Guild Wars 2

As the title says, I think that the Black Citadel needs an overhaul. My reasons for this are many, but let’s just start on the graphics first. Compared to every other city, it looks positively dated. Blocky, poorly rendered buildings, stretched metal textures extending in a sea of grey, an abundance of low-res textures as well, it just doesn’t look appealing or modern in comparison to the visual feast we have in every other city, and especially Divinity’s Reach. What strikes me about it is that we know from the early trailers that the dev team went back and did a total overhaul on the Citadel at some point to create the look we have now, and that look has not aged well at all.

Alright, next big issue for me on this one is the ability to believe that this place is actually a city that people live in, and more importantly, an Iron Legion city. I get that the area was meant to feel like it’s been built up in layers over the centuries since the fall of Ascalon around the ‘core’ of the ruins of Rin, and to a great extent this has been managed, but in the wrong way. I simply don’t see a city that an Iron Legion engineer could have designed, purely because what we’re presented with is an indefensible mess of iron and steel that’s been lashed together in a very haphazard fashion.

There are no actual walls, rather curved screens for things to hide behind and massive, jutting steel overhangs that don’t look like they can support the weight of anything atop them, and are only there to be a waste of metal. Where are the tall, stout walls with inner layers of ramparts, the gun platforms, the firing slits for riflemen and the layers of cannon laid out in rings of steel that actually make tactical sense?

And while I’ve mentioned weight, why is every ‘road’ in the city made of mesh grating that barely looks like it could hold an Asura’s weight, let alone that of the siege engines we see parked next to the main gate? And let’s not even go into the impracticality of walking across something that should realistically snare your foot at every step. There are so many areas of the Citadel that simply scream ‘waste of metal!’ I get it. It’s the Iron Legion, they’re meant to be renowned for scrapping things together in order to make great results, but the massive scrapyard that is the Citadel isn’t worthy of them.

So, what would I suggest to improve on this? I’d say you need to redesign the city on a few fundamental levels:

First and foremost, less metal. The first images we saw of the Citadel showcased a city made of black stone wreathed in metal, with a lot of fires all over the place and brilliantly colored banners hanging from the walls. That needs to come back, because right now we need something to break up the endless grey of the city that isn’t a ruined stone structure.

Perhaps actually incorporate the ruins more into the actual fabric of the buildings, as if the Charr are using them as actual foundations rather than something to simply lean their buildings against. Seeing a building with a metal exterior surrounding a stone interior looks far better than having steel everywhere.

Give the city actual, proper roads and walkways that aren’t made of metal. Use the old black stone, the stone from the epicenter of the Searing, to make the Black Citadel live up to it’s name and to actually make players believe that the walkways are something meant to be trodden on, and not something that’s supposed to be used as a garden trellis. It would also draw the eyes of the player more towards areas that you want to stand out, like the Bane arena and the Imperator’s Core, as well as the statues that simply blend into the city as it is because of it’s bland color palette.

Give the city actual walls. Divinity’s Reach does this well, because the walls there actually look thick and sturdy enough to survive an assault, and you can actually believe that people can fight from those areas. The current Citadel ‘defenses’ look like they’d topple over under their own weight at the gentlest shove, and need to be replaced with proper stone walls reinforced with metal that actually look like they’re stable structures than an engineer has designed and then reinforced over the centuries.

Make the city look believable as a city. A weird suggestion, I know, but right now it feels more like a factory than anything else. I know that this is a soldier society whose citizens live in rather spartan conditions, but as it stands every part of the city except for the Gladium’s Canton feels sterile and unlived in. Where are the personal effects, the areas that you can tell a warband has actually bedded down in for an extended period? Where are the food stores, the smaller forges actually being worked?

Right now we see tonnes of chimneys and the like emerging from the walls, and that’s great, but they don’t actually seem to have any practical use other than as something to break up a static skyline. Compare this to Divinity. You can point at somewhere and go ‘Oh, that’s a tavern, oh, that’s a peasant’s house, a noble’s house, a workshop’. Compare this to the Citadel’s large variety of rather wonky metal constructions. I defy you to point at them and say anything other than ‘Uhhh… Maybe it’s part of an oil refinery..?’

So, that’s my issues with the Citadel, and my suggestions for it. Anyone else agree with what I’m saying, and have other suggestions?

I dont suppose you have those original design pics to show?

I thought it was supposed to looked slapped together.

You can see the early Black Citadel in the Races of Tyria trailer, from 1:13 in the video.

Any self respecting Charr would choose a wall of guns over a wall of stone any day. Walls are for weak, cowardly humans. They can’t even withstand apocalyptic meteor impacts of giant crystals. Why bother…

I don’t think the Charr care much for aesthetics. Besides, I don’t think of it as a city, more like a large fortress. A poorly planned one at that (unless the plan was to confuse any would-be invaders that will get lost within the chaotic architecture, then it’s highly successful).

I’d just be happy if I’d stop hitting a wall of lag half the time when I’m there. It’s the only place in the game that does it to me, and I wish I knew why.

