One of the best aspects of MMORPGs are the huge social hub cities. I recently started playing on the P99 server and I can't help but notice how unpopulated some of the coolest cities are i.e. Kelethin, Freeport, etc... How do you think Pantheon could ensure that some of these starter cities remain populated post launch? In WoW Ironforge was always a hub of activity but other starting cities (sans maybe Stormwind) were not populated either. Any ideas?
It's a topic that's been discussed at length in the past 7 years on these forums in the context of Pantheon, and there are many solutions that have been proposed over the past 20+ years the problem has existed.
Some have been implemented, some haven't. The solution I've personally seen used the most often is simply to ignore the problem, that is, use the starting areas prior to the first expansion, and then abandon them.
Of course, it doesn't have to be that way, but it's the easiest "solution" in that it's not a solution at all, it's just what many games have done.
If it were my problem to solve, I would use a combination of game loops to solve the problem.
The inputs & output of adventuring, crafting, diplomacy, politics, religion, guilds, harvesting, and others.
If you make the unique racial cities, or unique starting areas, desirable to all the game loops, and not just levels 1-9 adventuring, then they can retain value in the long term.
There are consequences to such a design. It entails the creation of unique appearances, quests, recipes, tasks, NPCs, plot mechanics, architecture styles, and more, for each race. This is not a trivial task in the temporal sense, without an enormous and talented pool of creative/content resources to draw on.
The actual server side components (various types of loop mechanics) are straightforward. They have been for over twenty years. It's the art and content that gives a thematically consistent environment to the characters the player is controlling that are the milestones that can take an inordinate amount of time. The code has long since been written, making it look pretty is the time consuming bit.
Similarly, there are travel, zone layout, map, zone quantity, server population limits, race/class matrix changes, and faction consequences.
One simple example is, if you permit one character/race to eventually, through an enormous amount of time, sacrifice, and effort, become allied with all other races, that (currently, for pantheon) means 9 different paths for those goals. In addition to the normal advancement path of those 9 races, in all the game loops.
Also, you could add in all the deities, NPC guilds, factions, and other in-game sentient races that don't have starting cities, but may offer partial game loops. Permitting polytheism and/or faith/worship changes can keep starting cities very relevant, by being home to the temple(s) of each race's patron deity or deities.
Allowing sentient races to play a role in an overarching world/kingdom plot mechanic has tremendous value in subscriber retention. Again, another simple example would be something like perhaps initially Skar cities use Orc labor, but a plot mechanic may be that the players can foment a revolution and replace the Orcs with Gnolls, Kobolds, or Goblins. But now the Orcs are free..
Having zone entrances appear and disappear in the shared open world (A huge Orc outpost is now active) as a result of such world/kingdom plot mechanics again, has a tremendous draw. Now, though, you need those partial game loops for the Orc outpost. Crafting recipes (even for just appearance), faction quests, social currency vendors, unique skill and spell trainers, guild perks, religious and/or racial active and passive skills/bonuses, and more. Everything except a starting area, because they're not (currently?) a playable race.
If that Orc outpost is near a starting city, perhaps trade can now be established, or relations normalized. Player characters could complete tasks in all game loops, leading up to the Orcs besieging and ultimately designating that starting city as a tributary state. And then other player characters could swing the pendulum back, if desired and repeat it all for Gnolls, but they're near a different starting city.
In a more general sense, having recipe components be unique per zones keeps them relevant, if, for example, higher relevant skill allows for the acquisition of those unique components in lower tiers. In plain language this means that once you exceed the skill cap for an area, you can acquire the unique (not rare) resources from that area, if you return. Especially true for consumables and spell/skill components.
