Thriving Ghost Town: Difference between revisions

[[File:ff2_town_7063ff2 town 7063.png|link=Final Fantasy IV|frame|<small>Neighborhood just hasn't been the same since they opened that [[Predatory Business|Weapon-Mart]]</small>.]]

The average small country town may have a population of a dozen or so people -- apeople—a big city, like the capital of a continent-spanning empire, may have as many as thirty. Generally, these towns consist of fewer than ten distinct buildings, all of particular interest to the players; no sign of an agricultural economy or professional tradesmen is outwardly visible. Similarly, approximately 90% of a city's observable population will interact with the player in some way relevant to the plot of the game.

A typical town the heroes find themselves in usually consists of the following; a [[Trauma Inn]], a weapons/armor shop (the true metropolis may have a separate shop for each), an "item" shop, a specialty shop relating to the game's [[Functional Magic|magic system]], and no more than three houses. With the exception of those [[NPC|NPCs]]s living in those houses, the entire remainder of the population is apparently homeless; some [[NPC|NPCs]]s seem to exist for the sole purpose of standing in a specific location and [[Welcome to Corneria|talking to passers-by.]]

In the earliest computer and console [[RPG|RPGs]]s, this was a matter of economy; every kilobyte was precious and couldn't be wasted on extraneous houses or people. The tradition has continued into the modern day for several reasons, with [[The Law of Conservation of Detail]] being paramount among them. It does make it more feasible to [[Talk to Everyone]]. Especially with [[Random Encounter]]s, one aversion to this is that there's often [[More Criminals Than Targets]]… Who love to [[Gang Up on the Human]]. It's often an [[Acceptable Break From Reality]] because, really, as large as towns would be in real life, think of ''how long'' it'd take to render it, and how much space it'd take on your drive. Ouch.

* ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess|The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess]]'' has several [[Thriving Ghost Town]] locations as well as several not-so-thriving towns which are nearly deserted. Castle Town, however, includes many random passersby who will ignore you. You ''can'' interact with them ... if watching them scream, cower, and brandish weapons at Link's wolf form counts as interaction.

* ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' both plays this straight and cleverly hides it. Towns are nearly always too small, but cities have plenty of buildings. It's just that the developers didn't model the insides of a great many of those buildings and locked the doors shut. This has the added bonus of creating walls where the players aren't supposed to go, ''and'' giving Blizzard a place to add buildings -- Stormwindbuildings—Stormwind's Auction House, or the barber shops, for example, were originally just those empty shell-buildings.

** Those empty buildings make cities look bigger than they actually are, but they're still quite a bit smaller than the lore or storyline would suggest. A census by counting [[NPC|NPCs]]s would suggest that the population of Stormwind - the largest human city in the world - is probably around one to two hundred people, eighty percent of whom are guards. A census by counting houses and extrapolating from there, even assuming medieval population density, would suggest that the population is probably around two to four thousand, maybe as much as 10,000. But [[All There in the Manual|according to the RPG sourcebook]], there are about 140,000 people in Stormwind.

* In ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'', Traverse Town and Twilight Town (both [[First Town|First Towns]]s) had large numbers of random citizens irrelevant to the story; the other cities, however, are populated almost entirely by Disney licensed characters. But then again, the other cities are essentially [[Dungeon Town|town-shaped dungeons]].

** Although, by nature of them being large [[Dungeon Town|Dungeon Towns]]s, this trope is handled ''slightly'' more tastefully - Twilight Town, Radiant Garden/{{spoiler|Hollow Bastion}} and Traverse Town both have multiple districts, plenty of houses and (for Twilight Town only) modes of public transportation. There are enough homes (most of them unenterable) to qualify them as small settlements (with the population ranging in the hundreds or so), although the conspicuous lack of citizens is rather jarring. Perhaps they're all hiding from the Heartless and Nobodies?

=== Non-video game examples: ===