Player Run Companies: What do we want to see?

[Vesperia]

I can say that my group and I would certainly use an instanced town. It would get us off the streets of Ul'dah, and give us a nice warm place to sleep at night. That aside, why would you be worried about diluting the player populace in cities? I mean, it's bad if it feels truly and entirely barren, but I imagine these changes and this content would raise the overall population of the game dramatically.

That said, having loads of players standing around in the cities isn't exactly beneficial. Apart from spec reasons, like displaying less models, less load times, etc, there's the fact that the community, as it stands, is largely a silent one. Shouting in Ul'dah doesn't land you a deep, meaningful, or long conversation. (On Mysidia, at least) In fact, I ran a little social experiment where I tried to start the community talking by shouting and chatting in Ul'dah for like 2 weeks running. The overwhelming response were tells filled with hate, that I was abusing the shout feature by talking to people outside of my linkshell, and that I was taking advantage of their eyes against their will. The community doesn't seem to desire comraderie from strangers. It seems most people keep their chats to Linkshell.

Which would make instanced cities, where you hang out with your company, exactly the same as the cities are now, just with less character models afk in random places.

Why even have the cities then? Why even have a peristent world if we're just going make the game an entrance lobby.

[Caidryn]

Why even have the cities then? Why even have a peristent world if we're just going make the game an entrance lobby.

I don't believe company run housing would make the cities any more or less useful, except perhaps the shops. If you believe the Cities would be useless entirely because less people are standing in it, I don't believe your issue is with company housing, but the game itself instead.

Now, if someone were able to succeed where I failed and manage to get Ul'dah to chat in a friendly manner on a regular basis, it would be a different story altogether. But as is, options never hurt.

[Vesperia]

I don't believe company run housing would make the cities any more or less useful, except perhaps the shops. If you believe the Cities would be useless entirely because less people are standing in it, I don't believe your issue is with company housing, but the game itself instead.

Now, if someone were able to succeed where I failed and manage to get Ul'dah to chat in a friendly manner on a regular basis, it would be a different story altogether. But as is, options never hurt.

Since when did MMOs become entrance-lobbies to instanced content?

What is wrong with everyone?

Give us persistent player-housing with an actual incentive or don't bother. Putting it in the game as a frivolous, instanced, town-simluator will be meaningless. Meaningless fluff. Nobody will use it, and even if they did use it, then that itself will be a problem simply because it takes people away from the MMO and puts them into their own partitioned-off instances (which is an affront to the fundamental definition of an MMO). People should always be in the same persistent game-world.

Besides, if you want people in Uldah to chat with you, then how about saying something interesting?

[Xatsh]

I want to see the Following:

1) Company Housing
2) Large Scale Battles to make use of the company
3) Company based quest
4) Ship building (Airship or Sea)
5) Honestly, a ranking system for a guild would be interesting. I always strived to build the best guild possible a achievement thing with minor buffs would be nice.
6) Bank system
7) Advanced Admin controls... aka make it where they do not suck
8) Calendar/Lsmes function so I can more easily schedule events
9) Guild Storage (extra storage)
10) Special NPCs for hire within the guild/company hall thing. To handle things like extra storage, maby a quick link to an AH/Retainer system, I don't know get creative SE.

[Caidryn]

Transport:

As your company develops you should be able to unlock Private Chocobo stable's so you can raise and breed your own Chocobo's to suit your needs. Further along be able to buy and upgrade Private Airships and Boats.

I hadn't even thought about a chocobo stable prior. I bet there's plenty we can think up as a community that may not have crossed the minds of those at SE. So if you want to see this feature implemented in a big way, speak out now to try and get your ideas seen. Once the development focus shifts over to making them, it'll likely already be to late to make changes.

[Seidaku]

And here I thought one of the biggest drawbacks to FF13 was the lack of towns and places to visit. Creating instanced versions of player run communities relieves the stress to the developers to change the world to include them while giving the game a larger depth to develop.

The main hubs of the 3 starting cities will never die out, companies will be constantly looking to better themselves and the best place to do that will be in the starting areas, incorporating company run instances will just be expanding upon that.

Also, to make it more fun and interesting I think providing a reason to build upon these towns for titles, positions, experience and gain is more than enough reason for people to want to be a part of them. The bigger and stronger your towns become the more options that open up for crafting the bigger devices that could be made available. Airships, boats, vehicles, calvary of chocobos and such.

This would provide a much larger reason to improve your characters beyond the normal grind to 50 in a job with only 3 cities to gather and outlying outposts to do missions. A good example of what could be gained from building character status, guild and company renown can be seen in EvE Online.

[Vesperia]

And here I thought one of the biggest drawbacks to FF13 was the lack of towns and places to visit. Creating instanced versions of player run communities relieves the stress to the developers to change the world to include them while giving the game a larger depth to develop.

The main hubs of the 3 starting cities will never die out, companies will be constantly looking to better themselves and the best place to do that will be in the starting areas, incorporating company run instances will just be expanding upon that.

Also, to make it more fun and interesting I think providing a reason to build upon these towns for titles, positions, experience and gain is more than enough reason for people to want to be a part of them. The bigger and stronger your towns become the more options that open up for crafting the bigger devices that could be made available. Airships, boats, vehicles, calvary of chocobos and such.

This would provide a much larger reason to improve your characters beyond the normal grind to 50 in a job with only 3 cities to gather and outlying outposts to do missions. A good example of what could be gained from building character status, guild and company renown can be seen in EvE Online.

No one will care about anyone else's instanced towns.

What renown is there to be had if players aren't even in the same world?

Do I care what some alien is doing in an alternate dimension?

[TempestReve]

I'm going to disagree on your last comment Vesperia - surely the LS you are currently the most active in, is on good relation with other large LS's? Along with that, I'm sure that most of the larger end game LS's currently will prefer to make their own Companies instead of merging... that being said, I'm sure your allies would stop in every so often to take a peek at their mates accomplishments, and maybe even have a bit of friendly competition in developing their "city".

[Krausus]

I kind of have to agree with Vesperia somewhat. I would rather there be housing hubs in the world then have instanced cities, at least that way people could come across your city without having to look for it in a list, there is a ton of empty space in the world why not have dedicated areas for company housing/city building. you could limit the amount of housing hubs per area and place certain criteria to be eligible to own one.

This would also open a reason to have player Airships that will transport you to the major city hubs from your player cities

Coming from AoC I can see the negatives of instanced player cities.

Could you imagine walking up on something that looks like a hamlet to find out it is a player own city designed to the players liking with there own shops/retainers that you can buy from, as well as guild shops to get buffs and craft at.

You would never get to enjoy that if cities where instanced.

[Vesperia]

Age of Conan is a perfect example of why instanced towns dont work. Nobody uses them and there is no incentive for using them.