Should PA be redesigned yet again (City design contest?)

[BenCoyote]

The reason why I'm writing this post is basically because of the fact that I've studied the city design for Port Atlantis Twin and a few other locations, and I have to say that since the 2010.5 update, things at PA don't quite feel right, or even look right. To me the city seems to be well.. Too small..

Let's take a look at the old PA, (VU 9.xx), the second Generation PA, (VU 10.0.0) The third generation of PA (Currently released in VU 2010.5) and a potential 4th generation PA (what I like to call "VU 20xx.x.x")

Now granted the First Port Atlantis (Version 9.xx's) was spread out quite a bit, large buildings dotted the area, including the buildngs like the Xfire Building, as well as the Port Atlantis Mall and a few others.. but the key point in the city design was in fact the central square area, around the Teleporter in the middle of the city.

Now I'm not saying Version 9.xx's design was bad, but rather it was spread out, much like today's cities are in the real world United States. (And it had sort of a homey feel to it.. Vu 9.55's version looked nice in terms of design, but lacked the futuristic feel to it).

Now jump ahead to version 10.xx's design. Now while PA looked a bit better, there were several design flaws that I could find, most notably that they still had the wide plaza with the TP, and of course the supporting building around the town (including Bank ND). But now you had to thinkin about terrain as well. And some of the places (like the Mall) didn't quite fit into town (The Mall in VU10.x.x, ended up on a large hill.) but still it had a better futuristic feel to it, but still lacked a homey feel to it..

Now comes VU 2010.5's update, and now we've got PA revamped again, and this time, we have it set where while the town is futuristic, it is now compact and quite cramped (as the storyline states that the New PA has been built ontop of the ruins of the old PA walls.. (But the thing that it lacks is the fact that it's now cramped.. there's no real place to socialize, and really no real place to have a central meeting area that isn't huge, yet it's not there either, or extremely cramped.

So then what to do?

Solution... Have a building contest.. or maybe a contest to redesign Port Atlantis yet again... (Yep fifth time a charm they say.)

Of course there are a lot of ways to redsign the city.. and in fact I have a few ideas of my own...

If diesigned right, PA could be redesigned to be quite a worthy city.. Already some of the people are returning, but the city is quite compact, and there are no real worthy spaces to interact in as a socialization process.

(So I propose this.. and this is now a suggestion...)

Have a Contest for city designers.. to build a futuristic and fully functional city for folks to enjoy..

And yes this would include things like a central meeting area for players, a dock setting, and even "Districts" or hubs of commerce or trade.. (or even go back to the old designs and think about redoing it over..)

But why not gie an incentive for building a better city? I mean some actual award or notification or something to say, "Hey Look, This is Our City! I helped design it...

So then what about this suggestion.. Let's call it "Building a better community". and it's worth the effort..

I know I would want to get into this.. After all I got a few city design ideas myself.

Benjamin 'Ben' Coyote a.k.a. "The Blind Sniper"

 

[Smoerble]

It's not about buildings etc, it's about what you can do in the city.

They should make chinese employees working in the bars to make it always interesting just to step by, have the shops transfered from the mall into the buildings, so it's worth to walk around, ripp off unmanaged shops from inactive avatars etc, have scripts running (like a group of NPC passing by, dropping comments that might lead into events etc)...

Then it would be worth to hang around in the cities... just a visual redesign won't help.

But the things mentiooned above won't happen (too expensive to do, too hard to manage or would have big uncontrolled impact on the investors), so my 2 pecs:

no redesign needed, currently it's great and I would rather see more cities like PA before doing anything more on PA.

 

[AtamiKiangola]

I don't think a redesign is needed (again).

After all, there are built around activities IRL.
No activities ... no people ... no city ... only buildings.

What a city makes a city is that you live in it and have reasons to be there.

Both things are missing in PA imho, but if I could live in such a city (app, house) and there are shops and reasons to be there I'd love to go to the current PA environment.

A city is not built/designed, it grows and becomes larger because of interest.
That is the fundamental mistake in these designs & systems in games today.

Atami

 

[Wollongong]

I think the current PA is the best one we've seen so far.

And instead of redesigning the city -once again- I'd prefer the development team resources would be focussed on something else right now. Okay, perhaps another TP in the center of the city would be nice, but apart from that, I don't see it as a priority.

You say it is too small, okay, I can see that. However, remember Hadesheim. It was HUGE, but it was dead.

I think it would be good to just work with the current city, selling appartments there (see for instance the SL-ification of EU and add stuff as you go.

