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

[Virtuso]

Yup Ul'dah was the best choice for a number of gameplay reasons. It was seen as the center of the games world since it in the middle of the other two cities. Gridania's zone design was horrific, no one wanted to level there. Limsa's bridges and towers were annoying and time consuming. Ul'dah was the perfect balance with all the major NPC services compacted neatly together on a single street near the Market, Ather Crystal and leve counter. With simple open zone design for leveling outside.

Plus the main story line took you to Ul'dah repeatedly. And the market system was annoying and tedious as heck at first with no search feature, checking the three cities markets was a big waste of time, better for everyone to cram into Ul'dahs markets and just hang around there.

After that then I'm sure the mob mentality set in with everyone going to Ul'dah because that's where everyone was.

[ZakarnRosewood]

Yup Ul'dah was the best choice for a number of gameplay reasons. It was seen as the center of the games world since it in the middle of the other two cities. Gridania's zone design was horrific, no one wanted to level there. Limsa's bridges and towers were annoying and time consuming. Ul'dah was the perfect balance with all the major NPC services compacted neatly together on a single street near the Market, Ather Crystal and leve counter. With simple open zone design for leveling outside.

Plus the main story line took you to Ul'dah repeatedly. And the market system was annoying and tedious as heck at first with no search feature, checking the three cities markets was a big waste of time, better for everyone to cram into Ul'dahs markets and just hang around there.

After that then I'm sure the mob mentality set in with everyone going to Ul'dah because that's where everyone was.

You made some very good points! Hadn't thought of it that way. With any luck ARR will balance things out a little bit. Still being a central point cant really be changed but Grid looks like it has really opened up. I've always been drawn to the forest type places myself and was disappointed with 1.0's design.

[Apricoth]

Thank you for bringing this up. This is always lurking in the back of my mind. Some good ideas posted in response here as well. I will also gravitate towards how FFXI handled this problem - at least in the early years of its life. I appreciated the fact that the starting towns and surrounding areas were not complete ghost towns. It makes me sad to see ghost towns in my most favorite games because the developers were so tunnel-sighted about the end game, forgetting about the little guys or people like me that like to relive old memories (or level up a new job/class).

[Kraggy]

Thank you for bringing this up. This is always lurking in the back of my mind. Some good ideas posted in response here as well. I will also gravitate towards how FFXI handled this problem - at least in the early years of its life. I appreciated the fact that the starting towns and surrounding areas were not complete ghost towns. It makes me sad to see ghost towns in my most favorite games because the developers were so tunnel-sighted about the end game, forgetting about the little guys or people like me that like to relive old memories (or level up a new job/class).

Which period of XI are you referring to, because by the time I started in April '05 the only time I saw high-level players outside of Jeuno was as they flashed past on chocobo, rented from the Crags. I hardly call that any meaningful interaction between lowbies and highbies and the world being populated.

[Apricoth]

Which period of XI are you referring to, because by the time I started in April '05 the only time I saw high-level players outside of Jeuno was as they flashed past on chocobo, rented from the Crags. I hardly call that any meaningful interaction between lowbies and highbies and the world being populated.

Oh, I was not speaking of interaction with high levels. I was speaking of just seeing people in general.

[Alaltus]

I'm sure this has been said but i'll say it any way. The best way to keep each town/area alive is to spread out content, give each town something big to want to participate in and desireable even beyound the level cap. Like for example:

Limsa = Arena
Uldah = Gold Saucer
Gridania = A harvest contest area maybe?(Going by the traits of each city)

High and low lv NMs distributed evenly and the higher lv NMs in lower lv areas should have a faboding about them to clue the player in that they arent the average variety monster. Like rather than a regular Bunny NM that no one bats an eye at till they are face first in the dirt. Make it a giant undead Bunny. Its fur visibly made up of many dead bunnies, exuding bunny souls and perhaps the music changes to darker tones as you approach it/do battle with it. Those sort of visual and audio cues will tip players off about the incoming danger as well as remove some of the frustrating reasons for dieing to them.

"1 minute i'm fighting lv 5 bunnies then all of a sudden another bunny appears and kills me >.<"

"1 minute i'm fighting lv 5 bunnies then all of a sudden the music changes to scary horror tones, i look around and see a giant undead bunny and it killed me.... atleast i know to run when i hear that music next time D="

The same should be said for instanced dungeons, quests, FATES, gatherable materials and etc etc.

[HiirNoivl]

I don't think FFXIV really had this issue of deserted areas because everyone was crammed into one area. The main issue it had was the lack of content... for anyone of any level. Ul'dah was the cancer that only starting over could cure and that was because it's location became center and stayed center due to a sad lack of any system of efficient travel. Once Anima was freed up and we had chocobos and airships, the world became travelled a bit more.

But only ARR could fix Ul'dah

Instances allow people of high level to hang out in lower level areas. Such as how Hamlets were actually in 20-30ish areas.

So instead of making complicated systems to keep the world active and mixed, just saturate the area with content for different levels and you'll find people in all the areas.