make more gate necks for cities
This. Bit of a digression here, but faction quest ala Newport/Athica neck for Underhill, Erudin, Oggok and Thurgadin. Also, making the grobb neck actually grobb faction dependent rather than blackscale dependent would make it a viable meeting spot as well. People don't like to meet all in the same spot because other guilds are there. They like to meet there for convenience. In fact having a crapload of people in one place for guild meeting spots is pretty universally disliked. Having a gate neck drastically increases convenience, as many people like binding in various areas other than a meeting spot (especially characters who cannot port).
Athica is popular for a variety of reasons, and the gate neck isn't the only one. It's close to 65 xp obtainable areas (newport fits many of the other conditions, including convenience, but not this one). It is close to on par with newport in terms of convenience as well (aug vendor is pretty high on the necessity list for example). Stores are open at night, which is A++ (and bound to the faction of the city, resulting in cheaper prices when one has a gateneck).
Really what would be neat is instead of just adding things to cities, you guys did something similar to what was done with athica, let the players donate various items and money to the city itself to increase it's facilities to a certain preset point. Could be done towards the implementation of a gate neck quest as well. Makes people feel more a part of the place, decreases city congestion after a while (and I'd imagine it will take a while, like sadri did, and it's drastically more popular than it used to be), and takes plat and items out of the economy. Win/Win.
In regards to pearls, it would certainly be nice if they were on a mage vendor. Generally where theres a mage vendor, theres a wizard one though, so really only need to add them to 1.
