Guild Wars 2

im standing in LA and hear no sound tho people are there.
what if there was a this that if you play for 15 min in total in a day in a capital city you get 1 gold, once per day and account bound,
that will fill cities with folks and instruments. and another reason to buy an instrument

So someone can just go to some corner of a main city and spam keys for 15 minutes and get 1 gold? Or worse randomly spam keys just making noise around everyone else to earn their gold. Not to mention the fact that people have to buy insturments from the gem store (with the exception of the 2 bells that were winters day rewards) in order to earn their one gold. Many people would not be happy about this. Anytime you tie gem store items into ingame currency/items that can only be earned via a gem store purchase people won’t be a fan of that.

then how can you make people play?
make the city feel more alive

How about the option to turn off public music.

There is already a slider to turn off music inturment sounds. But that kind of goes agianst the purpose of what the OP was asking for. If everyone turns it off because people are just spaming noise for a reward then the OPs request has no point.

How about a section (or sections) of LA where there’s an NPC band playing on the gem store instruments? That way we don’t get people spamming one note on that bell and the music can be tuned out for those who don’t care to hear it.

Why not let players be literal street performers?

I could work exactly the way it does in real life:

you have a tip jar item you can plop down in cities, and play an instrument next to, and players can interact with it which gives them the option to drop some coins in.

Or you can tell jokes in /say or whatever else you can think of to entertain people.

Gw2 is kinda lacking in systems to give players random fun non-combat ways to interact with each other. The introduction of the Chapel seems to indicate that they would actually like to start working on changing this.

It’s voluntary, so only people that are actually playing or being entertaining will get tips from other players (spamming noise would get you nothing)

If there ARE NPC tippers, maybe it could be an activity along the lines of the wintersday bells where it gives you a song you actually have to play correctly?

I would love to have some more interactive events and activities IN the cities outside of holidays.

SindeeCyanide.9687:

How about a section (or sections) of LA where there’s an NPC band playing on the gem store instruments? That way we don’t get people spamming one note on that bell and the music can be tuned out for those who don’t care to hear it.

That is a really good idea, and if I were Anet’s marketing team, I’d set the designers right on that. If absolutely nothing else, that is a good way to let players know what the cash shop instruments sound like, and if people like what they hear it will encourage them to buy their own to play. Maybe once a day you can give THEM a tip and maybe get a small karma return or achievement or something. (Like wintersday donations)

Arioso.8519:

Why not let players be literal street performers?

I could work exactly the way it does in real life:

you have a tip jar item you can plop down in cities, and play an instrument next to, and players can interact with it which gives them the option to drop some coins in.

The tip jar is an interesting idea and one I have seen posted before. But to once again be a downer, Anet might then have to reconsider their policy that allows people to use macros to play musical insturments. This might give those people a perceived advantage while “competing” for tips as they simply stand there and push one key to play music all day. Of course people can already tip players via mail if they so choose, but I thought I would bring the issue up anyway.

JustTrogdor.7892:

The tip jar is an interesting idea and one I have seen posted before. But to once again be a downer, Anet might then have to reconsider their policy that allows people to use macros to play musical insturments. This might give those people a perceived advantage while “competing” for tips as they simply stand there and push one key to play music all day. Of course people can already tip players via mail if they so choose, but I thought I would bring the issue up anyway.

Yeah, that’s a solid point.

Personally, I don’t even feel macros are cheating because it’s awkward to play instruments in a skillbar to begin with. And this is coming from an actual musician; if gw2 instruments worked with my midi keyboard I’d be able to crank out some serious tunage. Even if you’re very good at working the system for in game instruments you’re limited to simple playing.

And lag makes it near impossible to try to do an in-game ensemble.

I actually wouldn’t mind a playstyle where instead of playing “live” you can cue notes ahead of time and they’re forced to play with their set timing/tempo. (You’d have to add keys for rests, somehow though)
I wouldn’t mind a “Conductor’s baton” type instrument that instead allowed you to set a timing for other players to sync with you which would let players play in a group even with online lag issues.

Is it completely pointless to Gw2 as a whole? oh yeah. But it might be an interesting guild activity or something. I’d totally start a band/orchestra guild just for fun.