Redsiders in Kallisti Wharf

[Terminal]

Preface: This is purely a lore-related question, it has no real gameplay implications I am aware of. I just asked around on the Discord server and they said this was the best place to ask this question to ensure it might actually get answered by the Devs.

 

Prior to now, there was a hypothesis that the primary reason why Kallisti was going to be a co-op zone in spite of not also being a PvP zone, was because Arachnos would have a substantial presence there. There is some evidence suggesting as much already in game; Arachnos has a high amount of interest in Kallisti and the affairs there due to the technology being bandied about, and it is also strongly suggested Arachnos owns property there.

 

The specific theory I remember was that Arachnos would give pure Redsiders the equivalent status of diplomatic attaches, giving them limited diplomatic immunity so that Police Drones and law enforcement would not immediately shoot them on sight.

 

However, it seems that Arachnos has no substantial presence in the zone currently, other than a single Arbiter as a trainer and an Arbiter Drone to guard the transit submarines.

 

How and/or why are pure Redsider villains allowed to come and go in Kallisti Wharf? The drones do not zap them, certain yellow-reticle enemies like Blackwing Industries personnel do not attack them unless aggroed first, and notably, Bluesiders/Heroes/Other players cannot attack them. Why? What is the meta-plot going on here that has Heroes and Villains pretending they are ok with each other? The zone is not a free-fire area like Dark Astoria or the Rikti War Zone or even Striga Island.

 

Even acknowledging that Blackwing Industries are (spoilers ahoy),

Spoiler

with almost complete certainty a front for Ultimatum,

there is no reason why they would ignore meta-threats with Threat registration, is there? They are ostensibly legitimate private law enforcement with valid licensing and authority - and enumerated responsibilities - to apprehend such individuals.

 

Edited Wednesday at 06:19 AM by Terminal
Minor formatting edit.

[UltraAlt]

1 hour ago, Terminal said:

Prior to now, there was a hypothesis that the primary reason why Kallisti was going to be a co-op zone in spite of not also being a PvP zone

 

None of the co-op zones are PvP zones; the are PvE zones.

None of of the PvP zones are co-op zones. You aren't cooperating if you are fighting against one one another.

 

 

1 hour ago, Terminal said:

How and/or why are pure Redsider villains allowed to come and go in Kallisti Wharf?

 

Why are villains allowed to go to First Ward, Night Ward, and the Rikti War Zone?

It is because the are co-op zones. They are co-operative zones where heroes, villians, and those in between fight alongside each other (PvE) and not against one another (which is what a PvP zone is).

 

1 hour ago, Terminal said:

Why? What is the meta-plot going on here that has Heroes and Villains pretending they are ok with each other?

 

That is what a co-op zone is.

 

1 hour ago, Terminal said:

The zone is not a free-fire area like Dark Astoria or the Rikti War Zone or even Striga Island.

 

What do you mean by "free-fire"?

 

Dark Astoria - Co-op Hazard Zone (50-54)

Rikti War Zone - Co-op Trial Zone (35-50)

Striga Island - Co-op Hazard Zone (20-29) (This became a Co-op zone relatively recently)

 

 

 

 

Edited Wednesday at 07:19 AM by UltraAlt

[UltraAlt]

1 hour ago, Terminal said:

This is purely a lore-related question

 

https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Kallisti_Wharf

 

Official Background

This zone has no official background; it was a work in progress at shutdown in 2012, never seen in-game.

 

[Terminal]

Right - I was perhaps unclear and should clarify. As you indicated in your second post, this is primarily a lore related question. This is a role playing game. All of the other zones have specific rationale and in-game dialogue, lore, and/or commentary specifically explaining the context of why heroes and villains go there - what makes the place special, and also why specifically you may or may not see Hero and Villain player characters there.

 

Quote

None of the co-op zones are PvP zones; the are PvE zones.

None of of the PvP zones are co-op zones. You aren't cooperating if you are fighting against one one another.

