Hello forums,
I did a search (a half-arsed search, but a search nonetheless) to see if other topics like this were posted and didn’t find any. So please do not assume I didn’t search for similar topics before posting. But you may safely assume I didn’t try hard enough. Ah, wonderful, relaxing laziness.
So here is my list of POSSIBLE reasons we are going to see players always traveling the roads going from one city to another. This list is in no order. Please add in more with your responses.
Let’s face it, a lot of people love player housing, and one way we can guarantee some cities will always have a bustling population is by making sure the style of housing you can have is dictated by the city you choose to have your house in. This means we could have a bunch of people which are different races looking to live in the elf cities and wanting to grind faction just so they can buy a house there.
If everything goes well, players will not localize all their trade to just one cities auction house. One of the reasons for this topic is to show off how players having lots of reasons to go to all cities all the time will keep the population in enough flux to prevent the failure of the regional auction house.
Ever had an authentic Scotch Pie? Authentic Pad Thai? Some things just taste better when they are made in their home town and it doesn’t stop there. Craftmanship is a big deal. Different cultures have different technologies and talents. We could easily keep people running around if say … the Hafling race had a better understanding of leather armors, and any leather crafter would want to use their in-house systems and technology and ‘assistance’ in making their piece. Do you know how hard it is to do something alone? Maybe think of going to those cities to craft is going to a group of NPC’s who want to HELP you make your item. Somebody has to hold that piece of hot raw metal down for you to smash into form, right Blacksmiths?
If high level content exists close enough to a nearby city, then it would seem normal the player would gravitate towards that city when they need to return to town, sell, rest, craft, etc. If developers make sure there is enough multi-lvl and high lvl content spread around then the players quickest route to a city shouldn’t be the same city every time as they adventure from low lvl to high lvl and as they continue to lvl as a high lvl character traveling all over the world.
An elven holiday could have some really big perks! The same with a Dark Myr holiday! You could have an increase in trade within that city for limited time. Think ‘the olympics’ it costs a lot for the city to come together for the celebration, but, it pulls a lot of the world community together and the city makes a big profit. If we have celebrations now and again it could be very meaningful.
Hair-styles can be done in different cities because the stylists aren’t trained in all styles. Let’s say you don’t want a tan, you want to whiten your skin. You could journey to where the Dark Myr city is where they cultivate a type of underwater fungus which can change your skin pigment to be lighter. If you buy the treatment three times it can whiten you a lot! But you bought it four times… time to go to the human city of throne-fast and spend 15 minutes in their ‘mirror-bath’ under the sun. Hair styles, beard styles, skin color, even gender, face, and weight and height could have a dedicated spot in each races city. You may be able to grow taller by being ‘stretched’ by ogres using ‘magic’ (but it really looks and feels like they are just pulling your arms and legs off) There so many idea’s here. And the kicker. What if there are some character ‘looks’ which are NOT possible in character customization, and the only way to get them is by going to the different cities and using their services? Think of it. White hair and black hair are able to be picked in character customization, but, the hair stylist in the elven city can get a darker shade of black, and the Dwarves have a snow-white which is even brighter than the white you can choose. The same is true for max and minimum height, weight, muscle tone, etc etc.
My tank is empty, anyone got more ideas?
-Todd
You've got a great list going there, though I disgree with 'rested exp', and I think those are things which should regularly bring you not just back to your home city, but potentially other racial cities depending upon the need.
It is in the area of crafting and class training that I think should be a common thread throughout the life of our characters. I think that each race should have some crafting recipies which are unique to that race and if others want to learn that they need to learning from that race in that city. This brings into play factions and language skills. With class training, this too can be something which requires visiting other cities to learn from their trainers. Brad said that each race will have a weapon skill (or skills) which they can train higher than all other skills. I might stand to reason that there would be some weapon skills wholly uknown to a race. So to learn it would require you to learn from a class training of another race.
Don't think we'll be doing the "rested exps" thing...seen that mentioned elsewhere. I'm just as glad. Think it was mentioned also that content for high levels should be included..say a new expansion opens up a dungeon under the starter city for raiders. Discussion only..nothing promised by the Devs. :) That way the low levels and the high levels get to cross paths. ;)
I agree with most things, except rested XP, this encourages not playing the game to progress faster.
Regional auction houses will probably be the biggest point to go to your home city, this ofc if AH have higher taxes in non-native home cities, and the taxes can only be reduce by trading in your home city.
You forgot to list for the scenic beauty.
Seriously though, Bards should be required to travel to all/most cities for their training. Tied into class quests or something? Travel to all the inns and learn under NPC Bards and perform there. Maybe not exactly that but some kind of similar hook.
I know you were probably looking for something a bit broader than individual classes, but there it is.
