Why 9 Charakters only?

[okkoko]

Oh yeah, good point. That probably rules out any form of chunking too, like from a crit.

i wounder how the chunking making looks in PE in bg1 it look like thy exsploded

[jamoecw]

the most recent email update seemed to hint at the adventurer's hall characters having some banter/narrative, though they have capped the amount of adventurer's hall characters you can have (, cool stuff.

[Tagaziel]

I appreciate that quality is preferential to quantity, but nonetheless it would be nice if the importance of recruitable npcs was recognised to the extent where they tried to bring in some quantity as well as quality. Eight extras for a party of six looks to be fairly stingy.\

Planescape: Torment has seven potential followers with five slots and it never felt particularly stingy with them.

[Jarmo]

2 classes not making the cut:

 

Paladin, natural leader, but you're the leader. A potential source for conflict, but I don't think so.

Barbarian, Chanter or Druid.  All have nice potential, but... I'm guessing we might see an Elf barbarian, then...

chanter is a new take on a bard, probably one they might like to use... so... I'd make my guess no druid.

 

No Paladin, no Druid.

 

Any other better guesses?

[forgottenlor]

Just my 2 cents. I think 8 fleshed out companions + the ability to add your own to be pretty generous. How you choose to balance them is your own affair. For example I think I may try out 3-4 companions +1-2 of my own in the first playthrough. I for one would have liked this in Mask of the Betrayer, which suffers a little bit in the replayability department.

[Eiphel]

2 classes not making the cut:

 

Paladin, natural leader, but you're the leader. A potential source for conflict, but I don't think so.

Barbarian, Chanter or Druid.  All have nice potential, but... I'm guessing we might see an Elf barbarian, then...

chanter is a new take on a bard, probably one they might like to use... so... I'd make my guess no druid.

 

No Paladin, no Druid.

 

Any other better guesses?

The only thing that really perturbs me along this line is more the race side of thing - It seems like there'll probably only be one companion of any particular race (save maybe human), which would be a little sad (but unavoidable). Still, other NPCs should be nicely fleshed out along the way, so I suppose we'll still get to see the contrasts between different characters of the same race.

[Kore]

I appreciate that quality is preferential to quantity, but nonetheless it would be nice if the importance of recruitable npcs was recognised to the extent where they tried to bring in some quantity as well as quality. Eight extras for a party of six looks to be fairly stingy.

 

Being able to create extra party members is a potential solution, but a somewhat inelegant one. If nothing else, it removes the party setup process somewhat by allowing all gaps to be easily plugged. I've mentioned before that one of my favourite rpg features is where choice of party based on personality inhibits functionality and vice-versa.

 

The more I think about it, if the npc pool is so small, then use of player-created npcs becomes almost inevitable, and once a player creates one extra npc the temptation to create a second, then third, and so on, increases. If the system encourages a high percentage of players to use party creation rather than party recruitment then the quality that goes into those npcs becomes wasted.

 

So, with my understanding of the mechanics at present, I feel that eight is too small a number, and P:E should really be looking to provide somewhere in the region of 12+, even if some of those contain substantially less dialogue and effort than others.

 

 

I agree. Also, on the subject of it costing time and money and at the risk of sounding rude and bad mannered, they did get 4 times their goal during the kick starter.

 

If I am to class this game a success on the level of BG or other IE games it needs to have significant amounts of replayability, for me at least. NPCs are a big part of this and part of the thrill of replaying the game is working out who I want to take with me. If the pool is too small that become severely stunted after the first playthrough. I also agree with your point about the adventurers hall.

 

Personally I would rather have more characters than extra levels of a mega dungeon if a choice has to be made.

 

 

Edit: You know what, even if money is a problem, I'd happily throw a quid or two into a separate kickstarter to fund additional characters.

Edited July 25, 2013 by Kore

[Jarmo]

 

2 classes not making the cut:

 

Paladin, natural leader, but you're the leader. A potential source for conflict, but I don't think so.

Barbarian, Chanter or Druid.  All have nice potential, but... I'm guessing we might see an Elf barbarian, then...

chanter is a new take on a bard, probably one they might like to use... so... I'd make my guess no druid.

 

No Paladin, no Druid.

 

Any other better guesses?

