Mercy Island Revamp

I have a concern regarding the upcoming starting zone revamp that may or may not have been commented on in the past.

The Developers have stated that Mercy Island itself is not getting a revamp, but mission/ start locations are changing. Does this mean that the textures in Mercy Island, such as windows and metal fixings will not get an update for Ultra Mode?

I agree with the Developers that Mercy Island is iconic and there is no need for a major restructure, but there are so many beautiful places in Mercy Island it would be a shame that if we came out of this with a zone that looks dated and does not live up to its full potential.

I hate how every island is a slum in CoV. Why can't there be a dark, sinister looking city like Gotham in CoV? Just because villains have an aversion to shiny, vibrant places doesn't mean every zone has to be a total dump. I mean, what's the point of fighting over it? A nuclear fallout site has more going for it.

I dunno, I've grown to love the look of the Isles. At first I refused to play there... but it really has grown on me. I like the fact that it isn't all clean lines, shiny metal/glass and pristine ponds and reflecting pools. I like Paragon AND the Rogue Isles, but for very different reasons.

I've always loved the Gothic architecture of Mercy, it's twisting turning alleyways with hidden crumbling statues, old fountains and bandstands.

I, for one, hope they don't change it too much. I love doing Doctor Creed's arc.

One thing that I for one would *definitely* put on my wishlist for Mercy Island is to add even minimal projecting window ledges to all the buildings. In places like King's Row, all of the housing blocks have projecting window ledges, which allows you to (with a bit of work) jump UP on the sides of buildings so as to get to the rooftops. The buildings in Mercy Island have sheer slab slided wall faces with no projecting ledges on them to jump from. All of the window "ledges" that you see on buildings are just texture mapped, there's no "supporting" geometry at work there.

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

The look of Rogue side is prop why i hate the hero side...im not a huge fan of clean shinny things lol.

If there's a problem with redside, I think it's that it was designed entirely as a setting for the Destined One story where Paragon City was designed as a place where ordinary people would want to live.

Supposedly, the Rogue Isles are a country with an economy and social services and maybe even a U.N. presence. Supposedly there are people living and working there voluntarily; raising families. For Scrapyard to become the socially conscious hero of a worker's revolution, there first had to be some workers to organize.

We don't see any of that because the game world visuals in the Rogue Isles are so tightly focused on our characters' rise from trash heap to top of the heap, that it never bothers to depict the "real" Rogue Isles. Blueside, the city is strictly backdrop; it's not window dressing to the story of a hero starting on the streets and ending up as an object of wide acclaim who has mastered a laundry list of evil-doers and is even saving other worlds and the future itself.

In other words, in Paragon City the zones each tell their own story where in The Rogue Isles the zones are all subservient to the character's story and their appearance is skewed heavily because of that. In a sense, we've never actually seen the "real" Rogue Isles.

If it needs a revamp, that's what it needs. A visual representation that depicts why anyone who was not a Destined One would bother to live, work, and procreate in such an apparently horrible place. There needs to be some sense of history of the life that went on before Recluse arrived and of the life that continues to go on in spite of his rule and neglect.

Frankly, I would have preferred the Rogue Isles to be a lot more like Praetoria. Shiny on top; dark and brooding underneath. Recluse's playground would have made a lot more sense as a Road Warrior/Thunderdome take on life after the Hamidon Wars. That's me, though. I know that many redsiders like their setting. I just think we need to see a bit more of what the ordinary people of the Isles see instead of the exaggerated cesspool that our characters see.

I remember being rather disappointed by Grandville when I first got there. I was expecting something more like Nova Pretoria, but instead Grandville seems to be the Fort Darwin area of Mercy Island all over again, with a big central "base" surrounded by slums and burning buildings, only the base is larger and uglier and harder to get around, even with Flight, and the surrounding area is more polluted and dirty, with a dim red sky even in the middle of the day.

I wanted Grandville to be more grand. It should look like Lex Luthor's gleaming skyscraper or Dr. Doom's grandiose castle, not a slightly-larger slum.

I don't really care if the zone itself gets a makeover, as long as the Rogue Isles start having the occasional sunny day. Aren't they supposed to be in the Caribbean??? HELLO?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

I at least wish the pedestrians of the Rogue Islands would run screaming from costumed players instead of waving hello. That one bit of weirdness has always bothered me immensely. The "run screaming" animation is even already sort of there, because that that is how pedestrians react to villain NPCs.

Not that that alone would save red side for me. The big difference between blue and red to me is that blue side has a huge amount of variation. Croatoa looks nothing like Steel Canyon and neither look like Faultline. The Rogue Isles are so homogenized looking that I can barely tell the zones apart. The place feels to me like the city version of an "endless forest" level.

I'll say this for the Rogue Isles - When I play in that setting, it generally induces a state of mind in which my characters feel an utter contempt for the Islands and all of the people inhabiting them. From a certain standpoint, that could be considered a successful design.

Instead of a Mercy Island revamp, the Rogue Isles need a new starting zone. I know that with Galaxy City being destroyed this seems far less likely now, but I've always felt that the Rogue Isles were a bit thin on the ground. Four contacts on Mercy Island is it (counting the starter levels)? I just do not do them at all now, I play Architect arcs instead (and before you ask, I mean actual arcs, not farms). The island SW of Port Oakes seems perfect considering the fact that Port Oakes is the subsequent zone. They really need to open up a line that is separate from the whole Destined One thing. You can start off in Mercy as one of Recluse's Destined Ones, or you can start in Zone B, which signifies your character as being a native of the Rogue Isles, rather than nabbed out of the Zig.

Obviously, a new starting zone would be much preferred, but if that isn't possible, then a bunch of new contacts would be much appreciated. At least 4 new ones would be appreciated, if not more. Really, the Rogue Isles need a lot of new zones. Seriously, six against twelve not including Hazard zones? It's ridiculous. Support us Villains.

I find the Rogue Isles a bit depressing. Which is the point, I suppose.

Everything does sort of blend together after a while, though. I would -love- a Gotham type zone, though.