Hey all,
Has anyone else thought it odd that Inn's would even exist at game-start? There was just a 100 year cataclysm and the world has just about ended. There should be other things to give out quests in the early game, with inn's not showing up until early mid-game. At least imo. Thoughts?
Hey, just telling you what I think, and I know I'm not alone in this. I so far like the game, but I not going to fanboi out and like everything just because. Calling out a discrepancy isn't being cynical.
In a post-apocalyptic world the economy would be non-existent and money would have no worth. Inns are a business. No paying customers = no inns.
A century after a cataclysm where all the cities were destroyed there would be lots of ruins, small settlements and villages where people would gather and focus on survival and defending themselves against raiders. There definitely would not be traditional inns where travelers pay with gildar. Without cities there would not even be traveling. Anyone building a house for themselves in the wilds would quickly find a band of homeless barbarians knocking on their door with axes because in a world like that it would be about survival of the fittest.
Only after some major cities have been rebuilt, there would be trade, traveling and inns again.
Hay a lot can happen in 100 years. Look how far we have come in the last hundred years. Besides 100 years is about 3-4 generations which would mean most people alive would only know of the appocalypse through stories from thier grandparents or great-grandparents.
Also it seems people are thinking of inns as if they are tourist stops. But really most in those times were simply resting stops for travelers going from one place to another. Even lands with bandits and thugs would have inns as they sometimes need a place to hang their hat and get a meal. They use fear and intimidation to keep the inn keeper quiet and most likely extorted money, food, and etc. from them. After all smart thugs know it's better to shack down a constant mark rather then simply kill them.
Not all inns were big like we think of hotels and motels today. Or the large city inns/taverns you see in the movies which are large enough to house to bar room fight scene as well as being large because they are in a city and have more customer. Many are more like the bed and breakfast type places you might find if you go traveling down the small roads and small towns across america.
Besides the size of the bar/inn the old westerns are also a great example of how lawless areas with thugs can still thrive somewhat. Even when rival gangs duke it out they tend to leave the inn keeper go since he's the one that can get them more food, beer, and so on. Plus there is the added bonus he cleans up their "hang out" after they smash it up.
Lastly they are natural meeting places because you can rest there was well as get food. They are often along routes that see a bit of traffic, otherwise they would have to close down. Thus people looking for passing merchants, passing mercenaries, or passing heroes in our case, hang out in the inns. And anytime there is a place people gather it creates commerce and thus they thrive.
In all honesty I think it makes sense that small inns and even shops would turn up fairly soon after the apocalypse as they would be centers of commerce. Either directly or indirectly by a more formal market place setting up right next to it.
Wonderful idea. Simply re-naming them "waystations" would make worlds of difference in perception and atmosphere, imo.
I mean:
With all the ruins and bones littering the landscape, this game is close to Darksun or a Fallout type of setting. However, Inns are definetly more faery tale like Might & Magic or Bard's Tale. Right now, the game is an odd mix of bitter lemon and vanilla.
I just think of them as small villages.
Considering the basic principles of supply and demand I'm not surprised there are Inns a century after a cataclysm, since everyone always wants a good solid drink even when the world is on the brink of oblivion
Well you can have a non-existent, half-assed setting like in most other strategy games or you can have a believable setting with inspiring lore. Wasteland inns in the middle of nowhere in a destroyed world clearly do not belong to the latter. Even though some people in the beta don't seem to be too bothered about them or even defend their existence for a reason that eludes all logic.
Inns belong to a later stage in the game where cities have been rebuilt and there is trade and travel between them.
Would be better if they were small settlements as someone pointed out. As they are now they're detrimental to the atmosphere. I find it strange that the lore with Random House etc is advertised so much but then you don't care that much about the consistency of the game world.
Perhaps once someone discovers the "Pub" tech then they show up? Perhaps the quests are when you build a pub in a city and they show up at random times. It does seem odd there are NO cities anywhere in the beginning, but there are inns all over the place.
I would like to see minor city/states instead of inns. They have there own economy, armies, etc. If once could be lead by the ferocious squirrel civ in GalCiv2 that would be awesome!
No, it would not be awesome. I hated the Squirrel Civ. I quickly modded it out of my game. . .
Inns can be better set up. Rather than have so many of them, maybe have inns be permanent parts of the map like resource patches. That way, if a player builds a city near an inn, they can get a bonus from them and also get quests every now and then automatically. In general, I think having inns, estates, and other quest locations be a permanent part of the landscape would be more interesting than having them disappear after a quest is completed.
Maybe instead of finding and inn then escorting a noble, perhaps you just find a stranded and lost noble in the desert that wants you to take him home. Maybe a traveling merchant or caravan that gives rumors of a magic flute, or something like that. Maybe the quest can be given by random npc's either static or roaming the land. It can even be a tile. I feel that's a more natural way to be given quests and many other games do the same. Maybe an occasional inn, but perhaps not as many as there are in the game now.
Lets see if I can revamp the system for the current quests:
Escort Noble: Tile showing a lost or passed out noble. The noble then asks you to take him back to his estate. Maybe show a dead horse in the tile. Or if its a noblewoman perhaps she is being held up by bandits as you stumble across her and you must rescue her then take her home.
Magic Flute: Tile depicting a camped merchant caravan/nomads. They tell you a legend of a magic flute nearby in a cave guarded by a troll or something.
Wild Goose Chase: Maybe you stumble across a note or carving depicting witches sending a young adventurer going on a wild goose chase to find a compass eventually dying in the wasteland, and carving his final actions into a rock.
I feel something more personalized would definitely feel more natural. Hell, otherwise if that's too much work you can just make a static NPC at random locations giving the quest much like many RPGs.
Yeah that also. If the quest hubs are going to be temporary, have it make sense for it to go away once you complete it. Right now these inns are real immersion killers IMHO.
With the nobles and their daughters in the Inns it is a double immersion killer.
Unless the word "noble" is used in a slandering fashion for the people who used to own something pre-Cataclysm and are still desperately hanging on to their former status. But since these "nobles" of ruined places pay you rather handsomely for escorting their daughters I don't know what to think. They are out of place.
Well, I'd just like to point out that Randomly Stumbling across a Den of Spiders, and fighting them to get the armor ... best quest so far.
The best quest is the one where I fall asleep in the forest and am locked into a nightmare by a dream leech. Most frightening indeed.
Is that in the beta?
although yea, I liked the Sloth Demon in Dragon Age.
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