After seeing this reddit post by user /u/Goodbye_Galaxy , and idea came to my mind. What if we could actually develop an actual village like that one? Making a village could actually become a great new feature. Just imagine it, it could be something like this: #Village Expansion Joja had 'huge' plans to build a bunch of "Luxurious Condos" to the East of the village After the Joja mart closes, they give up on those plans and put the JojaMart building and the land on sale. The Player can now donate gold and materials to purchase the JojaMart and turn it into a small inn with a visitor center An event would be required to open the visitor center, in which the player gets one of two currently unemployed marriage candidates like Shane the live-in job to manage the place. If that one gets married to you, the other one will take the job instead. After turning the JojaMart into a visitor center, random visitors appear and check the village and local farms. Visitors can be found occasionally in the village, on the beach, at the spa or in the woods, and may ask for a picture, for directions, or info about the local area like fishing spots, local delicacies or what they could find foraging. They may also sometimes request to visit your farm by appearing at the entrance, if you let them in, they will follow you and try to do the same things you are doing like like petting or feeding animals or harvesting crops. But they may not always do it right, so it can be risky. They could also appear lost in the deep woods, trapped in the quarry or for some reason in a dungeon level, and you can help them by talking to them and giving them directions. The better you treat the visitors and the better your farm is doing, the more they will like the valley. After enough visitors like the valley the mayor will talk to you about the abandoned land east of town and ask you whether you would be interested in helping to expand the village so these visitors can stay indefinitely Now you can pay gold to buy the abandoned Joja plot to the east of town, and materials to prepare it for building, and talk with Robin about building houses there. Once purchased and prepared, players can use the space for non-farming purposes: Players can't plant crops or fruit trees, but can plant normal trees and grass. Trees and grass planted in the village won't spread and can't be tapped, but it's possible to cut the grass. Can't place artisan or refining equipment outdoors, but players can still put them inside sheds. Can't build most farm buildings there, except Wells, Sheds and Cabins. But there would be a few new buildings to put there, like: Different visitor houses with different sizes, number of rooms, and layouts. There could be new bed and kitchen furniture to place in them, or they could come with it. Or they could just be seen from the outside, without having to do interiors or decorating those houses. A house with a storefront. A limited number of them can be placed, but if occupied by a visitor they turn into random shops that sell random items of a specific type, like food, or seeds, or furniture. Like visitor houses, they could have an interior or be just the outside, with the shopkeeper appearing at the window like the hat shop. So you can plant normal trees and grass, build roads, build shacks and cabins, build houses and shops to rent, store items, make your own little museum, build a village, put there your preserves and equipment inside sheds there, and build yourself a neat little village. To make a house in the village available for rent, players have to craft a mailbox and attach it by the door like how we attach tappers to trees. A random visitor will move in. The mailbox will sometimes get an icon indicating the visitor would be interested in something. Putting those items in the shipping box, selling them to Pierre or bringing them to the visitor directly would make them available to them, and increase their happiness, not having them available will reduce it. Visitors that are happy pay more rent, visitors that are unhappy leave and other random visitors move in to replace them. While building up happiness would be quick by giving them those items right away, building up unhappiness would take longer, as they will wait a whole season with the same item request before giving up on it and losing happiness points. There could also be a series of events that leads to Kent getting a job working with Robin. One tends the store if only one of them is working. This also allows building two buildings at a time, and paying a bit extra to double the building time by having both work on it. In multiplayer, it would be possible to build the cabins in the Expanded Village area. It could be possible to move cabins and sheds between the farm and the expanded village at the Carpenter's Shop. Don't ask me how, this world has magic, so call it carpenter's lifestyle magic. And if you did sided with Joja, the plans to build the condos was going to move forward, but still give up on the project eventually for some reason. You can still buy the plot of land and build there, but it'll cost several times more gold and no materials to prepare the land, as Joja had done the preparations themselves before giving up the project.
