Positron interview at OnRPG.com
By
Agent White,
Posted on: 2012-03-14 09:52 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
I've never liked the look of Kings Row, yeah sure it could be a gritty underclass suburb of a place, but with the current graphics, its flat, dull and uninteresting to me. I have often remarked that it could be rended on a 256 colour grey scale and not look any different, or take a photo of it with your camera on Sepia and it'll look the same. Gah! Keep it what it is, but lets get the better textures and graphics that we see in Praetoria. Gold side was done so well, I still don't think Atlas Park stands up to it.
After kings I'd say Steel. lets see some mountainous almost completely reflective and window lined skyscrapers in there, Steel could be AMAZING!!! but im not saying its not bad now.. I don't mind steel canyon 
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The Tsoo are not really Hmong. They just have that as some vague notion in their backstory and dress up like ninjas. |
Originally Posted by InfamousBrad
Given how many of the Tsoo-themed contacts and missions are in Skyway City, a Skyway City revamp should definitely include Paragon City's "Little Cambodia" neighborhood.
Given how little architectural change the Hmong brought to (real life) Minneapolis, it wouldn't take actually creating new buildings, or not very many of them, but it should definitely include new multi-lingual signage and maybe new civilian NPCs walking around. |
Far be it from me, to not know the difference, but given that the game already goes out of its way to be tone deaf on cultures, I see no reason not to continue the theme with adding a "Chinatown" section in, as the Tsoo and all their trappings has always been more about having an Asian themed villain group than it has ever been about the Hmong culture/people.
It seems to me that it'd be about as "simple" as adding red lanterns to a handful of street lights, and maybe throwing in one of those big arches/entry gate things on both ends of a stretch of road and changing the signage to be recognizably "Oriental".
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I agree! Though why just IP and TV? Throw Talos into that mix.
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Originally Posted by Lightslinger
Probably not the most popular suggestion, but I think heroside still needs to lose some zones. There are just too many, spreads the players out way too much, causes unnecessary loading when your missions are all over the place and results in a lot of ghost zones that serve no purpose anymore.
I love the Rogue Isles set up of fewer zones with varied neighborhoods. Instead of having zones and hazard zones, just make the hazard zones sections of a regular zone. Would love to see things like Steel & Boomtown combined, IP & Terra Volta with Terra Volta taking up some of the unused miles of space in IP and so on. |
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Absolutely, those were just a couple of ideas for streamlining the zones. Any effort to lower the number of zones and update the content therein is a plus to the overall game for me.
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Originally Posted by BrandX
I agree! Though why just IP and TV? Throw Talos into that mix.
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Talos and Striga combined would be cool - then you could still take the ship to fast travel, or fly/swim instead.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
I wish they will erase some zones hero side.
There are too many and they havent a propose.
Then upgrade more zones and blow up walls...
Praetoria and Rogue Island are so nice because those cities dont have the ugly old walls.
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Yep, and it would expose a lot of people to the content in Striga which is awesome, but very seldom seen.
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Originally Posted by Golden Girl
Talos and Striga combined would be cool - then you could still take the ship to fast travel, or fly/swim instead.
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I must be weird, because I like Paragon having its War Walls.
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I used to like the war walls. I thought it was a neat way of addressing the 'bowl' design of MMO zones by openly acknowledging the bowl and putting literal walls around each zone and then coming up with a story to explain the walls.
With newer zones, the Rogue Isles and Praetoria dispensing with them they seem like more of an anachronism now. And story-wise to say they have proven ineffective would be an understatement (hello Dark Astoria, Galaxy City, countless Rikti, zombie and other invasions).
Combining zones would be interesting, though I imagine the technical headaches involved would prevent that from ever happening.
Something I'd like to see is Perez Park turned into a more active PvE zone. Take some aspects of Siren's Call and Recluse's victory and make them PvE. Have the various gangs and the PPD fighting for control of parts of the zone like in RV, though without the instant changes you see there, as well as 'Bounties' on randomly generated enemy bosses like you get on other PCs in Siren's Call.
At the same time, either make the zone auto-cap you like a PvP Zone, or make everything auto-scale like a Rikti raid.
But basically, take some of the interesting bits of the PvP zones and put them in game, sans the PvP, because we know how problematic THAT is.
And I really wanna see the sort of Tech Armor he mentions. I mean we can get pretty close to a Gundam as is, but I wouldn't mind more like that. or some Macross-inspired pieces.
