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Hypothetical - Artificial population increase mechanism

[Deleted User][Deleted User] UncommonPosts: 0
in The Pub at MMORPG.COM
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  • StonesDKStonesDK Member UncommonPosts: 1,805
    SWTOR should have done that. Might have made the game feel more alive
  • KyleranKyleran Member LegendaryPosts: 43,498
    I'm not sure I get what you mean sounds like NPCs with a more advanced scripting, which is no big improvement. It would be hard to make them random enough that players would not notice they weren't "real". For one thing, I don't play MMOs to have other people around me, I play them to socially interact with other people, and even if you fooled me into thinking they were just anti-social other players, I wouldn't be playing the game for long.

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  • anemoanemo Member RarePosts: 1,903
    why would a F2P even need to do this when players are perfectly willing to bot themselves.

    Practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent.

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  • MyTabbycatMyTabbycat Member UncommonPosts: 316
    I wouldn't think that would be viable for the company. You'd need resources to create, run and maintain 90% artificial player population. If they only had 10% playerbase to generate revenue, my guess is they would quickly go out of business.
  • davestr1zldavestr1zl Member Posts: 218

    If i enjoyed the gameplay - yes.

     

    Dont see why it would affect me if it hadnt negatively impacted me for the previous 6 months.

  • aspekxaspekx Member UncommonPosts: 2,167

    it would depend:

    IF i were thoroughly engrossed in the game and

    IF i could and did in fact enjoy, soloing most of the game then

    Yes.

    however, if either of those statements returned FALSE, then i would most certainly leave the game.

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    One could be called finite, the other infinite.
    A finite game is played for the purpose of winning,
    an infinite game for the purpose of continuing play."
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  • AxehandleAxehandle Member Posts: 147
    If the game was a wasteland with 1 player every 4-5 zones I'd be pretty pissed because it's a deceptive practice and if the company is willing to lie to customers they don't care about their customers. 

    Express your opinion

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  • rojoArcueidrojoArcueid Member EpicPosts: 10,722

    I feel the OP hates F2P games and failed to hide it behind that OP post. Why cant P2P developers do that instead? they are the ones claimed to have all the experience and money from subscriptions to be the best games. If artificial players were actually created to fill game worlds with people then that would happen on P2P mmos and not F2P. 

    Random Dev 1: hey gamers dont want to pay monthly for our poorly made mmos, they suck...

    Random Dev 2: i know right... lets make it F2P....

    Random Dev 1: Hell no... there must be a way for them sillys to keep paying.

    Random Dev 3: i got an idea, lets fill the world with artificial players so people think our game is popular and start subscribing.

    Random Dev 1 & 2: wooooooooooah! brilliant!.

     





  • QuizzicalQuizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,348
    If you could make NPCs clever enough that it took you six months to figure out that they were NPCs and not players, then that would be quite a nifty game feature, don't you think?
  • IchmenIchmen Member UncommonPosts: 1,228

    it would be easy to do with autopathing. all you do is set the "bot" to run from the healing npc to the quest node npc spending a few minutes at each, then it moves to the bank/storage npc and gear npcs then it teleports (logs out or whatever) put it on a delay so it waits a few minutes or an hour then logs in and repleats it. BAM you can claim the starter town or whatever is uber populated by having 5-10 bots running around doing nothing... most players wouldnt even notice  lololol as well devs can rename the toons so every week they throw in a new name and people wont know lol

     

    but its not just f2p games that can do this. any p2p/b2p whatever can do it. its a simple autopathing script lolol hell WoW could do it and claim it has gained another 10million users.. no one would even notice

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  • FromHellFromHell Member Posts: 1,311

    Artificial population increase mechanism -> scam. 

    Servers showing "full" and no one around -> scam. 

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  • ZyzraZyzra Member Posts: 354
    Originally posted by FromHell

    War Z -> scam. 

    Hammerpoint -> scam. 

    Fixed that for you.

