Interesting blog on city designing in games

I happened across this while reading a blog on Architectural Record's website. Thought you lot might find it interesting, too.

http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2009/08...gorithmic.html

I've always felt that Mercy could have rivaled Atlas for a more vibrant, inviting, intuitive experience with different planning. While some don't enjoy the the gloomy atmosphere, my problem lies with the distance and difficulty between keypoints compared to the hero starting zones.

A starting zone may seem trivial to some but I often wonder if it was just another reason or the first reason that villains is far less popular.

Atlas, on my server, feels like a mecca. The new kids look straight ahead, amble up the stairs to find: trainers, initial contacts, SG registry desk, and the lively square. Again, maybe just my server, but that square is alive with as many 50's as level 1's. It's easy for a 50 to casually recruit for their supergroups on the way to other places they might be headed to anyway: SG desk to pay rent, Recluse's Victory inside City Hall, one of the WentWorths (incidentally, the one closest to an AE building) and RWZ. Those 50's help provide new players and new characters a player support system. Questions are answered, contests are held, groups are joined, community is formed. And from Atlas, a new player or character can journey easily to so many other zones: behind them to the Sewers, left to Perez Park, straight ahead to a tram with all the low level zones, and right to the Hollows. It's not just the zone's amenities that are accessible, the world beyond feels immediately accesible.

Mercy, has some things up front, yes: trainer, quartmaster, hospital and initial contacts. The difference being the wide open view compared to an multi-level platform. Run up, run down, run up, run down. I don't know if I want someone's first experience to feel grindy in every little thing. From there, it's not an impossible or challenging task but by comparison perhaps a less welcoming path to WW's counterpart and to a ferry which takes the player to just one other zone. Beyond that, all the reasons Atlas has to attract 50's are not there: the SG registry is in Port Oakes, Recluse Victory is accessible by Grandville, RWZ isn't first found until Cap au Diable.

You almost feel that in a choose your own adventure game, heroes is all about choices and villains is a stiff linear road to the last page. Sure, Mercy might be boring and repeative if designed exactly like Atlas but it could have given villainside a boost from more planning geared to introducing villains to their community and world not just the next zone set far stage exit left.

I don't know how Praetoria is accessed. If we have to gain entrance or if it will truly have its own starting zone but I wonder if Mercy will feel more like Boomtown after. Not because the new expansion is shiny and new but because Mercy doesn't have the same reasons as Atlas to choose it to begin with (other than being the only place to start villains now).

Mercy should've started inside the walled city and delved down into the ruined rotten mercy island we all know and dislike. Early doors INSIDE the walled city, 5-10 missions down in buttsville. No more running across Mercy 5 times (with no travel power--they should've had little arachnos scooters in Fort Darwin!) to do your very first Story Contact. And since it's all ruins and junk it's natural the enemies are a bit stronger than what they have up topside. Or you could've gone straight to PO after dinging 5 and get your CoV newspaper from your broker. (what I do--screw Kalinda and Burke's missions, I just fight my way towards the ferry and hopefully had dinged 5 by the time I get there). Not to mention the SG registrar could've been moved out of PO and live in the completely unused Fort Cerberus or something...used to have to answer "where do you make VGs?" a lot on the help channel and explain how to get to the TALLEST BUILDING with the Arachnos flags hanging off it in the middle of Marconeville over in PO, you can't miss the thing...

I wish they had copy and pasted some snake tunnels to be the villain's sewers. It wouldn't need to be large--Paragon's sewers are just stupidly huge. As are the Troll Caves beneath the Hollows...actually, they could USE the troll caves and fill them with Snakes and nobody would be the wiser. How many people even know the Troll Tunnels are down there, existing only to be an irritating troll-infested maze you have to traverse during the timed Hollows Trial?

Wow, so *not* where I thought this thread would go, but entertaining nonetheless!

That was fascinating, Tyrrano. Thank you for posting it!

As the article implies, using a combination of these automated processes and subsequent hand-editing would greatly simplify game designers' ability to create large, realistic (or "realistic," depending on the game) urban environments. My big wish would be for something like this to be made available to players. Perhaps we'll see it with the release of Issue 163 (estimated release: summer 2031) or City of Heroes 8: Return of the Revenge of the Rogue Vigilantes.

Since the thread here has developed into a place to criticize the game's architecture and building layout, I'll simply observe that while I think many of the architectural elements (textures, buildings, etc.) are quite good, the way they are assembled to make a world is imperfect. Personally, I would have gone with a more accessible city structure for mission maps and cityspaces, even the run-down areas of the Rogue Isles. Instead, probably as an inheritance from the gaming tradition of a game area as a goal-oriented maze to be navigated, the devs went with a design that sacrificed accessibility for the ability to send players along particular routes, both indoors and outdoors. It will be interesting to see if the Praetorian cityscapes are the same.

And, of course, more variety in element design would be nice. Even having the weather be set to "sunny" in one of the Rogue Isles, for instance, would make a significant improvement. I don't see this as happening in existing content any time soon, if ever, but we might see it in future games.

...

@_@ puuuuurrrrdyyyyy...

I actually like the villain zones way more than the hero zones. Villainside has life, atmosphere. Every zone has a clear purpose, theme and backstory.
Heroside zones are just generic, bland and boring. The only zones I do like are the Hollows and revamped Faultline. I'd like Croatoa too, but for some reason I find that it's apart from the rest of CoH. It just doesn't seem to fit in.

So the assumption is come GR, you have a great time, get to level 20, and then decide Hero or Villain. So zone wise you have weigh your choices.

Go Hero and you can go to
Talos
IP
Striga
Faultline

or go Villain and you can go to
Sharkshead Isle

Sharkshead is so lame, its so lame, everyone would say Sharkshead is their least favorite island if Mercy wasn't lamer.

I bet someone gonna follow up this post and tell me about some Hazard Zone blueside, that I haven't been to in over 2 years as anther option for Paragon bound Pratorians.

The compartmentalization of missions to one zone is both the strength and the weakness of CoV. It's easier to get around and complete, but staying in the same dreary zone mission after mission can become tedious.

LEGION OF VALOR - Be a part of the Legend!

I see that sort of technology as having potential for indoor missions, like the office/cave maps.

The thread title got me longing for SimCity 5. I think I'll go sit in the corner and be disappointed for a while