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Sacked Settlements

Omegoa

Omegoa

Member
Just another idea that popped into my head while I should have been writing my final paper: Will we be seeing any interaction between settlements and the world beyond their walls? I mean this mostly in terms of combat between cities and whatever creatures lurk the wilds, though any dynamic interaction would be interesting and immersive. By now, we're probably all familiar with the fact that NPCs and creatures will not respawn after they are killed; is there any chance that we might come back to a village or farm one day and find it sacked by a band of marauding baddies?
 
BigT2themax

BigT2themax

Insider
While that does sound like a neat idea, I think it may end up being very annoying for some players. Imagine you've travelled for a very long distance, you're almost dead or out of supplies, only to find that the town you were travelling to has been destroyed by bandits or monsters. though there could be some sort of warning, like news travelling between the villages, or perhaps you somehow learn of the enemy's plans and help protect the village and stop it from happening.

Although, at the same time... I imagine having a village you're very fond of (or at least, used to it's presence, so you expect everything to be fine when you go there), where you even know some of the NPCs and shops and such... only to return and see it reduced to rubble or to find that everyone has been slaughtered. That might actually make the player quite distraught, especially if they weren't expecting it to happen. Or maybe you hear of a large merchant town or something and make your way there, but it's been attacked by some great evil and is in a similar state, like when you go to Kvatch in TES 4.

You know what? I take back what I said earlier, this is a neat idea, especially if you combine it with the forewarning thing I mentioned earlier. Although, maybe limit it to like, two or three fairly unimportant towns. It'd be really lame to have the main city procedurally destroyed, and any towns that have anything major to do with the story probably shouldn't be affected as it might alter the story unexpectedly.
 
Tony

Tony

Insider
@Big:

I like how you steadily convinced yourself that a dynamic world with actual consequences is better than a stale, static world ;) You can already kill all NPCs in the game, none are invincible. This includes ones which are important to any part of the story. Choice and consequences and it's finest!
 
Omegoa

Omegoa

Member
Such a mechanic definitely has the potential to be emotional. I was actually thinking of Skyrim's dragon attacks as I wrote this. There was a dragon attack in Riverwood - a town most new players will stumble across fairly early on in their adventures - and Alvor, the town's blacksmith, got killed. Being rather attached to that blacksmith (never mind the fact that he was one of the town's few merchants), I wound up taking off half an hour to give him as proper a burial as I could manage, and whenever I'm in town I'll drop by his house and give his family a bit of gold to get by.

You know, depending on how Sui Generis' story goes, this could wind up being a very compelling reason to do your hero business. The longer you take, the more settlements get overrun.
 
walltar

walltar

Insider
I think size of world and number of villages could be problematic.... If you play long enough time you may find that most villages in your game were sacked and there is nothing exept that big city. If villages could be slowly rebuilt by villagers who survived and some newcommers then you could set timer on sacking so there are allways enough villages left.
 
Omegoa

Omegoa

Member
I imagine it the sort of thing to happen only infrequently, in line with significant events in the world if events turn out a certain way. I'm not sure that a village-rebuilding mechanic would be feasible (though it's nice to think about), but it would be cool if the player could found a village, wouldn't it?
 
walltar

walltar

Insider
It is not about how frequent it is ... if it is not scripted (only certain villages can by sacked if certain conditions are met) then in time every village gets sacked. If something like this is in game there must be either village rebuilding or cap on how much villages can be sacked. I would not underestimate people ... you can't know how long they can play single game.
 
Omegoa

Omegoa

Member
But that's the thing, these would probably have to be scripted for the following reasons: First, with the lack of destructible buildings, any sort of destruction would have to happen off-screen; second, it makes the destruction meaningful; and third, for the reason you have stated, to prevent depopulation of the entire world (or rather, the depopulation of the world by a source other than the player). Now, when I say scripted, I don't mean to say that certain villages should be destroyed uniformly through every playthrough; a village would only be destroyed if certain conditions were met, and perhaps these conditions will never come up in your game, or you'll have done something prior to these conditions that renders them null and so saves the village without your even realizing it (e.g. perhaps you killed the Porky King while on some prior adventure, and it turns out he would've sacked the town otherwise). There's a lot that can be done with conditional scripts to keep a game fresh.
 
BigT2themax

BigT2themax

Insider
I was disagreeing with you until you explained what you meant by scripted. I thought you meant it should only happen as part of the story and it would definately happen and such.

At the same time, I think maybe a limit to how many villages can get trashed would be good, too. Or, maybe near the end of the story (but only if you haven't done anything to progress the story towards a nicer conclusion) villages get attacked more frequently by some great evil to the point where there's only a few small sections of civilization left that are habitable, even the main city. But, if you manage to successfully save the day, then it doesn't happen, and you can just go do whatever you want then. I think it'd be cool to have the world slowly destroyed by whatever main baddy is in the game.

