Has it been officially said that Port Merrick is 'done' and nothing new is going to be added to it? Personally it still feels unfinished and has the same issues as the Original Golden Sands, that being the Back Island is useless.
Like idk why would you walk the bridge from Tavern Island to the 'Lighthouse' Island when its literally empty, there's like 2 Barrels, 2 of the Buildings are locked shut, the Lighthouse isn't even a lighthouse, more just a big signal flare tower. They also put Stairs down to a tiny beach for some reason? There's nothing on the Beach and its weird that there's a staircase down to nothing. That Staircase was one of the first things built early in the Rebuilding so the fact it just went nowhere was really disappointing. I saw those stairs and thought maybe they'll finally have a plan for this Island, but I guess not, they just made sure it kept to the same aesthetic and left it unused still. At the very least they could've made it the actual Lighthouses from the APL Talltales, as in ones where you can really move the Lens to create a beam of Light and cast it on parts of the Outpost or the Sea Rocks around it.
Obviously there's also the issue of no NPCs, which I still believe there is no excuse for. ''It'll strain bad machines'' no it won't lol. MOVING NPCs that follow a walk cycle, sure that might, But I'm at least asking for stationary ones. If you sincerely think adding like 5 Stationary NPCs will be the make or break for if someone can run this game, you need to consider that basically every single update they could make would do the same. The entire concept of Hourglass, Sea Forts, Shrines, etc would just fry someone's bad PC if that was the case. If its really that big a deal then just have the NPCs not show up on Cursed Graphics which is likely what bad machines are running, and obviously you can't be complaining that people may not run it well if they're also opting into higher spec of graphics. You know how many Stationary NPCs are in the Pirate Hideout? 18. Each Outpost has 13 by Default. They very much can add some more Stationary NPCs to the Port to make it feel more lived in. Have a few in the Tavern, some gazing out to Sea, some leaning against the walls watching passers by, some on the Balconies watching down. It just feels so... Empty... more so than all the outposts simply due to how big and full it is compared to the others which are mostly just a small area of buildings on a very large Island mostly unused. The only unused part of the Port is the Back Island, everywhere else is incredibly Dense and to see it completely empty makes it feel like a Ghost Town, like the Reapers won and it was left uninhabitable. You could put reaper fog on the Port, put some Reapers Red banners everywhere and Change the Lanterns to the ones we see at the Hideout and I'm pretty sure it would pass as the ''Reaper Garrison'' we would've gotten otherwise. The other outposts only have buildings for the companies to do their work, there's no regular Inhabitants its only those at work, but Port Merrick has plenty of housing for regular residents, yet they just I guess sit at home never touching grass just like us. The fact that the incredible work done by Rare on the Port makes the port really feel lived in goes completely to waste because they won't just go that last step further to give it some NPCs. Literally just fish some models out of the Emporium and whip up some meh clothing combinations in 2 minutes. You already have the necessary animations too. Mysterious Stranger leaning against a wall, Emporium Intrigue to gaze out at Sea, Generally just sitting down, etc. I really cant imagine it would be super difficult to make this happen.
