122201-feedback-talk-to-me-about-capital-cities

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Hello, everyone!
 
In the Protogames Initiative, we introduced a new way of touring the cities for newcomers to help people understand the layout of each city better and introduce them to major points of interest and services. If you have a character at or around level 14 who hasn't done the city tour quest yet, I recommend checking it out. (If you have the old City Tour quest, abandon it and pick up the new one.)
 
However, directing people around a confusing city layout doesn't fix the core problem. It's a start, but we'd like to do more. In our eyes, a capital city should be a central hub for player gathering and trade. It should be Grand Central Station to send you wherever you're bound. It should help lead you to the content you're interested in.
 
So I want to hear from you, WildStar community! Talk to me about what you like about our capital cities and also what you'd like to see changed. If you were designing it from the ground up, what would you focus on? What's necessary for you as a player?
 
I'm looking for feedback based around these core points:
Accessibility of Services. What is your ideal distribution of the various services you use?
Flow. How do you move through the city to get to the various things you need?
Performance. Are there any places in our current cities that lower the game's performance?
Space. How much space that isn't immediately occupied by services do you prefer?
You're more than welcome to use examples from other places that exemplify what you prefer in a capital city. Also, don't hesitate to bring up other suggestions -- if you could design a settler plug for the capitals, what would it be? What would you add? What would you remove? I want to hear from you. :)
			
				
	Edited February 11, 2015 by Caydiem	
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Howdy Cay.  Here's my 2 cents on Thayd & Illium.
 
Accessibility of Services and Flow:
Thayd has, by far, the best layout of services and vendors.  Because Thayd's essentially a giant circle, the placement of Stylists, Auction NPCs, banks and mailboxes seem spaced very evenly.  If anything I would add a few more mailboxes near the Black Hood area, and a half-decent elevator up to Dorian and his galleria of Nexus keepsakes.  Other than that, I think the layout of Thayd lends itself to spreading out the populace.  The only exception to that is the "main" auction house, which I'll cover later.
Illium is a bit more of a disaster when it comes to accessibility.  The biggest problem Illium has are all of the enormous, insurmountable walls.  One or two little doorways in each of the gigantic dividing walls in Illium would make traversing the city so, so, so much better.  As of right now you have to take a very long route to get from the Stylist to the taxi, or the taxi to the CX, or the CX to the housing HQ.  Caydiem, tear down (or at least put holes in) those walls!
Performance:
Thayd's "main" auction house in Academy Corner has some noticeable performance issues.  This is mostly because of the sheer amount of people standing there, but also because the crafting kiosks are a hop upstairs.  Coming off of the taxi platform and heading toward Academy Corner always causes my machine to hitch, and I'm running some beefy hardware here.
Illium has surprisingly good performance, but this might be a factor of its poor layout and lower Dom population.
Space:
I'm a roleplayer.  I like wide, open, unused spaces because it means myself & a few other RPers can migrate into it and use it as we please.  The "unused" sections of both cities are actually kind of nice, because the environment team put a lot of love into this game and it shows.  I wouldn't want 100% of each city's land mass to be occupied by usable NPCs, because...  hooo, sensory overload.If you want to know what kind of Settler plug I'd add, I'd strongly push for an in-city taxi service.  Similar to the taxis in Lightreach or Gallow; just hop a Grinder/Retroblade and click on a section of the city.  10 silver ride from Black Hoods Lair to Arborian Gardens?  Take my money!  Hell, having that service NOT be a Settler plug would be even better.  If I were a newbie and I saw that I could easily and cheaply ride in to any part of the city while taking in the sights I'd leap at the chance.
 
Thanks for this post, Caydiem.  Always awesome to see the developer asking for feedback.
 
(Also, can the Rally Grinder Mount be added to Elder Gem vendors?  I'll never have the time to raid and I just want that sexy blue bike sooooo bad.)	
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Settler plugs for the capitals: Give more rewards for the current settler plugs and you'll see them used more often. I'm guessing that most new players don't even know there's a quest under the current one. Put a rotating boss that can be killed daily down there that drops some loot, or a shiphand-style mission with similar rewards.
 
Also, the cities would flow a lot smoother if the teleporters were up more often.  Extend the time (30 minutes) or drastically reduce the cost of the settler stations, and give settlers additional rewards to work for them. Charge a 5cc fee per teleportation and split that among the settlers that had contributed time during the time which the teleportations occurred (paid out at regular intervals, like each hour), and you'd have nearly 100% uptime.
 
I can only speak for Thayd (haven't gone to the dark side at all yet) but it's laid out decently well for the places you need to go. It's a bit big, but that's what I expect to see in a capital city.  A few more places for crafting tables or runes would be nice, especially as the AH and CX have multiple locations.
 
A more varied challenge reward would also be nice for the capital city challenges. I've gotten so many pell banners I could wallpaper a Granok's house with them. A few more varied furniture rewards would be helpful.
 
Also, the trip back and forth to the secret lair all the time?  I realize it needs to be "secret", but for chrissake, it takes forever to get down there with all the twists and turns and debris in the way, and having to go back and forth from Drusera's portal and for the reports and omnicore makes it quite a nuisance. Not sure how to fix this, but perhaps a faster trip somehow?  Make a "back entrance" that cuts out most of the path?
 
Thanks for looking into how the capital cities can be improved!
			
				
	Edited February 12, 2015 by Alyred	
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There're not enough Homes 4 the many NPCs.
Especially in Thayd! 8'D
 
But they looks BananAwesome!
 	
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			Can we have the Chua zone beyond Illium unlocked?	
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Hello, everyone!
 
In the Protogames Initiative, we introduced a new way of touring the cities for newcomers to help people understand the layout of each city better and introduce them to major points of interest and services. If you have a character at or around level 14 who hasn't done the city tour quest yet, I recommend checking it out. (If you have the old City Tour quest, abandon it and pick up the new one.)
 
However, directing people around a confusing city layout doesn't fix the core problem. It's a start, but we'd like to do more. In our eyes, a capital city should be a central hub for player gathering and trade. It should be Grand Central Station to send you wherever you're bound. It should help lead you to the content you're interested in.
 
So I want to hear from you, WildStar community! Talk to me about what you like about our capital cities and also what you'd like to see changed. If you were designing it from the ground up, what would you focus on? What's necessary for you as a player?
 
I'm looking for feedback based around these core points:
Accessibility of Services. What is your ideal distribution of the various services you use?
Flow. How do you move through the city to get to the various things you need?
Performance. Are there any places in our current cities that lower the game's performance?
Space. How much space that isn't immediately occupied by services do you prefer?
You're more than welcome to use examples from other places that exemplify what you prefer in a capital city. Also, don't hesitate to bring up other suggestions -- if you could design a settler plug for the capitals, what would it be? What would you add? What would you remove? I want to hear from you. :)
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I think you mean The Official Protostar Vendotorium™!
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Thayd flows much better than Illum once you learn the paths.  To be honest I like the twists and turns (but no so much the garbage everywhere).
 
The proximity of the crafting stations to the main auction house in Thayd is the big win there.  It may sound minor but I don't have to dismount until I'm at the station.  In Illum I have to run from the building entrance to the back (unless I time a hoverboard jump just right).  The only thing missing from Academy Corners is easy house access although when they're up the teleporters mitigate that somewhat.
 
I'm a bit on the fence whether on not adding crafting stations near the Fortune's Ground AH/CX would be a good idea.  It's very close to the Black Hoods Bar which is a popular RP location.
 
In my ideal world an AH/CX housing plug would be available.	
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. For example, one district could be called "Vendor Center" and could be divided into leveling, elder game, auction house, and so on.
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Having Settler plugs last a bit longer would be cool.
 
Off Topic: Banks in cities like Thermock Hold would make it easier for the crafters to do the offered dailies, because power cores don't go in your crafting mats bag and take up too much room in your back pack.
 
Thanks Caydiem!!	
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			I should mention - don't feel limited by what's already there. I'd love to hear your thoughts on your ideal city layout and what it would offer!	
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I should mention - don't feel limited by what's already there. I'd love to hear your thoughts on your ideal city layout and what it would offer!
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			I only really want one thing in Thayd. A skatepark for hover boards with some kind of appropriate challenge. :)	
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			My ideal city layout would be merchants on floating islands above a low gravity hoverboard skate park. But maybe that's just me.	
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my short .02
 
Thayd is great. 
 
Illium has no central gathering area like Thayd does, everything is more spread out. the great thing about Thayd is Academy corner, everything is there and all the shuttles to zones are just up the hill. In Illium everything is spaced further apart and has its own separate area, even the shuttles to zones are all spaced out more. The whole place is just so big with so much wasted space. Thayd has interesting things to discover and stuff going on like the bare fist fight in a back alley and the cheese shrine. Thayd feels alive even when there are hardly any players around you. Ilium does not. I	
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I have spent several months living in each capital city. IMO, Thayd is pretty much the perfect city, while Illium is pretty much the opposite of the perfect city.
 
