Guild Wars 2

Well the crafting and bank areas are closer together in other cities :p But yes I agree.

I would leave LA if they added MFs to all major cities and a linked global/trade channel for the cities. Which is a shame, because I’d rather be in the grove.

good idea and +1 for it.
Even better why not make it free to travel between any of the cities to any other city.

I always wanted a portal stone (like Hall of Monument stone) that teleported me to the Grove. I think all players should at least get one of those that TP’d them to their racial city. I don’t see the harm in it when you can already do it now w/o spending Money by going to mist and then using portal to LA, then to Home city~ it just saves you the extra loading screens. Loading screens that seem to get longer and longer every update.

I disagree, transport costs arnt really a issue once you hit lvl 80 and can farm orr for easy cash. And i still spend alot of time in my home city the black citadel just because im familer with it and love the artwork.

Rifter.6591:

I disagree, transport costs arnt really a issue once you hit lvl 80 and can farm orr for easy cash. And i still spend alot of time in my home city the black citadel just because im familer with it and love the artwork.

That’s you and a small amount of others. Gets lonely in the Grove without all my little Treebros around. Still, it makes no sense because as I’ve said; you can already teleport to any city for free, but you have go through 3 loading screens instead of 1. Why not just give us a portal stone that goes directly to it?

Racial cities need more life.

Doggie.3184:

Rifter.6591:

I disagree, transport costs arnt really a issue once you hit lvl 80 and can farm orr for easy cash. And i still spend alot of time in my home city the black citadel just because im familer with it and love the artwork.

That’s you and a small amount of others. Gets lonely in the Grove without all my little Treebros around. Still, it makes no sense because as I’ve said; you can already teleport to any city for free, but you have go through 3 loading screens instead of 1. Why not just give us a portal stone that goes directly to it?

Racial cities need more life.

Yeah thats why i never use LA to fast travel, easier to just pay the silver and go straight to where you want to go.

I would be on board for a free fast travel to home city.

I agree – let’s just make it free for any character to travel to waypoints in their racial city. It would add incentive to go there for members of that race, making the cities livelier and adding to the cultural flavour because there would be a preponderance of native characters there.

Then link up the city chat channels for easier grouping etc and people wouldn’t have quite so much need to be in LA and only LA.

If we started to see some of the minigames that were planned originally in each city (like keg brawl in Hoelbrak) there would be another reason to gather and the chance of developing distinct identities for each of the cities.

I agree! Lions Arch is boring and laggy. I’d love to see a real reason to visit one’s home city besides the beginning of their personal story/map completion.

not to put a damper on things, but i remember reading this exact suggestion several times as far back as early beta and again the first couple months that the game launched.

I would imagine if they were willing to do it they woulda done it a long time ago (as they’ve heard that suggestion for over 9 months0, as its not a feature that requires any kind of speacial programming, no doubt as simple as replacing the value on a line of code to make those towns cost 0.

However this is exactly the case in almost every other online game. Players always find each other and flock to the biggest place. That way a lfg or wts has the most effect.

The only way to pull people to other cities is to make events happen there. But even then … only the city with the most profitable events will have any players.

I never go to LA since I hate it and favour DR- many people seem to agree with me.

I don’t think that free waypoints are the answer though, what we need is the activities and mini games that have not made it into the game so far.
Those will give people a reason to actually hang out in the cities- bar brawl anyone?

Some worthwhile mini-games in each city (perhaps with minor rewards) would certainly bring people back to them.

There is that ‘Shooting range’ thing in DR, but the girl at the counter keeps saying ‘Sorry, someone else is playing, come back later’ and has been since launch.

The Black Citadel has The Bane, which is such a wasted opportunity to make a player dueling arena. It has no use at present.

The beer keg toss thing in Hoelbrak rarely has anybody playing it. They could easily make that huge frozen lake into some kind of game with an environmental effect that makes you slide about.

Rata Sum has that blocked off Polymock arena just to the north east.

I’m not sure about The Grove.

I agree about DR, Hoelbrak, Rata Sum and BC: these cities are amazing. I can’t say I like The Grove: it’s a labyrinth.

Goettel.4389:

We got these awesome cities, mostly abandoned because, well, all the action is in LA and it’s free to get there with just a five second detour through the Mists.

Why not have the option to select one of the cities as our home and have a free teleport there, if only so the obviously massive amount of work you guys put into all the cities isn’t completely wasted, as it is right now ? Alternatively, just add portals to all the cities to the central Mists hub ? Include Ebonhawke, for good measure, I love to start my morning dailies in a city full of yawning (NB. why does everybody in Ebonhawke sound like they’re either bored or very, very sleepy?)

