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No NPCs
Consuetudo
Member UncommonPosts: 191
Every character, ruler, merchant and soldier is a player character. There is not one implementation of ammunition, armor, or clothing the resources of which were not gathered by players, and which were not crafted by players. No city exists until players constructed them, and no wars are waged unless players instigate them.
The game will begin at launch with thousands of players being assigned to a developer-controlled settler. The players and settler will determine a location to end the hunter-gatherer age--which is when the game begins--and they will settle down to begin a new subsistence lifestyle. All players will be given separate tasks that the demands of this new society requires, a division of labor in other words, partitioned by the initial developer settler. The more loyal and devoted of the players will be noticed, as will the ones who gain power and influence, and slowly they will be given the reigns of government, handed over from the developer. The division of labor will then be monitored and partitioned by the player-run republic, as will the wars be instigated, and the economy presided over.
Some players will make houses, some will gather resources. Some will fight in wars when necessary, and some will choose to be vagabonds.
For most players the game will be an RPG, but a few will have an interface that looks more like an RTS, a city builder, a GSG, or an RTT.
Comments
The problem is players are unreliable. Just needing to sleep and eat alone prevents this from being a system that can run smoothly 24-7. And what if a player opens a bank and then burns out 6 months down the line or rl gets to busy. Also players are single track. What does one player do when 30 players want to sell their mats at once. A player can not multitask enough to handle the kind of simple tasks that an NPC can. Not even a well organized group of players. On top of all of that is difference in time zones issues...
An NPC can multitask. It doesn't get tired. It doesn't need to eat. And, NPC's buying and selling things at fixed rates also help keep markets stable by not letting any thing fall below the store price. NPC's have their purpose. Maybe we can let players get a piece of the dominion that NPC's currently hold. But we cannot do away with NPC's all together.
Funny. I'd like to see the opposite. You would work with NPC so smart that they seem like real people. So you might run into the bartender and she might want to go on an adventure with you to steal some gold from some Gobins after work - and not only would she come with you like an escort quest but she could talk with various players about things in the game world. And I don't mean 'respond to via mutiple choice' but actually talk. So you could say something like what do you think of Queen Jennah - and the NPC would have an answer for you.
EQ:N is trying something along these lines with storybricks. But I'd like to see them take it much further. "smarter" NPCs will make the world feel more alive making it feel more immersive for the player characters..
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/ref/Callaron/
With a lack of NPCs some roles would resort to feeling like a huge chore and turn off, imagine coming home from work then setting up a store for 5 hours only to get a few gold, or be a city guard but the waves of monsters that attack the city are farmed by adventurers.
Some repetitive tasks work better with NPCs, I'd have to agree though that there needs to be a push in improving their behaviour and immersion, instead of being lawn ornaments.
Unless there has been a breakthrough in programming I don't know about I don't see how this is possible. NPCs can only do what you program them to do. They work like calculators adding and subtracting. They can only say what you program them to say. That means you would have to program them with many different lines of dialogue and they would have to respond to be programmed to respond to many different keywords in your text. I'd imagine that the work put into creating something like that would cost more and take more time then it would likely return to you.
It wouldn't surprise me if it happened one day, when technology has evolved sufficiently again.
Many of the things we're seeing today in videogames are beyond impressive when you compare them to old games like Pacman and stuff, or even Doom vs one of today's shooters - the levesl of AI, interactivity, graphics, etc...
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/ref/Callaron/
Too much like a political rpg,that is not FUN enough for most gamer's to enjoy.It also lets the developer off the hook for effort and creating a world with LORE and reason.I feel the ideas are decent enough if within a bigger structure.
I do support the idea of items not being in the game or within the NPC's inventory until crafted by players first.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
They already have NPCs that act as companions and NPCs that lead you through short quests. It shouldn't be a problem to put the two together. An NPC you meet in a bar that becomes a temp companion and leads you through a quest.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
You need hire people role as NPC to get that kind of "smarter" . That's only possible way since it will need more than 50 years to get that kind of intelligence and cost is no joke , i think only military able to have it.
