Revamping old content: should the devs devote the resources?
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2010-10-14 22:32 in Suggestions and Ideas
I'm actually with the Goat on this one - I can see why they'd feel adding stuff instead of fixing stuff is superior. And like him, I also disagree. To put this in a different perspective:
Only adding new content is like how Neuron does things, whereas revamping old content is like how Anti-Matter does things. Everyone praises Neuron despite the fact that very little in the city actually works and everyone laughs at Anti-Matter despite the fact that all of Praetoria City functions squarely because of him.
I would argue that revamping old content is a positive change, in that non-revamped content is empty and void, and as such does not count. Look at Terra Volta. It's an empty shell - a zone with interesting geometry, but nothing to actually do in it, other than a mission door which may as well be on the other side of the War Wall. As it stands right now, Terra Volta could disappear from the game and few people will care. As it stands right now, Terra Volta does not count. Adding content to it is a positive addition, as you remove literally nothing yet add much.
Revamping missions is a little harder to argue, but not by much. Nostalgia notwithstanding, I would bet my metal-tipped tail that everyone will agree how utterly bad older blue-side missions are. Hell, we'd agreed on that by 2005. Yes, revamping those missions is tantamount to removing content and replacing it, equalling a neutral change. However, what is being removed is stuff no-one is going to miss, and I mean the state of writing, not the actual stories.
For instance, take Unai Kemen's To Save a Thousand Worlds arc. The bulk of that arc consists of "Go to dimensions 1, 2 and 3, click a few ruptures which look suspiciously like CoT altars and come back to me. So I can give you another mission like that." Unai has about 25 outdoor missions, spanning a pool of no more than 10 instance maps, so not only is the story pointless and boring, the gameplay is repetitive as you do and redo the same maps over and over again. If his arc were to be re-written with all the chaff stripped out and a solid storyline giving you a non-redundant reason to visit these "thousand worlds," then this is a positive change. Losing Unai's old arc is a done deal - it sucks and few people do it even now, and you can stick it in Ouroboros after the fact anyway. You lose very little and, even with a basic understanding of fictional writing, gain rather a lot - a decent arc with passable writing, which is still a massive improvement.
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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.
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Well, I did say I wasn't in agreement.|
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
And I will always argue that that perception is flawed and in fact downright eroneous.
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I'm just pointing out that from a certain perspective it makes sense.
And from a creative standpoint, I would *always* prefer to come up with something new as opposed to revising something that already exists. As a player I may not like the emphasis on 'teh new shiny' but if I were a dev I would absolutely prefer it.
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| New zones, from this point on, do nothing but spread players out even more and leave older zones even further estranged from everything. |
Sorry, not buying that one.
Players congregate where the action is, so yes to some extent they'll follow The New. Eventually that wears off, or some other New comes along and supplants it. I've been here long enough to remember each successive wave of OMG Everyone is doing _______, ________ is dead! panics.
None of them last.
The thing is the game isn't a fixed point, it is evolving.
If the game were a character we could think of each new issue as a power choice. When it's new and shiny you use the heck out of it to figure out how best to use it, see if it's 'good' or 'bad', mess around with slotting, and generally sort of obsess over it. Then it finds a place in your overall build (or not) and becomes part of the landscape.
New areas to inhabit aren't an eternally expanding diaspora, thinning the population of the game out to a few atoms per cubic mile. "The Playerbase" (as far as it is useful to refer to it as a monolithic block) tends to travel en masse. So OMG EVERYONE is doing MA!, or OMG EVERYONE is running the ITF! or OMG EVERYONE is a Winterbaby! etc etc etc.
There is no damaging dispersal of players because the majority tend to be doing whatever everyone else is doing.
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| Yes, they have new shinies. Great. In GR's case, however, that new shiny is in fact locked away behind the expansion. If players DONT get the expansion, and people looking at trying a game will likely not, instead going for the Trial or a months play, they get exactly 0% of the new shinies. |
GR has brought in more new players than anything since CoV and they opened up Praetoria for the reactivation weekend for people to check out.