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In that vein, I have two words for him:|
Originally Posted by Positron
[Dark Astoria] was a very underutilized zone that was much beloved by our veteran players. It had an air of mythology about it, and really fit the theme of what kind of threats Incarnates will be facing on Primal Earth [...]
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Shadow Shard.
(You're fighting gods, or fragments thereof. It doesn't get much more Incarnate than that.)
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The Shadow Shard will feature in upcoming story content
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Originally Posted by SuperOz
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I also agree with the notion of having the zone revisitable. If CoH does one thing wrong with its zones, it's that you are never encouraged to go back and revisit places as a higher level character.... |
You must have never done Indigo's or Crimson's missions/arcs....they send you to FF, KR, AP, Skyway, Perez Park, IP, Brickstown and, it seems, EVERY zone except PI where you "should be" at that level
I keed but not by too much heh.
I would agree, I like the phasing tech idea but don't see that happening to certain zones due to the GMs that roam about sometimes...
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I hate the new Atlas park, and Kings Row is my favorite zone. So, based on this interview, I should prepare for frustration. Oh well.
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Ah, Issue 1. Zoning and travel time is content! Pad out that run to 50!|
Originally Posted by Energizing_Ion
You must have never done Indigo's or Crimson's missions/arcs....they send you to FF, KR, AP, Skyway, Perez Park, IP, Brickstown and, it seems, EVERY zone except PI where you "should be" at that level
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Originally Posted by UnicyclePeon
I hate the new Atlas park, and Kings Row is my favorite zone. So, based on this interview, I should prepare for frustration. Oh well.
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Originally Posted by InfamousBrad
Am I the only one who likes King's Row the way it is?
OK, that's not entirely true. Given my druthers, I would make two changes to it, both of them relatively trivial. I would rewrite the contacts' missions into actual story arcs. And I would replace one of the construction sites with the Cyrus Thompson Community Center from the end of Top Cow comic #6. But other than that? Leave it alone! Go make Steel Canyon less gang-infested, go push the Rikti into the alleys off Founder's Falls, go wrap up the story of Perez Park, give Boomtown at least some blue FEMA tarps, but leave King's Row (mostly) the way it is! And I'll tell you why: ever since issue 4, stepping off the tram into King's Row is the first minute I feel like I'm actually needed. The people of King's Row need heroes, because, even with Blue Steel standing there, even with Paragon PD headquarters in the zone, it is obvious just walking through it: ever since Statesman bankrupted the King Garment Works for their Family ties, King's Row is the neighborhood that everybody else left behind, that nobody cares about. When you step into King's Row for the first time, you may be only a level 5 hero, but these people don't even have that much. When you step into King's Row for the first time, you may not know anything about the Circle of Thorns and the war of the gods, and you may not know anything about which of the city's many villain groups and corporations are Nemesis plots. But those are two of the main long-running story lines (the other two being Arachnos and the Fifth Column/Council conspiracy), and the clues that break both start with gang and street-crime crackdowns in King's Row. When you're level 5, you're so far back in the storyline that none of your contacts know anything; the time you spent street-sweeping in KR is why, thanks to you, your later contacts know enough to help you crack the conspiracies. I love King's Row. Update the story tech, fill in the one missing building, but please, leave the rest of it the way it is! |
I just wanted to say this is an awesome post! I agree with all of this.
The zone I would like to see revamped is Parez Park. I think that whole zone is rips for the phasing tech. I want to go kick butt there, and then go back and see kids playing with their dogs, and people having picknicks. Dang it, I am an incarnate! If I want to use my power to make the park safe for people, I should be able to!
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Batman is never going to 'outlevel' Gotham. We, as players, are discouraged from becoming attached to a zone or calling an area "home". That's another one of those things I wish was fundamentally different about the game; that zones have a specific and intended level range.|
Originally Posted by SuperOz
I also agree with the notion of having the zone revisitable. If CoH does one thing wrong with its zones, it's that you are never encouraged to go back and revisit places as a higher level character. It's a shame, seeing as the morality missions cause you to revisit old foes like Frostfire and you get the 'What are they doing now...?' updates.
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I mean, if you have a magical type character, they're likely going to want to hang around Croatoa. Your street level vigilante should gravitate towards Kings or IP, but at 50 there no reason to go there and you can't even street sweep or "patrol".
