122201-feedback-talk-to-me-about-capital-cities-page-2

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			They're not floating. And I don't think Thayd produces enough pollution to make the skyline look that uninviting. ;)	
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They're not floating. And I don't think Thayd produces enough pollution to make the skyline look that uninviting. ;)
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			yes, whenever i load nto illium, my game crshes at 100% and when i try and log back in it does the same thing. been like this since drop 4, before then i had no problem. it makes me really sad as i cannot play on a game i love. i hae contacted support but everything they suggested didnt work.	
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I'd like to see more to do in them. I just resubbed and I was happy to see that DDR style challenge to do, but sadly didn't have anything else to fiddle with.
 
New path quests and mini games in the cities would be nice, they're both awesome capitals to wander around in, it would be awesome to DO more in them as well.	
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Let me start off by saying I play dominion and have never played exile, so I don't can't give feedback on Thayd, so let's stick to Illium. 
 
Current Illium: I have major respect for the people involved making Illium because it really is a gorgeous city and is big in scale, and that's exactly why it makes me sad to also say it's a city filled with redundancy and needs to be cut down massively. I'm not talking about minor visual changes, I mean a big cut in size and the redudancy. The capital is genuinely complex and too big for it's own good. It feels more intimidating than a homely capital and I understand perhaps that's how you want Illium to be. It's the pride of the dominion and the dominion is all about conquering and showing off their military power, but that needs to be put aside if you want a capital that feels like home to the players. 
The changes that I want to see is not just something I *hope* will happen, but something I feel is a necessity. It just doesn't feel like a capital at all and it's infrastructure is extremely awkward and spread. 
Illium today;
 
 
And this is how I suggest Illium to be resized; 
 
You'll first notice Spaceport Alpha is completely cut off. This is where most Dominion players will jump from my idea and that is understandable as it's where we usually hang out. But why do we hang out there? It's simple. It's close to a bank/auction house and all the portals to other zones. In fact, I'd say Spaceport Alpha is an absolutely stale and boring place. It's quite too big and central for some unknown reason. Why aren't we chilling inside the actual city instead of the *cupcake* port? This is probably the last place I'd want to chill, but it's so central to everything it's basically a necessity. Instead I'd remove the sides and basically make it a glorious walk into the actual city from Deradune. Basically any lvl 14 will be walking down this huge road and feel amazed instead of absolutely confused by the complexity of Spaceport. 
 
The half right has been removed. Why? There was nothing there. It was there for no reason, none, 0. The only thing there was the PvP area, which I'll go onto later. What was there before? A renown vendor + guild vendors and 2 redundant banks/auction houses yet again. Why is the PvP'ers split so far from civilization? Again, it's too big and too spread. Since right side has been removed, so has the exit to Diremoor from right side since there is no reason to have 2 exits to 1 zone. Redundancy yet again. 
 
Now where is the PvP area? DID YOU REMOVE PVP FROM THE GAME? Noooo...Nooo... I love my PvP and I love my players regardless of PvP or PvE, so let's get together in the city. Let's get more centralised. I've moved the PvP area above the EG vendor area instead of the useless greens there. Make a big PvP field where people can duel each other w/ PvP vendors and such just like before.
 
I've kept the park as it was simply because I think parks in capitals add some charm to it, but it is essentially redundant as well. The auctioneers are to be placed in the EG vendor are w/ bank etc and the essentials. Make it more like a market square instead of these secluded shops. More protostar influence. I know I also removed the lvl 15 adventure (riot in the void), but fret not, it can be moved anywhere, even in the park. Same goes for the world quest area + gauntlet imbuement area. These areas I do not feel justify wasting that much space in Illium however and there should be plenty of place left even with the very resized Illium. 
 
I truly hope this does not fall on deaf ears due to the work this would involve. Right now Illium does not feel like a capital or home to me, which is a really bad thing. If I had to look for inspiration in terms of making capital cities, I'd look no further than old Orgrimmar or Dalaran from WoW (I don't like mentioning the game, but admittedly they are almost experts at making capitals). 
 
Edit: Yes, I'd remove the settler plug. With all due respect, don't try and pull it off. It's not going to happen. Never in my 9-10 months have I seen it being used. Settler perks in Illium just aren't useful since mostly level cap players habit the capitals and the settler perks are usually mov. speed increase + exp increase etc. Very little to no use and low levels breeze through the city if they ever make it out of there. 
 
