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Will having no quests ruin the population in cities?
HeadBytor
Member UncommonPosts: 93
in Guild Wars 2
The question just hit when after watching the sounds of lions arch. if theres no quests to take, will people still hang around in cities because theres crafting, market vendors, or its just a familiar place to hang? maybe i'm wrong and there wil be more than enough stuff without quests to keep people in the city walls. thoughts anyone?
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I never felt like quests was what kept people in cities. At 80 in WoW I never stayed in IF just because there were quests there (because there weren't). I think it is a non issue.
when im not partaking in dynamic events, ill be walking around cities with my town clothes on, Might hit the pub and meet some more people
Yup. I think the trade and everything will keep them plenty busy and full of people.
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Usually it's trade, crafting, and storage banks that keep people in cities, not quests.
Also, in each of the major cities in GW2 there will be plenty of mini-games with associated prizes. So that is another way of enticing people to stay there.
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I doubt it, since our individual districts (for the personal storyline stuff) can only be accessed via a city and due to the minigames which are present in each city, I could actually see there being more players hanging around cities than in your usual MMORPG.
And one thing with MMORPGs as we know them, except for perhaps Everquest II (which had brilliant cities), most 'cities' in MMORPGs are merely small outposts at best, patrolled by guards and with no real civilians to speak of. Opposed to this, Guild Wars 2's cities will have lots of NPC civilians wandering around and chatting, as we've seen in each race's week thus far.
So... of all the concerns that there might be, I don't think this is one. And I don't think questing ever really drew people to those little outposts anyway, at least not versus any other little outposts.
You have your personal stories in your home cities. Friends can help you with your personal stories and you can join theirs plus their will be other things to do as well.
With 5 vast race cities and at least one neutral city we know players will be hanging out and visiting those cities constantly.
It's a RP dream IMO.
Mini games.
ArenaNet already talked about what they find the function of cities to be: Places for players to hang-out and slow and do something different. As Romanator mentions there are mini-games, the various item-trading and I guess crafting and guild stuff. But in addition lots of background chatter and atmosphere too. I imagine eg Divinities Reach I'll be walking around like it's the Louvre for a while - lol.
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All the services will be in cities. Banks, merchants, auction houses. On top of that also minigames like they already have in Guild Wars 1. These are the things that players come back for, not quests.
I kind of agree with the OP in fact. Cities in mmo are just so fake, life is very hard to find in them already. Usually mmo cities are huge because all those building need room, but the space used by player is in fact very very smal. Usually all the trading is concentrated in one spot in the "best" city. Everything else is pretty dead, and the feeling isn't very good. So ye anything that could create character movement and life inside them is good to take imo. It would be better if the devs begin to find real purpose to the cities, i don't now like housing system into cities or whatever that would make those something else than a theatral decoration.
I don't see the correlation. Cities will be active as long as they provide activites for people to gather and do, nature of those activies is of little consequence. Hell, social activities like mini-games might be better at doing this than quests/basic services, not to mention that your own district will kinda get you to go back to your capital in at least semi-regular intervals.
What if dynamic event occur in cities? I mean, if no one stops the bandits.....wouldn't they eventually attack cities?
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Most quests in other games take place outside the city and people still hang out there regardless. That's where the vendors, banks, crafters, and taverns are. Not to mention a bunch of random people that you can annoy with emote spam. Fun times!
A lot of the event i saw from the videos are in fact in cities/villages.
In villages yes but not in the main cities.
I think cities still be a place where people gather because of the following:
Trading (with other players and npcs)
Hanging out
Crafting (you need crafting stations after all)
Home Instance
Mini-games
As was said, once people get to a certain level, they often stand around in cities doing nothing. It's done in Lions Arch, IF/that orc city, Theed/Coronet, etc.
This pretty much. The cities are the main place where you can access your personal storyline, your home district and the many dozens of minigames. So there's more than enough reason for players to visit the cities, from time to time. Also just like one of the devs said; the cities are a good place to take of all your armour & /dance.
I'd personally be worried about some cities getting abandoned.
In almost every single MMO players focus on 1-2 cities at the exclusion of all the other ones.
Personal stories and such might keep players in one city while the story lasts but it'll end at some point.
If Lion's Arch is going to be the hub then I think it's likely that the other cities will suffer from lower populations.
Remember the Henge of Denravi in GW1? Likely not, it was the 'city' in Maguuma Jungle from prophecies. Average player population: 2. Almost the same for the Amnoon Oasis. Cavalon and House zu Heltzer were slightly more populated but still not by much. The Kodash Bazaar generally didn't have that many people either.
Don't know how it will play out in GW2. But unless the NPC presence in the cities is extremely impressive I think it's likely that some of the cities from the lesser played races are going to feel pretty empty. Especially since from what we've seen so far the cities are pretty big.
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every town will have its own unique mini-games to keep people having fun inside the town, not to mention bar brawl and various sports.
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A way to fix this may be to make certain items or materials available in certain cities, but I doubt that will happen.
Although I would expect more city population, because due to the fact of not having a sub fee, players can take their time and there is no feeling of having to rush to get the most out of your money.
Hmm....
I've personally never really felt the need to rush to make the most out of my money. Only the need to rush to make the most out of my time.
But I think it'll depend a lot on the NPC system they have in place. From what I heard it'll be much more immersive and in-depth then your standard MMO but not many more details. That will probably determine a decent amount on how cities will feel.
An active living NPC population could compensate somewhat for a lacking player population. Not totally of course but it should help.
We are the bunny.
Resistance is futile.
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Maybe different mini-games in different cities, which is something I think they have.
And with a sub fee, the only time I ever went into town was for a quest or to the auction house. When that wasn't happening I was out grinding. Maybe that's just me, I don't know. But it seems to me that towns are places where if you have say, 15 minutes of time and want to play the game you can hang out and just relax in town. No need to make the most of your time because whenever you adventure out you'll find a dynamic event, so you can take your time, explore as much as you want and wander about the city.
I wonder if cities will have hidden dynamic events as well?
There are still quests just in a different format... did you not watch any of their videos??
Instead of a guy standing with a quest mark over his/her head it will be an active event that is going on at the moment.
I think you're looking at it wrong when you talk about Henge of Denravi and the others. GW2 is a much larger game. I don't think you compare GW2's 6 major cities to just the major cities of the Prophecies campaign. I think you compare GW2 to the main campaign hubs of all of GW1's content. In other words, look at Lion's Arch, Kaineng Center and Kamadan (and possibly Eye of the North or Great Temple of Balthazar as the central hub). All of those hubs have a sizeable population, even now at 6am.
There is some concern though, I agree, about whether all the major cities will get action. Look at WoW. Dalaran was the central hub, but there was still a lot of activity in Ironforge and Stormwind because Dalaran had no Auction House. Other racial cities like Darnassus and The Exodar got few visitors, probably a combination of the layout and players being elsewhere (even though trade chat did connect all major cities).
Still, with everybody's personal story instance being in their home city and having minigames, we'll see foot traffic in all of them. Another thing to consider too is free teleportation between all of them. People won't feel like they're porting to the middle of nowhere and worry about how they're going to get back. That might spread people out more.
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