Having free portals available in LA evidently isn’t enough to get more people to use the TP, bank etc. in the other cities, and I think it’s a real shame, if only because it robs me of more opportunities to fall to my death in Rata Sum – the little fella is clumsy like that.

Don’t think that will offer the solution to them being empty on non-RP servers.

Just wait for them to make a cross-server dungeon LFG tool built into the game, the cities will fill up with zombies waiting in the lobby to be teleported into the dungeon instantly soon enough.

And that thread is back again.

Yeah, we already had this discussion a couple of times.

And yes it´s indeed prudent to at least give us a port stone to a character´s home instance WP. If nothing else this would stop the abuse of the PvP server for cheap ports.

But it seems ANet likes lag and wants us to experience loading screens and overflow servers till we love them.
So get to it!

LOVE THE OVERFLOW !
;)

I spend a lot of my time in The Black Citadel if I need to do anything. I prefer to be off overflows, but LA main is always full.

Mystic forge in all the cities. <3 Dungeon Vendors. <3 One free cultural teleport stone (Like the hall of monuments one) that takes you back to the city of your race. <3 Do want! xD

Nayaru.4716:

Mystic forge in all the cities. <3 Dungeon Vendors. <3 One free cultural teleport stone (Like the hall of monuments one) that takes you back to the city of your race. <3 Do want! xD

The problem is that LA has everything. And that problem has a reason, because, as a developer, you simply know people will find the place with all the necessary facilities.
- crafting
- bank
- TP
- free portals
- WvW
- MF
- Jumping puzzles (which no other city has)
- dungeon/laurel vendors

In LA you simply have everything you need. For most players, that’s a boon.

Nayaru.4716:

Mystic forge in all the cities. <3 Dungeon Vendors. <3 One free cultural teleport stone (Like the hall of monuments one) that takes you back to the city of your race. <3 Do want! xD

These, and a shared chat channel between all cities is all that would be required, I think.

I get that they intended for Lion’s Arch to be the hub city, but it’s a shame to see other cities go completely to waste (especially when they have a much better and more convenient layout cough Rata Sum cough)

Sirendor.1394:

I agree about DR, Hoelbrak, Rata Sum and BC: these cities are amazing. I can’t say I like The Grove: it’s a labyrinth.

Groves my favorite, though it was confusing at first because of the multiple elevations. Once you figure out which WP goes where it’s not bad.
If you click on “Tyria (underground)” in bottom right of map the WP in center of city takes you right next to the TP, Bank and Crafting area, which are all close together (closer than the ones in LA). It’s my fav place to craft, with Caledon Forest begin 2nd fav.

there are a lot of reasons why other cities are not as popular. Not all of them can be solved.
Solvable reasons:
- add a mystic forge to all of the cities
- move the dungeon vendors outside their appropriate dungeons.
- add portals to WvW in every city
- add portals to Fractals in every city
Not solvable problems:
- people go to LA because there’s people there. It’s a closed circle. If I want to advertise a guild where would I find the most people? LA of course! I could go to Rata Sum, but then less people would hear me.
- It’s the only not starter zone city. If I want to run TA and I can’t find enough people on the map, where am I likely to find people of the appropriate level that would be interested in it? In The Grove or in LA?
And then my fixes are far from perfect – if we move the dungeon vendors outside their dungeons, you’ll need to go to all of those places to preview their dungeon gear. Adding more than one Fractals portal makes no sense. Having more than one WvW portal place makes no sense, because then you’ll have to crowd WvW with all those portals to all those other cities as well.
While cities in Guild Wars 2 are nicely done, I doubt that any change made could make LA not the most popular one.

You don’t need portals to enter WvWvWvW btw, you can enter from the UI.

Agreed. This is definitely something ANet should look into.

Goettel.4389:

We got these awesome cities, mostly abandoned because, well, all the action is in LA and it’s free to get there with just a five second detour through the Mists.

Why not have the option to select one of the cities as our home and have a free teleport there, if only so the obviously massive amount of work you guys put into all the cities isn’t completely wasted, as it is right now ? Alternatively, just add portals to all the cities to the central Mists hub ? Include Ebonhawke, for good measure, I love to start my morning dailies in a city full of yawning (NB. why does everybody in Ebonhawke sound like they’re either bored or very, very sleepy?)

Having free portals available in LA evidently isn’t enough to get more people to use the TP, bank etc. in the other cities, and I think it’s a real shame, if only because it robs me of more opportunities to fall to my death in Rata Sum – the little fella is clumsy like that.