Otherwise, I rather like the open & industrial manufacturing ascetic/feel. True the openness doesn’t quite fit into the concept of super-duper fortifications. I’m willing to give that a pass only ‘cause I feel they could have no walls or buildings whatsoever, and no one sane is gunna wanna try and attack them. Tyria: where hitting a Charr isn’t legally defined as assault, but instead as suicide.

~EW

BrotherBelial.3094:

I thought it was supposed to looked slapped together.

Whilst Charr tech might at times look rather ramshackle, I don’t really think a city that’s been built up over two hundred years by the most defensively minded Legion of them all should look ‘slapped together’ in a way that makes it look entirely ramshackle and indefensible.

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

I’d just be happy if I’d stop hitting a wall of lag half the time when I’m there. It’s the only place in the game that does it to me, and I wish I knew why.

I think there’s superfluous geometry in the sphere that never got removed or simply doesn’t cull properly.

It’s the only city I take noticeable fps hit in and it gets worse if I pan to take in the whole “Imperitor’s Core” visually.

Part of it might also be from the smoke effects which is part of the reason VB runs worse than the other three HoT maps.

Substance E.4852:

Any self respecting Charr would choose a wall of guns over a wall of stone any day. Walls are for weak, cowardly humans. They can’t even withstand apocalyptic meteor impacts of giant crystals. Why bother…

A fine point, but where exactly is the hole in the wall that you poke your gun out of? Look around the Citadel, and tell me how many places you can see near it’s outer wall that you can actually believably imagine someone defending from.

Pahawe.4865:

Substance E.4852:

Any self respecting Charr would choose a wall of guns over a wall of stone any day. Walls are for weak, cowardly humans. They can’t even withstand apocalyptic meteor impacts of giant crystals. Why bother…

A fine point, but where exactly is the hole in the wall that you poke your gun out of? Look around the Citadel, and tell me how many places you can see near it’s outer wall that you can actually believably imagine someone defending from.

Charr make their own holes. I was also mostly referring to the idea of using a wall of gun turret placements.

Honestly though, as a society, Charr are a very “die a glorious death” type of people who would only ever really resort to hiding in a fortress if they were on their last legs.

While it could be viewed as poor environmental design, it;s pretty easy to simply see the Charr as a people who would much rather jump in their Charr Cars and those big boxy APC’s and meet an enemy head one, even if it was an unwinnable fight.

There’s at least one NPC in the Black Citadel who gets sentenced to years of degrading behavior before a final exile for fleeing a fight his warband was losing rather than standing and dying by his comrades.

Pahawe.4865:

BrotherBelial.3094:

I thought it was supposed to looked slapped together.

Whilst Charr tech might at times look rather ramshackle, I don’t really think a city that’s been built up over two hundred years by the most defensively minded Legion of them all should look ‘slapped together’ in a way that makes it look entirely ramshackle and indefensible.

But then it was thrown together to make a forward operations base. Sure over time maybe they “should” have made it better, but the Charr are about war. I don’t see them wasting time and resources on “fixing” something that’s not in need of it.

The Black Citadel isn’t a city. The entire structure is a giant machine that folds up onto itself, with the Core as its, well, core. Look around for the joints and non-fused gear plates throughout the “road” system and across the various structures and outcroppings. They’re at oddly specific angles for random scrap, but if you stand on them… they all bend toward either the center or another fold. I believe those aren’t roads at all. They’re walls.

Furthermore, I suspect the collapsed form is mobile, to some degree. I found structures resembling rocket boosters underneath the foundry, and plenty of designs resembling conveyors or some form of treads. I haven’t found anything resembling “hands”, or fine manipulation devices, so I surmise the collapsed form isn’t humanoid… perhaps a big tank or gyro wheel.

From a more practical standpoint, I’m not sure it would be worth the effort. They destroyed and rebuilt Lion’s Arch as part of a massive plot event, and, yet, even then there are people left wondering if it would have been better to add to other areas or build new ones than to tear down a perfectly functional city zone. I don’t think destroying a second city would have nearly as much narrative power as the first, and I don’t think it makes sense to redo a city without a large plot backing it up.

Could it be better? I suppose things can always be better. Is it worth the portion of resources a large overhaul would take? I don’t think so.

Substance E.4852:

Pahawe.4865:

Substance E.4852:

Any self respecting Charr would choose a wall of guns over a wall of stone any day. Walls are for weak, cowardly humans. They can’t even withstand apocalyptic meteor impacts of giant crystals. Why bother…

A fine point, but where exactly is the hole in the wall that you poke your gun out of? Look around the Citadel, and tell me how many places you can see near it’s outer wall that you can actually believably imagine someone defending from.

Charr make their own holes.

Honestly though, as a society, Charr are a very “die a glorious death” type of people who would only ever really resort to hiding in a fortress if they were on their last legs.