Thayd is vibrant with life and character. Its confined areas and corridors jam NPC's, asthetics, and players into one big mesh of activity. As a result, you get the sense that thayd is bustling and alive. The theme of thayd is also pretty cool, and the art team did a fantastic job on their part, as usual. There are plenty of cool and unique places that are not often visited, as well as a central gathering area that is very convenient.
 
The auction house is right next to pretty much everything except the housing portal, which is across the city. The route through the city, although slightly windy, is pretty direct. Whats more (and quite important), there are plenty of things to climb in thayd! you can spend literally hours and hours climbing the walls and towers, exploring each crevasse. instead of idling in town, you can spend your time bouncing from plant to platform to tent while socializing with your fellow exile.
 
Overall, convenience is a big time perk to thayd. This allows everyone to gather in one location for most of their time, which leads to a feeling of community and life. This then creates a cycle where the feeling of lots of people feeds itself and grows. At the end of the day it is the feeling of Thayd, the feeling that you are surrounded by lots of activity and lots of fellow gamers, along with conveniently placed NPC's, that make thayd such a good city.
 
 
 
Illium, on the other hand, is total crap. No joke. I remember the first day I moved into Illium after living in Thayd for months, and thinking, "This city is crap". And after months of living in Illium, i still feel the same way. Where to even begin...
 
If Thayds level of convenience is a 9 or 10, Illiums is about a 1. If you were to intentionally space out each important NPC or item throughout the city to maximize the distance between them, im pretty sure you would end up with Illium.
 
If the feeling of Thayd is life and community, the feeling of Illium is emptiness and frustration. Illium is HUGE. Way too huge. 99% of illium is occupied by nothing but giant open space, leading to the feeling of emptiness. There are places where you can stand and pan your camera 360 degrees around and see nothing of import. Whats more, there are no direct routes between spaces. So if you want to go from important-point-A to important-point-B, what ends up happening is that you traverse through empty space for about an hour, then come face to face with a giant card-board-box-houses maze, which you then must navigate safely, only to find another empty space on the other side which takes another hour to traverse, before finally arriving at your destination.
 
While i exaggerate a bit, this is a fair approximation of what the city feels like. The combination of these things gives illium a dead feeling. Just as the feeling of life in Thayd provides more life to the city by cause-effect, so too does the feeling of deadness and emptiness lead to more deadness and emptiness in illium. Its a vicious cycle that I honestly believe contributed to Exiles being so much more populated than Dominion.
 
Don't get me wrong, the idea of Illium, aesthetically, is not bad. It's supposed to be a thriving advanced spaceport capital. and visually there are some cool things going on. But I think that this theme drove the creation of this city so much that it lost sight of whats truly important, ultimately leading to its failure. Also, there is not as many cool things to climb on and bounce around on in Illium.	
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Thayd has 3 places with CX/AH and only 1 crafting place.
Target dummies have bad position, cause mass skills hurt more then 1 dummy.	
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Illium: I find the center of people naturally will be where the Auction area is and which auction area has the best access to everything else.  That means all of the Dominion's glorious citizens are hunkered around a far off bit of space port.  Why?  Most of us are not the sort to hang around in a space port...even one as well crafted as Illium's. Also, there is this thing with trash...Who is littering!?! For all that is holy why does this quest not end with us beating a little smack down on whatever low born or just off the transport Draken who is dropping its filth all over?! I can see the Exiles having to deal with this problem but Illium? 
 
Seriously, having the crafting station near an Auction center is a huge boon.  I would rather the teleport be moved farther away if folks are having issues because of zone in lag than divide Thayd's Academy Corner.  By the way, Academy Corner is very nice and has a central feel to it.  Why -are- the Dominion hanging out in the space port? All of Illium is so grand looking but the functional center is that little arm of cement. Also, I wasn't kidding about the trash challenge in Illium.  It SHOULD end with a smack down...perhaps an oblivious Lopp dropping things and chanting SHINY..not shiny..SHINY...not shiny........	
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Also, there is this thing with trash...Who is littering!?! For all that is holy why does this quest not end with us beating a little smack down on whatever low born or just off the transport Draken who is dropping its filth all over?! I can see the Exiles having to deal with this problem but Illium? 
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			Move the training dummies to different corners of a space so you can actually hit the dummy you want to without cleaving the other dummies making it hard to test anything on them. (speaking for Illium can't say I know what it is like in thayd)	
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There're not enough Homes 4 the many NPCs.
Especially in Thayd! 8'D
 
But they looks BananAwesome!
 
[PIC]
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			Hey there Caydiem, As someone who was providing you with feedback back when Illium looked like this... I am more than happy to jump back into the fray.So first things first, "A capital city should be a central hub for player gathering and trade". Ideally this would be the case but Wildstar has an amazing housing system that kind of undermines this goal. The cities don't really 'feel' like a place where players want to gather, at present you go to the capital city because you need to use the AH or the CX or you need to catch a flight to a different zone. In illium at least (the city I am most familiar with) these services are located far away from each other and neither are really appealing as any sort of social hub for players.I frankly hate Spaceport Alpha, I hated it way back in the early days, and I still don't like it. To use your "Grand Central Station" analogy what we want is a transit-hub that packs players together in a single location where they can mingle, perhaps shop at vendors, or access key services while they are in between going to and fro. Spaceport Alpha does the opposite, it spreads people out pointlessly, there is nothing of interest or any services located near the actual transit locations, and worst of all it's criminally boring in execution. A few raised landing platforms with generic terminals in front of them that magically transport you across the world is really underwhelming compared to the vast wealth of visuals this game has to offer. The ships aren't used for anything, you might as well just have the terminals sitting there by themselves because it makes no difference if the ships are there or not there.Lastly the capital cities (illium in particular) don't make for good social hubs because they lack the kind of social spaces that players like and the key services aren't placed in an way that would build up these social areas.---    Accessibility of Services. What is your ideal distribution of the various services you use?Form follows function. Players want to be able to access the services that they want in as easy a manner as possible, however you don't want to just provide a single terminal in a wide open space that gives them instant access to every service in the city, you need to find a middle-ground solution. The current distribution of services in Illium is "fine", you've got a crafting district, an obvious PvP area, a daily hub, and a nice little corner of the city filled with knick-knacks, vendors, and some fluff which is great, keep that. The current problem with service distibution is that it doesn't work as a means of pulling people together. This is the one instance where I don't have a clear cut suggestion for you. You want your services to be accessible, you also want to use them to bring people together and create a sense of "population" within these cities.    Flow. How do you move through the city to get to the various things you need?This is another form vs. function issue. Some players will argue that you should have super-fast clear paths to everything that you want, but others would argue that the point of a capital city in an MMORPG is that you're trying to establish a sense of scale and replicate some of the feelings of a crowded populated environment where some of the drawbacks add to the experience. I was a big supporter of the changes to Illium where we got the more city-feeling towering buildings and winding passages. Illium used to be a big wide open shallow bowl which made it super easy to traverse, but it felt terrible. Illium of today is winding, monolithic, and at times oppressive with its big shapes, towering structures, and one-note design aesthetic. My suggestion for solving possible flow problems in Illium would be minor changes. Illium is supposed to be winding, it's like Stormwind in WoW pre-flying, there was no direct line to anything by design. I would simply punch a couple of holes into the longer building segments and walls to allow people a more direct route between key services.Ideally I'd love for more detail to go into those vast buildings, but that's a different topic.    Performance. Are there any places in our current cities that lower the game's performance?Not that I've been able to notice on my 4+ year old high/mid-range PC. I suspect that performance issues will increase as you group more and more people together, but since the capital cities are usually pretty sparsely populated these days it hasn't been an issue.    Space. How much space that isn't immediately occupied by services do you prefer?I personally prefer a lot of unoccupied space, I think it adds a lot of character to the location and is a boon for roleplayers and people who just appreciciate the little things. Capital cities aren't just 7-11's for players where you go in, grab what you need and leave ASAP, they are zones in the game with just as much need for personality, interesting playspaces, and key landmarks as deradune, farside, or galeras. When you think of a forest zone you think of trees, lots of trees, winding paths, fallen logs, lazy little streams, secluded meddows, dense tangles of plants, rocky outcrops, etc... When you think "city" you think of tall buildings, shops, homes, large numbers of people, seedy dank alleyways and grand vistas. Capital cities need empty buildings, shops that sell fluff, narrow dark spaces, interesting easter-eggs for players to find, a sense of verticality, and most of all personality. Thayd does all of this pretty well, Illium does it better than it used to, but both could really use more. There is a lot of "wasted" space in both of these cities that could be put to better use.     If you were designing it from the ground up, what would you focus on? What's necessary for you as a player?If I were to design Illium from the ground up I'd bulldoze spaceport Alpha, relocate the daily hub inside the remainder of the city, probably level Legion's Way as well as it's not real interesting. I'd use the space that was Spaceport alpha to build racial districts. There are a ton of great art assets for Chua / Draken (and none for mechari) that you could put to work in building a more aesthetically interesting Illium. How cool would it be to have a Draken themed area in Illium? A couple of large Draken buildings, a few kiosks and shops selling Draken-themed costomes (give us that draken guard gear already!) and other items, you could put important NPCs there, and you could build in some kind of event like the blood-feast in deradune to add player interest. I don't think I even need to say anything about how great a chua district could be. I'm sure your level designers would have a heyday building something like that.When it comes to my big issue (Spaceport Alpha and the transit system in general) I would honestly make it smaller, place it in a more central location, make it more interesting (I'd love to have something other than just a generic terminal that just zaps you across the map), and place some key services near it. I'll probably expound upon this in a later post, this is getting kind of long as it is.As far as what is necessary for players I think we have all of the pieces that we need, we have good service options, we have the transit system, we have some points of interest, we have some personality, we just need to take those pieces and build something better out of them.---Anyway there's my feedback, always glad to take part in the design of this wonderful game and you've always been great to work with Caydiem, hopefully there's something in there you can use. Keep up the great work.- Jyn	
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Illium:
1. The three training dummies are too close together. Spead them out.
2. Needs two sets of training dummies.
3. Guild and personal bank should not be right in front of AH/CX. 
4. Move crafting/runing stations closer to AH/CX	
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I agree with a lot of what has been stated.  It would be nice to have some side corridors and things to explore around Illium as well as shortcuts.  It would also be nice for either city to have some pubs to visit, and a tad more social areas esp in Illium.  Expanding the bank area to two tellers in Thayd an improvement and why is she on the other side of the wall from all the other transaction vendors hmmm..
 
