With the invention of the very convenient guild halls, the ghost towns of Qeynos and Freeport are really quite depressing to see. When EQ2 does get a new player, the once thriving metropolises of the world, now greet them with only NCPs. As clever and charming as the dialog is, MMORPGs are played to share experiences with other people. I have a few suggestions to help bring the people back to the cities and back out of the guild halls, and maybe get some of the excess plat off of the servers in the process. 1. Give a 10% experience boots to people who craft in Qeynos and Freeport cities, while still giving them access to their guild halls shared materials. 2. Give a 5% broker fee reduction for people buying inside the cities. 3. Add a 10% property tax, to all broker and NPC plat purchase transactions within guild halls. 4. Add a 10% convenience fee to all npc plat purchases not within city walls and depending on how remote. 5. Offer a bonus, City Overseer quest available to people who camped in the city walls. 6. Offer a 10% exp buff for 2 hours for people who camped in the city walls, that starts once they leave the cities. This list is not comprehensive, but a few ideas I had to help bring the cities back to life and the community together. Guild halls will still have viable reasons for people to gather in them before raids, to use the travel portals etc, so this does not render them obsolete. Please post your ideas below for other viable incentives to bring players into the city, and do not severely negatively impact players. P.S. Just trying to come up with solutions instead of only complaints. Devs, delete this post from the general gameplay discussion. I posted it here where it is more appropriate.
My most vivid memories of the cities being full of people was excessive lag at all times. Combined with some really ugly people who used to aggro the city guards then drag them on top of the broker. At that time, the guards used blue AOEs and it would kill all the lower level people in the vicinity. Oh, and there were all the uber raiders standing around posing with their brand-new Qeynos Claymore swords, like big sparkling blue schlongs. Yep, that was an attractive thing (NOT!) Oh! and all the people who would put on huge illusions or summon all their fluff pets and make it impossible to target the broker by standing on him, yep, sure we all miss that! I was on Lucan d'Lere. one of the role-play servers. There wasn't much RP happening in the cities. It was mostly in homes. Before guild halls,people generally bought a big house and added all the amenities we could, and the guild used that house as a meeting and RP space, plus they had crafting stations and whatever house item travel portals we had at the time. I personally don't want my guild hall resources being pulled on from outside the guild hall. That just seems rife with opportunities for both errors and malicious actors. We don't need no stinking broker fee reductions ANYWHERE. If you haven't noticed, there's a horrific amount of inflation due to plat exploits! We need more ways to destroy plat. The only broker fee reduction should continue to be going to the person's home and buying it there. You are aware that subscribers can use "Broker Anywhere" from the EQ2 menu? I don't think I have ever clicked on the broker in my guild hall. This should be done, and mender fees outside the city increased as well. But the point would be trying to reduce plat in the overall economy. I have no idea what exactly you're proposing on this one. Oh! I see. You want homeless encampments in Norrathian cities? Just Say No.[/quote]
[/quote] I guess you could have said you didn't want people back in the city, and disagree with my entire premise. Then you wouldn't have had to break down why all my suggestions are so terrible. LoL negative Nacy
Very thoughtful and appreciated post. Unfortunately, I think most players have become so accustomed to the guild halls that things probably won't change. Hope I am wrong .
if you are a new player and miss all those crowds you should try the new TLE server Varsoon that starts this coming Tuesday. As original to beginnings of EQ2 and they could make it without messing with global systems for other servers and as many NO THIS, NO THAT as they could cut off from current live servers
I don't craft in Qeynos, because there isn't much room in that building. I typically craft in New Hallas, unless there are lots of other players there. Then I find something else to do. I occasionally see other players in Qeynos, I don't typically want to chat. I'm rather boring, and I don't want other players to fall asleep while I chat with them. In these forums, posting goes at a rate I can be non-boring enough so folks don't fall asleep. I hear, well maybe I experienced it in the past, hitting a forehead into a keyboard can be painful.
me's knows where "dead cities" be'es comes fum: dat instead uv encouraging/maintaining current foundations(cities), der be's the purposeful mentality of: "lookie ober der!!! wook at duh pwetty colors-- O-BER DER!!! an DER! unudder ober DER!!" dat be's why cities be's dead. me's no knos how to instill(re-instill?) passion for important tings,... as duh vast majority ohnee be's concerned wif dem shelf while dey scream: "me! Me! ME! mine! GIMME! I TAKE! MINE! GIMME!" should not der be angry toward doe's dat encourage said infantile mentality? tings dat mekey one go: Hhhmm,...
Oh, I do have crafting stations in my prestige houses. Sorry, left that out. The all-in-ones i have are on Maj'Dul. The separate ones are on my accounts on Skyfire. Frostfell crafting on both servers. So I sometimes use those instead of getting mats and going to New Hallas. Of course, its easier to do the crafting skills up if I go to the location where the NPC is located. Which I do. Hopefully that makes more sense than what I typed earlier.
I have never really been a fan of Guild Halls as they developed into what they are today and how they ruined the city populations. I would go full on Draconian with my solution and totally nerf Guild Halls into being a fluff item in the game with very limited functionality. I would have Guild Halls have only the following functionality: - Ability to call there. - Raid and Group organisation functionality (banners, flag guy, etc) - Access to Guild Bank only. If you want to access your personal bank it is off to the City for you! GB would still be accessible from cities. Basically, from inside the Guild Hall you can access the guild bank to issue stuff for groups/raids. - A materials depot for crafting materials, but accessible through the crafting window in cities. No crafting in Guild Halls! After that, the Guild Hall should be a glorified house for decorators to go to town on, and as a showcase for Raid Trophies. It might be necessary to have bigger/more crafting halls in cities, but I doubt it. In it's heyday, there were tons more crafters out there and the crafting halls were capable of handling the load, albeit there were crafting halls in each of the villages in Qeynos and Freeport. Now we have crafting halls all over the place as there have been crafting stations in each expansion for years so it should be easy enough to find a quiet corner to craft away in.
So literally just make the city have people because you don’t like them empty? There are A LOT of zones like this, not just cities.