My problem with the idea is tourism skimming off a community. I'm not even sure I'd ever accept the idea of them renting. Only if residents fully integrate themselves and contribute to the core functioning of the valley's community beyond tourist money could I willingly accept the premise. They must assimilate in some way that is life-altering in both inner and outer senses beyond "appreciating" the valley and spending their time and money there for it to resonate with me as any part of this game. What that could look like might be a tech-obsessed art student Leah befriends through their shared love of the beach, and from Leah they learn respect for analogue and hand-crafts as well as the quietude afforded by time offline and the craft disciplines that yield the physical materials and media of natural art supplies (reference Winsor & Newton pigments IRL—no, I'm not affiliated). Rather than the boutique brand consultancy originally planned, the student decides instead to document and promulgate the expertise and ethos underpinning the town's economic and logistical reliance upon nature, and Robin helps them understand ways to promote responsible policy. Elliot convinces them to shift away from synthetic bodycare and household products, including sunscreens that harm ocean ecology. Eventually the student becomes a permanent resident by documenting the annual Fall grange show produced on the day, edited in a flurry of effort, and screened to end it each year in the evening—or perhaps to kick off Spirit's Eve a bit later in the year, something like that. They collaborate with Leah on signage for her gallery showings in their village store-front, postcard design, 1-of-a-kind painted clothing and jewelry items, etc. Rather than digital prints, technology helps publicize her work of exclusively original pieces for sale. That kind of thing. Another could be a Joja exec who becomes an ex-Joja exec environmental lawyer or something to dismantle them, and an avid customer of your artisan goods. Nuts-and-bolts-wise, I strain to but can understand not planting crops or even tapping trees, but I definitely would want to do as much as possible else. My thoughts from the 1.4 Update thread on an herb greenhouse and distillery to offer fresh, dried, and distilled botanicals and blends might mesh reasonably well as a shopfront such as you've described, but likely even better as a shelf or two at Pierre's for the sake of the player's quality-of-life. If, however, the village were a mix of both land fully farmable by the player and not in the village (like Pelican Town proper is in the original game), it might offer the best of both worlds, in that sense. I'm not even sold—no pun intended—on the idea of selling, necessarily. What if your goods are made for those you intend specifically and no one else? That art student character I spun up, for example, could admire your herb greenhouse on a visit and offer to buy some product but be refused and only after Leah recommends a specific blend for them will they get that as a gift through her that eventually leads them to learn enough to inquire about ingredients suitable for a specific purpose they have in mind like a soothing blend for better sleep instead of staying up on technology with insomnia, and only then do you get to give them those specific ingredients (or an improved formula with your input) and start a friendship of your own with them. The ex-Joja exec could found a land trust for the valley to keep sharks like Joja and destructive/extractive industry out forever. Without some meaningful story anchoring them into Stardew Valley, to me they erode not enhance the game.
The tourists would only be the ones in the new building replacing the JojaMart. The people in the village would move in to live. Since just giving money regularly could be a tad boring, instead having them paying rent, each person who moves in could increase the money you earn as demand for your products increases. Since the player would be the one paying for the houses, the new villagers would have to give back some of that, or it would be too much of a sink. It could be random: Some may rent for a while, then switch to become owners if they decide to stay for good. Some may pay it over the first year in a few installments. Others may pay all at once in full. Some may ask for a low income housing grant, in which case you don't get much back or even nothing at all, but some villagers like struggling artists may not move in unless you give them a house for free. You could go to the expanded village area and check the houses prepared for new villagers, and each one could get 1 or more possible people interested in moving in it based on the decorations you put inside, and you decide who gets the house. If the decorations are not enough for any possible new villager, none would want to move in, but if you put decorations that multiple villages may want, then many people may want that house. There could be then an small overall increase of your earnings of a small % per new inhabitant like just 0.25...1%, then certain specific inhabitants could increase the value of specific items. Some of them would be shops and also sell items: Someone opens a fish shop and becomes a fishmonger. Your seafood products increase in value by 2% Someone opens