What makes a good RPG city?

[V_K]

So I was thinking what differs good and immersive RPG cities from, basically, bloated menu towns/quest dispensers. For me that would be:

• Size - can't have a good city with only 3 houses in it. Even if they house 50 NPCs. Especially when they house 50 NPCs. Yes Cyseal, I'm looking at you.
• City life - something to give the impression that the city functions irrespective of your character. Could be done through detailed NPC schedules, like in Ultima, but does not necessarily have to go so deep. Some popping up random events or just a good detail level could also work.
• Secret and dangerous places to explore - simply put, cities should be more than a collection of NPCs but game environments of their own. That is where most cities in modern RPGs don't do it for me, being little more than backgrounds for NPCs. Give me seedy alleyways, rich houses to burgle into, urban legends, forgotten catacombs - that sort of thing.
• Believable topography - the city layout should make sense. It might seem superficial, but it's very immersion-breaking when when the map just looks random or too convenient for the player.
• Continuity - I strongly prefer cities that are just on continuous map or a set of maps that cover the whole city without any gaps to cities that only make certain parts explorable, abstracting others to a sort of "world map". It might be a personal quirk, but I just feel that the latter approach makes the individual maps too self-contained, losing a sense of coherence for the city as a whole.
• Dynamism - probably, the most important thing: the city should change over the course of the game. There should be a reason to come back to it over and over again, and that reason shouldn't be just to sell excess loot.

Now I don't think there are any RPG cities that fulfill all of those criteria, but the better ones like Tarant, or Britain from U7, or Riva from RoA3 are characterized by most of them.

So what makes a good RPG city for you? And what would be examples of good cities?

 

[HarveyBirdman]

Brothels

 

[Safav Hamon]

Size - can't have a good city with only 3 houses in it. Even if they house 50 NPCs. Especially when they house 50 NPCs. Yes Cyseal, I'm looking at you.

Neketaka has 7 districts and 200 unique NPCs that can be spoken with.

City life - something to give the impression that the city functions irrespective of your character. Could be done through detailed NPC schedules, like in Ultima, but does not necessarily have to go so deep. Some popping up random events or just a good detail level could also work.

Neketaka has a day and night cycle. Many unique NPCs have schedules and will move locations throughout the day. NPCs also respond to the weather, such as moving under roofs when it rains.

Secret and dangerous places to explore

- simply put, cities should be more than a collection of NPCs but game environments of their own. That is where most cities in modern RPGs don't do it for me, being little more than backgrounds for NPCs. Give me seedy alleyways, rich houses to burgle into, urban legends, forgotten catacombs - that sort of thing.

Neketaka has four connected dungeons. There are dozens of secrets and easter eggs. You can even break into some abandoned houses.

Spoiler

Believable topography

- the city layout should make sense. It might seem superficial, but it's very immersion-breaking when when the map just looks random or too convenient for the player.

Dynamism

- probably, the most important thing: the city should change over the course of the game. There should be a reason to come back to it over and over again, and that reason shouldn't be just to sell excess loot.

You return to Neketaka constantly throughout the game. Many quests will alter the political and social dynamics of the city, and you can even stage a government coup. Various random events trigger after certain quests.

 

[anvi]

I hate cities in games. Worst thing ever. If it has more than 3 buildings I will likely uninstall.

 

[laclongquan]

Fallout 2''s New Reno, bitch~ It's perfect.

 

[deuxhero]

Actual addresses/street names. I can't think of anything but Arcanum that actually did this. It's actually a good idea gameplay wise too, as it allows the player to be directed to locations without quest markers in a realistic way.
Districts: Related to the above. Few games go beyond "Poor area, normal area, rich area" and actual divide by what is built there. Some Daggerfall cities had this to a very limited degree (there are shopping districts) and Arcanum had its factories (logically) in a single area but otherwise pretty rare.
Unimportant buildings that aren't just empty and free of interaction: Aside from procedurally generated stuff, only Morrowind (the majority of NPCs have no purpose in any quest) and Baldur's Gate did this to any serious degree.
Multiple shops for the same time of item: Nothing kills immersion more than every shop having a monopoly.
Children and Schools: Why is everyone in fantasy games an adult (or at least physically mature teenager)?

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Apart from what you've already listed, the city needs to be easily navigable. Hommlet from ToEE was beautiful, detailed, and arranged in a historically sensitive way--yet I hated going there. What a chore to traverse.