 

This question is also not really pertinent to PvP zones in particular, it is just asking what the rationale is for it being a co-op zone despite being a zone in Paragon City.

 

Quote

Why are villains allowed to go to First Ward, Night Ward, and the Rikti War Zone?

 

Specifically and exclusively because those are free-fire zones where everything is in chaotic flux; there is no rule of law and nearly every single person you see in those zones with a few exceptions is assumed to be an active combatant. In the case of each of those it is also an instance of apocalyptic priority - Heroes and Villains do not fight each other because in each one there is a predominant threat to the entire world that requires cooperation. Hamidon, Sorceress Serene/The Talons of Vegeance, and the Rikti Restructurists specifically.

 

Quote

It is because the are co-op zones. They are co-operative zones where heroes, villians, and those in between fight alongside each other (PvE) and not against one another (which is what a PvP zone is).

 

I am aware of the mechanical status of co-op zones, but thank you for this clarification. The original question - which I perhaps could have phrased more carefully - was not about the mechanical status of Kallisti Wharf, but rather what the in-game lore for that status is.

 

Quote

That is what a co-op zone is.

 

That is not what the IC, lore-reasoning for co-op zones is, that is the strict, mechanical reason. I am asking what the in-game, in-character, contextual, narrative rationale for it being a co-op zone is. I would like to know why the lawful authorities of the city are ignoring or at least tolerating the presence of unrepentant supercriminals with formal threat registrations in the zone, to the extent that both law enforcement and city heroes are ignoring (or incapable) of attempting to apprehend them. This is something every single co-op zone in the game goes out of its way to address - that is, they all provide rationale for why heroes and villains are not fighting each other. This includes all of the Praetorian zones, Striga Island, and Dark Astoria.

 

Quote

What do you mean by "free-fire"?

 

Addressed above - a free-fire zone where every individual seen in the zone is assumed to be an active combatant. There is no rule of law, heroes and villains are both expected to be present and to either avoid or freely engage each other, barring exceptional circumstances. Exceptional circumstances usually enumerated by the game in some fashion.

 

To reiterate - my original post is not a complaint, it is a simple question. I ask because I roleplay a lot (I frequent the Everlasting server if you also happen to play there, hello!), and considerations such as this are important there. Pure redsiders, RP-wise, generally avoid going to Paragon city and usually pay lipservice or have rationale as to why you might see them there. The same is true, contrawise, of pure bluesiders. 

 

It simply struck me as remarkable that this is the first zone in Paragon City that is not an active warzone or free fire zone of some nature where both pure Heroes and Villains can go without an explanation being provided, to the extent that Police Drones are not firing on villains (amongst other examples).

[UltraAlt]

2 hours ago, Terminal said:

Right - I was perhaps unclear and should clarify. As you indicated in your second post, this is primarily a lore related question. This is a role playing game. All of the other zones have specific rationale and in-game dialogue, lore, and/or commentary specifically explaining the context of why heroes and villains go there - what makes the place special, and also why specifically you may or may not see Hero and Villain player characters there.

 

It apparently hasn't been fleshed out yet.

I guess it is like

"Why did the player character go to that zone?"

"To get to the mission contact located there."

 

There are new missions contacts there and that seems to be the main reason to go there. I think that holds true for First Ward, Night Ward, Striga Island, and Dark Astoria. 

 

2 hours ago, Terminal said:

This question is also not really pertinent to PvP zones in particular, it is just asking what the rationale is for it being a co-op zone despite being a zone in Paragon City.

 

If you look-up "Paragon City" on the wiki it lists all these places (among other) as being in Paragon City":

Kallisti Wharf (Co-op City zone instead of Hero City Zone)

Dark Astoria  (Co-op hazard zone)

The Rikti War Zone  (Co-op hazard zone)

Striga Island  (Co-op hazard zone)

and all of the PvP zones

 

First Ward and Night Ward are also listed as Co-op City Zones.

