I'm going to go in a different direction then most and throw out Black Moon Chronicles.  This is the only game that visually draws me back into playing now and then.  Sadly not many people play it nor even heard of it but it looks like it been ripped out of a comic book.  The detail within the cities are built around the plot/story so it all kinda adds up.  Hopefully it becomes more popular and people appreciate the artistry that was put into it ;)

1- Dalaran (WoW), although I wish it were larger.

2- Stormwind (WoW), although I wish it were HORDE. :P

3- Thunder Bluff (WoW...again), because the American Indian vibe is just COOL, and I like the whole "tiered" thing goin' on there.

4- Qeynos (EQ2), although I wish there weren't load screens between different parts of the city (or I'd have voted it first hands down, actually).

5- The Inevitable City and Altdorf (WAR), although I wish they weren't attached to a game that felt so stagnant and that ended up being one of my worst gaming disappointments of the past few years.

NOT COOL:

Neriak (EQ2)....uhm....no. In my opinion that was the most poorly laid out city in any game ever. Sure it looks cool. It also takes 10 hours to only SORT OF learn your way around in that hell hole. MAYBE, just maybe, Gorowyn is worse. Timorous Deep, however, as a starting zone, was very unique and pretty with a cool Asian/martial arts type vibe to it, and the soundtrack there was absolutely gorgeous. Shame they couldn't make Gorowyn somewhere you'd WANT to call home.

 Its gotta be Stormwind for me :)  The epic music and the gates at the front

Vanguard: Ca'ial Brael

Neocron is the best,

But  orgrimmars drums kept me fighting!

I am not impressed by any MMO citys, they just don't feel real. I will either vote for Altdorf (War) or Tortage (AoC). Altdorf is based on GWs maps from "Warhammer fantasy roleplaying game" and have been worked on for many years and Tortage do feel a little like a old pirate town.

I wish gamedesigners actually looked on existing citys from the period the game is from and then added some fantasy elements, then you would get a realer feeling in them. Real citys are always based on certain things, and logically the city grows with services and shops in a natural way, just plotting out houses a bit randomly so it is suppose to look cool isn't really working for me.

I do have hopes that CCPs "world of darness online" will give us a more realistic city, probably Seattle or Chikago knowing the WOD lore.

There are some games that have nice citys in them but isn't MMOs like Assasins creed and Neverwinter nights however, I hope citys is something MMOs will focus more in the future. Also I like when the city changes during the day and night, like in the classic Daggerfall from Bethesda.

So many posts, forgive me if I repeat anyone.  I won't vote for a best existing MMO city, but I will say what I wish existed for purely selfish reasons.  When I was a kid reading Isaac Asimov's Caves of Steel, and later the spinoff series by other writers called Robot City, I really felt immersed in, and drawn to, the imagined world.  It was very clear and smooth descriptive writing, almost like the plot just hung on what was really a fully realized (in narrative form) art design for a virtual world.   Wish sci-fi mmos would drop the blow up and shoot and gather model, and make it more about surviving encounters through insight into situations , in a social (and perhaps more urban) environment.  No reason it couldn't be done... interactions and their outcomes could be assigned numerical values just as melee and magic attacks are in mmos now.  I totally acknowledge the unlikeliness of such a thing ever being made.  Just dreaming out loud.

@girlgeek

Painkiller!  i'd love an MMO version of that  8)

you really should try the Vanguard free trial at least if not just resubbing.  its the best of the traditional MMOs if you love dungeons and hate instances (and maybe for many other reasons i don't care about so much 8) )

the seradon server is quite populated when i was there slightly less than a month ago 

oh em gee!

I don't believe it. You all forgot about Old Sebilis and Kael Drakkel in EQ! What the heck is wrong with you all!

Tir when the whompas where on FT, then Old Athens hill when Tir's whompas moved. Most memorable for me, at least.

