Goblin Squad Member
|
There are many things that could be included in PFO for flavor that would make the game so much more interesting. I’ll list a few examples, but understand these things may be low priority. Still, many of these may be worth considering putting in a future crowdforging poll. Here are a few:
-NPCs that walk around town, do routine chores, are seen working in the fields (as part of the resource harvesting system), or those that do things like pray in the temple, go to the well, sweep the street and other things player characters are not likely to do.
-Creatures in town and out in the wilderness. Birds, insects, and wild creatures in the woods. These couldbe used as part of the tracking system to be used by Rangers or any other player character that may track animals. Animal tracks, droppings, other animals corpses that were food, broken twigs and bent grass. I am sure there would be a lot of computer power sustaining a trail of animal prints or droppings in the wild that a player character may never see, but it is a thought for the future.
-Player character illness (from spells, poisons, curses, etc) and scars of battle and accidents. Sadly every game has toons that are created early on, but never change. I would be nice to see scars appear over time, hair color to change with age (if enough time elapses), or any other event that may change the character’s avatar somehow be incorporated into the portrait of the character.
-Items that add ambience to town and country such as weather (especially weather that means something and has effects), puddles in town and muddy streets with muddy footprints, rain barrels, leaky roofs. In the countryside there should be dead trees, dead animals, meaningful weather (as mentioned), wonderful vistas, birds and insects….
What things would you like to see that add ambience to the game?
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I had suggested a while back that there could be a massive, multi regional, natural disaster escalation where the entire server community would be compelled to pitch in and end that escalation.
Things like a plague as you partially suggest, would also fit that kind of "global" event.
I'm kind of fond of server events, they help build the community, are fun and can be done in a variety of ways.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
In ATITD we had a plague; it pretty much went sideways from where the dev expected.
First, some players thought it was funny to get infected and infect as many people as they could.
Second, many people realized they didn't care to play a plague with people running around being voluntary Typhoid Marys, so they just logged off, periodically monitoring the forums until the plague was over. No idea how many people found something else to do with their gaming time and money.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
-Items that add ambience to town and country such as weather (especially weather that means something and has effects), puddles in town and muddy streets with muddy footprints, rain barrels, leaky roofs. In the countryside there should be dead trees, dead animals, meaningful weather (as mentioned), wonderful vistas, birds and insects….
Ambient noise as well. Children playing, birdsong, church bells/temple chimes. Not constant, and not intrusive, but something other than the game's background music.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Perhaps certain building types could produce their own ambient noise. If you are near a smithy you would hear the occasional ringing of a hammer and the sound of a bellows. In a market you might hear the sound of merchants hawking their wares and the price of an item being negotiated.
I don't think it would be a good idea to represent a significant portion of a settlement's npc visually. I do think that we need at least a few representative npcs to stop the settlements from looking too much like ghost towns. I've played a number of games where the only movement on the street is an occasional tumbleweed.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I've actually pretty thoroughly embraced the devs' rationale for not showing us NPCs. I'd just as soon they didn't bother developing in that direction.
Honestly, I am mixed on the "no NPC" idea. I know Ryan just stated in his interview with MMORPG that NPCs would likely not be more than vending machines...but who said NPCs only had to sell stuff? It will be a pretty empty world without laborers, residents and children. Surely there will be NPCs doing routine tasks like fixing their house, hanging laundry, going to the well, things like that. Otherwise it will be lonely indeed.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I know it's been said before customization might follow your choice of skill training. So your avatar will change over time. That sounds promising.
I am with Nihimon, that NPCs are a waste of time: Player characters doing actual stuff only in settlements. I am not sure if sending a dummy to town to do menial stuff (eg advertise the settlement etc) would be a good exception or not, though? Maybe a notice board would be better.
I guess if some things are the "icing on the cake", ambience might be the "hundreds and thousands"?
Mainly weather and seasons and conditions having an effect on our characters. Why can't a blizzard potentially be fatal for our avatars, dying of hypothermia and pneumonia and frostbite exposure? With rainfall changing crop productivity in different regions, and inoculations for livestock also etc. I'd like mists: Ie a skill your characters reduce movement rate or something with out walk through mists skill etc aka "bushcraft suite of skills". So it all ties up with ambience and the whole taste of the cake? If fires could set a field of crops on fire etc. Irrigation from rivers for crops too etc. Seasons for growing seasons and for more Wintry weather also. As well as affecting mobs and migrations? Longer days maybe in Summer too - biting midges perhaps spreading in swampy areas some sort of malaria.