The non-hazard City zones are labeled as "Hero City Zones"; villains as "Villain City Zones"; and Praetorian as "Praetorian City Zones".

 

I'm unsure why the wiki would list Kallisti Wharf as being part of Paragon City other than it is connected to Paragon City by tram.

 

 

2 hours ago, Terminal said:

Addressed above - a free-fire zone where every individual seen in the zone is assumed to be an active combatant. There is no rule of law, heroes and villains are both expected to be present and to either avoid or freely engage each other, barring exceptional circumstances. Exceptional circumstances usually enumerated by the game in some fashion.

 

"Free-fire zones" don't exist in City of heroes.

Zones are either PvP or PvE. There are no zones where you can attack all other player characters.

 

The drones won't attack you in Khalisti Wharf. I haven't tried dragging PvE enemies up toward them yet, but I'm assuming they would be attacked. 

There to appear to be some friendlies around but I haven't tried getting them involved with combat yet.

 

2 hours ago, Terminal said:

To reiterate - my original post is not a complaint, it is a simple question. I ask because I roleplay a lot (I frequent the Everlasting server if you also happen to play there, hello!), and considerations such as this are important there. Pure redsiders, RP-wise, generally avoid going to Paragon city and usually pay lipservice or have rationale as to why you might see them there. The same is true, contrawise, of pure bluesiders. 

 

I'm everywhere (except the Praetorian side).

 

There appears to be no defined lore as far as I can tell.

 

It didn't make any sense for me for Striga Island to become a co-op zone, but is as well at his point.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited Wednesday at 10:52 AM by UltraAlt

[Icono04]

2 hours ago, Terminal said:

The original question - which I perhaps could have phrased more carefully - was not about the mechanical status of Kallisti Wharf, but rather what the in-game lore for that status is.

It has been a while since I read the Lore AMA session transcripts with the ex-dev team, so at the risk of misremembering, I think the intended future use for Kallisti Wharf was related to the...

Spoiler

...Coming Storm a.k.a. the arrival on Earth of the Batallion, the Big Bad which Ouroboros (allegedly) is intended to help us avoid.

 

This was still in the early planning stages by the then-dev team, so a lot of it is fuzzy, but broadly speaking, the intention was this: All the bigwigs of Paragon City would be in KW to attend some big celebration ceremony, when lo and behold, Batallion and its/their human sleeper agents would crash the party. This would lead to a bunch of story arcs where we do our best to prevent Batallion from taking over Earth and its Well.

 

These arcs would take place in KW and would be doable by both heroes and villians, similar to the ones in RWZ and the other co-op zones, hence KW needed to be accessible for both red- and bluesiders.

 

If I have this wrong, I am sure someone else who has read the Lore AMA more recently can correct me.

[Terminal]

30 minutes ago, Icono04 said:

It has been a while since I read the Lore AMA session transcripts with the ex-dev team, so at the risk of misremembering, I think the intended future use for Kallisti Wharf was related to the...

  Reveal hidden contents

...Coming Storm a.k.a. the arrival on Earth of the Batallion, the Big Bad which Ouroboros (allegedly) is intended to help us avoid.

 

This was still in the early planning stages by the then-dev team, so a lot of it is fuzzy, but broadly speaking, the intention was this: All the bigwigs of Paragon City would be in KW to attend some big celebration ceremony, when lo and behold, Batallion and its/their human sleeper agents would crash the party. This would lead to a bunch of story arcs where we do our best to prevent Batallion from taking over Earth and its Well.

 

These arcs would take place in KW and would be doable by both heroes and villians, similar to the ones in RWZ and the other co-op zones, hence KW needed to be accessible for both red- and bluesiders.

 

If I have this wrong, I am sure someone else who has read the Lore AMA more recently can correct me.