They could have burned up all the resources used on GR to re-make three or four zones in Paragon City and it wouldn't have drawn much of a response beyond the ecstatic transport of a bunch of longtime players. There is marketing value in NEW. It may not seem fair or right, but reality is what it is.
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| Instead getting stuck with the old rust, which makes them think 'Hey, this is it? I heard this game had new, cool stuff in it? What a load of guff!' /quit |
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| I would even argue new zones are, at the moment, potentially more damaging than doing nothing to the game, due to the above. |
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| I just cannot see ANY logical sense behind 'New shinies!' being better than revamping the old stuff to a high quality. It makes NO sense at all. |
There are arguments to make for revamps over all new, but I don't find any of yours compelling.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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Never contested that |
Originally Posted by Nethergoat
Well, I did say I wasn't in agreement.
I'm just pointing out that from a certain perspective it makes sense. |
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| And from a creative standpoint, I would *always* prefer to come up with something new as opposed to revising something that already exists. As a player I may not like the emphasis on 'teh new shiny' but if I were a dev I would absolutely prefer it. |
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So this is why Atlas Park is a garbage-strewn wasteland? Sorry, not buying that one. Players congregate where the action is, so yes to some extent they'll follow The New. Eventually that wears off, or some other New comes along and supplants it. I've been here long enough to remember each successive wave of OMG Everyone is doing _______, ________ is dead! panics. None of them last. The thing is the game isn't a fixed point, it is evolving. If the game were a character we could think of each new issue as a power choice. When it's new and shiny you use the heck out of it to figure out how best to use it, see if it's 'good' or 'bad', mess around with slotting, and generally sort of obsess over it. Then it finds a place in your overall build (or not) and becomes part of the landscape. New areas to inhabit aren't an eternally expanding diaspora, thinning the population of the game out to a few atoms per cubic mile. "The Playerbase" (as far as it is useful to refer to it as a monolithic block) tends to travel en masse. So OMG EVERYONE is doing MA!, or OMG EVERYONE is running the ITF! or OMG EVERYONE is a Winterbaby! etc etc etc. There is no damaging dispersal of players because the majority tend to be doing whatever everyone else is doing. |
But my point is; How many new players do you think go to Dark Astoria? Perez? Boomtown? Creys Folly? Eden? Heck, how many old players go there?
I would happily wager that number is very, very low, limited to people sent there by mission arcs or TFs. I mean, aside from doing the TFs and hunting eyeballs, what about the Shadow Shard?
Instead of making 'Yet another new zone', what is wrong with taking a perfectly good zone, in most cases quite a cool zone with neat design and a good background, and add content to it? Half the work, namely the environment, is already done!
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O GR has brought in more new players than anything since CoV and they opened up Praetoria for the reactivation weekend for people to check out. They could have burned up all the resources used on GR to re-make three or four zones in Paragon City and it wouldn't have drawn much of a response beyond the ecstatic transport of a bunch of longtime players. There is marketing value in NEW. It may not seem fair or right, but reality is what it is. |
What I'm saying is that theres no excuse for the rest of the game, the core game, to not be the same high quality that Praetoria is. The entire game should be as good as that, because it can be.
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| If they can't differentiate between the expansion and the game proper they aren't amazing prospects going forward. |
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| And you're heroically wrong, but that's your right. |
It's my villanous right to be right...yet foiled at every turn.
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It gives you something to sell, for one. There are arguments to make for revamps over all new, but I don't find any of yours compelling. |
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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.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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Go ahead and throw as much glitter and polish on **** as you want, but at it's core, it'll always be ****. We need to turn that **** into gems, not try to make it shinier.
I approve of revamping old content and zones.
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I guess it boils down to whether you prefer creating (being given a blank sheet to fill in) or editing (revising an existing work). The devs seem to lean toward 'creating'.|
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
See, maybe it's just me. But I'd love to take a shot at something done ages ago that is pretty much unanimously agreed to be bad and make it better. Redoing all the old, Jackanist blueside stuff, with the tech we have now? That sounds fantastic to me.