The only thing that really perturbs me along this line is more the race side of thing - It seems like there'll probably only be one companion of any particular race (save maybe human), which would be a little sad (but unavoidable). Still, other NPCs should be nicely fleshed out along the way, so I suppose we'll still get to see the contrasts between different characters of the same race.

 

 

Now that you say it, the elf wizard is already in so my guess of elf barbarian is probably wrong.

Amaua would maka for a good barbarian... or druid, in which case I'd be wrong.

[forgottenlor]

 

I appreciate that quality is preferential to quantity, but nonetheless it would be nice if the importance of recruitable npcs was recognised to the extent where they tried to bring in some quantity as well as quality. Eight extras for a party of six looks to be fairly stingy.

 

Being able to create extra party members is a potential solution, but a somewhat inelegant one. If nothing else, it removes the party setup process somewhat by allowing all gaps to be easily plugged. I've mentioned before that one of my favourite rpg features is where choice of party based on personality inhibits functionality and vice-versa.

 

The more I think about it, if the npc pool is so small, then use of player-created npcs becomes almost inevitable, and once a player creates one extra npc the temptation to create a second, then third, and so on, increases. If the system encourages a high percentage of players to use party creation rather than party recruitment then the quality that goes into those npcs becomes wasted.

 

So, with my understanding of the mechanics at present, I feel that eight is too small a number, and P:E should really be looking to provide somewhere in the region of 12+, even if some of those contain substantially less dialogue and effort than others.

 

 

I agree. Also, on the subject of it costing time and money and at the risk of sounding rude and bad mannered, they did get 4 times their goal during the kick starter.

 

If I am to class this game a success on the level of BG or other IE games it needs to have significant amounts of replayability, for me at least. NPCs are a big part of this and part of the thrill of replaying the game is working out who I want to take with me. If the pool is too small that become severely stunted after the first playthrough. I also agree with your point about the adventurers hall.

 

Personally I would rather have more characters than extra levels of a mega dungeon if a choice has to be made.

 

 

Edit: You know what, even if money is a problem, I'd happily throw a quid or two into a separate kickstarter to fund additional characters.

 

I suspect that designing a new companion (especially at the detail of Planescape:Torment) requires a great deal more resources than a couple of dungeon levels do. For one all the resources to complete the dungeon levels probably already exist. The amount of extra conversation that has to be written (alone) probably costs a great deal more time.

[Kore]

I suspect that designing a new companion (especially at the detail of Planescape:Torment) requires a great deal more resources than a couple of dungeon levels do. For one all the resources to complete the dungeon levels probably already exist. The amount of extra conversation that has to be written (alone) probably costs a great deal more time.

 

 

That's true, I don't know how much designing characters costs. Anywho, my main point is that I'd like the number of characters prioritised higher than currently seems to be the case. Overall I'm still very happy with what I've heard from Eternity so far, I don't want to be misunderstood about that

[Jarmo]

I'd guess there's a couple of morally ambivalent companions, a couple of more "evil" and couple of "good" ones.

So if you want to play a particularly murderous monster you don't need to drag around miss goody plate,

or the friend of snake demons wizard if you happen to feel morally compromised by necromancy.

 

Might even be a case of "I'm damn well not adventuring with him." personality clash between a couple of potential companions.

 

In other words, they'd probably be happy to make only 5 companions but realize not everybody is going to like them all.

Minimum of redundancy and off you go.

[Tsuga C]

Might even be a case of "I'm damn well not adventuring with him." personality clash between a couple of potential companions.

Now this is something that I would not necessarily be against, but only if it's between two companions of the same class (fighter/fighter) or similar classes (wizard/cipher, fighter/ranger/monk, cleric/druid, rogue/chanter). If your strategy calls for two fighters in the party, there's always the option of creating your own fighter in the Hall of Adventurers if the two companion fighters viscerally hate one another and come to blows. This will allow you to enjoy interacting with at least one fully fleshed-out fighter as envisioned by Obsidian.

 

If there is only one rogue and one wizard companion available and they're at each other's throats, then you'll have to have an automaton from the Hall of Adventurers as a primary (Core Four: cleric, fighter, rogue, wizard) team member. That'd diminish the experience a bit as I greatly enjoy the interactions and intra-party banter and quips. Covering the Core Four and using the remaining slots for flavor/fine tuning the party is a strategically sound methodology and I'd like to avoid having to place an automaton in a key position if at all possible.

[Lephys]

No Paladin, no Druid.

