Adding Life to the Cities!

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Originally Posted by Mack

I think what would help in giving life to the NPCs themselves is making them important to YOU the player. What I mean is say you pick up a quest in Ul'Dah, that quest can be initiated in Ul'Dah as part of a quest chain and makes it way to another city perhaps where you would meet the same NPC there as well. Or Perhaps a quest kills off an NPC, he should disappear from the city, etc.

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I actually like the idea of NPCs disappearing, but it should be as a sort of city-wide event that everyone knows about and could participate in if they choose to. Like say one of the Gridanian Ambassadors from the Twin Adders is kidnapped in Ul'Dah by one of the more prominant street gangs in Ul'Dah looking to get a ransom. Raubahn immediately orders a squad of The Immortal Flames to dispatch and take them out and you or your group decides to help out. the more people that attend, they could increase the level of difficulty, which shouldn't be hard for SE to figure out since they eventually ended up doing that same sort of programming with Campaign in FFXI. I'd love to be in the middle of a city-wide scrap to save a VIP-NPC.

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Originally Posted by Atomsk

I worry less about the absence of NPCs and more about the absence of actual players.

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While I understand what you mean, as I stated in my OP, I think the lack of life in the game is what drove a lot of players away other than the battle system. I should be immersed within the cities from the get-go when I enter them, not have to look for other players to feel immersed.

Not here but on the Eorzeapedia forums this was one of the things I suggested that SE add the cities. If it be from just adding a random NPC to walk through a door on the second floor out to a balcony and dust off a rug and walk back in, to a mail carrier who delivers the same letters all day every day. Some kind of NPC interaction with the world would be a much welcomed form of immersion.

(Sorry if there are any typos or bad grammar, as I am a little intoxicated ^^y)

I remember in Sandy there was a little delivery boy you would always see running back and forth from the AH to this house on the right. He always had the exact same route but I always remembered that lil NPC D: simply because he was one of the few NPCs that actually ran inside the city

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Originally Posted by Atomsk

I worry less about the absence of NPCs and more about the absence of actual players.

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Sad but true.

You don't even see PCs in Gridania, much less NPCs.

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Originally Posted by Kailok

I remember in Sandy there was a little delivery boy you would always see running back and forth from the AH to this house on the right. He always had the exact same route but I always remembered that lil NPC D: simply because he was one of the few NPCs that actually ran inside the city

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hey I remember that kid! NPC's add life to dead cities... and yes even a city full of players can look dead when they are all standing still with "Bazaar bags" over their head. If a game can make you care about what happens, you can sometimes even come to feel like you are those citizens guardian. Every player is a hero, they rarely need saving, but a little errand boy? He can't fight goblins.

I think if they had made Gridania a more interesting city people might happen across it more. >.>; When they originally released concept art for Gridania it seemed like a city that bloomed at night with lights of lights. It also seemed bigger.

I think that's another problem I have with the current cities. They are in total about the size of one zone from the FFXI cities. Gridania is about the same size as Windurst Walls (I think that was the name). They are supposed to be grand cities but there isn't really much to them. The biggest city is obviously Limsa, but I've always liked Ul'Dah a bit because of the idea behind the city. It was kind of like the Jeuno of FFXIV in the fact that it was where everyone went to trade and make a life for themselves.

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Originally Posted by Roughgalaxy

hey I remember that kid! NPC's add life to dead cities... and yes even a city full of players can look dead when they are all standing still with "Bazaar bags" over their head. If a game can make you care about what happens, you can sometimes even come to feel like you are those citizens guardian. Every player is a hero, they rarely need saving, but a little errand boy? He can't fight goblins.

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Right! There should be something us adventurers are trying to save. From what I've seen noone really has any feel or connection for their starter city like players did in FFXI. I don't mean to keep comparing the game to FFXI, it's just the game I played longest and I'm able to take more comparisons of general player activity from that.

Windurstians and San d'Orians were always having a blood feud on my server because they were always battling for top place in world-beastmen-dominance.

Bastok was just there <,< lol'

In fact, I think the Conquest Points system was another thing that gave you reason to have pride in your city. It made you want to get first place so you could get more points. And if the beastmen took it, you HAD to take it back >:O

If I could like this a Hundred time and SE would put it in, I'd do it.

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Originally Posted by Kailok

Right! There should be something us adventurers are trying to save. From what I've seen noone really has any feel or connection for their starter city like players did in FFXI. I don't mean to keep comparing the game to FFXI, it's just the game I played longest and I'm able to take more comparisons of general player activity from that.

Windurstians and San d'Orians were always having a blood feud on my server because they were always battling for top place in world-beastmen-dominance.

Bastok was just there <,< lol'

In fact, I think the Conquest Points system was another thing that gave you reason to have pride in your city. It made you want to get first place so you could get more points. And if the beastmen took it, you HAD to take it back >:O

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And that brought other small things that added life to the game like the regional vendors that showed up depending on who controlled that region. Supply quests for OP warps.

Also having the OP warps to Ronfaure, Gustaberg, Saruta were awesome and a big slap in the face to that nation when your nation took it = D