*EDIT* this is Anarchy Online

Originally posted by happytklz

So many posts, forgive me if I repeat anyone.  I won't vote for a best existing MMO city, but I will say what I wish existed for purely selfish reasons.  When I was a kid reading Isaac Asimov's Caves of Steel, and later the spinoff series by other writers called Robot City, I really felt immersed in, and drawn to, the imagined world.  It was very clear and smooth descriptive writing, almost like the plot just hung on what was really a fully realized (in narrative form) art design for a virtual world.   Wish sci-fi mmos would drop the blow up and shoot and gather model, and make it more about surviving encounters through insight into situations , in a social (and perhaps more urban) environment.  No reason it couldn't be done... interactions and their outcomes could be assigned numerical values just as melee and magic attacks are in mmos now.  I totally acknowledge the unlikeliness of such a thing ever being made.  Just dreaming out loud.

interesting you should say that.  before i got to the end i was thinking "that kind stuff is too complicated to model well".  

which is a similar problem PnP D&D solved by using numbers and dice to somewhat model various interacting concepts so that people with just pencil & paper could actually get a handle on some sort of extremely low fidelity "simulation" of combat and adventuring.   great solution for its time.

as you can see from my sig i HATE those mechanics in a computer game....IN COMBAT.  the reason i emphasized those words is that i think there are still things people have yet to model in games that are a little too much for present day computer to handle properly.   

i think a similar D&D style low fidelity way of representing those things thru dice rolls and "abilities", "stats" could be a very appropriate usage of that kind of simplification.

you probably have something at least somewhat different in mind, but i'd like to see a city full of npcs that have different stats like: 

trustworthiness

timidity

talkativeness    etc.

and instead of the stupid faction systems that make no sense in like everquest 1 for instance (you kill a halfling in a dark corner of some woods, and across the world (even other continents), all halflings hate you for it)

you would actually have these npcs wander around a city, and if they see an event they may or may not spread the word depending on their stats and the stats of the npcs around them.  if they were in site or hearing range to you killing somebody, they'd have a piece of data such as "YourAvatar killed BilboBaggins", and it could be propogated to others who they get near and stop and talk to (basically a little dice rolling session taking in considerationg their own stats, the types of events they would have witnessed, the stats of the person they "talk" to).  and the word would spread around in a somewhat realistic faction.  if they weren't trustworthy, they might say you killed 2 or 3 of their kind, making the data get more reaction from other npcs.

i really didn't give the greatest examples of stats and the way they would be used, but i think you get the idea.

that would add extra data overhead to the servers, but i think with a few compromises (from the ideal way you'd WANT to do it) could make it workable.  

the npcs could really SEEM intelligent in many ways with systems similar to that, without actually using hardly any CPU processing power (AI).

to me, thats GREAT use of dice rolling and stats.

Kaineng.. Guild Wars. Yea I know ppl were lost in it, it's brown and everything looks like slum.. but damn.. I love it becouse of that. I really feel like in overpopulated place and places like docs or Marketplace are simply gorgeous. *__*

1) North & West Freeport in EQII .

2) Plane of knowledge & North Freeport  in EQ1

3) Talos Island in CoX (no reason really, it just feels right.)

4) Iornforge WOW just nicely laid out.

5) Guild Wars: (Take you're pick it's just a beautifully laid out title)

Orgrimmar from WOW , really liked the feel of it.

Britain from UO, the central hub of the game for years, well designed imo.

Mos Eisley from SWG, well designed to capture the feel of the movies.

new targonor - in Vanguard the best game PVE

www.youtube.com/watch

Originally posted by Mithrandolir

The original Kelethin... but then I have always been one for huge lumps of pain

 

 

LOL... I still have nightmares about that place! Every damn platform looked just like all the others. I would have to go with Neriak from EQ1 as well. Qeynos was great also.

Bren

Dalaran from WOW.  Just wish it was a little bigger.

Inevitable City from WarHammer.  Gotta love a city that you can get mugged in! :)

HighPass in EQOA.  Yes it was small but loved the music and feel of that place.

Rome of Anarchy Online.  Crappy graphix et al, the place had an imposing  feel with great music. 

 i can't deciede between Altdorf in War wich is very nicely done large and wide streets feels like a city. or The Shire in Lotro so beautiful is worth mentioning.

I'll start with the obvious -- Paragon City (CoH). Between the civilians, the gangs, the traffic, and the overall atmosphere, I think it's very well done. If most of your game is going to take place in a single city, variety is key, as is giving each area its own personality. I think CoH does this really well.

