Dynamic Villages/Trading Caravans

[nathanchapin]

I've done limited research on what the devs plan to add, so apologies if I'm restating anything they have already brought up. I think human civilization should play a bit more of a role in vintage story, especially in things like trade routes and caravans. The main story village should still remain the closest, however, it would be interesting to see other villages. Maybe as the game story continues villagers could even start commenting on how they have heard about your exploits in the world. Another thing I think would be interesting is to highlight how villages are still not fairing the best, maybe after heavy temporal storms the streets of a village are a bit more empty, or in extreme cases entire villages are temporarly wiped out for a couple seasons until new villagers move in. (the main story related village should obviously be exempt from this, maybe explained by the cautious way they chose to survive in-game) This could lead to moments where you have to help protect a valuable trading ally or risk losing them for a year. This ties into the uses of caravans; maybe they could stop by your base and offer a limited set of goods, or even ask for shelter when temporal storms are imminent. You could also possibly be able to travel with them as a more expensive form of fast travel; I'm not the biggest fan of this though. Finally, ruins could tie into villages as well. Finding a destroyed village or remnants of a caravan would be excellent world-building and lend itself to the daily tragedies that are dealt with by those who are still alive.

 

Edited August 8 by nathanchapin

[SnapJelly]

I'm honestly not sure I would like that, I like the feeling of being alone in the wilderniss

I know there is a setting when making a world to be all alone without other signs of life but that also gets rid of traders completely so it alters the potential gameplay quite a bit, it's not the same

[nathanchapin]

thats true, maybe you could only have caravans come by if you let the village in question know that you're there. not to mention how rare it will be for one to stop by anyway

[LadyWYT]

Welcome to the forums! I think wandering traders are a "maybe" as far as future features go. 

1 hour ago, nathanchapin said:

I think human civilization should play a bit more of a role in vintage story

Here's the thing though...there's really not much of humanity that survived the cataclysmic events of the Old World. The ones that are left, with the exception of the traders, are gathered into fortified settlements that are quite few and far between. The tech level has also regressed significantly, so communication between settlements is quite dicey at best.

I also agree with what @SnapJelly already said--adding more villages changes the feeling of Vintage Story from an overall sense of surviving by your lonesome in the wilderness, after some horrifying events, to one more like Minecraft where the world is quite populated and doesn't really feel like a post-apocalyptic wilderness. There's also the fact that randomly generated villages are going to end up pretty bland compared to story locations like Nadiya. Nadiya is a specific place important to the plot, with specific NPCs that are important to the plot, and as a result can include a lot of specific details that just aren't really possible with randomly generated structures.

[ifoz]

The devs have said that one day down the line they'd like travelling traders, but that it probably won't come any time soon due to the difficulty of implementing it in a realistic way. I think the idea is that traders could ferry goods between one another, and/or have a courier that does it for them. To do this though, the game would need some way of making/validating 'trade routes' between traders, to make sure they could path there without getting stuck.
Elvas also mentioned carts in the dev stream where he discussed this, and how while the devs have thought about them, they probably won't be added if/until they can come up with a way to make them not look janky when rolling through VS' blocky terrain.

I also heard from Elvas in regards to villages that they had the idea to have the player able to more permanently rent a room at the inn in Nadiya, which would revoke claim protections for that room and allow players to decorate it as they wished. Again, no idea if/when this will be implemented, but we know they've been thinking about it.
There was also mention of smaller settlements whose claim radius wouldn't be so large, as so the player could set up shop close by. We don't know though if these smaller settlements would be the size of the rare trader outposts or larger, though.

Edited August 8 by ifoz

[LadyWYT]

1 hour ago, ifoz said:

I also heard from Elvas in regards to villages that they had the idea to have the player able to more permanently rent a room at the inn in Nadiya, which would revoke claim protections for that room and allow players to decorate it as they wished. Again, no idea if/when this will be implemented, but we know they've been thinking about it.
There was also mention of smaller settlements whose claim radius wouldn't be so large, as so the player could set up shop close by. We don't know though if these smaller settlements would be the size of the rare trader outposts or larger, though.

This would probably be the best way to handle it, especially if it goes along with some sort of reputation system. That is, renting a room temporarily might be the basic option, with the player unlocking the possibility of renting it permanently later or even buying a small plot of land to build on/premade house to live in. Unlocking such opportunity could entail just completing a few jobs for various NPCs around town, spending a certain amount of money in the village, or completing certain parts of the main story. Of course, if the player does things like pick rude dialogue options, assault NPCs, or otherwise prove themselves to be a disagreeable sort, the price for such rentals might be increased, with NPCs refusing to offer the player permanent residence.

[nathanchapin]

These are good points. If my cottage were located in what I thought was a secluded area and all of a sudden a band of traders came through, I would probably feel a bit odd about my place in the world, but the smaller settlements sound very promising. Now all I am curious about is how temporal storms will affect these less well-off villages. I think it would be nice to see how the storms affect the world's inhabitants outside of you I guess! I'm sure the devs will deliver as they usually do with these types of things though lol!

[qualicabyss]

I think adding more towns would be good, but you would want to keep them very rare, definitely not like minecraft with a village every couple hundred blocks, and possibly all custom made like the one we already have.
They should also be prevented from being close too spawn as well, as having a ton of traders in one place would be quite powerful.
I think letting players make their own towns would be the best option, though making traders balanced in that situation would be quite difficult.
 

[nathanchapin]

Yes, very rare! I feel like such a powerful aspect of Vintage Story's gameplay loop is the vast distances you have to traverse, usually leading to you discovering more than you meant to! I might not be the biggest fan of making towns though, but I'm 100% sure this could be added in a way that makes it feel nice gameplay-wise without messing with the vibe the game is trying to give off. Maybe something like player-owned trading posts or inns? That might make the game feel a bit more like a medieval store simulator rather than a wilderness survival experience though lol!