Build Your Ideal "Starter City"

What kind of "starter city" would you build if you had unlimited time, money, labor and resources to get it done? What would you need? What should it look like? And what kinds of NPCs/content would you need it to offer? Do you want something gritty and realistic? Polished and futuristic?

Enquiring minds wanna know.

Battledome.

Big dome. Lots of weapons. Water and food sloughed in on troughs. Bathroom in the north wall.

People enter, do battle and leave. Many die. A great many.

It will be glorious.

I... hmm, wouldn't, without having it affect the rest of the game. That aside...

I'd want things to draw higher levels back in. Seeing "ooh shiny" higher level powers - without putting the lowbies at risk - is kind of a nice "keep with it!" prod.

I'd want to get people a good, solid grasp on the lore they're going to go through.

I'd start establishing groups that they'll have to deal with later - such as having Crey being a "good corporate neighbor," even being helpful so you start getting nice and cozy with them - just to find out what they're really doing much later.

If we could have multiple zones (like Atlas and Galaxy,) yes, I'd make them visually distinct even for the same side. Let one be for the idealistic nice-and-shiny hero, let another be for those who see themselves as the - as you say - gritty, down to earth sort. And have both start distinct, throughout -the - character - career arcs.

See my Guides and Tutorials

The only thing I dislike about the design of Atlas and Galaxy is that the run-down areas are too close to the shiny starter area. You would think that area would be clean. So I'd make the city "core" nice and shiny, with older, slightly run-down buildings and gang-ridden parks toward the fringes. I would remove the warehouses and low-rent highrises entirely.

The starter contacts would give out actual arcs introducing new characters to the city's lore. One arc for each origin, one for each villain group with Magic origin characters being introduced to the magical artifact trade through the Hellions and hints at the CoT, Tech characters dealing with Clockwork, Natural dealing with Council and 5th, Science dealing with Vahz, and mutants dealing with the Superdyne trade since we've already got Science covered. There would be Skulls in the starter area since there's supposed to be a gang war going on but the Hellions and Skulls don't even hang out in the same territory....well except in Perez, but people tend to avoid going there and what gangs are going to fight over a park that civillians avoid and that is overrun with villains more powerful than they are?

I would also have "fed-ex" quests acknowledge the existence of Galaxy city, instead of going to Azuria all the time, and double up on services such as the cape and aura mission.

For a villain starter zone, I would do something more like Port Oakes and less like a giant pile of burning garbage. Make a new player's first impression of the Rogue Isles that of a place a villain might actually want to hang out.

First, I very much like Bill's idea of having multiple, distinct zones, for every flavor of hero. Or, if it must be one zone/city, make the center of it a flourishing, shiny, teched-up metropolis, then have a more gritty, less polished, surrounding area.

I would like this to be the center of a web, where story lines progress outward to specific zones, following themes based around origin and/or type of enemy you wish to face. For example, a character may choose that their story involves taking down corporate and mafia corruption, thus taking them through multiple linked or related story lines with enemies based around that. However, a big part of that system would be multi-faceted story lines that could lead you off the current path, in a manner similar to our current Tip missions or the Moral choice missions in Praetoria: a mission may include a meeting between two factions of different types of enemies (like Freakshow and Tsoo) and you could choose to follow and defeat the one you have been following, or move to the other and discover what their plot is. This is far from a fleshed-out idea, but that's the gist.

That would be optional, as you could also be more of a freelance hero, picking up contacts and/or missions from different walks of life all over the place, "going wherever the world needs you." From there, you could choose to progress through a whole story arc or decide that saving that one woman from the Circle of Thorns ritual is enough, and that their end-game plot is of no importance to you (currently).

I would also love there to be a reason for higher leveled heroes to return to the starter city/zone. I don't have a clear idea of what that reason should be, or what it would incorporate, but higher level heroes are necessary around lowbies, as a goal for which to shoot.

Lots of brainstorming there, few full ideas, but that's my two cents.

Well, not quite a flesh out idea, but basically this was inspired by Redacted Wars 2's concept of a home instance, requests for individual character lairs, and the Villa from Redacted Creed 2.

In this case, this would basically be a small section of a city/city/village/little spot in the world that could serve as both your tutorial area, starting area, and sort of an activity hub. I called the idea: "Home Turf Instance"
You could choose your Home Turf from a list of various places/cities in the world that need a hero to help them, or a villain to show everyone who's boss, each could have a theme about them to fit your hero or villain.
After running your tutorial you could then begin investing in this home turf to bring it from it's semi-rundown state into a jewel of opulence, or let it fall into greater disrepair, there are actually advantages and themes to both.
Building your Home Turf into a Jewel would bring all manner of NPC services to the Home Turf, even ones that might not be found normally in-game at higher levels. Thematically, this is to show a hero really progressing in bringing about change to that corner of the world. For villains its meant to show you're either not such a badguy (similar to how Mafia do not tolorate @#$% on their turf), making a long term investment, or maybe you just want to rob classy places and not a dive, plus, being in good standing with the locals (or having a good bribe deal with the authorities) means its always a place you can lay low.
By letting it decay, you can attract dynamically leveled content into your neighborhood, and all manner of opportunities await when you can rough up a local arms dealer for some temp powers. (maybe what you can get from either a run-down home turf or metropolis one isn't so different afterall)
For heroes, this would be for vigilante types, basically exploiting their Home Turf to be sort of trap, lure them all in and knock'em own in one place. Villains, they just might not care enough about the place and not mind it becoming a wretched hive of scum and villainy, and with so many more villains around, it stays a safe place to lay low.