My personal favorite area is Dark Astoria, just because when you compare it to the rest of the city, the dense fog, ghosts, and undead wandering around really make it stand out.

Stormwind and Ironforge (WoW). Say what you want about the game, the graphics, or whatever else pisses you off about Blizzard, but they designed two great cities.

Kelethin (EQ2). I deliberately switched all of my good aligned characters from Qeynos to Kelethin because I loved it so much. Easy to navigate, self-contained in a single zone, and convenient.

Altdorf (WAR). This feels like a real, living city. Mythic have done a great job, IMO.

That's all that comes to mind for now.

Originally posted by corpusc

@girlgeek

 

Painkiller!  i'd love an MMO version of that  8)

 

you really should try the Vanguard free trial at least if not just resubbing.  its the best of the traditional MMOs if you love dungeons and hate instances (and maybe for many other reasons i don't care about so much 8) )

 

the seradon server is quite populated when i was there slightly less than a month ago 

OMG Painkiller as an MMO would just be.....wow....really bloody and gross.  LOL  It would probably be a HUGE  success!  hehe   But can you even IMAGINE taking a painkiller to someone?  I mean....getting killed by a handheld spinning wheel of thick steel blades as sharp as razorblades....ewwww.  I think I'll pass. :)  And I don't know if ANY of the cities would fit into this thread either, unless corpses nailed to the walls with stakes are someone's idea of "nice decorating."  ROFL  (The game is great for taking out the day's aggressions though, isn't it?  teehee)

Vanguard.....

I did actually play the free trial, and I think it's a gorgeous game and FULL of things to do and adventures to be had.   I was utterly fascinated with the depth of Diplomacy and the crafting.  Unfortunately, I don't have room on my notoriously large monthly gaming bill (at this TIME, anyway) to add another sub.  I can see it for me in the future though!   Oh, and Seradon IS the server I was on.

Sorry for the off-topic post here, but I had to respond and was too lazy to click an extra time to privately message.  Carry on with the "Best Designed MMO City" discussion and forgive us please. :)

I would definitely vote for any of the cities in Vanguard. One reason is that you can actually open the doors of most of the buildings and walk in. You can go up the stairs, you can go down to the basement. The rooms are nicely decorated. You can look out a window. You can imagine the npcs actually living there. The only thing missing is the bathrooms lol. In other words, the buildings aren't just there for show. I never liked how many games had "fake" buildings make up the cities, like they were just a backdrop. If I had to pick one city I'd pick Khal. I love the Arabian Nights look.

The use of textures in cities is fantastic. The fabrics look like woven cotton, or smooth silk in vibrant colors. There are various types of wood from rich mahogany in a library to rough hewn planks in a crafting area. The tile floors look like ceramic tile. Ornately carved wood and gleaming metal inlay.  You can imagine how a wall, floor, or pillow would feel if you could touch it. I love wandering around the cities of this game. The designers knew their stuff.

My only beef is that it's easy to get lost in the major cities. A few more street signs would be nice.

Originally posted by Sramota

Neocron - Neocron,
flying taxi cabs, subways, sewers and Gigantic advertising/poilce info, and let's not forget a nice little Redlight district with accompanying bums, junkies and strippers with their poles
pure greatness

^ This, hands down.  Best ever.

Originally posted by leowyatt

Originally posted by Sramota

Neocron - Neocron,
flying taxi cabs, subways, sewers and Gigantic advertising/poilce info, and let's not forget a nice little Redlight district with accompanying bums, junkies and strippers with their poles
pure greatness

^ This, hands down.  Best ever.

You know, from what I've SEEN of this game, I would probably agree with you IF....IF....they would ever get their North American PayPal subscription situation ironed out so that I could freaking PLAY the damn thing.

GRRRRRR.

never encountered a MMO that has good city designed, all are just have these city like structures but never actually have any purpose at all, aside from its aesthetic value.

My vote(s) go to Mos Eisley Pre-CU (yes it is different).

Currently loving WoW (SOE kept saying how great it is so I figured I should give it a go), and have to agree with all the votes for Stormwind.