Adventurer's Hall

[rjshae]

With regards to this topic, I'm kind of curious about something.

 

Way back in the old Pool of Radiance game, they had a Training Hall where you not only went to get trained up in a new level, but you could also try to recruit mercenaries (for something like 1-4 shares of the loot). I'm wondering if, in addition to allowing the player to obtain recruits here, the team from Oblivion have something like this mercenary recruit in mind? I.e. for specific high risk missions, will the player be able to temporarily recruit a hit point soak extra sword to diminish the risk? I could particularly see a need for something like this in cases where the player is creating a single-class team, such as all rogues, and need a reliable fighter (or wizard) for certain missions.

 

Has anybody heard anything to this effect? It doesn't seem like it would be that hard to implement, and the recruits could even be custom NPCs with canned dialogues.

 

Thank you.

[Osvir]

I thought the Adventurer's Hall was simply just a name for the feature of being able to create your own team.

 

I like your idea a lot, it also springs to mind thoughts about the Adventurer's Hall being a feature in the game, an actual Hall/Location on the map. So you would always create one character and somewhere early game you could find this place (after the skipable Prologue/Tutorial/Candlekeep area? xD).

 

I don't remember who said it but one of the Devs did say "Crossroad's Keep". This to me could be the very first area where you start off, at a Crossroad with several options (practically walk in any direction) and Keep implies to me it would be the first area (paying homage to Candlekeep *tips hat*). Wow sorry I went off-topic there haha, back on track:

 

What I am implying is more towards the idea of having the "Create character" interface within the game for extra additions. Which springs forth another question:

1. Would creating an extra character cost anything?

2. With a cost, you could even create an extra character at a certain level

 

(2) explained: You've traveled across half the lands, you've lost two warriors in your party to the plague up North. Now you need more warriors for your party, generally your party is around level 5~. So you return to the Adventurer's Hall, either you can grab a companion you met earlier in the game that is now stationed here to do other quests with other adventurer's (following their own path's and plots, perhaps one dreams of becoming a famous sword master. Or one plans to take over the world in tyranny, in guise of a smiling happy commoner so that none would suspect). Or you can create a completely new character, at level 5 for the extra gold.

 

But mostly for convenience. If you are level 5 you do not want a new level 1 character. Or perhaps you do, all preference and choice. With an Adventurer's Hall in this way you could create a new Companion at any point at any time (given you have the coin of course) throughout the game and they would scale with your character/economy.

 

In Baldur's Gate, in multiplayer mode, you have this feature to be able to create a character at any point (In Icewind Dale too, for that matter) but they will always start off as a level 1 (am I wrong? Suddenly I became uncertain). That's the issue which would be addressed with a monetary system of your sub-character creations*

 

*Purely as a difficulty option? If no money should be spent on it; ability to create new characters that are up to your character's level?**

** Could this be abuseable in any way? The only thing I can think of would be the... I can't really think of an abuse per say, this is the closest to it I can come up with:

- This would give you the ability to solo (gain experience faster, a.k.a. level up faster) suddenly you are level 5 and you can create level 1-5 companions. If level 6 you'd be able to create level 1-6 characters.

Edited October 9, 2012 by Osvir

[rjshae]

Thanks. Well the description suggested the hall is at a specific location. I'd expected that you'd trek there if you wanted to replace a recruit with a generated character.

[Merin]

The hall will be a place you have to find in the game. You don't start there, and you can't start the game with a fully pre-built party.

 

At least that seems to be what has been indicated.

[rjshae]

Funny thing about the concept: the idea of a bunch of dangerous, well-armed adventurers wandering around should make the local nobility pretty nervous, at least if they are human nobility. I wonder what makes the place economically and socially viable? Maybe it's run by a clan of dwarves who are powerful enough not to be concerned by the potential threat? They must charge a fee for each recruit. Or each recruit pays a fee for the opportunity to be recruited by capable talent. I guess the latter would make more sense, game-wise.

Edited October 10, 2012 by rjshae

[eimatshya]

The hall will be a place you have to find in the game. You don't start there, and you can't start the game with a fully pre-built party.

 

At least that seems to be what has been indicated.

 

Yeah, I think someone (Feargus, IIRC), said that they were thinking of having you unlock the ability to recruit more and more mercenaries as you progressed. Basically, you would be able to pick up additional mercenaries at the same rate as you encounter companions so that you wouldn't be overpowered for going with player-made mercs over story-based companions.

[Merin]

The hall will be a place you have to find in the game. You don't start there, and you can't start the game with a fully pre-built party.

 

At least that seems to be what has been indicated.

 

Yeah, I think someone (Feargus, IIRC), said that they were thinking of having you unlock the ability to recruit more and more mercenaries as you progressed. Basically, you would be able to pick up additional mercenaries at the same rate as you encounter companions so that you wouldn't be overpowered for going with player-made mercs over story-based companions.

 

It's also likely for story pacing. Most of these "pick up companions along the way" cRPGs use the gathering of the companions as part of the story, and having fewer characters at the start to ease you into mechanics before overwhelming you with 6 people to manage.

[AlphaShard]

I miss the days of having eight in the SSI games.

[rjshae]

I miss the days of having eight in the SSI games.

 

ToEE let you have eight: five you generated and three you recruited. It didn't seem to hurt the game too much.

[Gyor]

You might be able to have pets as well.