Cities And Housing Archive
Thread: Bustling Cities Major Overhaul of NPC-City Design (put them into own zones)
Star Wars Galaxies engine provides large landscapes that are sometimes worth a postcard. It is strong in creating a large map with no loading zones in between, but shows its full weakness in NPC metropols like coronet. We need to understand first the design difference between landscapes and cities.
Landscapes
The Landscape first is a large plain where a player is able to go everywhere for kilometers. Designers create content by the method of substraction. They place obstacles like houses, trees and other elements that occupy a place on the plain, so effectively removing land a player cannot walk anymore. The other important point is, designing content on a landscape is horizontal work. Even with mountains, everything is arranged horizontal, house beside house, tree beside tree and so on.
Metropolis
A metropolis in the Star Wars Universe has much more vertical elements in it, with large canyons that end in an abyss between the large skyscrapers. Gangways and balkonies high in the air, traffic is arranged vertically between houses and so on. The other opposite from landscapes is, to design a city you would start with an abyss and adding ground where a player can walk on (like balkony, gangway, appartments).
So here it goes...
New Coronet
The current skyscrapers are only the suburbs of the major city in star wars galaxies. They are the smooth in between landscape and dark city jungle. Walking towards the center of new coronet, you see large skycraper silhouettes. They are only a kind of marquee and they are only designed to create a believing look of a city center from outside. It could even be a texture, like a matte painting creating the illusion of a huge city center. Closer, there is a wall and or other obstacles (houses etc), so you cannot get in rightaway.
Now it depends what the designers are willing to do.
A) create the center as a new zone [see below]
B) no center zone, so "our" coronet playground is only the suburbs and it will basically be quite the same like it is now (but it looks more believeable).
The Center Zone
The new center of coronet will be a completly new zone. You enter it through some passages in the wall as described above. Once you enter, the known loading screen appears and it would be as if you would travel to another planet. Maybe, you need to talk to a NPC or use a terminal to get in.
The Center zone is designed completely different from the landscape zones. As explained above, its a large abyss where the designers add skyscrapers, gangways between them, corridors and rooms inside skyscrapers and so on. They add the playground were a player can walk. With this technique they have full control over technical issues, that may arise from polycounts and so on (they already using vis-blockers and stuff in the landscape, so they can use it in the city zone as well and its fairly easy to place a large wall to block the view in a city).
-- Swoops and Speeders
You cannot use swoops and speeders in the city zone like in the landscape (remember, it takes place on balkonies, gangways and appartments). However, there is traffic in cities. You would need to go to a certain platform where you can draw your speeder. There is a terminal where you can choose a destination platform and your speeder will auto pilot to it. With the fix of multi-seats, there would be public transports as well, that cruise all platforms like a bus.
-- Appartments for rent
Appartments are available in the skyscrapers. You might even look outside the window into the landscapes, but it will be done via a skybox (like a matte painting creating an illusion).
-- Shops
There will be shops as well. It will work instanced. All players can pay a special shop appartment, it is instanced. There is only one PUBLIC shop per shop appartment block. All owners of shop appartments need to bribe the appartment owner NPC (or criminal). The highest bribe has the effect, that your instance becomes public via the main PUBLIC shop door in the appartment block. All other shop appartments are not public (can be entered by the admins and current group members, like with mp-ships).
-- Missions in the city zone
There are many doors in the various levels that are closed. It could be regular doors in skyscrapers or sewer grid, ventilationshaft and so on. Once you draw a mission, it will spawn instanced behind a door. A mission could lead you into the sewers, so the waypoint would direct you to a specific sewer entrance that will be open via radial just for you (and your group). Or you must take out a rebel cell, that hides in a an appartment (or ISB agents). Those appartment missions could be even behind the same doors like player appartments...
Leaving...
Just go back to the passages or use your speeder's auto pilot to bring you to a close platform station.
This proposalwas only a digest and plea to try to get beyond the current horizon of the horizontal suburbia. Many are passionate for a coruscant, but we do not need a coruscant, when coronet is already an extremly large city described and already painted in books and comic.Let's try to get Gordon Waltons attention and an answer if they can do something like this somewhere down the road(soon™) or if it is impossibletechnically and with their time they have to use on a city revamp like this.
Please add your ideas and what you think about transfering a city into a unique zone (maybe a quarter the size of planetary zones). What do you like, what do you dislike and why? This way we keep it constructive and help the developers the most (so they might take serveral ideas instead of the full package or an impression on what we like and what not 
I hope you'll support it.
People have been asking for Coruscant as a planet for a possible expansion, but maybe the expansion could be named:
"Cities of the Galaxie"?
By adding a nice City atmosphere, maybe as in Knights of the Old Republic (Cant remember what the first planet was called), you could add alot of content and room to Star Wars Galaxies, like Frosty suggested above.
His ideas seem to me to be a good initial point for an expansion I would be paying for. And it is like an expansion should be: It does not hurt players who do not have the expansion, because they cant enter the CENTER zones.
Sounds good?
I think so.