Illium is the worst capital city in terms of actual technical use, but looks aethetically gorgeous and is a very nice idea. But good ideas doesn't always turn out to be good in execution. 	
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And this is how I suggest Illium to be resized; 
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No! D: I love all the open space in Illium. It's fantastic for roleplayers. The open seating areas and rows of housing and grassy places... all of those are in the areas you deleted. In my opinion, that resizing would be a very bad idea.
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Wouldn't the park make a decent spot for RP? No interference from outside players and could make for a great picnic. 
 
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I don't RP and I agree that Illium shouldn't be chopped up like that I do agree that PVP needs to move somewhere a little less "shoved in a corner".  Maybe to the area near all the new quest givers, so I don't have to run literally across the whole city to pick up the PVP daily quest. Ditch the current Whitevale portal ship and put it there (move Whitevale to one of the empty spots by the other ports). Replace the PVP NPC's with a new challenge and/or expand the training grounds to include some sort of dive bar for RP purposes.
 
Northern Illium (the entire area around the church) NEEDS more focus. This is supposed to be the strength and power of Dominion, and it's a giant vacant lot most of the time. Unfortunately, I have no idea how to spruce that area up to get more people there.	
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Lot's of good points have already been made, so i'll just add my $0.02:
 
1:  Accessibility:  Settler Portals got nerfed.  Revert them so that there's more incentive to actually keep them up.
 
2:  Accessibility (Thayd):  Even if every other city quarter has a hub with adjacent CX/AH, Mailbox, Bank, Guild Bank, Crafting Stations and Runecrafting Stations, Academy Corner will still have the highest concentration of players because of its proximity to the sole Transmat portal in the city and Farside return portal.
 
3:  Space:  Lots of empty space in the cities.  I have to assume that they are set aside for future content, since they are currently underutilized.
 
Wishlist:  Audio ambient dialogue.  It works so well for GW2, it's worth looking into for Capital and (hopefully) Housing NPCs.  Dunno if you've the resources for this, but frankly no one reads ambient text dialogue in the Capitals.	
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I don't know if this has been said or not so apologies in advance if it a repeat.
 
More housing portals then just the one near fortunes Ground.
 
From housing plot I would like to be able to go to Thayd as a choice to Academy Corner or Fortunes Ground without triggering my cool down, because sometimes you just need to run to town for supplies :)	
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So when are you going to remove 80% of the guards from Thayd so that it's as weakly defended as Illium?
 
Kinda tired of killing LOTD in my city, I'd like to hop around on their wall for once.
 
 
 
Additionally, I think Illium is perfectly fine how it is ASSUMING that Thayd gets a massive removal of guards. I like the fact that Illium is big and grand and can be infiltrated. I just find it incredibly stupid that the same is not true for Thayd (the infiltration part). Thayd needs hidden unguarded entrances (like Illium) and Thayd needs TONS of safe areas (like Illium) where it can be raided.
 
 
 
Or just, yaknow, make Guards killable by raid groups. That'd be nice too. And fix all these problems. I wouldn't mind Thayd being better defended than Illium if Guards weren't insta-respawn and stupidly hard to kill. Dominion would just have to be better at raiding. But that's not the case. Right now it's just impossible to raid Thayd.	
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How about when there's a way to get to the western side of Illum without having to already have walked through it/broken the map?
 Inspired by my journey to baby Metal Maw.	
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Illium
Things I like:
 
The size of the city
 
Things I don't like:
 
Having to run all over the place just to do things
My activities look like this:  get daily quests, go to ah in spaceport, go to rune vendor, go to pvp vendor
 
I would love to be able to keep the size and grandeur of the city without actually having the inconvenience of that
 
What I'd suggest:
 
Place all the necessary vendors in convenient locations of each other.  I don't like having to run back and forth to the AH / rune vendor through different areas of the city just to rune / get mats for my gear.  There should either be a closer rune vendor --- or a closer AH.
 
I don't like having my daily pvp quests being on the opposite side of Illium as the pvp vendors.  I would suggest either centralizing all the necessities like Thayd has, or making a second set of PvP vendors for us to use.  Or putting a second pvp daily quest giver near the PvP vendors.
 
