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

[Bluebun]

Well, this is just a small idea that I think would help get people to at least want to take leves from the other cities:

- Currently most of the rewards for completing leves are garbage. Getting a single silver nugget or wing glue from leves is just really junk.
- Change the rewards to HQ materials. (Like a +3 silver nuggets from Uldah) I would honestly go out of my way and spend time in Gridania for hq wood working materials if you could only find it in Gridania.

I know this wouldn't help THAT much, but I guess it could help a little, and little things add up eventually.

[Perrin_Aybarra]

Well, this is just a small idea that I think would help get people to at least want to take leves from the other cities:

- Currently most of the rewards for completing leves are garbage. Getting a single silver nugget or wing glue from leves is just really junk.
- Change the rewards to HQ materials. (Like a +3 silver nuggets from Uldah) I would honestly go out of my way and spend time in Gridania for hq wood working materials if you could only find it in Gridania.

I know this wouldn't help THAT much, but I guess it could help a little, and little things add up eventually.

It would help a little bit like the guild marks reward BUT what would you do after you complete the leve? Go back to Ul'Dah because that is where everyone is, where the trade is, where you have more chance of finding a group for instances or grind parties. We need stuff like linked wards and common chat channel to act like a permanent solution. No need to go back to Ul'Dah if you prefer LL or Gridania if you know you can find the same gears and not miss on groups wherever you are.

[miqokini]

I wish this could be fixed. I think there are two reasons for it. One being that Ul'dah is basically FFXIV's Jeuno, and the other being that, well, the population on most servers is pretty damn low.

The second reason always has me fearing for XIV's future. I honestly believe this will become a great game, and it's already quickly heading in the right direction. Square just needs a way to get the word out that the game is actually worth playing now. That, however, is going to be very hard. As they say, first impressions last a lifetime, and this game granted horrible first impressions.

I doubt most reviewers will even want to give it a second chance. Square will have to bribe them.

And the issue is far worse in XIV. At least there were still people in each city in XI. I'm lucky to see over 5 people in all of Limsa and Grid.

[Zanfire]

what will help is the re-design of the world. The thing that FFXI did well was spread the 3 citys appart enough from not only each other, but from the areas like camps and jeuno that it was pretty even so no city dominated. Right now uldah is not only right in the center, but the city is not over sized. The one thing FFXIV can learn from FFXI is that ...well bigger is not always better.

[Fiosha_Maureiba]

CptnGumble is correct. Ul'dah is the most ergonomically designed city, nearly equadistant between the other two cities.

Limsa has one adventuring class who can get marks from it. Has a two-three story town structure with facilities spaced out and the city exit quite a run. Plus it's far from Gridania.

Gridania requires the most running to get to from Ul'dah (since Ul'dah to Limsa, once you get to the boat, you boat into the city rather than running to the border to run throough more zone. Maps have limited paths one could take. Facilities also spaced out.

[Velhart]

The sad truth it, this is something that happens in every MMO. People want to be grouped together for one simple reason, "convenience". I guarantee when Ishgard comes out, all three original city states will be deserted. Even in WoW, each expansion had made a transition to a central area of convenience (Stormwind > Shatt. > Dalaran > Stormwind (again)), FFXI was also like this (San D'Oria(I think) > Jeuno > Aht Urghan > Jeuno(again)).

It is really hard to get people to spread out in MMO's. The reason Limsa and Gridania had a lot of people earlier in the game was people didn't really know where would be the central place to gather, plus no body felt like partying, so it didn't really matter anyways.

These are the only things I can imagine would "help", but inevitably not work that way in the end.

-Bring in universal AH, where all three cities share the same market place.

-Put in a seperate server wise General chat window (Don't know FFXIV's technical limitations.).

-Make the search feature into a system like FFXI's since you can invite anywhere.

-Make transportation between cities more convenient, airship may fix that.

-Make Grand Company dailies frequent to the point you rather just stay in your city.

While these could possibly work, there is one factor that still holds it back, Anima. People don't want to spend their anima if they don't have to, so staying in a set area will possibly prevent you from being the one having to port.

So overall, this is a staple in MMO's, it is a damn shame, I do hate seeing LL and Gridania empty, they are gorgeous areas, but that is just how it is. Darnassas and Exodar in WoW were beautiful areas also. I would count on Ishgard being the new central area for people. Might be cool enough you never want to leave it.

[Zanfire]

@ Vel: actually sandy was never like that, i played pretty early in the games life and for quite a while the 3 main citys had solid populations. Of course Jueno was the higher level gathering point...and your right, every game will always have one, which im fine with, but they need reasons to make you go back to your home areas and get use out of it for the lower end levels.

[Velhart]

@ Vel: actually sandy was never like that, i played pretty early in the games life and for quite a while the 3 main citys had solid populations. Of course Jueno was the higher level gathering point...and your right, every game will always have one, which im fine with, but they need reasons to make you go back to your home areas and get use out of it for the lower end levels.

I was thinking mostly of the JP version before it came out in NA. Jeuno was already a hot spot when FFXI first came out here. I only remember someone saying San D'Oria was a heavily populated area before Jeuno. At least that is how it was on Gilgamesh.

[Xenor]

They could start by giving you more reason to visit the various guilds... oh wait nevermind.

[Verecund]

They should add a monetary bonus for selling in given locations (locations are chosen at random across time) and should somehow accommodate new content (zones). City wards also need to be downplayed somehow.

The Retainer system currently fails because it is a 'sandbox' concept that has suffered a 'themepark' implementation...