a greengrocer. Your fruits and vegetables increase in value by 1.5% each . Someone opens a delicatessen. Your processed products increase in value by 4%. Someone opens a milk bar or an ice cream shop. Your milk increases in value by 5%. Someone opens a flower shop. Your flowers increase in value by 2.5%. A jeweler moves in and opens a jewelry store. Your gems, precious metals and seashells increase in value by 3%. A carpenter moves in an opens a furniture shop. You earn more from all types of wood and from some metals (gotta make nails). A tailor moves in and sells customizations for your work clothes (replacing or coexisting with the Wizard's Basement). Your fabric products increase in value. When a tailor moves in you could also buy cashmere goats and angora rabbits, learn a recipe to make silkworm frame artisan equipment to raise silkworms and produce silk, and buy seeds to plant cotton, flax, hemp and jute. A cook moves in and opens a restaurant. All cooking ingredients raise in value by 1%. A struggling artists moves in an regularly sells decorations like paintings and statues. Your items that can have artistic purposes like materials used to make pigments and stone raise in value by 0.1% Maybe also reduce the prices in shops by a small % for each new villager, as the shopkeepers can afford to buy in larger amounts and get discounts. And when they ask for an item, instead giving you money for it, they could give something in exchange. For example: * A carpenter or an artist may give you house decorations. * A cook may give you new cooking recipes. * A tailor may give you a new hat or a new pair of boots. * A jeweler may give you a new ring. * Foodstuff shops may give you out of season foods.
It's not that I'm opposed to the mechanics purely from a gameplay perspective but that others would be seen through a landlord's lense by players rather than as fellow community members whose inner lives are the primary reason they exist in the game. CA would have to somehow thread that needle for me to accept it, let alone be interested (which I say not because my opinion is so important, but rather to promote the continuance of what I think is better about Stardew than the average game—I mean, Sims and Portia are "similar" but to me soulless and completely uninteresting). Strictly speaking, characters including Alex and his family, Abigail, Sebastian, are all "useless". A useful character, Clint, bores me to tears but that's just who he is. Turning Joja's building into a hotel is the antithesis of community, to me, and furthermore occupants who can afford to stay longer in that capacity are even more so than those making a short stay. Either they're making a short visit to assess moving there in which case they should just be a new character, or they're long-term skimming off the community, like I said originally. It just doesn't work, IMO. All your mechanics about bartering and discounts and such could plug into the existing game just fine, but I take issue with what I consider to be short shrift given to what the implications are for the intangible social aspects of the game that I think are much more important.
It's just not feasible to add that many characters with backgrounds. No one knows absolutely everyone in every community. They will be more people that comes to the village to improve and make it thrive, but the player would still be mostly in contact with the closer friends. There's already other strangers seen in festivals, and they have not diminished the experience of the game.
Tourists at festivals had no involvement in gameplay mechanics. No one who is should lack deep character, IMO. What I've said is entirely consistent with the original game.
That is a point Stardew Valley is missing. Fellow villagers that are not neighbors. People with whom you interact but not as much as with your closer friends. A healthy thriving community doesn't need everyone to know everyone's daily lives. There's also background characters like there's extras in TV shows and movies. Procedurally generated acquaintances would fill that gap, and also allow players to make their own villages. And the idea isn't forcing people to use that space for a player-made village populated with NPCs with generated backgrounds and less story depth. That's just one of the things that can be done with it. Although the village would not allow farming buildings, crops, fruit trees and crafting stations, it would allow teleport obelisks (and probably a new obelisk to teleport between the farm and the village expansion), flowers, guest Cabins, Sheds and other trees. And of course houses. So someone who doesn't want to have more population in their village can just not put deeds on the houses, and nobody would move in for them, and they would be able to build creations with sheds, houses, furniture and other decorations and non-farming buildings without using up farm space. You could, for instance, make a series of museums displaying all the stuff you've collected over the years by putting there a bunch of large houses with tables and filling the tables with items. And someone who wants to invite friends for multiplayer but has all their farm space used up won't need to take anything down to put them there, they could put the gust Cabins in the village expansion area.