 

Any other better guesses?

I don't know about the Druid guess, but the Paladin is possibly the single biggest team-player class in the game. I have my doubts about that being an omission from the companion ranks.

 

Hmm... I can't come up with any good guesses,

[Tick]

It sounds like Obsidian is trying to make every class viable and valuable, where the classes outside the core group are solid and can stand on their own. In which case, I'd guess it's whatever classes failed to provide as much interest story- or character-wise to the writers or didn't quite fit. E.g. Avellone pointed out how interesting the concept of a Chanter was in Project Eternity's world and the ways you could mess with it. And the Chanter is one of the classes to expect, off of the update.

[Kjaamor]

Planescape: Torment has seven potential followers with five slots and it never felt particularly stingy with them.

 

To reiterate what I've said earlier, PS:T might not have felt even remotely stingy to you, but to me it was desperately so. Not because seven followers for five slots is, in and on itself, particularly stingy, but simply because I disliked so many of them. The likes of Morte and Nordom, however much you or many others loved them, were so aggravating to me that they were a major factor in me stopping playing PS:T.

 

Increased character depth is fantastic and even people like myself who are concerned with the number of party npcs would dearly like to see more depth in the available followers. But, as has been stated before, if the personalities you put depth into are dislikable to players then you're shooting yourself in the foot as developer.

 

The point is, in terms of party npcs, you hedge your bets. You make enough variety in personality that all players will have something that they're at least comfortable with. The old bbc rule of 'Something for everyone and everything for someone'. My concerns on numbers stem not so much from an arbitrary figure being reached than they do from the way PS:T is repeatedly cited and put up on some sort of pedestal in this regard. With that, I become increasingly concerned that we are going to get a clique of npcs who share...not so much personality, but at least style.

 

If I were to get halfway through P:E, and then decide that I can't bear my party a second longer and go to the adventurers hall and IWD one out, I'd feel extremely cheesed off.

[motorizer]

 

Might even be a case of "I'm damn well not adventuring with him." personality clash between a couple of potential companions.

 

Trouble with that is, it narrows down the choice even more, besides, if you're going to have characters who dislike each other, more fun to have them in the party and bickering...possibly leading up to a fight, or threats, that you have to break up. As long as they don't start fighting when there are enemies around, that would be a PITA and would make no sense.

Would be quite cool to have to diffuse a tense situation in your party occasionally. Possibly a character could leave if you always side with the other guy.

 

But if we have a limited number then we should at least be able to have any combination, even if it means having to stamp your authority every now and again.

Edited July 29, 2013 by motorizer

[Ffordesoon]

@Kjaamor:

 

I can see your point, and I'm sorry you didn't care for PST's companions, but the fact is that if you polled all the backers, I would bet money on ninety percent of them or more having loved PST's companions to death. I would also be tremendously surprised if a company co-founded by Chris Avellone didn't employ a large number of PST fans.

 

I don't remember the exact number of backers, and I'm too lazy to look it up right now, so let's make it easy and say there were sixty thousand. If I'm the head of the PE team, and (say) five hundred backers want more companions to choose from at any cost, and fifty-five thousand backers and most of my team members want PST-level (and perhaps PST-style, I really couldn't say) companions, and I've already agreed to put the Adventurer's Hall in and make no companion mandatory in deference to those five hundred people, why should I go against what both the vast majority of the backers and my team want in order to please a tiny slice of the, um, backer pie?

 

(That was a dumb metaphor, yes. )

 

You see my point, surely? I hate to turn this into a pure numbers game and risk accusations of indulging in the argumentum ad populum fallacy, but it is simply not a fallacy in this case. From a purely utilitarian standpoint, attempting to please five hundred people out of sixty thousand is foolish, and attempting to please five hundred who already have systems in the game designed to cater to their needs is downright insane - especially when a sudden change in the production schedule like that one would delay the game for all backers.

 

In an ideal world, Obsidian could make everyone equally happy at no additional cost, but you may have noticed in the course of your life up to now that the world we live in is by no means an ideal one. Barring any miraculous happenings during the course of production, which neither we nor the PE team should be planning for, every choice made during production is likely going to be a tradeoff, and we have to assume that it will always be one for even the simplest nips and tucks.

