Given that Kingsreach is such a sprawling continent with progression opportunities spanning many levels in a single zone, one of the more important quality of life issues comes down to inventory.  Visionary Realms has made it abundantly clear that when it comes to loot and resources, they’d like to see quality over quantity.  This means less amounts of harvestables and craftables with more weight so that managing your inventory is a necessary part of the game, but it won’t be to an extent where it is an overburdening chore on the player.  But, part of solving this issue is the proximity of banks and vendors to the camping spots.  Whit that said, the position of cities and villages becomes paramount to world design.  This guide will give the insights available to the public as well as some best guesses for the number and locations of cities across the continent of…

Kingsreach

Such a seemingly large map of seemingly large zones begs the question will one be spending too much time running to a far away bank, eating up the precious play time of the audience whose demographic seems to be the absolute worst for spending countless hours on MMOs, namely the working parent’s ages of 25-60.  So, nestled in the far noreast, we have the starting city of Men know as…

Thronefast

Thronefast is a zone and a city within that zone that is its own zone.  Follow?  The zone of Thronefast includes within it the capital of men by the same name.  We know from previous beans that the city of Thronefast will be its own zone, having a part of the city in the broader zone but most of it broken off to itself.  Now, whether or not that remains the case is uncertain to us common non Pre-Alpha guttersnipes.  What is known is that in the broader zone, which hosts the content to get you through your first few levels, there are NPCs and vendors at your disposal without going into the high walls of the city itself, in a small hamlet known as…

Availia

Nevermind the spelling of this town’s name, it was offered up to the community on a not too distant stream in which we were walked through the zone and even caught a glimpse of the rare “corpse de Joppa.”  We know factions are working in ole Availia at least.  But, this close to home won’t get you very far, as your newb character finds himself wandering outside of the high walls of the zone of Thronefast and into Avendyr’s Pass and a town known as…

Demith Village

This village’s namesake is the homeworld of Men, Vas Demith.  This town which we have also seen glimpses of early on has name vendors and what appeared to be a bank.  This is very convenient seeing that the content to be found in the greater Avendyr’s Pass area could go up into the 20s and beyond, including Hanggore of the North Tusk Orcs, Halnir’s (Pass) Cave, E’mani Karos’ band of brothers in Black Rose Keep, and many other ruins filled with nasties we have had small tastes of in earlier streams.  Demith Village is located centrally in the doglegged zone convenient to all content in the Pass.

To it’s south, the Easter portion of Silent Plains sprawls out and separates Men from their small neighbors, Halflings, in the zone labeled Wild’s End.  While PA testers have had an opportunity to have some action here, we have been treated to footage of their starting city and its surroundings.  This is the best educated guess for the actual location of the city of…

Sorhiryth

This is Peter Pan’s city, sorry, the halfling city of Sorhiryth (Go back and watch Hook and tell me that Rufio was not a Nothi on a lifelong campaign of retribution against the Wraiths, err I mean pirates.  Sheesh, they’re too familiar… look at that hair). Living in trees and having food fights or whatever it is that Halflings do, their home is visibly surrounded by mountains with waterfalls spilling into the basin holding the forest of Tower Oaks.  The only entrance to Sorhiryth is a maze of bamboo-like vegetation called Grovegrass that must be traversed to even enter the location.  The natural bottleneck for this location and the surrounding mountains and waterfalls fit very nicely with what we have seen in the streams.

I will mention in passing that not all Halflings fight for Peter, I mean for their society.  There is a band of misfit Halflings overcome with Wraith life-juice-lust that spend their lives seeking vengeance.  These are known as the Feralings.  This society could potentially have a camp of sorts close to the Mad Moors where the wraiths tend to have their base of operations.  So there may be another group of vendors on the southern end of the zone that would make it easier to buy and sell without making the trek through that very long zone.  That does it for the eastern side of the continent.  Now we move across to the western side of the Silentt Plains into…

Faerthale

Like Thronefast, this is the name of the city of the Elves and the zone name.  There is a whole article relating to the location eluded to above found here.  This is rather centralized in this zone, though I would not doubt that there are several vendors sprawling out all over this zone, with the many factions of elves playing out their roles here: Ashen, Ember, Lucent, the murky Tohrn, and Splinterfolk.  It is the last that I would offer up a wild guess make their home in perhaps a small village named…

Avalin

Now, to be sure, there are no known referenced at the time of this article that hint at what Avalin is.  But, given the location leading out of Faerthale and into the pass to The Roans, it would make sense that a haven for the outcasts of Elven culture would need a starting city to call their own.  We know from the tale of Thaeolyn Greyborne that to be a rogue is to be Splinterfolk.  Elven culture looks down on certain classes as not living up to the nobility of their race.  I can seen Enchanters possibly falling into this camp as well as maybe Shaman, all of which are possibilities currently for Elves.  And Thaeolyn herself calls the White Gate her current post which happens to be just up the pass from Avalin, her home away from home. As for the rest of the western side of the map, very little is known of towns, however there is one slight hint on the old concept map of Kingsreach which places some small house like structures within the borders of…

Vae Wood

This zone under Faerthale and The Murk had a small watchtower and a house icon prior to the dead forest of the Vae. Vae Wood is a very large zone, as is South Saole.  Having a town in either one of these zones is absolutely crucial to quality of life for those hunting down south.  But it may not be as bad as one may think with the strip of coast connecting Vae Wood with the Silent Plains.  And not to far from that zoneline would like the firmly established port city of…

Ru'Lun

Ru’Lun was very prominent in the earlier concept map, and although the map has changed considerably, it is still almost positively at the delta of the great river running south and in the large bay into which it spills.  This is a great location for vendors and banks having bookended the continent and serving as a hub from those ferrying to and from Kingsreach. The ridiculously large zone of Silent Plains my offer another as well near the center of the map at the crater lake or in my personal pick for the location of the Silent Sanctum at the northern edge of the Silent Plains as referenced by another article here.

This map seems a pretty fair and evenly spread out list of sites most likely to have bank, vendor, and crafter availability.  While this list is not exhaustive since more has not been released, one can tell by looking at the overview that VR has spent time thinking through the quality of life issues their direction on weight may cause.  It is yet another example of this small team doing big things and getting them right.

Benonai

Viva RACHA