If you notice the beach, it curves up on the east side, meaning that there doesn't seem to be much land to the east of Pelican Town for a village expansion. But there could be another beach, with some more land. So, my idea is to use that land/beach combo to build a lovely beach resort! You could grow new plants and raise new animals of interest to the tourists, of course. I really like the idea of raising special animals for special cloth to create clothing to sell at a clothing store. And that herb greenhouse with craftable "potions" sounds really cool, too! You could hire some of the villagers that were put out of work by destroying Joja, or maybe get some new blood in, to help you run the resort. I think it should only be unlocked after you do the Community Center or complete the Joja thing. Either one would unlock the land for use, and allow Shane or Sam to get a promotion to resort worker. Kent would also be available to work at the resort. So, for a resort, you'd need a hotel, with hotel manager, and at least one housekeeping staff. You'd need a breakfast buffet, and possibly lunch and dinner dining, as well, but definitely breakfast. You'd need some fun things for visitors (both tourists and villagers!) to do, so that's a good place to put the skatepark that Sam needs, as well as a dating destination to bring your lovers to. Wouldn't it be nice to initiate a heart event with them, instead of waiting for them to initiate with you? So, you go to the Romantic Rendezvous, and click on the telephone to invite over your love interest. Each Bachelor/Bachelorette gets a slightly different dialogue, that suits their character. And another, more generic, dialogue for multi-players to enjoy together. A souvenir shop would be a good place to sell those odd items that don't sell at Pierre's, Willy's, or Clint's. "Oooh! Look, Mommy! Real fiber! Can I have it?" Alternately, you could learn a few new crafting recipes, specifically to sell as souvenirs. Maybe incorporating those minerals you get from the geodes, for example, as well as seashells and forgeable items. You might also build a small apartment complex, to house those adults that want to move out of their parents' homes. That could be right next to the hotel. Also, if you complete the Community Center, and put Joja out of business, I'd love to see that old building turned into something useful, like a Flea Market (where you can actually sell the unsellable stuff, like furniture, old hats you don't want, and maybe even those annoying slingshots that you've already upgraded and can't get rid of), or maybe the Traveling Merchant will come there a couple of days a week. Leah could sell her art there, and you could buy new decorative pieces. Maybe you could actually BUY the tea-set. Speaking of decorative pieces, it would be nice if you could get some outdoor furniture. Perhaps those could be sold at the Flea Market. Benches, chairs, tables with umbrellas on them. You know, the sort of furniture you put on your porch, or on a patio or nice sitting area outside. These could be purchased at the Flea Market, too. Of course, if you do use the old Joja building for something else, you need to make it something that does not have SO much appeal that no one is willing to go the Joja route, anymore. So, maybe not the Flea Market, after all. OR, if you do the Joja route, then Joja expands its stock to include Flea Market-type stuff, such as outdoor furniture, tea-sets, and art work.
Even I wouldn't want the herb greenhouse without its produce given story significance, of which I sketched a hypothetical example in my story about Leah's documentarian friend. The idea of running a hotel just seems so antithetical to the entire ethos behind Stardew, to me, that even were its occupants given their own character and backgrounds, I would still reject it unless they somehow integrated via story into the core community and fabric of Pelican Town and its functioning indefinitely. I'm surprised, saddened, and disappointed if I prove to be in the minority among Stardew players, but it's something I would rather accept than continue calling myself a fan. Are players really so numb to what makes Stardew special?