 

While you might indeed be pleased as punch if you get twelve companions with reduced reactivity instead of nine at the currently proposed level of reactivity, a sizable number of backers would not be pleased at all, and even more (like myself) would be okay with the decision, but still quite disappointed. Would the benefit of that approach to you be worth the cost to us, in your opinion?

 

And, nightmare of nightmares, what if you play the game and find all twelve companions do not suit your fancy? If the companions are truly PST-style (i.e. written in the same style as those in PST - which would be difficult, considering that Avellone wrote something like eighty percent of that game, and PE's companions are being written by a number of people, but it's a possibility) rather than PST-level (i.e. written in a variety of styles to suit every sort of player, but as reactive as the companions in PST), surely no arbitrary number of talking skulls and not-Scottish not-tieflings would be enough to satisfy you? That is a risk, however remote. How would you feel if that came to pass?

 

I posit these scenarios and ask these questions not to make your desires seem less valid than mine, but because I want you to grasp why the change you are proposing is unlikely to occur. I'm not even saying you're necessarily wrong - I'd have to play two versions of Project Eternity from alternate universes to completion before I could confidently make that call. I'm only explaining why I believe Obsidian's current stance on the issue is a sensible one.

[Kjaamor]

(Trimmed because it's directly above this post anyway)

 

While your initial point makes a lot of sense based on the numbers you're working on, those numbers are plucked from your imagination as a PS:T fan. 90% of backers loved PS:T's companions to death? I seriously doubt that. Indeed, if you polled the backers and asked 'Which game's companions did you like more? PS:T or BGII?' then I would be astonished to see a PS:T bias of greater than 60% at best.

 

The other point in your opening paragraphs that I do believe, is that a large number of people involved in the development of P:E are PS:T fans, not least of which is Josh Sawyer who from what I have read seems to cast PS:T in a significantly more positive light than BGII. This is really troubling for me and the others who didn't like PS:T's characters, because those character's were, as a collective, horrible and immersion breaking. Many people dislike one or more of the BG companions, but I've yet to hear anyone who said they disliked all of them, because they were distinct in style. PS:T's were not. You ask me later, what if I hated all twelve? Well for the reasons I've just stated this is a very real concern! The short number and the repeated worship of PS:T suggests, to me, that P:E is heading down the 'All our companions have this style, if you don't like them, here's IWD' line.

 

The other final point I will make, is to counter not just a point you made, but a point that seems to have been in every second post in this thread: The concept that this companions justify their limited numbers with their depth.

 

I honestly don't think you'll notice, and I know that's bold and I can hear every PS:T fan on these forums and beyond shouting at me and shaking their fists but I don't think you would. If the characters have the depth of BGII's, and you enjoy the game, you'll talk about the characters having the depth of PS:T. But if the characters are part of a thematic-clique that you don't like THEN you will notice, because it completely spoils the experience. So to that end, I believe that Obsidian have more to lose from just making nine similar characters and saying that they're deep than making fifteen and saying that they're deep.

 

(It kinda freaks me out that Josh Sawyer sometimes reads these things because while I believe in the point I sometimes feel like I'm being a bit of a **** to him)

Edited July 29, 2013 by Kjaamor

[Lephys]

Ya know... valuing the depth of PS:T characters doesn't mean copying them into doppleganger characters. Even if they draw heavily from PS:T's character design style, you could still end up absolutely loving the P:E characters, because they're going to be completely different characters.

 

And, as far as liking all the characters... it's kinda like food. You can make the most gourmet ice cream in the world, and someone whose taste buds tell their brain "... VOMIT!" when the eat ice cream isn't going to like it. That doesn't detract from its intrinsic value at all. And the ice cream disliker has no reason to objectively rate the ice cream as valueless or low in quality. Its quality and the fact that this person doesn't like it are two completely separate issues, here.

 

I don't like asparagus. Hate the stuff. Doesn't make it bad, or lacking in some way. The problem stems from my taste, not with the properties of asparagus.

 

I'm not at all saying that your dislike of something can't be due to factors that WERE within the control of the development team, but, it can just as well be due to factors that aren't in their control.

 

It comes back to quantity versus quality, though, in the end. Since the characters aren't going to be copies of ones you know you don't like, then that means there's just as much of a chance you'll like them as there is that you'll DISlike them. And, since diluting their overall quality simply increases the chance that you'll dislike them, even if you would've liked them were they not diluted so, it doesn't seem very reasonable to me to voluntarily vie for a decrease in quality and an increase in quantity, just to get to toss that many more coins against "probability" inaccurately applied from merely-related existing character designs.