I’m on Piken Squre and theres always quite a few people using the services in DR (DR seems more populated than LA at times aswell), Citadel and The Grove.

Mirta.5029:

Not solvable problems:
- people go to LA because there’s people there. It’s a closed circle. If I want to advertise a guild where would I find the most people? LA of course! I could go to Rata Sum, but then less people would hear me.
- It’s the only not starter zone city. If I want to run TA and I can’t find enough people on the map, where am I likely to find people of the appropriate level that would be interested in it? In The Grove or in LA?
And then my fixes are far from perfect – if we move the dungeon vendors outside their dungeons, you’ll need to go to all of those places to preview their dungeon gear. Adding more than one Fractals portal makes no sense. Having more than one WvW portal place makes no sense, because then you’ll have to crowd WvW with all those portals to all those other cities as well.
While cities in Guild Wars 2 are nicely done, I doubt that any change made could make LA not the most popular one.

I’m not convinced anything about it is “unsolvable” – the soon-to-arrive LFG tool and e.g. a word-wide general chat would solve both issues you list. There’s probably some technical hurdles to overcome, but I can’t believe ANet is satisfied with the current ghost-town status of cities other than LA, and I (and evidently plenty of others) hope they can solve this.

Add DEs and and mini-games in cities that reward armor, jewelry, and titles that are exclusive to that city.

They proved they could add events with the Karka event in LA. Why not add something a bit tamer (so that no one dies while afk) within each major city.

People who want to hangout in LA still have their spot, but you get rewarded for go to other places that obviously took A LOT of effort to make.

They are not wasted, Tarnish Coast server uses cities for RP…

But I mention this and get flamed

So maybe if you guys decide to lighten up on RPers, maybe cities wouldn’t feel empty on your server.

Soulstar.7812:

They are not wasted, Tarnish Coast server uses cities for RP…

But I mention this and get flamed

So maybe if you guys decide to lighten up on RPers, maybe cities wouldn’t feel empty on your server.

I haven’t seen any RP-ing on my server (EU Desolation), but I’d welcome anyone RP-ing in the cities or elsewhere. So no flaming here – but having active cities on only one server (if it is only one) is still a waste of great design IMO.

Maybe a seperatie RP-channel would help, so it’s easy to avoid people not RP-ing.

Goettel.4389:

Soulstar.7812:

They are not wasted, Tarnish Coast server uses cities for RP…

But I mention this and get flamed

So maybe if you guys decide to lighten up on RPers, maybe cities wouldn’t feel empty on your server.

I haven’t seen any RP-ing on my server (EU Desolation), but I’d welcome anyone RP-ing in the cities or elsewhere. So no flaming here – but having active cities on only one server (if it is only one) is still a waste of great design IMO.

Maybe a seperatie RP-channel would help, so it’s easy to avoid people not RP-ing.

All the Rpers head to Tarnish Coast server…
Cities are always busy, and sometimes there is overflow.

When I mentioned RPers are needed to make the living world feel busy, I had a flood of player thrash me on this forums when I posted up the Topic in the forums.

If you don’t have RPers… you have this problem with a empty world…
I INVITE ANYONE to come down to Tarnish Coast (guesting) and have compare the cities to the empty server cities on their servers.

Soulstar.7812:

If you don’t have RPers… you have this problem with a empty world…

Other solutions have been suggested in this thread already, but again I’d welcome any RP-activity, whether it spreads players over cities or not – they’re separate issues IMO.

Nayaru.4716:

Mystic forge in all the cities. <3 Dungeon Vendors. <3 One free cultural teleport stone (Like the hall of monuments one) that takes you back to the city of your race. <3 Do want! xD

This, and a teleporter to the fractals. Make it so LA doesn’t have to be the center of the world. Do that, and you’d be seeing people flock to the closest city for their needs. It keeps every city busy, and it helps make it feel like every city is constantly changing (especially if they started giving these to each town over time).

Offering the same thing that is in LA in other cities won’t really give people incentives to move.

Offering things that are unique and not found anywhere else in the game will provide the incentives you need. You could also add everything that makes LA tick.

I don´t even want LA´s special perks like the MF in every city.
This would end up diminishing LA.

As Vorch said, we need unique content in every city.

Hoelbrak has the brawl but it´s pretty much useless ATM ( or does it count towards the Event Daily? ), and I was hoping for the Winterevent to center in there.
But ANet decided to mainly copy the GW1 event, again making LA host it.
Oh well.

Lets hope they wisen up a bit and let the cities exclusively host separate seasonal events, so that they can wake up at least once a year.

