damming with faint praise
By
Agent White,
Posted on: 2012-05-08 09:20 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
Weird. I prefer the old content, complete with travel, street sweeping, defeats, talk-to, etc.
Different strokes.
Lewis
Random AT Generation!
"I remember... the Alamo." -- Pee-wee Herman
"Oh don't worry. I always leave things to the last moment." -- The Doctor
"Telescopes are time machines." -- Carl Sagan
First, I believe you're looking for the word "damning" unless you sought to make a play on words since you are referencing the Hollows and the Red River Dam has such a prominent part to play in that story line.
Second, I have to completely disagree with you. I happen to love the Hollows precisely because of the variety of missions. I'm not just going door-to-door, and all the missions aren't in one little corner of the zone. You get to see nearly that entire zone through those arcs, and for an older zone, the design/topography is pretty damn cool. (Granted, it got a lot "cooler" once travel was more easily accessible.)
I also think there is a very real and easily understood storyline there, from David Wincott up through Talshak.
Like Peon said, to each his own.
@Winter. Because I'm Winter. Period.
I am a blaster first, and an alt-oholic second.
If your praise is capable of retaining any amount of water at all beyond what the local geography dictates I would call it some of the least faint that I have ever heard of.
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you are correct, of course|
Originally Posted by Winterminal
First, I believe you're looking for the word "damning" unless you sought to make a play on words since you are referencing the Hollows and the Red River Dam has such a prominent part to play in that story line.
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Originally Posted by Winterminal
You get to see nearly that entire zone through those arcs, and for an older zone, the design/topography is pretty damn cool.
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Hmm, I think it depends on RNG. I've had missions all the way in the SE corner from Julius, CoT missions in their little alcove thingy from Talshak, and Flux missions anywhere from the Gulch to 20 feet from the guy himself.
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Originally Posted by dugfromthearth
One thing I noted was that you don't. You don't go to the far side of the Hollows in the hills, or south by the other entrance. I'm not sure if the floating rocks and stuff are still there but you never go there. Now you go to the abandoned buildings, then a tiny bit into the gulch and red river.
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@Winter. Because I'm Winter. Period.
I am a blaster first, and an alt-oholic second.
Could be the RNG
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When they redid the Hollows and added all the other enemy groups (instead of just Outcasts, troll, CoT and Igneous), they adjusted the mission doors, so that things don't get so spread out and random. It's not the RNG - the far-off doors aren't used by any of the Hollows contacts except Meg Mason any more.|
Originally Posted by Winterminal
Hmm, I think it depends on RNG. I've had missions all the way in the SE corner from Julius, CoT missions in their little alcove thingy from Talshak, and Flux missions anywhere from the Gulch to 20 feet from the guy himself.
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And add me to the list of people who still do and love the Hollows, Faultline, Striga and Croatoa missions. The generic missions from the old Issue 0 contacts, I could generally live without though.
@Roderick
I ran The Hollows on a lowbie recently for the first time in forever, and honestly I found it more interesting/fun than the new Atlas content. Yeah, there's not much to it in the way of story, and the kill-alls got a little old, but at least I actually got to play the damn game instead of just talking to NPCs and sitting around like a moron in cutscenes all day.
"You don't lose levels. You don't have equipment to wear out, repair, or lose, or that anyone can steal from you. About the only thing lighter than debt they could do is have an NPC walk by, point and laugh before you can go to the hospital or base." -Memphis_Bill
We will honor the past, and fight to the last, it will be a good way to die...
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Just a small question, has anyone ever suggested that they have a contest for players to remake the old contact missions via AE? Keeping the story the same but give it some general updates.
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Originally Posted by Roderick
The generic missions from the old Issue 0 contacts, I could generally live without though.
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The Hollows a bit of an experiment that had mixed success.|
Originally Posted by dugfromthearth
I decided to call for others when I got to FF. Did a few missions. Another player started a team so I joined that - and had to quit right before they did FF. I did FF myself the next day. Joined another Hollows team for 1 mission (then it disbanded). And finished the missions this morning with Atta.
Awhile back I had posted about Hollows having a story and some hater had posted that the Hollows was terrible and had no story. Well it turns out they weren't a hater, they were right. |
The story is the search for the Cavern of Transcendence. Unlocking the Cavern trial and then organizing a group to defeat it is supposed to be the point of the whole zone.
The problem, if problem you deem it, is that you don't KNOW that going in. All you know is that something awful happened to Eastgate and the Trolls had something to do with it. It doesn't help that the initial missions aren't about the cavern at all, but about trying to reclaim Eastgate from the gangs. You don't really even get into the meat of the whole thing until you reach the last contacts.
