Capital City: Difference between revisions

Has an obscene amount of [[NPC|NPCs]], sidequests, shops, vendors, and usually [[Minigame Zone|Minigame Zones]] as well. Generally appears in the first half of the game, but players will probably have to return here often. This is the one place most likely to get upgrades and evolving content as the plot progresses.

{{examples}}

* The Citadel in ''[[Mass Effect]]'' certainly counts, and it's even the capital of interstellar politics.

** It was even the capital of the Protheans's empire fifty-thousand years before the games. Of course, {{spoiler|it was designed by the Reapers so that every galactic civilization would make it their capital, so the first strike of their invasions would immediately take out the nerve center of the strongest galactic power and give them full access to all military and political data as well}}.

* Happy Garland in ''[[Steambot Chronicles]].''

** When modeling Kanto after the ''real'' Kantō region of Japan, Game Freak split Tokyo into two cities due to its size and influence - Celadon for the culture, Saffron for the commerce.

** Johto's Goldenrod is an expy of Osaka. Incidentally, Johto itself matches the name of a ward of said city.

* ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' has capital cities for almost every race, but only two on each side are ever visited in any large numbers: for the Alliance there's Stormwind (the Human capital) and Ironforge (Dwarves and Gnomes), and for the Horde there's Orgrimmar (Orcs and Trolls) and the Undercity (Undead). The other racial capitals are rarely visited unless a player is questing, due to their remote locations (though some players prefer the less popular capitals if they're running on a slower system, especially during peak hours). As a result, the new races in ''Cataclysm'' will simply be given districts in existing cities: Darnassus (the Night Elf capital) for the Worgen and Orgrimmar for the Goblins.

** Sizable [[Truce Zone|neutral cities]] also exist, notably Shattrath, Dalaran, and most Goblin cities, with Ratchet and Booty Bay being the most popular.

** For reference, the other major current capitals are Exodar (Draenei) and Gilneas City (Worgen) for the Alliance and Thunder Bluff (Tauren) and Silvermoon (Blood Elves) Bilgewater Harbor (Goblins) for the Horde.

* ''[[The Elder Scrolls]]: Oblivion'' partially subverts this by starting the main character out at the Imperial City prison sewer exit. While this does place the character closest to the Imperial City on the main map, the usual progression for a first-time player is to follow the first quest, which immediately takes you to Weynon Priory, just outside the city of Chorrol. The Imperial City is available to travel to at any time, though.

* Every country in [[E Republik|eRepublik]] has a capital, certain actions can cause them to move, hence why the capital of the eUSA is Florida.

** Like, the state?

* ''[[Freelancer]]'' has ''four'' Capital Cities, each one of the capital planet of the Houses: Manhattan, New London, New Tokyo and New Berlin. In terms of where the player can actually go, however, they have the same four locations as every other planet, station and outpost in the game: the Landing Pad, the Bar, the Ship Dealer, and the Trader.

* Varrock, Falador, and Ardougne in ''[[Runescape]]''.

* Presumably to save on memory, ''[[Jade Empire]]'' only has one city and a few villages, and the city's not very big at all.

* The Grand Duchy of Jeuno in ''[[Final Fantasy XI]]'', although nowadays Al Zahbi/Whitegate is busier.

*** Obviously in Awakening, it's Amaranthine and in Dragon Age 2 it's Kirkwall, seeing how there aren't any other cities in either game.

* ''[[Summoner]]'' featured Lenele, the city of the gods. To say that Lenele was immense would be a mild understatement (Unfortunately, Lenele is the only large city in the game that's still populated, although there was originally going to be another huge city next to Lenele, but it was scrapped midway through development).

* ''[[Arcanum of Steamworks and Magick Obscura]]'' has Tarant.

* Sort of subverted in the ''[[Thief]]'' series, because the only city in the game is ''[[Land of One City|The City]]'', and it's the only place (sans some immediate environs) where you ever are or visit.

* ''Perfect World International'' has Archosaur -- so huge that after 19th level (in particular after what's generally called the "FB 19" dungeon for the respective race) ''everyone'' goes there and has more or less the same quests for at least the next ten levels, and thus go to the same areas; it's so huge that you can actually teleport ''within'' the city, to a teleport area in the north, west, and/or south. On the Heaven's Tear PVE server this player has seen the area immediately inside the west gate ''perpetually'' filled with players.

* ''[[Guild Wars]]'' has three of these, one for each continent. Lion's Arch in Tyria, Kaineng Centre in Cantha (Which is only the administrative centre of Kaineng City, which covers roughly half of Cantha, making Kaineng the best example of this trope in Guild Wars), and Kamadan, Jewel of Istan in Elona. these three places are the centres of player trading and chat in their respective campaigns, and are distinguished by being the places you have to go to have access to travel to the other continents.

** More importantly, there aren't nearly as many places to go in Archades due to its taxi system and being impossible to get around otherwise, cutscenes show it to actually be quite large.

* ''[[Neverwinter Nights]]'', set in Neverwinter, is a [[Gameplay and Story Segregation|relatively large]] city. Not only is the first entire section of the game set ''exclusively'' in the metropolis, but one comes back to it for the final battle.

* ''[[Eve Online]]'' has Jita, which is so busy that it has it's own dedicated nodes to run it and special rules to manage the traffic. Other market hubs include Amarr, Dodixie and Rens.

** Putting some numbers to this, Jita regularly tops 1000 people. It usually has about 2% of the entire active population at any given time, while there are some 7500 other systems.

* Big Ape City from ''Donkey Kong Land''.

* Not even an RPG, ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog|Sonic Adventure]]'' has Station Square. This is where you start out (with most characters), and it has two full Action Stages in it (the former of which is quite large) - Speed Highway and Casinopolis.

* It varies in each ''[[Fallout]]'' game. ''[[Fallout]] 1'' had The Hub as the largest population and trade center of the wastes. New Reno got all the developer love in ''[[Fallout]] 2'', but the New California Republic's capital city was also very important in terms of the story since it belongs to the largest faction in the game universe, and there are much more shops there. San Francisco was pretty important in the last quarter of the game as their shops offer many end game high-tec equipment that you can't get from anywhere else. Fallout 3 was more decentralized, with no real cities. Megaton and Rivet City were the biggest, with Rivet City being bigger and having a better market, while Megaton had more plot and player housing. Like in the second game, the Citadel was big after The Waters of Life. In ''New Vegas'', the titular city is in almost all ways. While it's only the center of political power for Mr. House and the Families, all the major factions have an interest in it.

* The huge, multi-layered Ceres City seems to take up nearly half the game in [[Alter AILA]] Genesis.

* [[I Don't Like the Sound of That Place|Killingrad]] in ''[[Heavy Weapon]]'' is the capital city of [[The Empire|the Red Star forces]], and the [[Disc One Final Dungeon|Disc One Final Level]]. It's also the level where you first fight against some of the commies' deadly machines such as the [[Kill Sat]] and [[Advancing Boss of Doom|Bulldozer]], both of which can [[One-Hit Kill]] you.

== [[Western Animation]] ==

** Fire Nation capital is called... "Capital City".

* [[Transformers]] Iacon is usually the Capital City of Cybertron.