Design: Out-leveling zones = Ghost towns. Thoughts?

[Ksenia]

It's very difficult to keep any given area in an MMO world alive. The only game able to do it was SWG because of their resource system. Level and monster variety wasn't an issue because certain universal gear required Naboo wooly or Tat leather and there was always motive to return to those places and look for the latest spawn qualities.

FF14 could make a base component system for the crafting and have regional resource groups like Limsa wool or Uldahn Iron that is always in demand. Aside from that, why do I need to kill level 8 mobs at level 50?

[indira]

auto level sync in the zones if your a higher level it drops you to the highest level of that area ,then nothing will go to waste. there no point of making it where you can out level a zone.

[Tonkra]

At least they could fill the areas a little more with wandering NPC's thats would i like to see in general also.

at least that would make the world seem to be just a little more alive.

[Zhyrios]

i think the way they worked it near the end of 1.x service was fine, even at max level i was running around doing quests and such that forced me back into those lower level areas, even if it wasn't combat or leveling related, quests took me there and i met plenty of new players

[Virtuso]

i think the way they worked it near the end of 1.x service was fine, even at max level i was running around doing quests and such that forced me back into those lower level areas, even if it wasn't combat or leveling related, quests took me there and i met plenty of new players

Ah that's an interesting point. They already said they'll continue the story line with each patch and add new quests constantly. Doubtful they would restrict all of it to high level areas. I could see them making endgame players run through old locations.

[Siegtaru]

I completely agree, but a big thing about MMO's is that there's usually a "hub" of some sort, no matter what your level is. In XI, I don't quite know what the hub would have been before NA launch, but when I started, Windurst/San d'Oria/Bastok were often fairly abandoned except around event season (I remember the event that was occuring when I started was something where an NPC threw me into a very high level zone, and I was perma-stealth, and I had to find a candle or something).

It wasn't until about level 20 that I realized the "hub" in XI at the time was Jeuno! FFXIV 1.0 never had a "Jeuno", and for whatever reason (I came back to the game in 2012 after a long break from launch nightmare etc), the hub in 1.0 was suddenly Ul'dah, and I was always in Gridania when I played at launch so this took me by surprise. Not so much that Ul'dah was bustling with players, but moreso that Gridania was usually dead as hell except for the occassional crafters and/or levequesters running to the Adventurer's Guild to grab another. No, I don't count people running to Louisoix to turn in their Primal quests. D:

In XI we didn't see a hub change with the next expansion (Tavnazia never got the buzz SE wanted, or SE didn't want it to be so busy, not quite sure about that one...) and people remained in Jeuno for the most part. But then, ToAU brought the "land to the east", or "far" east, I forget which. Combined with Besieged, Aht Urghan Whitegate and its sprawling glory of new expansion content took Jeuno's spot, but not entirely, since it wasn't as practical if you weren't at a certain level at the time, not being able to complete most of the content/storyline, and it made much more sense to stay in Jeuno in that case.

I wouldn't mind seeing more of that fresh kind of thing, because right now it feels like the community population was quite lopsided for whatever reason, but it also seems silly to spread them out accross three cities. Need to start with another Jeuno, which is what alot of people were hoping Ishgard would be back before ARR started to happen. They probably still do! I never thought that Ishgard would be "neutral" enough to be used as a central hub between the nations, and would have seen Sharlayan or a liberated Ala Mihgo as the more logical options. We'll just have to see how history was written in the "5 years" we're gone from the world and what not.

[Miliant]

Through US launch and most of COP, the 3 starter nations in FFXI remained fairly active, even though high level players still tended to gather in Jeuno (mainly for shouts). However, it was when the game decided to centralize everything in Aht Urhgan/Whitegate that the three nations actually died out. And, I mean, it's OK to have everything you need in a single place, as long as that place is hard to access and it would be a pain to have to go back to town to get something else (say, being connected by a 10 minute boat trip to and fro, as opposed to having an npc that will take you anywhere you want for just a coin).

In the end, how long you can keep a low-level area alive depends exclusively on how well you scatter your content. But eventually, all low level areas die out because players tend to gather around in a single place for the comfort of communication and easy access to what they need. With so many classes to level, this game could actually keep low level areas alive for quite a while, but they will eventually die, mainly because the majority of its playerbase are legacy players with most if not all jobs at cap. But also because it's natural for people to move on to higher level areas with a higher concentration of players.

[Zumi]

No matter what there will always be some hub city people gather.

More recently in FFXI Abyssea for the most part moved everyone back to Jeuno, a bunch of people came back to FFXI to level past 75 and Port Jeuno started crashing a lot, so they made it so you could /yell and see shouts for groups in all parts of Jeuno.

I think the thing to learn from this is if you can see the main chat channel for forming groups in more then 1 zone then people can spread out more and not all pack themselves into 1 zone.

[Miliant]

No matter what there will always be some hub city people gather.

More recently in FFXI Abyssea for the most part moved everyone back to Jeuno, a bunch of people came back to FFXI to level past 75 and Port Jeuno started crashing a lot, so they made it so you could /yell and see shouts for groups in all parts of Jeuno.

I think the thing to learn from this is if you can see the main chat channel for forming groups in more then 1 zone then people can spread out more and not all pack themselves into 1 zone.

I agree on the multi-area chat. In this respect, even though the content finder is a great addition to the game, it will actually help zones look more vacant since groups made up of members from different servers will be ported straight into a dungeon instance.

As you've said, multi-area chat gives players the freedom to choose where they want to be and still not miss out on finding groups to tackle content. A LFG chat channel that works across all areas in the server and that you can easily join or leave would definitely alleviate the need for players to gather in a single place when they want to find occasional PUG content.

It really would be as easy as giving all players a "Recruitment"/"Looking for group" Linkshell at the beginning of the game, then choosing whether you want to display chat from that LS or not.

[Elexia]

I think the thing to learn from this is if you can see the main chat channel for forming groups in more then 1 zone then people can spread out more and not all pack themselves into 1 zone.

Since we're "learning from things" one thing we can learn about having 1 universal chat channel is it gives the RMT a better way to spam people.

Fyi: The main hubs of FFXI were Port Jeuno for NA/EU players and Whitegate for Japanese players on most server due to the idiocy of shouts in Jeuno lol.

There will always be a hub where people gather, but most MMOs make a lot of zones barren by forcing the player out of it to the next zone through quest chaining, since once there's no more quests in an area or city, why be there? That's the problem with most newer MMOs. Also, haven't you noticed yet that most MMO Hubs tend to be where the quest chains end and there's no longer any more quests or content to do for players? Where the main dungeon hub (content) tend to be?