Love the new city tours and thank you thank you btw for the rental mounts which was a suggested I made prior. 
 
Just because Illium is  Dominion city doesn't mean we can't have a bit of fun and keep the formal atmosphere at the same time.  More furniture and maybe even and inn or two would be interesting esp for RP folks.	
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I'm going to reply to this as if the capitals atm don't exist (aka as if I was to completely redesign them)
 
Accessibility of Services:
 
Have the Auction House in the middle of the city. The middle should be the marketplace, which would have all sorts of vendors. Then you've it branching out from that, into a bank (which has the renown vendor, guild bank and bank), a crafting place, gear vendor (glory and tokens), portals place, etc. They should be easy to get to from the marketplace. There should also be a large(ish) area for training dummies. Lot of training dummies. Can parse when other people are parsing, can aoe parse, etc.
 
Flow:
 
The city should be large with a quick way to get around. The best way I can think of this is to have an underground system where you get a speed buff while mounted. 
 
Performance:
 
The place with the most players, which will always be the Auction House. The layout of an AH in the middle and everything else branching out might spread the people a little, while a quick travel system through a large city makes it so that spreading doesn't effect much.
 
Space:
 
The space in between the services. For example, atm, Thyad has a place between the crafting place and the glory vendors that's occupied by people, but everything else is pretty much useless so no one ever goes there, so it's a block of people, and then... Emptiness. This shouldn't be the case. The services should be spread out, yet you don't want to frustrated at having to go from one side of the city to the other.
 
Additional:
 
Settlers can build services by the AH. 
 
Just my opinions :P	
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I'm a bit on the fence whether on not adding crafting stations near the Fortune's Ground AH/CX would be a good idea.  It's very close to the Black Hoods Bar which is a popular RP location.
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I'm going to be addressing Illium exclusively.
Accessibility of Services. What is your ideal distribution of the various services you use?Add Another crafting station on the east side of the city between The PvP vendors and the C.R.E.D.D. Merchant.Add an adventure in each city, And a Dungeon under each city. And a BATTLEGROUND in each city. (ha, I realize that's huge, but it would give the city so much flavor and impact and you would think about it totally differently.)Add another bind point elsewhere in the Capital, for people who do more work on the east side.Add a Community garden and one of each housing plot harvesting node, scattered throughout the city. (Maybe scale them to the level of the gathering skill of the player who's going to them, and instance them?)
Flow. How do you move through the city to get to the various things you need?
I want my capital city to feel a little more like a city. I want to be able to climb up a ramp or grab a lift to the upper levels, then get on my hoverboard and jump from rooftop to rooftop, just as easily as cruising the lazy path across the city at ground level. I want neat shortcuts everywhere so someone who spends all their time in the city knows it well. I want apartments with locals living in them, or even just empty. Heck maybe even "rent" an (instanced) apartment in Illium as opposed to a whole housing plot. Maybe even have several locations available. Just more interesting places to hang out, less giant walls that stop you from easily crossing the city.
 
Performance. Are there any places in our current cities that lower the game's performance?
My server is low pop, I only encounter performance issues during peak at the densest areas, and that is to be expected.
 
Space. How much space that isn't immediately occupied by services do you prefer?Space out the crafting dummies. Give us lots of neat little spaces to do... stuff. Like a boxing ring on one side of town for duels, and a "fight club" style area on the other side. Give us a park with a giant bin of balls to play catch with, or some sort of pvp "Tag" challenge. Give us a park with chess tables (and let us gamble or play for renown. Make sure loser gets some benefit too or no incentive to play) Give us card games, Casinos(For Money!), A cheap Illium Souvenir shop (bonus points for an "I <3 Illium" T shirt, and Statue of Dominus coffee cups and snow globes for your house.), Some way to make money/progress while just casually chilling in the capital city.MOST IMPORTANTLY.Please let players Queue for all existing group quests. Perhaps for a renown or glory reward, to help lower levels find people to help them with the quests they get stuck on, and to reward more experienced players for mentoring down. Maybe even have daily quests for this sort of thing at a "Bounty Office" since most of those group quests come from bounty boards.Thank you for your time.
 	
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			Revert the settler duration nerfs that you did shortly after release. Thayd Teleporters are never up after that unjustified duration nerf. The whole point of having settlers around is having their perks for their community.	
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Illium lacks personality and it's too big and spacious in all the wrong places for it's own good.
 
If you wanted to create a huge ass capital bolstering with imperial majesty, you should've made the city centrum the hub for most activity. The damn capital is supposed to be organized, unlike Thayd. Put a huge ass Cathedral or a majestic government building there in the centrum with some important shit like AH, dailies and crafting stations. Basically give people a reason to spend their idling there. Or hell, you can put the huge ass building in the middle and then the Cathedral to the side of the central square. After that you clear the area around making a huge central square and build the city around it, very much the opposite how the city is built at the moment.
 
Also make the map size smaller, if deemed necessary.
 
Thayd is nice, that one was a success. It has all the little alleys, it's chaotic and has cramped places and it fits the Exiles... "theme". Too bad I'm playing on Dominion side and I'm regretting my choice every damn day. You guys put way too much resources and time on developing the Exiles and it shows. What makes it worse is that I'm not the only one noticing it. The faction imbalance proves this.
 
And don't get lazy with the roofs. The best part of drop 4 was the fact that you can jump on nearly all of them. I was seriously disappointed when I started playing the game and just jumped through everything.	
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Illium lacks personality and it's too big and spacious in all the wrong places for it's own good.
 
If you wanted to create a huge ass capital bolstering with imperial majesty, you should've made the city centrum the hub for most activity. The damn capital is supposed to be organized, unlike Thayd. Put a huge ass Cathedral or a majestic government building there in the centrum with some important shit like AH, dailies and crafting stations. Basically give people a reason to spend their idling there. Or hell, you can put the huge ass building in the middle and then the Cathedral to the side of the central square. After that you clear the area around making a huge central square and build the city around it, very much the opposite how the city is built at the moment.
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Well, for Thayd (my knowledge of Illium is limited) I'd love to see a lot of things and some of them have been mentioned here. From an RP standpoint, things don't make much sense. I get it's a reclaimed city and all that which has been bent to the purposes of the Exiles but it could feel a little more alive.
 
Useable Buildings
- More things you can actually go inside of for things. Why? Well, why not?
- This would especially make sense in Illium, but I could see tons of ramshackle and crazy buildings in Thayd and not just awnings (makes sense in an open air market but no actual buildings? Weird)
 
The Auction House/CX 
- should be more than a table or a NYC sized locksmith shop.
- there should be some grand fanfare to these things, just like there would be in real life.
- Move the one near Academy Corner as well, just way too much happening there.
 
Lair of Black Hood's Bar (Thayd)
- This one has bugged me for a long time now, who puts a bar right next to the secret agency bad asses of your faction?
- It should be moved or at least another bar location that makes more sense.
- Suggestions would be in Fortune's Ground somewhere, that makes the most sense.
 
Alchemists Maze
- This is a place for Mordesh to science things right? Looks like a meth lab on acid. Not a bad thing but more structure is needed.
 
Arborian Gardens
- Layout is a little weird and could use some more organic structure to it.
 
I always felt that Thayd should have lots more alleyways and things to get around as well. Much like Crooked Corners but more so with newer buildings being put up and all that. Every time I think of Thayd I think of places that are far more cluttered and ramshackle. Think like a high tech shanty town but with actual structures going on as well as the more rundown things. I mean it's not like the Exiles just landed yesterday after all.	
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			While i don't really like the look of thayd(refuge garbage dump), i would like to see an additional engraving station besides the 1 in the crafting area.	
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Related to these "problems" :
 
Accessibility of Services. What is your ideal distribution of the various services you use?
Flow. How do you move through the city to get to the various things you need?
Performance. Are there any places in our current cities that lower the game's performance?
Space. How much space that isn't immediately occupied by services do you prefer?
 
