In Cox, there was an open world in which we could travel around, divided into zones (each zone was really a map of its own, but I digress). This open world had other heroes flying around in it, NPC you could talk to, who stayed stationary, and "window dressing" NPCs that walked around and would give you stats if you clicked on them, or say stuff, etc. It also had potential targets, i.e. mobs.
Each zone in CoX had badguys of various different levels and as such the zones were places you'd go while leveling up depending on your level.
Is CoT planning on doing that? Will there be mobs in the open world, and if so, what level will they be? Or how will that work, if not like CoX?
Early on in CoX, a lot of these zones existed to give people something to "Go. Hunt. Kil Skulz." in, but soon people decided that missions were better and the "Hazxard Zones" went mostly unused, most of the time. I assume there's some way to not repeat that problem in CoT, but what is it?
Do we just not make such zones, or do we put badguys of all levels in all zones? How do you avoid the problem of high level mobs squishing lowbie toons? Or griefers making that happen on purpose?
Also, not for nothing, I liked that some zones had parts that were not obvious or 100% easy to spot that made exploring fun. The "underside: of Brixtown, etc.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Considering that they have often referred to streetsweeping then I'm sure that there will be mobs in the open world.
As for the level distribution and such I think it will be similar to how WoW had their continents set up. That is that there was no loading between zones on one continent and that each zone had a specific level range among enemies and thus an intended level range of the players when questing there.
So long as the sidewalks aren't filled with purse snatchers everywhere you look ...
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Right, the thugs should be breaking into Bus-stops, like in CoH. Actually, they should be lurking in alleys, warehouses and workshops. Still, SOME of them should be out making a public nuisance of themselves, by blocking sidewalks, assaulting small stores, and snatching purses. Not every hero can See where the trouble is, unless you smack him in the face with a fresh crime.
Be Well!
Fireheart
This is where simulation runs into video game reality - there has to be a number of mobs for heroes to defeat in the world - too little and people start complaining about a lack of enemies to defeat (and get crafting parts/missions from), too many and zones become minefields for heroes of a certain level and below. The struggle is to hit a good balance, which may mean nobody is completely happy with the compromise.
Personally - I don't care - have a mugging on every street corner - I'm not going to play this game for realism - I just want to blast stuff with the heat of my laser eyes. ;^p
That is how I would have thought that they would have done it... hell, even if you removed the loading edges for City of Heroes, it was done in a similar fashion, and the only time you had *risk* of people training high level mobs onto your squishy was if you were near the boundry between a high level ares and a low level area.
On top of that, you can also have the typical leashing behaviour, where each spawn of mobs wouldn't necessarily go all the way across the zone just to hit you.
Yes, it could happen in City of Heroes *potentially*, but those methods were fixed (Monster island mob trains anyone?)
But yeah, I would *expect* to have level relevant mobs in the area that I am running content. What I wouldn't like to have is to have a level 10 mission send me into a level 15 area, *just because* the game thought that it would be fun to send me there.
Some locations make sense to have "$Target Rich Environment" factor going for them. In City of Heroes, these were usually the Hazard Zones ... places like The Hollows (hoo boy!) and The Sewers (and The Abandoned Sewers!) and Dark Astoria ... and so on and so forth. The places it didn't make sense were locations like ... Atlas Park and Galaxy City and Talos Island and (let's be honest) everywhere on Peregrine Island that wasn't Portal Corp buildings and plaza (even their [i]parking lot[/i] was filled with Circle of Thorns making a mess!).
Interdictor has the right of it though. If you're "sent" to go tackle something, that "something" needs to exist SOMEWHERE ... and preferably be somewhere that your PC has access to.
Although, there is something to be said for using the Violence/Peace axis of the Alignment System as a guideline for how ... dense ... the population of hostile NPCs in any given District in the City of Titans ought to be. Peaceful "people" in Violent Districts, and Violent "people" in Peaceful Districts, ought to be confronted with a high density of "hostile" Foes ... while Peaceful "people" in Peaceful Districts, and Violent "people" in Violent Districts, ought to be hard pressed to find a "hostile" Foe who will attack them on sight.
The actual QUANTITY of NPCs in the District remains more or less the same, but the REACTIONS of those NPCs to the presence of "people" (both PCs and NPCs alike) would be governed by the Alignment System.
Or we could just put purse snatcher on every sidewalk ... again ...
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Early on in COH I could never do missions.
Any time I tried to go into a mission I'd get disconnected.
Going to a different city zone also disconnected me but when I logged back in I'd be in the new zone, so I could get around in the city.
Patrolling the streets was all I could do for about 6 months.
I liked Patrolling the streets and in the low levels I never really saw the need to do missions, even later when I had a better connection.
Missions were kind of a hassle, with having to find contacts, and look for doors and go back to contacts afterward, It all took me away from just having fun.
I especially hated long chain missions that took me to several different zones. The cape mission really chapped my hide.
The only reason I did missions at all was the big XP reward at the end and of course some had special rewards like temporary powers or capes.