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| How many new players do you think go to Dark Astoria? Perez? Boomtown? Creys Folly? Eden? Heck, how many old players go there? |
But on topic, hazard zones are a design dead end and they could all certainly use a revamp. Even their utility for farmers has vanished with the advent of MA and user variable team sizing. Would I like to see them 'brought into the fold' so to speak with content additions? Sure! Faultline was a grand success.
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| Instead of making 'Yet another new zone', what is wrong with taking a perfectly good zone, in most cases quite a cool zone with neat design and a good background, and add content to it? Half the work, namely the environment, is already done! |
It doesn't seem to be as simple as we think or they'd have done it already.
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I don't deny, GR was a good idea and incredibly well done. What I'm saying is that theres no excuse for the rest of the game, the core game, to not be the same high quality that Praetoria is. The entire game should be as good as that, because it can be. |
Revising a 6 year old game to meet the standards of an expansion released in 2010 would be a MASSIVE undertaking, and largely wasted in terms of curb appeal for new players. A new expansion is something gamers intrinsically understand. "Hey, we re-did all these old zones!" isn't as appealing, plus it carries the stink of implied failure ("yeah sure we made people pay for all that old junk, but it's pretty crummy and this new version is really great, this time we promise!")
Taco Bell is always repackaging their 3 crummy ingredients in different ways (gordita! mexican pizza! chalupa! nacho taco!). Why don't they spend that energy on improving their older offerings?
For the same reason MMOs prioritize releasing new material over revising old- its simpler and more promotable.
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| The core of the game should be strong, not relying on New Shinies to stand up by itself. Rusting core components are never a good thing. |
There is no "core" of the game, there is a constantly shifting locus of population that defines the "core" as whatever we're all choosing to do right now.
There is no inherently superior value in 'old zone' content compared to 'new zone' content. And 'new zone' content has several advantages over 'old zone' content from a developer (and new player) perspective. Players ignore what they ignore for good reason, and they play what they play for good reason- as long as they're playing and enjoying SOMEthing in the game, it is a success.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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You're getting a new arc and some new Tips and Morality missions in I19 |
Originally Posted by The_Coming_Storm
No. Just add more villain stuff.
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@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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True, but I think we mean in terms of physical zone content as well. It's like saying Newspapers count as real content (when half the time the villain group involved stole something they shouldn't even be interested in).|
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
You're getting a new arc and some new Tips and Morality missions in I19
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And besides, heroes basically have two zones for each level range, villains have only one.
Heroes need zone revamps, villains need all new things.
There, both sides of devs can be satisfied.
Click here to find all the All Things Art Threads!
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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.
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I'd be more for devs reusing the different loot types that they've given us already, whether to revamp zones or to introduce new content.
Stuff like brainstorms, vanguard merits, tf merits, event salvage, tickets, base salvage, alignment merits all seem like add-ons that are disjointed, without rhyme or reason on how they should work together.
Soon we'll have stuff for alpha slotting to be grafted onto our existing game. Would be nice if they could make stuff hang together and not seem like another throwaway.
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See, I'm gonna be interested to see how Cataclysm turns out, for the express reason that it does exactly what I've been talking about; overhauling the main game content to (they say) make it less terribad.|
Originally Posted by Nethergoat
Now this is just silly. Revising a 6 year old game to meet the standards of an expansion released in 2010 would be a MASSIVE undertaking, and largely wasted in terms of curb appeal for new players. A new expansion is something gamers intrinsically understand. "Hey, we re-did all these old zones!" isn't as appealing, plus it carries the stink of implied failure ("yeah sure we made people pay for all that old junk, but it's pretty crummy and this new version is really great, this time we promise!") Taco Bell is always repackaging their 3 crummy ingredients in different ways (gordita! mexican pizza! chalupa! nacho taco!). Why don't they spend that energy on improving their older offerings? For the same reason MMOs prioritize releasing new material over revising old- its simpler and more promotable. |
Anyway, they have a very valid excuse to redo the old stuff;
"This stuff was left over by the previous lead dev and, while providing a much needed basis for the game, we have taken the lessons learned and applied ourselves to adding the variety and quality of content that players have come to expect from a Paragon Studios product."
