style buildings and extensive freeway system. Basically, the urban landscape I remember from my childhood (born in the Midwest in 1975).
Talos Island: postmodern buildings with a neoclassical motif.
Dark Astoria (included because the buildings are still intact): historic neighborhood. Similar to Founder's Falls or even parts of the Rogue Isles (but better maintained).
Brickstown: It has be made of brick. This one could probably be just a polishing of the existing design.
Founder's Falls: historic district. It's good now; my only suggestion would be to include some shopping and to integrate the parks with the cityscape better.
Peregrine Island: modern industrial park. Another postmodern cityscape, but not as built up as the mainland zones. I've seen pictures of the Paragon Studios building. Think that, only more fanciful. The Portal Corporation building itself is fine and should serve as a cue for the rest of the zone.

A final thought: I've noticed that much of the newest in-game architecture has a very Californian feel to it- lots of postmodern buildings, wide streets clearly designed for heavy automobile traffic, built-up stairways and ramparts at sidewalk level, pseudo-adobe structures (I'm thinking of Four Gables here), and, oddly for a city in Rhode Island, structures that wouldn't stand up under snow (I'm thinking of that neat roof garden thing in new Atlas Park). The Imperial City looks a lot like San Diego to me, while the new Atlas Park reminds me of downtown San Jose. That's fine, but it shouldn't be the sole type of city design we see. Paragon City should represent a mix of architectural styles.

This could mean the art team has to take a field trip to Boston's North End to work on Founder's Falls or Chicago to work on skyscrapers (I find the buildings on Michigan Avenue much more interesting and representative of the world of skyscrapers than Manhattan's. It is the Birthplace of the Skyscraper, after all. It also presents lots of ideas that would suit a superhero setting well. Look at a picture of the Carbide and Carbon Building [which now houses the Hard Rock Cafe on its ground floor] and tell me that isn't a supervillain's headquarters.)

Thanks for reading. I love architecture, especially in a story context, and could go on about this stuff all day.

Atlas looks much better, beautiful work. Perhaps though after the work that has been the DA redux we could turn our attention back to Steel Canyon for a comprehensive street-plan redesign?, get some of that Times Square ambience going on that has been requested for so long?.

Please do an audio sweep as well and replace some of the ageing jangly guitar-riffs.

Thanks.

Use variation for similar buildings. What I mean is, take WW for exmple. It would have been way cooler if there was only one WW, in say... steel canyon. In KR instead of the WW building, we have an enterable pawn shop and in talos have a WW but in a differnt building. It would fit the area a lot better imo, and make it more believeable.

Same goes for the AE building. It would have been nice if instead of everyinstance getting a sky scraper, some might get a simple arcade, some might have a underground night club etc.

Kinda like what you did with Vanguard. Instead of creating a new Vanguard building that you copied to each zone, you made use of buildings that were already there and fit the zone.

So for any new building that will be repeated to multiple zones, PLEASE either consider limiting it to one zone that is reasonably easy to get to, or make the appearances change a bit for each one.

Put me down for giving primal earth paragon city the praetoria treatment and tear down the war walls. I like the fact that moving past a certain point in one section of praetoria zones me into the adjacent part. I'd love to get that kind of fluidity in paragon city.

I'd love to see more buildings we can enter (non instanced) that are actually to scale (like the AE buildings) and let us see outside. On a related note more neat features like that building with the rooftop garden we can enter from the street level doors and more shops like Yin's market would be great.

I'd also like to see lighting fixed. All these years its annoyed the hell out of me that if I go into the tram at night... the well lit tram station... I am still "blue" as if I am standing outside in the night sky with no light sources around. The same thing happens in wentworths. If lightning can be "true" inside the AE building at night then it stands to reason a similar lightning mechanic could be added to other building interiors like wentworths and the tram stations.

Someone else mentioned previously that we could use more "landmarks"... as in buildings that aren't just generic filler but have an actual purpose as far as the city is concerned. A good example of this would be Praetoria's TPN building. We need more locations like that in paragon even if they aren't enter-able buildings.

Yes, a Times Square/Manhattan feel would be perfect for Steel Canyon, maybe more of an art deco look for Talos

Street vendors, buses and taxis picking up and dropping off NPCs (Non-Powered Civilians), helicopters landing on the helipads. These are just a few things that would make the city more "alive". We could also use more reactive responses to street battles from NPCs, ie once I target an opponent and launch an attack, that should cause NPCs to flee, from the target and from me.