Can we get rid of the war walls already?

The primary reason I love Praetoria so much is that there are no war walls. I can look from one zone into the next. I feel like I have a great amount of freedom. I can enjoy the rich landscape.

Same is true for City of Villains.

But on blueside the scenery is blocked by the horrible war wall that really don't do much in-game other than make us feel like we are trapped in little boxes. They really are not needed as the boundaries can be done using the blue forcefield things that appear when you are very close to the edge of the map.

Please Devs, tear down these walls!

There's a story reason for the war walls, actually - and last time we had word of "taking them down," well, next thing we had was a Rikti invasion. There's a Rikti mothership still in the city, and an active war zone around it. Not to mention a zone that was used as a giant sacrifice (DA) and another with the Hamidon spreading (Eden/The Hive.)

Nobody tries to invade the Rogue Isles because, really, who wants to invade a garbage dump?

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That's all well and good... but the Rikti just turn them off every time they invade. Not much of a solution if you ask me.

Mechanically, taking down the War Walls and putting in Vista Tech would require COMPLETELY RE-DOING AT LEAST 20 ZONES.

Not only that, each zone would be 10 times larger (since Vista Tech requires each zone incorporating a low rez version of all the nearby surrounding zones).


Or, they can shut off the War Wall forcefield permanently, but then you'd be able to get to and see how ugly the pseudo-skyline is beyond the War Wall. And if they fix that, then, they'd be COMPLETELY RE-DOING AT LEAST 20 ZONES.

This would take most of the Dev team a full year to do and keep them from doing anything else in the meantime.


So, not likely to happen until CoH2, if that ever happens.

The Devs had to know that this issue would come up with GR. I expect an official answer soon. I would like to see the Vista tech used, but with actual distances seen, but with zone crossing the gap. I don't mind seeing the suburbs, even if I simply jump over them.

The devs have made a rod for their own back with GR. Praetoria looks fantastic, but this has the side effect of making Paragon City (and to a lesser extent the Isles) look terrible. Having a proper skyline, with y'know, actual sky on the horizon rather than energy walls, makes Praetoria feel like a real city. Paragon feels like, as the OP said, lots of little boxes.

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Originally Posted by Zombie Man So, not likely to happen until CoH2, if that ever happens.

GR feels like it already is CoH2. Bring the old game up to the standard of the new and they don't need to do a sequel to keep up with the competitors.*

*of which, in the superhero genre, there isn't any. CO's impact was virtually non-existant and I doubt DCUO will do any better against CoH.

As I've said many times before, one of the things I like THE MOST about Paragon City are the War Walls. Both the Isles and Praetoria look incredibly boring without them. The game needs big stuff, and outside the War Walls, there is very little truly big to be see. The buildings are, kind of, but not really. The Atlas Statue is, kind of, but it's a statue. Even Cole's Tower isn't quite as impressive. I mean, sure, it's tall, but it's restricted to an embarrassingly small footprint. About the only truly impressive things we have are the War Walls, the Rikti Saucer, the Terra Volta Reactro Complex and the Faultline Dam, which is no longer nearly as impressive since they flooded 9/10s of its total height.

When I first logged into City of Heroes and looked around, I saw a city that was... Kind of boring, actually. Sure, there were buildings and streets and cars and all that stuff I see when I walk out of my house. But that's not interesting. That's just a backdrop. Then I caught sight of my first War Wall. It looked really impressive from a distance, but I really couldn't grasp just how MASSIVE it was until I walked right up to its base and looked up. Few things have taken my breath away the same way that the War Walls did.

In fact, it wasn't until some time later, I think when they made them draw at a much higher distance, that I was truly gobsmacked. One day I was flying around above the buildings when I looked into the distance and I realised something: I wasn't just in some sprawling city that just disappeared in the distance. I could actually see the boundaries of the surrounding walls. That REALLY impressed me. I've always been a sci-fi fan, and I loved the idea of a city divided into sections like this. It looks, in some ways, a lot more like a space station or some such, which I honestly much prefer over Rhode Island. It actually reminds me of City 17 and how it looks like my own capital city (seriously), but it's bounded inside these completely alien walls, checkpoints and structures, with the MASSIVE citadel visible from practically everywhere.

It's the melding of the old and the new that makes the city so interesting. This is why Paragon City and the Rogue Isles are so interesting ans why Praetoria City is honestly so completely boring. It looks like ye olde cite and that's about it. The only interesting sections of it are the BAF and Keyes Island, though I must admit that Neutropolis has a good look going for it, with the suspicious green tech and glowing streets and the heavy wall surrounding it.

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Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

I can totally tell that you don't play Sim City 4 or Cities XL. At least not the way I play them.

I'll agree with you that the war walls are impressive (edit: or at least, they used to be; they also need a facelift!).

I'll disagree with you that Praetoria is boring. It is wholeheartedly not boring. It is exciting and wonderful. I want Paragon City to be given such a facelift, with a lot more unique buildings!

One of the biggest problems isn't just using vista tech to make make the zones you transition into have a low-res model in the connecting zone, but it's that in a lot of cases the next zone is NOT just on the otherside of the wall.
For some reason, when the Old Devs were laying out these city zones, they decided "HEY! Let's put these HUGE gaps between these city blocks that will be utterly featureless!" And some of these gaps are jarring.
(See this map: http://wiki.cohtitan.com/w/images//b..._%28GvE%29.jpg)
Like between Skyway, Founders', Crey's Folly, Faultline, and Talos, there's a gap that's big enough to be its own zone, not to mention the gap between IP, Steel Canyon (which the map shows as having a weird extension to it that I don't see in game), and Galaxy.
I think that there was a time when the devs had honestly considered making these placed into new zones, but those plans ended up forgotten and now we have these huge, hideous gaps between zones, and the zone they did add (Croatoa) was WAY out there from the main city. (Yet still so close to the end of IP that the whole damn thing looks like Family and Tsoo could still be fighting there)

Another problem with applying vista tech is that when you look at Praetoria, there's only one way to one zone. It's a straight path from Nova, to Imperial, to Neutropolois and back, but with Paragon, you have so many different things in different directions, and the gaps of (what's hopefully) more city between them,

I will be honest, do I like the war walls being EVERYWHERE? No, and I would love to see MOST of them go. (Hazard zones being a strong exception, and possibly make a much bigger and all encompassing wall around all of Paragon, hopefully with a more organic shape than just blocks)

Are they necessary? Sadly, yes, and we will likely NEVER see them taken down until City of Heroes 2.

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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.

I kind of thought that perhaps they could, while in the process of prettying up the old Paragon City zones, also give some love to the area surrounding the war walls. By that I mean not just placing more realistic looking buildings and landscapes out there, but actually expand the zones beyond the walls so that their borders are right up against adjacent maps, so that they'd be congruent with what the city map shows.

Heroes should be able to fly over the walls, and they should be able to see the neighboring zones and their war walls from a distance. It never made sense that heroes wouldn't be needed in those spaces between the war walls, anyway.

Personally, I'd be in favour of a War Wall face lift, but not their removal. Not that they look bad, but they could use some upgrades.

Besides, I'd rather resources were directed toward zone revamps.

Right now with the Ricti invading off and on, and then the odd Zombie Apocalypses, then we've got the pending Preatorian invasion, AND the soonish Shivin invasion (remember that mission from Orborous!). There are more then enough reasons to keep them up. The last thing we want to do is make it easier for impending armies to attack!

Not that I'm paranoid or anything. no.

AS I said in the other post on the subject, I would be happy is the Walls reflected what was actually on the other side of them. If two zones are joined, show it, if there are suburbs on the other side, show that too.