*Pfft, pfft!* See? I even sullied my tongue with marketting speak, because that's exactly how it'd be wrapped
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Again, you're concretizing something that is essentially fluid. There is no "core" of the game, there is a constantly shifting locus of population that defines the "core" as whatever we're all choosing to do right now. There is no inherently superior value in 'old zone' content compared to 'new zone' content. And 'new zone' content has several advantages over 'old zone' content from a developer (and new player) perspective. Players ignore what they ignore for good reason, and they play what they play for good reason- as long as they're playing and enjoying SOMEthing in the game, it is a success. |
And I just find the last part so intrinsically flawed because...well...surely if something is being ignored it should be fixed? Graphical bugs get fixed, powerset suck-points get buffed and tweaked...why are old zones any different?
I'll say it again.
Why, other than from a perspective point of view, are 'New Shinies!' touted as being better than getting rid of old junk and replacing it with something high quality, using all the current day tech?
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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.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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I agree with Techbot but just a few things as to why the devs may not feel the same:
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Because zones are a lot more resource intensive than added numbers and correcting mistakes that weren't supposed to be there in the first place.|
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
And I just find the last part so intrinsically flawed because...well...surely if something is being ignored it should be fixed? Graphical bugs get fixed, powerset suck-points get buffed and tweaked...why are old zones any different?
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Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
I'll say it again.
Why, other than from a perspective point of view, are 'New Shinies!' touted as being better than getting rid of old junk and replacing it with something high quality, using all the current day tech? |
(why do you think there are a billion and a half-versions of what demons, vampires, elves, and other beings can and cannot do?)
Click here to find all the All Things Art Threads!
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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.
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AP's Personal Wishlist for existing content
Atlas Park and Galaxy City
- If there is any new content planned for the 1-5 range then please consider putting it in Galaxy City. This also goes for events (such as Weddings, Deaths, Births, Bar Mitzvahs, Apocalpyses). I get that Atlas Park is the location of City Hall and all that jazz, but Galaxy needs some love.
- More flavour for Hero Corps to distinguish them from other contacts. Similarly a bit more flavour for the FBSA contacts too. By flavour I mean personality, as opposed to imposing flavour on player characters.
- Stripping contacts such as Tony Kord out of the contact chain and making them FedEx contacts, or providers of repeatable missions for the zone. In my opinion, seeing how quickly people can level from 1-10, there seem to be too many contacts for the very early level range (all of whom give out the same missions depending on Origin, as we know) so paring them down and giving them more flavour could make for a pseudo-alternative path for Blueside.
Off to lunch now, more later!
Aaaaand... Back!
Kings Row, for me at least, has become the place where you get your Raptor Pack, and has handy Wentworths and store contacts. Some of the missions are a bit far out, but really since the movement of certain contacts to more sane locations, the zone is good. It's supposed to be a bit of a rundown, industrial distrct and it feels like that. HOWEVER - as with the GR content, why not add a few 'named' warehouses and offices to tie in with the existing 'generic' content? This would be especially useful with the Bonefire and Clockwork Captive arcs, extra-especially an actual physical location for Lou's Garage.
Skyway and Steel, again for me, seem to have a bit of conflict going on: The Hollows is, despite being able to do the missions blinfolded, still a good place to play. Sure, there's less reason it seems now to 'learn how aggro works' and to learn how to navigate efficiently and effectively (i.e. not being sent into zones with +6 enemies, or made to cross the Gulch (into zones full of +6 enemies), but the revamp worked to consolidate The Hollows as a place to encounter a good plot (Wincott, The Outcasts, The Trolls), which is good for new peeps and veterans alike. Often this means an outlevelling of Skyway and Steel, and I think if there were stronger stories in both zones, then people might be more inclined to try them out.
