What's the deal with strongholds and player houses?

[Turok]

I love the stronghold of the ranger in Baldur's gate 2.

I like the idea of have a stronghold, and i love when the stronghold have to do with the main quest.

 

[Humanophage]

1) It is a logical extension of the inventory. You can put items there without fear of losing them. It is important in games with a lot of items that clog up the inventory, like Morrowind or Underrail.
2) It is a good way to show that the player is altering the world and leaving a trace there, just like permanently changed locations or referencing changes in unrelated quests.
3) Acquiring and improving real estate is a major motivation for many adventurers. It is satisfying to see a product of your labour. It serves as an element of the ending screen in Fallout, so to say.
4) Not everything has to be a streamlined and obligatory part of gameplay, and there is nothing wrong if the house is disconnected from the main plot - you are not watching a film, and not everything has to be connected.

One of the best examples of housing I saw in an RPG was Ultima Online. This really grounded the player in the world and made it appear more player-made rather than static, whereas in most MMOs you see instanced houses or none at all.

 

[Jazz_]

in Morrowind and Underrail you can put stuff everywhere and you will always find it where you dropped it, so that makes having your house where to put stuff redundant.

 

[Ovplain]

It's just one of those things I guess. Like romances! Usually nothing but fluff that a bunch of people find enjoyable.

Don't really care much about 'player keeps' one way or the other myself. If it's there, fine, if it's not there, also fine. Can't really recall if I ever found one to be particularly annoying or 'immersion-breaking.'

 

[AW8]

why

Going from murderhobo to settled murderer is the logical progression.

 

[Lazing Dirk]

There are Skyrim mods that make your followers dress properly when in the player house because it seems it's really immersion breaking for some players.

Are there people who really "play" the game to relax with their companion on a cup of tea? How does this work? You stare at the screen and imagine how they talk about their adventures?

I think that's the part where you install sex mods

 

[Humanophage]

in Morrowind and Underrail you can put stuff everywhere and you will always find it where you dropped it, so that makes having your house where to put stuff redundant.

That's what I thought, except I left the statue for the Institute of Tchort somewhere because I finished that dungeon in advance, and then the place where I left it totally escaped my mind. I had a bunch of hoards around the world, but evidently used some non-standard hoard. Playthrough ruined. Further, you never know if the world resets, and your items will be wiped out - that is certainly a reasonable expectation in many games if you just dump your stuff into a random barrel in the street.

Besides, I wouldn't really call it immersion-breaking, but it is better when the interface makes sense within the logic of the world. E.g., your cursor being a character in Anachronox adds to the game, or your inventory having actual bags, as in Ultima.

 

[Night Goat]

Strongholds are even more useless in Morrowind than they are in other games, since they're in the middle of nowhere and you could just break into a house in a town and keep your stuff there.

 

[hilfazer]

in Morrowind and Underrail you can put stuff everywhere and you will always find it where you dropped it, so that makes having your house where to put stuff redundant.

But it's bad for save file size. UR's saves take like 50MB. My largest AOD save takes 1.33 MB.
Having shit all over the place is hard to manage. It can look nice, like in Morrowind, but the game needs graphics to support this.
If i want to decorate my house i'd rather hang trophies on walls like in UR. W3 also did cool thing with armors and weapons.
In UR i end up storing all of my shit in one place, in containers, anyway.

I want a house just to dump my stuff, companions and have all crafting stations in one place. I like how it was done in Drakensang:TDA.

 

[lefthandblack]

Seriously, why players want such mechanic?

It always feels so unrelated and disconnected to the whole game. If you want to build a castle, play Stronghold, or if you want a house - Sims (Medieval).

Can someone enlighten me what is so glamorous about the whole player settlements/palaces/mansions thing? You are an adventurer right, why all this stuff with furnishing, house decoration, etc? For LARP-ing purposes? For a place for the player and his waifu in Skyrim? Moneysink?

Currently playing Twitcher 3: Blood & Wine and just received my own house and vineyard... I just can't be bothered with such stuff.

So you can have an orgy with your harem of followers on top of a giant pile of loot, duh.

Some strongholds open up new gameplay opportunities like others have said; for example if the stronghold has a dungeon you can torture your harem of followers when they have been a very bad paladin and must be punished.

 

[Johannes]

Ideally you have gameplay use of the stronghold - produce gear there, torture people, defend it from attack. Look at X-com for an example.

 

[FreeKaner]

Longing for the feeling of being landed gentry. People just can't escape the charm of being aristocracy with their own chateaus or manors they are the lord of.

 

[Luckmann]

It's weird, really. As far as I know, it really started with Baldur's Gate II, but that could just be myopic bias on my part. And I can't say that I haven't enjoyed the way some games did it. Most of the Baldur's Gate II strongholds were nice additions, albeit a little bit out of place, and it was more or less the only aspect of NWN2 that I remember being somewhat enjoyable, and in DA:O:A, it was fun to see Vigil's Keep grow, and it even became relevant towards the end. But much like the way you upgraded the ship in Mass Effect 2, such mechanics quickly becomes a chore, as you dot the I:s and strike the T:s, inevitably ending up with a "fully upgraded" stronghold.

It only becomes a money-sink and another quest to finish, and often it's out-of-place in that it doesn't make sense for the character to take care of it or manage it at a given point in the narrative, let alone travel there from god-knows-where just to build another thingomajig or see a petitioner. In order for a stronghold mechanic to be pulled off well, it really needs to be integrated into the game and the storytelling, it must make sense for the character to have it and to go there regularly, and it should preferably be a nexus or major plot-point for one reason or another. I also think that mutually exclusive choices, preferably steeped in the choices of the character(s) is very important, such as if you're able to build a chapel, you should be able to build one to your deity. Otherwise, it's just meaningless linear progression, a money-sink.

In the end, I can sorta understand the appeal of the idea, but considering how it usually works out, I cannot understand the obsession some people seem to have with it.

It's just like romances/relationship simulation. I can see how it's nice when it makes sense - I think it worked well in Planescape: Torment, because it was well-handled and subtle, without final resolution and without being just another quest to make it through. But apart from PS:T, when has it not been rather cringe-inducing? Another thing is crafting; when has it not been a chore? It exists in MMO:s because it is a chore. It's never been pulled off well in a narratively-driven roleplaying game, and in action-RPG:s it's usually limited to extremely basic stuff done as part of playing the game.

Some of us can't have houses IRL.

This post gave me an anxiety attack.

Spoiler

Because it's true. Give me a house and let me be a normie with children, dammit, fuck you, life.

 

[duanth123]

Seriously, why players want such mechanic?

It's the participation award for the modern gamer.


A feeling of accomplishment and power without the need to understand and master a game's systems.

Or do anything really to be considered worthy in game.

I'd say BG2 was a notable exception, insofar as difficult encounters stood between you and obtainment of most strongholds.

 

[Stavrophore]

It can only be justified if its useful, the only thing i could think of is sleeping to restore consitution and to hoard junk you found. Just like in real life - you sleep and hoard stuff that you don't want to soak in the rain outside your mud hut.

 

[Zero Credibility]

Just like most things strongholds can be done well (BG2) and really, really bad (PoE). In BG2 it served as flavor for your chosen class, something to show PC moving up in the world. And it did so with class-specific quests connected with the place. That was good enough - it didn't need to be a money sink or give some huge gameplay advantage, just a little something to add to content and replayability.

And in PoE Mr. Balance completely missed the point and turned it into a facebook game. A really bad facebook game. The (only real) review of the game here on the Dex didn't go nearly far enough in eviscerating it over this. "There are players that hate strongholds so here, have this half-assed piece of crap that you don't need to (and neither would you wish to) bother with."

 

[Dorateen]

The best computer role-playing games have their heritage in pen and paper, and the roots of table top are in war-gaming. Stronghold acquisition and upgrade are meant to add a strategic layer to an adventure, which comes from this tradition.

Also, Might & Magic introduced having your own castle long before Baldur's Gate.

 

[Johannes]

Hurvana had a functional and sensible home base that you start in. You can eat there (in the city you have to pay for food, though they got a fancier menu), sleep there, and you get letters and your wage from the king delivered there. Wouldn't make sense for a renowned hero to be homeless, would it.

Also in Hurvana 3 you had a sauna, that you could use for healing, provided you had firewood and waited for it to warm up.

 

[MrMarbles]

Hurvana had a functional and sensible home base that you start in. You can eat there (in the city you have to pay for food, though they got a fancier menu), sleep there, and you get letters and your wage from the king delivered there. Wouldn't make sense for a renowned hero to be homeless, would it.

Bioware and Bethesda should take a cue from this modern masterpiece and step it up a notch

 

[Grampy_Bone]

It's partly a modern Sims/Minecraft-inspired thing, but it's also worth noting that getting your own castle was an expected part of a high level Fighter's career in oldschool D&D.

Yeah but that was when D&D was meant to segue into tabletop wargaming.

 

[Castozor]

Strongholds are even more useless in Morrowind than they are in other games, since they're in the middle of nowhere and you could just break into a house in a town and keep your stuff there.

While true I felt that it was still better than dropping all my stuff on the floor in random towns, mark and recall also existed then so getting to them wasn't too hard. Furthermore I liked being rewarded for my loyalty/service to the house and getting a manor deserving of my station instead of still being a de facto hobo. Having said that, I don't think strongholds/houses really add much to games but I'll take them over meaningless crafting systems every day.

 

[eggdogg]

The keep in NWN2 was enjoyable.

 

[Tigranes]

Seriously, why players want such mechanic?

It's the participation award for the modern gamer.


A feeling of accomplishment and power without the need to understand and master a game's systems.

Or do anything really to be considered worthy in game.

I'd say BG2 was a notable exception, insofar as difficult encounters stood between you and obtainment of most strongholds.

I'd actually agree this is a factor, insofar as how many games suck your cock as they grant you your meaningless pointless timewasting filler browser game station. At least the cocksucking comes with a classic bait and switch: "Oh adventurer, having accidentally stumbled your sword onto Lord Floppycock you are now our new Watcher-Commander-Guardian-Knight-Cerebrant-Ubermensch!!! Please, allow me to show you your keep, which by the way is almost entirely filled with rubble and toxic waste but just a monthly down payment of 80,000 sovereigns should make it habitable in a few months..."

 

[laclongquan]

700k or more for the Crossroad Keep! Shit is expensive.

 

[anvi]

I hope I am still alive when scientists discover the gene that makes people enjoy playing a game that lets you make a house and control little characters and tell them to go cook their dinner and sit on the toilet. And when they spill things on the floor you click them and tell them to clean up the mess. If I could enjoy things like that I would be a much happier person.