Huge, empty towns

Carifyn

New member
Jan 16, 2022
1
0
1
First of all, I really love the land in this game, the size and the details. It will be so much fun just traveling and gathering and building houses or even towns out there.

I can also see these details in the cities, however they have a very, very huge flaw, which is also mentioned in some of the steam reviews: They are empty.

Even in for example Tindrem where a lot of players gather around the bank building – even in Haven, where the market place sometimes flows with players testing out stuff - the city still feels lifeless.

Because no one lives in there.

I know this is supposed to be a game where the players shape the world, but even if there are many more players starting with release, this will, most likely, not happen in these cities, but outside in the world. The cities are starting points, locations to gather with a party or even to hold events.

It would add so much to the immersion if there were more NPCs than just the guards. Normal people that do their daily business, walk around, sit in taverns, fill the empty spaces.

I don’t know how that would affect performance in the cities, especially with a lot of players around at the same time, but I believe that this highly increase the impression the game will leave on new people and the feeling overall.

It’s not like the cities are too small, on the contrary. They are so huge that you can run around for half an hour and still find new places without even leaving the city walls.

But the locations you find are huge empty houses, long empty streets. There are no players, because these places are far away from the marketplace, the bank and library buildings. And these are the spaces that need to be filled.
 

Tashka

Well-known member
Dec 4, 2021
666
416
63
Yeah it wouldn't hurt if some of these guards were replaced with some civilian NPCs.
 

ArcaneConsular

Well-known member
Oct 27, 2021
873
536
93
Agreed the cities need more fleshing out. Nothing more frustrating than when you start and you're trying to find a specific bench or merchant and you just go through one empty vacant room to the next. Even just adding closed doors to empty buildings is better than leaving them empty, just looks low quality
 

SeaShadow

Active member
Jul 16, 2020
132
48
28
If MK had x4 as many vendors in accessible locations and pickables to scrounge up coin it would become a viable starting city

Even Tindrem could benefit from this. Just add vendors, bank, etc. on the garden side and give the city life.

Nobody hangs out in the tavern because there's nothing there other than to sell junk and buy dile. The bank is more of a tavern because it has a function. This could be easily fixed by adding an Innkeeper NPC that has a banker function.

Additional - MO1 had the "eavesdropper" suggest scatter these clues to NPCs that are placed about towns. Now you have a reason to explore those nice looking spaces and enjoy the art as you play with a purpose. Will they talk to you? Hmm depends is your Standing + Sophistication high enough?