Edit: also, the destrucible buildings thing doesn't have to be a problem. If the town is attacked and destroyed and the player isn't anywhere near there, then just replace all the buildings with a corresponding pre-made ruined building model (or, in serious circumctances, a corresponding pile of burning rubble, or maybe replace the entire area with a large crater :confused:) and scatter the NPCs that lived in the town all around, dead (with maybe a few survivors to explain what happened and such).
If the player is there when the village is attacked, then just don't destroy the buildings unless the player gets killed or otherwise fails to protect the town (which would probably involve the player getting killed or fleeing), in which case they'd respawn elsewhere or after the town is destroyed, so replace the models and whatnot in that situation too. And if whatever's attacking is the kind of thing to reduce the town to rubble or a large crater, then the player probably won't survive that :p.
Simples!
 
Omegoa

Omegoa

Member
I agree, there should be a sort of limit. Not every village would have a King Porky plotting to destroy it, and some would just be too well-defended for the wilds to sack the settlement. As for your edit, that's what I had in mind though you make a good point about the player getting killed; the player could be involved in the city's defense in that case.
 
TheScythian

TheScythian

Insider
I think the physical destruction of large things like buildings would be a major headache for the devs and probably unrealistic to implement within the constraints of time and resources. For each building they'd need to make a destroyed version (or versions) and unless they reused each building asset countless times or made separate villages identical in style this would quickly add up to a metric tonne of modelling work (Unless they somehow managed to construct all buildings from common components and implemented the physics engine in their destruction, which seems unlikely).
The sacking of settlements could still be made fairly dramatic though just by throwing loose objects like market stalls, baskets, carts, hay-bails, food etc. around a bit, and the npc's would either be killed, lock themselves inside or flee to other towns.
 
BigT2themax

BigT2themax

Insider
Yeah, I suppose if the modelling work was too much to handle, that approach could be used. I was just thinking how to work around the fact that there's no physics-based destruction in the game. Just replacing the models when you're not looking seemed like a nice way to emulate a destroyed building. Maybe only do it for one or two different buildings? It would REALLY help with immersion.

Of course, this is if towns being procedurally attacked is even going to be implemented!
 
666jet

666jet

Insider
hmmm i think the rebuilding part is very cool and maybe the player could help out by giving coin or resources would be something epic to add to the game even if it was the player sacking the village with a group of merry men
 
the0thMonkey

the0thMonkey

Member
666jet said:
hmmm i think the rebuilding part is very cool and maybe the player could help out by giving coin or resources would be something epic to add to the game even if it was the player sacking the village with a group of merry men
Click to expand...
If helping rebuild the village by donating caused the villagers to like you more, you could totally turn this into a racket. Gather a group of men, disguise yourself, sack the village, steal all the valuables, help them rebuild. Rinse and repeat (on different towns if it takes too long to rebuild one). Now, you have more gold (you stole more than you donated back), and the villagers like you because you helped them rebuild their village after an attack by "some bandits" ;).
 
Algea

Algea

Insider
the0thMonkey said:
If helping rebuild the village by donating caused the villagers to like you more, you could totally turn this into a racket. Gather a group of men, disguise yourself, sack the village, steal all the valuables, help them rebuild. Rinse and repeat (on different towns if it takes too long to rebuild one). Now, you have more gold (you stole more than you donated back), and the villagers like you because you helped them rebuild their village after an attack by "some bandits" ;).
Click to expand...
I really like this idea. What would happen if they somehow find out about you being behind those attacks?
 
BigT2themax

BigT2themax

Insider
Well, it'd be pretty neat to be able to disguise oneself and do things like that, but really that's only if the AI can handle it. If something like that's implemented and the AI isn't cabable of doing anything if they find out you're the one behind the attacks (and as such, there's nothing to deter you from doing it), then it'd be a very broken mechanic. EVERY player would do this, as there'd be no drawbacks and tremendous rewards (you get free loot and the village loves you), so it'd be stupid not to. Heck, players would probably do this in every town they come across. Unless you're considering the actual battle where the player may get killed. But I digress. However, having something like this to be part of a feature list (as in: here's a list of cool specific things you can do that we've added) seems kind of werid.

Really the best way (in my opinion, anyways) for things involving NPCs and getting them to attack towns and such or doing whatever really would be to maybe not make it a preset feature, but have complex enough NPCs instead, to make things like this possible. So, you pick a target village, talk with NPCs there, make sure you're known there, and make up some story about travelling to some far-off location. Then, get some thugs together who want to wreck and steal stuff and are willing to be in your team, and go attack the village (by ordering them to attack a specific area, see? so you could use it anywhere, really), wearing a mask or something to obsure your face and making sure not to wear similar clothes or talk to anyone (they might recognise your voice, maybe?). Doing that would make any NPC not recognise you in any situation, not just that specific one.
Once you've looted the place and scared some of the villagers, they'll start rebuilding the village, and, a few days later, you show up and help out and donate money (not donating any treasures you stole, just generic money, as NPCs may recognise the treasure), and the villager's view of you improves.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is that it'd be better to implement complex AI that have the behaviours and thoughts that could allow you to pull off things like this and other dastardly deeds.
Because who doesn't love dastardly deeds?
 
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