Details on Dark Astoria Makeover?

I read that Dark Astoria was getting a revamp. The word is that

1) The fog will be gone
2) The ghosts will be gone and
3) It will be a 50+ zone for Incarnate use

All three of those are disappointing in varying degrees, although I can understand that a lot of folks do not care a bit for the fog.

I really wish they would not make it a 50+ zone; we really have a dearth of 40-50 material. I have given up on the Incarnate system due to 1) the lore being extremely silly and 2) the ever-multiplying currencies and requisite trials that must follow an exact script have simply turned me off. I have been hoping for some DA Love from the Devs for a long time, and it would be a shame for it to be shut off behind the Well of Furies silliness.

And is there any word that the Devs will definitively address the apparently conflicting lore of Dark Astoria, ie, has it gone dark multiple times or what?

To address this:

a) there will still be an echo of DA as it stands now for badges, plaques, etc.
b) the primary gate from Talos will be closed (a la Galaxy City), and new access points provided for both heroes AND villains, as...
c) DA will now be a co-op zone.
d) No word that *I* recall that the ghosts themselves will be gone (and I was at both panels involving Lore/endgame/etc).
e) Yes, the fog will be removed, as John Hegner noted, "Mot apparently needed a humidifier while asleep, and now that he is awake, it's not necessary." Dunno if this means the Echo will have its fog removed as well.
f) The new higher level BP and Tsoo will be getting a revamp - the lower level batch we are used to are the same (I meant to ask if the Circle in DA would still be there, but got distracted by other stuff - sorry!).
g) They are indeed drawing on the lore to try and pull its storyline together (striving for consistency was something Hegner and I discussed after the panel).
h) They are not adding new currencies again any time soon (this was asked in the endgame panel - they are aware that players are getting frustrated, so more effort is going into how to balance the game economy when new stuff is added without adding a new currency for it).
i) Any mission/TF (ie Citadel's) that would send you into DA is being reworked.
j) Adamastor himself is not quite getting a makeover... but in terms of scale vs the upcoming content in DA 2.0, he's roughly a "Lieutenant". Make of that what you will.

More as I remember it - I just woke up.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

I don't think the echo will have the fog removed, as that's kinda the point of echo zones - to let players see them the way they were before they get changed

The Incarnate lore means that the Well of the Furies will be connected to the DA revamp in some way.

As long as @TheCheshireCat's DA arcs still exist in the MA...then nothing the devs make with their revamp will get to the heart of what it means to be Dark Astoria. Want to see good writing? Check out "Astoria in D Minor"

There's no geek "humour". (hoorb)
There's no spikey shiney armour.
There's no gimmick fights.
There's no uber-lame NPCs stealing the spotlight.
There's no writing telling you how your character is thinking/acting/speaking.

There's just an awesome engaging story that utilizes what we already have to it's maximum potential. If the devs are looking for a direction to take DARK Astoria than this is it. It's just horror. It's amazing.

lolWelloftheFuries. lolPraetoria. Don't ruin a potentially awesome part of the lore just because "that was something someone who's no longer with the company wrote..." Well guess what: most people think the new storylines are ridiculously bad / phoned in / troped up to the gills. Stop making excuses for wanting to write your own vanity stories about incarnates. ("OMG POSITRON IS THE GUARDIAN OF THE FLAME OF PROMETHEUS!")

I know this post will fall on deaf ears. All we're going to get is some warcraft-inspired solo zone. The BP will be revamped to look Japanese. (And will most likely have SUPER SHINEY SPIKEY ARMOUR.) I just hope that someone at Paragon Studios will realise that while the praetoria/well storyline is the meta-story, it doesn't have to feed into absolutely everything. That seriously limits creativity and the playing experience.

Sorry for being so negative all the time. There was a time when I'd have heard about the DA revamp and thought "Ah cool that's awesome!" Now I findmyself saying "I just hope they don't **** it up too much."

A few additional points to add to what Samuraiko posted.

Mot's awakening affects the War Walls as well as the entire zone.

Red War Walls in the pics we were shown.

Skulls embedded in those red War Walls.

Animated stuff that was difficult to tell exactly what it was in those War Walls.

They didn't really give as much information as I'd have liked for the solo Incarnate path, but what they did say has me intrigued and relatively content for now. I'll wait for it to be released to form a firmer opinion, or for Beta if I'm invited. They know that I'm a strictly solo player, so while they may not want to hear all of my opinions, I'm sure they'll weight it appropriately from the viewpoint of the target audience.

Another thing 'Ko didn't mention was that much of this was in the plans for the Incarnate stuff all along (possibly even before the iTrials). My thoughts on that are that it may have gotten pushed back a bit by the revamp and delay of implementing the Alpha slot based on Beta testers feedback.

But that's just an idea swirling around in my extremely empty head, not something I directly asked anyone about since it didn't fully flesh out in my head until after things were over and the devs were gone.

The DA makeover will also improve quite a few older contacts by making the zone no longer valid for some of their missions - so being sent to DA on a mission will be gone for good in I22.

From bits and pieces of what I'm seeing, I'm rather looking forward to this. I rather liked DA, but there was so little to do there other than explore, and we'll get that in the flashback.

Level 50+ zone? There's hardly any place in the game that's like that. Small sections of zone, sure, but not an entire zone.

I haven't read anything about what they'll be doing with the storyline. Much the existing BP backstory should read more like mythology rather than historical facts. If they want//need to rewrite it a bit to fit into the current Incarnate backstory, that's perfectly fine. It's just like how Real-Life history works. We have theories of how things "may have been" back in the past, and then we uncover some solid piece of history that forces us to rewrite the history books.


PS

Quote:

Originally Posted by Golden Girl An interesting definition of the word "most"

I agree with GG on that one.

QR: Honestly, the removal of the fog alone spoils the whole idea for me.

Its like, "Let's go to Tahiti! Ok, we removed the BEACH, but Tahiti is still a cool place to go."