It work same as how real life theme park work.
Maybe 2 to 3 people for small village with 4 to 10 talk able NPCs and 10 for a big city with 20 to 30 NPCs.(only count NPCs that able to talk and give quest , not guards)
If there are 10 big cites then about more than 100 people , put in 4 shift then we need more than 200 real humans to run a system like that (lol)
Actually I think only the Japanese have it. And, they use it for making out and virtual dating *slowly shakes head*.
Now, my favorite NPC to Player co-dependency, was in Aika Online. Everyone had a follower called a pran. Not only could you do simple things like level it and name it, or have it hold things for you. But, it's personality changed over time based on how you treated it. It would talk while out and about (usually relevant things). It had a chance to make mistakes and comment on said mistakes based on it's personality. And you grew it up (it kind of evolved like a poke'mon, each progressive stage took more time and effort as well as materials in).
You could accessorize your pran. And, it would engage you in conversations that didn't seem meaningless (though they were very much aside from whatever the task at hand was). The pran had a disposition to everything you did (again based on it's personality > from the way you treated it). It even got hungry. And, because you were exponentially more powerful with your pran out and being used. Few people ever put theirs away. You felt the difference in ability without your pran's passive buffing, and you felt the difference in power when you asked it for an active buff (which it could refuse if it didn't like you).
The pran companion system made the player responsible to another being in a way that didn't feel generic or useless on the whole. It was more like an extension of your own character and personality, because it mirrored you.
It's called "Real Life". All I can say is AI/NPC are dumb for a reason.
The possibility of the universe collapsing into a singularity is higher than the birth of a perfect MMORPG.
"Real life" is a terrible game. It's a long hard grind with no guarantee of rewards (sometimes your actually punished). It has too many skills with heavy buy-ins. It's riddled with bugs (that never get fixed). The devs hate the players and do whatever they can to thwart their efforts (the worst part is they wait until the players get comfortable to take action). The end game is really slow paced and uninspired. And, it has perma death with no option to make a new account/character (unless you choose the eastern religion class, which makes you a support role any way, sub-class - outsource).
I could only see something like this work if there were like placeholder NPC's that people could take over. And that would be put back in place if the player was not active for a while.
There are simply to many needed jobs that most people would find to boring. And people can't be online 24/7 which could cause many issues.
I think there was a mmorpg that had this kind of no npc system though. I can't remember the name but I do remember there were some issues with their version of the police abusing their power.
Still it would be nice if more games gave people the option to play political roles and roles that are generally associated with NPC's. I know Antilia will have the option to own houses, shops and Inns and such, with NPC's to take care of your business when you are not on. (see signature, sorry for the shameless plug here :P) but I don't think it will have political roles. That would be something that could be really interesting if done right, but can go wrong easily.
Unique indie mmorpg that would like your support:http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jeffleigh/antilia-a-majestic-3d-mmo
Age of wushu if i remember correctly,
when the player logs out their characters stay on and keeps doing things tasked to them, and other players can kidnap them and sell them to slavery etc.
but who knows quantum computing is around the corner, who knows how the ai will evolve
Worst part is you can't customize your character at all at character creation and classes are totally unbalanced so good luck if you don't have the attributes for the class you want or end up in one of the open PvP or griefer heavy starting zones.
Also it is the most blatantly pay to win game I've ever seen.
The graphics are pretty awesome though. I'll give it that and it can be pretty damn immersive if you like the modern setting.
Pathfinder will have settlements completely run by groups of players with a tax system and basic political system to choose leaders. I think there will be NPCs but everything important to build a settlement will be done by players working together.
It's the game I'm looking forward to for my political fix.
I'd like to see politics play more of a role in games. It's far more interesting to me than killing NPCs.
Main Game: Eldevin (Plat0nic)
2nd Game: Path of Exile (Platonic Hate)