Repopulating Gridania and Limsa Lominsa (how can we spread out?)

[Hubert]

There's really no way to fix this and it's not an issue with only FFXIV. Almost all games will have a central player hub including, but not limited to, FFXI (Jueno/Whitegate) and WoW (Org>Shattrath>Dalaran>Org). The devs are doing a good job trying to balance the importance of each city through levequests, grand companies, task board, and guilds but at the end of the day, Ul'dah is the most centralized location and thus will be the most populated.

Airships may change this but for now it's simply common sense to make your base at Ul'dah where it is easiest to reach the other cities from.

[Viridiana]

There's really no way to fix this and it's not an issue with only FFXIV. Almost all games will have a central player hub including, but not limited to, FFXI (Jueno/Whitegate) and WoW (Org>Shattrath>Dalaran>Org). The devs are doing a good job trying to balance the importance of each city through levequests, grand companies, task board, and guilds but at the end of the day, Ul'dah is the most centralized location and thus will be the most populated.

Airships may change this but for now it's simply common sense to make your base at Ul'dah where it is easiest to reach the other cities from.

Hmm. . . it was less of an issue in WoW. Yes, everyone set Shattrath/Dalaran as their homes, but neither of those places had market access (not counting trade chat). As such, in order to do business, people would take the convenient portals from those cities back to whichever capital city they liked most. I don't recall ever seeing Stormwind or Orgrimmar as deserted as LL and Grid are. Heck, they usually had more people in front of their AHs than LL and Grid have in their entire cities. . .

Yes, transportation is a large part of it. Also important, though, is giving players a reason to frequent multiple cities. They've started this with the leve changes and the grand companies, but they took a step backwards by increasing the retainer limit in Uldah. . .