Blueside: Alternate Starting areas or Level bump stuff?
Another great thing that could be a VIP benefit, If you choose KR as your starting zone, you can start as a Vig/Rogue before level 20! When you do new contacts have evil contacts too. I mean really that is the level range where a bad guy in Paragon City is going to try to fly under the radar any way.
I don't play villains, but I think Blue side currently has enough zones that some could be converted to grey zones an not much would be missed. All of the contacts would give gray missions. The progression would be KR> SKY>IP>Bricks all as gray zones. Why those? Because those are the more run down Gotham style zones. They all fit the Vigilante/Rogue theme. Where as AP>Steel>Talos>FF have the more shiny Metropolis feel. I am betting this was intentional on the part of the devs so they could give both the feel of a Batman or a Superman game experience. Thee would be a bit of work involved for Doc Aeon to add new gray contacts, and there no real reason to change the current contacts. Again those are the levels where a villainous person is not going to be sticking their head up to get popped. |
Obviously, it would take some doing, given the current way the alignment system works, not to mention just the general re-zoning work, but I would absolutely love to have some Vigilante/Rogue content, and Zyphoid's plan is pretty much exactly how I'd want it done. The only thing I'd add would be to add some content Redside (don't need a new zone, per se, but some Vig/Rogue contacts and missions).
I'd even repurpose Warburg into a higher level Rogue/Vigilante zone (I'm not a PVP'er, though, so that's just my opinion.)
Gray All The Way!!!!
![Smile](images/smilies/smile.gif)
They could even do a Praetorian "going undercover" style mission format, where you'd make choices during missions that would be either Vigilante or Rogue choices, and culminating in an alignment story mission where you'd cement your alignment on one side or the other, and which would affect your contacts and mission choices.
I'd especially like it if it fleshed out Hero Corps more (an organization well suited to the "shades of grey" style of play), as well as putting a "good" face on the Crey Corporation- they can't be entirely evil, can they?
I'm against any changes to Kings Row's atmosphere in any way (although, I might agree to an updating of the zone Lima AP/MI). It has its own place in the game.
However, I would absolutely support more low-level content there! The more options the better!
They could even do a Praetorian "going undercover" style mission format, where you'd make choices during missions that would be either Vigilante or Rogue choices, and culminating in an alignment story mission where you'd cement your alignment on one side or the other, and which would affect your contacts and mission choices.
I'd especially like it if it fleshed out Hero Corps more (an organization well suited to the "shades of grey" style of play), as well as putting a "good" face on the Crey Corporation- they can't be entirely evil, can they? |
Hero Corps I agree with.
Undercover style missions are fine
Praetoria is a hell no, not even after the place freezes over.
Whether it's good or not is irrelevant. The new Atlas Park is that bad that ANYTHING is better. It has ONE contact chain with a small handful of missions, they're all "fancy" and the zone lags like hell on every machine I have access to aside from my main rig. I'm not that picky about my missions being REMARKABLE in some way. I'm perfectly fine with the rather bland narrative of Kings Row. What bugs me is when missions start trying too hard and failing just as hard at it, and that's Atlas Park in a nutshell, pretty much - mostly outdoor stuff, mostly a theme park ride intended to wow and impress, mostly the kind of stuff I don't care to run more than once.
Besides, I'm sick and tired of content I like being "improved" into oblivion. It's already made my starting experience a lot less compelling. I'd rather it didn't make my 5-10 experience just as bad. |
From my point of view, now. Old Atlas had NO story. There was no real arcs there, mini-arcs at the very, very best. There was so much filler it was choking, and a lot of it was 'go click this plaque' or 'Go see Wincott' or the Security Chief or Hunt 10 Clockwork.
The legacy content was ALL Defeat Alls or Hunts of Fedexes. And you might like that but, playing your own card here, I hate, hate, HATE the legacy content. It is so damn mind-numbing, repetetive and boring. If there is any worthy plot there at all, it's buried under carbon copy missions, fed-exes and crow-barred in Hunts because the designer clearly couldn't think of anything better to put there.
And it also lacks even the illusion of choice. The new content gives you choice. You can start off from the get go as a true blue Hero, a budding Vigilante, or a mixture of the two. I, frankly, think that is a vast improvement over being errand running schmuck #10226.