Hopefully, they put collection (shiny) style quests in the game, and maybe once you have a complete set of something, you can turn it at starting cities for various rewards. Maybe each city gives out different rewards. That would make traveling to different home cities a thing for all races to do potentially, and it would also increase the desire to work on faction to be able to go in any starting city to turn in the collection for the reward you want. Maybe the reward is an illusion clicky for whatever race you turn the quest in to, something like that. Maybe builidng up faction requires doing lots of work in and around the starting cities.
Ashvaild said:I remember reading somewhere that cities will have combat content within them. I'm guessing sewers or warehouses full of brigands. Things of that sort
Everything in the city can be combat content. Guard killing was a big thing in EQ at least.
Also: please NO rested exp nonsense.
another reason to travel to cities
Ceremonies
Are held to mark the success ,hard work and dedication of the community within a faction ,the faction as a whole
-A celebration ceremony when a new site,monument,statue is ready to open up to the public
-a ship launch ceremony,committing the ship to the sea
Ofcourse the large group occasions that give players a chance at gaining a new site/monument in town also would be a reason to travel to the cities
I'd love to have real reasons to go back to your home city (and other cities for that matter). I always found visiting cities in EQ and Vanguard a really interesting experience because you got to learn about the lore by talking to NPCs, you could do crafting, you could find some quests, you could talk to other players, you could train your skills and so many more things. I hope there are ample reasons to go back to the cities. And the best reason of all is that they all look beautiful as well. I just enjoyed exploring them all.
I think crafting, banking, dumpster diving, getting your core class spell scrolls every few levels, and travel via ship ports and such are generally enough to get people in and out of cities often. Add auction houses and you will are pretty set on people rolling through cities.
My biggest concern is the auction houses. Once people congregate to one over the others we may be looking at something like what Blizzard did and having them all be linked instead of being regional. The more reasons VR puts into the game to get us to go to other cities in an 'organic' way, the better.
Again this list, and anything you guys add to it, are fuel to help VR think about other ways to get players to 'want' and 'need' to go to cities other than their favorite one.
Something which can be done with Class trainers would be that they could offer different training in each city: In order for you to have the best spells and abilities is to seek out the master in each city as each of them offer unique and different training which will help you. This could add a lot of meaning on top of seeking out spells/abilities through adventure.
-Todd
All cities should be dungeons with all mobs itemized and killable.
If you belong to a opposing faction fighting in these cities would just be like going to any other dungeon.
This prevents cities from just being wasted space.
What Troll wouldn't want to head on over to Ak'anon and eat some Gnomes.
Thanks,
Kiz~
I would think a player would get more, and pay less for goods at their home racial city. Even more than a city where they just had very good faction. I would like to see the amount be significant. It should be enough that somebody is really reluctant to sell anywhere else. Selling junk to merchants has never been game breaking (nobody ever got rich selling bat wings to merchant) so even 1.5 or 2 times differance would not be game breaking but would be incentive to return home.
Angrykiz said:All cities should be dungeons with all mobs itemized and killable.
If you belong to a opposing faction fighting in these cities would just be like going to any other dungeon.
This prevents cities from just being wasted space.
What Troll wouldn't want to head on over to Ak'anon and eat some Gnomes.
Thanks,
Kiz~
This is a cool idea, except I wouldn't want important class trainers or vendors to be permacamped. Could create problems of course. Has anything like this been addressed by VR? I don't recall anything in a thread or stream.
Armchair tourism.
The ability to go to other areas explore different cultures (craft skills/ goods), food (recipes), and adventures unique to the culture. Bonus if you happen to meet some Player natives that roleplay their culture, or at least try to, with as little or as much as xenophobia will allow, or none!
or...
"Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their (citizens) women"
It would be cool if you could faction grind so you could visit other races cities as well. That would make it easier to say visit a regional auction house for instance or to get quests you normally wouldn't have access to. It just opens up the game to people who are prepared to do the long faction grind.
Plus I just love learning about the lore of the different cities. If faction grinding isn't a thing I'll probably end up making an alt of each race just to read all the lore in the cities.
If there was one special quest in each city that you had to faction grind to get that would be a massive draw for everyone to faction grind for each city so that they could complete the special quest in each city.
tehtawd said:
Hello forums,
So here is my list of POSSIBLE reasons we are going to see players always traveling the roads going from one city to another. This list is in no order. Please add in more with your responses.
- Player Housing (possible after-launch addition to the game)
Let’s face it, a lot of people love player housing, and one way we can guarantee some cities will always have a bustling population is by making sure the style of housing you can have is dictated by the city you choose to have your house in. This means we could have a bunch of people which are different races looking to live in the elf cities and wanting to grind faction just so they can buy a house there.
- Regional Auction House
If everything goes well, players will not localize all their trade to just one cities auction house. One of the reasons for this topic is to show off how players having lots of reasons to go to all cities all the time will keep the population in enough flux to prevent the failure of the regional auction house.