At the upper levels it took so long to level that you just couldn't do it without the mission rewards, and teaming. God I grew to hate the game as I played the higher level stuff. That's why I had so many alts, and deleted a lot of my characters after about level 15 or 20, the game was just a lot more fun at lower levels.
Anyway as you can see from this I really like street sweeping and I'm looking forward to doing it. And I've even started some threads about ways to make it more convincing Like This one: http://cityoftitans.com/forum/keep-most-monsters-streets
Frankly without street sweeping there isn't a game as far as I'm concerned.
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My understanding was that the world would be genuinely "open." In that you could, if you wanted, travel from one end of the great big map to the other from day one/level one. Whether that was practical or advisable would be a different story. The idea, IIRC, was that zone allegiances would change slightly due to hero/villain activity and the presence of certain types of mobs would shift as well, but that the zones wouldn't be 'hard-sided' as far as finding different kinds of mobs present. They would overlap to some extent based on their own reactions to each other.
If the various suburbs of Titan City work like they did in CoX, then the mobs in each will be of a predictable level range and affiliation. I'm not against, that, and it's been said that the "one server" element will cause the city to look less empty than Paragon did (NOT having three different cities to choose from on character creation will help too).
Even so, this brings up the question of how much use each area will tend to get. Obviously, if an area has only level 10-20 baddies, then only level 9-19 heroes will go there to do battle with them. How fast will a personal be able to level out of that range and move on to the next zone then? In CoX you could PL a toon in like a day. Even if we take "normal leveling" to be defined as "NOT PLing" then the TFs and so forth got you enough XP to level up pretty fast still, and without having to do any street sweeping.
I'm curious to see what the average leveling rate is in terms of hours spent at each level.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
The time to level is always going to be a sticking point. Some think that it should be longer, others think it should be *as fast as possible* no matter what.
For some reason, I seem to fall into the 250-350 hours to get to level cap range, no matter the game (although City of Heroes was the exception with 732 hours to get to level 50).
If anything, the most annoying thing is *running out* of content whilst levelling up. Those dreaded dry spots where no matter what, you are more than 1 level out of getting new content, and there is *nothing* left for you to do apart from street sweeping.
Those gaps should not be happening, but they did happen in the early life of City of Heroes. Just one of those things.
Granted, that did get fixed later on in the games life.
I'm hoping and rather expecting that the vast majority of story type missions will be 'instanced' like CoH. Where you basically have to go up to a door somewhere and 'enter.' No reason why those doors couldn't be anywhere in the city, thus getting folks to travel around and be seen.
Add to that, based on some long ago forum conversations, the idea of various places and spaces that will serve as social nexuses...nexium...nexii...gathering places. I'm eagerly anticipating an outdoor amphitheater on the west side hosting a costume contest, while on the north side a large SG is doing a recruitment drive in a park and there's a dance party going on simultaneously at some mogul's rooftop pool downtown.
Spreading out locations of the various public 'service spots' like Auction House branches, storage banks, crafting houses, etc. and having multiple choices for each.
Plus, having some choice as to where your 'personal lair' is located could have some effect on traffic patterns.
It's going to be a big city, and we will ALL be there ALL the time. Not all split into various level zones. I like the idea of being the high-level hero flying over the city and seeing the new 'recruits' on the ground dealing with the street crime like I used to do. Smiling indulgently and occasionally lending a hand when I see a hero in trouble. Likewise, I will enjoy the experience of my newbie hero 'taking out the trash' while a magnificent caped avenger soars overhead on his way to save the entire city from a threat that is beyond my understanding.
GAHHH!! Can't wait! C'mon you guys, Hurry up!!
Here's an idea, not sure it would work or what to think of it, because it just popped into my mind:
Suppose you have a map that has a North side and a South side. In the heart of the North side there is a base, the "Northsider Home Base" where Northsider PCs start when created and it's crawling with only Northern NPCs. Similarly, the South Side has it's base in the heart of the South side of the map.
The farther from the North Base you travel, the the more the NPC mix starts to become a mix of North and South alignment, with a "contested zone" around the "Mason-Dixon Line". This way if you make a Northside toon, you start in North Base and can travel away from there until you get close enough to South Base that you're basically out-leveled and outnumbered.
So in specific terms, this might mean that North Side is Heroes (whose base is the Hall of Justice or something and the main area where we begin as new toons, the level up contacts are there, you do your low level missions there in relative safety, etc) and the South Side is Villains, etc. The idea being that there could be PVP on this map, if it were a PVP shard or instance or whatever, but if it isn't, then the relative difficulty of the area, for a toon, is based on how far away from their "home" they are.
The East-West axis could be "gritty street vigilante" on one extreme and "spandex" on the other. So the Southwest corner is where your Dr. Dooms and Ultrons live and the Northwest corner is your Supermans and Iron Mans, then the whole east side is like one big dingy ghetto which has your Daredevils and Batmans in the north and your gangs and Kingpins in the south.
Maybe we'd need 4 bases then, I don't know. Or maybe just put the base in the central area between east and west.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising