Since the War Walls aren't going away...

...can we at least make them look a little better and be more interesting?

Grimy concrete with rust stained drains and vents. This is OK for some zones, like the RWZ and Kings Row, but for areas like Atlas, Steel Canyon and Founders Falls, people would expect better.

Second, the walls don't look like high tech structures built fairly recently. They're flat, featureless and have no practical access points for the maintainace they must need. The cyan force field completely dominates the landscape and often clashes with the local color palette.


Specific suggestions:

-Consider having the walls look a bit cleaner than they do now in some zones.

-Consider having sections of the wall covered in ivy in zones like Founders, Steel and Atlas.

-Murals. In parts of town like Kings and Skyway, how about community murals like a lot of cities have?

-Grafitti. In the worst parts of town, one would expect more graffiti on the War Walls, especially when they're next to structures that already have a lot of graffiti.

-Consider adding model detail to make the walls look less plain and flat.

-Instead of the bright cyan energy barriers, could we instead get something a little more subdued or neutral?


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I'll /sign this. Wouldn't mind having War Walls that look like the citizens take good care of them.

I wouldn't mind a general revamping of some of the oldest Paragon City zones, especially since we've seen a steady improvement in zone appearance as the game has evolved through CoV and now GR. But as far as the War Walls specifically go I've never had much problem with them, at least not as much problem as other people apparently have had.

To be honest I prefer the obvious zone boundaries the War Walls provide to the alternative "wall-less" concept which ultimately let you hit artificial invisible boundaries. CoV manages to avoid that weirdness with being based mostly on islands, but in any other case it's just strange to be able to bump up against invisible boundaries. If the game world can't be a literal spherical world where you can keep flying in one direction long enough to make it back to where you started then having obvious visible walls is not really so bad.

/Signed to that. Nice idea to a compromise since we cant get rid of them =]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

I’d would rather them to just get rid of them completely, because honestly they aren’t doing any good keeping the Rikti out. Since issue 10 they keep doing down more often than a college coed and their panties. Just get rid of them and make the city feel more open. I really don’t mind the invisible blue barriers at all.

Reason: Technically impossible without re-doing the entirety of Blueside. So, you might as well just make CoH2 with Vista tech included from the get go.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

/signed

/signed, especially the color. Perhaps change the force-field part to only appear when you're 10 feet away.

And don't limit this to just the blue zones, there are some outdoor missions that really suffer from this! Like the ruined city where you fight the Psychic Clockwork King, the war walls suck the immersion right out.

All that vertical real estate could be used for a lot of advertising revenue. You wouldn't have to be Crey to afford a billboard on those walls.

Random thought: looking around ALL of Paragon City and it's War Walls...that's a LOT of concrete. How many thousands of tons, and how many workers it must have took.

This I will agree with. I love the War Walls to death, but they are so woefully behind times it's not even funny. My fingers have more polygons than a typical War Wall pylon AND I DON'T HAVE FINGERS!!! Not to mention that their textures are horribly low-resolution, as well as horribly non-specific.

"Look, son. This is a war wall. It's made of... Grey stuff with vague shapes on it. See those tall rectangular pillars? That box thin that's protruding is where the alien tech is. They just keep it enclosed in a square box to keep it safe."

I'd like to see the war walls get much higher-resolution textures and much more 3D detail on their flat concrete surfaces. I'd like to see the pylons drawn with much more detail and the field itself be made a little more interesting and vibrant, and possibly forced to render at a higher distance. The things glow. They shouldn't darken at night.

I'd love to see the walls painted, as well. Possibly with different colours in the different zones. I wouldn't mind seeing billboards, and murals on them. And I'd like to see much more detail. Someone mentioned entrance hatches, so let's go with that. Put in a bunch of service doors along the the ground level, then hang air ducts and vents here and there, place a few outboard machines on balconies jutting out from the walls and so forth. They can be made a lot more interesting than the low-poly mess they are now.

Quote:

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.

Why, do you? Check again, bud. I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that you have mittens, too

Quote:

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.

In some zones, parts of the war walls could have graffiti on. Get people to submit their entries, like for the GR propaganda contest. More affluent parts of the city could have nice murals on at parts, showing the history of Paragon City. That's the kind of thing you could expect in say, Atlas Park.

Nice to see the thread getting some positive feedback. Hopefully David Nakayama reads the thread and adds the War Walls to his Architecture list.

Also I think the War Walls should give a damage buff to Tankers who are near them.



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I would be happy with a proper representation of whats actually on the other side of the force-field.

/signed.

The murals, graffiti, and advertisements are good ideas.

Heck I'd also love to see the occasional NPC working on them. Possibly saying on occasion "Well no. I don't know how they shut them down." or "Wait, what dose the manuel say? Blue wires? what Blue wires?". Well you get the picture.