How to Decentralize Ul'dah

[Jericho]

Except that it won't be, unless it links the wards. Think about it, who's going to want to be the first to go set up shop in a new market, when the existing market is still in another city? What would be the point? Unless everyone moves, you'd just have to go back, anyway. Even now, with many people branching out to Grid because their leves are better for SP, the MW in Grid is still struggling. Why? Because not enough people are setting up shop there for it to work, so people are giving up and going back to ole reliable.

Basically, unless enough people move to Ishgard for it to be self-sustaining (kinda doubtful), Uldah will continue to be the only market in this game. Even if enough people do move over, after a few months, we'll be having this same discussion, only replacing "Uldah" with "Ishgard."

It's not an "if"... They will move over. The majority of the population wants it to be the central hub and will move as soon as they can. The one major city you can't start in serves as a common ground. The home cities are for doing things you specifically have to in them, and for enjoying yourself in your personal home space. Questing, gathering together, forming will be done in the major city. It doesnt take much. The market is a bunch of people standing around with items in their bazaar.

Theres nothing wrong with Ish being the new space (see Jeuno).

[Viridiana]

It's not an "if"... They will move over. The majority of the population wants it to be the central hub and will move as soon as they can. The one major city you can't start in serves as a common ground. The home cities are for doing things you specifically have to in them, and for enjoying yourself in your personal home space. Questing, gathering together, forming will be done in the major city. It doesnt take much. The market is a bunch of people standing around with items in their bazaar.

Theres nothing wrong with Ish being the new space (see Jeuno).

Even if we grant that most everyone moves to Ishgard, you didn't really address the last sentence of my post. What's to keep us from having this same conversation a few months after Ishgard opens, only complaining that, "Hey, guys, I've done all I want in Ishgard. I'd like to head back to LL now"?

[Technolust]

But then why not just let people buy that item direct from the item search menu instead of having to go into the MW in the first place?

I would tend to believe that the reason this isn't possible right now is because of the way the game was coded/designed. Since the entire dynamic of the game was based upon selling stuff through retainers/markets, I would tend to think that the baseline code is not setup to deal with an auction house. Some of the features of the game, and the way they have made changes makes me believe that this is the case.

[Jericho]

Even if we grant that most everyone moves to Ishgard, you didn't really address the last sentence of my post. What's to keep us from having this same conversation a few months after Ishgard opens, only complaining that, "Hey, guys, I've done all I want in Ishgard. I'd like to head back to LL now"?

I doubt anyone will have a problem with Ishgard being the central hub, whether they want to head over and hang out in LL for a while or not. The problem people have right now is that of the 3 starting city-states, one is clearly the "better" choice, and that just breeds too much animosity... The fun-loving "My city is better than your city" banter isn't quite as harmless when one party is correct. When Ish is the place to go to work, and the 3 starting cities are our home, there shouldn't be any issues. The Jeuno example comes to mind... The social map can pretty much be copy and pasted off FFXI.

[Viridiana]

I doubt anyone will have a problem with Ishgard being the central hub, whether they want to head over and hang out in LL for a while or not. The problem people have right now is that of the 3 starting city-states, one is clearly the "better" choice, and that just breeds too much animosity... The fun-loving "My city is better than your city" banter isn't quite as harmless when one party is correct. When Ish is the place to go to work, and the 3 starting cities are our home, there shouldn't be any issues. The Jeuno example comes to mind... The social map can pretty much be copy and pasted off FFXI.

Except that there will still be people who won't want to hang out in Ishgard. I could care less if it winds up being the central hub, at some point I'm going to want to hang out in another city for a while. When that time comes, I shouldn't wind up cut off from the rest of the world.

Again, I'm coming from having played WoW for years. There, if I went to the least popular city in the game, I could still communicate with the players in the other cities. There was very little chance of my missing out on anything that was going on, and the entire market was still there for me to use. The only concern I might have would be transportation, and that wasn't a likely concern, either.

If Ishgard opened tomorrow with no changes to chat or to the MW system, the best we could hope for is a mass migration to Ishgard. The worst would be what I mentioned before with the market staying in Uldah. Either way, Limsa and Gridania would continue to be deserted, and those of us who prefer to stay in one of them would now have two other cities we'd have to go to to get stuff done, neither of which we'd want to spend much time in.

One major solution, though, is already confirmed as being planned: cross-zone chat channels. All that's left, then, is to hope they also decide to link the economies.

[VeranRamaden]

I honestly think it is just the games fault that Ul'Dah is the center.
The story, unknowingly to the creators, would make Ul'Dah the main city.
If they would have had each city state have their own story from the beginning
to end of the scenario as they should have, wouldn't be a problem.
They could have had 3 primal fights leviathan, ifrit, titan
for each city state. That would have kept each city decently full.
Then grand company added on top of that, bam more incentive to feel pride for your
starting city. They screwed up MAJOR by making the story so quick and streamlined.
That is the reason Ul'Dah is center - it was made so without knowing.

[DantesAmore]

AH isnt the only issue people want a central city like "Jueno" so we can see all the shouts for partys and raids etc. . .

[darkstarpoet1]

I honestly think it is just the games fault that Ul'Dah is the center.
The story, unknowingly to the creators, would make Ul'Dah the main city.
If they would have had each city state have their own story from the beginning
to end of the scenario as they should have, wouldn't be a problem.
They could have had 3 primal fights leviathan, ifrit, titan
for each city state. That would have kept each city decently full.
Then grand company added on top of that, bam more incentive to feel pride for your
starting city. They screwed up MAJOR by making the story so quick and streamlined.
That is the reason Ul'Dah is center - it was made so without knowing.

honestly, i moved to uldah well before the mass migration before the server population even died. why did i move there? it wasn't because of the story. it wasn't because that's where most people were. it was because i was working on multiple classes at once and very rarely port anywhere and prefer to run places.

if my main point was limsa(which it was my starting zone) to get to grid i had to take the boat and run by uldah to run to grid.

if my main point was grid i had to run past uldah and then take the boat to get to limsa.

by spending most of my time in uldah if i wanted to go to either city i was already halfway. i moved there because of pure convenience and t being centrally located on the map.

[Venat]

Ul'dah has best city theme.
Uldah has best navitgation between Fields to City and places inside the city compared to Limsa...

Ul'dah has been designed to be better then Grinndia & Limsa.

Its mainly the other 2 citys that need improvements. Would be nice to see Limsa get a Iron Wire Rail Car that connected from Floor2 outside of the leve guild that wired to somewhere near the MRD/Finishing Guild. That would make it faster to travel to far location.

[Akira_Tenshi]

Just add a bloody AH that is linked with all cities. I'm sick of this crappy market ward.