The Hollows is also another exercise in environmental story-telling. This was done to great effect in Croatoa. It's less well done in The Hollows, but that's mostly because you can't actually learn much of anything about the motivations of the Trolls and CoT from their actions in Eastgate. Mostly, the gangs, including the Trolls, are just standing around being gangsta. Watching the Trolls, you can figure out that they are causing the mayhem with their home-made bombs. Watching the CoT, which should be the big clue, you mostly just get that they are "looking for something" which is too non-specific, given that they're ALWAYS looking for magical artifacts and junk. The Coralax are just a mystery - I suppose they were intended to be a teaser for CoV or something, but they are entirely unexplained and they serve no purpose except to make you wonder what they are doing there.
Then there's the Seaview Project, which you learn about via exploration badges. Hopefully, sometime during the last eight years someone remembered they were down there and rescued them. I always hoped that the Coralax incursion was going to be related to that but it seems that it wasn't meant to be.
Most of the specific info about the Cavern itself is in its own trial. If you outlevel the zone and leave, you never learn about it. If you DO learn about it and its special mechanics that require a full group of people acting in synch, then you are likely to just skip it anyway as too much trouble.
This is only exacerbated by the speed at which the modern low-level game passes. Barring a deliberate decision to go to the Hollows and do your leveling, there's simply no reason at all to even set foot in the place any more, story or no.
So, yes, there's a story; or rather, a series of stories that sort of lead into the main story. It just isn't entirely obvious that the story exists because there is not an overarching story driving all of the sub-stories like there is in Croatoa.
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Okay, so you were wearing rose-colored glasses and now you don't like that content any more. <shrug> Some people still do. I ran one of the arcs just last week to unlock Karsis. I had fun.
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Originally Posted by dugfromthearth
My nostalgia for old content is slain at this point. There is a reason to hide it and focus on the new.
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Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project
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I've found this, too. The new missions are good, but there is an awful lot of clicking and talking. They were great to run through the first couple of times, but now I find myself doing a bunch of street-sweeping and sneaking off to King's Row, or the Hollows. With pre-level 14 travel powers, the Hollows is great, and the missions have far more action. (Although when I soloed through it on a Sonic Defender, the 'defeat Atta and his guards' mission was PAINFUL.)|
Originally Posted by DarkGob
I ran The Hollows on a lowbie recently for the first time in forever, and honestly I found it more interesting/fun than the new Atlas content. Yeah, there's not much to it in the way of story, and the kill-alls got a little old, but at least I actually got to play the damn game instead of just talking to NPCs and sitting around like a moron in cutscenes all day.
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And I'll always enjoy another run through Faultline.
Arc#314490: Zombie Ninja Pirates!
Defiant @Grouchybeast
Death is part of my attack chain.
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For straight action I just run radio missions. I don't see the Hollows having any content better than radio missions
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Originally Posted by Grouchybeast
I've found this, too. The new missions are good, but there is an awful lot of clicking and talking.
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Yeah, lump me in with the folks that like it.
I like a variety. Street sweeps aren't that bad if used sparingly, no 'go kill 50 Devouring Earth in Crey's Colley', but just 'go beat up 10 trolls for the info on their hideout' is fine, it's flavorful for the genre and it's not all that tedious, and you can pick what you do, going head on with even cons (or higher!) or just running back and nipping the low level greys. I mean heck we had this show up in First Ward, a mix of door missions and outside missions.
My only hiccup with the Hollows is the friendly troll, as the first time I ran through there I didn't level -enough- to meet Talshak, so I just thought that was the end of the zone and moved on.
is it complex and riveting? No. But for the level range it feels perfect for a lowbie hero. It's 'the ropes'. You're not trying to stop some complex ritual to end the world or some big mind control scheme, you're beating up gangs and trying to clean up a big mess.
Could it stand to be cleaned up a bit? Maybe have the contact arcs flow together better? Sure. Always room for improvement. The Hollows is by no means perfect, but it's not bad starter content.
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Originally Posted by dugfromthearth
For straight action I just run radio missions. I don't see the Hollows having any content better than radio missions
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If the game spit out 20 dollar bills people would complain that they weren't sequentially numbered. If they were sequentially numbered people would complain that they weren't random enough.
Black Pebble is my new hero.
thank you Texas Justice for agreeing with me
I agree with Dug.
The Hollows has barely any story, is long, and is extremely tedious.
Frankly, almost all of the content from before issue 7 or so is kinda terrible.
Current Published Arcs
#1 "Too Drunk to be Alcoholic" Arc #48942
#2 "To Slay Sleeping Dragons" Arc #111486
#3 "Stop Calling Me"
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Well, the floating rocks are tied to the cavern, so now days if you are in the area for a mission, it's the trial.
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Originally Posted by dugfromthearth
you are correct, of course
One thing I noted was that you don't. You don't go to the far side of the Hollows in the hills, or south by the other entrance. I'm not sure if the floating rocks and stuff are still there but you never go there. Now you go to the abandoned buildings, then a tiny bit into the gulch and red river. |
Orc&Pie No.53230 There is an orc, and somehow, he got a pie. And you are hungry.
