Were towns really this small in the Old West America or is RDR2 being unrealistic?

[Amplifier]

I just realized this after hours of playing. The towns aren't really towns? Now I'm no cowboy history expert but I'm pretty sure towns should be bigger, right? For example Valentine only has like a few dozen houses at best. Almost all of them serve some purpose as a shop or station. Not as a home. So where are all the NPCs living at?

This feels like the whole Bethesda treatment except you'd expect Rockstar known for the likes of GTA-scale cities to at least simulate an actual sized town.

[Protoman]

Remember this game was released on consoles too. The scale is very reduced compared to real life. In a few of Arthur's diary entries, he describes how long it took them to reach some place (usually days or weeks), while in the game itself you can go to the same place, and it takes a few minutes.

[Lord_Darque]

Towns are as small now days as they were back then. Many towns started as a ranch that was too far away from any other town for the workers to get supplies so the ranch owner ordered in supplies to be delivered and the owner made some kind of supply depot for the workers to spend their cash in. And when the ranch grew bigger so did the need for bigger and more stores. Some ranches were so far from any civilisations that the workers brought their families, much like John and his family in RDR2. Some ranches had so many families it needed schools, churches and entertainment (saloons). Eventually families made their own businesses (Clothes stores and so on) and some ranch towns grew into cities. And some didn't. Some towns started up due to a gold rush where many buildings only temporary disappearing when the gold ran out only leaving just enough buildings to be a small town. But all towns started off small. Just like there are small towns today.

[Gershu]

Originally posted by Amplifier:

I just realized this after hours of playing. The towns aren't really towns? Now I'm no cowboy history expert but I'm pretty sure towns should be bigger, right? For example Valentine only has like a few dozen houses at best. Almost all of them serve some purpose as a shop or station. Not as a home. So where are all the NPCs living at?

This feels like the whole Bethesda treatment except you'd expect Rockstar known for the likes of GTA-scale cities to at least simulate an actual sized town.

Saint Dennis was inspired by New Orleans (Louisiana, USA). Coding 287.000 NPCs to exhibit different behaviour (real pop in 1900) and mapping an area of 170 square miles (city size in 1900), represents a technical challenge that goes beyond economics and technical possibilities for any video game.

To answer your question: scale.

The same reason why maps are meant to fit in your pocket without actually being as big as the are they represent.

[RynoHawk]

Originally posted by Protoman:

Remember this game was released on consoles too. The scale is very reduced compared to real life. In a few of Arthur's diary entries, he describes how long it took them to reach some place (usually days or weeks), while in the game itself you can go to the same place, and it takes a few minutes.

Not just "released on consoles too", but introduced on consoles over a year before being released on PC.

[identity]

A lot of video games don't, or more accurately "can't", represent what a livable city actually looks like. You can get pretty close, or at least have a fair representation of it, like what you would see in old western movies that were often the same set being reused over and over (one of them in particular is pretty famous and in MANY movies).

Basically, the answer is no; video games, or movies, are not necessarily an accurate representation of size. Authentic, sure, but even 100 people requires significant residential infrastructure that games can very easily remove and still make the town look believable.

[Vote Quimby]

Perhaps the most accurate towns in size in games like TTD. Or OpenTTD.

[Lord_Darque]

Read what I said earlier PLUS, how many Western movies have you seen where those out on a ranch have to ride into some small town to get supplies and mail? Towns often did, and still do, have just a store with supplies and a post office. And then 100s of ppl, many many miles away, will ride into "town" for supplies and mail. You don't need 100s of ppl to live inside a town's limits to be a town. Usually the distance between towns is measured from a town's centre which is the post office. As long as there is a post office it can be classed as a town, I guess.

Here, in Australia, in the outback, we have massive distances between cattle or sheep properties (ranch) cos those properties can be 100s and 100s of miles wide. If you dare to drive around you'll find many many little towns no more than post office and pub put together with iron roofing. Usually if there is a pub some shacks or actual houses might be built in the town so those that had too much to drink had a roof over their head to sleep it off. But, a post office, a shop, a pub and a couple of houses in between properties or on some property are everywhere in the outback... One of the best nights I had was in a town with 5 houses, and a pub, slash, post office. I was there for 3 days waiting for a friend to come into town, from a far off property. The first 2 days I only saw the pub owner. But Friday was the pub's fish and chips night. By the afternoon, what seem from nowhere, more cars than road, out the front of the pub, came into town. After more fish that Jesus could provide was eaten, a half a truck beer was drank, many sing-alongs with 2 talented guitars players, the sun rose and we all passed out. But by Saturday afternoon the bull ants had eaten all the vomit and the town was back town was back to just me and the pub owner.