- Crafting
Ever had an authentic Scotch Pie? Authentic Pad Thai? Some things just taste better when they are made in their home town and it doesn’t stop there. Craftmanship is a big deal. Different cultures have different technologies and talents. We could easily keep people running around if say … the Hafling race had a better understanding of leather armors, and any leather crafter would want to use their in-house systems and technology and ‘assistance’ in making their piece. Do you know how hard it is to do something alone? Maybe think of going to those cities to craft is going to a group of NPC’s who want to HELP you make your item. Somebody has to hold that piece of hot raw metal down for you to smash into form, right Blacksmiths?
- Nearby multi-lvl content
If high level content exists close enough to a nearby city, then it would seem normal the player would gravitate towards that city when they need to return to town, sell, rest, craft, etc. If developers make sure there is enough multi-lvl and high lvl content spread around then the players quickest route to a city shouldn’t be the same city every time as they adventure from low lvl to high lvl and as they continue to lvl as a high lvl character traveling all over the world.
- Native Celebrations
An elven holiday could have some really big perks! The same with a Dark Myr holiday! You could have an increase in trade within that city for limited time. Think ‘the olympics’ it costs a lot for the city to come together for the celebration, but, it pulls a lot of the world community together and the city makes a big profit. If we have celebrations now and again it could be very meaningful.
- Character Re-customization (deserves its own topic really)
Hair-styles can be done in different cities because the stylists aren’t trained in all styles. Let’s say you don’t want a tan, you want to whiten your skin. You could journey to where the Dark Myr city is where they cultivate a type of underwater fungus which can change your skin pigment to be lighter. If you buy the treatment three times it can whiten you a lot! But you bought it four times… time to go to the human city of throne-fast and spend 15 minutes in their ‘mirror-bath’ under the sun. Hair styles, beard styles, skin color, even gender, face, and weight and height could have a dedicated spot in each races city. You may be able to grow taller by being ‘stretched’ by ogres using ‘magic’ (but it really looks and feels like they are just pulling your arms and legs off) There so many idea’s here. And the kicker. What if there are some character ‘looks’ which are NOT possible in character customization, and the only way to get them is by going to the different cities and using their services? Think of it. White hair and black hair are able to be picked in character customization, but, the hair stylist in the elven city can get a darker shade of black, and the Dwarves have a snow-white which is even brighter than the white you can choose. The same is true for max and minimum height, weight, muscle tone, etc etc.
- Class trainer
Todd,
I think you have some great ideas here. I'd like to see them in game. I doubt VR is going to put anything they haven't already thought of in the game. Maybe after launch. I especially like player housing. Somewhere I can show off my stuff!
Questaar
You seem to have discriminated against those of us who do not share your, perspective. Good sir. Can I interest you in a slice of... Eye Opening Pie? This list fails to take into consideration Banditry and the role it plays on maintaining a safe and productive highway system. You can hardly have a highway without highwaymen (heh). And highwaymen are not welcome in your cities.
And have you, not once considered that some of us may not wish to remain in your vile cities? They often smell of excrement and burst with mongrels. I would sooner bathe in what comes out of my Abomination (even though he does not need to eat, and I HAVE TOLD HIM A THOUSAND TIMES!, I mean... where was I, oh yes) than spend a single second more than absolutely necessary in the communal toilets you call a city.
I simply wish to be in and out of the city before the watch change at Dawn. Then no one checks the cart, or the horse head I stitched to my Abomination to pull it. It is best if they don't. For everyone. The Abomination eats all the excess meat... no matter how well I hide it or guard it. It is as if I fashioned him from Ninjas...
You should stop by the spire some time. Bring food for the Abomination though, or your visit will end on the floor in what can only be decribed as a You...Stew. Right in the middle of my favorite rug, AND HE KNOWS IT!... anyway. Cya soon, ya?
As someone who played EQ from prior to Kunark and up through several expansions, I have some insight on why players do not return to the original cities.
I really think it comes down to convenience. What I mean by that is often times as the game is expanded, or even based on how the game is designed from the beginning, players often have the resources of a city available outside of the city.
For the base game, if you are building the game and you put in outpost all over the map you may be providing a convenience to sell and train but removing the need/incentive to return to your home city.
The same thing holds true when an expansion is added to the game. Players will use the closest city that provides them the benefits they need. That usually happens to be an expansion city.
I have no problem with vendors being spread out around the world. I like having to travel and explore to find a missing spell or trade skill reagent. But when all of the advantages of home/city are provided at remote camps, players will just collect there. The resources offered at these camps needs to be less than what is available in cities if you really want players to keep going back.
It is difficult for the developers to constantly adjust/revamp original cities to keep them interesting. I think that can work, but it cannot be the only solution. There simply has to be a game design decision to not provide all of the amenities of home outside of the city walls.