Feedback: Soltown Refugee Camp

(1) Most of the refugees in Soltown go to bed way too early. That's fine for the kids, sure. But it's very frustrating when you need to talk to the adults and they hit the sack before the sun's even set properly. I'm a fan of the NPC scheduling in general, you won't find me complaining because a shopkeeper is closed at midnight. But these guys don't need to be going to sleep as soon as the sun starts to go down. It's especially frustrating because there's several of them, they all have quests, and they all go to sleep at the same time, except for Raymond. It would be a lot easier for newbies if they were at least staggered a bit more.

They at least wake up a bit staggered, but that means half of them are awake before dawn, which is not when people generally expect to be having conversations. And two of the women are still asleep well into midday, when people WILL be wanting to talk to them. The Oracle thinks badly of you for waking people up, but what else are you supposed to do when Emily and Nyssa spend most of the day in bed?

(2) Those garish yellow signs are still, IMO, both horrible looking and useless. To the best of my knowledge, people getting lost between the scene entrance and the village has not been a problem, since there's only one road for people to follow anyway, until right before the gate. Yes, newbies not being able to distinguish between official dev content and player content in Soltown IS a problem. But these signs don't help with that -- they just make it worse, since they're an eyesore that resembles player content and don't mesh with the rustic aesthetic of the actual village. I've heard people refer to Soltown as "Las Vegas" recently, and the yellow signs definitely fit a Las Vegas ambience more than they do a rustic village.

(3) I really really want to throttle every NPC who asks me "What do you have that's red?" We have a quest that specifically tells us to ask people about red cloth. We shouldn't be punished for doing so, especially with a response that's going to confuse newbies.

(4) I also want to throttle every child that randomly asks me if I kill people. I'm generally as pacifist as as adventure game lets you be, but these barks make me want to kill people, all right.

(5) I just watched Raymond walk through the campfire and nearly kill himself. I admit, I was a little disappointed that his health bar stopped going down right before he would have died; I was curious to see what would have happened if he actually had burned to death.

(6) I'm still curious about the letter from Jeric, since I've never seen a reference to Jeric elsewhere. Who in the camp was he supposed to be writing to, and where is he now?

(7) It still frustrates me that there isn't a "good" solution for Nyssa's quest, and so she forever sparkles at me. There's one solution that's truthful but unkind, and one solution that's actively dishonest. The "solution" I always take, and that I suspect most of us would take in real life, is the compassionate white lie of claiming you know nothing. "I lost it" isn't really an answer, because then she'd just ask "lost what?" and want to know more details, which would lead you into a spiral of lies. So instead, I change the subject -- but that counts as not completing the quest, so she sparkles forever after.

(8) I still desperately want the chest next to Abigail's tent. If it were available to players, I'd use it regularly instead of the fancier chests, which are all a bit upscale in appearance and not really appropriate for many decoration lots.

(9) The "Ask Refugees About Fire" compass marker (I still dislike most of these compass markers; they're sometimes helpful, but rarely) does not clear even after you've spoken to all the refugees about the fire.

(10) Why do Jonesy and the cats (and assorted other animals throughout the game) have interactable conversation windows when talking to them is completely unproductive? Doesn't making them interactive increase their performance hit? Maybe only a tiny bit, but I'd expect that tiny bit would add up across all the animals in a scene -- worth it for an NPC you can have a real conversation with, but not for one you can't. I'd love it if talking to cats actually had a productive result, but since it doesn't, why tantalize us with the possibility?

(11) As a crazy cat lady who is currently cat-less (you can blame my eternal bad mood on that), I really appreciate the fact that I can plant my character somewhere with a lot of cats and simply listen to them meowing in the background while I cook dinner.