Hehe, I don't mean to blow an icy chill over ambience: Quite the reverse: Promote it's priority chances. :)
Edit: Just to clarify: For me, NPCs actually make a place feel MORE empty. Statues give me the creeps also. :O
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Honestly, I am mixed on the "no NPC" idea.
Yeah, I'm feeling "mixed" myself, although I usually say "torn".
On the one hand, I really like the idea of having NPCs making the village look and feel alive, where they follow their own daily schedules and even have children and age and die. This is very much the Ultima way, and there's a lot I like about it.
On the other hand, I really want the game to hold up well when 500 enemies show up at the gates of my Settlement. If there are hundreds of NPCs doing their own thing, then I worry that the servers will groan under the pressure.
So, yes to all of those "flavor" things (and many more), but only when the technology improves enough for them to coexist with large-scale battles without causing significant degradation to the game play experience.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
If there are hundreds of NPCs doing their own thing, then I worry that the servers will groan under the pressure.
if NPC's are ambience only, they may be created locally (and be turned off on low-spec systems).
what do I want? Player-designed flags and banners so that settlement owning companies can fly their colors. Also, ambient sounds from structures as suggested above.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
if NPC's are ambience only, they may be created locally (and be turned off on low-spec systems).
Now that's an interesting idea...
what do I want? Player-designed flags and banners so that settlement owning companies can fly their colors.
Indeed. I'm hoping we'll be able to have easily identifiable colors in large-scale battles as well.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
A hypothetical possibility, IE after the dev's have accomplished most of the goals, and and covered tons of higher priority things,
They could in theory do decorative NPCs based on people present in the hex etc... IE if there's 10 players walking around town and it appears as a ghost town, NPCs appear to liven things up, when there's 200 people in town, the NPCs all go into their homes.
Of course even that has some problems, namely if there's an army stealthily approaching your city, all of your NPCs vanishing would kind of put a hindrance on that.
On the other hand, something like that could greatly assist the disguise mechanic they are talking about. IE there's lots of concern that people will be able to sniff out patterns to distinguish the generic disguise skills vs a player. But a disguise and a wandering NPC, could use the exact same algorithm and be 100% indistinguishable provided the player learns to mimic the patterns of the NPCs.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It would make sense for Decorative NPCs to disappear once a settlement was attacked or another major issue popped up that would put a strain on graphic resources. IC the explanation would be that the townsfolk are all hunkered down inside waiting for the trouble to pass. I think what I want is for NPCs to be part of the scenery rather than friendly mobs.
LotRO recently did an update of Bree. Many new flavor NPCs were added along with new buildings and props to make the town look more lived in. Just about every player in that game agrees that while the update didn't change anything mechanically it made the game world richer and more enjoyable.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Another thing I'd like to see are unique and vivid signage.....shop signs, road signs, advertisements, signs in store fronts. the profession in the old D&D list is "limner/painter", and if/when implemented that could become a secondary profession for a carpenter. also, having the mechanics in place for milestones (masonry) and directional signs would be helpful. Sneaky and devious people could produce bogus signs for misdirection as well. (Filthy sneakers.)
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
There could certainly be 2 types of NPCs. Vending Machines and Window Dressing. I would not focus too much on showing populations aging or changing over time too much. It would be extra data to keep track of for purely decorative figures. Not to mention, it would be a rare settlement outside of the NPC settlements that would last long enough for aging too be noticeable - let alone the same players hanging around that same settlement long enough to notice.
One way to approach these non-interactive NPCs could be to make them completely non-interactive. They do not consume space or interact directly with the world outside of canned animations. And you could potentially not even render them for players using lower graphics settings. They are simply there for the appearance of livelihood.
lot of ideas on this post ! for my part, i'd love seeing creatures flying in the sky before escalations, or hearing creatures sounds from nearest forest when the night comes.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I've actually pretty thoroughly embraced the devs' rationale for not showing us NPCs. I'd just as soon they didn't bother developing in that direction.No quote / link on that rationale?
