Busier towns

[jamesisbest]

Re: Busier towns

A like the idea of busier towns, more people doing things, and even randomizing some npc's and making rare merchants from time to time (maybe with odd items that could be slightly worse, same, or slightly better). I think Blizzard certainly is trying to make the cities and villages more realistic this time around. With several concept art drawings showing different villagers and their tasks I think they will have somewhat realistic towns this time around. Also from the concept art Caldeum looks huge. I think Orgrimmar(sp?) from WoW was a huge success for Blizzard in part because it felt like a city due to its vast size. I think they intend making several large cities like WoW to make you feel like you are in a real world with real people. I hope they go over-the-top a bit, it really adds to the feel of the game.

 

[MooCQ]

Re: Busier towns

All the previous D's lacked any sense of immersive gameplay. I could seriously care less about mccain, sitting in that tristram box to rot. They had nice "for show" gameplay movies, but the lack of character, and no connection.. it was a loss. I hope the next game, changes dramatically, because what they had goin in D2 was a total embarrassment.

 

[worstnameever]

Re: Busier towns

The OP and anyone that agrees with him obviously doesn't know the history of the Diablo universe, you are a SINGLE person sent to destroy the root of all evil.

 

[deadbeater]

Re: Busier towns

I like for once a big big town. Like Liberty City big. Or at least Palm Brinks big.

 

[limitedwhole]

Re: Busier towns

isolation is one of key feelings diablo 1 instilled in the players. this is what was lacking in d2. The graphics were shiny, rather than having a dark gloomy feel about them. The people numerous and living apparently happy ordinary lives amidst the coming of hell. I doubt they will keep with the original theme and expect large towns. LArge towns are nice in a certain sense because they allow for more immersive quest play. A good comprimise would be to use large towns, but where the people are ebing infected with evil and temptation from the coming of the three prmevils. Some sort of reputation system could be useful, isolating the character from segments of the town. Quests which involve not just seeking out bosses, but seeking out wise hermits or the ghosts of long dead mages in their tombs would be nice.

Another methd would be the generative town method. Each location the players start in a isolated, dark place full of horror and terror. As the they progress through the act, the town begins to return to normal, essentially (unlocking the town).

 

[limitedwhole]

Re: Busier towns

An example of this would be say in act 2 in d2.

upon arriving in lut golen, ones arrives to hatred. Seeing eth heroes coming diablo prepared thw ay by sowing covetous and diesease amongst the town. Only Atma, seeing the truth will talk to the hero and seeks ihm. In semi wailing and lamenting tones she tells of a horror in the sewers, a minion of th dark one, who is poisoning the towns water supply. The PC goes to the mage to buy potions and portal scrolls on to have a curse cast upon him lowering his resistances by 20. The mage laughs in amocking tone and becomes possessed, becoming the mouthpiece of diablo. The hero low on supplies ventures in to the sewers and slays the horror. Upon returning the diseaese still ravages the townpeople, but drognan has come to his senses and lifts the curse. But his heroism has only made him many enemies and when he ventures of out town, JErhyns men ambush him (spawn) whenever he drops to below 50% health. etc.

 

[Artimedes]

Re: Busier towns

The OP and anyone that agrees with him obviously doesn't know the history of the Diablo universe, you are a SINGLE person sent to destroy the root of all evil.

Well obviously not, as there are other people in the towns. Maybe the central person in the storyline but definitely not the only person in the universe. You dont find it weird that each town has like 5 people but they can somehow survive and carry on trade just like normal? Where do they get their food? Supplies? Medicine if they get sick? How do they hear about news from other towns? Theres no way the few people in the town could have had a successful enough harvest to have enough food to survive the entire time evil was still around. According to the game there has to still be some system of mass trade for anybody in that world to carry on, and you need many people for that to happen. And if each city only has around 5 people in it, what stops the demons from overrunning the town? I mean if they supposedly killed everybody else off why stop there?

 

[Lazarus II]

Re: Busier towns

I would love something similar to the NPCs in Fallout 3 for example. When you're not interacting they go about their daily lives talking to eachother and doing stuff. As for towns being bigger I wouldn't necessarily say that would be a good thing. I think it would only irritate you in the long run having to run all over the place.

 

[Apocalypse]

Re: Busier towns

I would love something similar to the NPCs in Fallout 3 for example. When you're not interacting they go about their daily lives talking to eachother and doing stuff. As for towns being bigger I wouldn't necessarily say that would be a good thing. I think it would only irritate you in the long run having to run all over the place.

i remember the devs talking about this before D2 released, said something like the npc's will not just be standing in a door way waiting for us to walk by. well D2 did not improve it very much, instead of standing in a door way they might walk 7 steps in a circle.

i do not see this changing in D3 as it is clear bliz is trying to make the game for everyone in mind so the last thing they want is for people to spam message boards with "where the hell did randomjerknpc go, i cant find him anywhere".

i thought the npc's in D1 were fine, it made sense to me actually (though if they moved a bit i would not have minded). if you thought the lord of terror or pretty much any bit of demon activity was going on in that town you would probably leave also. D2 should have had more random people walking around. the game does not need more people to talk to or whatever, it just needs more visable people to keep the realism. however that just makes more work for something that is purely visual and maybe thats not worth it to some?

