Quest Dense Urban Hubs cRPG

By "quest-dense urban hub", I mean some kind of built up area (such as a city) that acts as a base of operations or launchpad to a cRPG campaign. Most of the following Aurora-built hubs offer non-linear questing and exploration, and most of them allow us to delve subterranean zones and venture out into the wilderness, too. Sometimes, subterranean or wilderness exploration may be gated by quest acquisition or plot progression; other times, once we leave the hub, we cannot return until end-game (OC/Darromar). As such, I don't consider the latter to be true hubs but I'll throw them into the mix, anyway.

For those who don't know what I'm talking about, here is the hub of Athkatla and its outlying zones (the country of Amn):

That's of course from BG2.

Aurora-wise, we'll start at the beginning because that's a good place to start: the city of Neverwinter from BioWare's Original Campaign. Here are the four Districts of Neverwinter along with the City Core & No Man's Land (linking the Core to Blacklake).

Not including its four-area Academy (the linear Prologue), Neverwinter's five districts altogether host in excess of 100 areas including Castle Never, Hall of Justice, mage tower, zoo, arena, aqueducts, prison, shipyards, graveyard (with warrens), five noble estates, six inns, etc. It's a massive urban sprawl but it's got no complex questing, its size is trivialized by the Stone of Recall, and we're locked out of the city once we leave for Helm's Hold (only to return for the Finale).

Note the coloring in No Man's Land. As you look through the other screencaps, you will see that such coloring is almost never employed in user-made hubs, and that's a pity.

Swordflight's Calimport:

Noble Estates, Temple District, Slums, Marketplace & Docks

These are only the main districts represented in Chapter II of Swordflight. They are not pictured to-scale. The Watch Headquarters, Scholar's Corner and City Gates areas are not shown in the above pic.

There are about 130 areas and 50 quests offered in Calimport in total. The areas include the likes of tunnels, ruins, lairs (one sunken), hideouts, tombs, hidden arcane laboratories, mage towers, noble estates, thieves' guild (complete with maze), dilapidated dwellings, temples, inns, warehouses, secret compounds, shops and extra-planar pockets. There are ambush zones and subterranean areas drawn from random pools as well. Let me make this clear: Calimport competes with Athkatla, and Athkatla is considered "legendary" by the mainstream RPG community. For example, Calimport features 17 sewer system zones [pic] and 30 undercity zones beneath that [pic] (the Undercity of Dark Calimport). And there are meaningful discoveries to be made down there, too. Moreover, access to a few areas is dependent on one's build.

From my Calimport write-up:

Yep, and in that respect, I can safely say that Calimport can stand alongside those classic hubs without looking out of place.

The Aielund Saga's Fairloch:

Note the snow accumulating around the edges of the buildings. Builders forget to add such trimmings. One could trim with fences, hedges and flower beds in order to add color, too. Modifications are also made to Fairloch based on a seasonal change (triggered by plot-progression). 

Fairloch consists of four main districts featuring 42 areas including a Royal Castle (multiple areas), a Senate (and later, a House of Lords), an Admiralty, an art gallery, a cathedral (with catacombs), a mage tower, a guardhouse, a library, three warehouses (including Naval storage), a three-level Assassins' Guild, two multi-storey noble estates, four inns (one a playhouse), five sewer zones (complete with Thieves' Guild) and six shops including blacksmith, tanner, fletcher and tailor/dressmaker. Yes, merchants aren't just standing around in an open marketplace peddling epic wares in Fairloch: they have their own establishments.

Crimson Tides of Tethyr's Darromar:  

Royal, Caravan, Temple & Black Quarters of Darromar

I like the marble tiles in the temple quarter; it makes the district distinct. Darromar is divided into quarters featuring 30 areas including Faerntarn Palace (not accessible until end-game; it consists of 8 areas), a four-storey Mage Guild tower, a Thieves' Guild (with hideout beneath), a Chandlers, a Grand Barracks, a noble's mansion, two inns, two shops, two sewer zones (descending to a separate psionic lair), and three temples.  

There are about a dozen quests to be picked up in Darromar, a few of which are resolved later in the campaign. All but three are quite short and simple, though. The custom music is what makes this hub particularly memorable.

Cormyrean Nights' Marsember: 

Kings Tower, Centre, Docks, Merchant & Temple Districts of Marsember

Note the density of the buildings and the alleyways in the second map from the left. Even back in 2002, Servilan employed a third-party hak for alleyways. Who has done it since then - anyone? Nagivation of the city is also unique in that, for a modest fee, city guides will ferry us around the city, à la Vivec of Morrowind.

Honor Among Thieves' Endorr:

City Gates, South Quarter, Slums, Upper City

Again, nice use of water to make Endorr not look like every other city hub. We definitely feel like a Rogue as we explore the city, which is populated by lots of NPCs and is very heavy in scripting.

Darkness Over Daggerford's Daggerford:

Docks & Daggerford

Daggerford is what I would call "a boutique hub". What I mean is, it's small but customized, and its contents are high quality. Daggerford features 27 areas including a castle (with cellar), a docks (two of the docked ships can be entered), a mage tower, a blacksmith, a fence, custom barracks, two-storey Mariner's Alliance, an artiste studio , three temples and three inns (one of which has a cellar, a secret room and sewers beneath it). Every area is placeable-heavy. Daggerford stands as one of the most flavorsome hubs; for example, as we explore, our two companions, Reagan and Purfbin, comment on many of its landmarks.

Daggerford is a proper quest-dense hub in that most of the campaign's quests are picked up within it, and we'll likely return to the city often even after reaching the sub-hub of Liam's Hold [world map]. Visually, Daggerford's area design is top-notch, too: it's Project Q-level.

Sapphire Star's Silbran & Hluthvar:

Silbran & Hluthvar

Silbran is visually distinct due to being snow-laden (as is SoU's Hilltop); Hluthvar is run-of-the-mill. These two hubs are pivotal to our survival in such a difficult module. I lost count of the amount of times I walked through Silbran, trying to work things out. A humble but memorable hub.

Blackguards' Yartar:

City Core & West Bank

The city core of Yartar is big and empty. I stopped playing after 20 minutes of walking around. I just felt like it was a desert of concrete, with little actual content. This was a few years ago now, so I'll have to give it another whirl.

Exile of the West's Prinzen Stadt, Köln: The City of Cologne [annotated]:

Yep, that's visually impressive. Note the marble tiling, the rows of trees, and the tinting to make the city look different. While it's a small hub, the top-tier descriptive writing fleshes the city out surprisingly well, without the need for physical representation.

***

I know what some people are going to say: "The maps all look similar. Tilesets suck!" Well, I think I've shown that there are enough layout differences here. Bear in mind, too, that when in-game many of these hubs have their own unique touches that are not covered here such as custom music and the like (Daggerford, Fairloch, Cologne, Darromar). This adds a lot. And of course, they all have different quests, dialogue, characterizations and so on, so I've never felt any hub to just be a reworked Neverwinter from the OC.

Moreover, it's worth repeating that there would probably be no Swordflight, no Aielund and no Honor Among Thieves if it wasn't for tilesets: they make it easy for dungeon masters and storytellers to put together their worlds and focus on the most important aspects of cRPGs such as reactivity, storytelling, characterizations and combat encounter design. To all the Infinity Engine veterans (and I am just as much an IE veteran as any of them) who criticize NWN and snub it for its tile-based visuals and other perceived inadequacies, please point to 700 NWN Modules for the Infinity Engine.

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