- Profession Trainers / Crafting Stations , Auction House , Character Bank , Guild Bank and the related vendors , Housing portal , Elder - Glory - et al vendors , Portals , Training Dummies , Dye / Costume Vendor , Museum , Taxi , Transmat Beacon , Mount Vendor , etc. ALL should be in the center of the Capital Cities or in an "Academy Corner" . Last but not least , just make multiple "centers" available . I may prefer an Aurin themed center to a Granok one and vice versa . There is no need to have us run like headless chickens all over ANY capital city . Really .
 
Now onward to some other things :-D
 
- When there is a realm first , or a "current" end game raid clear or something , the "partying" should be visible to the capital cities if not across all places . NPCs , buildings , etc . should be "somehow" celebrating the epic victories of the players . I am saying "somehow" because it is all relative to time and money ;-)
 
- Give us more gameplay inside , around , above and below the capital cities please . I loved my Path missions around the capital . I loved the Mysterious Ruins Portal chain questing . I loved the challenges . I loved the events . MORE of that please ! While you are there , make the capitals feel MORE the war that we are constantly in . Perhaps into the form of some dailies that we would be doing all over the capital cities .
 
- WildStar has so much character . It can be both funny and epic at the same time . Why not throw some propaganda in the capital cities ? Perhaps in the form of some NPCs and / or some giant monitors that would be playing on demand the awesome videos that you have at your website . An example of such propaganda video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FhB3iYv4Ng
 
- Even though I like better the way you handled the Portals with Drop 4 by gathering them into the same location , you should merge into one "computer" with a menu option of where we want to "teleport" . If you really can afford the time and money , make that into a window with some pictures and text if not video . You know , like an actual computer , showcasing the targets of our journey . At worst , make this function possible with addons or something .
 
These are some things on the top of my head . See you on Nexus !	
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While it isn't a huge issue, and purely one of convenience.I would love to see the Exile Secret Ops perhaps be integrated into the black hoods lair area of Thayd. It would still make logical sense for it to be there. And wouldn't involve a long random tunnel run to get to and from it.
 
The amount of times ive used my scientist portal to just port back up to Thayd instead of running is unreal =p ... Lazy I know, but might be a nice convenience change to make.	
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Hey,
 
first of all: Thank you for asking the community for their opinion.
 
 
Some of my current concerns
Thayd:I love the design of Thayd!
There are some lags everytime I go from FCON Headquarters to Fortune´s Grounds: Image
What I think is very sad: Most of all stay in FCON Headquarters. Becuase there are AH, CX, Crafting, Training Dummies, important Vendors. So the really cool an big markect place at Fortune´s Grounds is empty. It would be verry nice to see more people there. Because in my opinion that should be the main place! 
Illium:
I don´t like the instantiation of the Imperial Museum! Try to make it like the Thayd version! Open!
Verrrrrry loooonnnggg running paths! 
Both:More cool challenges with interesting rewards! We need things to do in the capital cities.
Something like invasion events would be cool. An assault of Exiles/Dominions in Thayd/Illum would symbolize the war a little stronger. Let´s say every day once. Scalable enemies, events and more.
More atmosphere! Good example: Barber Shops or something like that. Isn`t it a bit strange that a hairdresser and beauty surgeon stands in the middle of the street and do his job?
Both cities have performance issues. Everytime I enter Illium or Thayd via teleport the game needs 10-20 seconds to run smoothly again. Not cool :(
Give us reasons to visit the whole city not only some places for AH,CX,Crafting and Teleports. Thayd is so huge but nobody needs to go to the Blackhood Lair or Arborian Gardens.	
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I could honestly care less about the cities. the only time i spend in them is because im forced to go there for AH/CX or just on my way through to do dailies.
 
I say you just let us add AH/CX to our housing plots. Let us put these services in our houses. I would much rather make a cool guild/circle housing plot to hang out in. There might actually be a reason for people to go to housing plots with this feature. Let the cities be for dailies/travel and Rp'ers.
 
With guild housing and communities coming in the future i think AH/CX for housing is very important.
 
Let us build our own places to hang out without forcing us to go to the city just for AH/CX.
 
All that being said, illium is to spread out. put AH/CX services closer to crafting services. and in more than one place in the city. or you could just let us do this at our houses!	
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I wish it was prettier. Like wtf is this supposed to be a bush...? 
 	
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This is my main complaint about Thayd really.
 
The only place in the "city" that has something resembling houses is the Aurin gardens.  The rest of Thayd consist of walls and rocks that used to be walls.
 
I'd love to see both main hubs turn into livable metropolises as the gameworld matures. (kind of like what FFXIV is doing with Revanant's Toll)
Have some roofs over the shop keepers' heads in Thayd's commercial district (And their housing stretching into the skies above their shops).  Have academy corner actually look more like an academy instead of a campsite with a hologram. Maybe hide the black hood's center of operations a little bit better? (Here let's torture dominion PoWs in broad daylight next to our bar and DDR machine!)  I understand needing shelter for your sciencing is important, but having all that rubble above you can't be safe... and so on. 
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			Not sure if this has already been said, but more verticality in Illium would be nice, such as accessible balconies overlooking the roads or tunnels inside tall structures than can be traversed.	
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The Auction House/CX 
- should be more than a table or a NYC sized locksmith shop.
- there should be some grand fanfare to these things, just like there would be in real life.
- Move the one near Academy Corner as well, just way too much happening there.
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I agree, this is also my main complaint. Thayd does not feel like a city, rather like some ... really weird makeshift camp. That's something Guild Wars 2 did right - their cities are large and, especially in case of Divinity's Reach, really look like a city.
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There's a couple of things that disturb me about Thayd.  
 
Unused space.  Thayd is a capital city but there's huge swaths of unused space.
 
 
 
 
 
This is the view coming in from Algoroc.  There's no signs, no indications other than the apparence of the word "Thayd" on your screen to indicate that you're in the (de facto) Capital city of anything. 
 
 
 
 
 
Entering Pilgrim's promanade doesn't give you any signs or indications that there's a Secret ops Center. Or where to go to get to the main city. It's very confusing and ... odd.
 
 
 
 
Rocio: "I really wonder what this thing is supposed to be..."
 
 
 
 
The first things that greet you on getting past the tumble-weed strewn expanse is the Renown Vendor... and A General goods Vendor. Vendors are way too scattered. All the Vendors should probably be in Fortune's Ground.  There's no reason to just have one of each Vendor scattered throughout the city.  Fortune's ground... now this place is 90% pointless after level 12 but it's great for atmosphere and such. Just put some more useful NPCs like that Renown Vendor or the Rep vendor here where people will naturally look for them, instead of ... places people won't look for them.
 
 
Crafting Station and the Market place and Mailbox are located too far from each other.
 
I shouldn't have to go down a level to buy something and then go up a level to craft it.
 
 
 
 
Rocio: "Wait... I just bought this. Why isn't it in my Inventory...? Oh CRAP I forgot to put get it out of the mail... just put a stinkin' mail box HERE already!!!"
 
 
 
 
Rocio: "Hey Outfitter NPCs... I need a schematic... Hey stop laughing and do something!! *sigh*  I hope you two ladies know how useless you are."
 
 
 
 
"Now here's somethign that makes sense. All the PvP vendors together... along with the port to the Warplots! This makes sense right here."
 
 
 
 
There needs to be a lot more of these guys.  There's only one of each kind of dummy. Make that 3 of each kind of dummy and this place will be more useful.
 
 
 
 
 
The Transmat is in the middle of nowhere. There's nothing possibly of interest near here.  Why is it far away from everything? At least put it near the rest of the transportatation.
 
 
 
 
Speaking of transport... Label these.  Please. Why people should have to mouse over and click on these transports is just... and why is Northern Wastes, a daily zone, placed next to transports that are not daily zones? Northern Wastes is between Malgrave and Whitevale.
 
 
 
 
This place is good. All your daily NPCs in one spot. Now stop hiding this underground and put it somewhere people can see it and get to it easily and we're golden.
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
Please put a Crafting and Runing station here please.
 
 
 
 
 
And here please.	
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They're way too large for what's actually functionally inside of them. There's such an excessive amount of wasted space in Thayd that it's really confusing. Entire districts are never even visited, if not for the Thayd transmat quest. The optimization for these areas is also hellish, with constant frame drops from the cluster of people and how large the cities are. I dislike going to Thayd because I know it's going to be a frustrating trip between the portals and the auction house with everybody smack dab in the middle and causing my computer to wheeze.
 