I don't like the whole top half of Illium being useless.
 
What I'd love to see: 
 
Meaningful ways to kill time in Illium while waiting in queues.  I'd love to see a dueling ring that functioned as a FFA arena.  IF you enter, you're able to be attacked by dominion.
I'd love to see PvP dummies w/ standardized stats like "Dummy Slinger, with 3400 armor and 50% pvp def." etc
 
 
 
Thayd:
 
What i'd like to see:
I wish I could, as dominion, have an easy time getting into the capital city, equivalent to the ease in which Exiles can get into Illium.	
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			It's a pain for dominion to get to Celestion but I do agree and always had wondered how exiles were even supposed to get into deradune and the likes.	
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It's a pain for dominion to get to Celestion but I do agree and always had wondered how exiles were even supposed to get into deradune and the likes.
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Fate's Landing needs a lot of love. In my opinion, that should be the area of Illium where everyone gathers -- not Spaceport Alpha. That said, here's my proposal for it. I'm trying to avoid putting everything in the same place (as in Academy Corner) while making things more convenient and centering Dominion life on the most important part of Illium.
 	
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I'll be honest. I really wanted to like the Exiles. I really wanted. I love the Dominion for different reasons. However my two favorite races are tied.
 
Chua for the Dominion and Mordesh for the Exiles. The reason I gave up on Exiles.. Thayd. Even the first time I been to Illum I never gotten lost or felt cramped. New buildings being constructed, people working hard to make it nice and pristine.
 
When I reached Thayd I was expecting to see rebels building too. Showing a strong rebel effort to make the best of what they got. Resourceful.. Then I stepped in and found an already mostly built city AKA a Ruin just turned in a Slum, trash everywhere and lazy bums. Everything looked the same. Nothing in Illum was confusing or disorienting. Almost every building or section was it's own land mark. Made it easy to get the lay out. Thayd on the other hand very little actually stands out to even remotely be called a landmark.  Very narrow and Thayd pretty much looks the same from any direction. 
 
It wasn't the Redneck vibe you gave the Exiles that was the problem. Honestly I know some Rednecks in real life. They're hard working, good people, not exactly classy but their function over form mentality is kinda admirable in it's own weird way. Nope it's more like you watched the movie "Life Stinks" By Mel Brooks and decided. "That's Thayd!" 	
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Entertainment, things to do while waiting for something else, ways to interact with more random people or friends from the server.
-Chess/Checkers: Outdoor tables you can sit your toon at and play someone else, even cooler if you could wager money on yourself winning. Ability for others to see the game.
-Some central area for watching others PVP or PVE, you walk out of the AH or bank and there is a fight going on that you can watch. Say every couple of days a giant monster put in a big cage that people can que in for. An area that immediately entering you are flagged for PVP.
-A Racetrack encircling an area that you could watch or enter. Make it difficult so that the best racers are known on the server, limit racing time to once an hour during daylight, or only on weekends, decrease availability to increase interest. Make the racing vehicle expensive so a guild could go in together to have one. Make it non soulbound so other people could use it.
-A special area reserved for those that have accomplished something, Raiders/PVP/The peope that finished that really long quest.
-Appearing/disappearing vendor in odd out of the way places that sells something people want.
-Podium with holograms of the current top PVP toons.	
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			A racetrack around Illium would be really cool!  Maybe some kind of bumper car features?	
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			More AH's/CX's. AH/CX in tradeskill area.	
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without reading any posts after the OP: ( Illium ) Dominion
 
A monorail, make it happen. I want a monorail that goes around the city either like a subway station or above, prefer above because that's cool. It would be a really awesome way to get around the city for the sake of RP and laziness. Would be even more epic if it had a robot lady voice that told you what stop u were approaching and what was in that area.
 
^^ the best.
 
In all honesty if not some kind of transit around ( since settler stations are dead since the nerf to time they are active ) The city should be smaller. There's no reason to go past the hall with the crafting station  unless u pvp... putting the pvp vendor out there and the guild renown vendor off in no mans land doesn't make it more populated. it just makes people irritated to have to take our poo poo slow mounts across the city for a speed flask.	
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You should, at some point, develop the capitals, especially Thayd.
 
A lot of time may pass, and Thayd still looks like a garage dump. Maybe you can make the streets looking more like urban cities, with asphalt, maybe a public transport system that let you travel through a fast city route being able to hop off when you want.
 