  • redcappredcapp Member Posts: 722
    Who the hell wants to play a game full of bots?  Lol
  • ZyzraZyzra Member Posts: 354
    Originally posted by redcapp
    Who the hell wants to play a game full of bots?  Lol

    Yeah!  Computer controlled characters in MY MMO?!?!  No way man, I'll stick to my NPCs.... wait a minute

  • waynejr2waynejr2 Member EpicPosts: 7,769
    Originally posted by Quizzical
    If you could make NPCs clever enough that it took you six months to figure out that they were NPCs and not players, then that would be quite a nifty game feature, don't you think?

     Couldn't you just use the NPCs to do customer support? 

    Then sell those services out to other companies!

    $$$$$

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  • jimdandy26jimdandy26 Member Posts: 527
    General population is meaningless aslong as it maintains a healthy enough population to do whatever content you want to do.

    I did battle with ignorance today, and ignorance won.

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  • redcappredcapp Member Posts: 722
    Originally posted by Zyzra
    Originally posted by redcapp
    Who the hell wants to play a game full of bots?  Lol

    Yeah!  Computer controlled characters in MY MMO?!?!  No way man, I'll stick to my NPCs.... wait a minute

    You think I play MMOs for the NPCs?  Haha.

  • ZyzraZyzra Member Posts: 354
    Originally posted by redcapp
    Originally posted by Zyzra
    Originally posted by redcapp
    Who the hell wants to play a game full of bots?  Lol

    Yeah!  Computer controlled characters in MY MMO?!?!  No way man, I'll stick to my NPCs.... wait a minute

    You think I play MMOs for the NPCs?  Haha.

    You think when I saw you had written "Who the hell" I assumed YOU were everyone who plays MMOs?  Haha.

  • HeroEvermoreHeroEvermore Member Posts: 672
    Originally posted by Starpower
    SWTOR should have done that. Might have made the game feel more alive

    Didn't the players feel like AI anyway? I mean that game has some real poor animations and the environment itself....lulz...can you say 1980s movie green-screen :P

    Hero Evermore
    Guild Master of Dragonspine since 1982.
    Playing Path of Exile and deeply in love with it.

  • itgrowlsitgrowls Member Posts: 2,951

    depends on whether they made the appropriate changes needed to keep the players they had coming back.

    if no then no I wouldn't stay. having fake players is the same thing to me as giving the PR number of 1.7 million active subs over and over again or 10.1 million active subs for that matter.

  • ArclanArclan Member UncommonPosts: 1,550

    I think you're onto something O.P. Brilliant. How hard could it be to code the current crop of players, including:

    Beggars,
    Noobs,
    Power Gamers

    Beggars and noobs would be easy to script, and are a potential coin sink.
    For Power Gamers, just park a group of them at some camp. No need to respond to tells.

    Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon.
    In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit

  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775
    Originally posted by Kyleran
    I'm not sure I get what you mean sounds like NPCs with a more advanced scripting, which is no big improvement. It would be hard to make them random enough that players would not notice they weren't "real". For one thing, I don't play MMOs to have other people around me, I play them to socially interact with other people, and even if you fooled me into thinking they were just anti-social other players, I wouldn't be playing the game for long.

    Why would that make a difference? You won't have the time to talk to 99% of the players anyway.

    In my few years of playing WOW, i may have met, and talked to at most a hundred or two of players. That is less than a single digit percentage of a WOW server population.

  • madazzmadazz Member RarePosts: 2,106
    Originally posted by nariusseldon
    Originally posted by Kyleran
    I'm not sure I get what you mean sounds like NPCs with a more advanced scripting, which is no big improvement. It would be hard to make them random enough that players would not notice they weren't "real". For one thing, I don't play MMOs to have other people around me, I play them to socially interact with other people, and even if you fooled me into thinking they were just anti-social other players, I wouldn't be playing the game for long.

    Why would that make a difference? You won't have the time to talk to 99% of the players anyway.

    In my few years of playing WOW, i may have met, and talked to at most a hundred or two of players. That is less than a single digit percentage of a WOW server population.

    Which goes to show you don't have experience with the way MMO's used to be. This is what people have been complaining about and requesting in a new MMO. It's fine to have games that aren't sociable, but some want a community. You don't seem to be able to grasp that.

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