My recommendation would be to shrink them down, if at all possible. They have no reason being as large as they are, right now.	
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			I thought the music from DDR was part of the interrogation process...	
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Maybe hide the black hood's center of operations a little bit better? (Here let's torture dominion PoWs in broad daylight next to our bar and DDR machine!) 
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Except the proximity of that AH/CX to the crafting stations is why Thayd "works" better than Illum.  Adding crafting and engraving stations near the other two would probably alleviate some of the crowding in Academy Corners.
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To be honest, I think the Capital cities need a complete overhaul or re-do. They don't really feel like cities, they feel like military bases at best. The Dominion city is by far the best one, the Exile city is terrible. It's a bunch of rubble.
 
Cities need citizens, hustle and bustle, the ambiance needs to be better to sound more like a city in both of them. Cities have homes/apartments, gathering centers such as bars, inns, etc, and cities also have a very noticeable "leadership" area and the leaders should be very present, especially in a situation like what they are all in. The Exiles should see where the Queen lives just flying into the city, and she should live in a more palatial looking building. The Exile city is awkward because it's both "too exposed" and at the same time very claustrophobic. I don't even understand how they could live in it, and call it a city because it's so dilapidated. They have giant robots wandering around, they should be helping them build an actual city. Also, their city should reflect all of the exile cultures more specifically in aesthetics. The Exiles are a group of wandering rag-tag humans with their wild west vibe, the Aurin, a very nature-conscience monarchy lead by a Queen which would most likely (realistically speaking) create the backbone of actual government and organizational structure for Exile society in the new world, the Mordesh who come from a very ancient and fancy aristocratic society that was also probably a monarchy, or something similar (judging by the titles of some Mordesh NPC's, combined with their back story). And the Granok who are SUPPOSED to be master craftsmen and builders from a more militant society. So that also provides structure and organization for the Exiles.
 
For the Dominion, one would think their leadership would have a little bit more visible of a presence even though he's not actually there with them. My complaints for their city are really more functional than aesthetic as their city is by and large the more impressive one to look at, and looks a little more city-ish. Some improvements could probably still be made in the aesthetic department though in terms of just making it more city-like with the citizens wandering around and stuff.	
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			@narcolepticturtle well the small scale of the cities does make sense considering that we've just started colonizing the planet recently. New York took a while to get to its state of hustle and bustle. That being said, I'd love to see a few new buildings/neighborhoods pop up every frew drops or so.	
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@narcolepticturtle well the small scale of the cities does make sense considering that we've just started colonizing the planet recently. New York took a while to get to its state of hustle and bustle. That being said, I'd love to see a few new buildings/neighborhoods pop up every frew drops or so.
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The differences between Thayd and Illium are like night and day.
 
Illium: here you have a city full of beautiful buildings, but has no life. It's almost like the residents there decided they are too good to go out doors and walk around.
 
There is too much space between things. You have the bank and ah/cx way over on the outskirts of the city and all the crafting stuff in the middle. There really is no cohesion there.
 
Thayd: here you have a city full of walkways, tents, trash, etc. No buildings to speak of, so all the residents are forced to be out and about. This is actually not a bad thing, IMHO, as it gives life to the city. But you would think they would take some pride in their city, and themselves for that matter, and clean it up some, maybe even build some houses.
 
There is a better layout here for the bank, ah/cx, mail box, and crafting. They are closer together and don't waste so much time going back and forth. However the other 2 locations of the ah/cx needs to have crafting near it.
 
Academy Corner is the hub of this city and some times it's just too crowded. Especially in the corner where the ah/cx are. If these were brought out towards the middle some, people could spread out some and reach them from all sides.	
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As far as Arborian Gardens go, if this is the seat of power for the Aurin, why isn't there a little more going on here? Sylvan Glade makes way more sense than 2 buildings and an underground lair. Just my thoughts on that one.
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			I know that the cities have plugs much like housing plots. It would be neat to try and get a little of the Mordesh and Mechari buildings down on the ground without having to make all the inside. That is if they are at the stage that there is an outside to show. Not asking for much, one building just to see it would be nice. 	
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The question is, how is Sylvan Glade, Thermok Hold, Tempest Refuge, etc all built more so than the capital city? Just seems weird....Thayd is like:
 
Person 1: "Oh look, we have walls! What should we do?"
Person 2: "Let's get to building!"
Person 3: "Naw, let's just throw a bunch of tents and desks around, that's all we need"
Person 1&2: "That sounds easier"
 
The layout isn't necessarily bad (save for the few things myself and others have mentioned), it's just that...you'd think if they can build something like the Explorer's Union HQ in Sylvan or all of the stuff in Thermock...at least a few buildings could've gone up in Thayd by now. The only "buildings" are the Lair of Black Hood's (which is just silly in it's design as a few have pointed out), the main Bank and the very small AH/CX next to it. Oh, I guess the floaty platform for judges in the worst designed court in history is a building too. The rest? It's a flea market in a ruin and a crack alley at best in some places (Sorry Mordesh, here's your hole to science in).
 
As far as Arborian Gardens go, if this is the seat of power for the Aurin, why isn't there a little more going on here? Sylvan Glade makes way more sense than 2 buildings and an underground lair. Just my thoughts on that one.
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Thought I'd leave my opinions on the cities:
 
Illium:
 
The overall aesthetic suits the Dominion perfectly- clean, orderly, and militaristic. My only complaint really is that it feels somewhat devoid of life. I mean, this is supposed to be the Dominion's new capital but it feels a little empty save for the janitorial staff. I think adding more npc's would help with this. Aside from that, I think it's a great city.
 
Thayd:
 
I have not spent much time in Thayd so I cannot comment much. I can, however, say that I do like it overall; it's a nice chaotic contrast to Illium. It feels a little labyrinthine but I'm sure that goes away with time (again, I do not play Exiles often). I also love the overall architecture (perhaps because I love the Osun :P).	
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I agree, this is also my main complaint. Thayd does not feel like a city, rather like some ... really weird makeshift camp. That's something Guild Wars 2 did right - their cities are large and, especially in case of Divinity's Reach, really look like a city.
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But I guess my point is, Thayd was constructed not as a livable city, but as a base of operations, with the Exiles themselves being much more scattered.
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			I love the Aborian Gardens in Thayd and I would like to see another crafting area here to reduce the amount of players that currently spend their time in Academy Corner.  Also, it feels like there is a lot of empty, maze like areas in Thayd (crooked corners) that are frustrating to navigate and don't add anything positive to the city. 	
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Love the Exile base, it's not a true city but shows how we have had to cope after being suppressed by the evil Dominion! We have made it our home and will defend it to the death.	
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I must admit my very first disappointment when I played Wildstar for the first time in Beta, was Thayd. I am sure that is largely because it was not what I was expecting, but as my boyfriend put it, "I get that the Exiles don't have the resources to build something like Illium but why is their capitol city a trash pile?" 
 
I mean, it's an art direction, and it's perfectly fine that not everything is everyone's cup of tea, and because of that I choose to see Thayd more as an opportunity than a trash pile. I think it would be really cool if Thayd evolved, drop by drop, into a more and more exile-y city, not to mention a city where it's more visible that people live, because at the moment my main gripe with Thayd is "Where are the homes? Do people sleep outside?", Meanwhile the "we moved into a ruin" aspect of it could end up being a quirky charm rather than all the city is. First, perhaps some western movie style store fronts, booths and saloons plus some Exile houses in the busy district east of the space port, then some Granok houses popping up to make some of the less traversed streets and areas more cozy. More actual homes and public houses in the Arborian Gardens for Aurins to live in, as well as Mordesh buildings in the Alchemists Maze coinciding with whenever we get Mordesh player housing. Public spaces like saloons and pubs in all the sectors would both make the city feel a bit more alive and be nice gathering points for role players (I don't actually RP but assume gathering points that are easy to stumble upon would be nice now that the servers are merged?)
 
I've spent more time in Illum and personally I feel that city is more what I expected art direction wise. It makes sense for the Dominion to make a city in a more unified style with a much cleaner look, but there is definitely room for the non-cassians to make a bit more of a mark on the city, and traversing it is currently kind of a pain.
 
Now, time to dream wild:
 
For Thayd I also think it might be an idea to add another couple of transmats and make sure all services are available both in the north and south, so players can use the part of the city they enjoy the most but still need to venture into the other parts for quests and challenges. Make the northern part of Thayd have a Granok/Exile feel and the south part an Aurin/Mordesh theme, and make more signs leading players to the space port and junction point. Open up more of the vertical space for players to explore and to make the city come alive but without forcing it (except maybe on explorers). Add an elevator in the middle junction that takes you to a vista plateau with a fun bar, kiddie pools and ziplines that take you to the different parts of the city.
 
For Illum, my suggestion to alleviate the confusion of traversing the city would be to make an underground rather than tear holes in the walls. There's enough open space in Illum that you can easily add subway style staircases and openings, where tiled, clean corridors run between the main parts of the city. The underground would have its own map with the exits marked clearly, and good signs and guards pointing players in the right direction. Underground stations with a hovertrain like the ones in the arkships run north/south and east/west with a grand central station in the middle under the Luminous Gardens. The underground also includes sewers, secret Chua labs and a cavern with Chua houses and some basic services. 
 
