Kallisti Wharf... WOW

[eabrace]

As far as I know, the way he got there was by using demo-record - so he's not actually gotten there in-game - he's just edited a demo file to replace a live zone with the Kallisti Warf data that must already be in the game.

If the zone is defined, there are ways to reach it even if it's not hooked up to anything yet.  He may have teleported himself there.

[dwturducken]

The last few shots, with the familiar elements like the train station in the middle of all the new stuff, was a bit like the scene in StarGate Atlantis when they show the Replicator city built around a copy of Atlantis.

Anyway, it raises a question that I'll pose in the Sunset side, but it is nice to be able to see it.  I agree to some extent about the different feel between Praetoria and Paragon, but I didn't really dislike the changes to Atlas.  Thanks to Leandro for posting this.

[Copper Cockroach]

How do you even get here? Is this on Beta server?

I can't BEGIN to imagine how he did it. I'm a Vigilante. We don't ask a lot of questions.

[emu265]

Whoa.  How sad, it's so pretty. 

[Codewalker]

If the zone is defined, there are ways to reach it even if it's not hooked up to anything yet.

I'm fairly sure it doesn't exist as an actual zone, even on beta. It's completely missing any spawn points other than the roof access doors, and the translation for the zone name is missing. So other than getting a dev to manually spawn it as a mission map I don't think it's loaded. It could be hidden somewhere I didn't check though.

So probably a demoedit. There's an odd slide between the walking and flying portions that could indicate that, and a couple animation glitches later. I can think of a couple other ways to do it like clientside map replacement, but that's arguably more work than a demoedit, even if you work in having to map out the coordinates.

It's a nice flythrough, and I'm sad that the zone didn't get finished. For the next one you should go out to the floating building in the middle of the water.

[Codewalker]

Wait a minute, that's not City_05_02, at least not the version that's in issue 24 beta. The piece in the middle of the water is different, it looks like some grass and such instead of the building that's there in the I24 copy.

Edit: Oh, I see. The copies for the instanced outdoor missions are made from a newer version of the zone than the one that's in City_05_02. It looks like the zone was made larger at some point to make room for the park in the middle; that's why part of the war wall is missing.

[Turjan]

That Leandro...the lad's a wizard all right, no doubt about it

Daaaamn that's a pretty zone. And not just pretty, it actually looks...planned, you know? Like good city planning with ergonomics and all that jazz? I've had a beef with the Paragon City Planning Department ever since they ran the tram right under the beautiful bridges in Founders Falls, ruining the zone's picture postcard vista - but with Kallisti Wharf, all is most definitely forgiven.

And I'll just add - WANT!!

[Olantern]

Neat.  It's very pretty, quite unlike the feeling I expected for the zone.  I like the way it looks like an entirely new zone, even though most of those art elements already exist in-game.

I agree that it looked a bit more "Praetorian" than "Paragonian."  Actually, like the Praetorian zones, it really reminded me of a Californian more than an East Coast city.  When I hear "wharf" in a zone name, I think of a gritty, Kings Row-like, On the Waterfront type of place.  Here, it looks as if the inspiration was more Fisherman's Wharf.  (This shouldn't be surprising, given the devs' location, but all the Californian architectural elements continue to surprise me.)

[Zombie Man]

Well, if anyone has the know-how, would they please post a demofile of the zone. This way, with the new detached-camera feature, we can all explore it and upload walk-throughs and screen caps.

[Zombie Hustler]

That is really cool looking; I like how they have a gap in the War Walls to allow incoming and exiting marine transport. I just wish Leandro had gotten more of the actual wharf part down by the water, as opposed to the more inland portion.

I especially like the covered walkway from the transit station. That's pretty awesome.

I couldn't quite tell from the demo- is that island portion supposed to be where the Praetorian refuge from i24 is located?

[dwturducken]

I'm not sure we were seeing an intentional "break" in the war wall. There are some graphical glitches as the angle of view changes, particularly when it changes quickly.

Am I mistaken, or was that supposed to be a "tent city" in one of the parks?

[Codewalker]

I'm not sure we were seeing an intentional "break" in the war wall. There are some graphical glitches as the angle of view changes, particularly when it changes quickly.

I'm don't think it's intentional. There's an older version of the zone in the files, where the two land pieces are closer together. It looks like the zone was "stretched" to make room for the floating park in the middle, and the gap in the war walls is just the resulting empty space that hadn't been filled after the two land masses were moved apart. The south war walls look like another segment was pasted into the gap, that partly overlaps the existing ones. I'm sure they would have come back and fixed both sides later.

[TimtheEnchanter]

I'm not sure we were seeing an intentional "break" in the war wall. There are some graphical glitches as the angle of view changes, particularly when it changes quickly.

Am I mistaken, or was that supposed to be a "tent city" in one of the parks?

I was wondering that when I first saw it but then though naaa. This is the LAST place in town where I'd expect a tent city to spring up.

[dwturducken]

My first thought was that it was a glitch that would resolve, and I'd see something Carnival, but the tents stayed white.  I always hated the Carnival, but I had very few characters high enough to encounter them, so I always thought they needed to show up earlier, but I digress. And abuse the compound sentence.

[Codewalker]

I think the textures simply weren't implemented yet. The object in question is:

City_Zones/Kallisti_Wharf/Props/Military/KW_ArmyTent

Given their proximity to the tanks on the street, that makes sense. The tents are all part of the "grp_Block_VanguardCO" group.

[dwturducken]

Ah. Missed the tanks. There are also what look like a couple of "deuce and a halfs."

[Zombie Hustler]

If those are Vanguard associated tents, they probably are Praetorian refugees. I can't recall offhand what i24 says about Kallisti Wharf, but I know it gets mentioned in at least two of the story arcs (mentioned during the New Praetorians and during the Skulls story arcs). Possibly three (I want to say at least one villain arc references it. Mr. G's?)

[Victoria Victrix]

Could be a tent city for the Carnival of Light, which evacuated the last of its members just before Cole went 'splody.

[Zombie Hustler]

Black Pebble's weighed in a couple of times on a thread about it that Golden Girl started on the CoH forums. Leandro posted some other really nice screenies, too.

Looks like it was to have been a Co-Op zone, where heroes and villains had their own story content. And a Statesman Memorial Park.

[DrakeGrimm]

Black Pebble's weighed in a couple of times on a thread about it that Golden Girl started on the CoH forums. Leandro posted some other really nice screenies, too.

Looks like it was to have been a Co-Op zone, where heroes and villains had their own story content. And a Statesman Memorial Park.

...ow. That one hits below the belt. Way to be dicks, NCSoft. Way to be dicks. I didn't even like Statesman, but he definitely earned that memorial. Way to take that way.