Cities count as visits too
Earlier today airports got visits: fly low around one for two minutes and it goes into your record. Cities work the same way now, with a few differences that come from cities being much bigger than airfields.
The rule. Fly for three minutes inside a city. The border is the same one the live feed uses when it writes "arrived in Hamburg", so the feed and your record never disagree about where a city starts. For most large cities that border is the city's real outline; smaller ones use a circle around the centre. There is no height limit. An airliner at cruise over Paris is still over Paris, and we don't have ground height under every city on the server anyway.
The three minutes add up through the day. Cross a corner of London on the way somewhere, come back in the evening, and the clock carries on. Paused time doesn't count, and neither does a tab left in the background. Jumping to a city from the map is fine, but you still fly the three minutes once you get there.
What you see. Outside an airport's zone, the same small ring at the top of the screen now shows the city: its name and how long is left. Inside an airport's zone the airport ring takes that spot, because it is the more specific of the two. The city keeps counting quietly underneath, so a lap around Hamburg Airport can complete both. When the city visit lands you get a short card with the city name and the day count.
Tiers. One visit per city per UTC day. Visits on different days build up the tier, on the same ladder as airports:
- 1 day: Visitor
- 3 days: Regular
- 7 days: Local
- 15 days: Resident
- 30 days: Home base
Each tier-up pays XP and feathers, half of what an airport pays, since a city is a much bigger target and every new pilot already starts inside one. A day without a tier-up pays 3 XP. Reaching tier II or higher also leaves a line in the notification bell, which links to the city's own page.
Achievements. Two new ones count distinct places rather than days: Cities visited (1, 5, 15, 40 and 100 cities) and City countries (the countries those cities are in: 2, 5, 10, 20 and 40). Flying over your home city every day will level that city up fast, but it won't move these two. That part is up to where you go.
Guests. If you are not signed in, the visit is held for fifteen minutes after you complete it. Sign in within that window and it is added to your account with the usual pay.
Where it shows next. For now a city visit lives in your progress, your achievements and the bell. A cities page under your account, a list on your profile and regulars on the city pages are planned once we see whether this actually gets people flying to a second city. Today most players have only ever been over the one they started in.
The airport version is described in Fly two minutes over an airport and it counts as a visit, and every city we know has its own page under the globe.