Make socialization points like the pubs more lively, actually, make real pubs for these places, maybe put some daily quest objectives there that changes all the time.
 
Make more indoors places. Illium got a - lot - of structures, yet almost none is really accessible, wich is a shame. I'd love to see the view on some high window or balcony there.
 
Since WS got just one capital for each faction, I think you guys should definitely focus a drop on upgrading the capitals!	
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You should, at some point, develop the capitals, especially Thayd.
 
A lot of time may pass, and Thayd still looks like a garage dump. Maybe you can make the streets looking more like urban cities, with asphalt, maybe a public transport system that let you travel through a fast city route being able to hop off when you want.
 
Make socialization points like the pubs more lively, actually, make real pubs for these places, maybe put some daily quest objectives there that changes all the time.
 
Make more indoors places. Illium got a - lot - of structures, yet almost none is really accessible, wich is a shame. I'd love to see the view on some high window or balcony there.
 
Since WS got just one capital for each faction, I think you guys should definitely focus a drop on upgrading the capitals!
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I was browsing the WoW subreddit and saw an interesting thread concerning capital cities since WoD suffers from terrible city design (Not implying our cities are bad, but WoD had some excruciatingly badly designed cities) 
 
http://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/356hi0/blizzard_i_beg_you_to_put_a_neutral_faction/cr1oaui
 
The comment summed up perfectly what I believe is a good city. Ignore the neutral city thing as it doesn't really play into the design (although I prefer neutral cities).
Sorry for seeming lazy by linking a comment, but I felt it was extremely relevant in this case. 	
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			Now that drop 5 here, I NEED to reiterate the need to fix the teleports in Illium. It looks so sloppy now. One ship has 4 teleports around it, another only has one. CB and NW and Basin should all be together on the same ship. Whitevale needs to join the rest.	
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So a brief update for you folks.
 
First, thank you for all the feedback you've given; I really appreciate it, and I've read each and every one of your posts on this!
 
You didn't see a bunch in INVASION: Nexus, but coming up you'll see a good bit of action on your feedback. Anything that might take significant art or UI to fix is on the back burner, but I've wrangled some solid changes that should address the primary concerns listed in the thread and make your day-to-day interactions in the cities a bit more comfortable. Stay tuned!	
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So a brief update for you folks.
 
First, thank you for all the feedback you've given; I really appreciate it, and I've read each and every one of your posts on this!
 
You didn't see a bunch in INVASION: Nexus, but coming up you'll see a good bit of action on your feedback. Anything that might take significant art or UI to fix is on the back burner, but I've wrangled some solid changes that should address the primary concerns listed in the thread and make your day-to-day interactions in the cities a bit more comfortable. Stay tuned!
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			I would like Caydiem's post, but we're not allowed =P	
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			Hopefully this means we can Escape From Spaceport Alpha ;)	
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I really look forward to what changes might come. I do feel that there is a lot of work to be done on Illium, but I have complete faith that you guys can pull it off. 
Just a quick one as you also work on Holidays. How will the changes to each city affect Halloween & Christmas? The screenshots I saw of Halloween had very heavy emphasis on changing the city design w/ pumpkins and spook. 
I might just be expecting more change than there realistically will be, but still curious how and if it'll affect holidays. 	
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			I know Thayd is like a war camp, but it would be nice to see a side of the city that is starting to develop- that would give a sense of optimism? I like the trashy parts, but it would be nice to see more shiny clean places too (like the housing building, southern auction place). More color, more lights - less giant brown walls.	
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			Ogod and I wanted to move out of Spaceport Alpha  :(	
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Jeebus, here is how to fix Illium and make more people in one area so it looks less dead
 
Auction House goes Here
 
PvP vendors go Here
 
And last but not least...Contracts/glory/adventure/shiphand/raid stuff goes here
 	
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Jeebus, here is how to fix Illium...
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I don't know If this has been discussed here previously, I know this is thread was created to discuss the layout of stations in the city and how to improve the overall navigation. But I would like to rant about the overall symmetry in Illium and the general look/choices of the structure models/buildings, props and textures. Maybe it's because I am personally a bit above average observant about these things, but there are some issues here which bothers me more than in any other MMO I've ever played. I spend time here every day but I just cant enjoy the aesthetic of the city for a lot of reasons, I personally think a lot of things in Illium should be improved/redone in the future because a lot of props and structures are just randomly placed around without throughout consideration about what would look good where and together.. 
 
