City of Heroes: Hollows Zone Makeover in Issue 12

Szark

NCsoft has posted a developer journal detailing the changes that are coming to the Hollows as the zone gets a makeover in Issue 12: Midnight Hour.

Hello there. I’m Melissa Bianco, Level Designer on the City of Heroes team, and some of you may know me as War Witch. Having worked on City of Heroes for over five years, I can tell you that we know a lot more now that we did at the beginning and zone design is a good example of that. The Hollows has been one of those zones that I've wanted to take some time and revisit. In the past, there have been several common complaints about it: The content is repetitive and not all that interesting, framerate is poor, enemies are too hard, players can’t solo it, and they’re forced to go there to get missions!

So I wanted to go in and make some spawn changes, and make us all a lot happier with the zone. Going in, there was little in the way of outside resources (Art and Tech were heavily booked with the Issue 11 material) available to rework the zone, and I had a small window of opportunity to get the work done in. In the end I just jumped in with both feet and started reworking the zone. I started by gutting every spawn in the Hollows and starting from scratch.

Read more here.

Tazhyngarth

The "Read more here" Link is broken, it's pointing to a non-existant Page:

http://www.mmorpg.com/LINK

dalestaines1

Yep, the link is broken.



I'm so happy to hear about the Hollows change. 

It always seemed to me (from it's release) that it would work better as a higher level area because of huge size and the mobs. 



It will be wonderful to see how War Witch has remodeled the zone.  I'm sure that it will be incredible.

Archiviste

 

Originally posted by Tazhyngarth


The "Read more here" Link is broken, it's pointing to a non-existant Page:
http://www.mmorpg.com/LINK

Yep. It should be:

 www.cityofheroes.com/feature_update_issue_12a.html

Dulain

LINK:

I'm currently having problems navigating the new News posts. I keep getting sent to the Game list.

  *edit* it's now fixed..kinda, link/navigation

Unrealevil

I don't understand why they're worrying about The Hollows.  Sure it's annoying, but you're only there for a few lower levels that you could basically get by in a day or two...

Ryowulf

One reason is because there are going to be a -lot- of people restarting to try out the stuff in issue 12.

rsreston

Originally posted by Unrealevil


I don't understand why they're worrying about The Hollows.  Sure it's annoying, but you're only there for a few lower levels that you could basically get by in a day or two...

It's of utmost importance: being an area designed to receive heroes from lvls 5-15, it's where they'll get to know the game. Playing the first lvls in Atlas Park or Galaxy City is a breeze, but when you get to Hollows, things should get rough but instead they get terrible because you often have to travel long distances through extremely dangerous zones without any (real) travel powers. And when you die, you get back to Atlas Park, and have to sprint all you way back. That might discourage newbies from the game.

It's all about the new blood renewing. Veterans usually despise low lvl or even starter areas in their games because of the "newbs" and their "stupid" questions. Helping those "n00bs" is the best way to keep your MMOG going: newbies become subscribers, subscriptions keep new content coming in and everybody is happy as their beloved game persists through the years.

InAngus

It will be wonderful to see how War Witch has remodeled the zone.  I'm sure that it will be incredible.

Unrealevil

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Originally posted by rsreston

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Originally posted by Unrealevil

I don't understand why they're worrying about The Hollows. Sure it's annoying, but you're only there for a few lower levels that you could basically get by in a day or two...

---

It's of utmost importance: being an area designed to receive heroes from lvls 5-15, it's where they'll get to know the game. Playing the first lvls in Atlas Park or Galaxy City is a breeze, but when you get to Hollows, things should get rough but instead they get terrible because you often have to travel long distances through extremely dangerous zones without any (real) travel powers. And when you die, you get back to Atlas Park, and have to sprint all you way back. That might discourage newbies from the game.

It's all about the new blood renewing. Veterans usually despise low lvl or even starter areas in their games because of the "newbs" and their "stupid" questions. Helping those "n00bs" is the best way to keep your MMOG going: newbies become subscribers, subscriptions keep new content coming in and everybody is happy as their beloved game persists through the years.

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I can't believe that The Hollows discourages anyone from playing, as much as any hard part in any other video game. You've already bought the game. You're going to get your money's worth. Plus, I can see this being their focus if the game were as popular as it was before and they had an abundance of new players. But they've been 'giving away' free trials and promoting referrals and it's obvious that they don't have too many new players.

Maybe I'm dead wrong, but it still seems to me that the majority of their players have been playing for a while because rarely do I come across someone without at least the Trustworthy badge. Even if they create a new character, they're experienced enough to get through it and they obviously put up with it before. ...And it's only for a few short levels that you have to go through. I think that they would gain more from making content for higher levels since that's going to bring players back and keep current player's subscriptions going.

Though it is hard to complain about a lack of high level content since they're coming out with Villain Epics... and it is always nice to see something fresh, even if it's just for lower levels...

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Calibanvov

Originally posted by rsreston


 
Originally posted by Unrealevil


I don't understand why they're worrying about The Hollows.  Sure it's annoying, but you're only there for a few lower levels that you could basically get by in a day or two...

It's of utmost importance: being an area designed to receive heroes from lvls 5-15, it's where they'll get to know the game. Playing the first lvls in Atlas Park or Galaxy City is a breeze, but when you get to Hollows, things should get rough but instead they get terrible because you often have to travel long distances through extremely dangerous zones without any (real) travel powers. And when you die, you get back to Atlas Park, and have to sprint all you way back. That might discourage newbies from the game.

 

It's all about the new blood renewing. Veterans usually despise low lvl or even starter areas in their games because of the "newbs" and their "stupid" questions. Helping those "n00bs" is the best way to keep your MMOG going: newbies become subscribers, subscriptions keep new content coming in and everybody is happy as their beloved game persists through the years.

I couldnt agree more.  Having new players frustrated with the begining game content such as the hollows, is a way to lose a good portion of them, which hurts the overal community. The Hollows was just dead wrong.