Think of most zombie apocalypse movies/shows/comics/...etc. for a moment. How many people did you see in those that weren't main characters?
The Walking Dead was an exception, and had a bunch of young gangbangers get together and protect each other and an elderly home, but not many else did. Even then, in Dead Man's Land, that would've qualified them as another player group.
There will be close to zero NPCs in this game. The few NPCs that do exist will be spawned by players, once they secure their territory, and maintain it for a certain amount of time. The characters you meet inside a player city that appear to be NPCs will most likely be players logged out.
Get a quest from a marker that leads you somewhere? Probably placed there by a guild member wanting you to head over and join up. Found a shop with decent weapons? That's been set up by a player craftsman. Wanting to put something up on the auction house? There's either going to be a player run one, or you'll have to set it up yourself. Remember: Wall Street started with people gathering at a walnut tree to trade.
Nearly everything will be modifiable by the players. This is going to be a virtual world, not just an online game.
--Lunas
I love the idea. This way everything that you see or do is meaningful. And demands player cooperation and communication. And thus player socialization is reborn in the MMORPG! I like if you build a shop a NPC placeholder will be there to "run" it. It gives your store more life then the alternative of clicking on a sign or something.
ReplyDeleteThat's the entire point :)
ReplyDeleteNot sure if there will be an NPC if a single player sets up a shop, but if a clan does, there should always be at least one member that's logged out to run it and guard it.
Yea on this your character still walks about if your offline. How does that work out?
ReplyDeleteI like this idea in theory. I wonder how it actually plays out though.
ReplyDeleteThere is another indie MMORPG that is taking this approach to player driven content called Xsyon. http://xsyon.com/
It might be worth checking the game out to do some recon on how this plays out. Maybe pick up some lessons learned...what about the system worked, and what didn't...to help refine the idea.
Otherwise, like Andrew said, it's a big step in introducing player socialization to MMORPGs again.