Would a No Friendly NPC MMO Work?

sidebuster

     Would an MMORPG with no friendly NPC's work? No NPC's to sell/buy from or to guard etc. All trading guarding crafting to come from players. The only NPC's are the mobs to fight. Not exactly like A Tale in the Desert because that is an all crafting game, but like Dark Age of Camelot or some new franchise.

     Can a game like that work? Will potential players make a fuss over it not being easy enough or not having enough time to bother with that? Does anyone think that there could be a chance for this to be implimented into a game?

I'm Curious because this kind of mechanic in a game appeals to me. I guess it is part of those on going discussions on what a sandbox game really is. How many of you guys out there in the forums like the sound of that? It reminds me a little of Star Wars Galaxies and  A little Planetside.

spades07

AC2 apparently started out like that. That's not to suggest it wouldn't work but it would have to be well thought out to keep people playing- in likelihood maybe it would be condemned to being niche.

kuhfelsen

    You would probably have to hype it up a bunch at first, because if a ton of people don't start playing right away, it would be totally lame; the players would stop playing, and the cycle repeats when new players come.

    As far as keeping the flame alive, you could add all kinds of spice to the game, such as permanent deaths (Some restrictions would have to be applied for PvP deaths); a player run bounty system for PvP; and a player run government, guilds, etc.  It would obviously have to be made for the hardcore MMO'er.

CactusmanX

No I do not think it would, not as intended anyway.

Things like shopkeeper, guard and trainer NPCs are great in a game because no matter when I log on they are there waiting for me.  With players it completely depends on the circumstances and nobody wants to guard the city gate, cause it is boring most the time, same with shopkeeper, in reallife people do boring jobs because they need money to live off of and get things they want and you could make it so there is incentive to do the boring jobs, like maybe your character needs to eat or he dies, but in a game there is always the option to just quit.

Most likely towns would just be castles owned by big guilds no real guards though, trading would just involve going to a central point and spamming what you were selling, if you had to learn new skills and such from other players then only people in guilds would really have a chance to train their characters, otherwise it would be very difficult to pair teachers and students.  And if you gave players the power to govern then expect insane taxes, crazy laws and other stupid bollocks.

Not to mention the possiblility for what little society there is to fall apart when players get frustrated will the massively ineffecient system and quit.

So I think it could work, just not smoothly or effeciently and it would cater to guilds of hardcore fans.  It would definately be niche, a very small one at that.