Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
People as NPC's
kinnyg
Member UncommonPosts: 15
I came upon this thought recently, and wanted to know what you guys think. what if there was a mmo that hired real people to be their npc's.
Instead of clicking on a character for a menu, you actually had to ask if you wanted a quest or wanted to sell/buy some stuff or even if you just wanted directions to a place in town. Ofcourse the people running these NPC's would have to learn the lore for the people who enjoy that stuff. I think this would just revolutionize games. This would also open up tons of jobs. I can see how this would take alot of money to make possible but i think it would be amazing. And with the money the AAA titles are bringing in i think it could be possible.
Please let me know what you think. And if somone has already talked about something like this sorry for bringing it back up.
Comments
Sounds like old school UO... when you interacted with players instead of NPCs. And content and quests came from players, not script.
They tried it, it worked, they ruined it. Sorry
There are some MMO's (the more isometric ones) that you actually talk to the NPC and you have to say what to do rather than just clicking. It isnt dynamic as what you are saying but its similar.
There is also an MMO coming out, (cant think of the name) that uses offline players characters as npcs that walk around the cities.
But I dont think I would like what your suggesting, it just seems cumbersome and would be easier to program a system to do it.
There have been games with GM led events - rather than just scripted events. You'd have one or more GMs dropping their avatar down on the world and trying to gather players up to go do something. That seems like it was eons ago though, lol.
The main issue I see with your idea is the cost. You say it would create lots of jobs. So there is going to be payroll, there are going to be benefits, there are going to be additional hires in HR needed to handle these people. You'd need to have supervisors, managers, etc. It would also increase your need for additional customer service reps. Etc, etc, etc.
It would be expensive.
So how would the company for it?
yea i couldnt see it happening unless it was a company who was already well funded. even then just thinking about how many npc's are in a game, and them all probably getting paid minumum wage just hurts my brain to think about it.
The great thing about the idea though, is it does not have to be all or nothing. One of the reasons I mentioned the GM and live events. We don't need every NPC to be a person. But it would definitely be cool to have those PC-NPCs/GMs doing live events every now and again.
Not as something that is expected nor demanded - but one of those "Oh man, that was so damn cool" things that you get caught up in as they happen.
I believe it would be much better than the current crop or the proposed crop of dynamic events - in the end, those are still scripted.
It would put some of the DM/GM feeling into GMs - looking at it from a PnP RPG point of view - or even looking at something like NWN. Sure, a person could script out their NWN thing - but I always enjoyed it more when there was a DM behind it adding in a little something extra...
Huh, wow, this sounds like an interesting idea to me...