Vibrant Villages and Traders

[Trevindo]

Today, I would like to discuss an aspect of Don't Starve Together that I feel has been relatively untouched since the game's release: the pig villages. Currently, my main issue with the villages is how little organic they feel. We have the Pig King sitting surrounded by pig houses, and the pigs only leave their homes during the day to walk around the pasture, returning to their houses at sunset. Below is a screenshot of a village I created in a world I started:

 

I believe there is not only room to enrich the pig community structurally, but also with the addition of new NPCs. Specifically, I’ve been thinking about adding traders that, for example, could exchange gold or other items for basic resources such as twigs, grass, flint, and/or manure. We could also have seasonal shops that sell items based on the season. Additionally, the pigs’ routines could be improved. Besides sleeping, they could dance, converse with each other, and even fish (just like Pearl). Below is a simple redesign I made of a pig village, using only DST’s resources:

[Well-met]

One of the biggest flaw here is the king's guards were temporarily replaced with those crappy obelisks for an ARG, but of course klei forgot about it and made no effort to fix it back.

Pig guards actually have special AI when they're around the king and this ironically is never seen in DST because of this.

Another issue is if you overdevelop the village like you're suggesting, then people will simply raze it and collect a huge amount of materials for free with zero consequence every single time.

 

[Trevindo]

15 minutes ago, Well-met said:

One of the biggest flaw here is the king's guards were temporarily replaced with those crappy obelisks for an ARG, but of course klei forgot about it and made no effort to fix it back.

Pig guards actually have special AI when they're around the king and this ironically is never seen in DST because of this.

Another issue is if you overdevelop the village like you're suggesting, then people will simply raze it and collect a huge amount of materials for free with zero consequence every single time.

 

I understand your point, which is why I used only items in the image that require very basic resources to craft, like wood and sticks, or items that need a paper with a schematic. As for the rest, the berries and grass shrubs are already present in regular villages, and the trees are everywhere. The only exception to this, I think, is the vinyl record player.

Thank you for the feedback.

[ShadowDuelist]

14 minutes ago, Well-met said:

Another issue is if you overdevelop the village like you're suggesting, then people will simply raze it and collect a huge amount of materials for free with zero consequence every single time.

 

This is something i was discussing recently, people just go and break pig houses and the pigs can be outside, staring at you break their houses and do absolutely nothing about it. I think at bare minumum the pigs AI should consider pig aggresion when they witness you breaking their houses.
Hammering a house even before destroying it should be considered aggresive.

 

18 minutes ago, Well-met said:

Pig guards actually have special AI when they're around the king and this ironically is never seen in DST because of this.

Pig guards guarding the pig village would be amazing. Not great for new players, but it would make the pig village not just free resources to pillage.

As for OP maybe post rifts the pig village could start getting populated by smarter pigs, or offer a few more “hamlet” options

[Well-met]

1 minute ago, ShadowDuelist said:

This is something i was discussing recently, people just go and break pig houses and the pigs can be outside, staring at you break their houses and do absolutely nothing about it. I think at bare minumum the pigs AI should consider pig aggresion when they witness you breaking their houses.
Hammering a house even before destroying it should be considered aggresive.

I'm so used to UM having this feature that I keep forgetting vanilla still doesn't. that's just crazy.

[Maxposting]

27 minutes ago, Well-met said:

One of the biggest flaw here is the king's guards were temporarily replaced with those crappy obelisks for an ARG, but of course klei forgot about it and made no effort to fix it back.

huh?

[Cats_On_Fire]

1 hour ago, Trevindo said:

Today, I would like to discuss an aspect of Don't Starve Together that I feel has been relatively untouched since the game's release: the pig villages. Currently, my main issue with the villages is how little organic they feel. We have the Pig King sitting surrounded by pig houses, and the pigs only leave their homes during the day to walk around the pasture, returning to their houses at sunset. Below is a screenshot of a village I created in a world I started:

 

I believe there is not only room to enrich the pig community structurally, but also with the addition of new NPCs. Specifically, I’ve been thinking about adding traders that, for example, could exchange gold or other items for basic resources such as twigs, grass, flint, and/or manure. We could also have seasonal shops that sell items based on the season. Additionally, the pigs’ routines could be improved. Besides sleeping, they could dance, converse with each other, and even fish (just like Pearl). Below is a simple redesign I made of a pig village, using only DST’s resources:

It's an interesting concept and I like the little improvement. But where should we have traders. We need to make the player still feeling slightly alone. But also generally we need something to do with our excess resources. So yes but maybe only make it one shop, like a general store, since these pigs are not as smart as the Hamlet pigs.

[gaymime]

1 hour ago, ShadowDuelist said:

This is something i was discussing recently, people just go and break pig houses and the pigs can be outside, staring at you break their houses and do absolutely nothing about it. I think at bare minumum the pigs AI should consider pig aggresion when they witness you breaking their houses.
Hammering a house even before destroying it should be considered aggresive.

 

Pig guards guarding the pig village would be amazing. Not great for new players, but it would make the pig village not just free resources to pillage.

As for OP maybe post rifts the pig village could start getting populated by smarter pigs, or offer a few more “hamlet” options

shipwrecked has pig agression with the wild boars and it sucks sooooo much.

2 hours ago, Trevindo said:

Besides sleeping, they could dance, converse with each other

this would be soooo cute, if merms and bunnymen did this too it would be super pleasing<3<3 it makes the world feel more real and valuable when mobs do something independent of the player. i am so happy seeing cavlings take naps and giant cavelings eating bread when they idle in corekeeper, watching pig men do a little chat with each other would be just swell<3<3

[Kwaik]

I'd love to see a new biome with your ideas of improving villages/traders 

 

Doesn't necessarily need to be pigs but this would be new content and biomes which players have been asking for

[whiteking]

The same idea. Why not add some updates like this?