Isn't it a little bit ODD?

[Marine X]

Strange Paragon City Observations: Part 1

 

No children in an entire City except one Creepy Looking Time entity, who on April 1st followed me around all day. It was a grim day of Dead babies outside mission doors, awful.

Everyone in the entire city appears to be right handed. ( mentioned In honor of National Left Handed Day which is today, hey wait a second.....)

There are tons of Freeways with almost no traffic, I can never recall even seeing a car on the middle layer of Skyway's Elevated Freeway.

There are no Car Dealers, no Porn Shops, no Fast Food Restaurants. ( How can they survive? ) There has to be a Walmart, or is this a "Fantasy" City.

No normal wildlife in wooded areas except Birds, Bees and occasional Mastermind's Pets.

Bus Stops with waiting areas all over the Place but no Buses. ( the wait may be longer than you think )

A Volcano off the Rhode Island Coast. A Volcano. Granted it's not active, or is it? A Volcano, huh.

It never Rains but everything stays green. ( and it snows in winter with no accumulation )

No One ever mows the grass, No One is ever seen painting anything, No One ever appears to need to repair their car. ( I'm not complaining, I want this. )

No Mall, just shops, although I saw somewhere that the White Plains Mall and Convention Center is at 2949.6 -2 -5937.6, I'll have to go check that out.

No One rides Bikes, they just walk everywhere, and right into you, push you right out of their way, how rude.

No Single family homes anywhere except a few abandoned shacks and a self purported House of Horrors, a whole City of Skyscrapers and Town Houses, really?

 

All for now, you may commence heated arguments for and against __________________ and ___________________ when ready. Thank you for your patience.

 

 

 

 

 

[FoulVileTerror]

Fairly sure there -are- fast food restaurants.

Unless we're assuming City of Gyros and El Super Mexicano are slow-food restaurants.

 

Also, there's a second creepy child, and she's around all the time . . . forever . . . always a child . . . even after 15 years . . . 

https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Penny_Preston

But she's a mutant, so it's fine.

[Marine X]

 

11 minutes ago, FoulVileTerror said:

Fairly sure there -are- fast food restaurants.

I was thinking more like with a Drive thru and an order board, maybe a smiling Clown head takes your order.

 

11 minutes ago, FoulVileTerror said:

Also, there's a second creepy child, and she's around all the time . . . forever . . . always a child . . . even after 15 years . . . 

Thought she was just a Dwarf or something, but point taken.

[Gulbasaur]

56 minutes ago, Marine X said:

No children in an entire City except one Creepy Looking Time entity, who on April 1st followed me around all day. It was a grim day of Dead babies outside mission doors, awful.

Oddly, the only thing I could remember about winter events was the hench baby.

57 minutes ago, Marine X said:

There are tons of Freeways with almost no traffic, I can never recall even seeing a car on the middle layer of Skyway's Elevated Freeway.

Skyway's roads don't actually seem to connect once side of the city to the other. I don't think you can follow the roads from tunnel to tunnel - they're two big loops that almost cross over.

1 hour ago, Marine X said:

No One rides Bikes, they just walk everywhere, and right into you, push you right out of their way, how rude.

Have you seen the drivers? They swerve if anyone so much as looks at them funny. Cycling would be more dangerous than walking.

[Vanden]

 

1 hour ago, Marine X said:

No children in an entire City except one Creepy Looking Time entity, who on April 1st followed me around all day. It was a grim day of Dead babies outside mission doors, awful.

You're forgetting about Penny Preston!

Edited August 13, 2020 by Vanden

[Omega-202]

29 minutes ago, Marine X said:

 

I was thinking more like with a Drive thru and an order board, maybe a smiling Clown head takes your order.

I take it you don't spend a lot of time in US northeast cities.  You could count on one hand the number of "drive thru with order boards" in Manhattan, Boston downtown or center city Philly, which are probably the closest analogues to Paragon City.  

[EmmySky]

Considering the willy-nilly driving skills of the general populous, I think all drive through restautants were, well, driven through and rebuilt without that feature.

[Oubliette_Red]

I believe there was or is some sort of regulation regarding the appearance of children in "violent" video games. I think Penny being 15 is at the bottom end of the age threshold and why "Baby" New Year looks nothing like a baby.

 

[Tachstar]

Child? Or really small adult?

[Marine X]

33 minutes ago, Omega-202 said:

I take it you don't spend a lot of time in US northeast cities.

Live in North Central Ohio, We have lots of Wendy's, Arby's, McDonald's, Burger King, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Little Caesar's, Skyline Chili, Long John Silver's, KFC, and many more with Drive Thrus, plus a lot with a designated Curbside Delivery Door and Parking including Olive Garden, Applebee's, Cheddars, Logan's and Texas Roadhouse.

We still have an actual Drive In Theater here with a Consession Stand. We're a lot less Sophisticated here.

 

[Omega-202]

8 minutes ago, Marine X said:

Live in North Central Ohio, We have lots of Wendy's, Arby's, McDonald's, Burger King, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Little Caesar's, Skyline Chili, Long John Silver's, KFC, and many more with Drive Thrus, plus a lot with a designated Curbside Delivery Door and Parking including Olive Garden, Applebee's, Cheddars, Logan's and Texas Roadhouse.

