Making towns interesting

[Archonsod]

Yet another post inspired by another.

Again, some of these ideas I've posted before, but I thought I'd start a new post to gather them in one location.

So, towns. Cultural, economic and entertainment centres of their region in real life, a place to sell loot and re-equip in Mount & Blade. I've been thinking of ways to bring towns to life, and actually give a reason for a player to visit\spend time in them other than the aformentioned buy & sell.

1. Tournaments

Mentioned many times. Have perhaps two or three more towns with arena's, and have them hold tournaments once a month or once a week.
There are many forms the tournament can take, from a series of battles similar to what we have in the arena, to archery or jousting. Perhaps each town could have its own style of tournament even.
Winning a tournament should pay out much more than a standard arena fight (and should be a little more difficult). Of course, you should also be able to bet on the eventual victor too. It adds a nice way to earn a little more cash than repeated arena scraps.

2. Gambling

Again, another way to earn cash. Gambling was a major entertainment in medieval times, from bear baiting to card games. Dice or Cards could be available in taverns, even arm wrestling is a possibility. Also, Cock fights or bear baiting could be available in some towns.

3. Training

A staple of RPG's. Have a trainer or two in towns. For a fee, they will train the player. Training could take a full day, and either increase a skill by a single point, improve a weapon skill by say 5 points, or just provide a small experience total. Perhaps even have your men trained by the garrison commander. Doing so would cost money per person, and increase the experience of the unit by a small amount.

4. House ownership

It occurs to me that I can rise to be the wealthiest and most feared knight in all Calaradia, but still be a homeless vagrant. How about the ability to buy a house in a town? At the minimum, it could be used to stash stuff you don't want to clutter up your inventory. Perhaps also the ability to rest for free. It could also be combined with the often posted idea about owning property. Start with a small townhouse, and work your way up to a manor, complete with tenant farmers and similar.

5. Fairs & market days

Most towns held a market day at least once a week, when the farmers and tradesmen from nearby villages would travel to town to sell their wares. Have a market day occur in each town once a week. During that day, the amount of items for sale in the town would increase.
Travelling fairs (another medieval tradition) would act like a pumped up market. It could also have other affects (gambling, entertainment and other ways to spend time & money).

 

[Talon68]

Great ideas, all of them, well done Archonsod.
I do think that property would be great, as it would give you something to spend your money on rather than just subsistence or saving up for a 6000 gold piece of armour.

I also think that "vendors" (which they shall now be known as) shouldn't sell you broken armour. One is hard pressed to find a vendor who will sell you an ordinary or good piece of armour. Perhaps all vendors should be equipped with either stantard armour or better to make it more... shop like. Have you every gone into a shop and bought a card which has a name scribbled out and then re-sold.

Tourneys would be good, i say time and time again that it should be far more profitable, but you know, Armagan is a lot like God in a way, we all respect his work, and he is all powerful in changing it, but he doesn't listen to what we say.
*Amen*

 

[Papa Lazarou]

Good ideas. I'm not sure about the trainert though (realism/non-gameyness).
I think it would be a nice feature if you could actually hire the blacksmith to make armour or weapons for you. Certain types of armour would have to be made to fit anyway. Maybe a good smithy would make armour specific to your stats? (i.e. suited to physical attributes)

 

[JoshRose]

Wow. These are really great ideas. I have thought of the tournament idea many times, but the others are definitely great too.

I feel the same way about towns. But if these concepts existed, it would add a lot of replayability to the game. As it stands now, my lvl 19 character has essentially beat the game. I have all the best equipment, and I can defeat the largest armies. But these additions would add a lot more time to the game.

One thing that would be great is if they were somewhat goal oriented. Like, in tournaments, for example, they were more than just making money. There should be some end goal we are working towards, to keep driving that portion of the game. Perhaps there are BIG tournaments, for which you have to qualify through winning many smaller tournaments. It would be a reason to continue playing them.

Another idea that could stem from tournaments is a "fame" rating. It would be cool if your fame would increase as you won tournaments throughout the land. Having a high lvl of fame could affect things like being able to hire some better units to your army. Perhaps a really prestigious player could higher knights to fight in his army. Or a really perstigious player would get some higher level quests from the counts.

The functions of home ownership sound pretty cool. If we could think of a few more, it would be pretty awesome. I think it would be great if, when you had enough money, you could purchase your own stable. You could have war horses, spirited chargers, etc... and you could switch horses as you see fit. And as you mentioned, we could store extra gear there. It would be great if it were laid out like our own personal armory. We could have a rack for all of our suits of armor, a weapons rack, perhaps a food storage area.

But there should be multiple houses avaliable, and the lower level ones would have far less features, much like a Grand Theft Auto property system.

 

[Talon68]

Don't you dare ever mention Grand Theft Auto in my presence again

 

[Manu]

Not about hte trainer :

Defintively no skills points - those are earned by leveling only.

Trainin in weapon skills/experience : there should be a cap on it - the idea is to bring poor skills to a battlefield-worthy level, not bankroll yourself int oa death machine.

Same goes for th troops, trainign should not rais them above level 3 units, - going beyonfd this requires battle-hadening to refine what's ben learned.

 

[Cleaning agent]

I disagree manu. Training is a great idea but it owuld have to be more manual. For example, an archery training session owuld cost 200g, you get out a practice bow woth infinit arrows and limited time or limited time and ifinite arrows, there are moving targets that jerk from time to time or are dragged along the floor at a fast rate (yes this is realisitc, archers didn't spend their lives shooting at red circles only to be shoved out and run down by a horse running faster than the speed of light) if oyu hit the targets you gain experience but only as much as you would in the field no more. However if you misss then it is your own fault and you get less experience.
Also travelling markets is a great idea, however they shouldn't stop in towns that owuld be too easy... muahahahah.. sorry... anyway, they are parties that travel around the maps like caravans that, after an extended dialogue, let you acecess their wares!

 

[Archonsod]

Not about hte trainer :

Defintively no skills points - those are earned by leveling only.

Trainin in weapon skills/experience : there should be a cap on it - the idea is to bring poor skills to a battlefield-worthy level, not bankroll yourself int oa death machine.

Same goes for th troops, trainign should not rais them above level 3 units, - going beyonfd this requires battle-hadening to refine what's ben learned.

Mainly I was thinking of just a small amount of experience per day. See it more like paying to have someone with the Trainer skill join your party for the day.

Skill points I'm in two minds about. It doesn't make much sense that I can go out, kill a score of sea raiders and then suddenly become better at haggling for instance. Perhaps limit the type of skills, and the upper limit you can be trained. After all, your only spending a day learning the skill. I would therefore not include the Strength or Agility based skills, as they require actual body development. Something like inventory management or perhaps surgery should be trainable though.

Weapon skills I think should be fully trainable. After all, you could do it yourself simply by fighting with the relevant weapons. The only difference is that your not risking being killed by training, but you are paying for it.

 

[Archonsod]

I also think that "vendors" (which they shall now be known as) shouldn't sell you broken armour. One is hard pressed to find a vendor who will sell you an ordinary or good piece of armour. Perhaps all vendors should be equipped with either stantard armour or better to make it more... shop like. Have you every gone into a shop and bought a card which has a name scribbled out and then re-sold.

Agreed. They shouldn't be selling shoddy merchandise.

Perhaps a new trader type could be created selling the poorer quality goods. Sort of like a pawnbroker or even a scrap merchant.

 

[CptSalty]

Cheers to the junk dealer idea. That's all the merchant is anyhow, after you sell him 50 bent bows. I think that houses are unrealistic. You are, after all a merc. Perhaps your side can grant you land according to achievements, and from there you can build barracks for the men and such. You're not going to be hosting a 50 person sleepover in your house, your army won't fit. Maybe a personal chamber in the aforementioned property.

 

[Talon68]

Erm, who said you had to be a merc in this game. You could start out as one, then wish to settle down and just kill when it pleases you. Think about the human cost, not how it should be in a game. And who said you would host your army there, perhaps your house is big enough, or you could just set up your army at the local inn.

I think having your own castle with outlying town would be fantastic, if the world map would show it properly, instead of being every place looking like the next.

 

[jrawlings]

I like all of the ideas Archansod, especially the one about adding some spice to the tavern...

Along with card games, it would be nice to have a minstrel in the background strumming a lute or at least some "bar music" as it were playing instead of the standard M&B theme song. The card game/dice game need not be extravagant... could be high-low or blackjack or something like that .

Tournaments: I have long supported the idea of adding tournaments to the arena. Things like archery and jousting, included. I think it could be set up like a bracket system and the winner of the tournament could get "fame" as you suggest or even a cool weapon... Maybe this would be the only way one could get "balanced" or "watered" weapon types. If you win at jousting, you get a balanced great lance, you win at archery, you get a balanced warbow etc etc... obviously these weapons would need to be added to the game, since they don't currently exist AFAIK.

Shops selling shoddy armor: I don't mind that they don't have the best of the best... I'm sure medieval times had their version of consignment shops, so hand-me-downs can be expected. However, I do agree that the proportion of "normal" vs. "worn" items is out of whack a bit.

Training your troops: Great idea, although the trainer would have to be set at some character level with some skill in trainer... these two things, which affect who can get trained, and how much xp they get, would need to be determined and then the cost would be multiplied by the number of troops you want to train.

Fairs and market days: Perhaps we could have festivals that occur different times of the year... each town has a festival day, so that's something like 1 a month. During festival, you get more stuff/better stuff for sale. Of course, for this to work, a more robust calendar system is needed.

 

[ThVaz]

The cities need life no doubt - the people should walk and talk each other. As it is now, they stand still, looking to nowhere all the time. Mount and Blade excels at the battles, that are vivid and intense, but when you are not fighting the games does all it can to break the immersion.

I know the game it´s unfinished, but these things need to be included before it´s finished. It´s a needed feature.

 

[The_Underliner_]

ThVaz:

I do belive that the M&B team are going to make the core system work
before they start fleshing it out as it is now if they started to make a fleshed out game there would be far to many bugs and it would all probably have
to be scraped in the final version.

 

[Drengi]

Hi first post to the board been lurking for a while and wanted to post to a suggestion that I feel is important to maing M&B better than the rests (Even though it probably is it stands at the mo)

I totally love the game. A friend sent me the link to the site and after playing for 5mins I registered for a serial key.

Anyway enough of that. The reason I have posted to this thread is because of Towns and how they are usually handled in RPG games.

I think you should easily beable to spend hours of play in a town. With activities like gaining employment in the local watch. Tavern Bouncer or Castle Guard. Missions could then take place totally inside the town. Say kill a rival merchant etc..

 

[hoam]

Great ideas, imho the world in M&B is pretty lackluster right now. Feels like I'm the only person alive when there aren't any battles around

Makes you wonder how Dranton ever got so ugly in that case

 

[Merentha]

Heh.  If I remember correctly, this thread was made before walkable towns were implemented.

Edit: Yes, it was, and yes, being able to find more employment in towns would be a good idea.

 

[Destichado]

I like the idea of makeing killable characters in town, but I would prefer that the ability is ONLY avalable in conjunction with quests.  Like Drengai said, you could get a quest to kill somebody.  Angry neighbor.   But only that guy.  I didn't really like it in Morrowind how a wiff in the air would make anyone homicidal, and I don't think we ought to allow (or encourage! 0_0) players to kill off all the merchants and area characters.

A lot of this will start developing naturally when plot elements are introduced, I think, because towns will naturally fill up with more people to say things and give quests, etc., but I still like the idea.

 

[Ingolifs]

In lombards leagues, for each town, there will be several political factions vying for supremacy, and as a freeman or citizen, you can help your faction defeat the enemy faction.

 

[Pinetor]

Vendors:
I do not have aproblem with the "junk" versus good items for sale by the vendors as is. I DO very much like that the Merchant goes to bed at night and I think the vendors should also.. adds just a bit more evil to the game. If a vendor is open late at night he would buy very low, sell high and most of it would be junk! How's that for a fix!

Fair day:
Great idea, with vendors pulling out all the really good stuff and lowered prices to boot. ( I could see a good mod quest here also- imagine- you buy a great swag armour for pennies on the dollar only to find out its stolen! Every Swag that comes near will attack you until you get rid of it!  Or worse the vendor lies, and that +23 armour for 300 denars proves to be only +13 and now you cant sell it for even 1/10 of the purchase price! And don't even get me started on the Charger advertised as Spirited that was really stubborn and now I cant ride it because it  takes +5 riding!

Houses:
Sounds complicated to implement, I have no idea if the dev was going that way. The chest at the tavern functions like this now. I would like the Castle have a chest ( large) and be able to store horses, men and stuff there. Of course there must be a cost: Seems the game does not accrue wages for those not in the party, they should. Plus you would need to keep them fed and with pleanty of drink!  As for a house proper in town, I figure an apt is ok. Plus that way you have to keep paying for it. Stables should be about to keep spare horses. If you chose to join a faction there ought to be a free barracks for you and your men ( but no stoarage).