Public Dungeons are larger and more detailed than the zone's Player Hub and it's upsetting.

Varana · June 2021

BlueRaven wrote: »

It's not that the OP wanted the public dungeon to become a town. I think that the OP wanted the design and scope of the in game "hub" cities could look like Public Dungeons mentioned. For example, Sunhold is huge! It would have been nice if Alinor was of a similar size.
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Sunhold and the Abbey have interesting changes in elevation, side streets, different parts of the city that "feel" different." I get exactly what the OP is saying in that the game designers made the architecture and city plan of the Public dungeons much more interesting than the public hub cities themselves.

If I can add one more design note for the game designers. Please stop having the hub cities require a "door" to get in. Just let us ride in like most of the base game cities and like the Elsweyr cites as well.

You won't have one without the other.
A city like Sunhold can be that large and convoluted precisely because it is hidden behind a loading screen door and in a separate instance.
I'm guessing but I suspect the walled off cities have some tangible performance benefit. You can somewhat separate populations, assets, and events.
And they can restrict instance population much more than in cities - in a city, you want as many people present as possible. In a dungeon, you don't want too many players killing your mobs.

So bigger cities will be hidden behind a wall. Open cities will be smaller. Your choice.
I do wish, though, that they would use their leeway with walled-off cities to make them more interesting.

fiender66 · June 2021

IMO, the most fascinating DLC/chapters are those that strive to recreate a specific environment. So, the Gold Coast is a very faithful recreation of a Mediterranean landscape (that I know very well) and Murkmire attempts a succefull (IMO) recreation of something akin to a SouthEast Asian wilderness, with a tint of a rain forest: you feel never at ease or safe there.

Other successful realisations are thematic too: the imposing and tacky architecture of Summerset, the harsh madness of Vvinterfell are good example.The CC and the Reach underground are also full of atmosphere and have a definite personality of their own.

When the inspiration comes from specific elements the result is usually less coherent: NE is a noticeable place and wide, but messy, and all the purring kitten would not be enough to save that garish SE (Sai Sahan does not help, too). Blackwood is of this kind: the companions are what really counts, the story is forgettable and delves, though not bad, are nothing special.

ArchMikem · June 2021

Red_Feather wrote: »

Wait, Gideo is supposed to be a city?!

Is it because of being in the past. There has to be a reason. Gideon felt like stables and a jail.

Honestly at first I thought Gideon was supposed to be a Fortress or Keep, since it was nothing but walls and a few structures. I was trying to place some real world logic onto why it was so small, like it was a defensive Keep to protect Leyawiin. But no, it's supposed to be a City. A City of, like, five buildings.

I was REALLY hoping Leyawiin was going to be a cramped layout, with narrow alleyways and wall to wall structures lining avenues.

Danikat wrote: »

I suspect it's done to prevent performance issues.

I wonder if they could create a large city with lots of winding streets, back alleys, different levels, tall buildings close together and so on which looks like something done for thematic purposes, to look like a realistic medieval city, but is actually structured in such a way that at any time only the parts immediately around you need to be loaded and little 'hub' areas (market squares, commercial streets etc.) are divided up with relatively empty streets, decorated with houses with inaccessible doors etc. so they don't look empty, but there's still not much for the game to load.

My first thought would maybe to break the city up into districts with their own instance, each one walled with a loading door. That way everyone's client only had to load the district they were currently in.