 

[LordofSyn]

So I was thinking what differs good and immersive RPG cities from, basically, bloated menu towns/quest dispensers. For me that would be:

• Size - can't have a good city with only 3 houses in it. Even if they house 50 NPCs. Especially when they house 50 NPCs. Yes Cyseal, I'm looking at you.
• City life - something to give the impression that the city functions irrespective of your character. Could be done through detailed NPC schedules, like in Ultima, but does not necessarily have to go so deep. Some popping up random events or just a good detail level could also work.
• Secret and dangerous places to explore - simply put, cities should be more than a collection of NPCs but game environments of their own. That is where most cities in modern RPGs don't do it for me, being little more than backgrounds for NPCs. Give me seedy alleyways, rich houses to burgle into, urban legends, forgotten catacombs - that sort of thing.
• Believable topography - the city layout should make sense. It might seem superficial, but it's very immersion-breaking when when the map just looks random or too convenient for the player.
• Continuity - I strongly prefer cities that are just on continuous map or a set of maps that cover the whole city without any gaps to cities that only make certain parts explorable, abstracting others to a sort of "world map". It might be a personal quirk, but I just feel that the latter approach makes the individual maps too self-contained, losing a sense of coherence for the city as a whole.
• Dynamism - probably, the most important thing: the city should change over the course of the game. There should be a reason to come back to it over and over again, and that reason shouldn't be just to sell excess loot.

Now I don't think there are any RPG cities that fulfill all of those criteria, but the better ones like Tarant, or Britain from U7, or Riva from RoA3 are characterized by most of them.

So what makes a good RPG city for you? And what would be examples of good cities?

The original Bard's Tale. EGA version iirc. Might have been VGA.
That was a damn good city. You actually had to explore it and map it your own way as the only map included with the game was an isometric representation sketched out and nowhere to scale.
The humour was superb and the game was challenging but quite entertaining.

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[Removal]

comfy music
if a city doesn't have that it's horrific

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[deuxhero]

I do like the idea of the player only visiting the "important" parts of a city and a few games have done it (NWN2's OC is on the high end of size, giving the player a few districts to access.). Really hard to do if areas to visit aren't selected by menu/dialog though. Only remotely "immersive" option I can think of is Bloodline's unusable tunnels that you need a (suspiciously free) taxi to go between.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

What makes a bad RPG City?
The big ass empty placeholders in Piles of Shiternity.

 

[laclongquan]

Actual addresses/street names. I can't think of anything but Arcanum that actually did this. It's actually a good idea gameplay wise too, as it allows the player to be directed to locations without quest markers in a realistic way.

That only sounds good on paper. Arcanum prove that it's unnecessary work. It might be necessary in big city map like Arcanum, but the disadvantage of too big map like that overwhelm all else.

If it's really needed, map note feature is just sitting there~

 

[deuxhero]

If you have roads in your city, naming them takes little effort. Even if you have a ton of cities it's easy to hook up an A+B name generator like a tavern (especially since names can plausibly be reused between cities. No one will care if two cities have a Second Street or a King's Path).

 

[laclongquan]

Sure, it take little effort working the first time. Problem is: no one care other than a tiny tiny group of tightass players.

Arcanum prove that.

And why it happen? Because that feature only need in in a big ass city like Tarrant. But the very size of a map like that create its own problem that nothing can save it. Which is why noone pay much attention to tiny details like street name.

 

[Covenant]

More than anything, cities kill my enjoyment for RPGs and frequently make me stop playing.

We all play RPGs for different reasons - some of us like the story, some of us like the combat, some of us like creating female characters and making them put on and take off different sets of revealing armour all day. Whatever floats your boat. But for me personally, there's no part of 'Wander in this house, talk to these NPCs, read badly written dialogue, repeat 100 times' that I enjoy.

The early Might and Magic games had the best of it. The cities were initially full of monsters, treasure, and a few puzzles to solve as I killed said monsters. There were few NPCs, they were generally just in little tents along the main 'street' (contrast to now where every no-name loser has his own house with its own goddamn loading screen), and they had a page or two of dialogue at most that got straight to the point. The shops were standardised - I didn't have to go into Gurth Stonebeard's forge and listen to a hilarious rant about dwarven superiority that oh-so-cleverly satirises contemporary politics before I could buy a sword. I just went in and did it.

It's not that there's anything objectively wrong with cities so much as that I think developers fail to realise that we've seen it all before. Particularly those of us who've played a lot of CRPGs (which is probably a sizable portion of the market for any new RPGs coming out today). Brad the Baker telling me about how he hates Gary the Gigolo because of a fence dispute (and I have to go and either charm Gary the Gigolo with my amazing Speech/Diplomacy/Reacharound skills so he'll do what I like, or go to the Generic Townhall of Records and get some old blueprint that clears up the whole dispute) - it's a rehash of a rehash of a rehash. It's not clever or funny, even if you have *insert popular-celebrity-du-jour* voicing the characters.

I recognise the necessity of cities, and they can be useful for making a change from combat and exploration as well as for building atmosphere. But for my tastes, modern games go way overboard. I feel like I spend the majority of my time in cities doing glorified fetch quests and sitting through dull exposition, when I'd rather be out exploring an underground forest or escaping from a fortress of giant slavers.