Sometimes I wonder: would it be so wrong to use the "GM/Invasion Code" on everything to have enemies be levelless?
Yes, I know that's a loaded question with a lot of problems associated with it (hey, they just rendered Incarnate level shifts moot), but I can't help feeling like we shouldn't be on a rail and wishing the game was a bit more sandboxy in that respect.
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But the Shadow Shard isn't Primal Earth - that's why you need a Portal to get there.
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Originally Posted by Megajoule
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Shadow Shard. (You're fighting gods, or fragments thereof. It doesn't get much more Incarnate than that.) |
Arc #40529 : The Furies of the Earth
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Originally Posted by InfamousBrad
Am I the only one who likes King's Row the way it is?
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I agree it is the zone that feels like it has the most character to it. Atlas is now too sparkly for people to live in, Steel is too downtown business district, Skyway is one big highway overpass, Indy is a big port, ect. ect.
Kings Row always feels like the place where all of those people who work in the skyscrapers come home to.
I would not mind tying the storylines together a bit better but could we resist the 'darker and grittier' idea?
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To be fair, new Atlas actually got apartment buildings. It even has a small district comprised entirely of these apartments. And the buildings themselves are pretty real looking, and not utopian or shiny like the skyscrapers. I wouldn't mind seeing these buildings get put in Kings Row, maybe dirty them up a bit more beforehand.
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Originally Posted by jwbullfrog
I agree it is the zone that feels like it has the most character to it. Atlas is now too sparkly for people to live in, Steel is too downtown business district, Skyway is one big highway overpass, Indy is a big port, ect. ect.
Kings Row always feels like the place where all of those people who work in the skyscrapers come home to. I would not mind tying the storylines together a bit better but could we resist the 'darker and grittier' idea? |
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That actually is a massive problem because of how many powers an enemy has also affects difficulty. Give an enemy loads of powers and low level enemies will still have trouble. Give 'em only one or two, and they pose zero threat to 50s.|
Originally Posted by Johnny_Butane
Batman is never going to 'outlevel' Gotham. We, as players, are discouraged from becoming attached to a zone or calling an area "home". That's another one of those things I wish was fundamentally different about the game; that zones have a specific and intended level range.
I mean, if you have a magical type character, they're likely going to want to hang around Croatoa. Your street level vigilante should gravitate towards Kings or IP, but at 50 there no reason to go there and you can't even street sweep or "patrol". Sometimes I wonder: would it be so wrong to use the "GM/Invasion Code" on everything to have enemies be levelless? Yes, I know that's a loaded question with a lot of problems associated with it (hey, they just rendered Incarnate level shifts moot), but I can't help feeling like we shouldn't be on a rail and wishing the game was a bit more sandboxy in that respect. . |
Best thing they could do is take neighborhoods a step further and have drastic changes between different areas of one zone. Either that, or introduce instanced areas of a zone that only spawn higher level enemies, kind of like how new AP does with the Hellion hideout. Or just give us mission arcs for all levels in a zone and forgot about the streets, because no one really does street sweeping anyway.
Making all the street mobs have invasion spawn code wouldn't have to mean that they'd need to have extra powers - it'd be a way of showing how powerful you were as you levelled up by keeping them with their basic powers.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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Well I do street sweep and I'd do more of it too if most of the zones weren't full of enemies that con grey to me.|
Originally Posted by Xzero45
Or just give us mission arcs for all levels in a zone and forgot about the streets, because no one really does street sweeping anyway.
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There should be reasons for super heroes to "go on patrol" or villains to go out looking for action and opportunity. That is the primary way many characters operate in comics. Spider-Man doesn't usually wake up and then get handed assignments from SHIELD or the Avengers.
We have zones, some of them quite interesting. They should serve a purpose beyond being a travel timesink between instanced mission doors.
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Perez Park was present at launch. The Hollows were added in Issue 2.
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Originally Posted by Golden Girl
Perez Park could be repurposed as a 30-40 zone, to even out the balance between the large amount of low level zones, and the smaller number of higher level zones.
Perez has always been a weird zone at that level - it was added along with the Hollows, and in a similar level range, but never given any content, so naturally the Hollows became the standard low level hazard zone. Steel Canyonn could do with a facelift into a much more techy zone. |
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It's got a lot of potential to be our "Gotham", and it'd be a great way to show newer players the darker side of the city early on - especially if they're more into gritty urban environments rather than the "Metropolis" setting of Atlas Park.
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