There could be no hotel. Hotels are big and full of people, and it would not make much sense to have the player character do that. Turning the joja mart into a small cozy inn is just a way to explain how the village is 'on the map' and it getting visitors for more than local festivals, while keeping the number of visitors small. The reason why more people may fall in love with the local lifestyle and move in. The impact of the inn would be mostly narrative and a material skin. A narrative way to introduce the new system and to replace the "JojaMart" eyesore with something that fits a small rural town, while also adding a few more things in which to spend materials. So the inn would have to be very small. Possibly just 1, 2 or 3 rooms. The player is a farmer. Even going down the dungeon and foraging can also be considered 'farming' in a broader sense of the word. It makes sense to allow the player to decide where houses go in the village and decorate the roads and houses because it's a creative process, and it would also allow using the extended area for more than making a village. People would be able to share their expanded village creations like they do with their farms. But it would not make sense to have the player running a hotel, and everything that isn't 'farming', 'village life', or 'creative' would be done by NPCs. That's why Robin would still be the one building in the expanded village area, and an NPC would run the inn.
I think I stand with Skinflint on this one. I think there's a few smaller ideas that could be taken out of this one (like generic NPCs that you don't get to build relationships with) but as a whole it doesn't really fit the game, at all. Long response as I'm going to respond to most of the thread at once. Morris and JojaMart were chased out of town because of (aside from being total jerks and attempting to monopolize general commerce in the area) trying to turn Pelican Town into something it isn't. Ignoring for now the game's genre and why people play it, I don't see why the people would just say "good thing Joja's gone, now we can do the exact same things they were doing!" Why go through that effort? Just make a new character. They can be a non-interactive "generic" character since that seems to be a hard sell for you. Alternatively, why make it a 24/7 job if there's two (there's more than 2 unemployed characters in the valley, by the way, even if they weren't working for Joja before) different characters that could fit the bill? Just give them alternating schedules. I don't mind a few random NPCs moving around the town but I have a few problems with this. For one, I don't want them going in the deep woods, quarry, or caves. And please no farm tourism/showcasing, just... no. Please no. Really, I don't want them to be interactive at all. I want them generic (don't look different from each other, except gender), and either no dialogue or generic "hi" dialogue. No questions, no directions, no "random wandering" (they could go to stores, the saloon, the clinic, the beach, the playground, etc, but not just wandering from place to place). I could imagine these characters appearing in some heart events, such as an event where a generic NPC asking someone directions to a place that isn't in town, or Vincent experiencing stranger danger (the NPC doesn't actually have to be doing anything wrong since that can get super dark super quick, but when you first talk to Vincent on Spring 1 or Spring 2 he says he mom said not to talk to strangers so just referencing that), or something to that nature. But outside of one-time events I don't really want them approaching me or being made to help them or anything like that. I feel like it'd be disruptive to gameplay, not assisting it. But a generic character buying something at Pierre's or getting a drink at the saloon or standing at the bus stop, sounds like a good idea to me so long as there's only a few. Like maybe 1-3 generic characters in town visible to the player every day. Anything else would be a bit too cluttered. Less is more. I don't see why my farm (especially later in the game when it's established that I would be well-off enough to be a viable supply source for the valley already) would impact whether or not randos enjoy the town, especially if your idea requires that they're not particularly special and we're not exactly getting to know them. And how would "the better your farm is doing" be measured anyways? The community center bundles, the Joja expansion, and grandpa's evaluation already serve that purpose, and this is end-game content where we've already been evaluated as doing well. Not everyone plays the game with the express purpose of becoming multi-billionaires. Lewis is the mayor. The player is just a farmer who did some "heroic" activities. I don't really understand why this would be up to the player at all. This sounds like a city planning game, but Stardew Valley is a farming rpg. Not to mention, doing this really does just make the player seem like "Morris 2.0 but now they're nicer this time". It's still trying to make the valley something it's not. Pelican Town is a small country town and the story establishes very well that's what it's supposed to be. Not sure why it has to be Kent specifically, and I don't know that the player should be able to build two buildings at the same time, but I've been thinking for a while that the way stores are run in the game can be a bit troublesome. Not the worst idea, overall I like this part. If Joja gave up the project, why would some random farmer be better equipped to see it to fruition? This