Sorry, not sure a quote is necessary. Basically, Goblinworks wants to be able to render lots of PCs in the same area. Having to render NPCs makes that just that much harder.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
lot of ideas on this post ! for my part, i'd love seeing creatures flying in the sky before escalations, or hearing creatures sounds from nearest forest when the night comes.
Escalations are fairly fundamental to making the PvE as relevant to the game as the PvP, and not just a "carebear occupation" that's looked down upon.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
If ambiance NPCs do make it in game I can see a lot of potential for them as cas shop items. There could be your standard beggar a rabble rouser standing up on a crate with a few onlookers a group of strumpets standing under a red latern a drunk swaying back and fourth singing to himself goblins selling rats on a stick. There is a lot of potential.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
lot of ideas on this post ! for my part, i'd love seeing creatures flying in the sky before escalations, or hearing creatures sounds from nearest forest when the night comes.
Vultures circling any location where corpses are found (player or animal), rats, dogs and cats scrounging through trash, discarded junk gathering in piles in alleyways.
There are lots of other possibilities for the cash shop as well. As Lord of Elder Days mentioned ambience NPCs might be purchasable (for a period of time (30 days maybe?), worshippers to fill a temple, whatever. and the cost of the NPCs would help offset (to a small degree) the cost of supporting them on the server.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
lot of ideas on this post ! for my part, i'd love seeing creatures flying in the sky before escalations, or hearing creatures sounds from nearest forest when the night comes.Escalations are fairly fundamental to making the PvE as relevant to the game as the PvP, and not just a "carebear occupation" that's looked down upon.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
lot of ideas on this post ! for my part, i'd love seeing creatures flying in the sky before escalations, or hearing creatures sounds from nearest forest when the night comes.Escalations are fairly fundamental to making the PvE as relevant to the game as the PvP, and not just a "carebear occupation" that's looked down upon.
I don't follow... Are you trying to take cheap shots at other MMOs or trying to build up an unrealistic expectation for crossbow users in PFO?
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I've actually pretty thoroughly embraced the devs' rationale for not showing us NPCs. I'd just as soon they didn't bother developing in that direction.No quote / link on that rationale?
I remember reading statements from GW on this, but my Search Fu is weak today; I couldn't find them. Sorry.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
lot of ideas on this post ! for my part, i'd love seeing creatures flying in the sky before escalations, or hearing creatures sounds from nearest forest when the night comes.Vultures circling any location where corpses are found (player or animal), rats, dogs and cats scrounging through trash, discarded junk gathering in piles in alleyways.
Little touches like this - "crumbs from the rich man's table" / carrion's tireless cleaning up
Just remind me players of their place in the food chain.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I'm all for ambient NPCs. Particle system like NPCS moving around settlements would really help with the barren look in less player-visited parts of towns (players mostly gather in one place, usually). Since they're just there for show the ambient NPC-particle's movement and look can all be calculated client-side so the server wont have to track them. People can thusly adjust client-side settings to scale the quantity of NPCs their computer will process, or turn them off completely. The NPCs can also have lower rendering priority and be reduced the more PCs are present. They can also run off or disappear when combat starts, to save processing and memory for combat particle effects and the like.
I'd definitely like to see the NPC workers in my resource gathering camps and in crafter's workshops, busy working away. Those should be more solid NPCs though, tracked by the server, because you'll need to defend them if they come under attack.
@Andius
I don't know if that was your intention, but that Helsing link does capture the feel of being a semi-soloing PvEer in this forum.
"We don't take kindly to PvEers around here..."
"I don't want any trouble, I just want to enrich your experience."
"We don't need your enrichment!"
An idea of "things that add flavor" comes from asheron's call is : Writable Items
Books, scrolls, messages, should be writable and give a player the possibility to make is own content and share it.
Examples:
guilds could write their charts, history, on books.
player could create a mission for others just giving them a scroll
a lord could send private official message to his rival for a secret meeting... a proposal of mariage, an war declaration etc...
this objects could be found, exchanged, sold or stolen... etc...
In the same way all items like armors or weapons could be writable:
A steel sword + 2 keywords could be described as "Great Sword of Mirandis (name of the first PC), enchanted by Maegan The Mage with a fire golem heart in the Stronghold settlement forge. etc etc.
More RP with basic ideas.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
@ Nihimon
it's good to hear The Seventh Veil is the guardian of fun RP gaming before EE ;)
