The Crystal King

author=dasgibtesnet
They wouldnt make you refuse their business oh no, they would wring you for every piece of gold/coins whatever you are worth.
So they would stock up on stuff other races need if there is any meaningful traffic... they just would sell their services at a very high... rate. Especially if they dont have a choice but to shop there.

Gives me the EverQuest vibe all over again. I'm not opposed to the idea of raising prices. In fact, to bounce off from that idea, I could raise the prices intentionally at the beginning so when you first arrive, it would be expensive. Then after you gain trust, you would get a nice discount. At least one character would have an initial discount due to their race (i.e. Rennic would get a discount in a human town and Lesnar would get a discount from a lizard merchant and etc.) That would be an interesting experience but how would players feel about that? That's what I like to know.

I won't remove shops entirely since you'll need to buy healing items somehow. The inns will be pretty much useless atm but it's probably for Azhal's sake. Poor guy.

It was just a thought to see how players would react when they see Worik talk to a human merchant or when Rennic bargain shops with the orcs. Don't know if that would seem odd or funny but I was worried if someone was going to question the lore behind it.

And lastly, the goblins are the greedy folk in the game, notably the character named Lepra Con (ah, see the pun?!), who tries to rip you off for passage through the Goblin Grove. The humans, on the other hand, are settlers so they are not used to seeing beastfolk so why would they trade in the first place?

author=Kylaila
Good point : D Gotcha. And that makes a lot of sense. They DID seem to treat you as monsters first n foremost, so banter of any kind would be outlandish.

Aye, precisely! Now you know why I've been pondering about this for some time now.
It sucks for Bhazjadorr since he's cursed and those humans have no idea that he was once human.

author=dasgibtesnet
As a matter of fact I dont see the pun... english ain't my first language so yeah =P

Oh lol. I didn't even know! I thought it was a clever name coming from a bugbear... Lepra Con is a play on the word 'leprachaun', which are creatures in Irish folklore. So Lepra Con would be a fake version due to the word 'con' in it. Which means he will try to swindle you for your gold!

author=dasgibtesnet
To be fair I wouldnt be feeling like immersion is broken if you buy from humans as a orc, but they should react differently to you if you do (like higher prices, some sort of "I dont like you stranger, but bussiness is business." Kind of attitude if you go there. Hm I wonder how one could do that.... I never really tried anything like that when I played around with the RPG Maker... I only remember that you can do something depoending on who is in the party.... well back to topic. But it would surprise me with the information I have now if humans would have any sort of prolonged conversation with you when you are an orc.... maybe make them say something like: "You are keeping strange company for a human, I would reconsider this if I were you" and stuff like that... I dunno what they could say as I still havent played the game =P

There is a scene that illustrates this but not in the current demo since it's outdated. It basically pertains to Azhal, who is one of your party members.
His appearance has scared many of the humans that were staying at the inn in Lambshire. We can assume that the humans don't like Azhal because he is a monster of sorts or that he has unnatural powers like absorbing magic. Could be interpreted either way.

As far as business goes, I think it would be a bad idea to raise a price for certain characters. I think earlier I liked the idea but now that I think about it, I think Azhal would just threaten the guy for his money back or have Worik steal it back. However, I won't "discount" the idea. Ah, I made another pun! =)

author=dasgibtesnet
Anyways if they are just settlers it would make sense if they had little to trade with, especially equibment that "beastfolk" would use. But I wonder why they would have an inn and how they make enough money to sleep there... are they working for the inn owner in return for a sleeping place? Do they not have enough materials to build a hut/tent/whatever for all the people? How do they even get coins? Is killing monsters for coins something common? How do they explain how they get coins from monsters? Or do monsters drop their body parts that can be sold/used for crafting? Is this an economy that revolves around killing enough monsters to have a place to sleep? How do they deal with inflation if there are far to many coins compared to services provided.... they would at some point have prices to high to afford even if one goes hunting the entire day... Where do they get their wares? I mean we can probably buy like 99 of each item without them running out of stock.... and and and.... i will stop here and download the game and put it higher on my playing list.... you piqued my curiosity if i get answers to all the questions I now have xD

It's called 'video game logic'. Don't question it. XD Okay, let's take this one step at a time since I have some juicy backstory to explain. You can call this an exclusive scoop from the dev!

The orc king is married to a human, who brought her people (who are humans) to the continent of Devonshire, which are inhabited by forest folk (like goblins and faeries) and beastfolk (which are orcs and bugbears). The two words are sometimes synonymous but humans tend to call them 'forest folk' due to the surrounding landscape being a forest.

Since humans are settlers, it would make sense that they traded things with the other tribes. What they traded for is up for debate but chances are, it's probably gold since I have no idea what orcs would do with gold in the first place. Maybe the orcs use the gold to make fancy jewelry for the king or make him a piece of armor but that's about it. You could even say that gold is the human currency while 'Faerie tokens' (which are featured in the demo) are the currency for the orcs and forest folk.

How the humans had the resources, that's what the orcs (and the forest) was for. The queen might've asked her husband, the orc king, if she could build her own human empire, to which the king did and her city ,Lambshire, was created with the aid of the orcs. Based on this info, we can imply that the humans and the orcs did co-existed and were potential allies for war, which was a pretty big deal back then. Maybe that's why the humans immigrated to this country. But where did it all go wrong? Well, the answer is in the game's title. Game theory time! But...I'll save it for another time once the game is fully completed!

As for lodges, gold drops and potions, let's just say they are the basics for any RPG to begin with. Suppose if there was any lore or reasoning behind it, then there should be a reason to why it was designed in that manner. Like, why wouldn't you have shops? Why would potions run out? I think players should be intrigued by the lore than just say it's 'bad game design'. Although, chances are, that's probably the response I would get for doing something like that. Which is why I'm asking in the first place.

I can't say I answered all of your questions, maybe too many questions lol. But I think the inns at the moment will just function as set pieces than functional resources for healing.

Aye, I should've pointed out that the demo is really outdated like it was made back in May and now it's September xD. It will be fixed and updated but I haven't chosen a date to release the new build yet.

Kinda funny that I had no idea that you were German. I hope I didn't annoy you too much with my English puns, if my name wasn't the Annoying Bugbear. =p

I do like the questions that you brought up such as looting chests and valuables in someone's home. I think it's important to ask yourself these questions to understand the reasoning behind it. Now you know why I asked earlier if people would find it strange that a bugbear was shopping in a human village for potions and stuff. I'm okay with the idea of opening chests in a home if you were a hero like Link. But since this is RPG Maker and not Skyrim, the NPC's would be like 'Who cares! You're the hero! Just take my sh*t!'.

I think you said it best on the last paragraph, these things should be addressed when speaking with NPC's. I don't think there are any chests you can loot in the buildings as far as I know. I could be wrong but I think Worik's house is the only exception. Now you know why I've spent so much time on the world building to give you a deeper context between the different races of the game.

Now that you mentioned this in the middle paragraph, I don't mind that you share some ideas or theories about the game's plot so far. It really helps me find any plot holes that need some explaining or something that I didn't think about earlier.

author=dasgibtesnet
War. Caused by maybe ressource shortage (even after the help from the beastfolk) for the humans which were riled up by local leaders which started out small but escalated in time but died down after a while. (basically small raids which moved on to bigger raids but when the bugbears/orcs started fighting back it kinda toned down until only the "hatred" brought by war survived but they themselves (humans) knew they couldnt continue this and went back to dealing with bugbears and orcs "normally" blaming them for what they did. Naturally I have thought of more variants of this but this one is the one I thought most likely.

A war seems feasible to how all of this started. Maybe there was a war to prove that orcs were superior or to test human strength. A rebellion could fit along these lines. But the big question is: who would oppress the orcs and the human race? If orcs and humans were at the bottom food chain, who would be at the top?

author=dasgibtesnet
A curse. Nationwide or only the leaders which affected several leaders and was brought on by the bugbear king which crystalized or something similar human settlers or their elites. Which kind of rebounded and "killed" him (well his Soul not this one lives within a certain cursed human) and is trying to undo the damage he did. Which came out to be the fault of the bugbear king and the orcs where kinda caught in the crossfire too. (this theory I found rather unlikely as I only attribute the worst to humanking =P)

Aye, you're not wrong about the curse part. I should point out that King Solomon (in the demo), is a half-orc. If you remembered in the previous post, the orc king was married to a female human. This means that their child is the current king of the game since he carries both human and orc blood. As part of his biography, King Solomon is 'cursed' because of a crystal like heart that's in his chest. How did it get there? Well, that's the big mystery of the game. (And pretty much the game's story line) I like the idea that you imply that there is a bugbear king, which I won't deny, there IS a bugbear king but I won't spoil who that is. Hint: It's not me, it's not a self-insert game.

author=dasgibtesnet
Cultural differences. See when different cultures meet there is often the chance that innocent gestures will be taken as grefious insults.... In some countries nodding is considered no for an example while for us it would be an affirmation. So all of this started because of some sort of misunderstanding and them meeting without beeing prepared for the culture "war" caused a huge chasm between the few races. Especially for humans getting tricked by Lepra Con himself(Herself?) with not knowing that they are greedy could result in bad blood. Things escalated after small things kept pilling up and human mercenaries killed the bugbear king because of a conceived affront and he placed a curse that if one of his attackers should take a certain "heart" he would be turned into what he/she despiced.

The gesture thing I can understand. I'm not sure how that could be conveyed in RPG Maker, maybe with icon bubbles? I'm not even sure if orcs would know what the middle finger means. =p

And Lepra Con is male btw.

I think something to think about is culture shock, given the circumstance for Bhazjadorr (who was cursed to be a bugbear). But why a bugbear? Why not make him werewolf or an orc? What would be the theory behind this?

It is hard to predict what the story line is about if you haven't played the game. But at least with the information I spill here or there, you can get an idea where the game is going.

What if a dragon ruled everyone in the land including bugbears and orcs? I mean, dragons are at the top of the food chain. They're also hated and feared by everyone that tries to battle them. It could be possible that a "dragon" or someone who looks like a dragon could've been king. Major plot twist coming soon!

Btw, Kylaila and dasgibtesnet, I'm loving this conversation since I had no idea that this blog would turn into a discussion. I think I've come to a conclusion about the no-shop thing. I think no shops would kill the experience, maybe not entirely, but it wouldn't feel enjoyable. Especially if these bugbears and orcs did co-existed at one time so it would throw things off a bit. Maybe I'll throw some random merchant battles for free discounts. How's that for a change?