I'm writing this post not fully informed but would like to talk to you all about it anyway. I think a lot of us are coming from old MMORPGs as well as table top games where taverns are a big part in the players adventure. Whether its coming in to sleep for the night after a long adventure or to talk to an NPC to gather information about an upcoming quest, players can feel comfortable and at home. I really hope that the Intrepid Studios makes taverns the same way in Ashes of Creation, for the sake of the players and the sake of our aspiring tavern keeps. The next part of the post will be my opinions on how that can happen.
Tavern's should be a lively place with food and drink and a warm fire. Where players can gather and get ready for their next quest or just talk to each other and rest up. However, I don't think Tavern's should just be for RP intended purposes. In order to really make taverns part of the game, there should some form of system that entices players to go into the taverns. A couple of ways I can see that happening.
For example, in Wow Classic players gain boosed XP by staying inside a city or tavern. Rested XP is essentially 2x XP for a certain amount of XP. However I don't think just afking to get an XP boost is the right idea for a tavern. A more active way to do this would be to maybe have to sit in a tavern for a certain amount of time (10 minutes for example) to get a slight XP for the next hour.
Instead of just sitting around the fire a certain period of time, taverns can have a certain type of food that can only be eaten there, which grants players some sort of buff, say an XP buff, or a maybe different attribute buffs like strength or wisdom etc.
Something cool that could be done with these foods and food buffs would be that higher level cooks could create
higher level foods with similar, but stronger buffs. This would deepen the already complex crafting and economic
systems. and create further interesting interactions between nodes and players.
The last thing I can think of off the top of my head is some form of tavern game, a card game or a dice game that, if won, grants the player an XP buff or again something like a strength or wisdom buff. This would be a more active way to get a buff, however I don't think it is as interesting as the food idea and would also take up more time to develop.
Overall, I think my favorite idea would be the tavern food system because it would create demand as well as a complex economy for cooks as craftsmen, tavern keeps as business owners and adventurers as customers.
Let me know what you guys think.