Skyway and Steel, as I said before, seem to clash. Specifically level-wise. Content-wise they have some differing arcs, but I'm totally for the turning of zones (for the most part - I'd keep some of the higher level arcs open to travelling round the City) into 'zone stories'. I think Skyway could do with a lift here - it's a sort of throughway to what used to be an awful zone (Faultline), which is now an awesome zone with a Story. The gimmick of the roadways works for 5 minutes, then becomes annoying. It's also got several neat 'events' which I feel could be backed up with consistent storylines:
- Troll Rave - It's a surprisingly fun event (that grants badges) and yet there's little else in Skyway itself that explains more about Superadine. In fact, the majority of the early plot of the Trolls is played out in the Hollows (unless you avoid the Hollows, but then why would you when contacts give out a 'Go speak to Wincott' mission?).
- Babbage - As part of the Synapse TF, I like that the Babbage fight is restricted to Skyway. Especially as Synapse is in Skyway. So I guess this one is covered by a TF (which needs a rewrite - desperately!)
- The Paladin - Okay, whut?! Why is he suddenly in Skyway, near Faultline, when he is being built in Kings? If the damned thing's going to remain randomly in Skyway, then I want to know more about why it's there.
I could go on for hours and hours, but I won't. These are all personal wants and even this post's content would, I imagine, take a LONG time to implement. It's not just a case of rewriting existing stuff, but putting in new stuff too to flesh it out.
For me, GR is very interesting content. It appears to have learnt from the legacy content and missions, despite some difficulty curves, flow better without too much searching around and/or travelling between zones to do the same thing over and over. Previous revamps were welcome, especially Faultline.
And whilst I like new shiny, I also want to see better oldy. I don't want to speak to Anton Sampson (or whatever his name is) and then go click 37 'crates' in a warehouse full of Nemesis Snipers.
Whilst I doubt we'll get 'branching dialogue' for old content, I would liek to see attention paid to assets already in existence that could be so much better. Posi 1 and 2 are now a joy to play. Perhaps people just need to go through existing arcs withy a fine tooth comb and point out why they need a rewrite/revamp on an arc-by-arc basis?
[QUOTE=AzureSkyCiel;3268259]I agree with Techbot but just a few things as to why the devs may not feel the same:
Because zones are a lot more resource intensive than added numbers and correcting mistakes that weren't supposed to be there in the first place.[Quote]
That still makes no sense.
New Zone; Need to build it from the ground up, add contacts, content, etc
Revamped Zone; Zone already exists, no need to change it, add in contacts and storyline.
I don't mean 'revamp it all and change every last little bit of the map'. Dark Astoria is a prime example; that place has so much character, it's one of the few zones I actually find rather creepy. Yet theres no contacts there, no trainer, nothing. Theres essentially no point to it even existing, at all. It's a waste of space, as it is now.
So why not use it? Theres no good reason not to.
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...Revamping...not progressive....|
Because, the Devs have said themselves, I think. At least David did in an All Things Art, that often revamping old stuff doesn't feel as progressive or exciting as making something all new, even if, in reality, reimagining something can be very fun creatively and artistically. (why do you think there are a billion and a half-versions of what demons, vampires, elves, and other beings can and cannot do?) |
Internal Logic Error. Out of Cheese, Redo from Start. ///Melonmelonmelonmelonasdhahfd.exe
-spamlogcialconclusionoclusions-
*facedesk*
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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.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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Dynamic Content. If the zones oriented to players in it, we wouldn't need revamps.
"Samual_Tow - Be disappointed all you want, people. You just don't appreciate the miracles that are taking place here."
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Ahhhh! I'm sorry, it's just that whenever we talk about zone revamps, my default thinking includes visual face-lifts to the buildings too.|
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
That still makes no sense.
New Zone; Need to build it from the ground up, add contacts, content, etc Revamped Zone; Zone already exists, no need to change it, add in contacts and storyline. I don't mean 'revamp it all and change every last little bit of the map'. Dark Astoria is a prime example; that place has so much character, it's one of the few zones I actually find rather creepy. Yet theres no contacts there, no trainer, nothing. Theres essentially no point to it even existing, at all. It's a waste of space, as it is now. So why not use it? Theres no good reason not to. |
This is namely because Paragon City was supposed to be a city of Art-Deco buildings, but because of graphical limitations, it looks more like Architectural Brutalism.
In my dreams I see Paragon and the Rogue Isles having thier respective, under-lying architectural themes realized with additional themes based on the area/zone.