 

This is entirely correct, as far as I am aware, but it does not explain the present in-verse explanation for why full player-villains can walk around without law enforcement, heroes, or drones going after them. Since, after all (more spoilers),
 

Spoiler

The Coming Storm has not arrived yet and is unlikely to arrive for quite some time - certainly far outside the scope of the current page.

 

[Velvet Violet]

So some of this will be explored in future pages, but for now and without giving away too much stuff that can be learned in-game... The KW branch of the PPD was incredibly corrupt and was basically disbanded entirely to eventually be reconstituted from scratch. Emil Christie, a billionaire who has a lot of influence in the Wharf, worked out a deal with the city to hire BWI to provide security in the Wharf in the meantime. BWI has recently opened up shop there, but they are still starting their work. For now, they are focusing on the gangs that are causing havoc in the Wharf. Villains are a problem, yes, but not the primary issue as long as they aren't actively attacking BWI or otherwise causing problems they are contracted to respond to. Heroes in the Wharf don't attack villains for the same reason they don't attack rogues in other parts of the city, even if the rogues are still perfectly capable of (or even actively are) committing lots of crime. Because *coughcoughcough*.

[Terminal]

43 minutes ago, Velvet Violet said:

So some of this will be explored in future pages, but for now and without giving away too much stuff that can be learned in-game... The KW branch of the PPD was incredibly corrupt and was basically disbanded entirely to eventually be reconstituted from scratch. Emil Christie, a billionaire who has a lot of influence in the Wharf, worked out a deal with the city to hire BWI to provide security in the Wharf in the meantime. BWI has recently opened up shop there, but they are still starting their work. For now, they are focusing on the gangs that are causing havoc in the Wharf. Villains are a problem, yes, but not the primary issue as long as they aren't actively attacking BWI or otherwise causing problems they are contracted to respond to. Heroes in the Wharf don't attack villains for the same reason they don't attack rogues in other parts of the city, even if the rogues are still perfectly capable of (or even actively are) committing lots of crime. Because *coughcoughcough*.

 

Thank you for the answer!

Looking forward to the page going live, it looks fantastic so far.

[Andreah]

5 hours ago, Velvet Violet said:

Heroes in the Wharf don't attack villains for the same reason they don't attack rogues in other parts of the city, even if the rogues are still perfectly capable of (or even actively are) committing lots of crime.

This doesn't really make sense to me. There's a difference between a villain and a rogue, and why I, when playing a hero, don't attack a rogue is because when in the city, I can't tell them apart from villains because they aren't committing villainy. 

 

Heroes and villains need a better explanation for why they're choosing not to fight each other.  In the RWZ, I'm not attack player-villains because we're all there by an agreement with Vanguard, who sets the rules of engagement there. Is there an equivalent to Vanguard forcing the heroes and villains to behave in Kallisti?  

 

If not, tell us we don't fight because we choose not to isn't a good answer. That's arbitrarily forcing their roleplay.

[Techwright]

22 hours ago, Velvet Violet said:

So some of this will be explored in future pages, but for now and without giving away too much stuff that can be learned in-game... The KW branch of the PPD was incredibly corrupt and was basically disbanded entirely to eventually be reconstituted from scratch. Emil Christie, a billionaire who has a lot of influence in the Wharf, worked out a deal with the city to hire BWI to provide security in the Wharf in the meantime.

 

If I may,  I've entered the beta, and was completely confused when statements acting as past-tense, that is, as if I should have long known about it, started playing out about the KW branch of the PPD being corrupt.  I've spent some time now in the new KW, and I still feel someone whacked me with a 2x4 with that news.  It wasn't an organic step, came out of nowhere, and I didn't find any development of it...at least so far.  There needs to be something in the game, possibly earlier released than this page that clues the players in that the KW PPD was found out and removed. 

 

SUGGESTION:  I'd like to suggest that it be the newsboys that have been hawking newspapers for years on the street.  If they suddenly started yelling out an Extra!  that the KW PPD was being investigated and/or removed, that is a simple way to set the stage and get player curiosity ready for what happens next.  I don't play redside enough to know if there's an equivalent to the newsboys there, but at least the dominantly-played side could receive the info.