So... there's my ambitious little concept.

Quote:

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.

Make Kings Row a start zone and fill it with darker, down to Earth stories involving you helping Paragon Police Department officers, possibly even becoming an officer yourself, as you stop gang threats like Skulls, Trolls, Hellions, Vahzilok, etc. Nice place for the more natural/gritty types. PPD headquarters would be the central hub.

Make Galaxy City more about being a superhero working alongside Longbow in their fights against more costumed threats like Council, Fifth Column, Clockwork, Arachnos, Rogues Gallery villains, etc. Have your contacts be actual super heroes/Longbow agents. The Freedom Corps building would be Galaxy's central hub.

And Atlas Park would be more about being your own hero as you work to clean the city of all sorts of crime, whether they be gang threats or costumed villains. You'd receive missions from government officials like the City Representative, Azuria of Magi, various scientists, and Mayor Morales. Atlas Plaza would, of course, be the central hub.


Each of these would probably require zone revamps to make them fit their respective moods. Kings Row would need to seem darker, dirtier, and a little more unique. Galaxy would need to lose it's dirtier areas in favor of more pristine, cleaner city-esque locations. And Atlas is fine as is, but could still use a makeover regardless.

Contacts would need revamping so that you're not constantly working for "Bill the butcher" or "Mary from accounting". Make those working for their branches of the FBSA actually look like a genius scientist/arcane magician/government agent. And the zones would need to reach a level range of 1-15, and possibly have level some 45-50 content to mark the end of your career and to encourage people to come back.

A revamp of the tutorial would be in order as well to help immerse the new players in just what each zone will be like, what enemies they'll face, and the fact that the tutorial is just plain old to begin with.

Someone needs to propose a villain starter zone that is evil while not being a total slum.

My ideal "starter city" would be ... Suburbia ... and the comic book-y threat to Suburbia would be ... The Phone Pole Team!

"We're going to take over the world, beginning with YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD!"

From the petty crimes common to Suburbia, you "graduate" towards the criminal activity that gets more organized, in addition to picking up on Conspiracies of actors (the Circle of Thorns is a good example of a "conspiracy" group).

It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...

Starter city? Hell, entire game (as someone said)! I would not have made zones level-gated (now they're not), I would make mobs more powerful against lower-level players, but scale HPs to everyone. Every zone would have missions that could be tailored to your AT and powerset. All NPCs (Non-Powered-Citizens) would be actually doing something other than randomly walking up and down the streets. ALL THE SHOPS WOULD BE OPEN and could have clues to new missions. Random zone events would happen that could change the dynamic of the city based on hero/villain response. Crime wouldn't be "spoon-fed" to newbies, who now attack mobs for loitering, hit the alleys and seedy parts of town. The most important thing is that the city feel more "alive" and that players zoning in feel like it's new to them every time.

I wouldn't make a distinct starter zone at all, instead I would combine character creation with a questionnaire that determines the character's starting circumstances -not unlike character creation in Morrowind or Mount and Blade- and have them accordingly drop off in a kind of tutorial zone that is tailored to the result of the questionnaire, have them do one or two small story arcs there and then have them go to one of several choosable key zones that would offer full functionality and should encourage players of most levels to frequent it, so that it invokes the feeling of a proper living city, albeit not necessarily capital city, which could already be accessed and offer work for all levels, but you wouldn't be dropped off there anyway.

In fact I'd prefer a game world which works a bit like late single-player open-world games with several interlaced zones and smooth transition (think GTA or Gothic). I don't know how well that would work with an MMOG though, technically.

I would have a PvP zone called Valhalla.

In Valhalla the Valkyries would rip your soul out of your corpse and return them to a new body. Your foes would see the carmage and the sight of winged beauties diving from the sky would signal more foes to defeat.

I would have an AE style of PvP design where all powers, travel and maps could be editted.

It would include options for leagues and a terminal where you could see the stats for all teams/players.

Exactly, because the AE is completely dead as well, rolls eyes.

If you could gain the same AE rewards doing in game PvP with Capture the flag, escort and leagues ............

You know it doesn't matter with the slow bleed to death of this game and now free-to-play - the Fat Lady is beginning her song.

Magma-powered forges.

And bees.