What Kallisti Wharf might have been

[temnix]

I am not going to complain about Homecoming's conversion of Kallisti Wharf: there is no point. The game is in the hands of these people for ever and ever, and that is a reality that needs to be acknowledged. And, after all, I might say, good luck: maybe it is going to make people happy... but no. There is no need for another high-level zone. What there is a need for is another low-level zone so that early playing experience would stop being so mind-numbingly the same. Since I can't change anything, I am just going to tell you a story of what Kallisti Wharf might have become, and may this inspire you in other games or suggest some costumes... So turn off your ADHD, buckle down and listen.

 

Once upon a time, in the 1980s, a multimillionaire, philantropist and scientist approached Paragon City with an offer. The city was going through a difficult time, with falling revenues and surging crime. This great man... let's give him some power surname... Gladstone? Gladstone. A friend of Statesman and an international celebrity, Ebenezer Gladstone offered the city to rent a run-down area of slums, piers and vacant lots for 50 years. Though open to all, it would be privately built, administered and policed and a local offshore trading zone instituted. At the end of that period control would return to the city with an option to buy back the enterprises created in the meantime. The city agreed.

 

Over this time Gladstone and after his death in 2011 the board of trustees turned Kallisti Wharf (named after Gladstone's wife Kallisti Aligizakis) into an urban utopia. The residents of the redeveloped area received new excellent housing and jobs in the businesses that sprang up there, evoking admiration and envy in the rest of Paragon. Meantime the great man himself had focused his scientific genius on his life-long passion: advancing agriculture. The skyscraper in the artificial island at the center held mysterious technologies, rumored to be able to control weather on Earth once complete. As written in Gladstone's will, they too would pass into Paragon's hands after the expiration of the lease. The arrangement was already celebrated as a stellar example of private capital used for public good.

 

Before that date, however, and soon after Gladstone's passing Arachnos appeared. They presented a different version of the will where Arachnos was named as the beneficiary and claimed that theirs was genuine. They also showed proof that much of the development in the area had been done on Arachnos' money and technical know-how. While the scandal raged and Paragon prepared to take the matter to arbitrage, Lord Recluse quickly garrisoned one shore of the river mouth with his troops and erected air defenses. Thus the area was split and it continues to be split as the never-ending litigation over jurisdiction for arbitration drags on.

 

For player characters this would mean an alternative starting zone: heroes on their bank, villains on theirs. Kallisti Wharf would be a PvP zone with no level cap but a special twist: characters would only be able to attack other characters until level 10. This way newbies would not need to be afraid of experienced characters from the opposite side crushing them. Allowed PvP would be only one aspect of the place, however. In other respects it would be a proper starting zone, with Contacts, missions and low-level groups to fight, to take place mostly on the unfriendly shore. Contacts would send heroes over to the Arachnos-controlled territory to obtain proofs of that side's duplicity while villains would cross over to find documents to the opposite effect, all to move the opinion of the courts in their favor. In addition to being mission objectives these successes would give the blue side or the red side control over the devices in the central tower and the ability to change weather!

 

Villains could unleash storms across Paragon City while heroes could make the clouds part and the sun pour down on the Rogue Isles, with some area-wide mechanical bonuses and penalties in both cases. Higher-level characters in other zones would also therefore have a reason to care about the happenings in Kallisti. Too powerful for PvP in Kallisti, they could voluntarily lower their levels there to participate in the struggle for control.

 

Starting out in a war zone would put a different twist on the early game. There would be regular traffic between the areas too. Players who found they could not handle the PvP possibility would be free to leave for more conventional climes - take the monorail to Atlas Park or the submarine to Mercy Island.

[lemming]

You do realize, Kallisti was never going to be a low level zone from the original developers?  And HC already made known what their vision was going to be?

 

I prefer the path they took, players do seem to want more stuff in the upper levels to do.

[TheMoneyMaker]

1 hour ago, temnix said:

There is no need for another high-level zone. What there is a need for is another low-level zone so that early playing experience would stop being so mind-numbingly the same.

There's no need for another low-level zone. What there is a need for is another high-level zone so that later playing experience would stop being so mind-numbingly the same.

 

If it's not the small Peregrine Island, it's RWZ and mothership raids, Hamidon, or instanced iTrials. I want more city stuff to do, not running to other dimensions or other times.

[Skyhawke]

Wasn't Kallisti originally (before sunset) to be the gathering spot/launching point for tackling the "Coming Storm"? IE: Incarnate content? Also, a starter zone for PVP? 🤣

[Scarlet Shocker]

24 minutes ago, Skyhawke said:

Wasn't Kallisti originally (before sunset) to be the gathering spot/launching point for tackling the "Coming Storm"? IE: Incarnate content? Also, a starter zone for PVP? 🤣

 

Development was certainly begun on live and it was meant to be a new coop zone - so very likely the Coming Storm. Not so sure about PVP cuz OG Devs had more or less given up on that by sunset.

[Snarky]

so wrong.  they almost named the zone Snarkylvania.  It was to be a glorious eternal night filled with the greatest monsters, 5 GMs! and dozens of ongoing badge activities.  but they got rid of the two ghouls i had working on the inside.  and we got nuthin'.

[Sakura Tenshi]

Personally, I feel a bigger drag in the mid-20s to late-30s game myself because the arcs tend to be a lot older around that range but they did update Striga among other things, and I’d prefer that solved with zone revamps than whole new ones (albeit that is kind of the same deal. I just think some of the new buildings would look nice in Other zones). That said, I’m kind of relieved they don’t seem to be going so hard in on the coming storm stuff.

 

I also am a bit confounded with some of the rants people are going on about? I mean, if they wanted the game to go a certain way, maybe ask to join the volunteer dev team or at least sign up for closed beta and give your thoughts and critiques. They won’t always be heard (like my pleas for sand and snow base tiles and less enemies with fat Smash/lethal resists) but it’s not sitting on the bleachers and shouting at the teams when you realize it’s a basketball game and not a football game.

[Snokle]

There is more need for high-level zone content, in general we probably need more content that can provide a challenge for people that are looking for more tough content to play which they did here. Playing the in Open Beta I am glad what the did with KW, it is a nice niche as it it fits the other zones perfectly well.

 

Also this was originally being done by the live Devs as apart of the Coming Storm arc which would be apart of the Bastion invasion attacking us when they revealed the Statesman statue.

 

There is a lot of low-level zones we have right now, and mostly they are ghost towns, hell they removed Galaxy City on live for reasons, in a way to remove complexity of low level content and introduction for players. They could revamp some of the zones we have ala Striga Isle by making new contacts and making the Hazard zones into co-op Hazard zones with some story lines of villains and heroes trying to take control and revamp it. Nothing major to give a reason to go to them.

 

But to say the Warf should be low level when it was never designed for it nah dog.

[Ruin Mage]

The Wharf would have been the starting point for the Coming Storm finally being here. The AMAs prove this.