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!

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!

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

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.