The feeling associated with cities should be 'Thank fuck, I made it back to the city. That was close, I only had a couple of magic points left and barely any health. Time to rest up, buy some better gear and get back out there', not 'Oh, a new city. Guess I'm stuck here for the next two hours listening to people moan about regional politics'.

 

[laclongquan]

Two hours? TWO HOURS? Tarant can make you work days in it. Baldur Gate and Akathla is not worse but nothing to praise either.

New Reno is the standard for an enjoyable town size.

 

[deuxhero]

If the player will be returning to the city with any frequency: Housing. It doesn't need to be some big quest, a big building or upgradable with all sorts of pointless shit or anything, just the ability to plop down your excess gold and have a place to store your shit and rest without paying the inn.

Fast travel within the town like Arcanum's subway, Vivec's gondolas or the terminals onTelos station (I forget if those are in vanilla or added in the restoration).

 

[Crane]

Oblivion cities were ace. Especially the Imperial City.

 

[HanoverF]

A giant unexploded nuke in the middle of it, obviously

 

[Black Angel]

Actual addresses/street names. I can't think of anything but Arcanum that actually did this. It's actually a good idea gameplay wise too, as it allows the player to be directed to locations without quest markers in a realistic way.

That only sounds good on paper. Arcanum prove that it's unnecessary work. It might be necessary in big city map like Arcanum, but the disadvantage of too big map like that overwhelm all else.

If it's really needed, map note feature is just sitting there~

Sulik, I know you're just a filthy tribal, but shit man let us teach you the convenience of knowing a street name.

Sure, it take little effort working the first time. Problem is: no one care other than a tiny tiny group of tightass players.

Only because the only game that ever did it is in Arcanum. The same happened with time limits like in Fallout, and see where it goes trying to appease casuls and dumbfucks?

Thankfully, Kingdom Chad: Deliverance has time limits of some sorts. It's not exactly a hardcore time limit like in Fallout, where failing to accomplish your goal within that limit resulted in immediate failure. More like if you waste too much time the outcome of quests might not be as good as it could've been, and the only thing you can fail if you waste too much time is individual objectives, not the quest itself.

Now, if only there are other games that will do what Arcanum achieved...

Arcanum prove that.

And why it happen? Because that feature only need in in a big ass city like Tarrant. But the very size of a map like that create its own problem that nothing can save it. Which is why noone pay much attention to tiny details like street name.

Prove what? What kind of its own problem it created because of its size? And only dumbfucks paid no attention to street names. The quests relying on street names, with NPCs telling you exactly where to go, partly helped by easier navigation of the city with subways, is what made Tarant and its contents one of the greatest things cRPGs has to offer of all time.

 

[dr. one]

Khorinis from Gothic 2.

I think it fulfills all the criteria in OT quite handily - it´s of modest size (but for once the size actually makes sense given the setting, so it shouldn´t bother people who for whatever reason like stuff like this to be "realistic") which makes repeated running arounds painless, NPCs have their jobs and schedules (and being aware of the schedules plays into some quest solutions), the city does have its share of secrets (mostly related to thief guild), I don´t think there´s anything notably wrong with topography - the layout is fairly believable, there are different districts and architectural variety but the city is consistent in style, there are no loading screens anywhere whatsoever and the city to some degree does change over the course of the game, including new quests (or quest endings) popping up.

Moreover, I think the game does a great job introducing Khorinis as an important location by gating access to it (not that getting in is difficult, but I think it´s the kind of detail that is likely to make a memorable impression on first time players; and I dig there´s reactivity to players who get in by sea) and personally I really like the general ambiance/atmosphere of the place, especially at night (music + silent chatter).

I would add ambient sounds to what´s important in making a computer game city good. Athkatla is probably the best example in this regard.

 

[Shaewaroz]

Atkathla in BG2.

- Feel like a lived-in city.
- Surprises and things to explore around every corner. Lots of interesting optional content with truly unique rewards to be found.
- Each district is easily distinguishable and unique with quests that are fitting to the socioeconomic status of it's citizens.
- Clear laws and rules your party needs to follow to fit in. Arcane magic ban, low tolerance for looting and violence etc.
- Architecturally varied - not too one note. Different district have different architecture and many clearly distinguishable landmarks.
- A melting pot of different races and cultures. Many different competing factions you learn about and to interact with.
- Strong environmental storytelling. You walk around in the slums and come across a giant metal sphere that obviously doesn't belong there. People around the sphere all tell you their own versions of how it appeared and how it has inconvenienced their lives. Part if Waukeen's Promenade is destroyed by Irenicus' magic and large piles of rubble stands as a reminder of how powerful your adversary truly is.

 

[Volrath]

One word: content.

 

[Reinhardt]

Good shops.