Anyone else disappointed with San Francisco's map design?

[kyxsune]

I'm fairly certain the Dev's hit their target with SF development because of the lore they released. However, its exactly what no-one wants, just like the lore states its a barren wasteland full of enemies where the sun dont shine.

[silvertemplar]

I'm fairly certain the Dev's hit their target with SF development because of the lore they released. However, its exactly what no-one wants, just like the lore states its a barren wasteland full of enemies where the sun dont shine.

You can argue they conveniently built the lore around the ability of their zone design engine, rather than the other way around. It's easy to say they decided based on lore, the entire world should be a barren landscape and therefore the game is an accurate depiction. However, if you see the TV Series which have an actual city with force fields and things around it (St Louis) , you have to wonder whether Trion did not take a shortcut here and intentionally designed the lore to suit their generic "landscaper" .

There's no reason not for them to have created SanFran to be similar to St. Louis , other than it's probably alot more work to add an actual city in the game. I would have liked a proper city somewhere.

So unless they actually are adding in St. Louis, this feels more like a case of adapting the lore to the limits and time constraints of the game engine rather than actually deciding to design a barren empty landscape and building the lore on top of that.

[Live2Reap]

I think it is safe to say true to the lore or not, the current design of SF is disappointing to MOST of the people who play the game.

[MacDeath]

What I think Sux about the San Francisco map is they have turned the city into an island! I used to live on the San Francisco Peninsula (Redwood Shores & San Carlos) and I had hopes of visiting in game the spots where my homes used to be. Oh well, maybe in some future DLC.

[Jeronan]

For sure, APBs character creator+customization still makes me drool.

It's a shame it got litterly overrun (and thus destroyed) by hackers.
Just like DEFIANCE will be overrun, if TRION doesn't start acting on it and do something about it.

[Bored Peon]

The most annoying things about the San Fran map.

1. The fact it sucks driving anywhere. You spend more time in the air than on the ground while driving.

2. Extraction Points. The game extraction point system really shows its horrible design on this map. Instead of sending you to the nearest one it sends you back to the last one you visited, which is usually overpass.

3. Lack of fast travel points.

[Mavor]

San Fran isnt supposed to be urban *at all* at this point. So the desire for more buildings just doesnt make sense.

There is almost nothing left of the surface of the earth as we knew it according to lore. San Fran was left a scorched mess because of the uncontrolled use of a terraspire as a desperate 'last resort' option. It looks precisely as it should.

[Mavor]

The most annoying things about the San Fran map.

1. The fact it sucks driving anywhere. You spend more time in the air than on the ground while driving.

2. Extraction Points. The game extraction point system really shows its horrible design on this map. Instead of sending you to the nearest one it sends you back to the last one you visited, which is usually overpass.

3. Lack of fast travel points.

Id imagine thats because its hard to have a bunch of extraction points in largely enemy controlled territory. Simply find one as close as possible to where you're doing your thing and use it...

[Tatakai no Kami]

After some fairly uninspiring map designs in the areas before San Francisco, I must say that the area south of the Golden Gate Bridge turned out to be an even larger disappointment. I was hoping to see some serious three dimensional map design in the city.. densely packed ruins of large buildings, open facings where the various floors of structures were exposed like a cutaway view of ruined offices, combat across towering rooftops where our ridiculous jumping abilities could actually be put to some use.. something closer to the concepts in "I am Legend", expect mixed with strange alien flora instead of normal plant growth.

Instead, it's like the Defiance team went in exactly the opposite direction and used San Francisco as an opportunity to save some serious time on map creation. We have huge, wide open, bland spaces of mostly desolate hills, marked only with the occasional odd rock and the infrequent appearance of some residential ruin. Most of the buildings, ruins, and roads.. just gone. It's truly uninspiring and boring, and I'm sad that this.. the one area where a large urban area could be justified, was completely wasted. 5 years of development and the maps we ended up with.. I just don't get it.

I had been taking my time getting there, expecting some fallout 3 style ruins, Now I see I will be disappointed. So far my only complaint was the scale. The size of the area is too small. I've played mmo's where it could take an hour to cross the map, if you didn't get killed trying. Defiance takes 5 minutes. It should be a much larger scale. Then maybe the townships could have been more than one building and a fast food vendor that never opens.

[Calranthe]

I thought SF was part of a teraform even that turned it the way it is now, pretty well fits with how it should be.