Message Edited by Darrius_SPLET on 02-24-200607:13 AM

Message Edited by Darrius_SPLET on 02-24-200607:15 AM

No... Westview and International had exactly the same gang levels before the district reflow. A new district can also remain within out current 50 levels. Altough combining it with the level cap would be amazing, I think the main aspects of adding new areas are aesthetical and not for the level cap to have a purpose.

Maybe I'll just bring a few little suggestion in myself:

An industrial district

The current industrial neighborhoods rock, but they're actually nothing more but storage areas with warehouses and construction equipment and material lying around on the floor. Of course, that's also called "insustrial", but still, the cliché and general imagination of an industrial area is a place with huge power plants with smoke coming out of pipes and factories placed in a sort of wasteland. Main roads or residential buildings should be a real rarity. Actually, Southard is the only neighborhood in the whole city with a real "industrial" flair, with its gas pipes on the floor and its alternatively shaped warehouses.

Some "neighborhoods" of that new "district" should be more like Uriah or Edgewater, relatively flat and clean storage areas, while others should contain really massive, bride power plant constructions with tons of smoke coming out and maybe larger factories/power plants being placed here and there (their size should about the same as parks in Downtown). And of course, even more than in the actual city, there should be lots of construction sites with cranes, construction material and just that awesome atmosphere of chaos and defectiveness our current, large construction sites have.

Of course, what also should be missing, would be huge electrical power lines emanating from electrical power station over the whole district. That central powerline in Guiness Lake (I haven't tracked it from one end to another yet, but I've seen it here and there lots of times) looks awesome and also adds some sort of industrial flair to the Barrens.

Of course, all that doesn't mean this new neighborhood wouldn't have the same order and aesthetics the industrial neighborhoods and Westview have. The strictly rectangular shape of the current city should be maintained there, and of course, main roads, some really bride, others pretty tiny, shouldn't be excluded. There will still pedestrians walking on the streets and cars driving in different directions, still parking places and maybe even a few more residential areas. And since industry is "a little bit" related to money and profit, of course some office buildings should also be there. However, apart from maybe a few exceptions, these should look more dilapidated and scruffy that let's say those in Richland or Downtown.

It makes sense to put these more standart areas in certain neighborhoods in the district, one could be in the center and a few others maybe at the very edge. That's already an approved stylistic device in the city design: Downtown is clean and shiny, but somewhere in Chelsea, it shows a little dilapidation and comes up with a few crappy buildings and a shabby ground. The west part of Murasaki in International starts to give up its Asian style and transforms into a more Downtown like, western financial area.

That sort of things good give a really good contrast to the district and also remind everyone that it's still Mega City and not a completely new industrial area from another planet. From what I believe I have heard (or rather spotted) in some DVD features, it should be located in the south part of the city, most likely somewhere at the very south edge of it. Although, of course, it would be great if we could walk from Westview/Richland to this district, but hey, not everything at once.

The freeway system

Instead of creating something totally new, they could just implement and area that has been very detailedly designed by the original Matrix team around John Gaeta: The freeway system from the car chase. It's most probably located in the very middle north of the city, right above Downtown. At the south, it should be a clean, Downtown like area, but with significantly more streets and maybe less order. In Downtown, there are several places with really lots of bride streets on different height levels, both parallel and crossing each other. It should already show first indices of a less structured and more industrial and busy city part than the quiet, majestic Downtown, with more of those street complexes and more cars driving there. Then, at some point, the city structure gradually fades away, the buildings become flatter and the streets merge into freeways. Now excuse my lack of knowledge about how freeways use to rise in cities at this point. The freeway system itself doesn't need a description, instead of it, just watch "Reloaded" or play that freeway levels in EtM. This area is also pretty industrial, has a few factories here and there, but is in general flatter than what I maybe suggested above. Looking from above, the buildings have a more suburban character and look less like a metropolis (or -- a megacity). Since that's really where the actual city ends and the freeway are supposed to connect Mega City with some kind of another city (again, watch the DVD features), the loss of rectangular structure is more than excusable. The structure of the freeways themselves is much freer and has all kind of slow turns and circles in it. It should be complex and confusing.

The fact that we can't drive cars shouldn't have any impact on it, although, of course, driving on freeways by cars would be cooler. Pedestrians aren't allowed at freeways, but hey, how long since redpills are restricted by bluepill laws? Walking on freeways should be an option. If it's techinically difficult, less cars could be put on.

OK, so far with my hottest and most detailed desires about city expansions, maybe I'll come up with a few more suggestions later.