Subcontracting to Time Lords?

That reminds me, there's an open air concession stand on (I think) Nerva that has a door on one side. You can easily see both sides of the door and that it doesn't lead anywhere but inside the stand, but it sometimes works as a mission door - it's the Concession Stand of the Time Lords!

No elevator in the building?

As for the door and the stairway, it would usually have a porch/larger area so the door doesn't swing so far over the steps.

Also likely in that position, the door would swing the other way, not out over the stairs.

It would probably take an engine rework before it could be done, but it would be unutterably cool to have zones where gravity was relative, so you could have maps where you could be standing on the floor and see people standing on their 'floor', which is at a 90° angle to your floor. It could be either magic-based (i.e., time-travel missions to the most secret inner recesses of Oranbega or Mu before they fell) or technology-based (gravity generators on a space station). Or just a handwaved temporary power that players get when they enter the mission that allows them to stick to the walls and ceiling.

Are you saying that city hall sits on a Nemesis plot?

Northern Brickstown, there's a little park-like raised area, basicly a concrete planter the size of an intersection. Couple trees, large rockpile, wooden "CAUTION: DO NOT ENTER" door. Leads to Oranbega, Council bases, 5th Column bases, and the wedding cake cave.

Note there's a parking lot directly below it.



As for the wacky building and warehouse layouts we see, the answer is simple: after the first Rikti War, all construction was required to be underground. Those buildings you see? Decoys, to distract the bombers. My proof? Visit the Council HQ in the RWZ. You'll see.

Skyway City has manhole covers on the roads... including the elevated highways that are 60 feet above the ground.

You can Trick or Treat at the little guard shacks in Peregrine. It's a four-foot square structure, but somehow a dozen zombies, witches and vampires can fit in there. Must be the clown car effect.

That's it! The Omega slot unlocks the secret identity system!

There's a few missions that use a map of that area. In most of them, when you get close to the shacks, similar numbers of Longbow pile out.

*bursts out laughing*

Thank you for making me laugh out loud today.

Don't you know, The entire universe is a nemesis plot

Well, thanks to the new tram improvements, we now know we can get transport boxes with multiple choices, even for the same zone. (in theory)
The problem would be making sure NPC allies and such could follow you, but man did I have an idea once for how to make more realistic buildings for City of while keeping the layout interesting.

First off, I imagined to break the monotomy of just taking the elevator, as well as to prevent someone from just stealthing by glimpsing each floor to try to find the boss(s) and/or objective(s), there you could basically only use an elevator once, then the baddies would cut off elevator service and you would either have to defeat all enemies on the same floor you arrived at or ascend or descend floors using alternate paths. All the great TV, movie, and comic book staples would serve for these alternate means of ascension and descending, such as maintenance elevators, an empty elevator shaft next to the working one, air ducts, an open(able) window to scale it from the outside, stair wells, etc. etc. could be used, and each time you used one, the bad guys would 'seal off' that means until you cleared a floor or simply took one of the other routes. I should note that not all alternate means (aside from stairs) would be present in all office interiors and it would depend on how large it is, so like an office map with only two to four floors might have just the elevator and stair wells, five to seven floors you'd have three ways to move up and down the floors, eight to ten, you'd get four, eleven to thirteen, five, and so on. (This assumes that individual floors would be a bit smaller than present ones that can sprawl half a mile big.)

Another means to break up the boredom of standard office-space interiors and realistic military bases, etc. etc. is to introduce barricades. Some are makeshift, originally built by enemies to impede your progress or civvies trying to create a safe spot, and others are not, and expressly part of the building's defense systems or made from portable force field generators for area denial, and some of them are destroyable (preferably all of the makeshift ones), others would force you to go another way (only a handful, and they should probably be the non-makeshift ones), and their spawning could be made fairly random to avoid even the same map being completely predictable.

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.

Clim8, clim8, Tavros 8a8y?

I love both these ideas. It would be great to see bookcases and tables stacked up against doors or in a barricade. You know just about every office has that crazy guy just waiting for the zombie invasion. You know the guy that play too much Left 4 Dead and buys those zombie survival manuals. It would be great to see him held up in the back office taking on the bad guys or even attacking the heroes because he has snapped. You would then have to calm him down and convince him you here to help. Then he would give you the key to the door/elevator/barricade (OK my hubby is sitting over my shoulder rattling out ideas). Post your self damn it!

Why? You're posting all my best ideas for me anyway.

Being lazy and making your wife do all your work is bad.

Though another factor of seriousness, another thing that would be cool for all maps with Prison cells (which I think are under used mechanics) is to inclue a chance to find other prisoners inside, such as trapped allies or possible enemies, or even just hapless civvies who were kidnapped to serve as bonus objectives.

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.

What do you mean lazy? We talk about it and when I say something she likes she runs in and posts it before I have the chance!

I like this suggestion, and think that would be neat too. We kind of have something like this in the Tip Mission content, but what if there were special tips or rewards for helping somone in these situations?

Oh, maybe even branch off the main storyline of whatever the main plot is for a story arc? A mission that gives added detail for those who want it.

And bringing it back to the main conversation, the most perplexing room(s) I've run into is on the lab maps. You know the one that is like four rooms; two of which are large open areas, but to access the other two on either side you have to take this little twisty rampway located on the top floor of the other room, which exits into a tiny hallway you can either go left or right in to reach the other two rooms. It's almost like they used non-euclidean geometry to design that area!