It's quite easy to just chuck in a few extra buildings a few months from now. But it needs to be controlled.

Think SimCity... if you throw the entire map full of zoned areas, it won't grow. But if you focuson a little area and work bit by bit, it becomes lively.

 

[ranpha]

The current PA is a keeper. Everything is slick and you even have stuf to do.

As for a socialize place.The marina is getting the central place it seems. You can even sit in the lounge and talk with ppl in the marina. The buildings are nice designed and fit in the Gateway concept.

Should FPC host a city design contenst for other places like athena/Twins/Corinth?Ithaca/ Nymptown or fort zeus.Sure they can be do remember that they have a team of designer already doing this stuff and I like there stuff

 

[billairboy]

I think this new PA is the best yet, no need to change it again. I guess PA could grow in the future with more buildings when have something to add, maybe a stable for pets in the future. But the current city could be improved with more features to make it even better, like real streaming music in the bar.

 

[Xavier_Jr]

Crazy Idea. We dont need more unusefull overheads. And really, PA is a very beautifull city. This thread have no sense.

 

[BenCoyote]

Okay Granted... but!

Crazy Idea. We dont need more unusefull overheads. And really, PA is a very beautifull city. This thread have no sense.

It has no sense if people hang around one spot in a game as well.. Take Twin Peaks for instance. Twin is becoming a game hog in it's own right with a ton of people hanging around there pushing their wares, and bringing their cars, trucks, humvees, and VTOL aircraft into town. It's slowing down the server for this particular area, tremendously and I've heard a lot of folks complaining about how 'laggy' it is and it's because of all those new features people wanted in the first place, got, and now they're complaining that the vehicles are now bringing Twin down to that of a Los Angels Freeway during Rush hour on a Holiday Friday after noon, when everyone wants to get out of town and go somewhere else.

Meanwhile other areas like Athena Spaceport, Atlas Haven, Nymphtown, Minopolis, and mostof the forts (Zeus, Medusa, Ares, are in fact practically pointless (Ares being the worst as it's nothing more than a TP and a service center Not even a wall or a gun turret to be seen. Minopois has been another beef in that some players are complaining about the fact that other (thougtless or careless) players have been brining mob trains into these areas, and have been causing havoc on their game play (to them I say this, Send in those support cases!)

Also let's think like SimCity then Shall we. And let's also think about places like TI City, Amathera Genesis HQ, Omegaton West Habitat, and even Sakura City.. Of all of these, Only Sakura City has the best design at the moment, Amathera HQ the worst.. and for Omegaton West, it's a good design, but it's bland and boring. And new Oxofrd while it's slowly being developed, really lacks the class and sophistication that folks want or desire.

and yet granted FPC does have the manpower to make over these areas, to shift buildings around, and to develop these areas which could become viable hubs of commerce as well.

As for PA, Okay, we'll leave it as it is right now. But if people tend to leave this area, and to move back to Twin Peaks, then maybe a redesign is in order. (And yes I'm referring to PA, but until it happens, then yes let's keep PA the way it is.. until folks get bored of it, and decide to leave.. Then it'll be time for urban renewal.)

And that's why I would love to see folks challenge each other to design better designs so that people will stay in their own sections or cities, and allow them to grow and develop., (Now granted Twin is a trading hub, but still, you want lag and complaints? You'll get it in spades until something is done to fix this issue. Maybe they should charge a parking fee for twin that costs 1 PED per Day.. See how long people's vehicles will be laying around (Pick up your "Towy!"

Also about Athena.. It's not that bad, and neither is Fort Ithaca.. These have been in a way done right. But these areas do need "Tweaks", like Telvators beng useful to access the towers where you can park your VTOL's without getting a frame rate hit (and yes, why have these towers if they're not going to be used? You want pointless? That's pointless in it's own right.

As for the rest? Well Atlas is too small, and really doesn't have facilities or that midcontnent feel to it, , Jason Centre is practically like Minopolis, and Fort Ares, and in fact granted people are clamoring for the old stuff, once they get that done, (and they will in their own due time, after all this is FPC we're talking about here), then and only then will thing get interesting and possibly even better. Until then I think I'll avoid twin at all costs. after all it may be a trading mecca.. but then so can PA and some of the rest of these areas if people want it to be. Because in the end, all it takes is a little redesign and these boring and dull places can become vibrant and new again.. Or maybe we should take a look at this video

This could be Nymph.. or maybe Minopolis, or even Cape Corinth, but still this could be anytwhere .. be it on Amathera or Eudoria.

So yeah, let's do nothing.. okay?

