take my name and just let me be

[Help] Electro Valkyrie: Man this is an awesome cell phone
[Help] Electro Valkyrie: I'm in Echo: Dark Astoria and it can call through time and space to someone in present day Founder's Falls

Weird, innit?

[Help] Captain Typhoon: The roaming charges are gonna kill you though.
[Help] Dragon Magus: almost as bad as calling from the shadow shard
[Help] Banshee Moth: wait until Montague gives you grave dirt over the phone, that'll blow your mind

Yeah, and that's not the weirdest thing that happens with NPCs in City, either.

(from the City of Heroes album; downtown Astoria)

[Help] Wasurenagusa: And you forgot calling from Cimerora, that's quite the cellphone range
[Help] Electro Valkyrie: I forgot how much I hated old Dark Astoria
[Help] Electro Valkyrie: Can't see my hand in front of my face.
[Help] Densmorou: I loved that about Old Dark Astoria... it was dark

(from the City of Heroes album; downtown Astoria)

Actually, I wouldn't precisely agree. Oh, the whole cell phone thing has always amused the hell out of me--out of all the various ways NPCs with missions have of contacting players, the cell phone trope has only made sense in areas where there's a certain level of technology. For NPCs from Cimerora--elsewise stuck in ancient Rome--it's never made sense as a point of contact. And it's not the only oddity in the calling trope used throughout the game.

(from the City of Heroes album; downtown Astoria)

But no, we were talking about Dark Astoria. Dark Astoria wasn't dark before Mot arrived; it was grey.

(from the City of Heroes album; downtown Astoria)

Really grey. Really, really grey. Like, what's-that-off-in-the-distance grey.

(from the City of Heroes album; downtown Astoria)

Oh, and there were zombies.

(from the City of Heroes album; downtown Astoria)

And there were some deep oddities about the zone--not only was it the only zone in the game that had no story arc of its own, but some areas--like this one--had distinct light-and-shadow patterns from a sun that was never truly seen. Also, all the zombies shot at you, rather than shamble forward and try to eat you. Unless you're a decayed Vietnam-war-era zombie vet in House, why would you use a gun, and not teeth and hands?

(from the City of Heroes album; mourning in Moth Cemetary)

But in the new Dark Astoria? It really is dark. Really dark. Dark red, and largely infected by eddies of black magic and swirling shadows.

(from the City of Heroes album; a run through old Astoria)

Old Dark Astoria? Really wasn't that dark.