But all in all, it would mean a lot of Paragon would look like pre-fall Rapture from the Bioshock games, though zones like Galaxy City, Founders' Falls, and Atlas would have a slightly different approach (Googie, American Imperial, and Neo-classical respectively).
But that's my own personal opinion, and I'd be just as happy to see contact changes and mission fixes with modern mission tech.
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Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
...Revamping...not progressive....
Internal Logic Error. Out of Cheese, Redo from Start. ///Melonmelonmelonmelonasdhahfd.exe -spamlogcialconclusionoclusions- *facedesk* |
Click here to find all the All Things Art Threads!
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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.
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Yeahl, I don't doubt that Paragon and the Rogues could be make to look as purty as Praetoria.|
Originally Posted by AzureSkyCiel
Ahhhh! I'm sorry, it's just that whenever we talk about zone revamps, my default thinking includes visual face-lifts to the buildings too.
This is namely because Paragon City was supposed to be a city of Art-Deco buildings, but because of graphical limitations, it looks more like Architectural Brutalism. In my dreams I see Paragon and the Rogue Isles having thier respective, under-lying architectural themes realized with additional themes based on the area/zone. But all in all, it would mean a lot of Paragon would look like pre-fall Rapture from the Bioshock games, though zones like Galaxy City, Founders' Falls, and Atlas would have a slightly different approach (Googie, American Imperial, and Neo-classical respectively). But that's my own personal opinion, and I'd be just as happy to see contact changes and mission fixes with modern mission tech. |
But I also think that, what with too many zones sat there already built and lacking in any content at all, it'd be crimin- no, sorry, it IS criminal to waste them.
Perez Park; Zones fine. Add missions to help fight the gangs, investigate the CoT and learn more about the wierd Hydra men.
Dark Astoria; Combat the Banished Pantheons prescence in DA, and any other groups are there (You can tell how little I've used the zone)
Eden; Push into the heart of Hamidons foothold in Paragon and send a clear message that his evil schemes won't work.
Crey's Folly; Stop the scavengers from getting their hands on dangerous experimental tech, learn more about the dark truth behind Creys shiny corporate exterior, and engage Nemesis and the Rikti as they plot and scheme.
Terra Volta; Fire in the Sky as you throw down with the Sky Raiders, making it perfectly clear that crime does not pay. Not in your city!
Boomtown is the only one that would need an actual graphical overhaul, due to the fact that lore now has mentioned it being in the process of being rebuilt. That and, while the other zones have awesome settings to them, theres something a little samey about miles of rubble and wasteland. It feels too much like a Portal Corp mission.
And ye gods those things need re-vamping badly. Defeat alls on Large Open city maps are...lets just say that rage occurs. In large ammounts.
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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.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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WoW operates by its own rules.|
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
See, I'm gonna be interested to see how Cataclysm turns out, for the express reason that it does exactly what I've been talking about; overhauling the main game content to (they say) make it less terribad.
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If this game had that playerbase and those resources, a total makover becomes feasible. There's no perception problem because they can afford big boy marketing, with ads on the teevee and whatnot telling people what it's all about. They're not limited to banner ads on gaming sites and trailers on Youtube.
For them, it's a brilliant idea- they're creating WoW II without putting out a competing product, and it works for them because of the scale they operate on.
Our little game with its double-handful of devs and 100k or so players?
The resources simply don't exist.
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| Anyway, they have a very valid excuse to redo the old stuff... |
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| The 'Core Game' is essentially that; what players pay for with no bells and whistles added. They pay, they play. Expansions are not the Core Game. They can be gold plated, but they are still an extra add-on that people have to get, making their quality irrelevant when it comes to Trial players and the like. All they will get is the rusted old crap that was left over from the early issues. |
Going Rogue: Complete Collection.
So worries about 'rusty old' content are vastly overblown.
New players aren't checking out the CoH/V that's been around forever, they're checking out the New Shiny, which includes the 'old game', or at the very least presents the 'old game' as a $20 expansion.
They're level 20 when they bail on Praetoria, which is well past the worst of the blue side content.