 

Likewise, suddenly seeing Emil Christie's name everywhere was jarring.  Again, something like the newboys announcing some social news about Emil or maybe some financial or political news of Emil would better set the stage.  In this case, even the guy walking the streets, the one that occasionally talks about a hero he/she is passing, might do well to pass along the information about Emil and his connection to KW.  After all, the public likes to talk about the billionaires and what they do, be it charitable acts, power plays, or scandals.

[Andreah]

Imagine this:

Directive from Lord Recluse to All Destined Ones

Subject: Strategic Re-Prioritization in Kallisti Wharf

 

To All Destined Ones:

 

A concerning development in Kallisti Wharf demands immediate strategic re-evaluation. Blackwing Industries' uncontrolled expansion and disruptive ambitions could undermine the order Arachnos seeks to establish.

 

Therefore, by my command, effective immediately: Cease hostilities against heroes in Kallisti Wharf. Redirect all efforts against Blackwing Industries and other destabilizing elements. This is a temporary, tactical alliance. The enemies of our enemies are, for now, tools. Your loyalty to Arachnos demands this foresight. Do not fail me.

 

Lord Recluse Master of Arachnos

 

And this: 

 

Urgent Dispatch from Ms. Liberty to All Heroes

Subject: Critical Threat & Provisional Cooperation in Kallisti Wharf

 

To All Valiant Heroes:

 

A new and urgent threat has emerged in Kallisti Wharf. Blackwing Industries' operations are causing dangerous chaos, and worse, threatening the safety and stability of the entire world.

 

Therefore, effective immediately: You are authorized to engage in provisional cooperation with villains in Kallisti Wharf. Focus all efforts solely on Blackwing Industries and their threats. This is a temporary, pragmatic operational adjustment to secure the peace. Our fundamental mission remains, but for now, unity against this menace is critical.

 

Be vigilant.

 

Ms. Liberty

On behalf of the Freedom Phalanx

 

Now, ask yourself if anything BWI is doing really would warrant those sorts of directive?

Edited 21 hours ago by Andreah

[gameboy1234]

On 5/27/2025 at 11:16 PM, Terminal said:

Preface: This is purely a lore-related question, it has no real gameplay implications I am aware of. I just asked around on the Discord server and they said this was the best place to ask this question to ensure it might actually get answered by the Devs.

 

Lore crafting is fun!  I also like to have lore and background info for the game world.  It doesn't have to be deep lore, but there should be some thought behind what is going on.  

 

Isn't Kalista Wharf set basically after the events of Who Will Die and the end of Preatoria?  Statesman is dead and Marcus Cole is now "Statesman".  It's a classic comic book trope that if there's an existential threat to the world that the bad guys will temporarily stop doing bad and help the heroes fight.  Something like that could be going on here.  

 

Add some Arachnos soldiers and Arbiters NPCs to Kalista Wharf, guarding buildings and hanging around certain areas like they belong there.  Add some "yellow outline" Arachnos to more areas, like the Crey in Brickstown.  They're up to no good still and some heroes might want to punch them.  These Arachnos (some of Arachnos?  All of it? With Lord Recluse's sanction?  I can't imagine what's he's feeling with Statesman dead) are now helping the cause of good, at least for a time...

 

Edited 20 hours ago by gameboy1234

[Faultline]

BTW, not really on-topic but someone was listing co-op zones: both The Hive and The Abyss are co-op, though The Hive is harder for villains to get into (I think only base teleporter?)

[lemming]

39 minutes ago, Faultline said:

BTW, not really on-topic but someone was listing co-op zones: both The Hive and The Abyss are co-op, though The Hive is harder for villains to get into (I think only base teleporter?)

The only way is via Eden, and I don't think pure villains can go there.