Benjamin Ben Coyote a.k.a. "The Blind Sniper"



And that's basically about it in a nutshell

 

[mastermesh]

The problem is our little virtual world has no suburbs really. Omegaton, Genesis, and Sakura are the closest thing to it, along with a few outposts here and there. Why doesn't the main cities have more street lights like the one in the middle of nowhere at EOS?

Yes, Hadesheim was much more sprawling then PA was... but mainly because it was horizontal while PA is now vertical. It took me a little bit to get used to, but PA's design isn't too bad. It helped to look at a little city map on entropiaplanet's wiki. Too bad MA didn't put city maps in game (*yet*) since the sprawling city of PA seems to give n00bs the wrong impression of the game, thinking that the entire place isn't wilderness.

Maybe someday, more suburbs and things can come along. Perhaps the "suburbs" mentioned above can be relocated to the outer perimeters around PA to make it look more sprawling (similar to the way the booths at Hadesheim ended up at Corinth)... Maybe new and better options can go to LA owners eventually instead of the few options they have now. Imagine an LA with carnival games and amusement park rides that win you peds instead of just being places to mine and hunt...

Did a few beginner missions in PA and have to say there appears to be more local residents standing around there now then there was prior to the redesign, so maybe things are getting better.

 

[M Rufen Power]

Sorry pointless thread imo, PA has never seen better days regardless of the lag, just lower your graphics .

 

[BenCoyote]

lag lag lag, come on people, Twin is not the Santa Monica Freeway!

The problem is our little virtual world has no suburbs really. Omegaton, Genesis, and Sakura are the closest thing to it, along with a few outposts here and there. Why doesn't the main cities have more street lights like the one in the middle of nowhere at EOS?

Yes, Hadesheim was much more sprawling then PA was... but mainly because it was horizontal while PA is now vertical. It took me a little bit to get used to, but PA's design isn't too bad. It helped to look at a little city map on entropiaplanet's wiki. Too bad MA didn't put city maps in game (*yet*) since the sprawling city of PA seems to give n00bs the wrong impression of the game, thinking that the entire place isn't wilderness.

Maybe someday, more suburbs and things can come along. Perhaps the "suburbs" mentioned above can be relocated to the outer perimeters around PA to make it look more sprawling (similar to the way the booths at Hadesheim ended up at Corinth)... Maybe new and better options can go to LA owners eventually instead of the few options they have now. Imagine an LA with carnival games and amusement park rides that win you peds instead of just being places to mine and hunt...

Did a few beginner missions in PA and have to say there appears to be more local residents standing around there now then there was prior to the redesign, so maybe things are getting better.

maybe they are there mastermesh, and in fact, I think they can be a whole lot better.than what they are now. (Granted Twin in VU 9 looked different than in after VU10.0.0, and they can be done up better still. After all I think if people rethink and look at the design of futuristic cities, an they easily get the aspect of seeing what a city could look like.

As for the missions? Well granted the initial opening of the new PA was well received, but eventually it'll be such that then the issue isn't about the players coming into game, but ratehr the player retention.

That's the key here to keep players to keep things lively and more interesting, and even keep it fun. But guess folks like boring and dull ten.. Oh well.. guess some people never learnn.

Sorry pointless thread imo, PA has never seen better days regardless of the lag, just lower your graphics .

Okay Ruffen.. Go to Twin and do just that.. then see how much fun your game play is as ton vehicles are parked around the TP.. or should I show you the fraps rates on my machine..? And this is one of the higher end machines we're talking about here.. something that has enough computing power to render things nicely..

But eh, if you're going to tell us to turn down our graphics, then maybe you should pick up your toys Rufen.. After all those vehicles are lagging everyone else down at twin.

Nuff said.

Benjamin 'Ben' Coyote a.k.a "The Blind Sniper"

 

[Razormat]

The problem is our little virtual world has no suburbs really. Omegaton, Genesis, and Sakura are the closest thing to it, along with a few outposts here and there. Why doesn't the main cities have more street lights like the one in the middle of nowhere at EOS?

Yes, Hadesheim was much more sprawling then PA was... but mainly because it was horizontal while PA is now vertical. It took me a little bit to get used to, but PA's design isn't too bad. It helped to look at a little city map on entropiaplanet's wiki. Too bad MA didn't put city maps in game (*yet*) since the sprawling city of PA seems to give n00bs the wrong impression of the game, thinking that the entire place isn't wilderness.