Yes, the outdoorsy nature of Atlas and Mercy does get mildly annoying at times (and Mercy got it worse, with those damn double figure Longbow hunts) but the Devs gave their reasons for that; Door missions took up more space and processing power, or the like, and for such a small window of content they deemed it better to save that stuff for later on. I might not like it, but I can understand it. And, hey, at least I can tell what the goldang plot of Mercy and Atlas is meant to BE now, rather than sitting thinking "What the hell was the point of any of that junk?"
You say the New stuff is bad. I say the Old stuff was boring, samey tripe. Impasse.
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
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Take that away and I'm simply going to join the people asking for a "skip to 20" button because you're essentially ruining my early game.
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Do you see where the other side is coming from, Sam? And the whole 'my game' thing is starting to feel a bit...well, it's not helping, lets put it that way.
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
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Hmmm....
Well, on the one hand, I'd love to have an alternate starting choice again in the form of Kings Row.
But on the other hand, I'd also like to have new content AFTER the already-new content we got courtesy of Atlas Park. (Yes, the lack of variety in Atlas Park is annoying, and I don't even really read the mission text anymore, but I do think it was a nice upgrade.)
It would be a nice flow, from the clean/new environment of Atlas Park to the gritty, darker tone of Kings Row. I agree that the police headquarters should be made into a more central hub of the zone. Perhaps model it after the Gotham City Police Department.
Bumping the level up to 10-15 would be really nice, because I do like Kings Row and it would be nice to have new content after Atlas Park. Once you hit 15, then you have the option of doing the Steel Canyon arcs or going to Faultline and doing those - or both, since you'd probably have the time.
By having Kings Row and new content be present in 10-15, it'd help fill a gap. Then you'd have fairly new content present all the way to 30.
20-30, however, is getting massively crowded with new content, so in the future, after Kings Row, I really hope the devs focus on content beyond 30. Night Ward is a nice start, but I want more blue/red stuff too.
I think a lot of the abandoned hazard zones could be made into co-op zones, but that's getting off topic, so I'll end it here.
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I'm not sure there's a whole lot of point to making KR a starting zone, when it's so easy to get to level 3 by street sweeping in Atlas, then head on over to KR and do the same to rapidly get to 5.
But I'm fine with making changes to KR so that mobs spawn in an orderly pattern from 1-20, with lower mobs near the train and higher ones toward the periphery. That's the actual range of the Skulls and Hellions, so it makes sense. Vazhilok and Clockwork also cover that level range, as do Arachnos (if you wish to put any on the street), and Lost, Circle, Family, Outcasts, and Trolls are close at 5-20.
As an accompaniment to a texture update, the spawns could be re-ordered so as to put Skulls throughout, Hellions near the train and higher levels near the old Galaxy Gate in High Park, Clocks around power stations (with occasional loot-bearing patrols in industrial areas), add some Family near the Independence Port gate (or in general throughout the King Garment Works district), put some Trolls along with the Lost near the Skyway Gate (at the eastern end of Industrial Avenue), Vahzilok mainly in Aqueduct district, and confine the Circle to The Gish district.
Texturally, I'd like to keep the grittiness of the area, but add a bit of a gothic theme in places, and make the few tech style buildings stand out a little more; though not necessarily all bright and shiny. (The building that has the Upgraded badge on it is supposed to be a high tech lab, by the way; not an old apartment tower.)
I'd like to keep all the unique features in the zone, such as the Guns'n Ammo building and the Crey building. And of course the giant coin or medallion at the city center has to stay.
If the game ever does introduce rain for zones, I'd have it rain at least a portion of every night in KR, perhaps as part of a mild Circle event, where torch-bearing Circle patrols would file toward a location between the Gish and High Park, conduct a ritual, and depart.
As for arcs, to me there's nothing particularly good or sacred in the KR material. However, if you strip out the extra stuff and keep just the door missions, you can compress the existing arcs by half. The level range on each contact can also be extended from 1-20 on some, and 5-20 on others. Additionally, at least a few of the level 5-9 contacts from Atlas and old Galaxy City are probably better represented in Kings Row.