 

[Lazarus II]

Re: Busier towns

Maybe I was a little unclear. I probably was looking at the text. I don't want the actual important NPCs that you interact with to wander all over the place. But perhaps other townsfolk that you can't actually get anything useful from to go about their daily lives. They could be characters that just say hi or something other unimportant when you click on them. That would add a busier feel to the towns. I just want it to be lively and not so static!

 

[Apocalypse]

Re: Busier towns

Maybe I was a little unclear. I probably was looking at the text. I don't want the actual important NPCs that you interact with to wander all over the place. But perhaps other townsfolk that you can't actually get anything useful from to go about their daily lives. They could be characters that just say hi or something other unimportant when you click on them. That would add a busier feel to the towns. I just want it to be lively and not so static!

100% agree, in D1 the empty feel made sense to me. D2 was ok with some parts like the rogue camp and possibly lut but act 3 never made sense to me. why would the entire town flee when the dark wanderer got there at the same time as the hero. that town should have had more people in it imo (unless i am missing so piece of lore). act 5 felt like the best act to me but that was cause all the stupid barbs were out fighting, felt more like an actual town.

so yeah i agree, i wanna see more going on in D3 towns, more people who are just there to make it actually feel like a town.

 

[Gigashadow]

Re: Busier towns

I don't care about the towns, unless they start doing something different with them other than a "drop off" station.

 

[Artimedes]

Re: Busier towns

Maybe I was a little unclear. I probably was looking at the text. I don't want the actual important NPCs that you interact with to wander all over the place. But perhaps other townsfolk that you can't actually get anything useful from to go about their daily lives. They could be characters that just say hi or something other unimportant when you click on them. That would add a busier feel to the towns. I just want it to be lively and not so static!

Yea thats more of what I meant also. The NPCs who sell stuff (merchants) cant be the only people living in the towns, that just makes them seem a bit unrealistic. Even if the townsfolk only said thinks like hi or gave little quest hints itd still make you feel like you were part of a bigger war vs evil than in the previous two games.
I think i read somewhere that elixirs that give buffs would be rare drops, so they could have a merchant come to a certain town maybe once a week or month that would sell elixirs at a fairly high cost, but you would be limited to one or two purchases at a time. This could help keep the economy in check also (I think i mentioned this somewhere before...)

 

[redrach]

Re: Busier towns

100% agree, in D1 the empty feel made sense to me. D2 was ok with some parts like the rogue camp and possibly lut but act 3 never made sense to me. why would the entire town flee when the dark wanderer got there at the same time as the hero. that town should have had more people in it imo (unless i am missing so piece of lore).

Mephisto subverted most of the people of Kurast to his side. All the "Zealot"-type monsters you fight were once human. In fact, once you break the compelling orb, they stop fighting and try to run away from you.
The only ones unaffected were the people at the docks, who were protected from the curse by Hratli's enchantments.

 

[Hodl Pu]

Re: Busier towns

I would like to see town guards actually fighting when a monster comes to close. Or even, a town getting attack once in a while, (nothing to overwhelming though, unless the Act is based on a huge battle.)

 

[phool]

Re: Busier towns

I'm one of those players who counts the seconds and was frustrated by act 2 and 3's relatively sprawling towns. Tighter packed, the better, here. Hey, when you're doing 3k pindle runs, you really don't want an extra 8 seconds on your run. Put Hratli next to Ormus and start the char next to them on joining game and I'm ok... centralise the important stuff, spread the filler around for those who want it.

 

[Nimbostratus]

Re: Busier towns

I'm one of those players who counts the seconds and was frustrated by act 2 and 3's relatively sprawling towns. Tighter packed, the better, here. Hey, when you're doing 3k pindle runs, you really don't want an extra 8 seconds on your run. Put Hratli next to Ormus and start the char next to them on joining game and I'm ok... centralise the important stuff, spread the filler around for those who want it.

I agree. Put the important stuff where the players can get to it easily, but add extras so the town looks like it has a population higher than five.

 

[Gamekk]

Re: Busier towns

Diablo's charm is about small towns. You spawn, someone tells you to go kill demons, you're off, that's it.

I don't want to play always thinking, hey did I speak to every NPC in town? Maybe I missed something really important! Like a quest for that big mauls every barbs but me have?

I also think that we don't really want towns and NPCs, it's more about the dungeons and they're populated enough...

 

[Artimedes]

Re: Busier towns

Diablo's charm is about small towns. You spawn, someone tells you to go kill demons, you're off, that's it.

I don't want to play always thinking, hey did I speak to every NPC in town? Maybe I missed something really important! Like a quest for that big mauls every barbs but me have?

I also think that we don't really want towns and NPCs, it's more about the dungeons and they're populated enough...

Well what weve been saying above is the main npcs would be in a certain area, or they would have a special symbol above their head or on the map, and the regular townspeople would just be wandering around and wouldnt give any quests at all, so you wouldnt even have to speak to them. The small town charm is a bit lost on me when it crosses into being just plain unrealistic. Im not buying towns with 3-4 citizens being able to survive an event, or events, that happen in Diablo all by themselves, especially during acts when there are supposed to be mercenaries protecting those towns. I need the world to have a population bigger than 30.

 

[efthemi]

Re: Busier towns

I guess but i dont want the game to become like Guild Wars and World of Warcraft.