Subject: Re: Arianne RPG
From: Tommi Leino (namhas@majik3d.org)
Date: Sun Sep 26 1999 - 12:22:42 EEST
On Sun, 26 Sep 1999 juanito@redestb.es wrote: > Yes, the idea of a online game only is good. But in Spain, I have to pay > 1 US $ for 1 hour of internet and i can't afford more than 1 hour per > day, so the online game is just out of what I can afford. Not so far away from the prices here in Finland. > An one big, big, big problem with your focus about online game is that > nobody would like to do the work of an NPC, just like to manage a > tabern, work on a stable, or kiss the king's feet. So we need some NPC > because if everybody is a fighter or a wizard and there is only one or > two taberns around the world then this is a Quake III arena clone. *nods*, sucks, but there is already one game where this works somehow, the Ultima Online. Maybe not to work on a _stable_, instead they could trade the horses and not to kiss the king's feet but instead to act as a messenger for the king. This actually worked in Majik 3 where the players could grow carrots on their farms, they just planted the seeds and then did go to adventure and only once per day to check their farms if they need more water, have disease or anything and when the crops where ready it did take a bit more time to take em all of the ground and sell them in the shops. In Majik we don't like to place restrictions on anything, we just offer choices. In the beginning the character wouldn't be already an adventurer with all needed equipment on, ready to kill monsters instead they would have only few pieces of coins, some clothing etc. and then they could decide whether they want directly to go in to the forest to kill rats so they could sell the skins or directly to take on some dangerous quest, it's pretty sure ones offering quests are able to provide equipment needed. All these mundane tasks would be just another way to gain money and usually they doesn't require you to stay at farm for the whole year, just few days. There is exception though, guards would need to stand at their post for quite large amount of time every day, and they would just stand. That wouldn't work without some code for offline players, which we don't like even if it is so realistic and thus there needs to be NPCs to fill such positions, otherwise it would be just too easy for thieves to raid these farms. > And if you can't see the diference between an NPC and a person we will have > a more complex world, that run smother than one where there only humans. You can't do that :) They will always see the difference and actually it would be good for them to see difference, if you're running an online game. You really want to know whether the one you met is a human or NPC, and you will notice it when you talk to it, but that's pretty boring to initiate talk just in order to see if the object is a NPC. And if these NPCs ever would talk, it would be just too artificial. You can't never do enough good AI to get them talking as good as a human, and thus I've come to accept the vision where the NPCs would be just background folk, walking around just to give some impression the city is not dead, being a guard, a shopkeeper, but not more important roles, they would not have names, and if they would, they would be so called "unique NPCs" (thus when killed they really die, not to be replaced by another one automatically) and mostly controlled by us. They would fill positions such as a king until a player comes up and takes over. -- Tommi Leino / Majik 3D project namhas@majik3d.org https://majik3d-legacy.org
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