Looking at just NPC's, factions, and NPC guilds, if faction NPC vendors or guilds offer services -only- at the max/higher tier if all other/lower tiers are 'satisfied' or 'filled', either per character or globally? That alone would keep ~everyone occupied provided the services include buffs, consumables, training, recipes, and more.
tl;dr? It's a solved problem with a variety of possible solutions. Afaik, there's been no recent enumeration from Visionary Realms regarding their chosen solution, as the fate of progeny, mentoring, colored mana, Building Outposts, Non-Instanced Housing, Player-run Dungeons and Regions, or similar post-kickstarter public design goals are in question, as a result of no longer being on the public web site. Each or many of those could be used to keep starting areas, starting cities, and/or all areas, regardless of level range, desirable for the life of the game.
I think the best case scenario will be them spreading out dungeons and important quests so people move around to various cities as needed. My guess is hub cities will still be a thing as people buy teleports.
When it comes to an expansion I know it is more work potentially, but I would hope VR doesn't create the generic "new continent" trope where we all move to the new city as besties. The world itself has these insane landscapes from various worlds being ripped out and stiched together in catastrophic events. I hope they add onto the 3 continents while severely altering them in cool ways during the cycles of "collisions" for the expansions. This will shake up the world, letting them funnel lower level players together into fewer zones as more and more adventurers stay max level. Some of the original land has been repurposed by the new invasive species while also changing which city would make the ideal player hub to where the new content is.
I dont think this will be much of an issue at release and for a good while after. But as time goes by and expansions come out, then yes this would occur unless it is addressed. The way I see it is that there are two fundemental issues to keep cities populated by players; ease of access and reasons to visit.
Ease of access:
If you want to visit a city while in the wild then normally you would want to get there after adventuring and will want to get there quickly. The solution is simple; either have a return spell or consumable to do that.
This is only part of the problem though.
Once you are finished doing what you want to in the city, you have to get back to where you were or an area near by. In the early levels, that would take a fairly short duration in time to achieve, but as you move further away from those starting points (and as PRotF has said it doesnt want content by-passes - which I agree with), then you will spend a lot of time just getting back to where you want to be. If this is not addressed, then people will just want to stay out in the wild, and find a village or town that offers what they need and use that, resulting in poorly populated cities.
One option would be to have a port and callback spell/consumable, this allows a port to the city and a returning callback to the point you left in the wild. However there maybe potential exploits with this and arguably it is bypassing content? Eitherway, ease of access would need to be addressed to keep a city, player busy.
Reason to Visit:
If you can do everything out in the wild that the cities can do, then there is no reason to go back in the first place, especially if it takes time to visit and get back to adventuring. Any region that VR want players to visit often will need to offer multiple reasons above what can be done by adventuring.
This is where vjek's gaming loops come into play. But those loops must remain fun and not seen as a chore in having to go back to the city. Whatever the pull, it must be to make players want to visit not force them to.
( vjek ) brings the true meaning of pipelines into perspective. Now with Kyle Olsen onboard many if not all systems aforementioned previously at top of post could be implemented in some fashion or all could work as a whole. Still is it worth a persons time to run 3 hours back to starting city for a skill, spell or quest?
Guess the next thing is a OOC any druids around need a port to X. Sure for 200 plat. and no guess ill get it later. P99 the old EQ ( origin ) takes a player back to starting city. Then after you finnish tasks ( Gate ) back to bind point and meet up with your group for more adventures. Now starting citys can have a greater effect to player with proper implementation. Also ( POK ) made every thing a one stop shoping area. Hmmm
The long and the short of it. Give me a good reason that dose not kill most if not all my game time, then a reason to pause and take notice.
Hope this helps. Also be nice to have NPC escorts for hire to show you the main city areas. Or at the least street signs pointing crafts>>>> skills spells <<<<<< just a idea . I don't want to waste hours hunting down one item or finding master crafts.
Till next time take care of each other and be safe. Peace.
My take on this is that we have solutions in search of a problem. There is no reason for starting cities to be crowded. They are places for us to start the game and learn a bit about our races and the world, gain some levels nearby and move on.