Tony Kord is an obvious candidate for relocation, as his lab is in Kings Row (site of the Upgraded badge), yet he was originally placed as a contact on the streets of Atlas Park. Rachel Torres is another one who would be better located in Kings Row, as her interest is with the Lost, and there never were any Lost in Galaxy or Atlas.
New material could be added, and old contacts given new missions. For instance, my first week in the game I had Lawrence Mansfield as a contact, and was utterly confused to find that a coroner - who I expected to be interested in the Vazh, who were stealing bodies from the morgue - actually sent me to Perez Park to find the Jewel of Hera. (WTH?) If I was doing a revamp, Larry would send me on a Vahz mission or two, and someone else (maybe Vic Johansson) would send me on a Jewel of Hera mission that was relocated to a spot in the Gish.
NO TO PRAETORIA, absolutely not and you should recieve a mild static shock through the internet for suggesting more Praetorian BULL!!!!!!
Hero Corps I agree with. Undercover style missions are fine Praetoria is a hell no, not even after the place freezes over. |
He's not saying Praetorian characters should be in Kings Row, he's saying it should be a Vigilante/Rogue zone using the tech used for Loyalist/Resistance mission choices.
As far as new material goes, there's so much to work with in the old lore that was never brought forth.
For one thing, if the devs would introduce an electric guitar weapon model for ax melee, I'd like to see a "Battle of the Bands" arc involving Mullethead and the other bands we see on those Hellions posters.
He's not saying Praetorian characters should be in Kings Row, he's saying it should be a Vigilante/Rogue zone using the tech used for Loyalist/Resistance mission choices.
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(Although I do love Praetoria and think it is some of the best content in the game thus far.)
And there is some good IC reasoning behind any kind of King's Row revamp would be the Praetorian War/Tin Mage SF.
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Funny, because once I'm out of the starter zones my reaction is to want to skip to 22, especially Blueside, because the legacy content is so mind-numbingly BAD.
Do you see where the other side is coming from, Sam? And the whole 'my game' thing is starting to feel a bit...well, it's not helping, lets put it that way. |
The old stuff may have been run thousands of times but at least it gave me the illusion of variety and different scenery. When I got tired of AP, I could switch to Galaxy.
The new Atlas Park content reminds me of Kalinda/Burke and that boring linear content path is exactly why I stopped playing redside, and Praetoria.
They could throw in some hybrid Clockwork created by the Clockwork King, made from the wreckage of the Praetorian invading force merged with his own bits and pieces - like a battered looking Praetorian Clockwork with a Primal Clockwork style leg, arm and head, for example.
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That's funny T_A, cuz I feel the same way about the new content. I wish to god the devs hadn't castrated the origin content in the starter zones and left players with no options but to farm DfB's or run those mindnumbingly boring Matthew Habashy/Twinshot crap.
The old stuff may have been run thousands of times but at least it gave me the illusion of variety and different scenery. When I got tired of AP, I could switch to Galaxy. The new Atlas Park content reminds me of Kalinda/Burke and that boring linear content path is exactly why I stopped playing redside, and Praetoria. |
Honestly, I wouldn't mind them coming back around to the old contacts and re-working them to have proper, full story arcs. That would be cool. Hell, I even re-worked one for Azuria in AE (since broken due to that fething filter meaning I can't re-publish Dicing with Devils and Death) which focused on the Hellion-Skull war spilling over into Atlas, and had you fighting an upgraded Marrowsnap. It got pretty positive ratings, until AE broke itself...bloody thing. Bitter, why do you say that?
But please let's not pretend that the old mission chains (not arcs, arcs have coherent stories with a point...) were any good. I'm sorry, but a chain of Defeat All, Fed-Ex and Hunt missions might have been fine in 2004 but it sure as hell won't cut it these days. Praetoria, cheaty as hell mobs and spambushes aside, set the bar for mission design and story and it set it damn high. The old stuff did NOT meet that in any way shape or form.
So, yes, Atlas and Mercy might be a bit more linear than they once were. Adding more contacts in to that would be good, although I get the feeling that won't happen, given the Dev's apparent phobia of redoing ANYTHING without at least a 3 issue run up...
But Kings, Steel Canyon, Skyway....they are old, grotty and currently wasting space. Just from personal observation I would hazard that that view is fairly common.
