Details on Dark Astoria Makeover?

I wonder who will be the people who ask us to help and transport us there? Vanguard are for extra-dimensional threats, and Longbow don't really seem to be trained for fighting an evil god, so my guess is that it'll be the Midnighters.

The tips DID mention Mot. I'm guessing that battle is now confirmed?

My half-way between losing the fog and keeping it: have the zone normally be all foggy and give the zone pretty much NO street spawns. Have playgrounds with swings that swing on their own with an eerie creaking.

Then, a zone event kicks in, an air raid siren sounds, and the fog lifts revealing the true, twisted form Astoria has fallen into. Zombies are bursting out of doors, rising out of the ground in the cemetery, and everything has gone from simply abandoned looking to nightmarish.

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.

It'd be nice if they kept the fog in some form. Maybe the use of phasing can make a good compromise? Have the players complete intro missions before the fog is lifted. That way, you can choose to complete those missions and move the storyline along, or do the street sweeps in the fog.

I had always hoped for a TF based in Dark Astoria, where the goal was to free it from the BP. At the end of the TF, you could have been marked for the phasing, so it would no longer appear foggy to you.

It's just sad that one of the few zones that has actual character is being obliterated to make way for more Incarnate content. Maybe I will like the new Astoria zone. The fog never bothered me so much, but it provided a nice atmosphere. Too many of the other zones seem vanilla in comparison; I just liked the variety. However, I have to say that no content there just made it a dead zone, so it does need some improvement.

if you like the atmosphere of old astoria, go to ouroboros. The fog and ghosts will still be there wandering around.

If the new DA is anything like the quality of First Ward, which is pretty likely, I don't think you guys have anything to complain about except to complain.

Why don't you at least wait until tomorrow when Zwillinger shows off the power point presentations at the coffee talk tomorrow, there should be at least a bit of concept art from the slides to give you a small idea of the change.

And I do like old Astoria, but it's an artifact of a time gone by. The hazard zones need to be reworked because there's nothing to do in them except hit up mission doors, go badging/dayjobbing, and taking down Giant Monsters when there are any in a given zone. Basically, it's a place to visit, not a place to hang around. The revamp will change that.

Okay, there was not much to do there besides admire the atmosphere. Better?

I want the fog back, but not necessarily in the previous form.

A zone-wide particle effect is impractical and probably undesirable, but what about an area surrounding the entrances? That way you get a low-visibility eerieness, and then emerge from a spooky fog (with the abandoned landscape and wandering, vanishing ghosts) into Death Metal Hell. Still very Silent Hill, still very cool.

Another thought: I know there is a critter somewhere in the game that takes the form of a debuffing, mobile, fog that actually patrols and follows you. Maybe a very BIG one of those.

Speaking as someone who has now, multiple times, levelled characters doing zero missions from 21 to 33, doing nothing but running around Dark Astoria killing zombies, I can say that I called this back when people were asking for DA to be revamped way back when: That the changes that will be made are going to take away too much of what I already loved about the zone.

I get that you folk didn't care about the zone, didn't like it, could get lost, didn't like the fog, etcetera, but I did like it, I did care about it, and didn't get lost. And I loved that zone the way it is. Now I get to lose that, so you guys can have something that you won't like all that much, to hear tell about it.

(Another thing? I can't speak for everyone in my culture, but I never found Jack O Lanterns creepy, instead seeing them as goofy.)

GG, nobs sav. At least they lowered access to old DA through orob, I guess. And for those who say 'Well, what you had is still there,' there's a big difference in playing a character who goes where nobody dares tread to fight a one-man war against the undead hordes to keep the present threat from the gates of Talos than there is to travelling back in time to a period when nothing happened and all the scary stuff sorted itself out.

Oh well. Yet another way in which my minority tastes have left me behind the game's progress.

Heroes, Villains ♦ Reviews ♦ Retrospect

I could understand changing the Hollows, it was frustrating at times no matter how much you could learn from it about the cogs of the game.

I could understand changing Faultline, I used to love going spelunking there when I was in the level range, but now it has some actual content and is easy to navigate.

But the fog and ghosts in DA are some of the most atmospheric effects in the game, no matter how annoying it may be (I used to have real issues navigating it just with a flyer, almost gave up on a super speeder, but I've learnt with time) or how much work it may cover up. Increase the distance you can see, update the fade/look of the ghosts, whatever needs to be done, just leave the almost survival horror effect of the zone in place, please.

I'm okay with it being co-op, I'm fine with it having a face-lift, but Dark Astoria without a fog effect may as well just be a whole other zone. What if you make it a user-generated aura (if the technology exists), only showing up to individual players like physics objects do? With that you can have the 'fog' removed once you've completed the main storyline in the zone, or at different parts of the zone so you can see the new art.

Without more information, I will honestly stand by that DA should have it's fog and ghosts. Unless there's something the Devs have implimented that they do not with to share to ease the nay-sayers, I highly believe Dark Astoria will lose it's charm as it's taken by the current Dev fad of injecting purest Incarnate into everything.

Instead of just taking away the mist, they should have us 'free' Dark Astoria from the mists as part of the ongoing story arc in there. Then I could accept it better.

Perhaps a case of too much forward planning/thinking for one of my bases...

But is it safe to assume that since the new DA will be co-op that villains will be able to get a teleport beacon to the zone?

And alternatively will the hero side teleport beacon send players to the echo (like the Galaxy City beacon currently) and thus require players to get a brand new beacon for the updated zone? Or will it send players directly to the new DA and the only way the echo is accessible is via Ouro?

Maybe the current beacon will even do both?

An odd detail to ponder, I realize, but late night base editing will do that to you.