If you could give one blue and one red zone a GR style revamp...

Boomtown. Because if you're going to fix a zone, might as well use the one on rock bottom.

An open letter to NCsoft

A blueside revamp would have to be one of the hazard zones because they are all so under utilized. I love them all, but if I could choose one it would be Crey's Folly.

Love that scientific disaster zone and I love how the colours really set the scene. I would couple that with a facelift for Crey, one of my favourite villain groups.

Also because of Crey's public vs. private image, there would be a lot of room for some awesome story arcs. I could see Countess Crey leading the cleanup in her wellies and starting the story arcs. It could all end, of course, with a task force where you uncover a dastardly conspiracy and have to arrest her and her co conspirator - Synapse! Never liked that guy anyway and he has a great history with Crey.

As for Redside, I quite like all the zones really so not sure. If I could, I would edit out Arachnos' exsistance and replace them with the previous President who can't keep order. Would be a more fun setting for Villains I think..

Blueside, I'd choose a zone which would make the most use out of new design possibilities brought to light with GR, so the more densly packed city areas primarily. With that standpoint, it's then on to which zone which fits this criteria is also not used often, or is used so much yet is relatively bland nonetheless.. Which to me, means Steel Canyon, Independence Port or Dark Astoria. All in all, I think it goes down to Dark Astoria or Independence Port, but seeing as IP actually has content, DA wins.

Villainside, I think each of the zones has enough. While St Martial is a popular choice, and I can agree that it needs a little bit of loving with the missions, I would much rather see a brand new zone. I'd like to see something like a giant SHIELD-style air base built by Aeon, or maybe a proper city area of Oranbega, all for the 30-50 area. Hey, go nuts, how about an underwater base

Villainside I'd consider adding a new zone as well. Something non-recluse controlled in the jungles or the arctic, far from the Rogue Isles.

Heroside, I'd look at Brickstown or Founders Falls with a decent visual revamp as well. Why these zones? Because the 30-34 legacy content, though having some good stories and lore, has as a block THE worst, most redundant boring repetitive AND redundant mission designs of all the game content that currently exists.

It was likely the content that was rushed through the mill about 6.5 years ago just to get it in game prior to initial launch. And it has remained that way since.

Again, some good stories in that level range. But they are buried behind a wall of really lousy game content.

Edit: to be clear, I'd simply retell the existing stories in this level range (as well as 35-39) with all the new fangled GR tech. I'd revamp Angus' arc to work more in line with the current RWZ content. Add a couple unique maps to a few of the major arcs. And make at least TWO arcs in each level range complete with a branching morality choice that could count as credit towards your 24 hour fame meter depending upon your decision within the mission.

Dark Astoria gets my vote. I've always felt it has such huge potential for cool stories. If not DA, then Talos or Founders Falls gets my vote.

I must say though that I am completely against revamping Atlas Park or Galaxy City since we just got new 1-20 content(at least against it until other stuff gets done first).

Blue side I'd like a revamp of Boomown. It's about time they started rebuilding that crap-hole, and I think it would be cool to give it a more modern feel than Steel Canyon has. Have the new buildings be avant-garde skyscrapers and throw in some luxury highrises. Also, put in a mini-war wall that divides the redevelopment from the parts that are still crap-holes.

Red side, I think I'd like them to give Mercy Island some GR-style love. I'd like to see the area around Fort Darwin made nicer in about a one and a half block radius, with things getting run-down and approaching crap-hole status the further you move into Darwin's landing. Then, the Mercy neighborhood (the nice part that's walled in) should be made to look much better than it does now, with nicer houses and shops and such, sort of an example of the rewards of toeing the Arachnos line.

Red side, I'd go with Sharkhead. The quests suck, and I hate the foes and plots there.

Blue side, I'd want to see Dark Astoria re-vamped. Independence Port is a close #2 but I'd have to go with DA.

Of course, if they really give it the GR treatment, then the foes will be too hard and will shrug off even more control than foes normally do, which would piss me off. So in a way I'd like to see it left alone. The harder content and higher resistance to control makes Praetoria a zone I'll probably never do again after I get my 3 initial characters through it.

Lewis

The shadow shard.

I think i'm going to give another vote to DA blueside. It's got so much potential for being spooky and having some really good arcs in zone. I adore Croa as it is and DA could be a follow on zone for those who want to stick with the spooky theme.

Red side i'd really redo Mercy, it's pain in the *** to get around sometimes as it is. Low level zones like that shouldn't make me go through a ton of doors just to get to a ferry, or even a mish sometimes if it's in the fort.

I do however think it would be a little weird if some zones looked all shiny and then i went next door to a new zone and it was all a bit dull

Redside, I have a twofer. Cap Au Diable and Port Oaks. If anywhere NEEDS Vista Zoning, it's there. Also, Cap Au currently has the only entrance to the Midnighter's Club, right next to a landing point from Ouroboros, and an entry to Vanguard and a Black Market, oh and the lowest level boat on the main Rogue Isles Ferry network... It's a major transit and trade hub. It also has the most "advanced" city area of the Isles with Aeon City, which by the way, needs Gold Target tech in it badly.

For blueside parity, Steel Canyon is the worst example of what feels "wrong" with Paragon City while also being a transit and trade center of the city (not quite as much as Cap, but close). It's currently just has the same copied buildings from the rest of the city, but packed into a relatively claustrophobic space. This needs to change.

I have a vision where the Steel Canyon Zone extend all the way across the river to Indy Port, connecting with it via a Vista Zone Border. It's doable, and not annoyingly large, either.

The last post got me thinking: I believe PO and Cap should actually just be one zone.

I think Atlas Park needs a major revamp. There's far too much cement and not enough "park." City Hall looks very tiny for a mega-city like Paragon, I'd have a nice big edifice, like New York's city hall. The statue of Atlas is, and always has been, great, but I think it needs an upgrade because I know it can be even better. The globe can be more distinct and detailed. It'd put a big mosaic or something under Atlas and make that area a real plaza where the citizens and heroes of Paragon City can hang out, much like the plaza in the middle of the Magisterium in Praetoria. I'd put flowers and bushes around Atlas Plaza like is in the Magisterium, I'd move the parking to underground garages (like in Faultline) and put statues, park, paths, trees, bushes, fountains and flowers in the area where the endless parking lots used to be. I'd put all the warehouses and industrial style stuff in the same small area so it doesn't seem like Atlas Park is part industrial sprawl. I'd take out a few of the older buildings and put in modern style buildings as well.

Atlas Park is one of the first impressions people get when they start up a new hero, and I think it's important to upgrade it to make a good impression on new players. The devs need to show new players right off the bat "this is what we can do" so that new players want to come back and try more of the game.

In the Rogue Isles, I think the zones are mostly pretty good. I would clean up part of each zone and make that part a bit brighter and prettier, maybe actually let some sunlight hit the Rogue Isles every once in a while. As it stands now I think the only thing really wrong with those zones is that they can feel a tad oppressive.

In revamping zones, I think it's more important to happen Blueside than Red. Bleu has so many zones that you can barely use all of them, and people end up going straight for the interesting ones. So many wasted zones, and adding new ones would only worsen that wasteage. Redside, on the other hand, is almost irksomely linear. There's not so much a choice in which contacts you take as which contact you avoid. The first few zones are fine for content, since there's options, but in Nerva and beyond, you can run all of them and still be looking at the same zone. Redside needs new zones more than it needs prettier ones.

For Blueside, I really want to see Dark Astoria redone. The first tim I heard of the zone and went there, it was very cool, and had so much potential. I couldn't wait to get in there, where the mood was so strong, and start hitting the contacts. Except there weren't any. It's the worst plotblock in the game that a zone with so much potential is just... sitting there. You wouldn't even want a graphical upgrade, just some good story arcs to make it work.

For Red, I think a new zone would be a more effective use of their time.

Failing that, revamping St. Martial would be great. Making it start at 25 instead of 30 would actually give players an alternative to the same boring and relatively uninteresting Nerv contacts, and let the familiy come in while they're still interesting. Making the zone look more pretty and flash ywould make it feel more liek a dynamic casino island and less of a boring flat place. It'd also let them fix up some of the boring enemy groups in the area, namely the Wailers.

I'd change Independence Port blueside. It's very big, and a whole bunch of nothing. Most missions that you dread doing in IP are all the way on the northwest corner of the map, away from everything else. It's just a whole bunch of moving, and not enough playing. I did a patrol there on my Mastermind who moved to Paragon from Praetoria, and every patrol point was about .7 miles away. Heck, just moving it to North Independence Port and South Independence Port would make it much more bearable.