 

This isn't simply who likes PS:T characters vs who doesn't. They're designing the characters the way they are because of a lot of factors. Not just hypothetical poll results.

 

I compare this issue to a hypothetical "I really didn't like the 10 classes in this other game, so let's just put in 30 classes and give them all like 4 unique abilities, shall we? So that we basically have DOTA heroes. That way, I'll like the game more" situation. That would be pretty ridiculous, since giving all the classes only 4 class-specific abilities, total, would water them down TREMENDOUSLY, no matter how much anyone liked them for their style/design specifics. There's no point in definitely diluting something's quality just because you might happen to not like its flavor.

[Nonek]

I have to disagree with Torments cast being horrible and immersion breaking, every single one of them was intimately connected to the protagonist and bound by the central theme of the game, Morte and Nordom were certainly used as comic relief in quite a few situations but that was not the only layer they had. Indeed tragedy, perception and deceit were as important in their make-up as the humurous, the memory scene between Morte and the Practical incarnation was a perfect example of this, they're multifaceted and behind every one of Morte's jokes and Nordom's ill worded observations was another meaning.

 

Personally that's why Torments cast enraptured me, and served as a perfect means of immersing me in the story and Sigil, not only were they good walking, talking and reacting exposition, they were also fresh and multilayered. It is very rare to find subtlety and depth in rpgs, for instance compare Nordom and Morte to the one dimensional Minsc, who was just a one trick pony.

 

Edit: For the record i'd be fine with less npc's, it didn't hurt MOTB at all.

Edited July 30, 2013 by Nonek

[Kjaamor]

Ya know... valuing the depth of PS:T characters doesn't mean copying them into doppleganger characters. Even if they draw heavily from PS:T's character design style, you could still end up absolutely loving the P:E characters, because they're going to be completely different characters.

 

And, as far as liking all the characters... it's kinda like food. You can make the most gourmet ice cream in the world, and someone whose taste buds tell their brain "... VOMIT!" when the eat ice cream isn't going to like it. That doesn't detract from its intrinsic value at all. And the ice cream disliker has no reason to objectively rate the ice cream as valueless or low in quality. Its quality and the fact that this person doesn't like it are two completely separate issues, here.

 

I don't like asparagus. Hate the stuff. Doesn't make it bad, or lacking in some way. The problem stems from my taste, not with the properties of asparagus.

 

The issue I have is not that restaurants should be banned for serving asparagas, simply that if restaurant chooses to only make dishes from asparagus, however tasty asparagus-lovers might find them, then it is going to run into trouble. And winning the award for best restaurant in 'Asparagus Weekly' is not going to appease the restaurants funders of which many do not like asparagus.

 

Again, the point more broadly is that the asparagus...er...sorry, characters of PS:T were all of the same thematic style and if you place all your companion eggs (Oh, god, more food metaphors) into one basket then you will run into trouble. Obviously the P:E characters will be different to the ones in PS:T, but if they're all cut from the same cloth then the problem remains.

 

And, of course, that problem remains even if I personally LOVE all of P:E's characters.

[Kjaamor]

Personally that's why Torments cast enraptured me, and served as a perfect means of immersing me in the story and Sigil, not only were they good walking, talking and reacting exposition, they were also fresh and multilayered. It is very rare to find subtlety and depth in rpgs, for instance compare Nordom and Morte to the one dimensional Minsc, who was just a one trick pony.

 

Minsc was two dimensional, compared to Morte (and, if we're being honest, most of the other characters from BGII). The point is that some players like that. I know plenty of people from whom HK from KotOR was their favourite companion of all time. Personally, I find him vapid and irritating as  a mainstay with a few moments that make him better suited to a youtube compilation than an assistant protaganist. Yet if you give players choice, everyone can be happy.

[tajerio]

 

Ya know... valuing the depth of PS:T characters doesn't mean copying them into doppleganger characters. Even if they draw heavily from PS:T's character design style, you could still end up absolutely loving the P:E characters, because they're going to be completely different characters.

 

And, as far as liking all the characters... it's kinda like food. You can make the most gourmet ice cream in the world, and someone whose taste buds tell their brain "... VOMIT!" when the eat ice cream isn't going to like it. That doesn't detract from its intrinsic value at all. And the ice cream disliker has no reason to objectively rate the ice cream as valueless or low in quality. Its quality and the fact that this person doesn't like it are two completely separate issues, here.