Make the space port section to the west a little more friendly by adding some small buildings or fancy looking pavilions and awnings. Add a small Draken area to the north west with a prominently featured arena, and when the mechari housing is added, make the mostly empty district to the north east into a small Mechari hub with a secret base, a hospital and power stations etc. 
 
Now, for your final trick, tie your capitol cities with your repeatable content:
- Make an instanced version of your Draken arena as well as a Granok arena that can be found in Thayd and use them as actual arenas that can be queued for for PVP.
- Create a Mechari race track in north-eastern Illium and one in Thayd that starts in the Alchemist Corner and goes towads the centre and up the central tower structure. Make them both into shiphand missions or PVP racing battlegrounds where you can compete against your own faction. 
- Make sure these areas are accessible in the cities without any loadscreens, so the player can recognize them when they play the content, and add challenges to the race tracks as well as allowing duelling in the arenas so they can be used for RP.
 
That way players will have more positive experiences in the capitol cities and feel more part of the city life. The cities feel more alive in your mind because you've participated in events that took place in them beyond picking up trash or scanning statues.
 
Some small things I've noticed in other games:- Large cities with little content feel dead regardless of how many NPC's and buildings there are.
- Cities where most buildings are closed off to the public feel like props in a movie, if you add buildings, make many of them open to the players
- Don't be afraid to make actual quest zones in city districts, an example I remember is from Spellborn, where a district of Quarterstone is a full blown quest zone with enemies, burning buildings and a citadel to explore. Much more memorable than a few fed-ex quests to find your way around. Technically Thayd kind of has a little of this with the mordesh quarantine in Celestion but the area isn't directly accessible from Thayd nor is it breadcrumbed for those that go to Algoroc.
- Cities that force you to move between layers or are very three dimentional can add interest and variety but unless all services are accessible on a main level with no climbing or swapping between maps necessary, many players will choose to use another city as their hub.
- One of the easiest ways I've seen to make a city feel less sterile is to add children and pets. This is definitely missing in both Illium and Thayd. All the explaining away the lack of children you want doesn't change the fact that they would make the game more alive.	
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{| class="blockquote"
- One of the easiest ways I've seen to make a city feel less sterile is to add children and pets. This is definitely missing in both Illium and Thayd. All the explaining away the lack of children you want doesn't change the fact that they would make the game more alive.
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I posted about this at release. I was really surprised there where no children at all (not just the cities but no where in nexus) to be found. I kind of see why there wouldn't be many outwith the safety of the cities but why not in them. Other mmo's have kids running around why can't wildstar. I know this isn't exactly priority type content  :P but it would just add a little more immersion for some of us.
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			Dear Carbine, one thing I would really like to know (for no other reason than I'd like to know) are the city's builds from the same sort of plug system you use in housing ? I've often wondered this in the past and this thread sort of points to a yes ?	
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{| class="blockquote"
 
Dear Carbine, one thing I would really like to know (for no other reason than I'd like to know) are the city's build from the same sort of plug system you use in housing ? I've often wondered this in the past and this thread sort of points to a yes ?
 
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I was thinking that a single gathering point for both exile and dominion which focuses on pvp and smack talk.
 
What I am picturing:
 
A portal within each major city that takes you to a designated area:
 
1. Designated Area: A medium sized singular-instanced, PVP ground. With various levels that are separated by walls or elevations. Walls that systematically appear and disappear. However organized in a way that one war party could reign supreme over the area. On lookers could watch and chat over the majority of the area if not everything within a small safe zone.
 
A party damage control and heal mechanism would need to be put into place. So a party could heal each other without damaging same-party members. Otherwise, it is a free-for-all zone.
 
2. Reason to Go: Aside from a place to check out the other factions costumes, talk mess, flex your personal, or guild's, nexus-bulge; A NPC(s) sporadically spawns and despawns who necessary to buy items for guild buffs, item crafting, weapon/armor imbuements. Also, less lag since all NPC's and other people aren't there = better pvp.
 
3. Cost of Entrance: 100 prestige to port in.
 
4. Prestige: You can earn 5 prestige a kill. However, Battlegrounds/arenas and such are still most efficient way to earn prestige.  
 
5. Party Size: 5 Maximum. Any 'raid groups' will be counted as single players and thus be able to damage each other as well as unable to heal each other.
 
 
  Basically a place besides a laggy thayd that I can easily go fight dommies or other exile as well as talk serious trash while waiting for queue pops.
 
Love,
 Lawliette	
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			The one thing I would like to see is a auction house added down by the crafting area, That we would be a huge time save. Either that or add a rune station over by the auction house. 	
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They're way too large for what's actually functionally inside of them. There's such an excessive amount of wasted space in Thayd that it's really confusing. Entire districts are never even visited, if not for the Thayd transmat quest. The optimization for these areas is also hellish, with constant frame drops from the cluster of people and how large the cities are. I dislike going to Thayd because I know it's going to be a frustrating trip between the portals and the auction house with everybody smack dab in the middle and causing my computer to wheeze.
 
My recommendation would be to shrink them down, if at all possible. They have no reason being as large as they are, right now.
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Not really.
 
The actual cities themselves -- the structures used, etc. -- do not divide neatly into plugs. If we make significant changes in the cities, that's not going to be through the plug system.
 
That said, all of the city space IS divided into plugs for use in decorating for holidays and the like.
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The one thing I would like to see is a auction house added down by the crafting area, That we would be a huge time save. Either that or add a rune station over by the auction house. 
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			agreed, plus some cut through areas in Illium, buildings to explore, nightlife, balconies and some social challenges.  Such a nice city and it is like no one lives in it anywhere.  How about a penny wished well or fountain?  A mount car wash?  and more	
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			Being in Thayd is a bad experience, I think. I know it is in the lore that it is a rubble heap, but wandering around the city makes it feel like a literal pile of garbage with some shops plopped on it. The sections I think are too clean cut, and don't blend well into each other. I would clean it up just a little, maybe give it a better look. I know I would visit thayd more often if it was pretty - and for me, the first time I entered thayd I was a little dissapointed.	
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{| class="blockquote"
Being in Thayd is a bad experience, I think. I know it is in the lore that it is a rubble heap, but wandering around the city makes it feel like a literal pile of garbage with some shops plopped on it. The sections I think are too clean cut, and don't blend well into each other. I would clean it up just a little, maybe give it a better look. I know I would visit thayd more often if it was pretty - and for me, the first time I entered thayd I was a little dissapointed.
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Here is my take for both Illium and Thayd:
 
Thayd: I really enjoy Thayd, it feels alive with a distinctive character and like a sprawl. The problem with Thayd is that it feels like a military base more than city. It is clear that Thayd is intended as a military base but it doesn't feel like there is a city within the military base. The area of Thayd that I enjoy the most is the market area where all the vendors are at. The problem is that these vendors are rarely ever used. Something I would love to see done different is making this market area more alive and more like a street market with Lopp caravans moving through it, merchants moving boxes around, etc and for all of the vendors (EG, PVP, Renown, Glory, etc) placed in the market area. The empty space coming into Thayd also ruins the feel of the city, it would be great if it could be turned into a refugee camp, makeshift housing area. What Thayd needs is a residential sector.
 
Illium: Illium doesn't feel as alive as Thayd. I enjoy the vastness of it but it feels like an empty vastness. The thing that bugs me the most is the contrast of the high walls with the short buildings. I would love to see Illium built up with sky scrappers or just high ceiling buildings (with a high roof on the inside as well). I would love for the Church, Bureaucratic Section (Guild Management, Banks, Court House, something) to be more integrated into the city. I enjoyed the Dominion cities in Ellevar (along with the music theme) and Auroria more than I did Illium.  What Illium is seriously lacking is a 'downtown' area with a metropolitan feel to it. The current Illium downtown is the area between the space ports which just seems like hanging out in an empty lot.
 
Another thing that I would love to see is a PVP duel arena where PVP players can duel, add some stands around it overlooking it so that people can sit down, spectate, watch, cheer, interact and perhaps even bet. PVP can be such a great spectacle to watch, let us watch it happen and I am sure the PVP'ers would be more than happy to provide the show.	
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While we're on the subject....
 
You moved the CB and NW portals in Illium to be in the same area as other portals. The thing is... CB is just straight up in a strange spot. I think it was intended to be by the same ship as NW, but it's on the opposite end. Even when you use the NPC to come back to Illium from CB, you land next to the NW port. It would make more sense to keep those two together. If you intended to mix them up within the other ships, then NW needs to move, as it's WAY off by itself, it could share the platform with Farside which is also by itself on that same half of the spaceport.
 
