Instanced playfield with guild cities

I see that in AoC, Funcom has managed to do all guild cities (aside from the PvP Battlekeeps) in instanced playfields. While it would require a bit of work and some work-arounds, I see no reason why they can't do the same in AO.

1) Current cities out in the 'non-instanced' playfields will remain as they are - and will still be 'premium' plots in terms of easy access and 'looks'.

2) Create a playfield that has 2 or 3 'clusters' of cities. Make it instanced. Playfield map requirements should be set -very- low, and no wildlife in the zone. Set up a series of game mechanic 'rules' controlling access to those playfields and the cities within them:

2a) Design all city clusters to be identical(but individual plots can vary), with room for all buildings and a layout that is proven free of 'pathing' bugs. An instanced cookie-cutter 'bedroom community' essentially.

2b) Unguilded people cannot enter the 'bedroom community' instanced zone, unless teamed, in which case they zone according to rule 2e below.

2c) Guilded people whose guilds do not own a city will be zoned into a instance with plots available for lease.

2d) Guilded people whose guild owns a city in the 'bedroom community' will automatically zone into the instance where their org city is. Of course, they can also access the city and that zone from the grid.

2e) Teamed people will be zoned into the instance which contains the city owned by the team leader.

Teaming overrides Guild affiliation. If the team leader does not belong to a Guild that has a city in the 'bedroom community' zone then team members will be individually zoned according to the rules 2b,c, and d above. ie, said team leader in this instance can't get in as long as he is team leader. Controlling whose city a team is going to can be manipulated merely by who is designated to be the team leader. Warping by engies will be allowed.

Market Sales:
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When someone using GMS locates an item that is in a shop in the 'bedroom community' zone, they will have the option to access that booth from their current location w/o traveling to that city. This works as a small compensation for the other shortcomings a guild has to bear for having their city located in this zone.

Plusses, Minusses, and Observations:
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Plusses:
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All Guilds will have access to city plots at FunCom-designated market prices, not at prices set by Real Estate robber-barons. They will gain city structure buffs and be able to run AI city raids. Bringing in people from outside the guild in to do a raid can be managed by engi warps and proper teaming. The game mechanics can be used for hosting parties.

Groups of like-minded Guild leaders can team and enter a zone together to buy up adjoining plots to allow for 'rotation' raiding. If a team of 5 leaders enters together they should be zoned together into an instance which has at least 5 free plots.

Cities will have no 'pathing' issues with aliens since Funcom will have laid out plots in a design that avoids any potential for aliens to get stuck on the buildings that can be placed near the ship-CC route.

Buyers will not have to travel to the city to buy items from the market.

Minusses:
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Cities aren't on ready 'display' the way the city plots in the non-instanced world are. They are a bit more difficult to get to due to the access mechanics.

'Window shopping' will not be generally possible, Only people whose Guilds have cities in the same instance or are brought in by the above-listed mechanics will be able to browse the shops of the cities in that instance.

Observations:
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This should negate the need for alternative mechanisms for deflating the current real estate and lead bot market and put a big dent in the demand for 'billions and billions' of credits to develop healthy guilds.
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 Actually, it's coming next patch:

An 18.1 Preview from Macrosun (All Hail!):

18.1 code features sneak peak/preview:

Here's a short preview of code-related changes in 18.1:
Instanced cities. You can only have one city at a time (meaning you can't have both a non-instanced and instanced one), and shops will not be allowed in the instanced ones.
Option to hide nanos in programs window. You can add back hidden nanos using the 'show hidden' option is in the 'i' menu.
Map navigation will be resettable.
Target NCU window. See hostile nanos running on your target (with restrictions on which ones you can see).
Split the default new player chat window into default (system/vicinity etc) & combat tabs.
Right click names in chat to get a menu with the option to ignore them.
Mouse targetting improvements. It will now be easier to target small/fast moving things/players.
Hotbar timers on skill-locked items (including shadowbreed). Timers also work in the programs and controls windows.
Added /duel draw. Currently neither of the participants get a loss for using draw.
Added battlestation chat channel(s).
support for custom guis outside the 'Guis\Default' directory (we still don't give any customer support on third party GUIs though).
Improved various tools to help GMs handle chat spammers.

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