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I like the Hollows and the storyline it includes. Breaking up the slave ring, reuniting a father and son, and battling archvillains and monsters along the way. It's good stuff.
They ALL float down here. When you're down here with us, you'll float too!
@Starflier
Hollows was boring from the first time I zoned in. Street hunts (which should be removed from game unless you're going to set them all in locations that spawn nothing but what you're hunting), kill-alls (which have been waved around as a major no-no in mission design since before AE went live), poorly-written story that made no sense (these gangs are tearing each other apart and there's no civilians left to get caught in the crossfire - WHY exactly am I clearing out one gang and making life easier for the remainder again?), missions and contacts scattered across a sprawling zone with plenty of enemies that con purple even when the entry level stuff is green or grey ... this place did everything wrong.
I stopped having anything to do with the Hollows when I ran into Frostfire. Seriously Paragon? An AV with double control powersets in a level range where only a fraction of characters have any sort of mez protection and NOBODY is geared to stand up to the power of an AV yet?
Deleting the entire zone, retconning it out of continuity, and putting something entirely different there is the best solution.
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Scorchy scorchy scorch that earth?|
Originally Posted by Black Zot
Deleting the entire zone, retconning it out of continuity, and putting something entirely different there is the best solution. |
Anyway, for my part, I'm a huge fan of the Hollows. I like to swing by for a visit and a few arcs every few characters. The incidental npc talk is pretty funny, too.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
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I'm actually doing that already for fun and to shed light on old lore for new folks. I have finished "Bonefire" and "The Clockwork Captive". Working on "The Mind of a King" and then will backtrack a little and do the "Vhazilok Pollutant Plot", leading into the "Vhazilok Plague". The only changes I've made are to dialogue, character models (updating when possible) and including cameos of the Phalanx to actually weave them into the game world, so players can give a rats behind about them, while keeping the player the 'main character' of the story. I've tried to keep plot elements and mission structure the same, to keep it as close to canon as possible. Been mapping out the whole run from the 1-50 old individual storylines.|
Originally Posted by Triomphe
Just a small question, has anyone ever suggested that they have a contest for players to remake the old contact missions via AE? Keeping the story the same but give it some general updates.
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And I think the Hollows was really well done with the facelift. Do you know there's 'stranded' citizens in there? Seriously, if you're in level range, there's 'stranded citizens' that either thank you for approaching them and 'helping' (then run off) or they're actually Skull girlfriends that are setting you up for an ambush (which Skulls then appear around her and she calls you a sucker or something).
The first time I ran across each I was "Huh... now how about that!" and looked forward to seeing more of this in-game, or things like it. Sadly I guess it didn't get enough notice.
"I play characters. I have to have a very strong visual appearance, backstory, name, etc. to get involved with a character, otherwise I simply won't play it very long. I'm not an RPer by any stretch of the imagination, but character concept is very important for me."- Back Alley Brawler
I couldn't agree more.
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More like "flood it and toss in some banana boats because that makes more sense than what's there right now".
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Originally Posted by MisterMagpie
Scorchy scorchy scorch that earth?
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I think a lot of people forget that back in the day it used to be a lot harder to level and the game was designed around a team. Sure certain AT's could solo but the heart of the game was the team. After all the changes to game mechanics that is no longer the case and the older content suffers for it. |
Originally Posted by Black Zot
I stopped having anything to do with the Hollows when I ran into Frostfire. Seriously Paragon? An AV with double control powersets in a level range where only a fraction of characters have any sort of mez protection and NOBODY is geared to stand up to the power of an AV yet? |
Side note: What's the lowest level you can run into Dr. V as an AV?
Something witty and profound
I deleted all of my characters and started a new one. I had done a bunch of teaming, then done a bunch of AE arcs (you can see the ones I liked in my list of arcs by level http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=287853). So I decided to do some solo play of old content. Did Habashy to level 5 then hit the Hollows.
I decided to call for others when I got to FF. Did a few missions. Another player started a team so I joined that - and had to quit right before they did FF. I did FF myself the next day. Joined another Hollows team for 1 mission (then it disbanded). And finished the missions this morning with Atta.
Awhile back I had posted about Hollows having a story and some hater had posted that the Hollows was terrible and had no story. Well it turns out they weren't a hater, they were right.
Hollows has silly street hunts (you hunt 10 trolls at least 3 times). Kill alls. Really long grinding missions. Very little story, very few details.
The new content is so much better. I am sad that I skipped the other Atlas content to do the Hollows. I look forward to going back to Steel and doing the new arcs there. Then Talos and the newish content there.
My nostalgia for old content is slain at this point. There is a reason to hide it and focus on the new.