Redside I'd change Nerva. Perhaps Longbow could have made some strides and actually have started to push Arachnos back and made a bigger place of the area for themselves. I surely doubt that Agincourt is enough for Longbow, if they want to free the isles from the rule of Lord Recluse.

Other than that, I can't really think of any 1-20 content since Praetoria fits that mold nicely now. Perhaps a slight update to the buildings to make it actually look new, since Ultra Mode can only do so much.

I'd go with Port Oakes for redside. Mr. Bokor would suddenly be 10Xawesomer, for starters.

Blueside? Maybe some place like Galaxy City - no one goes there and the lower levels need help already anyways.

Really, when I start to think about seeing this sort of cool new tech used in the old zones, I think they'd all be so much more fun.

Blueside - No question really, it's gotta be DA. Both a revamp in look and, more importantly, a full set of zone story arcs like Hollows/FL/Striga/Croa albeit with the new GR story tech. Ideally, I'd make it lvl 30-40.

Redside - Probably St. Martial. The look is fine, but the missions and arcs there are bad. It's all: "go beat up this guy who stole some money" or "theres some demons, kill them". Feels like I'm going back to Mercy and PO, instead of being a high level bada**. And with the new tech that allows NPCs to be removed from the game, we could kill Hardcase....

Hero zone: Talos Island. As EvilGeko noted, it's the hub of the higher-level game, so it needs it.

For that matter, a lot of hero zones need it. It's sad to be traveling through the Imperial City and be thinking, "This is what Steel Canyon OUGHT to look like," so I considered saying Steel Canyon. However, if we can only revamp one zone, I'd rather it be one that isn't revamped into a variation on an existing zone (i.e., Imperial City).

I nearly said "Dark Astoria," like so many others here, but I don't think the visuals are the problem there. The problem is that there's this fairly large, fairly interesting (even without fancy reflections) area with a completely undeveloped story. I don't think DA needs a visual reworking so much as some story arcs. After all, how could you see fancy visuals with all that fog? So, arcs, but not a visual remake, for Dark Astoria. (Note to any devs reading this: While I may be the only player who feels this way, if you're going to write some new Dark Astoria content, please, please, please don't make it a total downer in order to capture a "horror" feel. Superheroes are supposed to win, even against soul-crushing odds. We get enough of the "good guys can't win" vibe in Praetoria (aside from the Warden, a.k.a., "psst, this is the path heroes should be doing," arcs, but that's another rant).)

Villain zone: Another really tough choice, but for a different reason. While a lot of hero zones seem characterless, I don't get this problem in CoV. Most of the zones have plenty of character; it's just that the character isn't all that interesting. For instance, much as I like the concept of Sharkhead, the execution just looks like a painting done entirely in a brown palette.

Overall, I think the best candidate for a zone revamp would be St. Martial. Much of the zone is "wasted" on warehouses, half-ruined buildings, and trash-strewn alleys, just like the rest of CoV. If I were revamping the zone, I'd have the story of the revamp be about Arachnos or the Family razing the Hard Way, Black Mariah, and possibly the Flop in order to remake them in the image of Jackpot. The rebuilding could be mostly complete in, say, Black Mariah, so that the area looks beautiful and shiny (and really different from the rest of CoV) as a way to draw the tourists in. Jackpot could then become a slightly seedier kind of area, where the "family fun" style of Black Mariah starts to wear thin (think downtown Las Vegas in the '90's vs. the "family friendly" Las Vegas Strip in the '90's). Rebuilding could be still going on in the Hard Way, and we could see Arachnos trying to toss people out of the buildings in the Flop before they try to rebuild and "gentrify" it. The Carnival tents, Arachnos base (why does every zone need one of those things), the Giza, and the buildings in the Jackpot could remain more or less unchanged. Note, too, that aside from moving mission doors, this wouldn't require any changes to the zone storylines.

Well, those are my ideas. It's nice to daydream about such things, but from everything the devs have said and done over the years, I think it's 90% certain that visual redesigns of existing zones will always remain just that: daydreams.

I think they need to revamp the Shadow Shard and make it for both sides. There is so much area there that is not used for much. Add a bunch of contacts and story arcs like what we have in GR. After all there is so much story there that just goes to waste since the task forces aren't played much. Revamp all of it and make it 35-50 content.