While it could be viewed as poor environmental design, it;s pretty easy to simply see the Charr as a people who would much rather jump in their Charr Cars and those big boxy APC’s and meet an enemy head one, even if it was an unwinnable fight.

There’s at least one NPC in the Black Citadel who gets sentenced to years of degrading behavior before a final exile for fleeing a fight his warband was losing rather than standing and dying by his comrades.

The trouble is that the Charr’s outlook depends entirely on his Legion. We know that each Legion has it’s own territory, and therefore it’s own Citadel, so following that logic each Citadel should conform to it’s owner’s philosophy on warfare. Going all out and facing the enemy head on? Right on, but that’s mainly Blood Legion’s forte. Luring your enemy into a maze of tricks and traps before you stab them in the back? Totally Ash (and that’s why I feel that the current mish-mash design of the Citadel may have been the work of one of them).

This is Iron Legion we’re talking about here. These are the guys who got booted out of their own territory and fought tooth and nail for their land. who’ve been fighting ghosts in deeply ingrained siege warfare for centuries, who built their capital on a haunted human city and fortified it for two hundred years, who built Steeleye Span, who choose to dig in and use defensive tactics, preferring to blow the enemy to pieces from a distance with ranged weaponry rather than charging in head on. The Black Citadel does not feel like their capital city. So much potential for defense is wasted here, as is so much precious war material that could be used in more effective ways.

I want to see the Citadel go back to what it was back in pre-alpha to an actual city/fortress/factory, rather than the hanging scrapheap in the sky we have in the current game.

Trise.2865:

The Black Citadel isn’t a city. The entire structure is a giant machine that folds up onto itself, with the Core as its, well, core. Look around for the joints and non-fused gear plates throughout the “road” system and across the various structures and outcroppings. They’re at oddly specific angles for random scrap, but if you stand on them… they all bend toward either the center or another fold. I believe those aren’t roads at all. They’re walls.

Furthermore, I suspect the collapsed form is mobile, to some degree. I found structures resembling rocket boosters underneath the foundry, and plenty of designs resembling conveyors or some form of treads. I haven’t found anything resembling “hands”, or fine manipulation devices, so I surmise the collapsed form isn’t humanoid… perhaps a big tank or gyro wheel.

Awesome though it is to imagine the Black Citadel rising to take on a dragon a-la Gypsy Danger taking on a Kaiju, I don’t think the Iron Legion would have the technology to convert an entire city into a tank.

Endless Soul.5178:

I don’t think the Charr care much for aesthetics. Besides, I don’t think of it as a city, more like a large fortress. A poorly planned one at that (unless the plan was to confuse any would-be invaders that will get lost within the chaotic architecture, then it’s highly successful).

That’s actually a workable approach, though. A simple city layout does make for easier invasion.

I also get the feeling that parts of the city are made to be blown up or sectioned off if need be during an invasion. Look at the Asura gate for a perfect example of that, it’s behind some pretty big gates, but it’s also resting on some old ruins at the end of a long bridge. Sturdy enough, but a couple of charges and it’s suddenly cut off from the city. Elevators from below can be broken to cut off access from some areas, other areas are pretty much made for the big charr war machines to use, much to the dismay of any invaders.

Finally, I’ve seen enough big machinery in the walls and floors for “no reason” to suspect that there’s a very GOOD reason for it to be there. I think sections of the walls and the command core can move. Any tracks and rails needed are covered over, but could likely be exposed pretty quickly if the need came. The overly decorated pathways could be their way of hiding that, because it would be more obvious on a smooth road.

Still, I DID like the clip of the old Black Citadel. It’s very “evil church”, but it was still impressive. I’d love to see that design show up somewhere in the game at some point.

Iron wards away ghosts. Stone walls do not. They built everything out of the only material that works to keep out the enemies of the Charr. They embed scrap metal into the ground because the ghosts are not limited to above-ground attacks.

So much Charr hype. My ancestors butchered them by the thousands in their own homelands.

Without Titan help, they were, and are, overrated blowhards.

The shantytown they live in suits them.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

So much Charr hype. My ancestors butchered them by the thousands in their own homelands.

Without Titan help, they were, and are, overrated blowhards.

The shantytown they live in suits them.

Big words, considering how humans are faring without their gods around to win their battles for them.

Trise.2865:

The Black Citadel isn’t a city. The entire structure is a giant machine that folds up onto itself, with the Core as its, well, core. Look around for the joints and non-fused gear plates throughout the “road” system and across the various structures and outcroppings. They’re at oddly specific angles for random scrap, but if you stand on them… they all bend toward either the center or another fold. I believe those aren’t roads at all. They’re walls.

Furthermore, I suspect the collapsed form is mobile, to some degree. I found structures resembling rocket boosters underneath the foundry, and plenty of designs resembling conveyors or some form of treads. I haven’t found anything resembling “hands”, or fine manipulation devices, so I surmise the collapsed form isn’t humanoid… perhaps a big tank or gyro wheel.

OMG! The Black Citadel is actually…. the Technodrome!!