Maybe someday, more suburbs and things can come along. Perhaps the "suburbs" mentioned above can be relocated to the outer perimeters around PA to make it look more sprawling (similar to the way the booths at Hadesheim ended up at Corinth)... Maybe new and better options can go to LA owners eventually instead of the few options they have now. Imagine an LA with carnival games and amusement park rides that win you peds instead of just being places to mine and hunt...

I like the idea with the suburbs and I think PA really looks better now.
Maybe it can grow a little over time.
Additionally I think with cryengine2 and maybe cryengine3 a lot more
is possible when it comes to building cities that look real or futuristic and have a purpose.
Check out this video if you want (it is not the next SimCity):

 

[Sapeian]

While I think it is a noble idea indeed,
Utterly pointless,

The player base is simply not big enough for a city,
It would just be full of useless buildings,
For what?
To make it feel more homely?

someone made a very valid point,

Look at hades... It's made more money now becuase of the bots in the hole than it ever did!
and now its a freaking smoldering crater!

Andy.

 

[Razormat]

While I think it is a noble idea indeed,
Utterly pointless,

The player base is simply not big enough for a city,
It would just be full of useless buildings,
For what?
To make it feel more homely?

someone made a very valid point,

Look at hades... It's made more money now becuase of the bots in the hole than it ever did!
and now its a freaking smoldering crater!

Andy.

On the one hand I agree that the current playerbase is to small to populate bigger cities than PA.
On the other hand I hope that in 5 to 10 years Entropia Universe is still around and that the playerbase significantly grows over time so that bigger cities can be build and populated.
It will probably be hard to beat WoW though for that matter, how many subscribers does it have, 12 million or so ?, that would be a lot of green dots on Calypso lol

 

[Fopsie]

I love the new design but think its a failed or only graphic improvement on VU 10 PA.
The guys @ FPC said they wanted PA to become a rich trading city again and designed PA so that the Main TP brings most of the city into radar/chat range and then totally failed in thinking further. Atm most players stand around the New arrivals TP (Docks) and not the main TP, The docs TP is also just just out of radar range from the main TP but to me it makes sense that its like that so that newbies thats fresh out the gateway has a faster load especial on low bandwidth connections .
I think its because it just looks better @ the docks and there is no real intensive to use the Main TP as trading spot that most players use it. Adding Terminals to the outside around the main TP would give good intensive but apparently they can not do that . One of the community managers mentioned something about they could not place terminals outside due to some sort of technical problems but a lot of towns have Terminals on the outside? Twin, Cape Corinth and I think Ortos west also have terminals on the outside close to the TP so what makes PA any different. Players is lazy and will mostly not run the odd few meters to go into the Equipment building to gain access to storage and would rather not use it the way its intended. Place Terminals right next to the TP and I can almost guarantee other traders would start using it more and more so that I'm not the only trader ever standing there.

 

[Fopsie]

On the one hand I agree that the current playerbase is to small to populate bigger cities than PA.
On the other hand I hope that in 5 to 10 years Entropia Universe is still around and that the playerbase significantly grows over time so that bigger cities can be build and populated.
It will probably be hard to beat WoW though for that matter, how many subscribers does it have, 12 million or so ?, that would be a lot of green dots on Calypso lol

Remember one thing about WoW. It has 10 million 12 year olds and 2 million retarded and childish 30 year olds spread out over loads of realms. Also there is quite a collection of private hacked servers that can boost a couple mill more players

 

[IceBitchBaby]

Terrible idea. Redesign other towns, not PA.

 

[XeroX2]

Crazy Idea. We dont need more unusefull overheads. And really, PA is a very beautifull city. This thread have no sense.

I agree with that to some point. However just for PA. I think we could very well have a design contest for another city! I think hadesheim comes to my mind... something big will happen there it seems and once that robot event stuff is sorted a colonist could redesign the city. That would perfectly make sense from my point of view!

 

[IceBitchBaby]

I think they did a good job with PA. You don't want one city where everyone goes, anyway. This means lag and means every other city is barren.

 

[ChairmanEdgewise]

Leave PA as it is imo, it's great now.

 

[mastermesh]

Only thing I have to really add about PA and all the cities... MAKE THE HILLS OUTSIDE OF THE CITIES LESS STEEP SO THAT LAND VEHICLES CAN ACTUALLY CLIMB THE HILLS AND NOT TAKE DAMAGE. ALSO REMOVE THE DAMAGE VEHICLES TAKE FROM BUMPING WALLS OF BUILDINGS IN THE CITIES PLEASE! It's very annoying driving around and taking damage from just hitting a tree or accidentally bumping a building going 2 miles an hour.