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| And I just find the last part so intrinsically flawed because...well...surely if something is being ignored it should be fixed? Graphical bugs get fixed, powerset suck-points get buffed and tweaked...why are old zones any different? |
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I'll say it again. Why, other than from a perspective point of view, are 'New Shinies!' touted as being better than getting rid of old junk and replacing it with something high quality, using all the current day tech? |
*shrug*
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
I only read the OP, but my husband and I have been talking about that a lot lately. We would LOVE to see the devs go back and revamp the old content, similarly to the changes mentioned in the OP (new posi TF, etc.) even if that means less new content for awhile. FWIW, I have spoken to many other players on global channels I belong to that feel this way as well.
As much fun as it is to get new stuff, the old stuff is what makes me hate blueside more than anything.
I can't stand playing heroes anymore. It's gotten to the point where I don't even make heroes at all, I just make villains and switch them over when the content starts to get good, and that doesn't happen until level 35+. Old Hero content is just so bland, boring, and even painful to read. Constant "Go beat up this guy," "Go hunt 10 of these guys," "Go take this thing to this guy," "Go to this impossibly far-away zone and do this, then walk all the way back to me when your done," with almost no explanation for why you're doing these things other than "Because I said so." There are hardly any story arcs early blueside outside of the Hollows.
Villains just have so much better content. Kalinda is a personal favorite. From level 1, you're engaged in this awesome story, how you could be the most powerful villain ever, you just have to prove yourself. There are tons of story arcs from level 1 onward, and much more developed contacts. Heroside contacts are just boring civilian models with some cheesy back-story added in an attempt to make them interesting. "So-and-so was a average office worker, when a clockwork robot stole his favorite metal thermos. Since then, he's been hell-bent on defeating the clockwork king once and for all!"
If blueside content ever gets looked at, I might be convinced to roll a hero again. Right now the only heroes worth rolling are Kheldians, and that's because of their awesome story-arcs.
Arc ID: 348998 - Becoming a villain
Arc ID: 373341 - To Save a Hero
Got Inf?
Quote:
This pretty much sums it up for me, which is a shame because I love some of the zones blue side.
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Originally Posted by Smash_Zone
As much fun as it is to get new stuff, the old stuff is what makes me hate blueside more than anything.
I can't stand playing heroes anymore. It's gotten to the point where I don't even make heroes at all, I just make villains and switch them over when the content starts to get good, and that doesn't happen until level 35+. Old Hero content is just so bland, boring, and even painful to read. Constant "Go beat up this guy," "Go hunt 10 of these guys," "Go take this thing to this guy," "Go to this impossibly far-away zone and do this, then walk all the way back to me when your done," with almost no explanation for why you're doing these things other than "Because I said so." There are hardly any story arcs early blueside outside of the Hollows. Villains just have so much better content. Kalinda is a personal favorite. From level 1, you're engaged in this awesome story, how you could be the most powerful villain ever, you just have to prove yourself. There are tons of story arcs from level 1 onward, and much more developed contacts. Heroside contacts are just boring civilian models with some cheesy back-story added in an attempt to make them interesting. "So-and-so was a average office worker, when a clockwork robot stole his favorite metal thermos. Since then, he's been hell-bent on defeating the clockwork king once and for all!" If blueside content ever gets looked at, I might be convinced to roll a hero again. Right now the only heroes worth rolling are Kheldians, and that's because of their awesome story-arcs. |
"the reason there are so many sarcastic pvpers is we already had a better version of pvp taken away from us to appease bad players. Back then we chuckled at how bad players came here and whined. If we knew that was the actual voice devs would listen to instead of informed, educated players we probably would have been bigger dicks back then." -ConFlict
Quote:
I absolutely agree. So many hero missions are stale and senseless in terms of story. Villains don't have nearly enough content, but the mission arcs they have are superior for the most part, though getting old now. The Kheld mission arcs are wonderful story, sadly though the fragile Khelds are just not as much fun to play for me.
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Originally Posted by Smash_Zone
As much fun as it is to get new stuff, the old stuff is what makes me hate blueside more than anything.
