At the start of the weekend, Darniaq posted a think-out-loud piece on the urban spaces in Star Wars Galaxies. He’s talking about Massive games in general, but the urban environments in SWG are a great example of his argument. Namely, that instead of pushing player interest out of the cities it should be focused inward to provide more interesting city-based gameplay.

I couldn’t agree more.

The cities in Galaxies are breathtakingly beautiful wastelands. They’re just the most egregious examples of a common problem in Massive games, though. Even World of Warcraft, which utilizes city spaces better than any other title I can think of, still falls flat in some places. Darnassus, in particular, is usually a ghost town. The fact that it’s on the continent opposite the other Alliance races shouldn’t be an excuse - there should be enough content there to attract players from across the globe. Hopefully merging the chat channels for all the major cities will alleviate this issue.

One thing that Blizzard absolutely nails is the ‘peopled’ feeling in the cities. Even in Darnassus, the NPCs are at least there to keep you company. They patrol the streets and go about their daily lives. In Galaxies, the few NPCs that are scattered about are 99% likely to be nothing more than window dressing. They won’t say anything, and just stand their repeating their /emotes over and over again. Like WoW, Final Fantasy XI fosters a feeling of community through good urban planning and NPC placement. FFXI has the additional benefit that its world is (relatively) small, and their are fewer cities than in WoW or SWG. Quality over quantity was the hallmark of nearly every aspect of World of Warcraft - that should be taken to the extreme with urban planning. I’d much rather visit four unique, memorable places than two dozen cookie-cutter cities.

In the Gamergod Thread about Darniaq’s article, Geldon posits that instead of restricting users to building a certain distance from the main cities, the idea should have been to make player build within city limits. While I really like player cities, it would have been a great idea to allow at least some intra-city living. The instanced apartments of FFXI are notable because they provoke a sense of ownership to one of the locations within the gameworld. Instanced housing in World of Warcraft (go looking for the fenced off blue swirly in Stormwind) would do much the same, allowing players to identify even closer with one of the well-built social spaces Blizzard has provided. The ideal solution would be to provide instanced neighborhoods, more along the lines of Dark Age of Camelot. Provide an endless supply of communal social spaces, with each neighborhood holding two dozen or so plots of land that can be purchased and built on. Players will not only compete with each other to build the finest home, but will congregate and socialize in their new digs. My blue-sky hope would be that you’d randomly generate a name for each instanced neighborhood as it’s created for the first time, providing a memorable locale that the player can refer to. “Come on over to my place, I live in Northgate Square.”

A final thought, one that’s been with me since the first day I logged into Galaxies. Why can’t I live *in* the city? All those empty buildings stand there unused and unloved. Why not sell them to players? You can’t buy the Palace in Theed, of course, but why couldn’t a consortium of players operate the Mos Eisley cantina? Why does the Medical Center in Coronet have to be NPC-controlled? And why can’t I live in one of the non-descript back alleys of Mos Espa? You want me to ‘live the movies’? That would be a great way to do it.