Suggestion: Merge The World

I'd like to suggest doing away with the concept of Villain Zones and Hero Zones. Cooperative zones would remain the same -- places villains and heroes can group up and work together. Former Hero and Villain zones would still disallow such grouping. One side or the other would see more friendly npc's based on their alignment and the zone they currently occupy.

There's a huge world that can be explored if we remove these artificial alignment barriers for both sides. There's no reason there can't be contacts in Paragon City for villains to get missions from... hell they could even be variants of existing hero missions from a villain point of view. The same goes for heroes in the Rogue Isles. Doing away with barrier opens the world up and can open new content to both sides.

Sure the zones may have more content for one alignment over the other depending on which zone you go to, but overall it could be a great way to add content without too much work involved as far as art assets are concerned.

Examples of places villains can easily acclimate to Paragon:

Faultline - heavy Arachnos presence in the southern section.
Atlas Park - There's a story arc that has a significant Arachnos presence in a phased part of atlas.
The Hollows - The entire southern section of the Hollows is dominated by the Circle of Thorns and virtually no missions take you there. It's ripe for development.
Brickstown - The Zig Need I say more? Might even be a great place to reuse the old villain Breakout map!
Independence Port/Talos - Both are ports with smugglers ships. Plenty of places for villains to find fun. One has a strong Family presence which can be used as a plot element to take a villain from the Rogue Isle's to Paragon City. The other has many islands out of the way with little reason to go there currently. Great place for villains to do stuff.
Peregrine Island - Villains already have their own version of part of this zone... why not simply make it the same zone and let them run rampant?
Striga is so far out from Paragon there's little reason it can't be a cooperative zone.

For heroes it's even easier... The Rogue Isles are just rife with villain and crimes and groups like Longbow, Legacy Chain and various benign NPC's who try to thwart the villains or make cameos as victims in the villain missions can have missions for heroes to fight back.

Villains by far would see the biggest amount of content increase if for no other reason by the sheer number of zones that would open up to them but it would also allow heroes to visit areas seldom seen and make the game feel fresher and newer IMO.

This idea can be a great way to add content with little relative development time required compared to what is opened up for both sides. Art assets would be unnecessary to add in most cases. Some assets that are seldom used now could see a revival (like the breakout map).

great idea, we're seeing the first steps along those lines with the faction-blind LFG chat channel.

the thematic benefits of opening up zones to all factions are obvious, hopefully it's an idea that's on the dev radar.

I could completely groove on this!

Great suggestion!

It has bugged me for a while that you have to be Rogue or Vigilante to travel to the other zones, and even then it is still difficult to get around. Different Ouros for example. It is only logical that villains would have underground contacts in Paragon City and vice versa for Heroes in the Rogue Isles.

Some of the PvP zones could even be turned into FFA (Free For All) PvP combat zones.

And (Pet rant) when are we finally going to be able to set Teleporter beacons for both blue and red side locations from the same base? Long overdue! The SGs/VGs earn the badges, I had thought that when the hacked telepads came along that it was supposed to happen.

I'm all for a 'factionless' world map (with only a few pockets of restricted areas). It's something I've been requesting as well for quite awhile now.

I'd like to see them work it in through the Hazard zones and the current Alignment-based transfer points (in addition to our current co-op zones and co-habitable PvP zones).

And although I would like to see new Contacts and missions added to compliment the change, I would also like to see current faction content modified to mirror how multiple factions could run the same content in Praetoria (cloak and dagger).

yes, I like this idea... just hope its allready in the works

Actually, I wouldn't like this. I like that there are distinct areas for the two factions.

How could we justify an Arachnos "Destined One" just waltzing into Paragon City with being ganged up on incessantly by Longbow and PPD and thrown - for some toons back - into the Zig?

I have always wanted to see access to Paragon and the Rogue Isles for either faction.
And...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Remaugen ... And so maybe if you are defeated, instead of waking up in the hospital everytime, perhaps now and then you wake up in the Zig. . . More fun!

I've always wanted that as well.
Villains defeated in paragon end up in a jail (or shipped back to the R.I.) and Heroes in the Rogue Isles end up in an Arachnos cell (or are recovered back to Paragon City... the parenthetical options for just in case my prefered options are not possible).

As more and more co-op/shared zones get added to the game, especially when they'e old Hero-only ones getting revamped, the balance will shift towards the majority of zones accepting all factions eventually.

I think that a key test of their future thinking will be seeing how they handle the planned revamps of IP and KR - both of those are really too low level to justify the need to team up to save the world, which rules out making them co-op themed zones - but not making them shared zones.

I cannot think of a single reason why this shouldn't be a shared world. This evolution of CoX is definitely overdue.

I'd like the top two posts please, with whipped cream and a cherry on top.

I'm... eh. Not really *for* just an overall sharing. (And frankly I think the "Arachnos in Atlas" bit is ridiculous. Same with Faultline, but at least there's *some* explanation for a *small* presence by the water.)

The Isles are frankly more ridiculous... "Hey, not only is there a paramilitary organization wandering around Mercy, but they've managed to *fortify* an island inside a soverign nation they weren't invited to!" Really? Hell, why aren't they rounding up *anyone* with a beef against the US and trumpeting what's essentially an invasion, then kicking Longbow out?

That said, there are some areas it would make sense to expand into... I'm not sure I'd say "co-op" but "shared" zones, since co-op implies some degree of shared goals. Crey's Folly is really the one that (to me) makes the most sense, since it's *right against* the Rikti War Zone (used to get to the Crash Site through it.)

The Shard and, I suppose, Striga would also be on that (fairly short) list, to me. Anything else that sends your character into the other side's world... honestly, I'm fine with instancing.

Start getting into a wholly shared (instead of segregated) world, and one of the next questions is "well, why don't we have full world PVP? I wouldn't let that hero/villain just walk around." (For instance.)

... so call it "limited support" from me.

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Love this idea. Love it.

^_^ i sort of skimmed the OP before the other post i made. whoops! :P



but opening the whole world, but still keeping complete PVP to the select PVP zones but allowing the option for challenges like i described could be a solution to the "whole world pvp?" problem. so low level villains sneaking around peregrine island wouldnt have to worry about the lvl 50 heroes and can click 'no' to a 'challenge' or have pvp-settings set to 'pvp-zone only' or 'decline all invites' or 'ask first', and just worry about the lvl 50 nemesis in Peregine Island like regular lowbies who venture there. and those folks who boast about their insane builds can set to 'always pvp' because they think they are invincible and safe anyway in a blue-side zone. also, you wouldnt be able to fight your own allignment except in the pvp zone that lets you do that.

so basically it's a regular world that all can travel to all parts and do the same but with sort of on-the-spot options for 'arena style' simplified pvp with members of different allignments.

O_O

I like it. It would force the PVP issue to get a serious turn around, which will likely never happen otherwise, but I do think it's silly for powerful heroes to be physically unable to travel to the Rogue Isles (and vice versa).