I can't stand playing heroes anymore. . . <Snip!>. . . Villains just have so much better content. Kalinda is a personal favorite. From level 1, you're engaged in this awesome story, how you could be the most powerful villain ever, you just have to prove yourself. There are tons of story arcs from level 1 onward, and much more developed contacts. Heroside contacts are just boring civilian models with some cheesy back-story added in an attempt to make them interesting. . . <Snip!> . . . Right now the only heroes worth rolling are Kheldians, and that's because of their awesome story-arcs. |
Dark Astoria should be in a constant state of Zombie apocalypse mode... or atleast something similar.
Like other's have said: limitless potential here. I don't want a generic zombie area, we could have all sorts of things: Scientific Zombies from the Council Vs. Banished Pantheon or CoT Zombies.
Whining about everything since 2006.
Ammo switching for Dual Pistols was my idea:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=135484
Revamping, ah?
I think we better be careful with what we wish...
Take for instance the Positron revamp, it went from a single mission to two. The original version, you had a lot of stupid repetition to endure, but at least when you finished you had the badge towards the accolade. The new version, has mixed emotions, but being broken into 2 sections to get the one badge towards accolade, provides a certain uncertainty to players since some players may not participate in the second part of the TF, and depending the time of the day and server, that may be the kiss of death. Fortunately you don't have to the 2 in order, so that does reasonably mitigate the issue.
What I did not like about the new Positron, dramatically less merit earnings, like a third instead. The ambushes in the TF are a bit too over the top, especially when support classes have built in vulnerabilities that are shamelessly exploited during the numerous ambushes.
Before Tf content gets revised, I would like to see devs spend the time fixing the many bugs and defects that have been accumulating over the years with each new release.
Then when revising the old content, do away with idiotic hunts, and personal deliveries, no real use for them, it can be talked away in the dialogue, such as take this to Azuria, when you click on Positron he would say "Thank you for retrieving the item and taking it to Azuria for study; she found out..." and yo go to next mission.
Next, the maps of missions, please, please, stop using the same maps over and over!
Lets talk about complex rooms (pool room, quad, cake), they should as a rule only be used once per map, Also the defeat boss and all guards should not result in destroying everything in the complex room; should be limited to the boss and the spawn that comes with it.
I miss the old days, when we finally got to the complex room, we all knew we had made it to the boss and the final epic battle. Now these rooms can be found multiple times in the very same level! That is a let down!
Also missions need to be revised to allow for guile to be used, instead of being forced to brute force everything.
Hugs
Stormy
But I can also see it from the perspective that replacing existing content with upgraded stuff is 'content neutral' rather than expanding the game. If you rework a zone, the game still has the same number of zones. If you add a new one, you're up one zone. Yeah, that old zone is tired and boring and outdated, but its existence feeds the perception that the game is growing.
I don't agree with that philosophy, but I understand it.
New zones, from this point on, do nothing but spread players out even more and leave older zones even further estranged from everything. Yes, they have new shinies. Great. In GR's case, however, that new shiny is in fact locked away behind the expansion. If players DONT get the expansion, and people looking at trying a game will likely not, instead going for the Trial or a months play, they get exactly 0% of the new shinies. Instead getting stuck with the old rust, which makes them think 'Hey, this is it? I heard this game had new, cool stuff in it? What a load of guff!' /quit
I would even argue new zones are, at the moment, potentially more damaging than doing nothing to the game, due to the above.
Now to the revamps; Not only does it make the old zones more appealing to new comers, it's also a fresh lick of paint and new content that older gamers will enjoy. Hell, just how often have you heard people say "I'm sick of Mercy/Atlas/Galaxy/Kings/Insert low level zone here!", or sick of old missions? I'll bet you that number is very high.
So, what does revamping achieve?
-New mission arcs that get rid of the old junk and raise the baseline standard of the game
-Maintains high standard despite not being expansion content
-New content for old players, better content for new players
-Fill in empty zones, effectively fulfilling the same purpose as a whole new zone without actually having to add one in.
I just cannot see ANY logical sense behind 'New shinies!' being better than revamping the old stuff to a high quality. It makes NO sense at all.