Another thing with everyone staying on LA is the Overflow, i like the idea of that and it works smoothly. But it always feels like the same amount of people. I dont know how many there is in every overflow, but lets say you always get the feeling that there are max 50 players in LA. But in truth there are many more but in diffrent overflows.

Would people spread out in different cities the game would feel more populated.

Rifter.6591:

I disagree, transport costs arnt really a issue once you hit lvl 80 and can farm orr for easy cash. And i still spend alot of time in my home city the black citadel just because im familer with it and love the artwork.

I disagree. Transport costs are high and ‘farming’ Orr does nothing for me to help that situation. I see no easy cash anywhere in the game. Except buying gems to convert to gold.

so true……

anet should do something about this…the other cities like the grove and rata sum are so pretty, but lacks life…

Not a bad idea I like it, I mean they did take the time to design these nice cities, and on top of that in Guild Wars 1 and even to this day the cities feel more alive than ever due to their district system while GW2’s feels dead, and that’s kinda bad. Honestly tho there is no real point to go to those cities besides personal story, it would be nice if there was more of a reason tho.

LA is populated because its really the central hub of everything in the game… this includes story line, Fractals, and everything else….

They could add racial benefits to being in your home city though.

Like if you hang out in the grove you get some benefit based on the time spent there.

Or 10% more crafting critical, or 10% return when you use the TP there, cheaper TP list pricing from your home town….. theres alot they could do.

But then the city’s might all be dead anyways because then the player base is so spread out over the races that not only is LA dead but so are the city’s lol.

If there was a way to get to my race’s capital city just as fast as to LA I would constantly be in my capital city just to avoid the loading screen and lag (I would be in the Grove particularily, since it has the awesome advantage of having no loading screens if you tp between its floors ).

For that matter, it would be nice if Anet could just give us 6 nice little buttons somewhere on our UI that port us directly to the capital city of our choice. There really is no need to make us suffer additionnal loading screens nor to transform the Heart of the Mists into a highway. Show the sPvPers some respect !
This is basic quality of life measures. If Anet didn’t want us to tp to LA and other cities for free they should have designed the travel system differently.

A lot of good, and hopefully simple to implement, ideas here. However I’m not sure if ANet thinks there’s anything wrong with how things currently are or if they would prioritise small conveniences over new content and actually assigned resources towards it.

Cities lack population for the same reason most of the zones lack population – There’s no reason to go there outside the personal story. While I love the effort ANet put into creating a beautiful world, the endgame right now is all about loot and community play. World event chests, tiered mat nodes, and predictable event chains have led the looters to Orr and a few other areas. Those like me who want to play in a populated area are forced to go along for the ride.
The Karka event shows just how starved players are for new experiences… at least 80% of the active players had to be in Southsun Cove during the event. After the event ended, SC became deader than Orr.
The Living Story looks promising and will hopefully eventually breathe new life into all zones and cities, but what ANet needs to do is create sustainable reasons for players to play in every zone and city.

DirtyRich.4903:

Cities lack population for the same reason most of the zones lack population – There’s no reason to go there outside the personal story. While I love the effort ANet put into creating a beautiful world, the endgame right now is all about loot and community play. World event chests, tiered mat nodes, and predictable event chains have led the looters to Orr and a few other areas. Those like me who want to play in a populated area are forced to go along for the ride.
The Karka event shows just how starved players are for new experiences… at least 80% of the active players had to be in Southsun Cove during the event. After the event ended, SC became deader than Orr.
The Living Story looks promising and will hopefully eventually breathe new life into all zones and cities, but what ANet needs to do is create sustainable reasons for players to play in every zone and city.

Agree this is how i feel too.

I would definitely love more reasons to spend more time in the starting cities.

As someone else has stated, the map channels for the cities should be linked in all honesty. If there is a technical problem to this then well it’s a shame. I would personally be hanging out in Divinity’s Reach as Lions Arch is too laggy and takes far too long to load.

Even GW1 always had a specific city that would be the main center for players.
First it was Ascalon then Kaineng then Spamadan.

I would love some things that you can only do in the main cities though.

It has always struck me as particularly strange, that the race that invented the asura gates, built the asura gates and charges for the use of asura gates doesn’t have an asura gate to every major city within it’s own city. Instead these poor devils must link to Lion’s Arch so that even their own citizens have to use it as a hub.

For a hyper intelligent race that just seems kinda dumb.

If they added a Mystic Forge and the fractal portal in all the cities, I would leave LA and hang out in rata sum.

Remember the Tixx events during christmas? That was the only time where people flocked to the racial cities. Maybe they can hold regular events at these places to liven up the cities instead of them being ghost towns like now.