All Cities Look Alike

Just a quick note before I weigh in on this, I do of course realise that we are in pre-alpha.

I took my first voyage to Ardoris in R10; however on arrival I thought I was still in Kingsport!
The building material, colour, textures and architecture is EXACTLY the same as all the other cities and while the devs have introduced a few more local statues, water wheels and the rest it all looks completely generic.
Another thing I noticed was how empty the places were, empty of npc's, activity, players and well LIFE.

 

Ardoris looks like Kingsport? Not for me Ardoris has an Asian touch somehow. Look at the roofs or the lanterns for example.

 

Agreed. Everything in this game is so generic it hurts.

 

Yeah, for me as well....I guess another thing to add to their lists.

 

I could Disagree more, but I won't... I get into trouble when I do that...

 

I'd disagree completely when it comes to the cities.

 

I feel more needs to be done to add atmosphere, such as children playing and npcs hanging out... still, I guess that kind of polish comes last? I would like to hear that it is in the pipeline though, it's important to me.

 

Well having (IRL) left one dock and arrived at another which looked remarkably similar, my conclusion was... theres probably a compelling reason for the layout and material used to construct a dock. Once you go into Ardoris, yes the player housing areas look the same because well they're player houses. If you get out of that and see the fountains, lantern chains, castles, etc... theres some distinguishing characteristics. But for this type of stuff I'd say give it time.

Just to expand on Carlin's comment: I do hope we get NPC children playing with toys, and running through the streets chasing balls or hoops. I want to see shady back alley deals and muggings, ladies of the evening, and town drunks. I want to interact with beggars who are actually princes, and beggars who are just beggars. I want NPCs to come up to me and ask for directions, or for an item, and for the night watchman to come ask me what I'm up to in the middle of the night walking through town.

 

I brought up the emptiness before and they said there would be more NPCs in the towns/citites in release.

 

On the other hand, all these towns are on one small island in a specific geographic location. In reality on an island most (if not all) towns look similar as well. Its because the people who live in those towns interact so closely that even if they originally had different styles, they would eventually merge them into one. As for Ardoris, it is on the mainland, thats why it seems a bit different than the Hidden Vale towns.