is pretty much my take on the thread. Bigger doesn't mean better, and I think it's better for the game's expansions to stay more in-line with what the game's intentions actually are. A farming simulator is not a city planning game. A small town doesn't need to develop a massive population. If you watch the game's opening when making a new character, you'll be reminded that the character moved into Pelican Town in the first place because they needed the warmth of a community. This is what we have in the current game: a well-established neighborhood community. New additions to the game should not clash with what we already have. I think this is where the idea fails. It's two different ideas, and because at first glance they seem to be similar, you're trying to wrap it up as a single idea. How does a tourism feature benefit the game? What does that add, mechanically or narratively? Is that really the best way to provide those benefits? How would someone moving into a tightly-knit community that provides only small bits to the community help the game in any way? Why do they have to move into an adjacent village that you made but for some reason don't live in despite making it to fit your needs perfectly, instead of moving into Pelican Town itself? When you break it down, it's not actually one idea. It's two or maybe even three of them. It's cluttered and doesn't fit the tone of this particular game. That's why it feels like such a game-changer. There's appeal because it's more and because it's different, but when you actually take it apart and look at it it's trying to fit a circle peg into a square hole. It's not impossible, if the circle peg is the right size, but it's not a good fit and a better idea would be putting the circle peg in a circle hole and saving the square hole for a square peg. There's better ways to make up for that weakness (if it is indeed a weakness; that's a bit more subjective, and personally I think the game's fine as it is) without introducing village-building. It REALLY doesn't.
Yes, it makes sense, because the player is a human. And the village layout is a creative component like farm layout. The main idea is having a non-farm area to expand the village. To show how your influence as a farmer makes the village prosper, to give players more creative options, to free farm space for buildings like the multiplayer buildings, etc.
I'd rather the farm itself be expanded than radically alter the town's dynamics, if multiplayer buildings really cramp your style. A non-farm expansion is one thing; semi-perma-tourists are quite another, in my book. If playing a human is all you think it takes for you to post ideas for what you think players should therefore be able to do as that human, then this thread may as well be titled "to do anything" and will never, ever die. Just let it go unless you've got genuine counter-arguments, is my advice. Helicoptering out farther and farther is getting ridiculous.
The problem here is that you've formed an idea of what this would be in your mind that does not match what I'm trying to say, and derailing the thread in a very negative way. They would not be tourists. Only 1-2 tourists would exist at a time outside festivals. The ones who move in the expanded area would be new villagers.
I'm sure that in your mind what you're trying to say is golden and cannot possibly have any valid criticism levelled against it, which is a problem in and of itself in a public forum, but furthermore all any of us can do is respond to what you actually say, not what you're trying to say, since we can't read your mind. It takes humility to admit to one's self let alone others that perhaps your impulses have led you to something that doesn't and/or cannot work quite as you'd hoped in practice. What I've responded to is what I feel to be the most salient, threatening facet of your proposal, which is in fact a service to the discussion. Disagreement does not entail personal negativity; to the extent I directed some at you it is because your defenses of your idea have been progressively less articulate and substantive rather than addressing the critique, which is insulting to those who leveled it. It's also excruciating to find it necessary to write a painstaking explanation of basic decorum to a public forum. If you either can't see or can't appreciate that, then yeah, you'll never consider my point of view to be anything other than an illegitimate, gratuitously negative, meanspirited and stubbornly wrong-headed harrangue. Not my problem. I will say that I may choose to bow out of conversing with someone that incapable of mature exchange. *shrug* I notice you have progressively minimized in your own idea what I critiqued, so you're ether too proud/afraid to lose your idea/the feeling of your idea in your head or are unaware that your behavior is tacitly making my point for me. Why not just admit I made a good point you hadn't thought of and evidently still don't know how to address as you agree it should be, and accept that your ideas may not quite work out. I've all along acknowledged the parts of your proposals that seem fine to me to work into the game in other ways. Stupidly obvious fixes I've sumbitted (e.g. wild trees still going bare with snow on them in Winter when grown in the Greenhouse) fail to be implemented, and your proposals are far greater an ask, but even on obvious, tiny corrections I don't take it personally when they never materialize, and all the more shouldn't you, including critiques that may disqualify them from actual consideration for implementation as stated.
