Goblin Squad Member
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Has this been answered? Or even asked?
Most games these days allow only for a very minimal amount of player interference on non-hostile NPCs. I find this very limiting. A good example comes from my days in EQ, there was a quest that involved a rather large amount of walking, and stopping, and talking, etc.. and the NPC was not terribly fast, what with his short stubby little legs and all. (Coldain 8th ring quest for the curious.) It was possible through the mix of magics to charm said dwarf, making him a pet temporarily, which allowed the grouped druid to cast a movement speed enhancement on him, and then to break charm and memory wipe the dwarf so he didn't remember aggro from the charm. From this point forward the quest proceeded at a MUCH faster rate.
Will this kind of manipulation be possible?
I would also like to know if this extends to monsters. It was possible (yes, this was griefing, albeit a highly entertaining form of it) to charm a low level bat for instance, load it up with all sorts of buffs (strength, movement speed, hit points, damage shield) and mem wipe it, effectively setting it loose in a newbie area (usually we gave it some treasure to drop if a kill was successful, usually after the buffs wore off) and watch panic ensue, and usually groups form to take down this new menace.
Will this also be possible? Will it carry with it a Criminal flag for assisting in the death of a PC?
I know that not having the ability to affect members (npc or otherwise) of my own alliance in ways of my own choosing has chafed greatly on occasion in the years spent playing WoW and clones.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Don't expect some extravagant implementation of NPC interaction, the game is being designed around interactions between players, outside of cooperatively working towards a similar goal. The two major NPC interactions are with alliances and workers. You do things for alliances to get access to better stuff, and you keep workers happy to run your harvesting/processing/crafting operations.
I would expect to be able to cast spells, or use abilities to affect some creatures/NPC's, and I would fully expect to get flagged if you use that to negatively effect other players.
If you are involved in a negative action towards any player expect some form of punishment.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Not much complexity there except by way of my examples.
Will interaction with NPCs be gimped, or not? The punishment question I aired as stating an obvious line of consequences to more fully address the nature of such a mechanic. It's the fact that you said "some" NPCs, instead of all or most that makes this a real concern.
Yes the game is meant to drive interaction between players, but there are going to be NPCs and players need to know what to expect from them.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Yes the game is meant to drive interaction between players, but there are going to be NPCs and players need to know what to expect from them.
I don't wan't it that way, the way NPC's react to things should be total mystery. You either have to find out on your own, or find someone who knows. Tribal knowledge should be a big part of the game.
I'm going to drop two quotes from a recent interview which I will also link..
Mark: Well, yeah, again, we really want your actions to be persistent, and I think that’s the big advantage of this type of game, is that we’re trying to make sure you make a real impact on the world at all times. So if you kill that orc chieftain, the orc chieftain is dead, and you’re going to drive the orcs out of that area.
We’re still evolving the system, but we do want a system by which all the monster factions have their own agenda. The orc horde is trying to do something, they’re trying to invade the settlement or invade the territory, and you either enlist that captain or you beat him back or you do whatever, but you actually progress essentially a story that relates to those orcs in your hex.
And
At a high level, the theme park is about the fact that you’ll see these witches invade the woods, and you’ll find out more about the witches over time and what their agenda is, and ally with them or drive them out or do whatever you’re going to do.
And these stories are interestingly — ideally, they’re told on a settlement level. They’re not about an individual player who over time finds out the story of the Lich King, it’s about the entire settlement talking about what the witches are doing and deciding as a settlement what we’re going to do about it.
Here is the page where I got these quotes.. http://subscriptorium.com/753/2samples/1ftb
It's a interview with Mark Kalmes of Goblinwordks.
So the possibilities of NPC interaction will be even more varied then in pretty much any game I've played if these thoughts do translate into how much interaction a player has with NPC mobs.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Mark: We’re still evolving the system, but we do want a system by which all the monster factions have their own agenda. The orc horde is trying to do something...
This just makes me wonder if players with the right alignment would be able to potentially ally with monster races and aid them in their efforts against that hex's settlements. That's another great story just waiting to be told. This would of course tie right in with my previous question about how deeply a player can interact with a monster/NPC. Can they buff them? Manipulate them? Or is it pretty much an attack/ignore only relationship.
I view this as a big hit or miss on adding depth to the system.
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Goblin Squad Member
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This just makes me wonder if players with the right alignment would be able to potentially ally with monster races and aid them in their efforts against that hex's settlements.
I believe one of them said pretty much exactly that - that you'd be able to play both sides of an Escalation: either trying to kill the Goblin Chief and drive away the last of the Goblins; or trying to help the Goblins strengthen themselves in order to take over a hex. I'll see if I can find it later today.
Here's a part I should have included in my above quote...
Mark: So it’s extremely difficult and expensive to make a lot of crafted content, and very detailed dungeons with puzzles, and kind of have a very evolved storyline. I think we would like to focus first on having the enemy factions have their own storyline and their own objectives that the players are interested in and are able to affect.
At a high level, the theme park is about the fact that you’ll see these witches invade the woods, and you’ll find out more about the witches over time and what their agenda is, and ally with them or drive them out or do whatever you’re going to do.
So their current mode of thinking opens up just tons of possible RP opportunities. It also allows the players to use NPC factions to further our goals which just kicks ass :)