But I honestly think moving Whitevale onto the Farside platform (why is poor Whitevale so shunned it gets shoved off to some obscure corner?), add a Defile or Blighthaven portal next to Wilderrun, and NW and CB on the platform where just NW is now will more nicely balance the ports, and add in a much needed one into the void after Grimvault.	
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My reaction:
They changed the tour guide by going on foot with the "Meet the [X]"'s representative to a bike with generic Tour Guide.
I know Carbine wanted to do this but please add Street Car (Dominion) or the carriages from Universal Studios (Exiles) for the tour.	
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Here is my take for both Illium and Thayd:
 
Thayd: I really enjoy Thayd, it feels alive with a distinctive character and like a sprawl. The problem with Thayd is that it feels like a military base more than city. It is clear that Thayd is intended as a military base but it doesn't feel like there is a city within the military base. The area of Thayd that I enjoy the most is the market area where all the vendors are at. The problem is that these vendors are rarely ever used. Something I would love to see done different is making this market area more alive and more like a street market with Lopp caravans moving through it, merchants moving boxes around, etc and for all of the vendors (EG, PVP, Renown, Glory, etc) placed in the market area. The empty space coming into Thayd also ruins the feel of the city, it would be great if it could be turned into a refugee camp, makeshift housing area. What Thayd needs is a residential sector.
 
Illium: Illium doesn't feel as alive as Thayd. I enjoy the vastness of it but it feels like an empty vastness. The thing that bugs me the most is the contrast of the high walls with the short buildings. I would love to see Illium built up with sky scrappers or just high ceiling buildings (with a high roof on the inside as well). I would love for the Church, Bureaucratic Section (Guild Management, Banks, Court House, something) to be more integrated into the city. I enjoyed the Dominion cities in Ellevar (along with the music theme) and Auroria more than I did Illium.  What Illium is seriously lacking is a 'downtown' area with a metropolitan feel to it. The current Illium downtown is the area between the space ports which just seems like hanging out in an empty lot.
 
Another thing that I would love to see is a PVP duel arena where PVP players can duel, add some stands around it overlooking it so that people can sit down, spectate, watch, cheer, interact and perhaps even bet. PVP can be such a great spectacle to watch, let us watch it happen and I am sure the PVP'ers would be more than happy to provide the show.
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So I wonder if it existed in the past but
MALVOLIO HAS A MISTRESS!
She even say (not captured) either she or Malvolio killed her ex-husband.	
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So I'm gonna pop back in here and chat about city design, to keep the conversation going.
 
For those who want the crafting stations considerably closer to the AH/CX/Bank/Mailbox in Thayd -- that's not going to happen. In MMO city design, you have to balance convenience and performance. While, yes, standing in one spot (or close enough) to craft, auction, and get stuff from your mail would be wonderfully convenient, it would also be where a good majority of people would be standing, and that would tank performance. In contrast, Illium's current setup trends far into the too inconvenient realm for the crafters. Ideally there's an AH/CX close to the crafting stations, but not immediately there. It should be a short run.
 
Transport right now is rather difficult to suss out as a player. Guard directions help, but ultimately there's only so much space in Thayd's spaceport, and arguably too much in Illium's. A better organized solution is something I want to tackle, certainly.
 
There are other disparities too -- things like the Secret Ops Center in Thayd being far away from everyone in the Pilgrim's Promenade whereas the Enigma Chamber in Illium is just off the Spaceport -- that we want to pull more in line with one another (and that doesn't mean I want to shove the Enigma Chamber halfway to Deradune. ;) )
 
As far as flavor goes, that's definitely something we want to bring in line. Illium has less flavor than Thayd in general, but what flavor there is can often be missed due to the size and layout of it. Crooked Corners, as maze-like as it is, puts the flavor in your face because you can't miss it when you're in there. Many of Illium's conversations and such are tucked into out-of-the-way corners where you don't catch 'em. Both visually and content-wise I want to bring the cities more in line with each other that way. I'm not sure if Illium will ever have distinct districts for races, however; the Dominion is very Cassian... well, dominant, and the places for the other cultures in the Dominion tend to be Bloodfire Village or the Feralplain Collective -- satellite hubs and villages where the other cultures shine.
 
What services do you want access to when you're in a city? What services do you feel should have a distinct "place" within cities? What activities do you find yourself doing the most when you're in a capital city in an MMO (doesn't have to be ours)?	
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For those who want the crafting stations considerably closer to the AH/CX/Bank/Mailbox in Thayd -- that's not going to happen.
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In MMO city design, you have to balance convenience and performance.
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I'm a little confused as to why you can't drop a crafting+engraving station in the Gardens and that marketplace so that traffic in Academy Corner isn't so... obnoxiously clogging. :S
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Sounds like the solution is actually to remove the Academy Corner's AH and placing it somewhere else. That will force players to spread themselves across the city (kind of what happens in Illium) instead of funneling all of them into one single corner.
Or, as an alternative, moving the other very conveniently placed services that are there. Like moving the Crafting Stations closer to the center of the city and specifically closer to the other two AH locations. That way players who are doing dailies will use the Academy Corner, while crafters will go to the market or the Arborian Gardens.
 
Of course, I'm sure that solution will *cupcake* people off because they will prefer the convenience over good performance of the city.	
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The ideal solution is to set up the city in general so you have convenient trade centers next to major interests that tend to cause loitering (trade, transport, daily hubs, etc.) and therefore none of them are overloaded. That requires a significant change in layout, mind -- there's nowhere in Thayd we could move that one to that wouldn't be oddly close to another one or completely invalidate it as an option currently -- but such a change is not off the table.
 
When suggesting things in this thread, you can go as blue-sky as working off a clean slate. It's cool with me. :)	
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I still really don't like that I'm shoehorned into using Academy Corner to do all my crafting stuff. >_< I much prefer the Gardens but don't get to see it much. *sadness*
 
Could maybe have two transmats, on opposite ends of the cities, in addition to multiple crafting locations? I remember having multiple hearthstone options in the major WoW cities. That would take care of at least two thingies.	
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I still really don't like that I'm shoehorned into using Academy Corner to do all my crafting stuff. >_
 
Could maybe have two transmats, on opposite ends of the cities, in addition to multiple crafting locations? I remember having multiple hearthstone options in the major WoW cities. That would take care of at least two thingies.
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Oops! Things were posted. But I had built a wall of text by the time I noticed. Oops! Again!
 
Right now, in Thayd, the Academy corner is the center of population because of exactly the reasons you stated. It's absurdly close to a customization NPC. It's close to the transports. It's close to the taxi. It has a bank. It has an AH. It has crafting stations. It's close to the PvP vendor. It's also close enough the level 50 dailies. Heck, it's even close to the Omnicore weekly (if anyone runs that). Everything that matters is concentrated to the north.
What does the other AH has, the one in the market? It has the mount vendors and then a large concentration of vendors that nobody actually visits that much unless it's for looks, because you get better gear just by playing. And what do the Arborian Gardens have? Even less: nothing. There's no reason to go to the Arborian Gardens. It's not close to anything. Those two locations are at a huge disadvantage in relation with the Academy Corner.
 
Illium, by contrast, has everything concentrated on the south. The difference with it is that the transports are spread over a large location (instead of conveniently cramped one next to the other)and the crafting stations are close but not really. Their most populated AH is in the transport area. As I have said, this transport area is quite large, so there's a considerable distance between the crafting stations and the AH. That's the big thing about Illium: you want something? You have to travel. The PvP vendors are on the opposite side from the transports, for example. On the other side of the city.
Exiles do not have to do that, though: they can walk three steps and jump down a short cliff and voilá! They are at the AH. Forgot to craft something? No problem! The ramp's right there! Want to go back to your questing area? Get your end-game dailies? Do Omni-core again? Visit the Renown vendor? Everything's at about fifteen seconds from the Academy Corner. Except the poor mount vendor. And, actually, the Omni-core thing is actually kind of far away thanks to the tunnels. But it's still much closer than to any other population hub inside Thayd.
 
No matter how much I think about it or how I try to approach it, it seems the biggest problem is that it's too convenient.
 
So let's nerf the Academy Corner. My suggestion would be to spread the services to be more in line with Illium's design: longer travel times!
-Move the crafting area to a more central location: either the Traverse Tunnels (revamp the area used by the daily NPCs) or the Arborian Gardens (right where the AH/bank in that area is; then move the AH/bank further south). Personally, I'd pick the Arborian Gardens.
-Move the daily NPCs and level 50 gear vendors from where they are further south, to the Court of Judgement in order keep them somewhat at the center of the city.
-Move the AH/bank in the Academy Corner to where the crafting stations are in the current version of the city.
 
That way, players who are questing will use the Academy Corner and, since it will be a bit farther away, they'll use a little more time getting there. Enough time and distance to hopefully not ruin performance even if we get a lot of questing people. Meanwhile, crafters will use the Arborian Garden. End-game players doing dungeons will go to Fortune's Grounds. The Lair of the Black Hoods remains a free-ish area for roleplayers.
 
