What zones are your favorites?

[Turric]

I have spent a ton of time in Brickstown this weekend, running the Doctor's Ally and the Revenant Project arcs on over a dozen toons, and I have decided that it is one of my favorites. I think it is because most of the map is rather flat with only a few height changes (Skyway and Grandville are some of my least favorite because of this). Kings Row and Sharkhead are also on my list. Kings Row and Brickstown feel like a city to me.

 

Which zones do you think are the best designs or simply your favorites?

 

PS. I am pretty sure this question has been posted before.

[Snarky]

Cap au Diable.  First, great name.  Second, Monumental architecture. Third, It was traditionally where my Brutes started to come into their power. Getting stamina and travel power finally slotted.  I know that is historical, but it evidently still means something to me.  Fourth, it introduces some great plotlines.  Really it is the first step into the deeper waters of Redside webs of intrigue. The Radio from Port Oakes send you there, under levelled for the zone and looking for info.  The Luddite arc is a hoot.  Just really well done and the first 'complete' villain zone with a Trial, access to PvP zone, lot of story arcs.  

 

In a current thread it is brought up that you need to make things challenging in order for stuff to be fun.  I always felt like Cap was the first 'challenging' Redside zone.  You needed to have some idea of an actual build, have made the right choices, be slotted appropriately, and be aware of the neighborhoods as you tried to get around.

[The_Warpact]

All of the Rogue Isles, too much stuff to list.

 

Croatoa because an eternal war of fay creatures in a countryside of meadows and deep forests is just badass.

 

All of the pvp zones, they are just neat and so is the lore behind each one.

[Lazarillo]

3 hours ago, Turric said:

PS. I am pretty sure this question has been posted before.

It has, but hey, it's a fun question.

 

As for mine, I really like Striga Island, as it's such a cool zone in terms of atmosphere and lore.  It's not quite a city zone, not quite a hazard zone, and the feeling from that always kinda reminded me of Madripoor from the old Wolverine comics.  A leeeeeetle lacking on the story side (there's definitely some there, but it's still pretty par-for-the-early-game stuff), but in general a neat area, and "this is a rough town, but nobody likes the nazis, so just go ahead and beat the daylights out of 'em" is all you really need to be a hero, I guess.  Or hey, maybe a villain?  Revamp and make it a dual-faction zone!

 

I also like Port Oakes.  Feels kinda like reverse-Striga.  Not so many nazis to beat up (well, there's Vendetti's arc, but he's awfully easy to out-level), but just something about the "rough town" atmosphere, prolly for all the Fambly running things and fighting in factions.  St. Martial's similar, but it's a little too on the nose with its...flaked gilding, so Port Oakes always had a more fun feel for me.

 

Oh, and in a less dreary/rundown kind of way, I did love me some Galaxy City.  Maybe I'm just waxing nostalgic now that it's gone, I dunno.  It was the first zone I ever went to (after the tutorial) the first time I played the game.  I always liked the aesthetic more than AP.  Heck, when the servers were going to go down, it's where I went to take my "last" screen shots of the game.  I've just got a lot of sentiment for it; it's got a special place in my heart. I wish I could, like Ouro myself back there and do actual missions and stuff.  Maybe Tips?

[Greycat]

For feel? Echo: Dark Astoria. When live (pre-Echo-ing,) it had a pretty good size impact on the backstory and character of .. well, a character. Fits a couple of others now, too. The current Incarnate zone is kind of "just another zone."

 

Story-wise, Croatoa, for both feel and content. Even dealing with red caps, a good portion of my magically delicious characters go through there.

 

In the "wish I had more to do (and earlier)" category, Cimerora. It needs more stuff to do besides repeatables and ITFs pre-50 -that's actually in the zone and related to it. Yes, there's two arcs from off-brand Posi or GW... that send you out of Cimerora, which always felt pretty odd. "Hey, here's our new zone! Now go back to Paragon/the Isles to run the related arcs. Not that there are many."

 

[Oubliette_Red]

Another vote for Striga. It's got a wide variety of mobs to encounter, some nice underground areas to explore that can be easily missed. Mrs. Peebles is the nicest person and gives you a pretty cool gift for helping out around the area.

 

Oh and a giant robot in a volcano, what's not to like about that!

 

[MTeague]

First Ward.  Fell in love with it first time I ever saw the place.  Love the missions, love the enemy groups, love the big nasty floating around the middle of the zone, love the Hidden Paths.

[Cutter]

Having done a fair bit of exploration badging lately, I'll throw in a vote for an incredibly interesting but woefully underused zone - Terra Volta.

 

Unlike so many of the early game hazard zones, which are just different riffs on "how much environmental destruction can we throw in here?", TV has basically every level/elevation change you could ask for; so many neat roads, ramps, tunnels & pipes to navigate around on; and a great deal of terrain and architecture variety to boot.

 

I'd be all over this zone getting some new storyline love.

[DoctorDitko]

Pragmatically, I've always had a fondness for Talos (now called Talos Central Station in my head-canon). Many easy travel options.

All the stores are fairly close. The trainer is handy. It has the requisite giant statue. And some seriously oddball arcs.

 

But I never lost my love for Steel Canyon. It was the zone that brought a tear to my eye as I approached Blyde Square the first time since Live. The music played, and I just lost it. It has another giant statue, and speaking of oddball arcs:

It blew my mind the first time my contact got killed in the middle of my mission!

 

 

[Gulbasaur]

Striga is just fun as a map. There's a lot going on and it has a lot of variety. The story arc chain there is really good, too.

 

Conversely, I've never like Croatoa. It has some nice set pieces, but a lot of the map is just there.

 

I have a lot of affection for First Ward - the storytelling is excellent and it feels like a zone on the edge of the world.