To me the more interesting question is whether there should be a few major cities that the starting areas feed into and whether efforts should be made to keep those populated. Some ways to do this are fairly obvious although there are disadvantages to go with advantages. Have slightly better NPC prices for buying, selling, training or whatever other money sinks the game has. Have a means to conveniently get to the major hub realtively quickly. Some form of rapid transit frim each starter city to one hub on each continent, for example, would not be too harmful in terms of making the world feel smaller. Especially if it is one way. Have crafting devices there that are slightly faster or give a slightly higher critical chance. Have exotic but necessary materials for sale that aren't for sale at all in smaller hubs. Have housing, when and if introduced, accessible only from the major city.
People will flock to the city that is the easiest to get navigate and get around. In Wow on my server it was Stormwind (although Ironforge was easier as it was just a big circle). For me it was Thunderbluff, Everything I needed was very close to each other.
In EQ it certainly wasn't Neriak, that was one of the worst for me to navigate. Freeport was much easier even though I was an evil race, after doing faction. Qeynos was also a bit confusing, although I wasn't there much as it was empty.
So if there is a nice big city with all venders, trainers and banks in a nice layout, people with naturally levetate to it where possible. Also people like to hang out together showing off their wears and trying to sell items, an empty city doesn't help much there.
I think the "ease of access" that chenzeme mentioned is a very important point. If you take a look at FFXIV, you will see that all of the old starting cities (Uldah, Gridania and Limsa) are populated even many years after the game launched. But of course, cities are only a teleport click away in FFXIV. Would it be different if it required more effort to get to one of these cities? I'm quite sure it would be!
I don't know if that problem can be avoided in a game like Pantheon. But it is important to get this right from the start...once one city has been established as THE hub (and others are becoming less important), it will be nearly impossible to "revive" the other cities.
The other factor, "reason to visit" is very well done in FFXIV IMO and can be taken almost directly for Pantheon: There are small outposts all over where you can buy/sell and repair. But different sorts of equipment, marketing boards, access to retainers (banking) and crafting can be done in the cities (ok, crafting can be done everywhere technically but since you need a ton of different components, you will usually want to be able to access the bank). I would also argue against putting those services into player housing (if that becomes a thing eventually).
Another thing I like in FFXIV are the small aetherytes (teleport stones) inside cities, which allow you to get from one point quickly to another. Neriak from EQ was mentioned above...it could really be bad if you needed something and HAD to run through three zones to get it. Any city which has such a disadvantage will likey fall in player favor when alternatives are available.
Location Location Location
If you want to keep them populated, then don't put them on the edge of the map where it takes 20 min longer to get to, and to get back to wherevever you were at or will be going next. If I can find a smaller city that gets done everything I need most of the time but it saves me 15-20 min, thats the one I will be using. If I only MUST go back to the big city for something once a week or so, thats fine, but I won't make it my main stay.
Ease of use
Call home, quick flight paths, wizard ports, etc. Maybe even if the bigger cities are further spread out...maybe they have special gryffons that fly much faster than the other smaller towns have?
Reason to come back:
This could be as drastic as having the smaller "hubs" not provide hardly anything...no merchants, no repair shops etc, but seems like overkill. It could be that that major hub is your hometown so you get drastically better prices: Repairs cost 70% less, food is 50% less, Vendors buy your junk for 30% more, etc. And you can only have 1 "hometown" at a time. Whether by race or by choice.
I'll answer the same as before. This is really not a complex problem to solve.
In EQ, people left the starting areas because the developers chose to build new continents and new cities that had all of the amenities of home.
Of course, players “bound” to the city closest to the content for their level range. The banking, crafting, and vendoring all happened at these locations which left the home worlds vacant.
The solution is obvious; make home cities irreplaceable. That means have some types of content that cannot be found anywhere else but your home city. That would essentially force players to keep them populated.
I also look at this from the perspective of a new player. Who wants to start a new MMO only to find the home starting city empty? By designing the game to keep players coming home you also provide a lot of action for new players to observe to see that the game is still alive and kicking.