We still have an actual Drive In Theater here with a Consession Stand. We're a lot less Sophisticated here.

 

It's totally not a sophistication thing.  It's a space thing.  The space needed for a drive thru in center city Philly can instead be used to build a 20 unit luxury condo building, with each unit selling for 1 mil minimum.  

 

But despite the price, the concepts of "sophistication" and Philadelphia don't overlap.  

[Nyghtmaire]

1 hour ago, Omega-202 said:

I take it you don't spend a lot of time in US northeast cities.  You could count on one hand the number of "drive thru with order boards" in Manhattan, Boston downtown or center city Philly, which are probably the closest analogues to Paragon City.  

True, not in downtown Manhattan. Gotta go to Queens, Brooklyn, or the Bronx. Staten Island doesn’t count...

[Omega-202]

1 minute ago, Nyghtmaire said:

Staten Island doesn’t count...

That goes without saying.  

 

But in all seriousness, it is a bit odd that Paragon is lacking in medium-high density residential areas resembling Queens.  Brickstown has a bit of that flavor, sort of, with the lack of super high rises anywhere but the north strip.  

 

I think that a zone that looks like Flushing or South Boston or South Philly would be interesting.  I mean, with each of those area's histories, the story of the zone would write itself (ie Family hotspots). 

[Marine X]

They place Paragon City in Rhode Island but it always reminds me more of a Much smaller City, it's dimensions are comparable to where I live which has a population of about 55, 000, Add the Skyscrapers and you could argue the population could be 250,000, but not in the 4,000,000 Range. Some parts of the city outright look like they are from different regions, Brickstown looks Mid-Western, Founders looks like Venice, Italy and Croatoa looks like Maine. Was just shooting for a subject that would be entertaining and not devolve into Heated bickering about PVP, Page 6, Streaming, NCSoft or Nerfing Regen.

Edited August 13, 2020 by Marine X

[Outrider_01]

For asking why normal stuff is missing, you forget to ask why is there normal crime in a city of what are basically civic employee force of Heroes.  The planetary invasions and magical end of the world, sure that would be expected...but what idiot tries to mug a women's purse right outside city hall.  That is wierd.

[Omega-202]

1 minute ago, Outrider_01 said:

For asking why normal stuff is missing, you forget to ask why is there normal crime in a city of what are basically civic employee force of Heroes.  The planetary invasions and magical end of the world, sure that would be expected...but what idiot tries to mug a women's purse right outside city hall.  That is wierd.

Yeah, imagine the Hellions' recruiter standing in Atlas trying to bring in new blood as his comrade is Power Pushed across 5 city blocks through the the air by a living god that's just passing through.  

 

Can't see how they keep their numbers up that way.  That lady's purse could not have had enough money in it to be worth it. 

[Patti]

Doesn't that suggest that there's still a serious scarcity issue for essentials if people are willing to commit such brazen crimes?

[Twisted Toon]

3 hours ago, Marine X said:

No One ever mows the grass,

Artificial Grass.

 

Don't trust the real stuff.

It's probably a minion of Hamidon just waiting for the unsuspecting person to set foot on it.

[srmalloy]

3 hours ago, Marine X said:

No One ever mows the grass, No One is ever seen painting anything, No One ever appears to need to repair their car. ( I'm not complaining, I want this. )

And all of the hedges in Perez Park are neatly trimmed, despite it being a hazard zone that civilians and low-level characters should avoid (and that's not even considering the functioning businesses in Perez Park and Boomtown -- at least the ones in Perez have functional buildings; the ones in Boomtown are in buildings damaged in first Rikti invasion).

2 hours ago, Vanden said:

 

You're forgetting about Penny Preston!

And Penelope Yin when you first meet her in Faultline.

[Coyotedancer]

City chock full of sewers and dusty, abandoned mines... That we all spend an absolutely ludicrous amount of time in... 

EXPLODING zombies... 

Zombies that barf all over us...

Rikti monkeys that do unspeakable things...

 

... And not one single dry-cleaner or laundromat in the whole darned place. 😝 

[Arnabas]

Aside from Penny, there is a young boy in one of the missions, but I forget his name. So there are a couple of kids.

In terms of being right-handed, there are plenty of left-handed attacks. I have often remarked that some of my characters must be left handed because of how they hold their weapons.

[srmalloy]

2 minutes ago, Arnabas said:

In terms of being right-handed, there are plenty of left-handed attacks. I have often remarked that some of my characters must be left handed because of how they hold their weapons.

Don't Brawl and Boxing alternate between left and right punches, too?

[Lines]

No architect in Paragon City has ever used elevators to their full potential.

 

Or even stairs, for that matter.

[Arnabas]

4 minutes ago, srmalloy said:

Don't Brawl and Boxing alternate between left and right punches, too?

I... don't remember. I will have to go check now.

[Marine X]

1 hour ago, Lines said:

No architect in Paragon City has ever used elevators to their full potential.

 

Or even stairs, for that matter.

Agreed, it would be shocking if you could actually go to more than just the next floor on an Elevator, then go searching for another Elevator to get to the next one.