Unique town content

[shiidii]

For me the most impressive additions in 7.3 and 7.5 were the added town centers and furnished shops. I guess I'm a little biased towards a game's environment, good scenery and buildings have always been my favorite parts of a game.

I was wondering when minor characters, events and story line elements will begin to be added to each town? I just can't imagine having so many beautiful towns and shops over such a large map, yet at the moment they all serve the same functions and have the same characters.
If perhaps each town had minor characters that lived inside the walls, more discarded chests that contain junk, merchants/smithies that sell specific kinds of items or a few enterable buildings. The taverns and merchants coulld have customers and family members loitering inside the buildings, And like a good RPG should have, personal belongings in the rooms to steal  .
Just little things to keep the curious a little busy, and add some more purpose to travelling places. I have started to learn to mod, but i've never been considerably skilled at scripting.

I understand a lot of this will be filled out once the producers have finished everything else in the game. But it shouldn't do any harm to add ambient elements that aren't significant.

 

[calandale]

I have real questions as to what the town content is for. So far, it's only showing what they can do; but it's been played with in some of the mods. I just don't know if they'll ever be able to match the wonder of there being no story, and trying to guess how good it will be.

 

[shiidii]

for the moment I see them as empty scenes ready to be filled with storyline elements. I'm assuming that once M&B reaches the end of development the main storylines will be worked in and most of the towns will hold significance. I do agree that there appears to be too many large towns for a story to take place between them all, but I can see sub stories and many other things being worked into them.

Ohh also, while I'm here:
It would be good to add some scenery to the salt mine, to make it more of a mine!

 

[calandale]

Yes, and spawn in a better location again.

 

[Archonsod]

It would be nice to have a few more landmarks and similar buildings too. At the moment, there's little to differentiate between towns beyond the physical layout. It would be nice if we had, for example, a noteworthy Cathedral, or the Lighthouse of Zendar. Nothing fancy, just something which offers a view of the town's character and perhaps hints at why the town is there, if you know what I mean. Something which gives the feeling of the towns being an important focal point for the surrounding countryside rather than a drop off market for adventurer's to offload loot.

 

[anarchistica]

I'm all for more NPCs, unique buildings, etc. but please, no "chests with random stuff in them". Now it might not have to be as bad as NWN (gazillion chests/crates), but it's still silly and kinda unrealistic.

 

[Róisín]

I'm all for more NPCs, unique buildings, etc. but please, no "chests with random stuff in them". Now it might not have to be as bad as NWN (gazillion chests/crates), but it's still silly and kinda unrealistic.

As I approached the chest in Jelkala, I expected the Big-Chest animation and music from Zelda: OoT.  Seriously, I was kind of surprised when it didn't happen.

 

[calandale]

With the flintlock, it was simply a way of showing people something new, that didn't really fit in the game. Here again, it may be a hint of something to come (not really needed by modders - those that wanted Oriental stuff already had it).

 

[Sir Prince]

I like having towns, but what I don't like is the stairways and stuff seem to small for your charactor, and your char seems too big for them, this really bugs me. Also, on low end computers the towns are a pain because your FPS drops a lot. It would be nice to have everything availiable from the town menu and there being a button on it if you want to actualy walk around town.

 

[calandale]

There should be times when you need to walk around. Right now, you do in combat and when trying to find the shops for the first time. Eventually, maybe there will be passages which open up due to dialog, which you will need to find.