[Coyotedancer]

Visually, I'm fond of the Shard zones (Yes. I play fliers. 😝). I think the Primeva sections of Nerva are nice, and I like Saint Martial a lot.

 

Story-wise? Night Ward, Dark Astoria and Striga are favorites. I'm pretty fond of Croatoa, too. 

 

 

Edited March 28, 2021 by Coyotedancer

[Dahkness]

The Hollows ❤️

[Outrider_01]

the Dark Astoria arc mission where you go into Mot.  You think you walk into the bowels of hell, but you are really closer to its asshole.

[DoctorDitko]

True! The first time I fell into the maw of Mot, with all the tentacles, I thought I had wandered in to a Call of Cthulhu game!

And the random words appearing in dialog, and then in mid-air! Creepy stuff!

[cranebump]

The Row, bro’. It’s gritty. It’s tough. It’s real. Ain’t pretty, like the Falls, or Kallisti. It’s the rough and tumble of the Isles, but with a conscience. The gangs? We deal with ‘em. Clocks? Ain’t nuthin’ but a thang, man. The Row may seem down. But we’re still *&#@in’ standin’. Just like Blue Steel there. And Eagle Eye. And Joe freakin’ Freitag (yeah, we know he lives in Atlas, but the man’s heart is here). Yeah, we’ve been down. but we always get back up. 

 

Why? Heart, man. Heart.

 

(side note: King’s Row is featured heavily in my AE arcs, and is home base for what I consider my mains. Don’t know why. I’ve just always liked it. Maybe because it seems like the place that the street level Supers I prefer would best fit in).

Edited March 29, 2021 by cranebump

[Luminara]

I'm attracted to desolation.  Wandering the wasteland in the Fallout 3 and up games, looking inside the remnants of houses, scouring office buildings to see what little props and easter egg scenes the developers set up, walking the length and breadth of the sewers and subways, just taking it all in.  I do this in reality, too.  There are hundreds of abandoned homes scattered all over the counties near my cabin.  I stop once in a while when I see one, go inside, see what kind of life someone had, try to figure out when the last time was that anyone lived there.  I'm looking at the past, but I'm also looking at the future, because everything will fall down, eventually.  Our impermanence sits all around us, hinting at what's to come.

 

So Boomtown is my favorite map.  It's the most desolate and ruined.

 

I also hate Boomtown more than any other map, because I can't go inside any of those decrepit buildings.  I can't explore.  Unless I have a mission in that zone, I can't enter a single structure.  It's a harsh reminder of how lacking some of the development in this game was.  They could've echoed what Bethesda did with Fallout 3.  Instead, it's just empty and unused, a waste of potential.

[Normal Thomas]

I have a certain fondness for the Hollows. Yes. Even when you got travel powers at lvl 14. Really that just made it better back in the day cause you could really take in all of the detail of zone.

 

Cap au Diable. So much variety and character in one zone.

 

St. Martial looks like how most of the Rogue Isles should look?? A good mix of glitzy and gloomy. Also some of the best zone music.

 

All of the Praetorian zones look super nice. It makes me wonder what the game would look like if all of the zones were designed with a similar philosophy.

[Darmian]

First Ward.  Showing how desolation can be beautifully done as opposed to just, I dunno,"lots pf generic broken buildings".  It has the shape of what was underneath what is and I fiind myself scooting around it and imagining that. HOWEVER, there not being a single usable door on the Mother of Mercy means that great building is wasted. Yeah, there's a mission SET inside it, but you don't get there via First Ward. Shame!

 

Imperial City.  Feels like a city.  There's a lot more thought there than people see, more than just the "shiny".  Like, you see the buildings and then you see Lodestone Technologies, and that building doesn't look like a tech building should, and then you find a plaque nearby saying it used to be a theater, so you step back, and yeah, you can see that theater shape to it.  Little things like that.

 

(I wanted to like Croatoa - and in some ways I do, since there's damn all open space in Paragon it's nice to see some that isn't a park - but they butchered the lore, and that grates.)

 

St. Martial.  There is SOOO much more to that place than just the Giza, and that building is impressive.  It should have more in it!

 

Bloody Bay.  Love that place.  It needs to be PVE, it is absolutely a waste as a dead PVP zone.

Edited March 29, 2021 by Darmian

[Doomguide2005]

Sooo many

 

The Hollows for those early memories on my first characters.

 

Storm Palace for its visual glory

 

Those are my favorites but love many of the others as well.

[Clave Dark 5]

Croatoa, because it feels so different from the rest of the game.

 

Red side because it feels more real,  But the overall feel of the architecture too: older, more to human scale.   Cap au Diable in particular for having a variety of landscapes, in particular. 

 

Love the ski chalet setting for the musical/sound effects background and because I'm a winter person.

[Coyotedancer]

13 hours ago, Normal Thomas said:

All of the Praetorian zones look super nice. It makes me wonder what the game would look like if all of the zones were designed with a similar philosophy.

 

Indeed. 

Imperial City in particular is just a gorgeous city zone.

[golstat2003]

Croatoa, Kalista Wharf (even with the bugs lol), all three of the Praetorian zones).

[golstat2003]

1 minute ago, Coyotedancer said:

 

Indeed. 

Imperial City in particular is just a gorgeous city zone.

 

I guess Khalista Wharf comes closest to that same aesthetic . 🙂 

[Spaghetti Betty]

Adding a +1 to Terra Volta. Definitely one of the most interesting maps blueside. Would love to see it get some content.

 

My other answer based purely on exploration badge text is the Abandoned Sewer Network.

 

[Midnight Blue Mage]

Founders Falls. It has a kind of classic, idyllic beauty; I would love to live there