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Questions Concerning Snake Gulch
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Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
Hey I was just pondering the whole Snake Gulch location for awhile and came up with some questions.
First of all what year was the park originally built? I know Stronghold was a major reason why the park fell into disrepair and lost much of its visitors. (Most people don't want to vacation at a theme park a stones throw away from a super-villain prison I imagine) and that happened in the late 70's. Also I've seen a number of Cowgirl-Robots with flesh like limbs still built onto their frames, were they perhaps at one time covered in silicone flesh or some other material akin to disney animatronics? Is there any sort of time-line for events floating around out there explaining just what happened in Snake Gulch? I ask these questions as I'm trying to make a robot-cowgirl character whose essentially an upgraded Saloon Lass and am currently working out her back story.
First of all what year was the park originally built? I know Stronghold was a major reason why the park fell into disrepair and lost much of its visitors. (Most people don't want to vacation at a theme park a stones throw away from a super-villain prison I imagine) and that happened in the late 70's. Also I've seen a number of Cowgirl-Robots with flesh like limbs still built onto their frames, were they perhaps at one time covered in silicone flesh or some other material akin to disney animatronics? Is there any sort of time-line for events floating around out there explaining just what happened in Snake Gulch? I ask these questions as I'm trying to make a robot-cowgirl character whose essentially an upgraded Saloon Lass and am currently working out her back story.
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Another issue on the part, that you've noted, I don't think the original intent was that Snake Gulch would look like it was a stones throw from Stronghold, but of course the design they were going for with an open world approach to things and just the limited size of the map prevented that from happening, of course.
In short, I think the locations like Desert and Canada and the like could probably be better served being sliced up and turned into adventure packs in the long run for better game flow, but that would be a massive undertaking.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no. That is the single worst idea I have heard all month.
Ha ha ha! That's a good one! Best joke I've heard all day!
Actually this lore quote from the old website, does bluntly state that Stronghold IS a stones throw away from the park.
"Things were pretty fine here at Snake Gulch for a long time. We had lots of visitors having fun and learning to rope and ride the saloon and the hotel on Main Street were full every night! But then well, it's been mighty tough around these parts for the past few years.
First the government moved alla them there supervillain types into the mountain over yonder, and tourists don't take to being within a stone's throw of a prison. We kept goin' as best we could, but when Grond showed up and started smackin' four people at once, well, that was pretty much the end of the good times down here at Snake Gulch." http://www.champions-online.com/worlds/snake_gulch
I think the problem is scale. If you've ever been to the southwest desert the term micro condensed would aptly apply to how the desert looks in Champions versus the real thing now. Relatively speaking with the lay out of snake gulch and where it stands you would be able to see the mountains on the horizon, and definitely it would still have an impact on tourism.
The newest edition of the PnP sourcebook describing the setting, Champions Universe, does conform to Cryptic's approach to the area, but gives almost no details about Snake Gulch itself. However, it does make very clear why the park was abandoned: the failed test of the "Delta Bomb" in 1978 which created the wasteland now called Burning Sands (another Cryptic creation). No tourists could be expected to come to a park within walking distance of an irradiated landscape full of zombies and mutant animals. (See Champions Universe p.100.)
EDIT: Mind you, 1978 was also the year that Stronghold opened, and Grond does like to spend time in Burning Sands, so there's certainly overlap which could explain the Snake Gulch intro story on the CO website.
Can hate on it all you want, but things like Snake Gulch would be better if they were turned into adventure packs and fleshed out more instead of the kind of there and it's missing a point reason they have now.
No, it wouldn't be better. We don't need more instanced content, because it's actually nice to see and meet people while playing the game.
You seriously need to get out of the mentality "my opinion = fact/truth/best possible option." You NEVER offer any arguments whatsoever aside from "it's fact." And you are annoying a crapton of people with that attitude. People can't even have a normal conversation with you because of that.
(And don't go around saying you never used "fact" in that post, because that's just being obtuse)
Actually, think I know why people missed King Cobra in game was that instead of turning into the aforementioned; he instead turns into a Grondling.
http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Dr._Timothy_Blank
I'd personally prefer he turn into King Cobra and the story centered around a kinda retconning of his origin. Using a combination of what's current (ie. VIPER Controlled Robot Cowfolk) and events in Sharper than a Serpent's Tooth regarding Blanks betrayal. Maybe turning his mission into a duo Lair like Project Awakening.
I think Silverspar's actually overall on point regarding the level of focus that's usually placed on the story towards Adventure Packs.
So far the content revamp that occured within the F2P launch stops just before Snake Gulch. At that point mission flow gets really wonky. The story plot starts breaking down regarding VIPER's envolvement with the robot malfunctions (ironically causing the Mechanon subplot within it to feel disjointed as well).
I can see it going either way actually. One one hand it gives the illusion of actual geographical distance between these landmarks. Though the con would be more instanced content that ends up depolulating the zone.
I actually played the Desert once without using my travel power and just followed along the path laid out. It actually flows pretty well to the point that I can't see the area of the next story arc till I finish the previous one. However once I get to Snake Gulch, I'm jumping everywhere around the whole zone to finish missions with gaps between arcs. I think there's a mission that you get from a Stronghold contact that sends the player all the way to Area 51 and back without even being introduced to the airstrip yet.
Then revamp the missions. You can do that without instancing.
Not even my call
Keep in mind that open world stuff is pretty hard to manage storywise. A lot of technical issues start coming into play that is harder isolate than issues that would occur within Adventure Pack/Comic Series instancing. I'm also not for or against it. Just can see the pros and cons of both.
On another note. Snake Gulch could also benefit from a Ren Center/VB Boardwalk style take on how to congregate people there. Mostly due to all of it built within the canyon walls; the friendly patrons of Bella's Saloon could exert more control over the surrounding open area. Having shops up like Crafting Vendors and such.
Maybe even add a tailor too. With robots maning the booths showing how "ideally" the park would run if it weren't for the trouble.
It does seem like an odd choice for Cryptic to have made to change an existing major villain from the Champions IP who turns into a "monster" anyway.
yeah I agree, if I had to make a guess when they where making CO they missed king cobra
Either that, or they didn't want two Snake themed organizations. Though they could actually leave COIL out and just focus on King Cobra being a traitor and upstart. It could leave open the possibilities of a VIPER civil war in future content without directly referencing Dr. Blank's org.
You know, from references that some devs made in the early days of the Champions Online discussion forums, I got the impression they were relying heavily on references in Champions Universe as to what was going on in the setting... and when that edition of CU was published in 2002, Timothy Blank was mentioned, but he'd not yet become King Cobra in the new continuity. So that guess doesn't seem at all farfetched to me.
I've often heard Steve Long say that he looked to filling certain niches when deciding what characters and organizations from the IP to keep or change when rebooting the CU after his group bought it. So I was also kind of surprised that KC and COIL returned to share the "snake niche" with VIPER.
yeah I've been reading very carefully and you can almost spot I'm not gonna call em mistakes but missed updates. for example, a lotta the little changes News of the world introduced (for example, the PSI war) seems to have been missed or ignored. other things they have gotten (such as kinetic being in the Champions)
occasionally you see some stuff that are clearly just "opps cryptic missed this sourcebook" othertimes you see some inconsistancies in something otherwise fairly well researched to make you go "hmm"
For example.. I'm thinking Viper may have gotten themselves a new supreme serpant recently.
With so many possible reasons for why Snake Gulch failed, Grond, Burning Sands, Stronghold. There must be another, concealed reason.
Maybe some tax evasion scheme?