The first thing I was mainly bothered about was how the ground texture is in Spaceport Alpha is not properly centered, I don't know why you guys decided to go with a checkered-like pattern texture for ground here, but it makes it just a whole lot more noticeable, at least for me.   Illustration about what i mean.
 
Then there's these little sections with grass that's spread around:
These oblong and rectangular stone slabs that's circling around these sections aroung in Spaceport Alpha are just so horribly asymmetrically placed, it looks so much like it's just singular squares manually placed there piece by piece by eye measure, rotated to fit the shape of the grass part and linked, instead of symetrically modeled in a program using tools as one object. As you can see the slabs are basically just places clipping through each other on multiple of these grass sections, and there is even grass just clipping through the stone onto the ground... Why, oh why??
 
More pictures: http://puu.sh/hNJnG/cb1a7a1319.jpg
http://puu.sh/hNJtn/0d25e1acdf.jpg
http://puu.sh/hNJI3/5c25357b77.jpg
 
The texture choices here doesn't blend well together, and I'd suggest changing it. Just the color of the ground texture combined with the light-green texture of the grass just doesn't look good. The art style might might have a play in that I guess..
 
Now, for the main structures around Illium...
 
I'm sure you've all seen the Mondo and Kezrek buildings, I'm sorry to say that these look absolutely horrendous and out of place. It looks like close to zero work was put into it and whoever had to integrate them somewhere in the city just slapped it on the previous building there. I am pretty sure this has already been discussed here, so I'm not gonna go into too much detail about that, other than to strongly suggest that something should be done about it.
 
The tall buildings/structures around the city: I really feel like the model for these lack a lot of detail and just looks really cheap/simplistic, you can so easily tell that they are just really low poly. It looks like that instead of meshing a whole model building/structure you've decided to make smaller model parts and put them together to form it basically, like the archway parts and pillars are just clipped into the buildings. I feel like the prop team should have really given these some more love. I know you tried to fit it with the cartoon-y art style but it just doesn't work here, you have so many really high detailed and great models for weapons, some props ect. But when it comes to the buildings here its like very little time was put into designing it. Very little professional, but I know you guys can do so much better...
 
Again I have to point out the really simple texture choices here, it's just basically stone, and a sci-fi cabinet looking plate texture slapped on the buildings? ugh?
Like the whole thing is just held together with plates and screws, I just really dislike looking at it, its not pretty at ALL and very little elegant and glorious. Don't get me wrong about fine stone, it works pretty well most times.
 
Reference pictures: http://puu.sh/hNLeo/0ae69bc798.jpg
http://puu.sh/hOj8G/19f1f3547c.jpg
http://puu.sh/hOjdE/a1c14c7fa6.jpg
 
/rant
 
 
On a note of making the city feel more alive, what I'd love to see added is sewer tunnels in Illium where there would be just a small settlement, the sewer entrance would be right next to where Mondo Zax's building is currently located, there is already a sewer entrance and water flowing there so it would fit right in, and down there would be where the out of favor or lower class workers who struggle to get by are living. I'm just a guy who loves entering secret places and passages, so I'd love to see more of this around Illium. Maybe make some of the houses enter able? or maybe a bar somewhere where there would be lots of NPCs drinking, this could be a nice gathering place. 
 	
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			The single biggest problem with the capital cities in this game is that they're too big and disorganized for the amount of stuff that's in them, especially for players on foot. Even with mounts, it feels like it takes forever to get anywhere useful, and the layouts are a nonsensical maze. It really feels like whoever designed the cities was just trying to fill a certain amount of geography, rather than create a usefully functional central space for each faction; Thayd in particular is literally just a giant heap of junk and rubble with vendors and such placed in the open spaces. If WildStar's universe is advanced enough to have mastered interstellar travel, then I'm pretty sure that even the Exiles know how to build a basic urban grid system, so let's do the cities completely over. Get rid of the bulky, inefficient layouts and unnecessary filling of space with superfluous terrain modeling, and condense them into properly organized cities that we can visit without dreading the time we have to spend there. 	
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