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
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No to a new starting zone. BUT I would like it to be a 5-20 range of content. Why? It has a connecting door with Independence Port. Makes sense for a logical progression of levelling
A reshuffle of certain contacts, cleaning up their arcs if they have them as well as incorporating the old badge missions into the chains and maybe using the phase tech in a limited fashion to show progress cleaning up one of the dirtiest streets.
There's an ample opportunity for story progression. The Family runs I.P. and IIRC supplies the tools for at least one of the factions; either Hellions or Skulls. We could deal with the gang and work our way up to the source, discovering that the crime gangs of Kings Row are being supplied by the bigger crime in other parts. This could lead to us reclaiming the Row and then moving on to crime in the bigger city. With Galaxy City's door blocked off by PPD; there's ample space in the north of the zone for a set of arc-chains (and it's also the site of the bank, wink-wink).
This would mean revamping at least part of Independence Port with entrees from Kings having arcs starting in the mid-south of the zone and leading down to crime related to Brickstown after dealing with the Family. It could even become a reunion zone for those who head off to Steel and come through the north gate connecting Steel and I.P. with the Steelites taking out the Tsoo and Council encroaching on the northern part of the zone. Of course; more stations would be in order to help get around I.P. like a ship/boat connection or an extension of the (nearly typed Green) tram line. They could even be exposed to the Sky Raiders at 25 and decide if they want to pass through the Smuggler's Ship to Striga; returning to a finish in I.P. or directed to Founders to tackle the Council fighting there.
Brickstown hits into the 30-39 territory so another Vanguard station to direct people to the RWZ should be a given (side-note:same with Nerva which strides up into the mid 30s at least). Connections should be the key.
I could get behind a long-term gameplan like that where each issue was a serious progression of content, utilising older assests with a hint of newer ones for special bosses or contacts, that ultimately returned to giving us a solid path from 1-50 instead of the disjointed ones we have now where we hit 35 and get contacted by Borea(?) to go to the RWZ (And Daedaelus/Sister Airlia if we have Midnighter access and Arbiter Whatshisname if you're a villain). I've recently been redoing legacy content and there's a lot of rich story there that's just waiting to be tapped into with new story mechanics and it should be done.
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Some interesting ideas, though, again, I don't think the Devs really want to do any major long term overhauls.
So, what's the simplest changes to the low level zones we could do? It's more than just king's Row. We've got -Four- zones in the 1-10+ range that can be played with.
Some interesting ideas, though, again, I don't think the Devs really want to do any major long term overhauls.
So, what's the simplest changes to the low level zones we could do? It's more than just king's Row. We've got -Four- zones in the 1-10+ range that can be played with. |
In the alleys and in the woods where the maze is there would still be crime, for the hero to choose to stop. A place where the heroes have pretty much won. Logging out there would give the "well rested" day job badge.
What you don't know... Is that the Kraken is still sleeping under the lake, and there is a red side SF to wake him up so that he attacks the park. Why wake him up? because the Kraken is a hoarder, and his layer is full of shards and threads.
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I think it would be kind of cool to see Perez Park get taken to Hell by the Hellions, although that's kind of going OT.
But please let's not pretend that the old mission chains (not arcs, arcs have coherent stories with a point...) were any good. I'm sorry, but a chain of Defeat All, Fed-Ex and Hunt missions might have been fine in 2004 but it sure as hell won't cut it these days.
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Praetoria set the bar for mission design and story and it set it damn high. The old stuff did NOT meet that in any way shape or form. |
I just hope when/if they do replace the old content they add an equal amount of story lines to what they are removing.
Except what I ask isn't taking anything away from you. What you suggest IS taking something away from me - pretty much the last city zone in the game that's yet to be ruined by improvement. I DO NOT WANT to see what happened with Atlas Park happen to Kings Row, because right now, Kings Row is my only alternative to Atlas Park. Take that away and I'm simply going to join the people asking for a "skip to 20" button because you're essentially ruining my early game.
The zone is fine. Add to it if you must, add new contacts, extend its level range, but please stop taking away.
I know you would prefer the game to be so old-school that it might as well have come from Atari, Sam. You're certainly entitled to your opinion... But not all of us want to be stuck in 2004, and some of the things the devs have done to revamp the game really are improvements, rather you see them that way or not.
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