Officially Unofficial Weekly Discussion #26: Something Wicked This Way Comes (Red Side)

[Techwright]

On 5/2/2023 at 12:13 AM, DougGraves said:

The problem with Redside is that the stories are very well written with interesting characters - but they are evil and unpleasant.

 

Exactly.  Villainy comes in a variety of flavors, which probably makes it hard to fully cover in CoV. Everything from insidiously pulling strings behind the scenes to overt, beastly violence.  Good comes in two flavors: really good and ... just alright:

 

[BurtHutt]

Back on Live, I'd play Red side a lot and barely played Blue (or Gold). The Red content is the better and the SFs are a bit better than most Blue TFs (infinitely better than Shard stuff, Citadel and so on).

 

Red isn't perfect but it is better. They learned a lot and that was at the expense of the Blue side - hey, they launched the game with it so it makes sense you learn from there. Anyway, I don't play a lot of Red now because it's tough to find teams. It is pretty easy to get an SF going but not regular missions, papers and so on. I'm not too concerned about it. I don't game as much but when I do, it's CoH (this line should be a meme!).

[Zep]

Add a new zone, add more quest lines.

 

I have a team that makes new characters every two weeks.

Blue-Red-Blue-Gold-Repeat

 

Red side has more interesting (and more dark and twisted - not always a good thing but I guess that's the point) quests.

 

Blue is definitely better flashed out

 

Gold side is still a tween where red is 15-16 and blue an adult.

[Troo]

Mwahahaha

 

"it's so dark..' lol

 

All the redside haters should be banned from villain ATs. Deal with it hypocrites.

 

Redside has some of the better content and more efficient zones. Cap au Diable is one of my favorite zones and works really well as a 'hub' for Redside. That's also one of the advantages for blueside population, Atlas is simply a more player friendly starting zone.

 

Random Ramblings

Additional Zones: I'd rather see more coop zones than more redside zones. It would just be a better use of resources. Instead, flushing out redside a bit would be great. Port Oakes & St. Martial could use a little attention.

 

Mercy: I preferred the old Mercy.

 

Redside Respecification Trials could have their rewards reworked since folks don't have to 'earn' respecs.

 

Joining Arachnos.. could we just have a decent bounty hunter/privateer path?

 

Access to hazard zones via 'copters could be good. Air drop a baby villain in already.

[Darmian]

On 5/6/2023 at 4:01 AM, Zep said:

Gold side is still a tween where red is 15-16 and blue an adult.

ROFL.

[Clave Dark 5]

• I've always enjoyed red side more, I like the general aesthetic, sue me - Blue side came first and it shows; then Red side came later once hey got better at their graphics; then Gold showed up and looks fantastic, but I don't like how it plays there - so Red side for me. 
• I don't have to remember which zone Eden or Boomtown or whatever branches off of, I can just hop a ferry and get there, even at level one before I hit the P2W lady on Mercy, if I want. 
• I did like the ATs better too, not that that's such an issue now of course. 

 

But I like to PUG, so... blue side it is now I guess, sigh, but I'm always willing to hop sides given the chance; I usually do when someone offers a team or SF on red.

[Gulbasaur]

3 hours ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

I've always enjoyed red side more, I like the general aesthetic, sue me - Blue side came first and it shows; then Red side came later once hey got better at their graphics; then Gold showed up and looks fantastic, but I don't like how it plays there - so Red side for me. 

One design thing that floats around in the back of my head is how empty a lot of the early blueside is. It's content for the sake of content. Maps for the sake of maps. So much of it is just there.

 

Atlas Park got a refresh. Galaxy City got destroyed. The Hollows got a revamp. Perez Park has nice worldbuilding but bugger all to do there other than some occasional missions. Ditto Crey's Folly - there's a flippin' shanty town out there with ties to the lore and all you really do is fly over it. Eden is full of very cool design, but apart from the Eden Trial, there really is no reason to visit. The Hive had the Hamidon Raid, and that's about it. Dark Astoria got a very large revamp and so did Faultline. There's just so much that was put out at launch with so little to do there. The post-launch zones of Striga and Croatoa aren't perfect, but they were very solid content releases each with 4 story arcs and a task force relating to the lore of the zone, as well as an additional one in Striga linking to the Kheldian storyline. 

 

OH! That's not even counting the Shadow Shard, which have some cool lore but the task forces are the epitome of time-filling exercises. In the early days, you could expect to stretch each one of them over two or three play sessions.

 

Part of me recognises that gameplay norms have changed; the grind has fallen out of fashion in gaming and street-sweeping isn't as popular as it was.

 

The Rogue Isles just feel tighter. Each zone kind of has its own identity. Each zone (more or less) has its own story, although some did get revamps. The Task Forces feel more unique. The landscape feels more unique. The maps kind of follow the Peregrine Island model where there are street-sweeping areas, but not zones. I didn't love City of Villains when it came out, but in hindsight I do see a bump in quality.

 

Part of me has always wanted to write a kind of travellogue guide to the zones. I'm never going to get round to it and I'm not sure how interesting it would be