Life is Feudal Official Forum

[glenncariaga]

I know that Bobik had announced that there will be little to no NPC's in the traditional sense of RPG's. But having said that, there are a few problems that I forsee arising from this arrangement:

1. Droll tasks will become time sinks that will eventually discourage players
2. It's NOT fun deciding strategically when having to decide to do "work" or "play." (It should be play all the time, or work should be play)
3. PC's are not persistent in the world, and having no NPC's to "mark the spot" makes it difficult to have an sort of persistence.

So, the solution? Put in player created NPC's that are stand-ins for them. This like the Spartan system of society. Essentially, you have a lower class of peoples who support the work of the elite (in this case PC's). This would be the laboring class that is created. This is just a physical representation of the PC's influence on the world. For example, in a territory controlled by Lord Farquat, Lord Farquat will have his laborers dig stuff out of the ground.

I also advocate putting strict limits on the use of such NPC's. The NPC's should be limited in ability and scope. High HP, but dumb. They are also a money sink. (Gotta pay the laborers in living wages.)

In the example above of mining, the Lord would need a surveyor who would mark the territory, and only then will the mining laborer be able to excavate resources out of the ground. To stop excavation, another player would just have to whittle down the NPC's life.

Why would we do it this way? There are several advantages.

1. It solves the problems I posed previously.
2. It opens up new potential for raiding. Stop resources by killing NPC's. Or defending NPC's. They are going to be tied to local areas.
3. Provides a context by which to classify the player base (ie, at least PC's know they're a step up beyond the laborers.) And this is true to the feel of the Medieval era; someone needs to be the serf; NPC's provide the lowest class.

We can all agree that there are repetative tasks we would rather avoid. Also, no one wants to be that lowest rung in the Fuedal chain. NPC's provide an easy out that proves true to the theme and feel of the era. NPC's are like the unwashed masses that are the serfs of medieval times. Expendable, abundant, not very bright, but a useful resource.

Player created NPC's are going to be a wonderful addition, if applied in small amounts, and judicially.

[finalreview]

I like the idea in theory, minus the money sink. I don't know anything about creating games but I'd imagine it would be difficult to implement your idea. If it is possible, maybe depending on the population of your kingdom and size of the land controlled you would be given a specific amount of laborers who would take a % of whatever they produce for you as payment instead of gold.

Interesting idea that would not make me upset if it was implemented.

[glenncariaga]

No, for all the reasons mentioned in all the other threads discussing this. I'll briefly address your comments in order that I read them, so without further ado...

1. There is no need for money sinks as far as I am aware, as there won't be random gold coins dropping from monsters. I highly suggest people play Wurm, as I tend to get the feel of that no NPC, completely player-made feel in this game.

You need money sinks in any game. It has to do with the idea of economics and the generation of wealth. For example, when people gather resources, this is a + to the supply side... then you have to balance it against demand (hard to guess what people want). but demand is hard to guess-timate, while supplyside, you can control in this virtual world. In order to "balance" the economy, you need some "currency" recognized by all. for this currency to have legitimacy, and for it to actually be used, it needs to be used in SOMETHING.

Thus money sinks. Without some sort of legitimate currency backed by the game, we're back to barter economy. Barter economies are nice, but we can agree that common currency provides a better advantage to all. we don't want to deal with THAT side of the dark ages.

2.As to the NPC's are going to be the lowest run of feudal society... I don't imagine any MMORPG ever succeeding with implementing anything at all similar to the feudal system of medieval times. It will always be a free subject "society".

right, but i'm trying to address the issue of pecking order in the game. I provided the example of a real life society: the spartan society. they had a vast majority of slaves that were servile to the spartans, who spent their time honing their martial skills. in a truly "free" virtual society, why would 99% of people want to play the slave? at least with NPC's taking up the role of the low labor class, it provides justification that the player is a master smith, knight, etc.

While it is true that you can have a game devoid of NPC's, you have to take short-cuts in how a bow is made, or where resources come from. If most of your player interactions are with those mechanics to produce goods and services, might as well play single player. I always thought the point of MMO's was the interaction between players was what everyone wanted to get to. Thus, "farming" resources, or the endless cycle of combining reagents ad infinitum gets in the way of that.

Thus, NPC's can step in and take out the dreary work.

3.Persistence is in the sense that things change while you're gone, and the game continues without you, anything more requires either the player on 24/7 or denies the player the fun of experiencing the game, and giving a punishment to not playing (I know that is a sweeping statement, but I feel any elaboration would require greater detail).

I agree with you. But when a person logs off, they should have a mark in the world that other people can interact with. And punishing people for "not playing" is a terrible idea. That idea of "not playing" is subjective to the idea that there is only one, or limited ideas of play. I think we should open it up to different ways of interacting with the world, and with each other.

Thus, NPC's provide a method where a person who is logged off can interact, albeit indirectly, with people who are online. I can see this being a source of revenue stream for the company. the resource generation portion of this should not be buyable with cash, but the interaction side of this could totally be. ie, "hiring" a major domo (NPC greeter) for the household.

[trotski-]

This idea is good in name. Ill pull an example from mortal online here.

Players can get vendors for their houses and make towers with an archer in them, and are going to be able to hire npc guards for their territory. That is all the npcs that a player can get. Yes there are city guards and many city vendor npcs, but in my opinion those can be removed enirely. However time sinks such as mining/wood cutting/refining are all still done by players to not make the economy go completely nuts. This and the fact that the crafting/refining mechanics in mortal online are very indepth makes simple tasks not so annoying to do.