 

I don't like asparagus. Hate the stuff. Doesn't make it bad, or lacking in some way. The problem stems from my taste, not with the properties of asparagus.

 

The issue I have is not that restaurants should be banned for serving asparagas, simply that if restaurant chooses to only make dishes from asparagus, however tasty asparagus-lovers might find them, then it is going to run into trouble. And winning the award for best restaurant in 'Asparagus Weekly' is not going to appease the restaurants funders of which many do not like asparagus.

 

Again, the point more broadly is that the asparagus...er...sorry, characters of PS:T were all of the same thematic style and if you place all your companion eggs (Oh, god, more food metaphors) into one basket then you will run into trouble. Obviously the P:E characters will be different to the ones in PS:T, but if they're all cut from the same cloth then the problem remains.

 

And, of course, that problem remains even if I personally LOVE all of P:E's characters.

 

 

I don't think all the characters are going to be cut from the same cloth.  When the devs say "PS:T-style characters," they're talking about depth of interaction.  Now, we know that every character will have some important stake in the major themes of the game, but that doesn't mean that all the characters are going to talk about all the same things all the time.  And frankly, I don't know what the point would be of companion characters who didn't have something meaningful to say about the principal storyline.  So there'll be some points of commonality, but I think a game with a strong story emphasis, as P:E is intended to be, benefits from that approach.

[Kjaamor]

I don't think all the characters are going to be cut from the same cloth.  When the devs say "PS:T-style characters," they're talking about depth of interaction.  Now, we know that every character will have some important stake in the major themes of the game, but that doesn't mean that all the characters are going to talk about all the same things all the time.  And frankly, I don't know what the point would be of companion characters who didn't have something meaningful to say about the principal storyline.  So there'll be some points of commonality, but I think a game with a strong story emphasis, as P:E is intended to be, benefits from that approach.

 

If the developers had been talking about 'PS:T-style characters' whilst also acknowledging the flaws within the companion system of PS:T then I wouldn't be concerned, but the fact that nothing to that end has been offered makes me think that there is a very real danger that all the companions will be cut from the same cloth.

 

I agree that input upon the main storyline in a meaningful manner (although frankly I'm dubious as to whether PS:T meets that, but anyway...) is important, but other options should still be there.

 

I'm referring to KotOR a lot because I think it was probably the game of that era that handled this best, but with many of the characters there was no getting away from the main storyline and themes approached in the manner the writers had obviously intended. Yet if you chose, say, Jolee and HK, your experience could be totally different because it customised the theme to your party.

Edited July 30, 2013 by Kjaamor

[Lephys]

Again, the point more broadly is that the asparagus...er...sorry, characters of PS:T were all of the same thematic style and if you place all your companion eggs (Oh, god, more food metaphors) into one basket then you will run into trouble. Obviously the P:E characters will be different to the ones in PS:T, but if they're all cut from the same cloth then the problem remains.

 

And, of course, that problem remains even if I personally LOVE all of P:E's characters.

Exactly. Silliness of food metaphors aside, the point was that, even though I hate asparagus, I don't tell the chefs to spend less time making their dishes, and simply offer more dishes. Sure, if a restaurant only offered asparagus, they should probably offer a little more than that, but, if that's all they were offering, why would I even eat there if I hate asparagus? Of course, getting back to P:E, they're in no way suggesting that they're only going to be offering one type of character.

 

But, my point remains what it is: They could make even less than 8 characters, and it's possible they'd be to your liking, based on their design style. So, it seems to me that suggesting increased quantity (inherently lowering quality) is just a big dice roll, as it has nothing to do with style. They could've put 50 characters in PS:T, and maybe they all still would've been of the same style.

 

Clearly, the style of the characters and the quantity and quality of the characters are completely different factors. That was my point. I don't like asparagus because it's asparagus. Not because of how much time and effort was spent preparing it, or because there weren't enough other dishes.

 

If you have 3 comm towers, with a dead zone in the middle of them, and you only have so much power, then what good is it to put up a 4th one in the dead zone and divert power if that takes everyone's signals down to 20%, so that call quality is ultra-spotty and calls drop frequently? Yayyy, at least people in the dead zone can get crappy cell service, too! 8D