Another alternative that might be much cheaper is to move the AH/bank from the Corner to somewhere else. Maybe to the West of the Traverse Tunnels? Might be too close to zombiravenoustown, though.	
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Ah, but the majority of folks use the city teleport to get back and not necessarily their transmat, which can't be placed in multiple locations. Again, it's a band-aid, not a true solution to the problem. I'd much rather implement a more comprehensive solution surrounding the design of the cities themselves.
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			I would like to see a crafting station alot closer to the AH . Its really annoying when trying to level up a profession and having to run back and forth in illium to buy materials you miss .	
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Unfortunately, the teleports are not there most of the time in Thyad.  And I hate having to traverse the city from one end to the other to and from the housing guy.  Yes, I do use my housing teleport, but it has a 30 minute CD.  At least in Illium, the museum and Enigma Chamber are close to each other.  
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Actually I'm referring to the city teleport that you get from completing the tour quests, not the settler-built in-city teleports. If you haven't done the tour quests yet, you should! :)
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City design:
The main points to a city design are the ability to have people loiter without causing congestion, and still be able to get from one area to the next quickly and efficiently. 
Think of a circle with the center being the main lettering area.  Banks and auction houses are usually the biggest draw.  Include more than one of each to help spread people out while keeping them within the confines of the center.
The outer ring should be broken into quadrants with easy access to the center.  That means no jump puzzles to run from the outer to the inner and no walls to run around while still maintaining some faction distinct design elements.  Each quadrant of the outer circle should contain one aspect of game play such as crafting, missions, raid portals, transporters.  Although each quadrants theme should be centric around one of these types of areas they should not be exclusive.  If I am in the crafting quadrant I should not have to run to the center to get to a bank or mail box.  Each quadrant should also host some type of common area such as bars to hand out in or gardens to run around.
Adding some area theme challenges to each section would be a nice touch but not the same one all the time.  Mix it up, do a weekly challenge with multiple rewards so one week I come to the center and have to access every bank and auction house in a time limit and the next time I have to climb to the top of the local bar and jump off.
Add fun content, have a quadrant or area with a dueling ring and associated challenge.  Why not add a water park with fun slides, or a roller coaster.  How about a roller coaster with a challenge, you have to ride through the loops and turns and drop and shoot/slash as many targets as you can.  And to make it useful why not use that as a way to move from one quadrant to the next quickly.	
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			As a side note, and I know it's incredibly minor but it has always bugged me, the banks in Thayd show little consistency in their appearance. For example, in Academy Corner your bank is a machine and the guild bank is a person (who doesn't stand near anything that looks even remotely like a bank) whilst in Fortune's ground your bank is a person standing in a bank, and your guild bank is a machine. Wouldn't mind seeing the banks be more in a bank type of area (aside from the Aurin lady at Fortune's ground) and have more visually consistent designations. Just thought I'd put that out there.	
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Since launch I've been getting severe lag/choke at two specific areas of Illium:  The taxi plaza, which got worse lately with a recent drop; and the passage right in front of the Protostar place that leads to the central crafting area.
 
Now, just today, for the first time since launch, I passed through the latter passage and didn't get ANY lag at all. This place was actually freezing my character for at least 3-5s in the past, and it did that every single time.
 
So I'm asking... did you folks fix this recently?  I noticed there are plants hanging on each side of the passage that I hadn't seen before, which makes me wonder if you've switched some decor around, and if this led to fixing the choke lag?	
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A huge Quality of Life change you could make for quick gaming sessions:
 
Put 1 normal vendor in the bank/AH/CX areas.  It doesn't need to sell anything particularly, just there to vendor junk to.
 
When I run a couple shiphands or dungeons, I constantly have to do this dance of salvage -> bank useful stuff (runes + fragments, primal patterns and gifts, cores) -> run to a vendor to sell. Sometimes I have to do it twice when i miss something that should've been salvaged the first time around.
 
A normal vendor placed IN the banking areas in Illium would let you queue up for a couple whatevers, salvage, vendor, and bank without having to run back and forth a bunch.	
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			      Hello Caydiem and thanks for the cool topic! As a Dominion player I love the colors and style of Illium but would like to see more influences from the other races. Some Chua factories producing arms/armaments, A Mechari intelligence area. A Draken hunting ground (training dummies as many folks have suggested adding more).  The city has massive open/ unused areas (I can see where some of this was set up for possible RP reasons or to accommodate underground areas from adjacent zones) but the biggest is the vertical space. Thayd has numerous ramps/walls and elevator style platforms while Illium has a few stairs and some elevated landing pads. So I'm suggesting thinking upwards as well as filling in some areas.     SWOTOR has numerous quests (class and story) that take the player every few levels to and through Coruscant/Korriban and Fleet. That keeps players of all levels feeling like they are part of a galaxy spanning society. The  opportunity for low level/new players to see hi-level/max characters in cool gear is fun. For the hi-level types it's a chance to pay it forward and help out a low level with a quest or some advice. There's very little of that in regards to Illium other than some odd discovery for the museum or to visit the next pilot to take you to next quest zone until you get into the 30's and meet the ghost lady. So, as others have suggested, some more quest or story lines that work  through the major cities with npc's in some of the least travelled areas please.      I think both cities are beautiful in their own way sometimes you just have to visit a stylist and try out some new clothes and get a new hairstyle so am looking forward to any changes you make. Also maybe visit Tony on Zero to Fifty since have not seen you on a cast in awhile you have always been an awesome guest! Or you and Sunshine could kick Tony to the curb and do a Ladies Day on Nexus show :D     Thanks for the opportunity to chat and keep up the awesomeness that is Wildstar! 	
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As far as flavor goes, that's definitely something we want to bring in line. Illium has less flavor than Thayd in general, but what flavor there is can often be missed due to the size and layout of it. Crooked Corners, as maze-like as it is, puts the flavor in your face because you can't miss it when you're in there. Many of Illium's conversations and such are tucked into out-of-the-way corners where you don't catch 'em. Both visually and content-wise I want to bring the cities more in line with each other that way. I'm not sure if Illium will ever have distinct districts for races, however; the Dominion is very Cassian... well, dominant, and the places for the other cultures in the Dominion tend to be Bloodfire Village or the Feralplain Collective -- satellite hubs and villages where the other cultures shine.
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The ideal solution is to set up the city in general so you have convenient trade centers next to major interests that tend to cause loitering (trade, transport, daily hubs, etc.) and therefore none of them are overloaded. That requires a significant change in layout, mind -- there's nowhere in Thayd we could move that one to that wouldn't be oddly close to another one or completely invalidate it as an option currently -- but such a change is not off the table.
 
When suggesting things in this thread, you can go as blue-sky as working off a clean slate. It's cool with me. :)
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Thayd, to me, is the worst designed capital city of any capital city in any MMO that I've played.  First of all, the environment is boring.  Like, I'd have no idea that I was in a capital city unless the game told me so.  Every time I'm there, I get lost, and the map doesn't help me.  I'm a relatively new player, my top level char is 23, and when I'm in Thayd I honestly can't wait to be out of it.  If I'm looking for something, the default map only shows me what's near, not what's everywhere, so if I'm looking for a vendor and it's not near me, I have no idea, honestly, where I should go.  My only option is to wander through the vast amount of wasted space with nothing in it until I come across what I'm looking for.
 
Here's the thing.  A capital city should be all of these things:
 
a) Welcoming.
b ) Easy to navigate.
c) Thematically appropriate so it fits the lore without being boring or badly designed.
d) Not have huge amounts of wasted space for no reason and with nothing in it.
e) Logical flow of accessibility. 
 
Currently Thayd has none of those things to me.  It feels like just another part of the world.  There's nothing special or welcoming about it.  There's no logical flow to NPC placement or vendors or... anything.  There's huge amounts of space with nothing there that serves ONLY AS FILLER to make the city bigger than it needs to be.  Since I've started this game I have always said 'Thayd is about 10x bigger than it needs to be'.
 
If you want to look at a well-designed capital city in an MMO look no further than Ironforge in WoW.  Nothing beats that place.  It's just a pity current WoW devs are braindead and abandoned it long ago.
 
I'm SO glad this thread exists.  It actually makes me happier than you could probably know, because I think the layout and design of Thayd is a huge misstep in Wildstar.  I can't talk about the Dominion city, haven't played that side.	
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Thayd
 
Feels too spacious and not enough like the Exiles have taken over and settled here. Sabotage pvp starting area for the Exiles is what Thayd should be more like. Also it would help to promote the "character" of each race by making some sub zones look more race related, such as the Aurin tree area, but more in the centralized and "high traffic" areas. 	
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I'd really like to see a crafting/engraving station added by the AH in Fortune's Grounds in Thayd. By all of them, fo that matter.
 
The Grimvault teleport is larger than the rest! This game will fail. (jk)
 
As for the new Tour of Thayd, It's less annoying, for sure, but I think it fails to achieve its purpose. 
 
Old quest: I ran all over the entire city, experiencing most of it along the way and seeing other little nooks that I wanted to check out.
 
New quest (granted, not on a first-time toon): I went and made lunch, came back, clicked on the next taxi, and ate my lunch... the quest has lost any and all interaction and fails to make the player experience the city.
 
EDIT
 
Thayd's citizens need somewhere to live! I think a simple solution would be adding some floating housing plots over Thayd.	
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EDIT
 
Thayd's citizens need somewhere to live! I think a simple solution would be adding some floating housing plots over Thayd.
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