Meanwhile, cities give the chance for the best gear, and many find it more enjoyable than the act of taking forts.
Not only is there clearly no meaningful incentive to engage in oRVR (unfun, gear is outdated), but there's no system in place to deny the culmination of its rewards to those who just sit and wait for the city alert to go off. If you don't enjoy the gameplay of the oRVR zerg war (and coming from live, I never did, it was always the absolute worst part of the game), why would you engage in it if you can just sit back and wait for cities to unlock? Set aside your emotion for a moment and think about it rationally. How about logging in and participating in the efforts to get to a city? Please don't force me to play a game mode I don't enjoy anymore (but more than paid my dues in to get Vanq and Invader before cities launched) just so I can play the mode I do enjoy. I was hoping ranked scenarios would offer a similar experience to city but when I found out "ranked scenarios" means 6v6 team deathmatch I was put off immediately. And forts are even worse than keeps/zones. To me the rest of the campaign - after playing it on and off for over a decade, is old, stale, boring, zergy, offers little oppotunity for inventive or creative plays to actually win zones and generally comes down to a numbers game. Its the closest thing to pure warband vs warband action this game has and the rare time my premade manages to get grouped against good order players makes up for all the time wasted stomping over pugs (which when you don't want/need the rewards is zero fun).
I log in for cities because I actually enjoy doing cities.
I already have the rewards from city (both sov sets, and am slowly working on Warlord even though I don't want/need it). Hopefully the royal rewards from rvr will get boosted a bit, maybe 2 for gold bags or something similar. I understand why people feel that way and why they eventually resort to city logging. It's unfortunate that so many people feel any content that doesn't give them royals is a waste of time, even after the bag rework.