@madscientist I was really just trying to highlight that there is still some value in aesthetic upgrades to a pure roleplaying object in a game world. It's a controversial topic, especially with crowdfunded games, for precisely the reason you mentioned. Everyone wants the game to be filled with content they believe is most fun and adds the most to the experience because quality content costs time and money. While not rpg's, games like cs:go and tf2 quite obviously show that many gamers are not only happy with developers spending money on pure aesthetic objects that add absolutely nothing to the gameplay or world, they are even willing to pay upwards of $100 to acquire these items themselves. I don't think it's at all absurd to say that there are not people who place value on these types of in game objects or that the roleplaying community is far from completely devoid of these type of people. However, I must agree that I would much rather money be spent on quality narratives, characters and environments, and gameplay mechanics.

Taking your point of time and money into account, I think it's safe to say that connecting a stronghold to the main narrative and character development is a much more efficient way to create an interesting and important stronghold. I merely meant to point out that I don't personally think it's completely necessary, were time and money unlimited. It's particularly interesting to me when developers release full games and create strongholds as dlc items. Much more experimental work is done this way that can provide useful creative knowledge for future projects. Bethesda game studious is particularly fond of this practice. Though their implementations were certainly far from ideal. It's interesting to note however that each of their successive games featured a slightly greater focus on player homes/fortresses.

My personal hope for dos2 is to see the hall of echoes being used as much as a shared space for various npc's as possible. Gaining favor or creating rivalries with divines, previously slain enemies, powerful post mortem characters and possibly having that affect the outcome of the narrative back on the mortal planes looks like a solid direction from larians updates so far. I do wonder how they will address the issue of too much open space in the end of time fortress. The hall of echoes is another large abstract area after all.

I do try to minimize my walls of text to some degree. Thanks for the compliment anyway! :hahaha: